A tale of two myths

The narratives that shape Iranian political action

Politics being what it is in Iran, politicians of all hues like to talk in metaphor and analogy. It provides an element of plausible deniability should the situation suddenly turn sour. Not all analogies are subtle or nuanced but it does allow for a degree of cover and the need for interpretation allows people to take what they want from particular comments. Khamenei is especially good at what the less generous might describe as ‘double speak’ but the intention is deliberate and calculated.

The reference and allusion to historical events - real or imagined - plays an important role in political life. Far better to make an indirect criticism than a direct one, draw an analogy which might be convincingly denied should an awkward political situation necessitate it. But history, and its half brother, myth, serve a useful purpose in providing a canvas on which points can be argued and if necessary legitimised, though as I discovered early on in my own research, interpretation matters.

Throughout the 1990s, the hot debate of the day revolved around the idea of ‘Islamic Democracy’, whether it was feasible and whether, importantly it could be grounded in Islamic tradition. The ‘Islamic Republic’ as its name suggested, was a hybrid affair, but both legitimacy and durability demanded that Iran’s political thinkers find some sort of Islamic basis for it. Clerics occupying official positions, be they in parliament or the government - this was the era of Reform in Iran - were forthright in their conviction that Islamic Democracy was based in Islamic tradition.

The debate revolved around the first Shia Imam, Ali, the fourth of the Rightly Guided Caliphs (656-661 AD), and the only legitimate ruler according to Shias who believe that legitimate rule passed through his male line, down to the Twelfth Imam (for Twelver Shias who dominate in Iran), who disappeared, or went into Occultation sometime late in the 9th C AD. For supporters of Islamic Democracy, Imam Ali was the legitimate ruler of the Muslim community but could only take up his responsibilities once the people had recognised him. This recognition, and its absence for the early part of his life, and indeed with respect to his successors, proved that there existed a popular, indeed democratic, component to Muslim leadership.

This is a somewhat elastic interpretation of events but it was deployed heavily throughout this period and as an argument it did serve a useful political purpose. Not that everyone was on message. When I was taken to meet what I was led to believe was a sympathetic Ayatollah, the aged cleric of the old school, affable and contemptuous of politics, having spent a good half hour taking the intellectual measure of me and finding me acceptable, proceeded to flatly dismiss the official narrative.

There is no democracy in Shi’ism he said, what they are telling you is nonsense - his frankness was disarming and entertaining in equal measure not least because it made my host wince. The Sunnis, he added condescendingly, could be ‘democratic’ because the first three Caliphs had been acclaimed. But Shias, as the name suggested, were the Party of Ali, chosen by God, in whose bloodline the leadership of the community rested. There could be no question of democracy.

There was more. Eager, as many Iranian clerics are, to show his cosmopolitan erudition, he continued by indicating his affection for Nietzsche - this did surprise me - who he acclaimed as as one of the world’s great ‘religious’ philosophers, adding for good measure that while he had enjoyed his time in Britain only the Germans were really any good at philosophy. I nodded in anticipation of what was to follow.

The idea of the ‘superman’, he said, was one of Nietszche’s more prescient ideas. What followed was a new twist on a familiar post-revolutionary Iranian idea. There had been three great revolutions in the world he continued, the French, Russian and Islamic Revolutions in which the relative importance between the masses and the leader had gradually shifted. Those unfamiliar with post revolutionary narratives in Iran will no doubt be surprised to learn that there is little especially ‘Third World’ about Iranian intellectual genealogies¹

In the French Revolution this was 75% the people and only 25% leadership; by the Russian it had moved to 50/50 and with the Islamic Revolution it had reached 75% leadership (ie Khomeini). With the return of the Hidden Imam from Occultation - Nietzsche’s ‘superman’ (!), the last great revolution would take place with 100% leadership. Whatever this was, it wasn’t an argument for democracy.

