Husayn Masarrat

You will lose yourself in the narrow streets of our city

like a familiar stranger, you become a guest of the people.

At the turn of these winding and noble alleys

You'll see someone kind, and you'll be happy and full of smiles.

(H.M.)

I will give you an address that if you seek the way and put your heart into it, you will certainly reach it. And of course, "the first condition of the first step is to be in love" and to be committed to this path.

When you leave behind Al-Fat Square and Raafat Street, you will reach the three roads of "friendship", and the alleys of love. From the first, second and third alleys of love, you reach the three alleys of reconciliation, peace and unity. A little further on, in the alley of Wefaq, on the left there is a dead end, the alley of kindness. At the end of the cul-de-sac, the link to intimacy, the mosaic of knowledge, is the green door to the house of humanity. The owner of this beautiful house will greet you if you knock a few times. Then you can enthusiastically walk to the cry of "taste" and through the corridor of "heart" into the courtyard full of jasmine and lavender flowers with a pond full of happy and mischievous red and white fish in which they spin and move the water. And a cool breeze from the basement of the "effort" will caress your face. Then you can enter the room of "affection" which opens and closes with the doors of "love and affection" and has a path to the hall of "Safa" and the windbreak of "Wafa" which pours a breeze from the inn to the house of the beloved. Then you can spend your days in the hospitality of the people of this house. Welcome, O traveller, you who enlightened the house of our hearts. Let us sit together at the table of contentment and offer the bread of "forgiveness".

***

For a long time, passers-by in this desert land, in the curve of its narrow alleys, have been looking for a way to the house, the bazaar, the water tank and the mosque. The alleys that during the summer are a refuge from the scorching wounds of the hot sun and the desert wind and a place to escape the scorching cold of the desert in winter. Alleys whose walls face the sky and protect both the house and the alley.

Alleys that for centuries have protected the people from horsemen and foreign troops and the city in hiding, protecting the people of the city from its dangers. Alleyways that connect the locals, and call one to happiness, joy and marriage, and the other to peace, reconciliation and friendship.

The streets of Yazd are full of greetings. The "hello" of Yazd's passers-by never goes unanswered. Inevitable greetings, even to strangers, strangers who met in the heart of these alleys and came together.

Alleys that fade in the light of their inhabitants' chivalry, and where cowardice and perversity vanish, and with a hair of their chivalry's moustache they can buy the world. The alleys under the shelter of their elders, all are called to reconciliation and all knots are opened with the finger of the wisdom of these sages. The shopkeeper in the street is everyone's credit bank and the baker is the breadwinner of the local family.

In these alleys, one generation connects with another and learns experiences and passages of that knowledge are shared every day. The alleys are not passages, they are the place where generations and principles come together.

And what alleys it has, the alleys of Yazd, the alleys that smell of freshly baked bread, the smell of humanity and the smell of

knowledge. And a person's heart is set aflutter by it. Hopefully, these alleys will be safe from the rain and the sting of the times.

*یزد، یادگار تاریخ: حسین مسرت: ترجمه خوزه کاسیاس فرر،، ج4: 555-556.