By: Dr. Jerry Bergman
Montpelier, Ohio
Millions of readers have read the story of Mahtob in the international bestseller Not Without My Daughter. The story was about an American mother and her six-year-old child’s escape from an abusive and tyrannical Iranian husband and father living in Iran. As a child, she, her mother, and her medical doctor father went to Iran for a short visit to see his relatives. Once there, they learned he had lied. They flew to Iran, not to visit, as her father claimed, but to permanently live there. In short, they were held prisoner and tormented for 18 months before her mother was able to make a daring escape from Iran.
Mahtob describes the Tehran school she attended as a heavily guarded military compound. The environment included rigid anti-American and Islamic state indoctrination. Before being allowed to enter the school each morning, she and her classmates had to spit and stomp on the American flag. Then they were lined up like soldiers in a walled courtyard to march and chant political slogans, including “Death to America.” The curriculum, which focused on blind obedience, involved memorizing and repeating government-approved answers that discouraged independent thought.
Teachers actively interrogated students to root out any un-Islamic behavior at her home. To ensure that everything complied with the Islamic Guidance Committee Mahtob was asked what her mother wore in the privacy of their house and what kinds of books her father read.
Fleeing to America
Once Mahtob and her mother were able to escape to America alive, they lived in fear that they would be abducted and end up back in Iran. Years later, now a mature woman, Mahtob told her story. Part of the story involved her education at Michigan State University. Specifically, she attended the elite Lyman Briggs MSU college.
She soon noticed her classes were in some ways like those in Iran, except “extremely secular—at times even crossing into anti-Christian” rhetoric, partly because of “an overemphasis on evolution,” the myth that damage to the genome called mutations can, after much time, turn apes into humans. At MSU her faith as a Christian was severely challenged. When her professors discerned this, they seemed to work extra hard to convert her into an evolutionist. One day one professor asked the class, “How did the universe come to be?” Mahtob tried to avoid the professor, who looked directly at her and asked,
“Please tell us how the universe came to be. … I knew the answer she wanted me to give [that nothing somehow created everything in an event called the Big Bang]. I also knew that I didn’t believe it. I quickly weighed my options and ultimately decided that this wasn’t an Iranian classroom where I was required to give the teacher the answer she demanded. This was America. Here I was free to think and to say what I believed. Clearing my throat, I very quietly quoted Genesis 1:1, the very first words of the Bible: ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,’ though I knew it wasn’t what she wanted to hear. I still presumed she would react with her usual tack. Instead, she berated me. I was humiliated.”
In another MSU class, Mahtob made the big mistake of mentioning the Christian God. The result was “The class exploded at the mention of God… tempers flared, Most of the comments … focused on speaking out against me and my statement, Some asserted there is no god… others insisted there is no room in modern society for what they perceived to be antiquated, ignorant, and prejudicial religiously based ideologies.” Mahtob added, “Again, I sat here thinking, This is America. What is happening?”
Mahtob concluded that “It became frighteningly clear to me that day, where religion was concerned the philosophy [of Voltaire, who said I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it] did not apply. In the name of political correctness, religion, and specifically Christianity, had become taboo [at least in this university]. I vowed never to open my mouth in class again.” Mahtob thought over and over that it seemed like America has become, in some ways, intolerant like Iran, the country that she fled as a little girl.
She testified that her Christian faith was the foundation of her emotional resilience and her journey toward forgiving her father. Her beliefs were woven throughout key moments in her memoir, including finding security in her Lutheran schooling after escaping Iran, relying on Scripture and prayer during a severe illness, and applying grace to overcome her guilt and the trauma she had experienced. Ultimately, her faith enabled her to release her bitterness and choose forgiveness.
PS My son also graduated from MSU and he came back from college a different person. He has refused to have any contact with me for over 20 years.
This review of the book My Name Is Mahtob by Mahtob Mahmoody. Nelson Books. An imprint of Thomas Nelson.