Shi‘ism, perhaps more than any other current of Islam, places emphasis on numerous forms of commemorative culture. Throughout the history of Shi‘ism, commemorative rituals have provided a comprehensive framework for interpreting a wide array of historical encounters between the Shi‘a and the dominant Sunni culture, thereby allowing Shi‘ism to construct itself as a community of learning and remembering. This self-construction required both a high degree of institutionalization as well as specialists to preserve the religious identity of the Shi‘a and to transmit religious knowledge to the next generation. Madrasas (Islamic institutions of higher learning) as well as the shrines of the Shi‘i Imams and their progeny served as the best institutions to achieve these goals. This paper argues that Safavid madrasas were not only centers for disseminating religious knowledge and preserving Shi’a intellectual heritage. They also rearticulated and contemporized the community’s past through the active memorializing of pivotal events in the religious calendar of the Shi‘a. More specifically, the paper delineates the nature and scope of religious rituals and rites carried out in the Madrasa-ye Sultānī and a number of other madrasa-mosque complexes of Safavid Isfahan in order to explore the process by which the Shi‘i past was contextualized or contemporized as salient to suit the needs of Safavid power and society.

This article examines the importance of the political thought and praxis of politico, ‘reformist’ strategist and intellectual, Saʿid Hajjarian, and his rethinking of the post-revolutionary Iranian state’s sources and bases of legitimacy in the 1990s and 2000s. It also provides an exposition and assessment of a number of his recommendations for the realisation of ‘political development’ (towseʿeh-ye siyāsi) in the post-revolutionary order and their contribution to the discourse of eslāhāt during the presidency of Hojjat al-Islam Mohammad Khatami (1997–2005). Moreover, it attempts to situate Hajjarian within a broader spectrum of reformist political opinion and its proponents within the Islamic Republic of Iran’s political class.

The colonization of the Muslim lands and the increasing political and commercial influence of the Christian West during the last 200 years shocked Muslim leaders. In response to the agonizing problems that increasing incursion by the West brought to the Muslim lands, there arose three groups of intellectuals. The traditionalists believed that the situation was transitory and that traditional Islam would eventually triumph. The ultramodernists sought salvation through uncritical and wholesale imitation of the West.

Among the prominent advocates of this last approach one can count Afghani, Abduh, Gokalp, Iqbal, and probably Kasravi, the Iranian social reformist. Kasravi seems to stand out among them in two important respects. First, unlike his predecessors, he formulated his ideas in a systematic way, tracing “problems” to their roots and advocating explicit “remedies.” Second, Kasravi never shifted strategy to suit the occasion as did his predecessors who, by so doing, confused their followers.

This article discusses the representation of Turks in the kulliyāt (collected works) of the fourteenth-century poet ‘Ubayd-i Zākānī (d. 1371). ‘Ubayd is well known for his satirical works (e.g. Mūsh u gurba, Akhlāq al-ashrāf), but his courtly poetry (in particular his ghazals and qasīdas) have yet to receive substantial scholarly attention. This study examines the various ways in which ‘Ubayd presents Turks in his kulliyāt, whether as an object of erotic desire, a figure to be feared on account of his violent nature, or else as a metaphor for the royal patron or other member of the ruling elite of fourteenth-century Shiraz. This article explores the tension that exists in ‘Ubayd's works between these various depictions of the Turk, shows how references to Turks in bawdy prose works and other poetic genres (such as rubā‘ī) can be used to interpret those found in more chaste ghazals, and discusses the possible implications the depiction of the Turk found in ‘Ubayd's kulliyāt may have for our understanding of references to Turks in the poetry of his contemporaries, in particular Hāfiz (d. 1389).

The toponym Kerend has a long history. This study explores the appearance of Kerend in pre-modern sources, beginning with the toponym Karintaš in the late second millennium BC. Kassite, Elamite and Assyrian rivalry for control over the central western Zagros mountains is discussed and the survival of the name in later antiquity is investigated. A derivative of the name appears in Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography and in the Parthian Stations of Isidore of Charax, as well as in the late Antique Cosmographia of the Anonymous Geographer of Ravenna. A homonymous name from the area east of the Caspian Sea is also discussed, as are several unrelated names occurring in other sources (Achaemenid Elamite, Armenian).

This paper explores the transformations of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s dominant narratives on labor between 1979 and 2009. By analyzing official May Day speeches of this period, it navigates multiple constructions of workers’ roles, which were systematically propagated by the IRI’s Supreme Leader and president over time. The analysis relies on the following primary sources: from the 1979 May Day sermon, pronounced by Ruhollah Khomeini, to the 2009 speech given by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, together with messages sent by Ali Khamenei, Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. Showing how workers’ role—understood as a collective and distinct group—was gradually minimized, this paper argues that a bottom-up cleaning up process slowly purified May Day. In fact, the IRI progressively neglected workers as (revolutionary) social actors and interlocutors, as it stopped talking to masses and started speaking to middle classes.

