Excerpt from the Memoirs of Nayreh al-Sadat Ehtesham Razavi

Compiled by: Faezeh Sassanikhah
Translated by: Fazel Shirzad

2021-9-21


When Mr. Hazhir was killed, Mr. Navvab[i] was again severely persecuted. I was in Qom at the time, and when the Qom police chief found that I was at Mr. Vahedi's house, where he was surrounded; Mr. Vahedi was living in Qom at that time. When Mr. Vahedi's house was surrounded, two people knocked on the door and entered the house, and sat with Mr. Vahedi in the guest house. Mr. Vahedi came and said: "lady! They are detectives and come to arrest me"; he immediately left and put his turban and robe next to the two men. Mr. Vahedi treated them very normally and left the room under the pretext of providing food from another room. The house had interior and exterior rooms, and Mr. Davani, who had just gotten married, was living in one of the rooms. Mr. Vahedi came to the inner courtyard and told his mother that he was going to escape from Mr. Davani's yard; he escaped in different clothes, even though the house was surrounded. The two guests, who were at home, asked, "Where is Mr. Vahedi?" He said: "He went to get kebabs for you." They replied that they did not want kebabs.

Meanwhile, the Qom police chief arrived with his officers. When he realized that these detectives had not been able to arrest Mr. Vahedi, he started to insult them, "What did you receive from Mr. Vahedi that made him run away?" The two officers were unable. Later, Mr. Vahedi wrote a letter to the police chief, in which he addressed him, saying that he was neither a guard nor a police chief. After this incident, the agents were constantly monitoring the house. Sometimes they would enter the house and start searching. Mr. Vahedi and my mother and an old woman, who was almost one hundred years old, lived in that house. I can say that I was a prisoner in that house and the agents came and asked me questions. They bothered me so much that one day I recite metaphorically a poem to the police chief:

 

"Although a sin committed in a land by a blacksmith,

They cut, in another land, the neck of a coppersmith

 

What do you have to do with me if you want to arrest Navvab? If you are able to do, go and arrest this fighting man." You always bother me. The police chief angrily said, "Then I will arrest you tomorrow and take you to the police station. I will imprison you to prove whether I can arrest Navvab or not." This ultimatum was very disturbing to me, and I thought that if they arrested me, Mr. Navvab, could no longer hide because of his wife, and wherever he was, they would reveal himself. As a result, I become a means of arresting Mr. Navvab. This thought tormented me a lot. That night, I prayed until morning and appealed to Hazrat Zahra (PBUH) and Hazrat Abolfazl (AS) and asked God to change their plan so that they would not arrest me. The next morning, the police chief, who was a very violent man, came to a single house; He was drunk enough, his eyes were like a bowl of blood, and his face seemed very angry; He said that a unit sent him a letter in which he had threatened to kill him if he would enter the house. So I do not dare to enter the house; he left there. I think that the appeals I made to the Imams caused this effect and result.[ii]

 


[i]. It refers to Sayyid Mojtaba Navvab Safavi, an Iranian Shia scholar and founder of the Fada'iyan-e Islam group. He played a role in the assassinations of Abdolhossein Hazhir, Haj Ali Razmara, and Ahmad Kasravi.(cited in Wiki pedia)

 

[ii]. Taheri, Hojjatollah, Memoirs of Nayreh al-Sadat Ehtesham Razavi, wife of Martyr Navvab Safavid, Tehran, Islamic Revolutionary Documentation Center, p.68.

 



 
Number of Visits: 3323


Comments

 
Full Name:
Email:
Comment:
 
At the Unveiling of “War and State”:

Minister of Health Praises the Prestigious Sadr Family

The book War and State in the Memoirs of Seyyed Mohammad Sadr, authored by Mohammad Qobadi and published by Sooreh Mehr, was officially unveiled at the The Artistic Sect of the Islamic Republic. According to the Sooreh Mehr Publishing website, this event was attended by Mohammadreza Zafarghandi, Minister of Health, Treatment, and Medical Education;
Dr. Nouraei:

“Oral history of art” should move toward producing documentaries

According to Iranian Oral History website, the preliminary workshop of “Oral History of Art” was held online before the national conference “Iranian Theories of Historiography and Art” on Wednesday 21st of Azar 1403 (December 11, 2024) by the Art Research Institute of the Art Cultural Center. During the event, “Dr. Morteza Nouraee” the professor of the History Group of Isfahan University delivered a speech.

Benefits of Oral History

History, as one of the fundamental disciplines within the humanities, has evolved through time to adopt various forms and methodologies. Concepts such as "written history," "comprehensive history," and "oral history" exemplify these approaches. Written history relies on documents and textual sources for the analysis and composition of historical accounts, while comprehensive history seeks to integrate various sources—both written and oral.
Book Review

The Hidden Camp

The Hidden Camp narrates the autobiographical memoirs of Mohammad Hassan Mirzaei, recounting his experiences from managing Iraqi POW camps to enduring captivity in Iranian POW camps. This work, rewritten and compiled by Meysam Gholampour, was published in the summer of 2024 by Mirath-e Ahl-e Qalam Publications in collaboration with the Damavand Martyrs Foundation.