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The Identities of the Iranian Zūrkhanah

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Philippe Rochard
Translated by
H. E. Chehabi
Philippe Rochard*
Affiliation:
Université de Strasbourg
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Extract

A major ambiguity attaches to the zurkhanah, the traditional gymnasium of Iran. It is celebrated as an abode of chivalry and traditional values such as generosity, forbearance, and fair play, but it also has a reputation of harboring unruly elements on the margins of legality, men who are willing to rent their strong-arm services to whomever pays most. In this article I propose to explore this ambiguity and trace its roots in the social history of the institution. To do this, I shall first provide a quick update on the state of traditional athletics today, then expound on the paradox, and finally attempt to explicate it by discussing the identities of three social types that frequented the zūrkhānah.

The Iranian zūrkhānah, literally “House of Strength,” is the traditional gymnasium in which athletes practice a series of gymnastic and bodybuilding exercises that have been called “ancient sport,“ varzish-i bāstārī, since 1934.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 4: Sports and Games , Fall 2002 , pp. 313 - 340
Copyright
Copyright © Association For Iranian Studies, Inc 2002

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Footnotes

*

I would like to thank my wife, Shirine Baniahmad, for her valuable help in translating Persian sources, and Houchang Chehabi for his help in locating some important sources, for his careful reading of the first draft of this article, and for his clarifying comments. Thanks are also due to Sunil Sharma and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

References

1. Pahlavānī wrestling differs from the international freestyle variety in that bouts are longer (an echo of the time in which there were no time limits at all) and that wrestlers may grab each other's breeches, which allows for holds using the belt and the hem behind the knee. These breeches are made of reinforced cloth or leather and are called tunbān. See Baker, Patricia L., “Wrestling at the Victoria and Albert Museum,” Iran 35 (1997): 73-80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. See Carl Mehmet Hershiser, “Turkish Oiled Wrestling and the Commodification of Traditional Culture,” unpublished PhD dissertation, University of Texas at Austin, 1998.

3. This absence of a specialized setting has unfortunately led to a genuine impoverishment of the knowledge of the techniques of traditional wrestling.

4. A similar process of borrowing can also be observed in pahlavānī wrestling, where certain new techniques can clearly be traced to judo, which some wrestlers practice on the side.

5. Most recently, this reorganization of teaching has also reached the music masters. Having been initiated into the art of chanting and drumming in collective courses, today's young murshids do not hesitate to claim that they are self-taught, while their elders are proud to trace their teaching lineage back three or four generations.

6. The literature on javānmardī is vast, and has been analyzed in radically different ways by different authors. See Adelkhah, Fariba, Being Modern in Iran, trans. Jonathan Derrick (London, 1999)Google Scholar; Cl. Cahen, and W. L. Hanaway Jr, Ayyār” Eir s.v.; Cl. Cahen and Fr. Taeschner, “Futuwwa,” EI2s.v.; Cl. Cahen, “Aḥdāth,” EI 2; Claude Cahen “Mouvements populaires et autonomisme urbain dans l'Asie musulmane du moyen âge, I” Arabica 5 (1958): 225-50 and “Mouvements populaires et autonomisme urbain dans l'Asie musulmane du moyen âge, II,” Arabica 6 (1959): 25-56; Claude Cahen, “Y a-t-il eu des corporations professionnelles dans le monde musulman classique?” in Hourani, A. H. and Stern, S. M., eds., The Islamic City: A Colloquium (Oxford and Philadelphia, 1970), 51-63Google Scholar; Corbin, Henry L'homme et son ange -initiation et chevalerie spirituelle (Paris, 1983)Google Scholar; Angelika Hartmann, an-Nāṣir li-dīn Allāh: (1180-1225): Politik, Religion, Kultur in der späten Abbasidenzeit (New York and Berlin, 1975); Parviz Natil Khanlari, “Ā˒in-i ᶜayyārī,” Sukhan 18 (1348/1969): 1071—77, 19 (1348/1969): 19-26, 113—22, 263—67, 477—80; Muhammad-Jaᶜfar Mahjub, Āᶜīn-i javānmardi yā futuvvat (New York, 2000); Murtaza Sarraf, ed., Rasāᶜil-i javānmardān: Mushtamal bar haft futuvvat-nāmah (Tehran, 1973, 1991); Taeschner, Franz, Zünfte und Bruderschaften im Islam: Texte zur Geschichte der futuwwa (Zurich, 1979)Google Scholar; Taeschner, Fr., “Akhī,” EI2s.v.; Jean-Claude Vadet “La Futuwwa, morale professionnelle ou morale mystique,” Revue des Études Islamiques, 46 (1978): 57-90Google Scholar; and Zakeri, Mohsen, Sasanid Soldiers in Early Muslim Society: The Origins of Ayyaran and Futuwwa (Wiesbaden, 1995)Google Scholar.

