Visiting Qom

 

 

Inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are now visiting the recently disclosed new uranium enrichment facility near Qom in Iran. Some commentators have raised concern that Iran would have had more than a month, after having notified the IAEA on September 21 about the site, to remove any incriminating evidence that the site has already been in an advanced stage of construction.  

Iran’s disclosure of the site came only after it had become clear that western intelligence had got knowledge about it for some time. GlobalSecurity.org  has published satellite imagery of January 2009 by DigitalGlobal which shows somehow disturbing construction work of an apparently heavily fortified facility already done. The UN inspectors will soon report on their findings to the IAEA headquarters in Vienna. ElBaradei’s next and probably final report on Iran (he will retire in December) is due next month.

Dealing with Iran

 

 

Earlier this month Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and his delegation had suggested, in the long-awaited Geneva talks, an unexpected deal with the West regarding shipping much of its so far produced stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia for further enrichment to about 20%. It should then been returned to Iran in order to fuel Tehran’s research reactor for the production of medical isotopes. Many commentators were just surprised about completely new perspectives of international collaboration with the decade-long isolated pariah state. Possible motivations for Tehran’s seemingly constructive turn were quickly analyzed. Severe contamination of LEU, which had been produced in Natanz, with molybdenum had been identified as a major problem for further uranium enrichment at that site. But if Iran actually wants to master the full nuclear fuel cycle, reprocessing LEU in Esfahan’s uranium conversion facility should not be regarded a serious obstacle.

After further talks at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Iran has missed in the meantime a deadline, set by the outgoing IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, of responding to a proposal which suggested that most of Iran’s LEU is exported to Russia and France. The issue is delicate, and Ali Ashgar Soltaniyeh, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, has definitely to get approval in Tehran which has signaled already that the country prefers to simply purchase the needed uranium for the research reactor from Russia. Soltaniyeh has promised to provide the IAEA with a final answer next week.

There are definitely heavy disputes within the complicated ruling hierarchy, in particular when considering the tremendous emphasis the possibly illegitimate President Ahmadinejad has given to Iran’s nuclear program in the past, which has allegedly only peaceful purposes. The proposed UN deal which has been agreed already by the US, France and Russia may there be regarded as lopsided debilitation of Tehran’s position; and a hastily set deadline by ElBaradei might have been a grave diplomatic mistake, indeed. Iranian delegations are usually competent chess players who easily rumble intentions of their western counterparts.

At the same time, IAEA inspectors are right now underway for a visit of the newly disclosed enrichment site near Qom which has been revealed to the public only last month, first in a letter by Iran to the IAEA dated September 21 and a couple of days later during a press conference by President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Gordon Brown and President Nicolas Sarkozy in Pittsburgh at the G20 meeting. It is not clear whether the past few weeks had enabled Iran to remove revealing evidence that the site has already been operational. Some commentators have pitied that the West has not insisted on immediate inspections after the site had been made public.

There is fear that mutual trust and confidence building has come to an end already. Iran’s illegitimate government, in particular its hard-line president, may be in need of keeping the country in its pariah state, sad to say.

Terrorist Organizations

Yesterday’s suicide attack in Sistan-Baluchestan with so far 42 casualties has been conducted most probably by Abdul Malek Rigi’s Jundullah, or Soldiers of Allah, a Sunni terrorist organization related to Al Qaeda which had been founded in 2003 and which is operating in Iran’s southeastern province. Rigi himself is supposed to be located in Pakistan, and Iran has accused, in the meantime, Pakistan of indirectly support him and Jundullah. Rigi has given, on April 2, 2007, a telephone interview to Voice of America (VOA), which has subsequently heavily been criticized by Tehran of giving terrorists a voice. Another interview of Rigi was aired by Al Arabiya TV on October 17, 2008.

Besides giving interviews to western or western-related broadcasting services, Rigi is also shown in a graphic video beheading a person, which has been aired by Iranian presstv last summer. Juan Cole has posted it today on his blog.

It should not be forgotten that former U.S. president G. W. Bush, even during last year’s election campaign, has managed to get 400 million dollars granted by Congress for regime change in Iran. Seymour Hersh, in an article in The New Yorker on July 7, 2008, had listed the possible beneficiaries: the Kurdish separatist party PJAK; Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), until recently considered even in the U.S. a terrorist organization; and Jundullah.

