Maintaining a sustainable and relatively high economic growth rate is a major short- and long-term challenge facing Iran. To keep up the growth momentum, Iran not only must replace and upgrade its aging capital equipment in both the oil and non-oil sectors, but also needs to invest heavily in new industries, technology, human capital, and infrastructure. Higher growth is a socially desirable objective since it raises per-capita income, at least in par with middle-income countries, and it provides the material resources for reducing poverty and promoting sustainable human development. Moreover, due to demographic and gender factors, the rate of growth of labor supply in the next decade is expected to be fairly high and a relatively high rate of economic growth is necessary to boost the demand for labor. A rapid population growth at the rate of 2.6 percent per annum increased the population from 26 million in 1966 to nearly 66 million in 2002. Population growth has recently slowed down and is estimated at 1.65 percent for the next decade. Yet, the growth rate of the working-age population will be significantly higher, about 2.6 percent. According to World Bank estimates, by 2010 total population will be 75.9 million. Working-age population will be 51 million—compared to an estimated 43 million at the end of 2002.

Pre-Islamic beliefs and practices abound in Iran, albeit with an Islamic veneer, have been entirely islamicized. One kind of such surviving practices is that of rain making ceremonies. In this article, seven major rain-making ceremonies are categorized, described, and interpreted, including some regional variants thereof. Attention is paid to the fact that these ceremonies are not limited to Iran, but are also found in neighboring countries (Iraq, Turkey, India, Central Asia), thus showing that these are all survivors of common ancient religious archetypes.

The 1941 Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran is a topic that continues to interest historians. Work on this period has mainly focused on the reasons behind the occupation and its impact on the political situation in the country. This article looks at the psyche of the occupying forces by studying their propaganda tactics during this period. It was through propaganda that both were able to manipulate local players to either further their own interests or damage the reputation of the other. Such tactics were reflective of the dynamic nature of British‒Soviet relations and had a direct consequence on the politics of Iran. A key aspect of this was the British machine’s promotion of the Tudeh Party’s legacy as a tool of the Soviets. The propaganda patterns reveal the reactive nature of the occupying force’s policy in Iran, and reflected their changing interests.

In his Study on Afsharid Historiography, Ernest Tucker has Shown that Nadir Shah's chroniclers depicted him as the restorer of the Safavid dynasty, and appealed to notions of Safavid legitimacy in their histories. One chronicler, Muhammad Kazim Marvi, accomplished this partly by relating how Nadir Shah found a tablet (lawḥ) upon which Timur had inscribed instructions for Nadir Shah. Although Marvi was predominantly appealing to Safavid legitimacy, in the process he also linked Nadir's name with Timur. Laurence Lockhart notes a number of similarities between Nadir and Timur, indicating instances where Nadir seems to have modeled his reign on Timur's. These include (1) Nadir's naming his grandson Shahrukh, (2) Nadir's wife and Timur's daughter-in-law (wife of Shahrukh) both sharing the same name, Gawhar Shad, and (3) Nadir's use of certain Timurid military tactics.

One of the most remarkable developments in international film of recent memory is the emergence of a vibrant and creative film industry in Iran following the Islamic Revolution of 1979. In light of worldwide acclaim for the work of Iranian filmmakers, scholars have pointed to a strong similarity between the style of these films and those of post-war Italian Neorealist filmmakers. By analyzing the works of three of Iran's leading directors, Abbas Kiarostami, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Majid Majidi and comparing them with the greatest Italian Neorealist film, The Bicycle Thief, this study will attempt to show how Iranians are working within the Neorealist tradition while at the same time making it distinctively their own.

The subject of historiography for the Iranian scholar has traditionally been of lesser importance than the actual writing of history. The problems and various techniques of historiography were little discussed and practically unknown until this century. Recently, several articles have appeared in Iranian journals which clearly indicate that Iranian historians intend to rectify this past imbalance. Furthermore, the publication of the journal Bar-rasī'hā-yi Tārīkhī (Historical Studies) suggests a renewed effort to present recent research and historiographical techniques in a more exacting and scientific manner than in the past.

This article revisits the common discourse that Ottoman poetry is a derivative imitation of Persian poetry. I begin by surveying and discussing the discourse of imitation that has pervaded approaches to Ottoman poetry in particular and Ottoman literature in general. Then I turn to explore how Ottoman poets engaged with Persian poetry by focusing on a lyric poem composed by the Ottoman sultan Süleyman the Magnificent (1494‒1566) in imitation of the Persian master poet Hafiz of Shiraz (ca. 1315‒90). In light of intertextual analysis, I illustrate and discuss the intricate ways in which Süleyman models himself on Hafiz in crafting his poem. I conclude with the idea that a closer analytical look at Ottoman poets’ intertextual dialogue with Persian poetry can offer better insights into the Ottoman reception of Persian poetic models as well as into the meaning and workings of imitation in the Ottoman literary context.