7. Sayyid ᶜAbdullah Sajjadi, personal communication.

8. See Rochard, Philippe, “Le beau geste sportif dans le sport traditionnel iranien (zurkhâne et varzesh-e bâstâni),” Actes du colloque de la Societas Iranologica Europaea, volume 3 (LouvainGoogle Scholar, forthcoming).

9. One might add that in the United States an Iranian sports website (www.sportestan.com) devotes a few pages to the tradition.

10. On Takhti see Chehabi, H. E., “Sport and Politics in Iran: The Legend of Gholamreza Takhti,” International Journal of the History of Sport 12 (December 1995): 48-60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. Weber, Max, Economy and Society, eds. Roth, Guenther and Wittich, Claus, (Berkeley, 1978), 956-58Google Scholar.

12. Zayn al-Din Mahmud Vasifi Badāyiᶜ al-Waqāyiᶜ (Tehran, 1349/1970), chapter 19, “Dar [ẓikr-i) fażāyil va kamālāt-i pahlavān Muḥammad Abū Saᶜīd va sāyir-i kushtīgīrān-i silsilah-yi Sulṭān Ḥusayn Mīrzā,” 489—516. On this book see Angelo Piemontese, “Il capitolo sui pahlavān delle Badāyiᶜ al-Wa qāyiᶜ di Vāsefi,” Annali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, NS, 16 (1966): 207-220.

13. Mawlana Husayn Vaᶜiz Kashifi Sabzavari, Futuvvat-nāmah-i Sulṭānī, ed. Muhammad-Ja”far Mahjub, (Tehran, 1350/1971), 306—12. On this book see Angelo Piemontese, “Il trattato sulla Futuwwa (Fotovvatnāme -ye soltāni) di Hosein Vāᶜez Kāšefi. Relazione preliminare,” in Atti di terzo rongresso di studi Arabi e Islamici, Ra vello, 1-6 Settembre 1966 (Naples, 1967), 557—63; and Angelo Piemontese, “L’organizazzione della «Zurxâne» e la «Futuwwa»,” Annali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, NS, 14 (1964): 453—73.

14. See Canard, Marius, “La lutte chez les arabes,” in Le cinquantenaire de la Faculté des lettres d'Alger (1881-1931) (Algiers, 1932)Google Scholar. See Abu 1-Fazl Allami, The Ain-i Akbari, trans. H. Blochmann, (Delhi, 1989, repeint), 263. Cf. also Cl. Huart, “Janissaries” in Ei 1 s.v. on the eventful introduction of acrobats and wrestlers in the Ottoman elite corps.

15. Muhammad-Taqi Bahar (1866-1951) was the last Iranian poet laureate ﹛malik alshuᶜarā). A scholar, writer, professor at Tehran University, journalist, and politician, his œuvre consists of a two-volume divan, a three-volume study of literary style, and, more relevant for our purposes, an edition of Tārīkh-i Sīstān and the Majmaᶜ al-tavārīkh wa 1’qiṣaṣ. His work on the latter two texts spawned a series of articles on javānmardī that can be found in Ihsan Naraqi, ed., Ā˒in-i javānmardī, (Tehran, 1363/1984).

16. See for instance the series of articles by Parviz Natil Khanlari cited in footnote 6. Mahjub also edited the Futuvvatnāmah-i Sulṭānī (see footnote 13). See also Sarraf, Murtaza, ed., Rasā˒il-i javānmardān: Mushtamal bar haft futuvvatnāmah (Tehran, 1973Google Scholar, 1991) with an analytic introduction by Henry Corbin; and Corbin, Henry, L'homme et son ange— initiation et chevalerie spirituelle (Paris, 1983)Google Scholar.

