The Books Khamenei Loved but Others Shouldn’t Read

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Reuters)
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Reuters)
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The Books Khamenei Loved but Others Shouldn’t Read

Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Reuters)
Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Reuters)

“Tell me which books you read, and I’ll tell you who you are!” That was how the late Iranian literary critic Mohit Tabatabai used to tease Tehran’s glitterati in the “good old days.” To be sure, the claim wasn’t based on any scientific study but empirical evidence showed that it wasn’t quite off the mark either. Books do offer an insight into the soul of a reader, provided he has a soul.

Thus, those interested in all things Iranian, especially in these exciting times, wouldn’t want to miss a new book on Iran’s “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei if only because it devotes a chapter to books that he loved as a young man.

The new book, a sort of biography, was originally written in Arabic under the title “En Ma’a al-Sabr Fathan” (Patience Leads to Victory), but has just come out in Persian translation under a pseudo-poetical title “The Drop of Blood That became a Ruby”. The “Supreme Guide” recalls his “passion for reading famous Iranian and world novels” and insists on “the deep impact” that reading novels had on him.

But what novels did the future “Supreme Guide” found especially captivating?

Top of Khamenei’s list are 10 of the cloak-and-dagger novels written by Michel Zevaco, the Corsican-French writer who helped popularize what the English call “penny-dreadful” romances in France.

Zevaco uses a simple formula: taking an historic character or event and fictionalizing it with a dose of page-turning pathos. Zevaco’s world is a universe of sex, violence, conspiracy and betrayal. In his best-selling novel “Borgia”, the head of the dreadful Borgia family that dominated Florentine politics in the medieval times, rapes his own sister Lucrece, a seductive blonde. The novel “Nostradamus” is a fictionalized biography of a roaming charlatan who claimed to read the future to gain money, power, sex and fame.

Zevaco’s most popular novels come in the series known as “Les Paradaillans” of which only two are translated into Persian.

Zevaco was an anarchist who edited the movement’s organ “Les Gueux” (The Beggars) and thus he aims at highlighting the corruption of European ruling classes. Ferocious anti-clerical, Zevaco regards organized religion as “the poison of the masses”. Some of his best writing is about the massacre of Huguenots (Protestant Christians) by the French King Charles IX under the influence of his shrewish mother Catherine of Medicis.

Khamenei’s next favorite novelist is Alexandre Dumas, another spinner of 19th century swashbuckling yarns, including the “Three Musketeers”, “The Count of Monte Cristo”, “Twenty Years Later” and, the gripping “Cagliostro” relating the adventures of Joseph Balsamo, another charlatan in search of sex, money and power. Dumas’s work has less sex, revenge and violence than Zevaco, but the two French authors share many similarities, especially when it comes to fast-paced adventures and unexpected reversals of fortune.

Another 19th century French novelist is Maurice Leblanc, best known for his “Arsene Lupin” series about a gentleman thief who robs gentlemen, a classic of escapist literature.

Leblanc’s work shares two features with the works of Zevaco and Dumas. The first is the creation of an alternative world as a fictionalized double for the real one. The second is the central hero’s disdain for codes and norms of established bourgeois morality.

Khamenei says that he also read “almost all Iranian novels” of the period.

At the time of Khamenei’s youth, Persian novel seldom went beyond imitations of French novels of the late 19th century with JK Huysmans, Emile Zola, Hector Malot and Anatole France as favorites.

Because Iranian intellectuals disliked the British, none bothered to translate major English novels until the 1950s and, in the case of American literature, until a decade later. For the average Iranian reader, young men like Khamenei, France was the world’s “Literary Superpower.” Russian literature was also little known, again partly because of Iranian elite’s dislike of Russia as an enemy of Persia for two centuries.

Curiously, all the Iranian novelists of the time Khamenei talks about chose women as central characters at a time that Iranian women were still treated as second class citizens.

Ali Dashti’s novel offers a heroin named “Fitneh” (Sedition) who decides to use her charms to move up the ladder in a world dominated by men.

Muhammad Hejazi’s heroin “Ziba” is equally charming and ruthless in pursuit of a place in a world that tries to shut women out.

Then we have “Shahrashub”(literally: the disturber of peace in the city) the heroin of Hossein-Qoli Mosta’an whose appetite for sex is as keen as that of the main male character Aqa-Bala Khan. Mosta’an’s other popular novel “Rabi’a” also has a woman as central character, but is set in medieval times.

Jawad Fadil’s “Yeganeh” is in a different register, a romantic tear-jerker about star-crossed lovers. But even there, it is the heroin “Yeganeh” (The Unique One) who captains the wayward ship of a forlorn love. Fadil’s second novel, “Sho’eleh” (The Flame), also has a woman as its central character but is more ambitious in literary terms.

Taghi Modaressi’s heroin “Yakolia” in the novel of the same title is the most literary of the works of that period with the added distinction of being set in Biblical times.

The best-selling novel of the latter-end of that period was Muhammad-Ali Afghani’s “Ahu Khanum’s Husband” which launched a nationwide debate on the status of women and was used as material for a feature film and a television series.

Khamenei says he loved and cherished all those books. Ironically, however, all the novels he devoured with great appetite are on a blacklist of books that “corrupt public morality and violate religious values”, established under President Muhammad Khatami in 1999. Iranians who are today the same age as Khamenei was in his youth cannot read the books he loved.



