Tehran is much more populous, of course, but, during my stay in the city, I was struck by the area\u2019s resemblance to Salt Lake City and the Wasatch Front.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
One aspect of my visit to Iran was that, in a few ways, the place reminded me of Utah.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Obviously, there are huge differences \u2014 not least the fact that Tehran is vastly larger than the Salt Lake City metropolitan area and that all of the woman are covered from their heads on down in coal-black chadors.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
But \u2014 and, to make my point, I repeat above a photograph above that I\u2019ve already recently used \u2014 it looks<\/em> a bit like the part of Utah that runs along the Wasatch Front. \u00a0Semi-arid, with high mountains that receive dry powder snow and with high plateaus, it has a climate (in some places, anyway) that resembles my adopted state. \u00a0Like Utah, it has extensive desert regions, but it\u2019s not all desert. \u00a0(In Utah, the Green River area is excellent for the raising of melons, and Iran, too, is well known for its melon production \u2014 for similar reasons, I think.)<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
But what amused me while I was in Iran was that, several times, one or another of the few Westerners who had, like me, come for a conference on the Persian Shi\u2018ite philosopher Mulla Sadra (1571\/2-1640) would get into a conversation with me and, finding that I was from Utah, would ask me about my experience of living in the state. \u00a0And their questions weren\u2019t inspired by the terrain of the Iranian plateau and its resemblance to the Great Basin and the Colorado Plateau. \u00a0After all, Utah is fly-over country. \u00a0They\u2019ve never been here. \u00a0Or, if they have, it was generally to change planes at the airport.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oddly, academics often don\u2019t stop to think that, if I\u2019m teaching at Brigham Young University, which is a Latter-day Saint school, I\u2019m very possibly a Latter-day Saint myself.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWow,\u201d they\u2019ll say. \u00a0\u201cWhat\u2019s it like working with all those Mormons?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve been asked that question innumerable times at academic conferences. \u00a0I was asked that very question several times in Iran, too.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cDoesn\u2019t this feel just like Utah?\u201d one or two asked. \u00a0\u201cTheocratic and all? \u00a0No separation of church and state? \u00a0No freedom to question? \u00a0Women oppressed and forced into subservience?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
No, I would respond. \u00a0This is really nothing<\/em> like Utah. \u00a0Very different. \u00a0No chadors. \u00a0No Ga\u0161t-e Er\u0161\u0101d\u00a0<\/i>(\u06af\u0634\u062a \u0627\u0631\u0634\u0627\u062f<\/span>\u200e) or \u201cGuidance Patrol\u201d roaming the streets enforcing\u00a0state dress codes preventing unrelated men and women from mingling with each other without a mahram<\/em> or male guardian present. \u00a0No executions of Baha\u2019is and Jews. \u00a0No highest court made up entirely of professional clerics.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
These folks didn\u2019t mean to be offensive, of course. \u00a0It\u2019s just that, coming typically from social regions in which nobody they know is religious, it\u2019s easy for them to imagine that the rest of the country is inhabited by rubes who play banjos \u2014 or maybe santurs<\/em> \u2014 with their toes and that the world of The Handmaid\u2019s Tale<\/em> is just around the corner, with only liberal members of the federal judiciary saving us (often by perilously close 5-4 votes on the Supreme Court) from a dystopian theocracy.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 One aspect of my visit to Iran was that, in a few ways, the place reminded me of Utah. \u00a0 Obviously, there are huge differences \u2014 not least the fact that Tehran is vastly larger than the Salt Lake City metropolitan area and that all of the woman are covered from their heads […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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![\"Tehran,](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/02\/ShowImage.ashx_.jpeg\")
<\/a>