Yesterdays they changed my room. Am I completely cured now? Will I be free to leave next week as the superintendent promised? Have I been sick at all? For one year, they wouldn't give me a pen and paper which I wanted more than anything else. I always thought about the many things I would write once they gave me a pen and paper. Yesterday, without asking, they brought me paper and a pen...something I longed for so much...something I waited for so long. But what's the use? Since yesterday, I have been able to write nothing, no matter how hard I try. It's as though someone were holding me back, as though my arm were paralysed. Now, as I read over the garbled lines which are etched into the paper, the only words I can make out are... “three drops of blood.”

Rebellions bringing together peasant-pastoralists, local dignitaries, and a few Sayyids prevented the Safavid monarchs from effectively controlling the political and economic activities in the province of Astarabad until the late sixteenth century. This paper investigates the nature of these rebellions led by the siyāh pūshān (wearers of black), and the socio-economic background and religious leanings of these rebels and their diverse allies. It also pays special attention to Astarabad’s Sayyids, their intellectual formation, and their distinct approaches to the Safavid state from the early sixteenth century until the late 1570s when the uprisings lost much of their vigor. While heterodoxy may have been part of Astarabad’s religious landscape, there is no evidence that it had a significant manifestation in the Siyah Push movement. More importantly, urban Shiʿi doctrinal and legal traditions had profound roots in Astarabad, nurtured by the Sayyids and promoted by the Betekchi dignitaries prior to the rise of the Safavids. This is significant given the fact that a group of Sayyids from Astarabad (especially the town of Fenderesk) were directly involved in the insurgency against the early Safavids.

Shortly after the year 1000, Abū Nuᶜaym al-Iṣfahānī (948-1037), the author of a historical study about his hometown, called a ten volume work on Muslim hagiography with a poignant title, Ḥilyat al-auliyā, “The Ornament of the Saints.” At that moment, the learned and pious author, grandson of a noted aesthetic, could scarcely foresee that Iran would indeed deserve the epithet of being “decorated by saints” during the centuries to come even more than before Abū Nuᶜaym's lifetime. Therefore, it seems not improper to take this charming title as a starting point for some deliberations about the religious situation in early Muslim Iran.

Abū Nuᶜaym was one of the numerous disciples of Ibn Khafīf, the great saint of Fars who died, a centenarian, in 982 in his hometown Shiraz. We may single out this mystic for our purpose to give a short survey of pre-Safavid religious life in Iran.

Rustam's Origins are Certainly Complex, Multilayered, and it Would seem only partly Iranian. His legend itself indicates this; his mother is a foreigner living in Kabul and descended from Zahhak, so that both Sudabah and Isfandiyar are able to refer to him as demon-born, (dīv-zād). Mehrdad Bahar has concluded that much of his legend is Saka, or Scythian, and that it also has strong parallels and probable connections with that of Indra, the Vedic god of war. His integration into Iranian national history as its defender and savior betrays some strains: he is Iran's greatest champion but he enjoys very uneasy relations with some of Iran's kings (notably Kavus and Gushtasp), his sons Suhrab and Faramarz each launch independent attacks against the Iranian court, and his own last battle is against the crown prince of Iran whom he kills. Half foreigner, with a partially demonic ancestry, a man who kills the nation's heir apparent and whose sons declare war on two different Iranian royal families—these are troubling attributes for an ethnic hero, and point to some ambiguity in the evolution of his legend.

The argument proposed by Professor Leonard M. Helfgott in a recent article in Iranian Studies (Vol. X, Nos.1-2, 1977) cannot be accepted as an accurate evaluation of the social and economic structure of tribalism in Iran. The picture presented in his article portrays the situation almost solely in terms of theoretical considerations, with relatively little attempt to substantiate the theories with fact. As a result, a monolithic view of tribal society is put forth. The most objectionable theoretical approach proffered in his article is expressed in the following statement: “Tribal societies contain neither a concrete superstructural entity such as the state nor a separate economic sphere….But that is not to say that these functions do not exist or are not necessary for the production of pre-state societies. Rather superstructural functions appear as embedded within the kinship system.” Traditionally, tribes throughout Iranian history existed above and beyond the reach of the various kinship entities that they governed or controlled; indeed, they provided formal superstructures by which they exploited the various sources of wealth, and maintained order.