That Iran wants to blame today also U.S (and U.K.) intelligence services for the blast which caused the death of six high-ranked pasdaran officers, may thus have a reason.

Resuming the Talks

When on Monday next week delegations of Iran and world powers resume their talks in Vienna, the previous three weeks have seen much clarification already. Iran’s offer (or request) to further enrich most of its 1500 kg of 3.5% or so low enriched uranium (LEU) with the help of Russia or France to the desired 19.75% (for fueling the Tehran’s research reactor which is entirely used for producing the medical isotope technetium 99) has come by many as a surprise.

One reason for Iran’s turn may be contamination of the UF₆ with molybdenum which could damage the centrifuges in Natanz if it is further enriched. Joshua Pollack at ArmsControlWonk.com points to the long-known facts today that the contamination has its origin in Esfahan’s Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF). Only early in 2007 centrifuges in Natanz have been fed by UF₆, which had been produced in Esfahan, then leading to the contamination problem. Before, they relied on stuff which had been delivered by China.

According to Pollack, purification of contaminated LEU is not really a problem for the Iranians. The material has only to be transported back to Esfahan, re-processed and returned to Natanz. Tehran has, therefore, already stressed that, given the Vienna talks failed or did not yield, for Iran, constructive results one would definitely go ahead with enriching in the country. One should not underestimate Tehran’s first aim: mastering the entire nuclear fuel cycle.

Given Iran’s bad experience with western collaboration for decades, becoming independent of external sources may be of utmost importance for the country. Western powers may be well-advised of eventually building trust and confidence in offering honest and constructive international cooperation. So are the rulers in Tehran.

Norwegian Hubris

When the Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) endowed his award for peace in 1895 he had a person in mind “who shall have done the most of the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” In contrast to the awards in science, medicine and literature (and, since 1969, economics) which are presented in Stockholm, the peace price and its laureate’s lecture are traditionally presented at the annual Prize Award Ceremony in Oslo, Norway. In 1895, Sweden and Norway were still in union and Sweden was responsible for foreign politics. When formulating his will, Nobel felt that the Peace Prize might be less subject to political corruption if awarded by Norway.

The Norwegian Parliament appoints the Norwegian Nobel Committee which selects each year’s Laureate for the Peace Prize. Nominations are invited from qualified people around the world. Nominations must be submitted to the Committee by February 1. That means that  there was a deadline about 10 days after this year’s Laureate Barack Obama had been sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America. However, nominations by committee members can be submitted up to the date of the first committee meeting. most probably, Barack Obama was nominated by a member of the committee. This year’s committee consists of the chairman Thorbjørn Jagland (President of the Norwegian Parliament, member since 2009, b. 1950) and four women, Kaci Kullmann Five (b. 1951), Sissel Marie Rønbeck (b. 1950), Inger-Marie Ytterhorn (b. 1941), and Ågot Valle (member since 2009, b. 1945).

This year, a record of 205 nominations have been submitted to the committee, but names of nominees are generally not revealed to the public. Among individuals whose name appeared as possible nominees was brave Mehdi Karroubi, the defeated opposition candidate in Iran’s disputed June 12 election who debunked the scandal of torture and rape of detained protesters in Iranian prisons. This initiative of activists came definitely too late when considering the strict rules for nominations. His Iranian fellow, lawyer and peace activist Shirin Ebadi made it in 2003. Her Peace Prize is one of the most precious awards ever, since her continuing work for freedom and her selfless legal assistance for political and religious dissidents in Iran has saved innumerable lives so far.

Even Barack Obama himself would probably have more welcomed a decision in favor of Chicago as the organizer of the 2016 Olympics than this grave honor, a burden for his future politics. While the rightists in the US are howling, even ridiculing Obama’s award it is clear that the Norwegian decision is based on unjustified expectations and naïve wish-full thinking. Putting the world’s tremendous problems on his agenda, which have been caused by the irresponsible foreign and domestic politics of Americas previous rulers is not worthy a Nobel Peace Prize, nor is giving, admittedly important, speeches. Credible and responsible diplomacy is a matter of course.

