Chapter 1

Davud [the Islamic variant of David] Azizi and his mother, Sarah, were sitting at the breakfast bar of their home drinking coffee and smiled at each other. They had just finished planning the dream vacation Sarah had hoped to go on before her husband died of complications from Covid-19. Sarah and her husband left Iran in January of 1979 when the Iranian Revolution began. They vowed to return and visit their beloved Tehran one day, Unfortunately, Sarah would be making the trip with her only child, Davud instead,

Davud felt a deep sense of duty and love for his mother and vowed when his father died that he would take care of his mother as long as she lived. Davud was born in the United States and had never been to the land of his heritage. Although Muslim, neither he nor his mother were very religious. Davud was American and was proud to have served in the U. S. Navy.

He enlisted in the Navy and because of a high aptitude for electronics, was trained to calibrate the weapons, guidance, and avionics systems on fighter jets. Shortly before his enlistment was up, he was headhunted for a unique job: calibrating sensitive medical equipment like EKG, EEG，heart monitoring equipment, digital IV dispensers, and other medical testing equipment even the big X-ray, MRI and CAT scanning machines in hospitals and remote sites. Like the military’s expectations, one cannot make a mistake in calibrating this equipment because peoples’ lives depended on it. It could mean the difference between life or death. The pay was out of sight. After three years in the field, he was making $218K per year.

He bought a house in Baltimore county for a steal at a tax auction for pennies on the dollar. The house sat on an acre of land and was an old manor home built in 1924. The house had 4,210 square feet of living pace with six bedrooms and 3.5 bathrooms. He and his mom put a lot of money into renovating the house including adding a 2,000 square foot in-law suite for his mom to live in with some privacy. The property came with an inground pool and a cabana. They paid $180K for the property, and after renovations and modernization, the place was valued at $1.3 million, but he would never sell.

Now that the renovations on the home were complete, and they had put away a nice nest egg, they planned on taking a two-week sightseeing excursion to Tehran and some other historic sites. Davud had just finished making the airline reservations. They would leave on Monday, June 1^st, and return on Wednesday, June 19^th: a stay of 2½ weeks. They would fly from BWI to Frankfurt on US Airways, then board a connecting flight on Austrian Airlines into Tehran. Total flight time, 17½ hours. They would be packing light clothing. The average June temperatures in Tehran was a high of 94°F and a low of 72°F.

The fashion police were notorious in Iran, so, Davud would be wearing long pants and long sleeve shirts. Sarah would wear popular, stylish pants, including skinny jeans and long blouses, but had to wear a light cotton overcoat called a “Manteau” [long coat]. This is the updated, stylish replacement for the chador or the traditional black, neck-to-ankle Muslim gown, topped off with a head veil.

They would be staying at the Palace Espinas Hotel, a five-star luxury hotel that included a luxury beauty spa Sarah was looking forward to experiencing. The exchange rate for Iranian Rials was ridiculous. One USD was equal to 42,250 Iranian Rial. A one-night stay in an Iranian five-star hotel was $46 per night.

Davud and Sarah did a lot of investigation before making their reservations. First, when speaking of currency, both U.S. credit and debit cards were useless in Iran. So were U. S travelers checks. Iran now offered an Iranian credit card that could be used in Iran. They planned on using it for the hotel related charges, meals, and entry fees to historic sites. For shopping, it was advised to use U. S. dollars. For a two-week stay, it was recommended to take about three thousand dollars in cash, buthey opted to each take five thousand dollars.

It was no longer necessary to go to the Pakistani Embassy to obtain a visitor’s visa to Iran, Iran now has an online visa site called E-Visa. You fill out an online application, pay the fee and receive a Grant Notice within two days. Upon arriving at the airport in Tehran, present the grant notice and get it stamped. Voila, you have your visa. Now, all they needed was to board the plane and begin their dream vacation.

⸟

Their flight left BWI at 7:30am, so they needed to be at the airport by 6am. They connected in Frankfurt, Germany and arrived at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport at 7:15pm local time. They arrived at the hotel at 9:30pm and the staff was excellent: cordial, and extremely helpful.

The next morning, they ate breakfast at the Sunset Café in the hotel and joined a tour that spent the day at the Golestan Palace. The walled Palace, one of the oldest groups of buildings in Teheran, became the seat of government of the Qajar family, which came into power in 1779 and made Teheran the capital of the country. Built around a garden featuring pools as well as planted areas was the Palace’s most characteristic features and rich ornaments. They returned to the hotel around 6pm, and again ate at the hotel using the Iranian credit card.

