Read Online Iranian Rappers And Persian Porn by Jamie Maslin - Free Book Online Page B

described a bizarre Iranian practice, unique to Shiite Islam, called sigheh or “temporary marriage.” Sigheh allows horny singles to indulge in a bit of legal “slap and tickle” with full religious blessing, for anything from a few hours to a few months. Amazingly, sigheh is officially sanctioned in Iran, even though unmarried couples who simply date or hold hands can be arrested, fined, or in some cases flogged. Supporters of sigheh often defend the practice as a way for the widows of the Iran-Iraq War to still get a bit of action, although apparently many Iranians see it simply as legalized and sanctioned prostitution. I told myself that if the opportunity arose, I’d happily say “I do.”
    The second thing to catch my attention was a passage on Iranian social etiquette that mentioned a confusing practice known as ta’arof . This is where you might be offered something purely out of politeness, but it is not meant as a genuine offer to be taken literally and accepted. To tell if the offer is legit, what you must do is refuse three times, and if the offer is not then retracted, it can be assumed genuine and you can accept. I thought back to when Shahram had given me his watch, but that definitely hadn’t been ta’arof , as I’d refused more than three times—in fact, it was probably closer to ten.
    Shahram turned up and apologized repeatedly for being late. I tried to hand his watch back at once, but Shahram wouldn’t hear of it and insisted I wore it “until we have seen a few places.” The first stop on Shahram’s guided tour was a place called Arg-e Tabriz or “the Ark.”
    This was a huge brick citadel built in the fourteenth century on the site of a massive mosque that had collapsed some five hundred years ago. There was construction work going on nearby on a mosque the size of a department store, which we needed to venture through in order to access the Ark. We asked the builders’ permission before entering the site; they clearly had no concern for “health and safety,” and waved us through without a second thought. We only had access to the rear of the Ark, which looked from here rather like an old, disused power station, but Shahram livened it up by recalling an interesting story from its past.
    Its roof, he explained, had once been used to throw criminals to their nasty and rather squishy death in the ditch below. And, if legend was to be believed, one lucky woman cheated death through the parachute-like effect of her traditional chador. Whether they tossed her off a second time to finish the job he didn’t know. Given the height of the thing, this ancient BASE jumper certainly wouldn’t have been in a good state if she had survived, assuming the story was true. But there would, of course, have been a beckoning career as a disabled break-dancer ahead of her.
    We left the Ark and walked on to the bazaar—a place I was looking forward to seeing. The bazaar in Tabriz is massive, totaling 2.1 miles in length and containing 7,350 shops and twenty-four separate caravanserais where the itinerant traders set up shop. It dates back a thousand years, although most of the buildings currently there are from the fifteenth century.
    The inside of the bazaar made the streets outside seem empty and quiet. There were people everywhere trying to strike a deal, browsing, feeling the quality of goods, eating, drinking, smelling foods, working, chatting, and generally shopping until they dropped in this atmospheric labyrinth.
    The bazaar was separated into five main areas specializing in gold, footwear, spices, general household items, and carpets. As well as these main sections, there was, to the north and across the Quri River, a section specializing in copperware and foods like honey, dates, cheese, and halvah. I couldn’t help but walk around goggle-eyed. There were huge blocks of sugar being broken into more manageable pieces, mounds of brightly colored spices and dried foodstuffs, carpets being made and