When the Jews first settled in Central Asia is uncertain, but circumstantial evidence clearly indicates that this happened at least two and a half thousand years ago. In the first millennium AD, the Jews lived only in cities no farther than 750 km east of the Caspian sea (in the eighth–eleventh centuries the sea was called Khazarian). Only later did they migrate to the central part of the region, to cities like Samarkand and Bukhara. It is possible that Jews from Khazaria joined them, since they already had tight trade connections with Central Asia and China. There is no trace of evidence regarding the existence of Jews in the entirety of Central Asia in the early sixteenth century. At the very end of the sixteenth century Bukhara became the new ethnoreligious center of the Jews in that region. In the first half of the nineteenth century, thanks to European travelers visiting Central Asia at that time, the term “Bukharan Jews” was assigned to this sub-ethnic Jewish group. Drawing on a wide range of primary and secondary source materials, this article aims to prove that the presence of Jews in Central Asia was not continuous, and therefore the modern Bukharan Jews are not descendants of the first Jewish settlers there. It also attempts to determine where Central Asia’s first Jewish population disappeared to.

It is difficult to say something new about Nowruz. It is a national festival, and everyone knows what a national festival is. Nowruz takes place and is spoken of every year. Much has been told and much you have heard. Then is repetition appropriate?! Yes it is! Doesn't Nowruz repeat itself? Then you should attend to what is repeatedly said of Nowruz. In science and literature, repetition is boring and useless.

This article sets forth a history (with literary-textual focus) of the Iranian mythological Snake-man, from the earliest Vedic and Avestan evidence, down to Ferdowsi. The continuous development of the myth in Iran is accompanied by changes in the monster's name, which show linguistic reassociations, while a constant in all of this is the figure's representation as an inimical outsider. The Vedic name of the brute's fortification, the background of which in etymology and realia will be shown to be the pre-Aryan Bactria-Margiana Archeological Complex, finds a clear but hitherto unobserved correlation in Pahlavi. This illuminates the Indo-Iranian antiquity of the myth in terms of prehistoric inter-ethnic rivalries.

For Graham Seal

This paper probes the relationship between visual representations and visitation practices at Pasargadae, a UNESCO World Heritage site in southern Iran. Presenting a systematic analysis of publicly available online images of Pasargadae, the paper examines the complex relationship between the place and its visual representations. Through analysis, the paper elaborates on a sense of intimacy that, while grounding Pasargadae, is also a potential common ground in pre-Islamic heritage in which the Iranian state and society could at once meet and contest versions of identity. Examining this relationship facilitates reflections into both heritage and the peculiarities of its visual representation in the Iranian context.

This article explores the poetry of Shah Ismāᶜīl Safavī (d. 1524), the founder of the Safavid dynasty of Iran. Established as an important historical source by Vladimir Minorsky during World War II, the issues surrounding the poetic corpus of Shah Ismāᶜīl have continued to attract the attention of historians of the Safavids. With examples from the earliest and most authentic manuscript, the idea of viewing this body of works as literary sources versus political propaganda is discussed in this article.

More than Fifty Books, and More than 100 Academic Articles, Have appeared in English alone dealing in significant part with the Iranian revolutionary movement. This impressive output, published in just 15 years, does not reflect a similarly copious wealth of source materials. In fact, the study of the Iranian revolutionary movement is largely, one might argue, sound and fury, a lot of grand theorizing lacking a solid empirical basis. No work on the Iranian revolution has made systematic use of all forms of primary evidence that are currently available, though some are more thorough than others.

This paper discusses Western historiography of the Iranian revolutionary movement of 1977–79, which led to the fall of the Pahlavi regime in February 1979. It does not attempt to cover works on the post-revolutionary period, after the fall of the shah. In addition, it does not deal specifically with individual secondary works on the Iranian revolution.

This essay addresses itself to the century long history of cinema in Iran, focusing on the history of the senses as they combine with and are extended by film technologies. It argues that Khomeini's aim was to produce a transformed and Shi'ite Iran by purifying the sensorial national body by means of film technologies.

