It has long been accepted, almost as a Cold War truism, that the first direct confrontation between Soviet Russia and the United States took place over Iran in February, 1946. According to the traditional picture of Cold War origins, Russia's refusal to evacuate her forces--together with her simultaneous efforts to establish a puppet regime in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan--tipped the West off as to her global intentions. America and Great Britain promptly registered protests within and outside the United Nations, and, in the first effort at containment, prevented direct Soviet penetration of the entire Middle East. After Iran, the West was forewarned. As a leading textbook notes, in pointing to Russia's reluctance to withdraw, “Soviet power was prepared to move into any position that the Western states were not willing to defend.”

Most memoirs of American policy-makers stress that the United States had responded, and responded of necessity, to Russian incentive.

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 Depending on or irrespective of the conversation partner, individual interests or opinions can be expressed or withdrawn.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.

This essay examines the graphic memoir An Iranian Metamorphosis, by the acclaimed cartoonist Mana Neyestani, in the context of Iranian diaspora literature, particularly the genre of comics. Neyestani’s book is analyzed for its engagement with the politics of exile literature, and its attempt at challenging a two-dimensional view of the political discourse, in which the ethical boundaries of pro- and anti-government are overtly simple. The essay focuses on the book’s narrative techniques that exhibit a complex awareness of what is anticipated from a representative work of Iranian exile memoir, and the way it negotiates its own narrative politics. To clarify the arguments, several comparative examples are drawn from two well-known graphic narratives by Iranian diaspora authors, Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis, and Amir and Khalil’s Zahra’s Paradise.

Yezidi mišūrs are one of the rarest written sources on the history and religion of the Yezidis. The special value of mišūrs is that Yezidism is characterized mainly by the oral transmission of religious tradition. The article provides an overview and a description of the four versions of Mišūr of P’īr Sīnī Bahrī/P’īr Sīnī Dārānī (Mişûr of Pîr Sînî Behrî/Pîr Sînî Daranî), one of which is thought to be produced in 604/1207 or 1208, making it one of the earliest sources of Yezidi history and religion. A collaborative version of the document is presented based on these four versions. Yezidi mišūrs belong to certain lineages of P’īrs and represent certificates of recognition of those lineages and those Yezidi tribes that were attributed to them as Murids. The manuscript that is examined here is rich in historical data related to the establishment of the Yezidi community. The document also lists the tribes that today are not Yezidi. Furthermore, the mišūr identifies a number of previously unknown followers and associates of Sheikh ‘Adi. This data will be instrumental in identifying various features of Yezidism in its formative age.

The major goal of this study is to examine the origins, development and peculiarities of the Iranian peasants’ extra-economic obligations to the landlords and the body representing them, the state, in the period between the fourth and the seventeenth centuries. Defining feudalism as a mode of production, it focuses only on the various obligations of the Iranian peasantry during this; period in an attempt to show that the feudal characteristics of servile obligations existed in Iran, reaching their heights under the Mongols in terms of legal attachment to the soil.

Feudalism is viewed as a mode of production which has two complementary aspects: the productive forces and the relations of production. A feudal economy is marked by a more or less “static” pattern of reproduction since the surplus product is spent for non-productive purposes. The act of production is largely individual in character, and the division of labor is rudimentary. Feudalism is also identified with a natural economy, i.e., an economy in which the product is produced not for sale, but for personal use.

Analysis of British policy towards Iran during the shah's final years has tended to be the preserve of those who formulated it. In general, it has focused on the extent to which British policymakers predicted the events of the Iranian revolution (published accounts by British policymakers include: Anthony Parsons, The Pride and The Fall: Iran 1974–1979 (1984); David Owen, Time to Declare (1991); Ivor Lucas, A Road To Damascus: Mainly Diplomatic Memoirs from the Middle East (1997), and “Revisiting the Decline and Fall of the Shah of Iran” (2009)). This article is different in both its sources and scope. Unlike any other published study on Anglo-Iranian relations, it relies on government records recently released in the National Archives. Instead of focusing on the British response to the Iranian revolution, it seeks to account for the strength of the shah's leverage and illustrate its consequences during one of the most important periods in Iran's history.

