Opium and Saffron

Casual Observations on Iranian Culture and History

Sunday, November 17, 2013

Divine Beauty

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The spot of your mole cannot be stamped on vision's tablet unless from the pupil of the eye we seek black ink. With all its soul ...
Sunday, February 17, 2013

The Fertile Ashes Of The 13th Century

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"Strangely enough this period of the most terrible political disaster was, at the same time, a period of highest religious and mystica...
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Friday, May 18, 2012

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Soon it will be twilight.   But the clouds are still clear, the pines are not yet dark.   For the lake illumines them with its transpare...
Thursday, April 12, 2012

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آنکه غافل بود از کشت بهار او چه داند قیمت این روزگار He that was heedless of the sowing and the springtide How should he know...
Tuesday, March 20, 2012

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We believe in cash, not in credit So why narrate to us the story of paradise? -Mawlana Mawdudi
Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Thoughts on Mowlana (Rumi) after reading 'Reading Mystical Lyric’ by Fatemeh Keshavarz.

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“What do you know of the kind of bird that I am? And of what I am whispering under my lips in each breath? How can anyone come to own me? ...
Tuesday, April 28, 2009

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این جهان کوه است فعل ماندا سوی ما آید نداها را صدا مولوی "The world is a mountain and our actions a call . To us will return the echo o...
Sunday, April 26, 2009

Sohrab Sepehri

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This morning as I passed by two men talking on the sidewalk, I heard one of them say “life isn’t bad.” Immediately the opening lines of Soh...
Wednesday, April 1, 2009

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One day, Sheikh al-Junayd set out on a journey and while traveling was overtaken by a thirst. He found a well that was too deep to draw wate...
Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Tehran

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"For just a moment, just a fleeting second, I have this thought as I stand scrunched on the overcrowded Tehran metro, hanging on with m...
Sunday, February 8, 2009

Davoud

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When I first met Davoud five years ago, he smiled little and laughed not at all. He was quite religious. He spoke disparagingly of women wh...
Monday, December 15, 2008

Occidentosis, A Plague From the West

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“We now resemble an alien people, with unfamiliar customs, a culture with no roots in our land and no chance of blossoming here.“ “Occidento...
Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Kamal-ol-mulk

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Once as I walked through Golestan Palace in Tehran, I was attracted to a painting in a palace gallery. It showed a turbaned man sitting wit...
Saturday, October 25, 2008

The Past is Prologue

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Signing of the Treaty of Turkmanchai He was a man of letters, a celebrated playwright whose involvement in an illegal dual had led to his ex...
Wednesday, September 17, 2008

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ظالم آن قومی که چشمان دوختند زان سخنها عالمی را سوختند Cruel are those whose eyes are sewn shut And with their words incinerate the...
Saturday, September 6, 2008

Clarification of a Question

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Why aren’t there more autobiographical books by Iranian men? There’s certainly no shortage of women writing about the period leadi...
Monday, August 18, 2008

A Visit Home

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A friend has given me permission to post these reflections from a recent visit home to Tehran: "What is this love/hate relationship wit...
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