Published in 1933, Walther Hinz's detailed study on the short and turbulent reign of Safavid Shah Ismacil II (984-85/1576-77), which he likens to that of Ivan the Terrible, has yet to be surpassed. Although Hinz consulted many Safavid chronicles then in manuscript, including a number which have yet to be published, his discussion of a major facet of the period's history, Shah Ismacil II’s religious policies, is based primarily on the account of Iskandar Beg Munshi in Tārīkh-i cālam-ārā-yi cAbbasī, which he essentially paraphrases. Hinz concludes that Shah Ismacil II’s pro-Sunni policies, including primarily his prohibitions against cursing the Companions of the Prophet and his attempt to remove the Shicite credal statement cAlīyun walī Allāh “cAli is the ally of God” from the coinage, resulted not from political expediency but rather from personal conviction. In the end, these policies failed. Realizing that he could not win over the Qizilbash and that he himself was in grave danger, Shah Ismacil rescinded his decrees, had his pro-Sunni ṣadr and advisor, Mirza Makhdum Sharifi, placed under house arrest, and reconfirmed his commitment to Shicism before the end of his short reign.

In an article antitled “Belles-Lettres, Ethics and Didactic Literature: Thoughts on Three Concepts in Iranian Culture,” Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak poses the question whether the large body of andarz literature, “…may be said to form…‘the grammar of ethical thought’ in Persian.” The author briefly reviews the most recent scholarship on the subject, including Charles-Henri de Fouchécour's comprehensive and singular work, and concludes by calling for the necessity of close analyses of works of andarz from rhetorical, cultural, and social perspectives. It is through such close analyses, he maintains, that we can begin to understand “the grammar of ethical thought in Persian.”

Karimi-Hakkak underscores the pragmatic aspect of andarz literature. As de Fouchécour also observes, ‘The point of departure was…not a set of moral precepts, but convenience: Morality was knowing how to live in society (farhang, adab).” The authors of andarz literature provided both general and specific directives as to how one could best live in society.

This study pioneers the quantitative research of second generation Iranian graduates in Germany. Second generation immigrants in Germany, immigrants raised in Germany with at least one parent born abroad, are relevant as they are a crucial part of German society. Second generation immigrants in general as well as Iranians in particular are assumed to have high extrinsic aspirations. But a dataset big enough to study the employment situation of second generation Iranian graduates in Germany did not exist. Therefore, the article uses the KOAB dataset from 2011 to 2015, which contains data from 53,429 full-time employed higher education graduates in Germany (among those are 161 second generation Iranians). Their extrinsic job aspirations and career success (income, job satisfaction) are analyzed. Multivariate analyses reveal the higher extrinsic job aspirations of second generation Iranian graduates compared to many other migrant groups and Germans but similar to second generation Turkish graduates. Nevertheless, the extrinsic job aspiration is relevant, though only one factor among others to predict career success.

Moniru Ravanipur began her literary career in 1989 with the publication of her first collection of short stories, Kanīzū. The same year she published her first novel, Ahl-e gharq. Since then she has completed two other novels, Del-e fūlād and Kowlī kenār-e ātesh, another collection of short stories, Sang-e shaytdn, occasional stories for children, and a compilation of southern Iranian legends and beliefs, Afsānehā va bāvarhā-ye jonūb. Her fictional works are almost all set in the Persian Gulf region and center around local myths and legends. The language of Ravanipur's literary production also bears the distinct mark of her regional dialect, which as a native of the village of Jofreh (also the setting of her first novel) she maintained after moving to Shiraz, where she eventually received a degree in psychology from Shiraz University.

For Ravanipur, writing is inextricably linked with her littoral linguistic and cultural heritage.

This article argues that the Avestan text Yasna Haptaŋhāiti (“Yasna of the seven chapters”) was not originally divided into seven chapters. It was divided into three parts that were not considered hāitis (chapters) in the same way as the gathic hāitis. The division of the Yasna Haptaŋhāiti into seven parts and its corresponding title is based on the arrangement of the Old Avestan texts. These texts try to reproduce the structure of the prayer Ahuna Vairiia; three verses with two hemistichs each correspond to three pairs of compositions with 7, 4 four and 1 hāiti each of the Old Avestan texts.

On 5 May 1850 the Babis of Zanjan rose in arms against the Qajar governor of the town. Led by a charismatic cleric known as Hujjat-i Zanjani, two thousand Babi fighters with their families held part of the town against a much larger government army. Nine months later, when the army captured the last ruined houses held by the Babis, fewer than a hundred Babi fighters survived to face execution.

There is never a neat answer to the question of why a historical event occurred, and the question is that much harder to answer when the information is in fundamental ways incomplete and when the participants themselves differed deeply about the meaning of the event. There were two other major Babi revolts1— Mazandaran in 1848–49 and Nayriz in 1850—and at least four other instances where Babi uprisings might have been expected: Shiraz, Qazvin, and Isfahan in 1846, and Tehran in 1852.