The award arouses the suspicion that, presently, there are no worthy alternatives (despite the record number of 205 nominees this year), accountable individuals or organizations working for peace with measurable results. If true (we don’t know Obama’s competitors though), this would in fact be very bad news in times of two not yet finished wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, apparently unsolvable conflicts in the Middle East, an ongoing crisis in and about Iran, and a global economic slowdown. Will Ben Bernanke be awarded the Economic Prize this year?

I rather believe that the committee in Oslo has not done its work properly. That the Nobel Peace Price should be awarded independent of potential political influence doesn’t mean that a committee of a tiny country in the northwestern corner of Europe may become big in politics.

So Much Hope

Today’s Peace Nobel Prize Committee’s decision to award Barrack Obama is absolutely irrational, premature, political.  It is a sensation, of course. Obama has not had the slightest chance yet to meet any of the huge expectations his election last year have generated all over the world after eight years of Bush and Cheney’s war against terror.  And even more after his historic speech in Cairo on the 4th of June, when he reached out for the Muslim world, only a few days before the Iranian election.

If he was really a great man he would certainly decline to accept the award now. He would rather recommend the Committee to re-nominate him next year when the world hopefully has witnessed some results of the promised politics of change: peace in the Middle East, the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Guantanamo closed down, diplomatic talks with Iran,  and further steps towards a world without the need for weapons of mass destruction.

If he was going to accept instead, he would have the obligation to accomplish his mission. May God help him to cope with this burden.

Geneva Talks

The talks of the five world powers and Germany (P5+1) and Iran will resume on October 19. One surprising result of the October 1 talks for the public was that Iran would probably be willing of letting Russia further enrich its low enriched uranium (LEU) from around 3.5-4% to 19.75%. Enrichment to this concentration is necessary for producing isotopes for medical purposes, specifically 99mTc, or technetium; this will be done in a small research reactor in Tehran (TRR). Most (if not all, as has been estimated by Geoffrey Forden at armscontrolwonk.com) of Iran’s stockpile of LEU would so get out of the country.

When US envoy Undersecretary of State William Burns briefed the White House on the talks, he revealed that Iran had contacted some time ago the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for solving its apparent problems. On the TRR, Burns explains:

“This is a research reactor which has been in operation in Tehran for decades, producing medical isotopes under strict IAEA safeguards. The last supply of fuel for this reactor, which is at roughly 19.75 percent LEU, was supplied by the Argentine government in the early 1990s and it’s going to run out in roughly the next year, year and a half.

Iran came to the IAEA a few months ago with the request to replace this supply. The IAEA consulted us and some others, some other members, and to make a long story short the United States and Russia joined together in a proposal to the IAEA which the IAEA subsequently conveyed as a response to the Iranians, to use Iran’s own LEU stockpile as the basis, as the feedstock for the reactor fuel that’s required.

This would then entail taking its LEU, which is enriched to about 3.5 percent, enriching it up to 19.75 percent in Russia, which the Russians have now publicly confirmed that they’re prepared to do, and then fabricating that into fuel assemblies which can be used at this safeguarded reactor, and the French have now confirmed their willingness to play that last role. Those are the basic details involved in the proposal. The potential advantage of this, if it’s implemented, is that it would significantly reduce Iran’s LEU stockpile which itself is a source of anxiety in the Middle East and elsewhere.

During our talks today the Iranians agreed to accept this proposal in principle, and there’s to be a meeting in Vienna on the 18^th of October, led by IAEA experts, to try to work out the details.”

According to Burns, the talks were direct and candid. He concludes that, “the significance of today was that Iran, having refused to talk about its nuclear program since July of 2008, engaged on that program today with the United States as a full participant. … [N]o one expected that one day would allow us to resolve international concerns about Iran’s nuclear program, but I think today was a first step in what is bound to be a difficult process.”

As the Ambassador to the IAEA Ali Ashgar Soltanieh admitted today in an interview with BBC’s Stephen Sackur on HARDtalk, Iran’s recently revealed second uranium enrichment site near Qom has been planned for contingency reasons after massive threats especially in 2007 by the Bush-Cheney administration and Israel to bomb the enrichment Natanz which is safeguarded by IAEA. Even if one has to admit that Iran’s nuclear ambitions have never been transparent (which is hoped to change soon), this is only another example for counterproductive politics avoiding or even fearing diplomacy but rather go for war.

