Hazhir Teimourian - Middle East Analyst and Commentator
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What's in a name?

A BBC World Service production for 'The World', Boston, USA, 17th April 1997

I owe my name to a shameful act of treason, although, I must admit, 600 years ago, when this particular despicability occurred, a man, particularly if you were a Kurdish tribal chief, could commit treason several times before breakfast and not raise any eyebrow. Pragmatism, you'll agree, wasn't invented in our time!

According to my father, who still lives in those harsh mountains of the Kurds in the Middle East, one of our ancestors heard that a warlord called Teimour The Lame, Tamberlane to YOU, from the land of the Mongols and Turks and Tartars, was heading for our region and didn't like anyone who wanted to negotiate. On his way in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, he had just built a minaret out of the skulls of the inhabitants.

So, what do you do? My ancestor decided to what we now call "damage limitation".. Tamberlane was just another plague or famine or earthquake, and God sent such things down to stop us going soft. He therefore resolved to banish all thought of resistance and – not only that – he sent word to the scourge of the Earth that a great feast awaited him, would he please hurry!

But, of course, Tamberlane saw through my ancestor's cowardice and, when he arrived, he told his hordes to do as they pleased, as usual: just don't massacre them, they're more useful as live servants than dead corpses.

During the feast itself, as my ancestor trembled and watched for signs that Tamberlane might think our food not oily enough or our women too ugly, news came that he, my ancestor, had had a son. So he stood up and announced in honour of the Conqueror of the World that the new boy would be called Teimour. After that, the name Teimour gradually became rather common in our region.

Now, although I do descend, directly or not, from that little Teimour boy, I owe my surname to a more RECENT Teimour with whom I share no genes. This is because until about 70 years ago, the citizens of Iran didn't have surnames at all. We were known by our first names, for example: Hazhir. And if someone asked 'which Hazhir?', you'd reply: 'Oh, Hazhir of Daaraa', Daaraa being Hazhir's father. And if the man still asked 'Which Daaraa?', you could reply: 'Daaraa of Well Street, or Three Oaks Road', or whatever the place.. By the way, my first name Hazhir is nothing special. My father once came across an ancient villa on a mountain-top in the heartland of Kurdistan called Hazhir's castle, and had taken a fancy to the name. It had been a summer retreat of the Sasanian emperors of Persia, but Arab invaders had destroyed it in the seventh century as part of their wholesale destruction of Iran.

So, how did we become known as the Teimourians, which means a sort of 'Teimourson'? This is a little sad, I'm afraid. In the late nineteenth century, another Kurd by the name of Teimour, said certain things which the Muslim hierarchy of Iran didn't like at all. So they took him away to Tehran, the capital, in chains and there they beheaded him. Before that, however, he chose my great grandfather to be his spiritual successor. As a result, my family became rebellious and, when, half a century later, the government ordered everyone to adopt surnames to make the life of the secret police easier, we chose the poor old man's name for our collective address. The family also became a focus of admiration for some people and they sent me, my father's eldest son, to England to study 'IN THE WEST' and get the chance to talk to you about my NAME! Ah, well, even beheadings can have a silver linings. "Let's look on the bright side of life"!

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