Rabbana

In the summer of 1979, months after the revolution, Iran's state broadcaster was considering stopping music production altogether. Its head asked Mohammad-Reza Shajarian, then a staff member, to create a new piece to be aired before iftar, the evening meal that breaks the Ramadan fast. Shajarian first declined, saying he had been away from such material for years, but the director insisted that only he could do it. He agreed. By his account, he meant it as a teaching piece. Listeners were used to an older rendition of the supplication, so he composed a new version, added two more Qur'anic verses and recorded it at a Radio Iran studio in July 1979 for students who would recite on television, unaware it might become popular. Sung in the Segāh mode with almost none of the usual trill-like ornaments, the four supplications each open with the word rabbana, our Lord. For three decades it was broadcast every Ramadan as the fast ended. That changed in 2009, when Shajarian sided with the Green Movement protesters and asked the broadcaster to stop playing his songs. The state outlets banned his work, and Rabbana disappeared from the airwaves too, against his wishes. A fan in Tehran told The Guardian that Ramadan without it felt like Christmas without carols, and Hassan Rouhani criticised the ban in his election campaigns. In 2017 the piece was inscribed on Iran's list of intangible cultural heritage. Shajarian died in 2020, but for many Iranians this prayer still sounds like the moment the fast is broken.