Chapter FOUR

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A coppersmiths' bazaar in Tehran.

craftsmen were at work. I could stand for hours and watch a man decorating the large copper trays which were used at home for special occasions. From early Persian civilization, coppersmiths, weavers, goldsmiths and many other artisans have created and sold crafts and art objects in their workshops in the bazaar. Both the skills and the tools have been handed down through generations of the same family.
There is a continuous flow of people through a bazaar. You see women with bundles perched on their heads, men carrying heavy loads and donkeys piled high with various goods. For those who purchase more than they can possibly carry there are professional porters for hire. Of course, this remains the exclusive luxury of the wealthy. No one appears to be wandering aimlessly; everyone present has business to attend to and scurries to and fro with purposeful intent.
Buying in a bazaar involves a form of game between buyer and seller. Remembering my father's shopping, it seemed like a chess game. No article has a fixed price; the seller names the highest price and the buyer offers the lowest. After a long period of friendly argument (to Western eyes it might seem like quarrelling) and perhaps a glass of tea, a price will be agreed upon that satisfies both buyer and seller. If the prospective buyer decides to leave before a fair bargain has been struck the shopkeeper can be seen comically venturing after the customer while yelling in an attempt to entice him back. But unlike markets elsewhere the Iranian bazaar is not merely a place where goods are bought or sold. Many important meetings take place in the bazaar, ranging from marriage negotiations to political discussions. During the last and even the present century the bazaar played an important role in the formation of governments in Iran. At some periods its power was so strong that it could bring about the collapse of a government, and it played a crucial role in overthrowing the Shah in 1979 and bringing about the Islamic Republic in Iran. In other words the supporters of the ayatollahs on their rise to power were the big businessmen of the bazaars, and they have reaped a great deal of profit both from the Revolution and from the Iran-Iraq war. But life for the small businessmen is like that for ordinary people who suffer both from inflation and from the war which has claimed the lives of so many of their young men. The Shi'ite religion of Islam has always been closely connected with the bazaars, which have been the main financial source for its ayatollahs for centuries.
For example, in the 19th century, Nasir ai-Din Shah (1848-1896) sold the tobacco concession to an Englishman, Major Talbot, in return for a personal gift of £25,000 to himself, an annual rent of £15,000 to the state and a 25% share of the profit for Iran. For these, Major Talbot received a 50-year monopoly over the distribution and export of tobacco. The arrival of his company in 1891 was met with a closure of the bazaar in Shiraz, in Iran's main tobacco-growing region, which rapidly led to a general strike of the leading bazaars, particularly those in Tehran, Esfahan, Tabriz, Mashhad, Qazvin, Yazd and Kermanshah. The strike was encouraged by a religious fatwa, or decree, against the use of any tobacco. Religious leaders in Iran and Iraq joined together in issuing the fatwa, and demonstrations took place in the streets of Iran. Both the opposition from the ayatollahs and the anger of the people in the street (and even of the royal harem, who refused to prepare the tobacco for Nasir aI-Din Shah's hubble-bubble) forced the Shah to annul the concession.
This crisis paved the way for a fundamental change which culminated in the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909. In both cases, the religious leaders challenged the rule of the shahs, fighting the battle under the banner of Islam. The tobacco revolt was a rebellion by the businessmen who were being undersold by the imports from foreign traders, as well as becoming dependent on a foreign country. It was a popular uprising because it appeared that the Shah was bargaining the independence of the country to a foreign power, and hence the revolt was politically attractive. For this reason, intellectuals like Mirza Malkum Khan, former Iranian Ambassador in London, and his friend Jamal aI-Din al-Afghani, played an active role against Nasir aI-Din Shah. Malkum published a paper called Qanun advocating and describing the kind of laws which would bring about security and hence social progress in Iran. But the main intentions of the religious leaders and the intellectuals differed fundamentally. The intellectuals wished to free Iran from oriental despotism, whereas the religious leaders wanted to bring more profit and prosperity to the bazaars and their big merchants. The Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909 incorporated both these components, but was more complex, as we will see later.
Looking at these big businessmen sitting in their well-decorated and finely appointed offices in the bazaar, in the manner of the head of a tribe, did not encourage an ordinary person or a small child to buy little things such as a torch battery or sweets from their stalls and emporia. Their attitude seemed like a big wall to which you could not talk. Small businessmen standing next to their scales or counter, or outside their shop, were much more approachable to a child like me. Once I approached a big businessman who was selling dried fruit and asked him to give me two rials' (two pence) worth of raisins. He said, "Go away, we don't sell for that money." I did not know he was a wholesaler. But a few yards _way there was a small shop where they gave me raisins for my two rials.