Shaheen’s “Leyla” is a Vivid Portrait of the Destructive Effects of Forced Marriage in His Home Country of Iran

Shaheen3_sm — Shaheen, photo courtesy the artist

Shaeen’s hip-hop single “Leyla” is a stark story about an ongoing issue in his home country of Iran. It might be safe to say most Americans know little about Iran, its culture and its history except for cartoonish propaganda and distortions. After the Islamic Revolution of 1979 concluded in the declaration of an Islamic republic plenty of Iranians supported and were already been used to a more modernist, secular government with freedoms for women. Marjane Satrapi’s excellent 2000 graphic novel Persepolis and the 2004 follow-up Persepolis 2 discuss some of those tensions with the Islamist takeover for her own family and life. “Leyla” is about one facet of life faced by women by telling the story of a 17-year-old girl who is forced to marry an older man, twenty years her senior, who is just now coming into the middle class because he has a job and not because she loves him. She resists by declaring she doesn’t love the man but in that society these choices are not hers to make, she can be essentially sold off to a man. While this is passed off as part of a culture, no one really wants to be married off to someone they don’t know and when the abuse happens, they don’t want to stay with that person. Shaheen describes how the girl is told to wear a hijab and “act modestly” as a symbol of the supression of her wishes and agency as a human. Following that, depression and other mental health issues ensue as would be a normal reaction from anyone given the same situation. But of course a divorce is a sin no matter the abuse inflicted. And of course the girl has a daughter with the man in question and the cycle repeats into a generational kind of abuse. The lines “Take me to heaven what do I got to do? To be at peace I’ve got nothing to lose” suggest much and a tragic conclusion to the story. Shaeen uses some traditional Persian music sounds and scales in the beat while delivering the lyrics with a compassionate urgency. While that specific scenario may be a major problem in Iran, it has resonance with so many situations in even America where cultural indoctrination of various kinds and poverty has convinced and continues to convince people they have no other options in life other than those imposed on them. That resonance gives the track another dimension of power. Listen to “Leyla” on Spotify and follow Shaheen at the links below.