IAEA Estimates

Last month, a couple of days before Tehran had to admit the existence of a so far clandestine new nuclear site near Qom, I had expressed my concerns about the release of declassified information on Iran’s controversially disputed nuclear program while, at the same time, rumors are spread that classified parts, for example of the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) may state something else. The declassified part of the NIE had claimed that Iran has, with moderate confidence, not resumed its military nuclear program which has, with high confidence, existed since 2003.

In their recent report on Iran, which has been derestricted September 9, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) again pointed at length to a possible military dimension of Iran’s nuclear program. The Agency has been accused, in particular by France and Israel, that a draft document, dealing with respective allegations has not been included in the official report. On Friday last week, certain excerpts of a lengthy document leaked and were immediately posted on the web page of the Institute for Scientific Information and Security (ISIS).

The news (if they are new; most of the so-called Alleged Studies are related to the infamous laptop which has been smuggled out of the country by the wife of an Iranian, who had been recruited by a German intelligence service; its content has become public in 2005 but was regarded faked by Tehran) may indeed be worrying. According to the excerpts of the circulating, though not approved, documents, the IAEA has gathered information that the Ministry of Defense of Iran has conducted and still may be conducting a comprehensive program aimed at the development of a nuclear payload for the Shahab 3 missile (one immediately remembers the provocative tests by Iran a few days before the Geneva talks). As mentioned already in the concluding remarks of the previous IAEA report on Iran, this information seems to be generally consistent since it originates from several Member States (of the NPT) and the IAEA’s own investigations.  The leaked paper says, inter alia:

“From the documents presented by a number of Member States and the Agency’s own activities, it is possible to assess that in early 2002 Iran formally declared the start of its warhead development programme, which very likely comprised at least two projects under the leadership and auspices of the Ministry of Defence – Project 111 and Project 110. Project 111 was to design the inner cone of the Shahab 3 missile re-entry vehicle and the production of an explosives operation control set (ECS). Project 110 was to produce the contents of the spherical warhead payload. The Agency assesses that the development work to design a suitable chamber inside the re-entry vehicle is intended to accommodate a new warhead payload that is quite likely to be nuclear.

“Information received from a Member State indicates a round, semi-round and semi-sperical shock generator for which an EBW (exploding bridge wire) detonator is being developed. It is said that the shock generator was fired in field test conditions with one detonator using a firing cable.

“The significance of the information is that Iran may have developed an effective high explosive implosion system, which could be contained within a payload container believed to be small enough to fit into the re-entry body chamber of the Shahab 3 missile.

“It is believed that Iran has developed exploding bridgewire detonators and associated electronic high voltage firing systems. The Agency assesses that Iran has managed to develop a high explosive industry capable of synthesizing and formulating the raw materials into explosive compositions and that could be used in a nuclear weapon. It is very likely that Iran has the required engineering skills to machine explosives into the weapon components. It is assessed that Iran has succeeded in combining its detonator development work with other related studies to manufacture a relatively compact high explosives initiation system that has probably been tested with comprehensive diagnostic equipment.”

According to this leaked information, the IAEA assesses that Iran has sufficient information to design and build a crude nuclear weapon.

“The Agency assesses that Iran has conducted studies relating to the aspects necessary to incorporate a device into a conventional delivery system such as the Shahab 3 missile. Further studies on payload integration are also accompanied by the electronic engineering studies to produce an arming and fuzing system. From the evidence presented to the Agency it is possible to suggest that, for the Shahab 3 delivery system, Iran has conducted R&D (research and development) into producing a prototype system. However, further work is necessary to manufacture a more robust unit capable of producing an airburst fuzing option that would function both safely and reliably.

“Overall the Agency does not believe that Iran has yet achieved the means of integrating a nuclear payload into the Shahab 3 missile with any confidence that it would work. Nonetheless, with further effort it is likely that Iran will overcome problems and confidence will be built up.”

Thus, the leaked excerpts conclude with a sense of grim humor. Reading this makes immediately clear why the official IAEA report of August 27 does not further entertain such speculations which seem to be irrelevant as long as the 2007 NIE has not been undergone a thorough revision. This revision may be overdue, since British, German, and, of course Israeli intelligence comes to different conclusions about the existence of a military nuclear program in Iran.