Quite the opposite. It was an argument for autocracy and religious autocracy in particular, a position that the opponents of Islamic Democracy would adopt and nourish. Not that they needed much help. Proponents of Islamic Democracy had argued that Khomeini, the founding father of the revolution, had famously said that the name of the new republic had to be ‘Islamic Republic’, not one word more not one word less. This definitive statement was said to reflect the sincerity of his adherence to democratic principles and the marriage between the authenticity of Islam and the Western import that was the republic.

Not so fast came their opponents. Perspective and context was everything. Khomeini’s insistence was in the context of other titles such as ‘Democratic’ or ‘Peoples’, and in any case his views were made clear in his famous 1970 lectures on ‘Islamic Government’. The ‘republic’ was a means to an end but not the end itself, which was emphatically, Islamic Government under the rule of the Supreme Jurist: a religious despotism which because of its adherence to Islamic law was inherently enlightened - Khomeini even suggested it was ‘constitutional’.

In terms of Iran’s historical and religious inheritance, this position had much more rooting for it. Autocracy, in one form or another was the orthodoxy however which way one might want to present it. Proponents of this vision tended to identify Khomeini with the Prophet Muhammad, and his successor Ali Khamenei, as the Imam Ali. Identifying Khamenei as the ‘Ali of the Age’, with repeated refrains of ‘Haydar’ (another name for Ali), have reinforced what is an increasingly controversial position, not least because of its implication for the succession. It is partly for this ideological reason that Khamenei’s son, Mojtaba, is regarded by many (including myself) as being lined up to succeed his father (to those who fret that this might shatter the republican integrity of the system it is worth remembering that not only has the ‘Islamic Republic’ been an experiment in innovation since its inception, but hereditary succession is the norm in Iranian history, not the exception).

Both Khomeini and Khamenei have been touted by their more zealous supporters as the Hidden Imam returned and both have quite wisely demurred accepting the accolade, even if the resistance has on occasion been a tad theatrical. The one secular individual to have sailed rather close to the wind in this regard was former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad prompting one Iranian wit to comment, that it had not ended well for the last person who claimed to be the Hidden Imam (a reference to Ali Muhammad Shirazi, the Bab, the progenitor of the Bahai faith, executed in 1851).

Among the many reasons not to claim to be the Hidden Imam is that his return should inaugurate a period of justice, peace and abundance, and it does not take much for an Iranian to notice that the reality that surrounds them is somewhat different. Indeed far from being heaven on earth the Islamic Republic has increasing tones of the hellish about it. (As if the reality weren’t enough the Revolutionary Guards - with breathtaking stupidity - recently sought permission to build a ‘theme park’ that would depict the experience of hell, complete with real fire!).

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How to explain such a thing? Well here too, myths and narratives have their utility, and here Shia eschatology draws on deeper narratives common to cultures born within the Abrahamic tradition: the narrative of Moses and the Promised Land: the Mosaic Myth. In traditional Shia narratives the Hidden Imam will only return when 'evil has so absorbed the world that salvation demands his return. This is the messianic narrative common to Christian culture (which also enjoys Zoroastrian antecedents and echoes).

Khomeini redirected the narrative to argue that the Islamic Republic existed to prepare the ground for the return of the Hidden Imam, a direction of travel rather than an end state. The process of emancipation therefore becomes a journey. Khomeini, (whose mission is continued by Khamenei) like Moses, liberates his people from the ‘Pharaoh’, (who dismisses the warnings of the liberator to free the people), and leads them across the desert towards the Promised Land, dealing with sundry problems along the way, including faithlessness and false prophets².

This narrative of course fits well with those proponents of Islamic Government who regard the republic as transient. In this reading the ‘Islamic Revolution’ (note the revolution not the republic) serves as a bastion of Islamic purity against the gradual degradation of the world all of which point to the imminent return of the Hidden Imam which will signify the arrival in the Promised Land, in which Iranians - because of their suffering en route (purification necessitates some degree of pain - here of course the narrative of martyrdom and sacrifice adds further layers of significance) - will be the chief beneficiaries.

The advantage of this narrative is that the time in the desert can be extended if not indefinitely, then for a longer period, with the horizon moving further away. Some adherents insist that Iranians must wait at least 50-60 years, so there is still some time, and pain, to go. Meanwhile to keep the faithful in line periodic signs are revealed, ranging from mounting hardships at home to the war in Iraq and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, pointing both to global catastrophe and the return of the Hidden Imam.

