TEHRAN — Just beside the shrine of Imamzada Saleh, a son of Shiite Islam's eighth imam, lie the graves of two of Iran's assassinated nuclear scientists. Majid Shahriari and Daryush Rezainejad were killed in separate attacks in Tehran in 2010 and 2011, respectively. The burial of the scientists inside the fences of the shrine had symbolic meaning, just the same as building Fordow beside Qom (a previous piece elaborates on this), transforming the nuclear program from a case to a cause.
Before the grave, there was a group of people reading prayers, a woman among them in tears, beside her a little girl was placing her hands on the grave. I asked the woman in my broken Farsi if she were a relative of the slain scientist. To my surprise, she shook her head, then looked at me as if I had insulted her: "This is one of this nation's heroes; he gave his blood for us to progress and be among the advanced nations of the world," she said. "Anytime I'm here to visit imamzadeh, I pass as many others do to pay him and his brothers respect."