This essay explores the experiences of a young community of diasporic Iranians living and working in Tehran during the years 2007–2009 when the author lived there. Through analysis of the lived experiences of this group, the article highlights a unique experience that is often absent from current discussions of “diaspora.” In the preliminary research, a redeployment of often taken-for-granted concepts such as “home” and “abroad” are proposed and a conceptualization of migration and diaspora that problematizes stasis and movement is reconsidered.

In Iran, ancient mythical elements are very much alive in the present as a part of the fabric of ordinary people's lives and worldview. This paper explores the relationship between culture, myth, and artistic production in contemporary Iran, using the specific examples of symbols and mythological themes evoked in the work of painter/writer Aydin Aghdashloo and photographer/video artist Shirin Neshat. The paintings of Aghdashloo, in which he deliberately damages beautifully-executed classical style Persian miniatures, convey a sense that the angelic forces have failed and that the world is succumbing to the destructive and degenerative activities of the demonic. The photographs, videos and installations of Neshat likewise draw heavily on cultic forms inherited from ancient Iranian tradition. It is important to note that in none of these cases does the artist use mythological themes and symbols to express their original cultural meaning; rather, they appropriate well-known elements of ancient Iranian culture and imbue them with new meanings relevant to contemporary issues and understandings. What these examples do illustrate is the persistent resonance of ancient Iranian culture among Iranians up to the present day. Iranian artists have demonstrated the effectiveness of evoking their target audience's deep sense of cultural identity to convey contemporary messages using ancient cultural concepts, sometimes on a subconscious level.

Mehdi Qoli Hedayat, Mokhber al-Saltaneh, was born in 1863 into an aristocratic family in Tehran. He was the son of Ali Qoli Khan, Mokhber al-Dowleh, the pioneer in Iranian telegraphy, and the grandson of Reza Qoli Khan Hedayat, the famous historian and teacher of the Qajar period.

Mehdi Qoli went to school at age seven. At fourteen he was sent, in the company of his brother, Morteza Qoli (Sane ‘ al-Dowleh), to study in Germany. His stay lasted a little more than two months. He had intended to study medicine but returned home with his brother when their sister died. Feeling nostalgic for home, he did not heed his father's advice to stay and study. Later, reflecting on this decision, he said, "Alas, that if I had studied medicine I would be a free man and, now, I am bound, bound to a people...." Thus, Mehdi Qoli's education in Europe was limited to learning the German language and sightseeing in Germany and Switzerland.

Isabella Bird Bishop was one of the remarkable Victorian women who traveled independently in both Persia and the neighboring countries of the Ottoman Empire. She came to Persia as a very experienced and respected travel writer who had journeyed alone and adventurously in the Americas, Australia, Japan and Malaya. Her travels in Persia in 1890 were possibly the hardest and most challenging of her life. She meticulously observed, recorded and finally published all that she saw—the terrain, meetings with the Qajar court, Bakhtiari and Kurdish tribal chiefs and the families, and the daily life and customs of the people.

This article explores Salāmān va Absāl, one of seven poems which comprise Jāmī's collection of long masnavīs, known collectively as the Haft aurang. The work, which gained some renown outside Iran due to the English version of Edward FitzGerald, has nevertheless received little attention in modern scholarship. The few investigations of Salāmān va Absāl, moreover, have dwelled on its narrative, which tells the story of the carnal attraction of a prince for his wet-nurse, and never situated the work in its historical context or examined its political content. In addition, the allegorical symbolism of the tale, especially its depiction of key stages of the Sufi path, such as the act of repentance, has not been discussed in terms of representing a work of mystical advice. With these concerns in mind, the present article discusses the possibility that the political elements in Salāmān va Absāl complement the advice it gives on becoming a Sufi. Seen from this perspective, it would appear that Salāmān va Absāl correlates the notion of the just ruler to the Sufi concept of the “Perfect Man” to the extent that Jāmī presents the Sufi-king as the ideal medieval Islamic ruler. By implication, the work advises its royal patron, Sultān Ya‘qūb, to repent and embark upon the Sufi path, doing so, Jāmī intimates, would lead Ya‘qūb to realize his rank as God's “true” vicegerent.

During the years of the constitutional revolution and the Great War, Iran experienced a widespread and general reassertion of tribal power and by 1921 much of the country was under tribal control. Riza Khan's seizure of power, however, inaugurated a transformation in the relationship between the center and periphery in Iran. For the new regime and for the nationalist elite which supported it, the suppression of the tribes was an indispensable element of their larger project: the construction of a modern, centralized state, with a culturally homogeneous population. Their agenda was clear: the destruction of the autonomy and feudal authority of the tribal leaderships was to be closely followed by the subjection of the tribal populations to the unmediated power of the modernized state and their integration into settled society. From the very moment of seizing power in Tehran, the new regime embarked on a sustained effort to establish its military and administrative hegemony over the tribes.