A leading force demanding change during the mid-20th century has been the university student. These demands are increasingly being backed by riot and rebellion as students throughout the world intensely challenge ongoing institutions and administrations. Few societies, regardless of geographic position, political system, or stage of economic development, have escaped recent episodes of serious student upheaval. France and Holland, the United States and Mexico, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, Egypt and Pakistan, Japan and Vietnam, and Turkey and Korea have witnessed shattering outbursts of student activity. The student has become the loudest spokesman for social change and a leading catalyst for political transformation. Political elites everywhere now realize that they can no longer ignore student demands but must devise policies to come to grips with them. The substance of these demands and the consequent elite policy are two key factors that are shaping the direction and progress of nations.

From earliest times, religion has always been one of the most important factors in social cohesion and at the same time a major cause of urban factionalism and strife. The existence of opposing sects in the same city has invariably provided a breeding ground for economic, social, and political differences in the guise of sectarian disputes.

The basic elements of urban organization in the Islamic period were local government (ḥukūmat), religious solidarity (ummat), professional associations (the craft guilds, aṣnāf), and the city wards or quarters (maḥallāt). Occasionally, other social organizations rose to prominence such as esoteric fraternities, mystical and dervish orders, and chivalrous and paramilitary associations (futuvvat, Cayyārān); these too formed part of the overall social life of the city. The wards or city quarters were the centers of group activity based on kinship, or ethnic or sectarian affiliation. Iranian cities during the Islamic period saw political and social activities by the followers of the four rites of the Sunna--Shāfiᶜī, Ḥanbalī, Ḥanafī, and Mālikī--and by Shi'ite and other dissident sects such as the Zaydīs, Carmathians, Mu'tazilites, and Ismāᶜīlīs.

The paper reconsiders the apocryphal stories regarding the Shahnama's initial reception to propose that it was only after long narrative poems gained currency that the Shahnama was recognized as a masterpiece. The paper analyzes the structure and themes of several histories written before and during the Samanid period and compares them with the Shahnama and the content of histories and epics produced immediately afterwards, to argue that the initial reception of the Shahnama did not depend on Sultan Mahmud Ghazni alone. It further argues that the Shahnama's aim, content, and execution differed from the histories and poetry produced in the decades immediately preceding and succeeding it, which would account for the lag in its acceptance and popularity. This led later biographers to superimpose their regret over Firdausi's treatment onto Sultan Mahmud Ghazni, who by their accounts denied him the fame and glory he deserved in his lifetime.

The disintegration of the Timurid empire after the death of its founder, Timur, in 807/1405 followed the normal pattern for Central Asian nomadic empires based on a military tribal elite. The charismatic Timur had exercised a tight hold on the government of his realm, mainly as a result of the highly personal nature of his rule and the flexibility which the absence of a formal administrative apparatus afforded him. But, after his death, the traditional Turko-Mongol concept that territory was held collectively by the patriarchal, agnatic clan and that all lineal male descendants shared the right to claim political sovereignty over it, reasserted itself.

This corporate claim to sovereignty created a free-for-all situation in which individual members of the princely Timurid clan clamored to assert their claims to rule in the steadily shrinking territory under Timurid control, frequently resorting to the time-honored steppe tradition of guerilla struggle (qazāqliq) .

For over a thousand years imaginative Persian literature has more directly and comprehensively than any other art medium reflected and nurtured distinctively Iranian cultural themes and orientations and has more than any other single indigenous phenomenon defined Iranian culture for literate Iranians themselves, who through the centuries have often pointed to this literature as a sign of their special place in and distinctive contributions to human cultural expression.

Now the phrase “imaginative Persian literature” can refer to various distinct traditions on the Iranian plateau. There is a folk tradition that emerged upon the heels of the appearance of the neo-Persian language in the 9th century. Then there is the better known belletristic court tradition that began in the same era and that persists today, albeit without court patronage, in the writings, particularly verse, of literary traditionalists who feel that the norms, forms, and themes of poets from Rudaki (d. 940) to Jami (d. 1492) constitute still relevant prescriptive standards.