Ibrahim Khalil Khan, the octogenarian ruler of Qarabagh in the southern Caucasus, was shot by Russian soldiers on the night of June 14, 1806. In one sense, there is nothing mysterious about the khan's death. Qarabaghi, Russian, and Iranian sources agree that he was killed for having sided with Iran against Russia's attempt to take control of his khanate and all the lands between the High Caucasus and the Aras River. However, this explanation raises more important questions which have gone unanswered. For years Ibrahim Khalil had sided with Georgia and then Russia against Iran. What made him switch sides in time of war? Russia did not plan to supplant rule by khan in Qarabagh and did not kill every ruler it deposed. Why then did the Russians kill this khan? How was it possible for the execution of Russian policy to slip out of St. Petersburg's control?

Censorship has been as much a part of Iran's literary history as betrayed love, bewitched lovers, and broken love affairs. In other words, it began long before the establishment of the "Imperial Printing Office" during the reign of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (ruled 1848-1896).

In earlier times some dissident writers were forced to lick off the ink from pages of their writings. Others had their mouths filled with gold or silver. Some were thrown in dungeons or seas. Others were exiled or executed.

Modern rulers have been no less adamant or imaginative in their methods of silencing opposition artists. "Mohammad 'Ali Shah had the two writers and orators, Malek-ol-Motakallamin and Sur-e Esrafil, hanged in the Bagh-e Shah Garrison, while he himself sat on the balcony facing the gallows and ate an entire plateful of rice and kabob as he watched." Farrokhi Yazdi (1889-1939) had his lips sewn together.

In 1911, The CZECH Folklorist Albert Wesselski Published His Two volume compilation Der Hodscha Nasreddin, still considered one of the most comprehensive and reliable collections of anecdotes on Khwaja Nasr al-Din (Turkish: Nasreddin Hoca), the most widely known protagonist of humorous prose narrative in the Near East. Wesselski chose to subtitle his work “Turkish, Arabic, Berber, Maltese, Sicilian, Calabrian, Croatian, Serbian and Greek tales and anecdotes,” thus indicating the main geographical region in which tales on Nasr al-Din are in circulation. On the other hand, the geographical outline does not suggest a lack of awareness on Wesselski's part of the fact that the Mediterranean cannot be said to monopolize the famous jester. Being familiar with problems touching on the dissemination and spread of popular tales and their protagonists, Wesselski consciously profited from a large number of publications accessible to him in various European languages.

This essay on Qajar architecture in Isfahan is part of a more general investigation of urbanism, politics, and the shape, iconography, and meaning of the city in the nineteenth century. Aspects of architecture and the phenomenology of urban construction will be discussed within a broader thematic inquiry on Qajar Isfahan in two parts. The first discusses the various historical images of the city while the second will focus on the major trends of Qajar architecture in Isfahan within this context.

Research on Qajar art and architecture in Isfahan has been largely guided by an inquest on the former Safavid capital as a center of high politics and culture. This narrow focus accounts for historiographies and interpretational lacunae in the study of Qajar architecture in Isfahan. The following discussion hence is a first exploration of the city's architectural structures and one that frequently raises more questions than answers.

The main objective of this paper is to problematize writings on vehicles in an Iranian context. Previous studies have indicated that vehicle stickers can be employed to express emotions and social status, political views, ideology and identity, and religious beliefs. However, very little has been done on this discursive practice in Iran. This study is the result of the content analysis of 122 vehicle writings collected from April 2011 to March 2012. This paper will draw on six of the most frequent themes: religion, humor, playing pessimism, didactic expressions, ethnic-geographic identification, and love. Employing Bourdieu's conceptual frameworks of “habitus,” “field,” and “doxa,” and Heath and Street's social practice perspective on literacy, it will be argued that vehicle writings in this study can be regarded as situated literacy practices reflecting the dominant undisputed discourses in the context, but at the same time displaying the dynamic interplay of power relations, the relationship of cultural structures and individual customized versions of those structures in vehicle writings.

The last millenium of Iranian history has been what might best be called the “Turanian period,” a time of Turkish and Mongol rule and nomad domination. It is a period viewed by Iranians and most students of Iranian history with mixed, largely negative, feelings that reflect the experience and writings of the conquered peoples. The experience of the Turanians tends to be disregarded, only in part because they wrote very little about it. This essay considers the nature and some of the experience of the conquering Turanian nomad society.

