The Battle for Live Music Continues

Musicians in Mashhad have been warned that live performances are not welcome in the holy city.

Over the last two years, the city, which is Iran’s second biggest and the holiest for Iranian Shia Muslims, has been a battle site between musicians and concert organizers and conservative clergy and their supporters — and, by default, between the government of Hassan Rouhani and local authorities.

On June 24, Mashhad Prosecutor Gholamali Sadeghi told musicians that holding concerts in the vicinity of the Imam Reza Shrine is not “proper” and suggested they turn to other towns to perform their work.

Mashhad, the capital of the northwestern Iranian province of Razavi Khorasan, is home to the shrine to the eighth Shia imam, Reza (766-818), which is the largest mosque in the world.

Sadeghi said that concerts would be permitted in other cities of the province provided they meet with “specific conditions,” but that it was the consensus of religious authorities that concerts cannot be held in the vicinity of the shrine.

Musicians in other cities and towns, including Shiraz, Bushehr and Qom, have faced protests, intimidation and unsanctioned bans. 

Legally, permission for concerts rests with the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, as President Hassan Rouhani made a point of telling religious authorities in several provinces nearly a year ago. But this hasn’t stopped clerics and campaigners from trying to stop performances.

Ebrahim Raeesi, who was Rouhani’s main rival in May’s presidential election, is the son-in-law of Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Friday Prayers leader of Mashhad who has repeatedly called for a ban on music.