Despite the Eisenhower administration's strong support for the Pahlavi monarchy, tensions simmered under the surface of Mohammad Reza Shah's relationship with the United States throughout the 1950s. Following the Qarani coup attempt and the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958, the shah sought to diminish the Soviet threat to his regime and reduce his dependence on the United States by exploring Moscow's offer of a non-aggression treaty. Drawing on American, British, and Iranian sources, this article provides the first detailed history of these secret Soviet–Iranian negotiations that ended in disastrous failure for the shah in February 1959.

Trends in intra-family relationships in Iran point to fast changes in regional and class-linked cultural patterns following the rapid spread of the national culture and of modernist ideologies and practices. People redefine their responsibilities and expectations as small nuclear families increase, women aspire to higher education and employment, and the bad economic situation necessitates various adaptations. Analysis of recent ethnographic data suggests that the shift from traditional authoritarian intra-family relations to relationships based on autonomy, individuation, independence and companionship creates new intimacies but also conflicts. The prevailing ideology of “progress” in Iran likely will further weaken patrilineal ties and kin relations while strengthening ties based on friendship and collegiality.

It is Generally Agreed that the Beginning of the Persian Literary Renaissance of the tenth–eleventh centuries was concomitant with the emergence of a bureaucratic tradition that had its roots in pre-Islamic Sasanian Iran. The avatars of these bureaucratic principles in medieval Perso-Islamic history—Nizam al-Mulk, Rashid al-Din, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, to name the most famous—were trained in Arabic and Persian, wrote scholarly treatises on a wide array of religious, philosophical, and scientific topics, and advocated, among other things, the need for responsible rule and consistent administration according to Islamic law and custom. These admonitions were generally directed at their Turkic and Mongol dynastic patrons whose steppe traditions were often at cross-purposes with the running of a sedentary society that depended on irrigated agriculture, commerce, public works, and systems of taxation. Prominent Persian bureaucrats and their descendents undertook these duties and were able to accrue considerable power and wealth, but often at a high cost when we read of the fates of Rashid al-Din, Saᶜd al-Dawla and Juvayni.

When I was in college (1937-41, that is the second decade of the Pahlavi era), the study of Qajar history was far less fashionable than that of earlier periods of Persian history. The earlier periods were thought of as the time frames for the political, military, or cultural achievements that one could feel good about, or else the temporal receptacles of calamities and defeats one could lament. The Qajar period, however, was not distant enough to command “historical” respectability. As might be expected in the aftermath of a fallen dynasty, the names of the Qajar kings were too much tainted by allegations of backwardness, ineptitude, corruption, and abuse of royal power to inspire sufficient interest. Social sciences had not yet made adequate headway in Persia to encourage the recording and analysis of contemporary events. Pioneers in researching Qajar history, like Abbas Eqbal, were few, and those who occupied themselves with it focused mainly on selected events of particular import, such as Persian defeats in the Perso-Russian wars, the reforms of Amir Kabir and his execution, Anglo-Russian intervention in Persian affairs, the Tobacco Régie and the Constitutional movement.

This article presents some of the general findings and, in particular, the information on family planning practice in Isfahan City and Ostan compiled in two phases of the Isfahan Communications Project (ICP). In terms of information generated, the project had two main stages: (1) the ostan-wide sample presurvey (May, 1970), and (2) the ostan-wide mass media campaign (August, 1970-March, 1971). The presurvey was made to obtain demographic information and data on the knowledge, attitudes, and practice (KAP) of family planning among the population and their exposure to the various media. The media campaign was directed at those couples who because of their media behavior and previous experiences with contraception were thought to be predisposed to adopt modern family planning methods.

Beginning with their first confrontation in 1514, the Ottomans and the dynasties ruling over Iran fought over the borderlands extending from the Persian Gulf to Mount Ararat. The transformation of this indeterminate borderland into a clearly defined and increasingly monitored border took almost four centuries. It became an internationally recognized border only after seven decades (1843–1914) of intermittent work by mixed international commissions. Despite such a tangled history, a well-entrenched tradition of Middle Eastern history suggests that the Iranian–Ottoman frontier was firmly established by the Qasr-i Shirin/Zohab Treaty of 1639; and it is one of the oldest boundaries of the world. The myth of 1639 is powerfully enshrined in the historiographies and nationalisms of the countries sharing this boundary. Questioning this myth in the light of Ottoman–Iranian relations, this paper analyzes different versions of 1639 Treaty that were brought to boundary negotiations and exist in various chronicles, and suggests an alternative reading of this foundational myth.