The following day was “tower day.” They visited two famous towers in Tehran. First, the Azadi Tower, formerly known as the Shahyad Tower, is a monument located on Azadi Square in Tehran, Iran. It is one of the landmarks of Tehran, marking the west entrance to the city, and is part of the Azadi Cultural Complex, which also includes an underground museum. It was commissioned by Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran, to mark the 2,500th year of the foundation of the Imperial State of Iran and completed in 1971. The second tower was Milad Tower, also known as the Tehran Tower. The tower is a part of the International Trade and Convention Center of Tehran, which also includes a five-star hotel, a convention center, a world trade center, and an IT park. They finished the day with an early evening swim in the indoor pool and then dinner.

The third day, a heat wave blew in and the high for the day was expected to break 105°F. They visited the Treasury of National Jewels, a museum in Iran. It reopened to the public in 1992 after years of being removed from view. Affiliated with the Central Bank of Iran, it stores and exhibits the Iranian National Jewels as their legal custodian. In the 1930s, the collection grew so valuable that it was used as a reserve for the currency of Iran and is today considered one of world’s famous collections of diamonds and other jewels. Since the temperature was supposed to drop to a more comfortable 90 degrees, they spent the rest of the day lounging around the pool and planning their visit to the Grand Bazaar the next morning putting together a possible shopping list for souvenirs.

After breakfast the next morning, they set out to the Grand Bazaar of Tehran. The Tehran Grand Bazaar is about twenty square kilometers [7.75 square miles], has over 200,000 vendors. It is split into several corridors over 10 kilometers [12.42 miles] in length, each specializing in different types of goods, and has several entrances, with Sabze-Meydan being the main entrance. Some claim it is the largest bazaar in the world. Its history goes back thousands of years when this location was used as a marketplace.

Sarah bought a couple of beautiful silk headscarves and a small intricately designed jewelry box. Inside the Tehran Bazaar, almost in the center of the trapezoidal-shaped shopping district is the Qaem Shopping Mall. Outside the mall is a plaza-like open area. As they strolled and took in the goings on, they were watching some sort of event in the open plaza in front of the shopping center when they saw signs that said it as a “marriage fair.”

In one section of the plaza, there were tables where fathers sat with their daughters dressed in traditional Iranian garb waiting to meet and speak with possible suitors. In another section, it looked like they had this area set up for what is commonly now called “speed dating.” Men would move from table to table after chatting with a father-chaperoned female for several minutes. What soon became obvious, was that the vast majority of females were very young girls, some looked as young as nine or ten.

What was happening Davud, and Sarah would later learn was the auctioning off of daughters for a bargained Mahr [mah-HAR] or bride price. The Mahr is the obligation, in the form of money or possessions paid by the groom, to the bride at the time of Islamic marriage [payment also has circumstances on when and how to pay]. This is the only possession the bride has that is hers she takes from the marriage. While the mahr is often money, it can also be anything agreed upon by the bride such as jewelry, home goods, furniture, a dwelling, or some land. Mahr is typically specified in the marriage contract signed upon marriage. But, since the father is the guardian and has total control over un underaged girl, he is in control of the Mahr and often pockets the money for personal gain.

What Davud and Sarah were unknowingly watching at the time was the sale of young girls for profit. In 2019, the highest share of child marriages in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region were in Iran at about 21.4 percent of the total from all girls from all countries. The legal age for a girl to marry in Iran is 13 — younger with the permission of the father or male guardian and a judge. According to the Statistics Center of Iran, the marriage rate of girls aged 10-14 the previous year increased by 10.5 percent compared to 2019. The Statistics Center of Iran reported that about 5 percent of all the registered marriages in Iran in 2020 involved children under the age of 15.

