Daughter Of Persia

DAUGHTER of PERSIA A Woman's Journey from Her Father's Harem Through the Islamic Revolution SATTAREH FARMAN FARMAIAN with DoNA MuNKER ~ ANCHOR BOOKS DOUBLEDAY New York London Toronto Sydney Auckland AN ANCHOR BooK PUBLISHED BY DOUBLEDAY a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036 ANCHOR BooKs, DouBLEDAY, and the portrayal of an anchor are trademarks of Doubleday, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc. Daughter of Persia was originally published in hardcover by Crown Publishers, Inc. in 1992. The Anchor Books edition is published by arrangement with Crown Publishers, Inc. The line from Ferdowsi's Book of Kings in Chapter I is translated by Reuben Levy in The Epic of the Book of Kings (University of Chicago Press, 1967, p. 69); the prose translations of Sa'adi's poetry in Chapter 5, 8, and 12 are taken from Mehdi Nakosteen's The Maxims of Sa'di (University of Colorado Press, 1977; pp. 99, 101, and 98, respectively); the lines from Ibn Khaldun in Chapters 13 and 16 are translated by Franz Rosenthal (The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History, edited and abridged by N. J. Dawood, Princeton University Press, 1967, pp. 253 and 257, respectively); in Chapter 17, the lines from Rumi are taken from the R. A. Nicholson translation of his poems (Selected Poems: Divani Shamasi 'Ii:Jbriz, Cambridge University Press, 1952); the lines from Omar Khayyam's Rubaiyat in Chapter 7 are from the classic Edward Fitzgerald translation. The phrase by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. referred to in the Afterword appeared in "War in the Gulf: Counsel of Ignorance," the New York Times, December 17, 1990. Book design by Shari de Miskey Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Farman-Farmaian, Sattareh. Daughter of Persia : a woman's journey from her father's harem through the Islamic Revolution I Sattareh Farman Farrnaian with Dona Munker.-lst Anchor Books ed. p. em. Includes index. I. Farman-Farmaian, Sattareh. 2. Women-Iran-Biography. 3. Iran-Biography. I. Munker, Dona. II. Title. CTI888.F37A3 1993 955.05'092--dc20 [B) 92-40640 CIP ISBN 0-385-46866-0 Copyright @ 1992 by Sattareh Farman Farmaian All Rights Reserved Printed in the United States of America First Anchor Books Edition: May 1993 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 To my daughter, Mitra, and my grandchildren, Kayvon and Juni CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS IX TO THE READER XI PART ONE: IN SHAZDEH'S REALM 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Bread and Salt Stories from My Mother's Carpet The American School Zaifeh The End of Childhood The Fall of Reza Shah Setting Out PART1WO: YENGEH OONYA B. The Land at the End of the Earth 9. 3 26 49 69 92 118 138 The Fall of the Lion of God vii 159 182 Contents viii PART THREE: 10. 11. 12. 13. Twenty People Who Believe in Something Tremors The Bridge over Nothing The Man with the Microphone PART FOUR: 14. 15. 16. 17. KHANOM EARTHQUAKE Black Fog and Fire The Party of the Wind The True Believer Harj-o-marj EPILOGUE AFfERWORD INDEX 205 232 262 286 311 329 353 371 390 395 397 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (J T hrLE THIS IS A WORK OF NONFICTION, TO PROTECT THEIR -W ~;fety and privacy the identities of Sattareh Farman Farmaian's original students, some persons on her staff, and her revolutionary interrogators have been disguised. The authors wish to acknowledge the kindness of Professors Amin Banani, Richard Cottam, and Mark Gasioworski in reading the manuscript, as well as the efforts of our capable and enthusiastic ed