Pre-nineteenth century Iranian history is short on numbers, or at least on reliable ones. Lack of quantitative data is perhaps the greatest obstacle confronting historians of pre-modern Iranian economy and society, and the Safavid period is scarcely better provided than earlier ages. The Safavid archives were destroyed, the Persian histories provide few hard facts, and the accounts of visiting Europeans, though often full of comment on social and economic matters, are generally unreliable when it comes to quantitative information. Safavid Iran thus presents a depressing contrast to its neighbours to East and West, where the earlier and deeper European penetration has left arich record in the archives of several European countries, while in the case of the Ottoman Empire, the survival of extensive state archives can only remind the historian of Iran of how much was lost through the destruction of their Safavid counterparts.

One of the more pervasive implicit assumptions about Amīr Kabīr in both Persian and Western sources is that he was an innovator who wished to transform Iranian society. Not unrepresentative of such an assumption are comments like the following: “If Amīr Kabīr had not been killed at the hands of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh's executioners, how much he would have entangled the fate of Iran in a significant transformation.” In the same vein there is a tendency to view Amīr Kabīr as a visionary of political freedom. This tendency is perhaps most evident in two rather popularized Persian accounts of his life and career, that of Hāshimī Rafsanjānī and that of Ḥusayn Makkī. But with the advantage of hindsight, many less exaggerated accounts, also, attribute more to the intentions of Amīr Kabīr than can perhaps stand up under scrutiny. It is not uncommon, as Algar points out, for Amīr Kabīr to be reckoned among the precursors of the Constitutional Revolution.

In The Early 1920s Two American Companies Battled for the Rights to develop an oil concession in northern Persia: Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (later to become Exxon) and the smaller, but none the less formidable, Sinclair Consolidated Oil Corporation (later to merge into ARCO). American industry was a new variable in the equation, since Russia and Britain had been the primary beneficiaries of concessions granted by the Persian government to outsiders. Ultimately neither company won out—for several reasons. The British did not welcome the new presence and sought to stymie it; the Persian press misunderstood the relationship between business and government in the U.S., leading some Persians into unrealistic expectations; and one of the competitors, Sinclair, became tangled up in scandal.

The early drafts of the constitution of 1979 have represented a crucial moment in the creation of the post-revolutionary Iranian state. This article makes use of primary sources of the time and recently revealed material in order to provide a systematic analysis of the events which led to the production of the key versions of the draft constitution and the reaction to them by the multitude of political movements which were then active. The aim of this study is to clarify events and processes which have been left unexplored by the existing academic literature.

Towards the end of the 19th century, different parts of the Islamic world, occupied with various attempts to cope with the European power play, became aware of a country that seemed to have “made it”: Japan, remote and in self-imposed, almost complete isolation from the Western world for more than 200 years up to 1853, fascinated Muslim viewers. In different aspects, Japan's situation lent itself to comparison. It had been a military confrontation with economic incentives that had forced Japan to come into contact with the West. In the first military confrontation with the American warships sent to force the opening of Japanese ports in 1853, Japan could not withstand the Western threat and thus confirmed the stereotype of the inferior traditional Oriental country retreating in the face of the superior, advanced West.

Paradoxical though it may seem, I would like to begin my discussion of Qajar photography with a little-known painting (pl. 1). The work of an anonymous mid-nineteenth-century artist, this image marks an aesthetic watershed. Here, an unknown artist is photographing Nasir al-Din Shah who is posing for a portrait. The image, of course, is meant to capture the power of Nasir al-Din Shah, a figure so grand he is simultaneously painted and photographed by court artists. As a “dynastic image,“ the painting focuses on the grandeur of the shah's power, symbolically represented by his opulent dress, royal pose, and attendant technology—he is the subject of the newest form of representation, i.e. photography. What is remarkable about this little-known, perhaps even aesthetically insignificant, image is the powerful way it speaks to the shift from painting to photography in mid-nineteenth-century Iran.