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Sacrifice and Authorship: A Compendium of the Wills of Iranian War Martyrs

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Nader Nazemi
Translated by
Nader Nazemi
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Extract

Shohada ba khun-e khod safehat-e tarikh ra qalam mizanand “The Martyrs write the pages of history with their blood.”

From 1980 to 1988 Iran fought a bloody war with neighboring Iraq. Those who died in the war are eulogized as the “martyrs of the war of truth against falsehood” and have been accorded an almost sacrosanct status in the Islamic Republic. A tragedy of unprecedented proportions in modern Iranian history, the war was also the catalyst for important social and political transformations within the country. Iranian warriors went to war not so much to kill as to sacrifice their lives for a larger community that was itself being transform through the exigencies of warfare. As succinctly explained by one Iranian fighter, “We are fighting not for revenge, but for Islam, country and honour.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 3-4: Selections from the Literature of Iran, 1977-1997 , Summer Fall 1997 , pp. 263 - 271
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 1997

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References

1. Husayn Golchin, Namazi dor atash va khun, (Cultural Center for Islamic Propaganda, 1372 A. H.), 9.

2. In Iran, wartime mobilization was partially carried out by the skillful manipulation of religious and cultural symbols, notably the concept of shahadat or martyrdom. Etymologically, the root of both the Arabic “shahadat” and the English “martyrdom” signifies “witnessing.” Qurᵓanic references to shahid (pi. shuhadaᵓ) vary in meaning. Depending on the context, it may imply either a witness, as in someone who affirms his or her acceptance of Islam by uttering the testimony of faith, the shahadat, or a martyr. When the latter is implied, the Qurᵓan enjoins us that those who fall in the cause of God are not dead but are living, and they are promised great rewards. [See Abedi, Mehdi and Legenhausen, Gary, Jihad and Shahadat: Struggle and Martyrdom in Islam, (Houston, Texas: The Institute for Research and Islamic Studies, 1986), 8–9Google Scholar]. In Shiᶜite Islam the concept of martyrdom is further embedded in the Karbala paradigm. The historical reference here is to Hossein, the son of Imam ᶜAli, who refused to swear allegiance to the caliph Yazid. Invited by the people of Kufa to become their leader, Hossein and his companions were intercepted by forces loyal to the caliph on the plains of Karbala on the 10th day of Muharram, 61 A. H. All the men, including Hossein, were slain. The memory of Karbala is kept alive through yearly commemorations during Ashura, the night Hossein fell, and through reenactments of the episode in performances of the tacziyeh. [See Fisher, Michael M. J., Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 21–25Google Scholar].

3. On martyrdom and authorship, see Elshtain, Jean Bethke, “Sovereignty, Identity, Sacrifice,” Social Research 58, no. 3 (Fall 1991)Google Scholar.

4. On imagined communities, see Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, (London: Verso, 1991)Google Scholar.

5. Martyr Ahmad Sanezadeh, in Majid Zamanpour, ed., Jelvehha-ye nur (The Faces of Light), (Tehran: Cultural Center of the Revolutionary Guards, Spring 1373 A. H.), 112–113.

6. Martyr Sayyid Mamoud Zargar, Ibid., 98.

7. Martyr Add Karami, Ibid., 127.

8. Martyr ᶜAliasghar Noori, Ibid., 144.

9. Martyr Bijan Muhammadian, Ibid., 131–132.

10. Martyr Mirzarpur, Ibid., 140–141.

11. “The Last Will and Testament of Martyr Major Amir Sandjabi,” translated by M. Ebrahimi, In Memory of Our Martyrs, (Ministry of Islamic Guidance, April 1982), 112–113.

12. ‘The Last Will and Testament of Martyr Lieutenant Nasrullah Shahabi,” Ibid., 128–129.

13. ‘The Last Will and Testament of Martyr Said (Fatahalla) Araji,” Ibid., 80–81.

14. Mostafa Saidi, The Sun ofBadr: The Biography of Guard Commander Martyr Ismael Daqayeqi, (Publications of the Cultural Headquarters of the Guards, 1374), 89.

15. Revolutionary Guard Martyr Azim Motuli Habibi, Jomhuri-ye Eslami, no. 1201 (July 26, 1983): 100.