The Writers Association of Iran, called Kanun-e Nevisandegan-e Iran in Persian, was founded in 1968 and was in many ways a unique experience in Iranian intellectual history. Its fortunes, consisting of periods of feverish activity and lifeless dormancy, epitomize the pattern of intellectual life in Iran, reflecting its problems and promises, its intellectual validity and artistic vitality, its ideals, achievements, and failures. While it did not succeed in its historical fight against censorship, it nevertheless played a major role in the course of the Iranian Revolution. While it could not transcend the factionalism that has historically plagued the Iranian elite, it nevertheless made an indelible impact on the intellectual community and on Iranian society at large. Between us and an objective account of this important intellectual institution stands the barrier of the Iranian Revolution itself.

Current histories of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905-1909) frequently begin the story of the revolutionary years with 11 December 1905. On that day the bastinado was inflicted on three Tehrani merchants, Sayyid Hashim Qandfurush, Hajj Ahmad Qaysariyah, and Sayyid Isma'il Charmfurush, on orders from ‘Ala’ al-Dawlah, governor of Tehran. This incident, we are told, led the two leading Tehran clerics, Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba'i and Sayyid ‘Abdallah Bihbihani, to stage a protest sit-in with their supporters in the Shah ‘Abd al-'Azim shrine and demand the dismissal of ‘Ala’ al-Dawlah and premier ‘Ayn al-Dawlah, as well as the institution of a house of justice. A month later, the sit-in ended successfully: though ‘Ayn al-Dawlah remained premier, ‘Ala’ al-Dawlah was dismissed and a royal decree to establish a house of justice was issued. Some months later another incident set off the next round of the contest.

The production of textiles began very early in the Near East, even before the development of settled villages and the domestication of plants and animals in the Neolithic Period (New Stone Age, the 7th and 6th millennia B.C.). Flax was one of the first fibers to be woven; it appears in an elegantly knotted net with a woven border found in the Nahal Hemar Cave on the southwest banks of the Dead Sea. “Flax also appears about the same time in Anatolia at Çatal Hüyük, a partially excavated site once covering some 32 (?) acres. The Çatal Hüyük textiles, which also included wool ormohair worked in S- and Z-spun two-ply yarns, came from intramural burials where they bound up the bones of the dead and in one case filled a skull. Unfortunately, the fires that destroyed the site on several occasions charred the fabrics so that no trace of color now remains. However, the dye plants woad, madder and weld are native to the region, and the excavator believed that they were used at Çatal Hüyük.

In 1953, the United States assisted in a coup that removed Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq from office. Analysis of radio broadcasts during and after the coup provides a window for scrutinizing the event and understanding the motivations of all sides. The United States monitoring agency, the Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS), snatched these ephemeral broadcasts from the ether for posterity. This study expands the coup narrative based on these broadcasts. An analysis of the transcripts suggests that assertions that the Central Intelligence Agency's covert propaganda program resulted in the coup's success are an oversimplification. On the contrary, the effect of both Mosaddeq's and the Tudeh party's actions unwittingly legitimized the coup-plotters' propaganda in the weeks prior to the coup and contributed more to the success of the coup.

The Iranian revolution presents a unique challenge to social scientists. Marked by massive popular participation (primarily in urban areas), by the rejection of violence by the revolutionaries, and by the rapid fulfillment of its goals, the Iranian experience seems to elude prevailing paradigms for the study of revolution. Although there were several factors that made the country ripe for revolution—widespread feelings of relative deprivation, a state apparatus under pressure from the international system, impeded elite circulation, and conflicts among various social classes—none of these alone can explain why the upheaval occurred. While it is unlikely that a definitive explanation of the revolution can ever be found, virtually all theories of revolution implicitly ask two questions: (1) What social conditions lead to revolution, and (2) What is the nature of participation in such revolutions? It is with the first of these questions that this essay is primarily concerned.

Despite the fact that during the 1930s some Kurdish novels were published in the former Soviet Union, it was only towards the end of the twentieth century that this literary genre became an established literary tradition among the Kurds. Due to various political factors, the Kurdish novel has not been identified with any nation-state. In fact, the concept of the Kurdish novel refers to all such literature written in Kurdish, regardless of different orthographies and dialects. Alongside the published novels in Kurdish, there have been some Kurdish writers who have written their novels in other languages. This article aims to look for a novel that contributes to the representation of the Kurds and their identity and political condition.