The leakage may highlight a tough power struggle within the IAEA between the Department of Safeguards which has drafted the respective paper and the Department of External Relations and Policy Coordination. Outgoing Director General ElBaradei might favor the stance of the latter. It is noteworthy that the leakage to ISIS (most probably via Olli Heinonen, the Director General’s Deputy for Safeguards) has just happened when ElBaradei had left Vienna for visiting the rulers in Tehran for scheduling a first IAEA inspection of the Qom site.

Qom

The suspected new nuclear site (Fig. 1) near Qom is located about 9 km southeast of Daryacheh-ye Howz-e Soltan, a pretty circular salt pan with an eight-km diameter; and 25 km northeast to the outskirts of Iran’s holy city of Qom. The site on the northeastern foothills of a small mountain ridge seems to be rather small. Satellite imagery from Google Earth (of March 2005) shows two buildings, probably tunnel entrances and some earth rubble, probably from tunnel excavations.

In the meantime, new satellite imagery by DigitalGlobe of September 2009 (Fig. 2) provides evidence for considerable construction activity. A comparison of the new site with that located between Kashan and Natanz, about 150 km southeast, shows the difference in sizes (Fig. 3). While much of it is in fact underground, the visible parts of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility (in fact easily visible from the nearby highway to Esfahan) are heavily fortified. It covers an area of about four square kilometers.

Fig. 1 Google Earth satellite imagery indicates (a) Iran; (b) Central Iran with the huge Daryacheh-ye Namak (the triangular white spot) and the smaller circular Daryacheh-ye Howz-e Soltan in the center of the image; (c) Daryacheh-ye Howz-e Soltan embedded in mountain ridges at the outskirts of Dasht-e Kavir, Iran’s Great Salt Desert; (d) the suspected new nuclear site (the bar corresponds to 10 km); (e) the site in 2005 (the bar corresponds to 100 m).

Fig. 2 Recent satellite imagery of the suspected new nuclear site near Qom.

 

Fig. 3 Differences in sizes of the suspected new nuclear site near Qom (a) and the uranium enrichment facility near Natanz (b). The bar corresponds to 1 km.

 

Not Everybody’s Darling

 

The original sources for the detailed descriptions of legends and fairy tales which circulate among both ordinary people in the Islamic world and, for example, Sufis since Muhammad’s and his followers’ conquest of much of the world have never been described in a scientific way. When reading, for instance, Eliot Weinberger’s Muhammad (Verso, London 2006), which is, according to the author, mainly based on the Holy Qur’an and ahadīth, or the traditions of the Prophet, one may ask the question how many generations of people have, over the centuries, embellished so nicely the historical facts (?) so that an attractive legend was created which fascinates even sober, contemporary Westerners, the main target audience of Weinberger’s nice booklet.    

Allah’s Darling (or Allahs Liebling, the original title of the book which has, so far, been published only in German) is the attempt of the renowned German Orientalist Tilman Nagel, a professor emeritus of the University of Göttingen, to explain the origins and manifestations of the belief in the founder of Islam, Muhammad. The book is sort of a spin-off of Nagel’s opus maximum, his voluminous biography of the Prophet, mainly praised but also heavily criticized by others.

When having read the subtitle of “Allah’s Darling” (“Ursprung und Erscheinungsformen des Mohammedglaubens”), I was wondering whether the author wants to make the point that Islam is not an extreme form of monotheism, as claimed in particular by Sunni Muslims, but rather that Muslims are “Mohammedans”, a pretty frivolous, Orientalist, conception. He frankly admits that everyone who would undertake the task of highlighting the circumstances under which a faith could emerge which was essentially based on prefabricated “eternal” knowledge, ever-valid for any area of life; a faith in an ever-competent messenger of Allah, would inevitably face the “foolish” charge of Orientalism or Essentialism. He may be right, but whether the charge is in fact foolish was not clear to me after having read the book.