17. Hasan Gushah, “Varzish-i bāstānī dar Îrān,” Payām-i naw, 3: (1326/1947): 47—55; Husayn Partaw Bayzaᶜi'ṣ Kashani, Tārīkh-i varzish-i bāstānī-yi Ïrān: Zükhānah (Tehran, 1958); Kazemaini, K. and Babayan, Samuel S., zoorkhaneh: Iranian Ancient Athletic Exercises (Tehran, 1964)Google Scholar; Kazimayni, Kazim, Dāstānhā-yi shigiftangīz az tārīkh-i pahlavānī-yi Ïrān (Tehran, 1346/1967)Google Scholar; idem, Naqsh-i pahlavān va nahżat-i ᶜayyārī (Tehran, 1343/1964); Mustafa Sadiq, “Gawd-i muqaddas: paydāyish-i zūlrkhānah” Hunar va mardum, no. 145 (Aban 1353/October—November 1975); Ghulamriza Insafpur, Tārīkh va farhang-i zürkhānah va gurūh-hā-yi ijtimāᶜī yi zürkhānah-raw (Tehran, 1353/1974); to mention only the principal sources. These works are of very uneven scholarly value. The richest of all is the book of Partaw Bayza˒i, by far the most thorough study ever made of the zūrkhānah. More recently, Sadriddin Ilahi has provided an original and critical analysis that breaks with the celebratory discourse of Kazimayni and refutes the outdated thesis of the mithraic origins of ancient sports, as formulated by Mihrdad Bahar in his “Varzish-i bāstānī-yi Īrān va rīshah-hā-yi tārikhī-yi ān,” Tchīstā 1 (October 1981), reprinted in Duktur Mihrdad Bahar, Az usṭūrah tā tārīkh, ed. Abulqasim Ismaᶜilpur (Tehran, 1376/1997), 27-41. See Ilahi, Sadriddin, “Nigāhī dīgar bih sunnatī kuhan: zurkhānah,” Īrānshināsī 6 (1994): 731-38Google Scholar.

18. Ja'fari was in fact a major figure in the uprising that accompanied the 1953 coup d'état against Prime Minister Musaddiq, which brought the shah to power.

19. See, for instance, the speech by then President ‘Ali-Akbar Hashimi Rafsanjani when he awarded the armlet of honor to the national pahlavānī wrestling champion in 1993 at the zürkhānah of the Bank Melli, where he said: “Here we see ᶜirfān (mysticism) at its height, but in a language that is simple, informal, and understandable by everybody.” Püryā-yi Valī no. 1 (18 Azar 1372/9 December 1993), 2.

20. On lūṭīs see Migeod, H. G., “Die Lutis. Ein Ferment des städtischen Lebens in Persien,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 2 (1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Arasteh, Reza, “The Character, Organization, and Social Role of the Lutis (Javanmardan) in the Traditional Iranian Society of the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 4 (1961)Google Scholar; Floor, W. M., “The Lutis—A Social Phenomenon in Qajar Persia,” Die Welt des Islams 13 (1971): 103-20Google Scholar; Floor, Willem M., “The Political Role of the Lutis in Iran,” in Bonine, Michael E. and Keddie, Nikki R., eds., Modern Iran: The Dialectics of Continuity and Change (Albany, 1981), 83-95Google Scholar; Jaᶜfar Shahri, Tārīkh -i ijtimāᶜī-yi Tihrān dar qarn-i sīzdahum, volume 1 (Tehran, 1990), 410-11; Ilahi, “Nigāhī dīgar;” and Aladin Goushegir, Le combat du colombophile: Jeu aux pigeons et stigmniisation sociale (Tehran, 1997).

21. The text was first published by Partaw Bayza˒i, Varnish-i bāstāni-yi Īrān, 350—64, but its current location is unknown.

22. Gul-i kiishtī, “flower of wrestling,” is actually a genre that consists of poetry that uses the terminology of wrestling. Mir Najat's is the most famous of these poems, and its manuscript was rediscovered by Adib al-Mulk Farahani. It is also printed in Partaw Bayza˒i, Varnish-i bāstāni-yr Īrān, 379—419.

23. A teacher (?) at the country's first modern school, the Dar al-Funun, he wrote the book under the auspices of the minister of science (i.e., education) ᶜAli-Quli Mirza, Iᶜtizad al-Saltana, who was also director of the Dar al-Funun (see Abbas Amanat, “Eᶜteżād-al-saltana,” Elr, s.v.). Its only extant copy is in the National Library in Paris. ᶜAli-Akbar ibn-i Mahdi al-Kashani, Ganjīnah-yi kushtī, 1292/1875. E Blochet, Catalogue des manuscrits persans de la Bibliothéque Nationale. Tome II (No. 721—1160) Paris, 1912. Cote: Supplément 1169.

