They Deceive, and to Appease God, they Pray

Islamic Republic’s Most Famous Maddahs
having a Birthday Party

I had attempted to describe what a Maddah is, in a previous post and the nearest equivalent I could find was panegyrist or a eulogist with the added explanation that they have good voices and they sing/recite and praise the Shiite saints during the frequent Shiite mourning anniversaries.

They should be pious people, they certainly wear their piety on their sleeves to the extreme during their performances. As always from my personal experience, those who go the extra mile to display their piety to the public, arise my suspicions and my alarm bells start ringing. I find the most genuine spiritual people are those who keep their spirituality to themselves and find no need to show off with it. Iranian poet Hafiz has a famous poem on this topic:

On the pulpit, preachers, goodness display
Yet in private, they have a different way.
I have a question to ask of the learned in our midst
Why Confession-Priests, their own repentance delay.
Perhaps they don't believe in Judgement Day
They deceive, and to appease God, they pray

The mannerism of the Maddahs suggests they are nothing but louts making a few bob on the back of people’s religious beliefs. Today an audio file has been doing the rounds in the Iranian cyberspace. The audio file description posted on youtube suggests it is a secret recording of a famous Maddah [doesn’t name him] in a private party. The content of the audio, on a richter scale of vulgarness, is the maximum it can ever be. It is so vulgar that it may embarrass the listener for just listening to it even in private solitary.

The Maddah who sounds very much like Haj Saeed Haddadian, seen on the right in the photo above, makes the most vulgar jokes about the clerics, Iran’s ethnic groups, women and even the most sacred Shiite figures. It is like a Bernard Manning stand up to the power of ten mixed with some excellent singing voice which again sounds very much like the same old Haj Saeed Haddadian, one of Supreme Leader’s favourite Maddahs.

The question many people often ask, how much of that genuine pure religious and ideological convictions in the early days of the revolution remains after three decades of the Islamic Republic? The answer seems to be very little; even amongst the most “pious” pillars of the establishment.