In discussing nomadism it is important to dispose of some perhaps tacit assumptions of cultural bias. The nomad should not be viewed as a mere vagabond or vagrant. He noves purposefully and he is far from lacking means of support, although they may be hidden over the hill or around the bend in the road.

Political satire has had a prominent part to play in the social and political sphere of journalism in Iran since the appearance of an independent press in the country at the beginning of the twentieth century. This paper examines the problems of political satire in the Iranian press during the 2000s with respect to their historical context during the past century. The paper argues that, addressing the essential relationship between satire and criticism, and the primary role that criticism has in the freedom of press, what happened to political satire and satirists in Iran can be seen as an index of the freedom of the press and journalistic expression for an era.

For Kamyar Abdi

Many tribes lived in southwestern Persia during the Achaemenid period. The region was crucial for the Persian empire in that almost all roads connecting the two capitals of Persepolis and Susa run through it. The policy adopted by the Achaemenids for controlling this tribal region was to establish tribal confederations headed by men loyal to the king such as Madates and Gobryas. The Achaemenid king reinforced these tribal confederations by political marriages. Sisygambis, the mother of Darius III, was presumably an Uxian. This is why she was an ideal person to negotiate with Alexander of Macedon to free the Uxians headed by Madates, also probably an Uxian. Gobryas, the head of the Patischorian tribe, was one of the seven who rebelled against Bardiya/Gaumāta according to the Bisotun inscription and Herodotus. The Persepolis Fortification texts appear to show that the region between modern Bāsht and Ardakān called the Fahliyān region or Shulestān was the territory of this tribe. Irdabama, presumably the daughter of Gobryas born from his marriage with daughter of a local dynast, was married by Darius I in order to maintain Achaemenid control over this tribal region.

The purpose of this article is to analyze the interaction between different interpretations of Islamic jurisprudence in Iran and state law. It focuses on the public legal discourse about the new Family Draft Law in 2007–08, especially Article 23 regulating polygamous marriages and removing necessity for the first wife’s permission. The participants in this public legal debate, which took place on the internet and in the media, were civil society organizations, especially women’s organizations, the Shiite clergy, and state representatives. The article argues that even in a non-democratic, theocratic state such as the Islamic Republic of Iran, public discourse promoted by the named actors can challenge and influence state legislation. The removal of Article 23 from the Draft confirms this argument, but in the law of 2013 the requirement for the first wife’s permission is not found. By looking at the arguments brought forward in the public discourse, the article demonstrates that the arguments are mainly “Islamic,” and none refers to international human rights, as this seems to be a kind of taboo in the political discourse.

As a leading foundational institution of modernity, Alborz High School under the leadership of Dr. Mohammad Ali Mojtahedi came to embody and promote techno-scientific (or instrumental) rationality that has been the dominant form of rationality in Iran in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The essay analyzes this form of rationality and its fostering by Alborz High School during the tenure of Mohammad Ali Mojtahedi. It is argued that while instrumental rationality is necessary for any developing country, it poses fundamental problems for the development of democratic ethos. Alternatively, Jürgen Habermas' notion of “communicative rationality” is proposed and analyzed as a way to complement and democratize Iranian approach toward rationality and modernity

In the early twentieth century, Iranian Baha'is were at the forefront of efforts to promote modern schooling for girls in Iran. Using previously untapped published primary sources and archival records, this article examines the history of the Baha'i schools for girls in the context of modern schooling of Iranian girls and assesses their contribution to female education in Iran. This contribution was significant and all the more remarkable considering the Iranian Baha'is’ numbers and resources and the restrictions under which they operated. Most notably, in the spring of 1933, less than two years before the forced closure of Baha'i schools by the Pahlavi state, 4 percent of all females in Iran's accredited schools were enrolled in Baha'i schools. The Baha'i community's most prestigious school, Tarbīyat-i banāt in Tehran, was by this time Iran's largest girls’ school. Outside Tehran, in some localities, the only girls’ schools were run by Baha'is, and in others a significant portion of all female pupils were enrolled in Baha'i schools.