The cleric in question is Ahmad Jannati, perhaps the most hardline figure in the upper ranks of the regime. Jannati has served on the 12-man Council of Guardians ever since it was created three decades ago.
In his sermon last week, Jannati cited a work written 800 years ago by the poet Rumi. The poem makes reference to sex between a maid and a donkey in which the maid uses a pumpkin as a sexual aid.
When the mistress of the house finds out about this, she decides to try it herself. But she doesn’t ask the maid how she used the pumpkin and, as a result, is killed by the donkey.
The maid returns to chide the lifeless body of her mistress: “You opened your shop before a master taught you the craft.”
The story is widely known in Iran as a parable about the dangers of a lack of moderation in conducting one’s life.
In his sermon, Jannati was warning Iran’s enemies that their schemes to tarnish the image of Iran around the world were bound to fail totally. Jannati did not recite the poem, but simply told Iran’s enemies they ought first to “study the story of the pumpkin.”
Just the reference to such a risqué poem coming from a turbaned cleric made many blush—and many others laugh outright at the cleric for using immoderate rhetoric to promote moderation.