Read Between Two Worlds for Free Online Page B

named Ruholla Khomeini, a new circle of friends, and a courtyard she planted with rosebushes.
    Bibi lived within walking distance of the two mosques that were built on the site where the prophet’s two grandsons had been massacred in the seventh century. The mosques, with towering golden domes and minarets, were always full of people, including pilgrims from all over the Muslim world. Because women and girls wore abayas at the mosque, Bibi would lend me one of hers, and as a child, I remember hiking up the long folds of black cloth around me so they wouldn’t drag on the ground. Then one day she made me my own little abaya . We were invited to a picnic with Bibi’s friends at the Al-Hussein mosque that day, and when I walked into the enormous courtyard surrounding the turquoise-and-blue tiled mosque, I felt I was being ushered into a world of women who knew the secrets of spirituality and dolma—grape leaves stuffed the Iraqi way, with onion peels and minced meat and rice and lots of sour lemon. Around us, flocks of pigeons cooed and poor pilgrims who could not afford hotels rested in the shade.
    When we went inside, I held my new little abaya under my chin so my hair wouldn’t show as I took in the huge crystal chandeliers hanging from the towering ceilings and the prone bodies of men and women scattered praying on an expanse of enormous red and burgundy Persian rugs. At one end of the mosque, surrounded by enormous silver bars, was the place where Ali’s martyred son was buried, and everyone gathered around it, tying green threads or pieces of fabric in the grillwork, each representing a wish they asked to be granted. I remembered the basic line I was taught to say when called to prayer, “I believe that there is no God but one God, and Mohammed is his Messenger, and Ali is his Friend.” But that was about all. I watched Bibi and my mother and emulated them as best I could. When Bibi bowed, I bowed. When she prayed, I prayed. Bsm Allah Al Rahman Al Raheem . By the name of God, the most merciful, the most gracious.
    After we came out of the mosque that day, we went into a candy shop that sold imported Soviet chocolates.
    “What a pretty little girl you are!” the shopkeeper told me. “You have an Iranian beauty.”
    “I’m not Iranian,” I said. “I’m Iraqi.”
    “You’re from Baghdad, aren’t you?” he said.
    “How did you know that?” I asked.
    “Because you’re holding your abaya so tight, you look like you’re afraid it’s going to fall off.”
    I didn’t think it was funny, but Bibi laughed, a warm laugh that was somehow devoid of all pretense and judgment.
    I remember her laughing like that when Mama and Aunt Samer teased her about the cleric she sometimes consulted named Khomeini, a fiery, Iranian-born religious scholar they thought was just plain weird because he seemed on a mission to send women back centuries. Khomeini had settled in Karbalā’ after being deported by the Shah of Iran for fomenting revolution in the 1960s. In 1978, at the request of the Shah Reza Pahlavi of Iran, Iraq deported him too because he was deemed a destabilizing influence in the region. My father happened to be the pilot who flew him westward that day, toward Paris, but Khomeini didn’t stay put. A year later, in early 1979, he was swept into power in a popular uprising in Iran that shook the Muslim and Western worlds. Shah Reza Pahlavi had ruled Iran for nearly four decades. His openness to Western business, culture, and military interests had netted him the support of the West. But, in a classic and profound backlash, millions of Iranians who had been marginalized by the corrupt and brutal dictatorship behind the Western façade rose up and demanded change. The revolution was the work of nationalists, communists, student unions, women’s groups, and others, but it was hijacked by religious extremists who put Khomeini in power and named him the Grand Ayatollah. Arab leaders, especially Saddam Hussein right