24. See Piemontese, “L'organizazzione della «Zurxâne» e la «Futuwwa».”

25. Chardin, Sir John, Travels in Persia, 1673-1677 (New York, 1988), 200-201Google Scholar.

26. See footnote 23.

27. Danishpazhuh, Muhammad-Taqi, “Dastūr al-mulūk-i Mīrzā Rafīᶜā va Taẕkirat al- mulūik-i Mirzā Samīᶜā,” Majalla -i Dānishkadah-i Adabiyãt va ᶜUlūm-i Insānī-yi Dānishgāh-i Tihrān 15 (1347/1968): 475-504Google Scholar; 16 (1347/1968): 62—93, 298—322, 416-440, 540-564. See also Keyvani, Mehdi, Artisans and Guild Life in the Later Safavid Period. Contributions to the Social-Economic History of Persia (Berlin, 1982)Google Scholar.

28. Bayza˒i, Varnish-i bāstāni-yi Īrān, 394.

29. For the real story that inspired Sadegh Hedayat see Nafici, Hamid, “Iranian Writers, the Iranian Cinema, and the Case of Dash Akol,” in Iranian Studies 18 (1985): 244-45CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30. Willem Floor's writings are very illuminating on the role of lūṭīs in local politics. See footnote 20 for references.

31. Amable Louis Marie Michel Brechillet Jourdain, La Perse (Paris, 1814), 4: 233—34.

32. Dr. Muhammad Muᶜin, Farhang-i fārsī, (Tehran, 1343/1964), s.v.

33. Travels of Ibn Battūta, A.D. 1325-1354, trans. H. A. R. Gibb, (Cambridge, 1958), 594. For an exhaustive study of mail services in Asia see Gazagnadou, Didier, Le poste à relais: la diffusion d'une technique de pouvoir à travers l'Eurasie, Chine, Islam, Europe (Paris, 1994)Google Scholar.

34. Membrè, Michele, Mission to the Lord Sophy of Persia (1539-1542), trans. with Introduction and Notes by A. H. Morton (London, 1993), 24Google Scholar.

35. Francis [Giovanni Francesco] Careri, Gemelli, “A Voyage around the World,” trans. from the Italian, in Awnsham and John Churchill, eds., A Collection of Voyages and Travels (London, 1745)Google Scholar,168, as quoted in Keyvani, Anisans, 95.

36. Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste, Voyages en Perse (Geneva, 1970), 52-53Google Scholar.

37. Muhammad Hasan Khan Iᶜtimad al-Saltanah, Chihil sāl tārīkh-i Īrān dar dawrah- yi pādishāhi-yi Nāṣir al-Dîn Shāh. Jild-i avval: al-Ma˒āṣir wa’1-āṣār, ed. Iraj Afshar (Tehran, 1363/1984), 45 and 395.

38. Feuvrier, Docteur, Trois ans à la cour de Perse (Paris, 1900), 47-48Google Scholar.

39. Cf. “shilang takhtah” and “takhtah shilang” in Lughatnāmah-yi Dihkhudā, s.v.

40. The recent Iranian film Zīr-i nūr-i māh (Under the Light of the Moon) provides a perfect illustration of this, showing how a young madrasa student is drawn, somewhat in spite of himself, to a community of homeless lūṭīs that includes a former strong man and a musician.

41. Gaillard, Marina, “Le champ d'emp1oi des termes ᶜayyâr et javânmard dans le Dârâb-nâme d'Abu Tâher Tarsui,” Arabic and Middle Eastern Literatures 4: 1 (2001)Google Scholar.

42. Yamanaka, Yuriko, “The Eskandar-nâme of Manuchehr-Khan-e Hakim: A 19th century Persian popular romance on Alexander,” Actes du colloque de la Societas Iranologica Europaea (Paris, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

43. Gaillard, “Le champ d’emploi.” See also Mohsen Zakeri, Sasanid Soldiers in Early Muslim Society.

44. Bahar, “Varzish-i bāstānī-yi Īrān.”

45. See footnote 21.

46. “Gul-i kiishtī,” in Partaw Bayzaᶜi, Varnish-i bāstāni-yi Īrān, 399. This text states that the ẕikr was carried out by pronouncing the name of Purya-yi Vali. By 1875, however, the murshids of Tehran invoked only Qutb al-Din Haydar, the disciple of Jamal al-Din of Savah and a patron saint of wandering dervishes known as Qalandar or Khaksar. al-Kashani, Ganjīnah-yi kushtī, 4.

