Rúzí ke dúr níst // Not Too Far Off

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-xbRRUB41Y

Mona Majid and Charlotte Koonce

Musical Crossroads: Midterm Presentation Transcript

Spring 2024

Charlotte: Our project is a newly composed piece to be sung in the Persian language. I am the composer and Mona will sing the piece. We are grateful to have the expert help and guidance of Niloufar Nourbakhsh to help us with text setting as well as gaining a deeper understanding of the poem that we chose.

Mona: I had the idea to commission a song in Persian last year when I saw a student composer with a Persian name seeking collaborators for commission projects. My mother is from Iran and I wanted to do something different and connect with my heritage despite not speaking much Persian. I also happen to be a member of the Baha’i Faith, which is a persecuted religious minority in Iran. The persecution of Baha’is is the reason why I have never visited Iran and why my mother has not returned to her homeland since the Islamic Revolution. I wanted to find lyrics for the song based on a poet who is female or from a religious minority. I also wanted a poem that had a theme of justice or an element of hopefulness. I read the works of a number of poets before I decided on the poetry of Mahvash Sabet. Not only was she a member of the Baha'i religious minority, but she had also been imprisoned for ten years as a prisoner of conscience for her beliefs. I knew that through the global Baha’i community a book of poems that she had written (titled “Prison Poems”) had been published in the USA in English. I read through this selection and selected the poem “Not too far off” for its theme of hope for the future. The composer I originally wanted to work with unfortunately dropped out of Longy, but through meeting Niloufar and finding out that Charlotte (with whom I have had the pleasure of working with previously) was also in this class, I had a new opportunity to revive this project with the help and guidance of a native Persian speaker and fellow Iranian woman.

For background and context I will share just a little bit about my faith which is a religious minority in Iran. The Baha’i Faith has its origins in Iran in the 19th century. There is generally always persecution when a new religion is founded and the Baha’i Faith is no exception. The prophet-founder Bahá’u’lláh was imprisoned and exiled from His homeland, and His followers have continued to face opposition from clerics and officials in the country of His birth. The core principles of the Bahá’í Faith are the oneness of God, the oneness of religion, and the oneness of humanity, and the goal of the Baha’i community is to work for peace and for the betterment of mankind. 

Charlotte: In 1906, the Iranian Constitutional Revolution yielded a constitution void of provisions protecting freedom of worship. That framework set the precedent for potential religious persecution. Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic following the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Bahá’í’ community has been systematically persecuted. Their constitution denies them protection as well as simultaneously denying them the right to organize, profess or practice their religion. Further, they are barred from university education, employment, and public services (Human Rights Watch, 1993). Community organizers and general public alike face eviction from their homes, confiscation of property, torture, random arrest, and execution. 

One particularly horrific example of this persecution is the 10 women of Shiraz. In 1983, 10 young Baháʼí women were executed in the middle of the night in Shiraz after months in prison.  

In 1991, a formal directive was established by the Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council and endorsed by Iran's Supreme Leader, mandating that the government should hinder the advancement and growth of the Bahá'í community.

In May of 2008, intelligence agents from the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security arrested Mahvash Sabet and six others. Sabat was one of seven Baha’i leaders who responded to the new absence of Baha’i leadership with social and spiritual aid of their own. They called themselves “Yaran” or “Friends”. The Bahá'í Seven were placed in solitary confinement for months before gaining access to legal counsel. In 2010, they were convicted of charges of espionage, propaganda and sentenced to 20 years in prison.  Mahvash Sabet spent 10 years in prison 2008-2017. It was in that period that she wrote most of her poems. 

In July 2022, the Military of Intelligence carried out raids and arrested Bahá'í citizens across Iran. Sabat was among their targets. They simultaneously raided her home in Tehran, seizing possessions; notebooks, money, documents; and found her at a friend's house in north Iran while recovering from severe co-void. She was kept in solitary confinement for 42 two days before being sent to the women’s political-ideological ward of Evin Prison.