Ever since Minorsky published his introduction and commentary on the Safavid manual of administration Tadhkirat al-Mulūk, which has become a classic in the field, scholars have come to agree on the tribal character of the state that was founded by Shah Esma`il. In fact, it is through the military force of the Turkmen tribes, the Qezelbash, that Shah Esma`il was able to accede to the throne, thus inaugurating a period of relative stability for Iran that lasted more than two centuries. Iran owed its ability to resist the recurring and alternating attacks by the Ottoman Empire and the Uzbegs to Qezelbash power as well.

Initially mobilized by religious fanaticism, the military strength of the Qezelbash became a double-edged sword for the Safavid rulers with the waning of unconditional Qezelbash devotion to the shah. Though they were indispensable to the defense of the empire's frontiers, the Qezelbash amirs, with their unbridled despotism and the resulting turmoil, never ceased to be a prime source of concern for the rulers.

The following ghazals by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini were written between 1365/1986 and 1367/1988. They are taken from his Bada-ye ᶜeshq: Ashᶜar-e ᶜarefana-ye Hazrat-e Emam Khomeini (Wine of Love: Mystical Poems by His Eminence Imam Khomeini). The collection includes twenty-three mystical ghazals, a number of quatrains, and some other material. When one approaches late twentieth-century Persian ghazals, the intellectual climate in which we live today compels one to ask a number of questions. Has the contemporary poet mastered and applied the formal requirements that govern the pre-modern style? Are the poems confined to the traditional topics of wine, spring, and unrequited love in all its aspects or do they explore new areas of broader social relevance? Is the contemporary poet following or reacting to earlier poets? Finally, what is the relationship of the poetry to the life of the poet?

The present study tries to show a wider-than-usual use of ta'ârof, that is the deliberate play with the so-called “ritual courtesy, or politeness” formulas that can alter the readers' opinion about a character, for instance that result in prejudice, sympathy, etc. towards the characters. Politeness, in both everyday conversations and literary texts, is an excellent device for expressing certain individual opinions. Depending on or irrespective of the conversation partner, individual interests or opinions can be expressed or withdrawn. What I try to prove is that their use— quantity, types etc.—can be a form of expressing the author's direct attitude. I have chosen works of the “classics” of modern fiction (Sâdeq Hedâyat, Bozorg ‘Alavi, Sâdeq Čubak and Jalâl Âl Ahmad). Based on the selected examples from the works of the writers I have chosen, I attempt to demonstrate and prove my presumption. The exaggerated insistence on a certain style or just the exaggerated refusal to use a certain style can be a tool for the writer to influence—beforehand—the readers’ impression of a certain character or characters. This effect can be rough, sarcastic, etc.

I concluded my previous paper on this subject with the remark that the people of Boir Ahmad, faced with the depletion of their pastures, the unavailability of new land, the difficulty of obtaining higher education, and the low wages earned from migrant labor, were looking toward the future trusting a merciful God to open, as they say, five doors for each one that was closed. That was in 1971. Since then, doors have indeed been opening up for the people of Boir Ahmad, a process which is filling them with new expectations for the future, but which is also changing basically the structure of their traditional way of life. These changes are most pronounced in the western and eastern parts of Boir Ahmad, i.e., in the nearer and farther environs of the administrative centers of Yasuj and Deh Dasht. In the present paper I shall describe these changes, using as an example a village 36 kilometers to the northwest of Yasuj, the Deh Bozorg Sisakht, commonly called Sisakht, the largest village of Boir Ahmad (pop. in 1976: 2596).

European leaders are increasingly conscious of their heavy dependence on energy supplies from Russia. In an attempt to articulate a strategy to improve energy security, the European Commission issued an EU Energy Security and Solidarity Action Plan in November 2008. This essay examines Europe's energy vulnerability and the role Iran can play in diversifying the EU energy supplies. I argue that a rapprochement with Iran aimed at greater utilization of its oil and gas reserves would contribute to Europe's (and the world's) energy security.

Almost nothing of monumental painting in the Islamic world survives. Speculation about its existence and its original appearance has long taken the place of the study of existing monuments. One consoled oneself with the consideration that at least part of the immense loss of monumental Islamic painting is compensated for by the fact that the surviving miniature paintings--or where those are lacking, paintings on pottery, glass, and ivory--in all likelihood reflect both in style and iconography the destroyed wall-paintings which had decorated the palaces of the rulers, princes, and wealthy.

This assumption was supported by the close correspondance between the few fragments of wall-painting surviving from the Seljuq period in Iran and the mina'i and lustre-painted potteries of the time. It was finally substantiated by the discovery of the Varqah va Gulshah manuscript in Istanbul, illustrated with paintings in a style corresponding closely to both the surviving fragments of wall-paintings and the painted potteries of the period.