Easily available loans provided by state-owned banks to cover marriage expenses are resulting in a huge surge in child marriages in Iran — a country that already has large numbers of girls being married off by their parents at age 13 and younger. Speaking to the state-run Iran Labor News Agency (ILNA) on December 29, 2019, a member of parliament Tayebeh Siavoshi, said, “Since the amount of marriage loan has reached 600 million rials (roughly $5,000 based on free market rate), the number of applicants planning to marry under-fifteen-year-old partners, compared with two years ago, shows an almost ninety-fold growth in the past five months.” Even though girls from age 13 (and younger) and boys from age 15 are legally able to marry in Iran and therefore qualify for the loans, the money is paid out to their parents, who by law are still their legal guardians until they reach 18, unless one of the couple is emancipated. This has created a huge opportunity for impoverished parents to marry off their children for financial gain.

Both Sarah and Davud spoke Farsi, but Sarah, being raised in Iran, also could read Farsi and she pointed to an area where bank representatives were arranging bank loans to cover the agreed Mahr contracts for marriages. The last section was an area with a stage. A sign near the steps read that legal marriages were being performed by Qadi [KAH-dee] Bashir Hussein. There was also a court clerk who would legally register the marriage with the government authorities and issue a marriage license. A Qadi is the magistrate or judge of a Sharia court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions, such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and minors.

Sarah and Davud were standing about ten feet in front of the stage, and Sarah was filming the wedding that was being conducted. When it finished, the couple stepped to the clerk and when the next couple was about to take the stage, a man pulling a very small girl up the steps pushed his way past the couple. He dragged the girl to the center of the stage and shoved her down, slapping the back of her head and pushing her head to the floor.

The man shouted out “Who will give me a bid for my daughter? She turned fifteen today.”

Someone in the audience shout out, “She’s blind; she can’t even hear or speak. What good is she except to spread her legs!”

The crowd laughed. Another shouted out, “Take your daughter home and forget about marrying her off. No one will buy such a useless girl.”

The Qadi started to move towards the man, but he pulled a dagger-like knife from a sheath on his belt inside his coat. He grabbed the girl by the hair and scarf yanking her head back, she cried out and he set the knife at her throat. He said, “If no one will make a legitimate offer, I will slit her throat. She has brought disgrace upon me, and I will reclaim my honor. She has cost me every penny I have for her care, even losing my job to care for her. If no one wants her, then she is as worthless as a dead dog.”

The qadi started to step towards the man and he turned to look at him. When he did, the knife grazed the girls throat and it started to seep blood. The deranged man said, “Stay there or I’ll slit her throat. I will do it!”

The girl, feeling the blade, yelped a high-pitched sound. He looked down, saw the blood seeping from the wound and said, “Last chance. Someone make me an offer, any offer.”

Sarah saw Davud start to move out of the corner of her eye, and whispered, “Davud, please.”

She had been filming the scene from the beginning using her cellphone. One man in the audience said, “Either slit her throat of get off the stage, you’re ruining the weddings.”

Davud saw the man’s hand tighten around the handle as he started to move his hand to set the knife at the far-left side of her throat. That’s when David shouted out. “I’ll give you a bid.”

Sarah turned, looked at him and said, “Huh!?”

The man pulled the knife back and asked, “What say you? What are you offering?”

“I will give you,” Davud offered, “One hundred dollars U.S. cash [4,225,000 rial] right now.”

“Make it two hundred and you marry her right now and you can have the girl.”

“Done. Two hundred dollars U.S. [8,450,000 rial].” Davud replied as he walked to the stage and said, “Give Qadi Hussein the knife.”

Qadi Hussein stepped forward and gently took the knife from the man’s hand. He asked the man, “What is your name?”

The man replied, “Daoud Assad, Imam.”

By then, Davud was onstage and going to the girl. He asked Qadi, “Please write up a legal Nikkah [marriage contract], I will attend to the girl.” Qadi Hussein nodded, and asked, “What is your name, Sir?”

Davud replied, “Davud Azizi., Qadi Hussein.”

Qadi took the man to the clerk’s table. Davud pulled his shirt tail from his pants and tore the bottom of it off. He stepped to the girl, and she panicked and swung blindly in his direction, hitting him square in the left cheek. He wrapped his arms around her to hold her. She was so small; he wrapped his left arm around and held her while he used his right hand and gently wipe the blood from her neck, and then tenderly stroked the side of her face.

Whoa! Who is THIS!? I’ve never been touched like this in my life!

She frantically started to sniff, like a dog would when encountering a stranger. She stopped and froze. She felt the soft hand against her cheek, leaned into it and melted. She made a soft sound and leaned into his hand, pressing her cheek into his hand. She made whimpering sounds but was quiet in his arms.