Mahvash Sabet. Source: https://www.pen-international.org/cases/mahvash-sabet

Mahvash Sabet is an educator, mother, community organizer, and poet. She lost her position in public education for being a Bahá'í and subsequently became a director at the Bahá'í Institute for higher education, an establishment devoted to providing Bahá'í youth with university access. shares the details of how her poems came to be in her memoirs.

 Following her arrest she wanted to write but had no means to physically record her ideas. She writes, “Having a pen became a fixation for me – where I might get hold of one, who might give me one, how I could get permission. I was so preoccupied with this need that I started looking for pens and seeing them everywhere. “ The “winking metal tip” she writes of was the tip of a pen. She shares that she was “giddy with joy”. She began writing the poems the best she could on tissues. Her first poems contained themes of joy; they soothed and lifted her heart. As time went on she began relaying her pain and hope in her poems in the hopes that it might bring hope to others as well. 

The process of recording the poems and getting them out of the prison was incredibly strenuous. Finally she found a way to sew her poems into a friend's jacket so that they could escape prison with her departure. This is how the world gained access to her words. 

Mona: I just wanted to share the text of the poem in English as I first found it, not because I think it’s an amazing translation, but because this is what led me to find and select this poem in the first place. In the foreword of the book “Prison Poems”, Ms. Nakhjavani explains that “This collection is called an adaptation rather than a true translation…[the poems] have been simplified to suit a clearer English style.” The text as I found it in the book was as follows: 

Though they still lie smothered, still lie wrapped in cobwebs, still slumbering the night out, these souls yearn for the sun.

 Their hearts cry out for the daylight, even as they rage against the black-out, longing for the warmth of a glance, for the brightness of a bending gaze, for the balm of healing hands after lights out. 

The day will come when the young among them

will flee from this jungle darkness and will run out to embrace the sun. 

That day's not too far off. 

After finding this poem I set out to find the original in Persian. I contacted a relative of Ms. Nakhjavani who passed along my inquiry, and then I was able to find another publisher who had released the original Persian poems. First I worked with Afghani student-composer Qudrat Wasefi and then was privileged to continue work with Niloufar Nourbakhsh to come up with a more accurate word-for-word translation and transliteration of the poem. 

Charlotte: Finally, I want to share a reflection I wrote while immersed in this project. As I attempted to synthesize the history of the Baháʼí Faith, Mavash Sabet’s story, her words and their subtext into some kind of compositional praxis, I began to notice an alarming pattern in my thinking and understanding. While digesting the research, I found myself gravitating towards a casual storytelling cadence, using phrases like "the story resumes with" or "that brings us to" – language reminiscent of a narrative tone found in storybooks. Recognizing this narrative framing set off alarm bells in my head and in my heart. It was as if I were softening the material, attempting to dissociate from the historical and ongoing horrors, and refusing to confront them in my own present reality. This automatic response signaled to me a potential inability to rationalize and empathize – a mental block hindering my understanding.

Music is a passage through that mental and emotional fog. Shared storytelling, telling a story like Mahvash Sabats in being a vehicle by which her story is processed through and reaching new ears, spaces, minds, and communities. That is an enormous, but precious responsibility. In reciting her words, learning her words in her language and familiarizing myself with that language in mine is where the passage begins to open and the weight of her reality starts to sink in. Feelings of unfairness and sympathy are replaced with grief and anger. With every reiteration of the text, the grief and anger deepen and grow more complex. Added are feelings of desperation for this light she describes, that grows more vivid with each re-iteration. It snowballs. It is one thing to stand for something and another to never be able to leave your feet. To stand for justice, peace, and fundamental human rights is easy. To stand for the eradication of religious prosecution, torture? So easy. But the shared storytelling process, the digging into each word, each feeling. It puts weight around your ankles and slowly ties you to the place you once stood simply because you knew it was right to do so. 

