They call Qom "the Shia Vatican". President Ahmadinejad is reported to have said that when Islam ruled the world Qom would be its capital. Rome need not worry: Qom will never compete for its tourists. At first glance, despite the imposing golden cupola of the Sayyeda Fatima shrine, this desert city some 100km (60 miles) from Tehran is a backwater, devoid of grace and greenery. Its seminaries, however, are home to perhaps 60,000 clerical students. And the broad highway that slices fromrnTehran to Qom through a moonscape of scrubby desert and salt lakes is a clue to the city's importance. It was from Qom that Ayatollah Khomeini began to denounce the shah, and it was in Qom that he set up his revolutionary government after returning from exile in France. This seems the right place to see whether the system he created can be changed from within.
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