Arbaqu and Caravanserai Zein-o-din
Trip Start
May 31, 2007
1
7
107
Trip End
May 20, 2008
Arbaqu, Iran
Thursday, June 14, 2007
The following day on the 14th, we toured the city of Arbaqu and saw some beautiful historic houses. As we were waiting to go into one of them that was still locked, an elderly gentleman was strolling past and it turned out that he was the son of the original architect of the house. He too was an architect and had until recently, due to some family tragedies, been personally involved in much of the restoration of the home. We spoke with him through Reza as he did not know English and he shared some of the details of the home that we wouldn't have otherwise known about. One of the ingenious features of these older homes were the wind towers which circulated air throughout the homes. This feature, combined with the underground water systems allowed the homes to be quite comfortable in the blazing heat. Unfortunately, the newer homes are far less interesting and utilize AC for cooling and are much less energy efficient. The historic water system tunnels throughout many of the cities originated in the mountains, were man-made and ran home to home providing much of the usable water for the population. Nowadays, the aren't much used. Of course, there were problems inherent in the systems such as the perils of being 'downstream' and getting the water than had already run though many of the other homes! After the homes, we visited a 1400 year old mosque currently under restoration which had two mehrabs, one that faced the original holy place for Islam in Jerusalem before Mecca and then the one that faced towards Mecca which is the direction for prayer for Muslims now. The mehrab is a niche in the wall of a mosque that indicates the qibla, i.e. the direction of Kaaba that Muslims should face when praying. Reza talked with us in detail about the structure of the Iranian government that was established after the revolution about 30 years ago. It is loosely based on the French structure with Legislative, Executive and Judiciary branches. The president is chosen by the people, the judiciary branch is chosen by the spiritual leaders. The spiritual leader is chosen by an elite parliament and is known as the mullah. Ayatollah is a rank of mullahs. I'm sure you all are familiar with the famous Ayatollah Khomeini. My summary is grossly inadequate but it gives you a basic idea of how the government is run. Prior to the revolution, the government was more of a dictatorship headed by the Shah. According to Reza there was an organization called Savak which was created in part by the CIA and by the Shah's government to help to keep a hold of power. The atrocities carried out by the Savak were in part responsible for some of the populations' outrage at the Shah and the partial motivation for the revolution. The West has had its fingers in the affairs of this region for quite a long time. Understanding our involvement is essential to better understanding the current state of affairs here and why in addition to positive feelings towards Americans, there is also animosity...although it wasn't directed at me personally.