If people ever wonder why the leadership of the Islamic Republic are willing to inflict so much pain on the people, it can be explained by this narrative, an exercise in moral purification and re-education that must be imposed by a knowing leadership on a recalcitrant people. As the political thinker Lewis Feuer persuasively argued, this ‘revolutionary’ narrative easily translates into the secular world so even those who are not religiously minded can relate to it.

The Mosaic myth is the drama of the young revolutionary intellectual. Moved by selfless idealism, by pure generosity (as he sees himself), he takes up the cause of the exploited; he suffers exile and imprisonment; but he leads his people to their historic victory; the people, however, are still slavish in their psychology, and incapable of realising the new society, they require a preparatory period under tutelary dictatorship; the revolutionary intellectual becomes their benevolent dictator; her quells factious elements; he dies, vouchsafed the sight of the new society, and living in the memory of the people.³

As such this myth has a broad appeal, justifies prolonged pain in the interests of the ultimate gain and places the ‘leader’ front and centre of the narrative, a liberator misunderstood by the masses who perennially disappoint the Leader. This may be termed a ‘top down’ narrative of emancipation.

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Iranians, as I have noted elsewhere, are heirs to multiple traditions. Critical among these is the traditional Iranian history largely sourced in the main to the Shahnameh (Book of Kings) and it is this, along with other assorted repositories of Iranian myths and legends that provides Iranians with a much more important myth of emancipation. This is the myth of Kaveh the Blacksmith. As a myth of emancipation it is a ‘bottom up’ narrative of popular rebellion led by a humble blacksmith and it is deeply problematic for all authoritarian systems but doubly so for the Islamic Republic, which is reminded that societal pain has its limits.

The narrative arc starts with the Great King Jamshid, among the greatest and most influential of Iran’s mythological kings⁴, who is held to have inaugurated the spring festival of Nowruz, invented many aspects of civilisation whose monument - the throne of Jamshid (Takht-e Jamshid) could be witnessed by all near the city of Shiraz (ie the ruins at Persepolis). Jamshid enjoyed the Divine Grace of kings to the highest degree but suffered from hubris, lost this Grace and fell from power. His crown is usurped by the ‘demon-king’ or ‘Arab tyrant’ (depending on your source), Zahhak who tyrannises the people for a thousand years.

Zahhak famously sports two serpents, one growing from each shoulder that can only be soothed by the brains of youths and each day two youths are sacrificed to provide balm. (Those youths that are able to escape are thought in some narratives to be the ancestors of the Kurds). Sycophancy abounds as no one is willing to oppose the tyrant and indeed lords line up to praise his wise leadership. It is left to Kaveh, a humble blacksmith, when confronting the tyrant to say ‘enough’ to break the spell of obsequiousness and the people hearing his call rise up and overthrow Zahhak, calling on the true king - Fereidoon, a descendent of Jamshid - to return, defeat the tyrant and bind him in eternity in the mountain of Damavand (the extinct volcano north east of Tehran).

This is a powerful narrative of emancipation initiated by the common man - not as in the Mosaic myth, by a leader. Like all good (political) myths, it has been adapted to circumstance and if the original story depicted a dragon, by the time it entered the Shahnameh and the wider corpus of Persian mythologies and folklore, Zahhak had been anthropomorphised into the demon-king and later still identified as an Arab tyrant. Like Faust, Zahhak makes a bargain with the devil - Ahriman - and the price of his kingship are the serpents that protrude from his shoulders.

What is fascinating about this narrative are the details which appear in different forms according to the source - the Shahnameh is far from the only or indeed most detailed source - and if we accept that myths offer a window into the souls of societies that produce them, then these details are revealing. While Zahhak is a usurper it is often held that he is initially ‘invited’ in on account of the people’s unhappiness with Jamshid. But the truly distinctive part of the myth is that this rebellion operates from the ground up, and in Kaveh, we have a personal representation of profound stoicism in the face of heightened torment.

