Daughter of Persia

Being sick is no excuse. And yet it’s the one that both gave me nothing to do but read Daughter of Persia: A Woman’s Journey from her Father’s Harem Through the Islamic Revolution and the thing that made me too sluggish to write about it afterward. Yet, here I am. Moved and perplexed again at the history and story of Persia, or modern day Iran. Happily there have been many intriguing stories about Iran all of which I have enjoyed reading while simultaneously cringing with something near disbelief.

Persepolis, Reading Lolita in Tehran, The Mulberry Empire (which is fiction) and many articles have given me something of a feel for what the Persians have been through. Not surprisingly that is no comfort as mostly they seem to have gone through a lot of internal-personal mistrust accompanied by foreign meddling.

Satti, who was born into the just deposed ruling family at the turn of the 20th Century, grew up in an anduran, a harem. She does not mind this at all. Her mother does not mind this at all. Her siblings, the servants, the extended family part of the compound don’t mind it, either. I minded. Somehow relegating this to ‘cultural differences’ seems inadequate. The fact that Satti chooses work rather than the life her mother led assures me that there is more than she chose to reveal in the 400 pages she wrote about her life.

Satti’s parents, whom she only praises the entire length of the book, appear as saints. I do not doubt for a minute that her mother was loving and her father clever, nor that both were wonderfully and terribly strong. I wonder whether being very young when her father died and very alone when her mother died were things that kept her perspective on her family so entirely golden. She did not even tell about any sibling that she had particular fights or squabbles with. It’s as though to be in that anduran was on par with being in Eden. Yet she longed to leave.

When Satti’s father died, she took her inheritance of about $2000 and traveled to ‘Amrika’ for university studies. She thought she’d get to see the Statue of Liberty, but showed up in Los Angeles instead. This section of the book was by far the most thrilling. Leaving home, travelling far, meeting people, testing risk and chance, all activities that Sattareh thrived in and excelled at. I haven’t even read many stories of American women at that time taking so many risks. Why, her first boat out of Bombay was sunk by Japanese submarines! Although I have traveled extensively to places full of risk, I’ve never been under fire. I found her story of leaving home riveting.

Later, Sattareh returned to Iran and built the School of Social Work which sounds absolutely astounding. For twenty years she devotes herself to the poor of her country because of the Islamic example set by both of her parents. Their example became her motivation and now she, too, becomes a saint of selfless devotion to work on behalf of the powerless. The school she founds grows from twenty students to over a couple thousand. Meanwhile Sattareh creates jobs for her graduates, sends them abroad for further education, and ensures that they learn to actually care for the poor.

India had Gandhi then Mother Theresa, and Iran first had Sattareh’s cousin Dr. Mossadegh and then herself. What went wrong? I believe it to be a fair question. Sattareh blames the people for following the wind rather than their own convictions. The majority always favors the strong and many manage to survive. Sattareh Farman Farmaian also survives, along with much of her extended family, as she escapes death and Iran, her beloved homeland becoming both to her essentially overnight.

I'm very glad to have read Satti's story and her perspective of Persian history. Learning how a family of great means and power conducted itself on the other side of the world a century ago has certainly caused me to consider the personal choices and votes I'm making here and now.