Religious Views
Salar Abdoh describes his faith as being “...sometimes vague, sometimes deeply personal and sometimes irrational and angry belief in some form of a higher being.” Aside from this, he does not engage in a religious practice (Abdoh, Question 1). The Iranian author does, however, portray his ideas about the Muslim country he was born in through the life of his late brother, Reza Abdoh. Abdoh thinks the background of his brother’s theater company has to do with Reza Abdoh’s upbringing in a Shiite Muslim country; both theater and Shiite Muslims thrive on pleasurable pain. In fact, it is essential (“Becoming Uncomfortable”, p. 4). Chase and Kari, like Salar Abdoh, question their faith throughout the course of Abdoh's novel, Opium. Kari, a former Muslim, let go of his faith after living in Iran and Afghanistan for several years; he says to Chase “I lost my faith in Afghanistan, but I didn’t lose my faith in faith” (Abdoh, page 160). Like Abdoh, Kari believes in a higher being, but does not want to put his faith into anything worldly because living in the Middle East has taught him it is not worth it. Chase also questions his faith when he visits Tehran, Iran; “If belief, for one, made men big, then the world must be populated with giants” (Abdoh, page 258). Chase implies that man must not be equal to God because man has created the injustice Chase witnesses while in Tehran; he encounters drug dealers, prostitutes, and a whore house. How is the man who is equal to the creator be the creator himself of such iniquities as well? This thought leads Chase to drive himself further away from faith; Chase perhaps represents Abdoh’s angry sentiments towards faith as a whole.
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