The seemingly sound construction of what one may describe as the House of Islam is, however, not different from that of other, older, world religions. That, after the Age of Enlightenment, fundamentalist Christianity, for instance, has largely (unfortunately not entirely, though) been repelled in modern, determined secular, societies may have something to do with the foundation of Christianity as the author correctly claims, but not with its Church(es), as it (they) developed in century-long processes, with its (their), for example, heated arguments regarding the “nature” of Jesus, the World’s Redeemer; or strange beliefs in the Virgin Mary. There is no difference in overall absurdity. It is self-evident that, in order to write a credible, in particular scientific, treatise or even book on one of the world religions authors should make clear in the very beginning that they are not religious! That is unfortunately not the case here.   

Several times Nagel points to the huge problems of Integrationspolitik, i.e. how Muslims may be integrated in Western societies. He stresses that the time and again overpowering (erdrückende) majority of Muslims still live their fatalism due to strong beliefs in the believer’s general inability of getting hold of his own lives. For Nagel it seems to be clear that Mohammedanism should be regarded the main reason for the widely observed (in comparison) developmental retardation in Islamic societies. His plenty arguments, however, are taken from medieval authors commenting on ahadīth [1]; notoriously unreliable, as it becomes clear time and time again in Nagel’s narrative. The realm of medieval Islam (note, that the Middle Ages describe the dark ages of European cultures and societies when, at the same time, the Islamic world was bright and pretty enlightened) was huge, though, and spanned from Spain to Central Asia, from North Africa to parts of India. Islam, as Nagel describes it using accounts of numerous medieval authors, Andalusian, Cairene, Damascene, or Iranian [2], is not, and never has been, a monolithic entity. There are four prominent Sunni schools of fiqh, or Islamic jurisprudence, and two schools for the Shi’a, which are not covered in Nagel’s book.

In his epilogue, Nagel concludes with the description of his pretty unjustified dismay about the publication of now, since in 1981, eight volumes of Muhammad. Encyclopedia of Seerah (The Muslim Schools Trust, London, 2^nd ed. 1985), clearly a sort of personality cult. He might not even be aware of comparably voluminous works of contemporary authors about Shi’a Imams with a similar, of course questionable, approach [3]. That currently by the majority of the faithful practiced Islam won’t fit into a rapidly changing, now again flat, world with its traffic, world wide web, demands of intercultural competence etc, is commonplace. Professor Nagel acknowledges, in the preface of Allahs Liebling, one of his co-workers for introducing him to and solving emerging problems with electronic data processing. So, even he might not have arrived yet in modern times.

 

Notes

[1] When introducing the reader to his text, Nagel describes the pretty bizarre “fly” hadīth: The Prophet once narrated: “If a fly falls into one of your containers (of food or drink), immerse it completely (falyaghmis-hu kullahu) before removing it, for under one of its wings there is venom and under another there is its antidote.” The purpose here is clearly defamatory, not realizing that Christian salvation history is full of similar absurdities, not mentioning the Jewish Tanakh.

[2] As regards the latter, I am not even sure. Iran, a center of medieval Islam, seems not to be covered at all. Moreover, Nagel rarely informs the reader about the specific background of the authors he extensively quotes: the historical circumstances during the periods they lived when they created their scriptures. That, of course, raises questions about the targeted audience. Is it politicians, a lay audience? The book is not a reference text. In contrast to his claims, I would not even regard it a sound scientific study. Too copious, even biased, in its descriptions of absurdities (see [1]) which may have led eventually to his (or our) perceived totalitarian Mohammedanism of the Islamic world.

[3] I own, for instance, an English translation by Jasim al-Rasheed of the 1926 book by Baqir Sharif al-Qarashi’s The life of Imam Ali bin Musa al Rida; Ansariyan Publications, Qum 2001, which was a personal gift by Kuwaiti Shi’ites on the occasion of their pilgrimage to the Holy Shrine of Imam Ridha in Mashhad in 2006, when I was invited to join the group. Much of Nagel’s descriptions of the Prophet’s reported excellence, for example of his physics, his manners, his generosity etc., which elevated him from ordinary people, may be found in the description of Imam Ridha as well. It would have been even more interesting to study the deeply rooted piety of ordinary, say, Iranian people in rural areas, including their legends and personality cults as regards Ali, Husayn, the numerous Imami Shi’a Saints, etc. In particular ahadīth related to Ali, the Nahj al-Balagha, may prove that Allah may have just another darling besides Muhammad.