Works Cited

BERRY, ADAM. “THE BAHÁ’Í FAITH AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO ISLAM, CHRISTIANITY, AND JUDAISM: A BRIEF HISTORY.” International Social Science Review, vol. 79, no. 3/4, 2004, pp. 137–51. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41887188. Accessed 14 Mar. 2024.

Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Watch World Report 1993 - Iran, 1 January 1993, https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/hrw/1993/en/37330 [accessed 05 March 2024]

“Iran: Stop Ruthless Attacks on Persecuted Baha’i Religious Minority.” Amnesty International, 25 Aug. 2022, www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/08/iran-stop-ruthless-attacks-on-persecuted-bahai-religious-minority/. 

Khamenei, A. The Supreme Revolutionary Cultural Council. The Islamic Republic of Iran. (1991). Iranian Government Memorandum 1327 (included in: Final report on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran / by the Special Representative of the Commission on Human Rights, Reynaldo Galindo Pohl, pursuant to Commission resolution 1992/67 of 4 March 1992. Reynaldo Galindo Pohl. 

Mahmoudi, Hoda. “Freedom and the Iranian Women’s Movement.” Contexts, vol. 18, no. 3, 2019, pp. 14–19. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26766594. Accessed 14 Mar. 2024.

Sabet, Mahvash. “Prison Poems.” Edited by Bahiyyih Nakhjavani. Translated by Azita Mottahedeh, PEN Transmissions, English PEN, 10 Nov. 2023, pentransmissions.com/2023/09/20/prison-poems/. 

Sabeti, Kian. “A Baha’i Grandmother Starts Her Second Decade in Prison.” IranWire, 15 Mar. 2023, iranwire.com/en/bahais-of-iran/114799-a-bahai-grandmother-starts-her-second-decade-in-prison/. 

Sabet, Mahvash. Prison Poems. 2013.

Smith, Peter. A Concise Encyclopedia of the Bahá’í Faith. Oxford, England, Oneworld Publications, 2000. Mahvash Sabet. Source: https://www.pen-international.org/cases/mahvash-sabet

Rúzí ke dúr níst premiere

Songs of Longing and Persistence

Songs of Longing and Persistence is my humble attempt to share my experience of overcoming doubt and fear to turn my love of singing into an active dedication to the art of performing music.

Tonight’s program explores the spiritual meaning of love. The keystone of this program is the world premiere of Rúzí ke dúr níst, a new song in Persian composed by Charlotte Koonce, based on the poetry of Mahvash Sabet. Ms. Sabet is currently in prison in Iran because she is a member of the Baha’i Faith, a persecuted religious minority. I share Ms. Sabet’s faith and important aspects of heritage that run throughout my family background. The song is about hope, and her act of courage and fortitude in accepting imprisonment for her beliefs through her strong faith and her unfailing love for humanity.

Many are familiar with 1 Corinthians stating that “Love is patient, love is kind…It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” Similarly, in the Hidden Words, a Baha’i scripture, Baha’u’llah states that “For everything there is a sign. The sign of love is fortitude under My decree and patience under My trials.” As a Baha’i, I believe that all religions share the same spiritual teachings at their essence, and that the true purpose of faith is to foster genuine love, unity and understanding among people.

Part One of the program deals with the familiar aspect of longing that we associate with love. Longing is universal and needs no explanation. For three of the songs in this section, I have used the moon as a symbolic image of longing and a common motif running through all of them. Part One also begins with a famous Egyptian song as a tribute to my Arabic family heritage.

Part Two is dedicated to the ways that love shows up in practice as different qualities related to strength and perseverance. Each song represents one of these qualities: Loyalty, hopefulness, devotion, faith, fortitude, and courage. Our featured world premiere takes place in Part Two and honors my Iranian family heritage, as it will be sung in Persian.

I am beyond proud and grateful to have you here to experience this with me. Please accept this program as a sincere gift from the heart.

With love, Mona Celest Majid