I visited the Shah’s Iran in 1975 as a young girl, and it felt tolerant, elegant and modern. My parents and I were travelling by road, and crossed into the country from Turkey. After visiting Tabriz, we were soon coursing alongside the Western Alborz mountains towards Tehran, arriving at the capital on Nowruz, the Persian new year’s day.
Our visit continued by land into Afghanistan, before we reached our final destination of Pakistan. Along the way, my father took me to see innumerable wonders, including the blue mosque in Isfahan and the gilded, gleaming domes of Qom. As a Muslim and an architect, it was hugely important for him to show his daughter the icons of Islamic civilisation.
But it was in Qom, the religious epicentre of Shia Islam, that I also saw the men who would go on to banish that tolerant, liberal Iran to the history books. One of the turbaned clerics chastised my mother – despite her hair being covered in a dupatta – for her lack of a chador. It was the first time I saw enforced veiling.