اشاره: نوشته زیر چکیده انگلیسی کتاب «روستای ایستا» تالیف حسین عسکری است که در بخش پایانی آن کتاب درج شده است. متن فارسی این چکیده در بخش مطالب پیشین این وب نوشت ذیل عنوان «منطقه طالقان» آمده است. ضمن درج این برگردان از مترجم کوشای آن آقای عادل نورزاده (فرهنگی و کارشناس ارشد آموزش زبان انگلیسی) صمیمانه سپاسگزارم. کتاب روستای ایستا آخرین مراحل آماده سازی برای چاپ را می گذراند.

AHL-E-TAVAGHOF

(THOSE AGAINST CHANGE)

A Study on the Followers

of Mirza Sadegh Tabrizi in Taleghan

BY: HOSSEIN ASKARI

In an area called Teleghan – a suburb of Tehran Province – lives a Turkish- speaking tribe who mysteriously avoid the public; therefore, very people are allowed into their homes. Moreover, they avoid using any type of manifestations of modern civilization and technology. Thus, with this secluded and monastic life, they have had a number of rumors and eccentric remarks dispersed around them. Meanwhile, natives of Taleghan, unaware of their origin as well as their aims and principles, sometimes name this group as Followers of Esmaeil (Esmaelis) and of course occasionally consider them as “World-Relinquishing Dervishes” who eagerly await the emerging of their missing Imam Mahdi (the last Imam of Shiites).

As a matter of fact, this tribe are the followers of Ayatollah Mirza Sadegh Mojtahed Tabrizi who was one of the famous clerics living in the era of Constitutional Revolution (1905). Inspired by his religious ideas, this group has chosen to lead such a bizarre life within this age of modernity. They are thought to be a clan of Esna Ashari (twelve-Imam) Shiites, who have remained faithful to this ideology by following a traditionalist Islamic jurist (Faghih). Hence, "Ahl-e-Tavaghof" (Those against Changes) seems probably an appropriate title for such people.

Mirza Sadegh Tabrizi (died in 1922) is one of those Islamic jurists who put a good deal of emphasis both theoretically and practically on the methodology of absolute elimination of modernized thought as well as its achievements. Accordingly, until the end of his life, the cleric did give fatwas against any kind of the possible permission of the exploitation of technological tools and modern affairs. He believed that government, the legislator and executor of laws, belongs basically to God, then to His Prophet (Muhammad), and eventually to twelve Imams of Shiites. During the absence period of the twelfth Imam secular governments, in his opinion, are deemed as “usurpers” since they have already usurped the position of the Saints and more importantly of the divine governor. He also contended that the secular modern legislation system advocated by constitutionalists, despite its philosophy and principles, was in contradiction with Islamic Law (Fiqh). As a result, the first cannot be extracted from the content of the latter.

Based on these beliefs, the followers of Mirza Sadegh argue that this is now “the end of times”, which has begun since a century ago i.e., the period of Constitution. Hossein Gholi Ziaee (a current member of this group) would go to Taleghan before the Islamic Revolution (1979), as he believes he was in search of some special men from Taleghan who would, according to Islamic narratives and maxims, be well-known helpers of their last Imam. Nevertheless, when he found none of them, he decided to purchase some land there and then in order to establish a form of anticipation-based life for the appearance of their Imam. And so he did. they have been living in Taleghan, a quarter of Savojbolagh in the west of Tehran, since 1990.

The tribe under his guidance own no identification; therefore, they are not incorporated into the population census of Iran, nor do they exploit any tools of modern welfare equipment such as pipe water, gas, electricity, telephone, television, hygiene, education, coupon etc. In short, they enjoy an entirely traditional life spending their nights by the light of only a lantern, of course.