47. All information about Puiya-yi Vali's life is taken from Angelo Piemontese, “La leggenda del santo-lottatore Pahlavān Mahmud Xvārezmi «Pūryā˜ -ye Vali» (m. 722/1322),” Annali dell'Istituto Universitario Orientale di Napoli, NS, 15 (1965): 167—213.

48. On the variations of his name among Iranians and Turks, see ibid., 169—73.

49. There are different versions of this seminal story. See ibid.

50. These four texts are: Jami's Nafaḥāt al-uns, Kashifi's already mentioned Futuvvatnāmah-i Sulṭānī the Laṭā˒if al-ṭawā˒if of Kashifi's son ᶜAli b. Husayn whose takhalluṣ was Safi, and the Majālis al-ᶜushshāq attributed to Sultan Husayn Bayqara himself. Piemontese, “La leggenda,” 168. See Jami, Nafaḥāt al-uns min haḍrat al-quds, ed. Mahdi Tawhidpur (Tehran, 1336/1957), 503; Mawlana Fakhr al-Din ᶜAli Safi, Laṭā˒if al- ¡awa’i/, ed. Ahmad Gulchin Maᶜani (Tehran, 1337/1958), 274 and 276; and Amir Kamal al-Din Husayn Gazurgahi Majālis al-ᶜushshāq (taẕkirah-yi ᶜurafā), ed. Ghulamriza Tabataba˒i Majd, (Tehran, 1375/1996), 196—99.

51. Bayza˒i, Varnish-i bāstāni-yi Īrān, 350.

52. Nothing is known about the last, who may for that reason be an obscure near contemporary of the writer.

53. Kuhnah means old, while savār means both “rider” and one who dominates and who is in charge.

54. Today Surkhab is the name of a quarter in Tabriz.

55. Cf. the critical analysis of the Mallapurana, an Indian treatise on the caste of wrestlers and boxers, in Das, Veena, “A Sociological Approach to the Caste Puranas: A Case Study,” Sociological Bulletin: Journal of the Indian Sociological Society 17 (1968): 141-64CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The original treatise can be found in Mallapurāna: A Rare Sanskrit Test on Indian Wrestling Especially as Practised by the Jyesthimallas, ed. Bhogilal Jayachandbhai Sandesara and Ramanlal Nagarji Mehta (Baroda, 1964). For an anthropological analysis of wrestling in India see Alter, Joseph S., The Wrestler's Body: Identity and Ideolog y in North India (Berkeley, 1992)Google Scholar.

56. The last phrase (mībāyad fāsiq nabāshad) is ambiguous, and could be taken to refer either to extramarital sexual relations or to homosexual practices. Mir Najat Isfahani's Gul-i kushtī leaves no doubt about the prevalence of the latter.

57. Some wits have asked me if this “consolation” took place during the night. Nothing excludes this hypothesis; according to Jaᶜfar Shahri it was even the order of the day (Shahri, Tārīkh, 1: 410—14), but one should not generalize.

58. One can surmise that his income correlates positively with the novelty of his performances.

59. One notes, of course, the impossibility for these itinerant pahlavāns of having a family life. Their only sexual outlets would have been temporary marriages or pederasty (bachchah-bāzī), but one should not overestimate the importance of these practices, as sexual abstinence (in order to save semen, his vital energy) was for a very long time a basic feature of the wrestler's hygiene. This abstinence has an old tradition, and was practiced in Ilkhanid times; cf. Piemontese, “L’organizazzione della «Zurxâne» e la «Futuwwa»,” 464—65. It is also widely practiced in India, cf. Alter, Joseph S., “The celibate wrestler: Sexual chaos, embodied balance and competitive politics in north India,” Contributions to Indian Sociology 29 (1995): 109-31CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

60. Such an initiation is depicted on an eighteenth-century Mughal miniature. See Soudavar, Abolala, Art of the Persian Courts (New York, 1992), 325Google Scholar.

61. Circus artists in Europe are another example. For a successful visual rendition of the lives of wandering athletes and entertainers, see the Soviet film The Wrestler and the Clown, whose action takes place in early twentieth century Russia.

62. Personal observation.