The idea of Zoroastrian mysticism might at first glance seem a contradiction in terms. The Good Religion, after all, is čīmīg, “rational,” above all else: Zoroaster elegantly solved the most intractable mystery of all faiths, theodicy, by the revelation of cosmic dualism. The mere assertion that there are esoteric doctrines within Zoroastrianism has been criticized. This criticism springs in part from a flawed perception of mysticism itself, which, as it will be argued, is not an independent entity, everywhere the same. Rather, each religion has a mysticism of its own, often irreconcilable in some of its features with the mainstream, and, in the case of Zoroastrianism, with some of the religion's plain logic. Also, the existence of mysticism within a religious tradition does not imply its centrality to that tradition. Mysticism exists in Christianity, but could scarcely be called essential to it, considering the claim, elaborated as the Christian church rose to universal prominence, to the radically overt and sufficient truth of the Gospel.

This article examines the isolation and marginality of Iranian men living in contemporary Iran with a focus on three post-2005 films. As a patriarchal society, Iran has been the subject of many studies on the subjugation and marginality of women. This study demonstrates how recent Iranian films have skillfully employed the cinematic language to narrate men’s stories of alienation and despair. These filmic constructions provide a valuable and complex insight into masculine identities, challenging perceptions of the essentialized image of the Middle Eastern male. By employing Connell’s hierarchy of masculinities, the article demonstrates the position of marginalized men in relation to the dominant ideals of masculinity and the influence of these discourses on the lives of such men. The films discussed here do not perpetuate the construction of the ‘true’ gender, but instead challenge ideas of heroism, manliness and patriarchy.

This study investigates university coaches' knowledge about their legal duties toward their athletes, as well as the connection between the level of their legal knowledge and their educational, social and economic background. The results are presented according to three major dimensions: deficiencies in the coaches' training system, in their knowledge concerning their legal responsibility and the coaches' social recognition regarding their profession. The findings indicate that the coaches' training in Iran has a lot of weaknesses, including the neglect of legal issues, the consequence of which is that the Iranian university coaches do not have sufficient knowledge about the legal issues in general and they are not aware of their duty toward their athletes in particular. In Iran coaching is not considered as a prestigious occupation; in terms of social status coaches belong to the lower middle class.

In less than twenty years, Nadir Shah built an empire across Iran, India, and Central Asia. When he took the throne on the Mughan steppe in 1148/1736, Nadir confronted the problem of how to legitimize his reign after two centuries of Shi'i Safavid rule. He attempted to solve this problem, in part, by challenging Iran's Twelver Shi'i identity.

Nadir proposed to the Ottomans that Twelver Shi'ism be considered a fifth school of Sunni Islam, to be called the Ja'fari madhhab after the sixth Imam, Ja'far al-Sadiq. In exchange for Shi'i renunciation of such practices as sabb (the ritual cursing of the first three caliphs), Nadir proposed that the Ottomans give this Ja'fari madhhab all the privileges enjoyed by the four Sunni schools, and that a fifth pillar be erected in the Ka'bah in Mecca to commemorate it. He asked that the Ottomans allow him to appoint the leader of the annual ḥajj caravan from Iran.

From December 1930, when the first Iranian feature film was made to the 1980s, the connections between Persian literature and the Iranian cinema have been intimate, varied, and significant. In fact, an examination of the Iranian cinema in terms of the roles literature plays in it demonstrates that the cinema constitutes an important aspect of the sociology of the Iranian writer, especially from the mid-1960s to the late 1970s.

This essay surveys the role of literature and Iranian writers in the Iranian cinema and then focuses on a prominent example of the relationship between literature and movies, the popular 1971 film called Dash Akol, for the purpose of indicating differences in the aims and effects of the two art forms.

This essay traces the circulation of the industrial commodities of lithographic presses and stones and compares the uses to which these commodities were put in Iran with other regions at the same time. Using Persian travelogues as sources on scientific exchange, the essay compares Iran's access to lithography with its spread through Europe, Russia and South and Southeast Asia. Using lithography as a gauge of Iran's integration into an industrializing global economy, it compares state-led Iranian attempts to access lithographic commodities with attempts by other regional powers to develop local sources for these ‘stones from Bavaria’. After tracing the role of Christian Evangelicalism in the technology's dissemination, the essay finally contextualizes Iranian uses of lithography in global developments in illustrated and newspaper printing.