Syrians in Libya Struggle to Escape ‘Exile in Limbo’

A photo shows young Syrian men who drowned after their boat capsized off the coast of Libya. Credit: Rights activist Tarek Lamloum
A photo shows young Syrian men who drowned after their boat capsized off the coast of Libya. Credit: Rights activist Tarek Lamloum
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Syrians in Libya Struggle to Escape ‘Exile in Limbo’

A photo shows young Syrian men who drowned after their boat capsized off the coast of Libya. Credit: Rights activist Tarek Lamloum
A photo shows young Syrian men who drowned after their boat capsized off the coast of Libya. Credit: Rights activist Tarek Lamloum

About seven months ago, a group of 25 Syrian youths, including minors, set off from Libya on an irregular migration journey toward Europe. Only four made it back alive. The rest drowned in the Mediterranean.

The tragedy, which left a deep mark on Syrian communities both in Libya and abroad, has drawn renewed attention to the large and diverse Syrian population now living in the North African country, some fleeing the war in Syria under former President Bashar al-Assad, others settled there long before.

Syria’s presence in Libya is far from monolithic. It spans businessmen, migrant laborers, families who settled during the rule of Muammar Gaddafi, and former fighters now working as mercenaries. Many also see Libya as a temporary stop on the perilous path to Europe.

For most, Libya is not the destination but a gateway. The recent drowning of 21 Syrians in the Mediterranean was not an isolated tragedy, but part of a pattern of loss that has haunted the community for years.

Reports from local and international migration watchdogs have documented repeated drownings and arrests of Syrians at sea, with many captured by Libya’s coastguard and detained in overcrowded jails.

Despite the risks, many Syrians have managed to adapt to life in Libya, integrating into local communities and participating in its economy.

Yet numerous challenges persist, particularly for undocumented workers and those living without valid residency papers. Many report facing discrimination, abuse, and difficult working conditions.

As thousands of Syrian refugees across the Middle East prepare to return home amid improving conditions and relaxed restrictions, Syrians in Libya remain stuck, unable to stay, and unable to leave.

“We’re caught in the middle,” said one Syrian resident in Tripoli. “We can’t endure much longer, but we also can’t afford to go back.”

Many Syrians in Libya say they are increasingly vulnerable to exploitation, including passport confiscation and harassment by armed groups and criminal gangs operating with impunity.

Several Syrian residents told Asharq Al-Awsat they are facing rising unemployment, frequent kidnappings, and demands for ransom by militias. For those who now wish to return to Syria, doing so has become financially prohibitive due to hefty fines for visa violations.

Steep Penalties for Overstaying

Under a revised Libyan immigration law enacted on March 14, 2024, foreigners who overstay their visas or residency permits are charged 500 Libyan dinars - around $90 - per month. The regulation adds a significant burden for many Syrians whose legal documents have expired and who lack the resources to renew them or pay the fines required to exit the country legally.

Due to the political division in Libya since 2014, no official statistics exist on the number of foreign residents. However, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) reported in 2020 that approximately 14,500 Syrian refugees and asylum seekers were living in Libya.

Ten years after arriving in Libya, Ahmed Kamal Al-Fakhouri says he is now trapped, unable to afford life in the country or the high costs of leaving it.

“They’ve imposed fines on us that are beyond reason - nearly $1,500 per person,” said Fakhouri, a restaurant worker in Tripoli, echoing a growing outcry among Syrians in Libya burdened by mounting penalties and legal uncertainties. “Sometimes, I can’t even afford a day’s meal.”

Fakhouri fled Derna after the deadly floods of August 2023 and resettled in Tripoli.

“I saw death with my own eyes,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat, describing the trauma of losing his home. “Now we’re living in misery. We want the world to hear our voice - we want to go back to our country.”

Libya hosts thousands of Syrians, including doctors, engineers, university students, and day laborers who fill the country’s markets in search of work to support their families.

Yet many say they now find themselves stuck, facing visa penalties they can’t afford and no clear path home - even as the fall of Assad’s regime renews hopes for return.

“Exit Tax” Burdens Families

While Libya’s labor ministries have issued no formal statement on the matter, members of the Syrian community say they are being charged an "exit tax" calculated based on their overstay period. No official decree has been published, but testimonies suggest the fees are acting as a de facto barrier to departure.

Following Assad’s ouster, many Syrians are reconsidering return, describing exile as a “prison,” but are deterred by the financial burden of settling overstays.

Asharq Al-Awsat reached out to both of Libya’s rival labor ministries to clarify policies affecting Syrians and the reported fines for expired documents, but received no response.

Zekeriya Saadi, another Syrian living in Tripoli, has publicly called on authorities in both eastern and western Libya to cancel the exit tax and allow those wishing to return to Syria to do so.

“In these unbearable conditions, it’s unreasonable to ask refugees to pay such high fees just to leave the country,” he said. “This tax is a major obstacle, it exceeds our capacity, especially given our financial hardships.”

Saadi said most Syrians in Libya are low-income families without stable jobs. “Many are at risk of eviction, kidnapping, or exploitation. Leaving has become a matter of survival,” he said. “How can a displaced person be treated like a tourist or a wealthy expat?”

He urged Syria’s Foreign Ministry to take a clear stance and negotiate with Libyan authorities for fee exemptions and coordinated return efforts, while also working to protect Syrians who remain in the country.

Passport Problems Bar Education

Beyond financial barriers, expired passports are also stranding Syrians in legal limbo. Many have lost access to services, and the issue is now affecting the next generation.

According to Syrian media reports, education officials in Misrata barred at least 100 Syrian children from enrolling in public schools because their parents’ passports had expired, highlighting how bureaucratic obstacles are deepening the crisis for displaced families.