He is commonly held to be the father of twelve or eighteen sons all but one of which have already been sacrificed to Zahhak’s needs, and he only rebels when officials come to acquire his last son. It is worth reflecting on the pain threshold exhibited in this narrative. Zahhak’s behaviour meanwhile reflects both complacency - born of hubris - and paranoia, having had premonitions of his own downfall. Challenging Zahhak, Kaveh cuts through the sycophancy and has the courage to say no - a psychological moment - and using his blacksmith’s apron as a standard, he leads the people in rebellion. Recognising his own role as a commoner, he states that he has come to restore the true king - Fereidoon - to the throne.

This myth was by some measure, the most popular narrative of emancipation among Iranians and was adopted by a wide range of political activists. The leading nationalist newspaper of the early 20th Century was named after the eponymous hero and the masthead showed Kaveh delivering the people from darkness into light.

The masthead of the highly influential nationalist newspaper ‘Kaveh’ published between 1916-22

The popularity of the narrative on the left was reflected not only in sympathetic papers but in the propensity of the name ‘Kaveh’ - the iconic ‘common man’ - among left wing activists.

In this left wing newspaper ‘Chelengar’, Zahhak is dragged to his fate by the people

Famously, even the Allies got in on the action in their efforts to convince Iranians of the righteousness of the Allied cause in the Second World War, with Hitler depicted as Zahhak and the serpents, Mussolini and Tojo respectively. Kaveh unfurls the rebellion guiding characters in the guise of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin to their victory⁵.

The cartoons, were created in 1942 by the Egyptian based artist, Kimon Evan Marengo, aka ‘Kem’.

Unsurprisingly the narrative enjoyed less of an airing in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution. Some people discussed the fall of the Shah as a latter day Jamshid, overtaken by hubris but quite deliberately decided against taking the analogy further. But the importance of the narrative was reflected in the literary debates that continued around it, with some even taking the bold step of arguing that the myth should be inverted and that Kaveh was in fact a reactionary who had restored autocracy⁶. This was never going to gain popular traction and ultimately the regime tried to co-opt it by arguing that ‘Kaveh’ represented the revolutionary spirit. A statue, placed, by public subscription, in Kaveh’s ‘home town’ Isfahan, was initially condemned and then, grudgingly, accepted.

Since 2009 the narrative of Kaveh and Zahhak has re-established itself in popular protests and from 2019 the allusion of Khamenei as Zahhak, as a devourer of Iran’s children - the ‘future’ - has become increasingly explicit. The regime is acutely aware of this shift in public opinion but carries that curious combination of paranoia and complacency convinced in their own mind that while they may be teetering on that psychological cliff edge - anxiously casting around for things which may numb the peoples’ pain - they have not yet breached the pain threshold. There are many in Iran who would disagree.

For students of Iran, the myth of Kaveh reminds us of the popular origins of protest, initiated by the hitherto unknown, ‘common man’; the internalisation of pain which builds social resilience, and an unusual measure of stoicism, that at a critical juncture - the proverbial ‘tipping point’ - finally breaks into a torrent which sweeps away the tyrant and restores the natural order. The regime may hold fast to its Mosaic myth of the leader. Iranians no doubt have other ideas. Time will tell which is more resilient.

1. One excitable student once pronounced that the Islamic Revolution was the greatest intellectual leap forward since the Renaissance.

2. For a detailed discussion of Khomeini’s explicit use of the Mosaic narrative, see H Chehabi, ‘Li Kulli Fir’awn Musa: the myth of Moses and Pharaoh in the Iranian revolution in comparative perspective’, (Brandeis, 2010)

3. Lewis Feuer, ‘Ideology and the Ideologists’ (Oxford, 1975), 2

4. Not strictly speaking an Iranian king since this was before the division of the world into the empires of Rum, Turan and Iran.

5. See A. Wynn. ‘The Shāh-nāme and British Propaganda in Irān in World War II’, Manuscripta Orientalia 16/1 (June 2010)

6. I have discussed this in my book ‘The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran’ (Cambridge, 2012), 216-19