Sa'di's (d. 691/1292) encounter with the idol of Somnāth is among the most popular stories of his Būstān and frequently mentioned in biographies of him. Jāmī apparently believed the account, as have a number of scholars of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, who nevertheless have expressed reservations and doubts regarding certain elements of the story, particularly Sa'di's “confused” allusions to different religious traditions. In E. G. Browne's words:

The International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS) fortieth anniversary celebration at the University of Toronto provided an opportunity to research and record the development of Iranian studies at the university. Iranian studies emerged in 1961 as a major sub-field of the newly established Department of Islamic Studies (now the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations (NMC)). Presently, the university has a diverse and yet cohesive cadre of academic talent and offers a breadth of courses, which makes it unique in Canada. The language-based discipline of an earlier generation of scholars has become the present multi-faceted program of today, addressing a wide variety of academic and community interests. The University of Toronto academic tradition, the scholarship of early faculty, and the immigration of Iranians have contributed to shaping Iranian studies in Toronto.

This paper analyzes the urban insertion of some Iranian religious minorities, focusing on three communities, all of which lived in separated neighborhoods: Armenians of Isfahan, Jews of Shiraz, and Zoroastrians of Yazd. After a discussion on the link between non-Muslims' spatial and social isolation and Iranian culture and Shiism, the paper goes on to describe the organization of these neighborhoods during the recent centuries and the recent—and contrastive—evolutions of two of them: while Zoroastrians view their quarter like a humiliating ghetto, of which they wish to go out, Armenians are proud of it, and try up till now to jealously preserve their isolation.

The ShĀhnĀmah Provides an Obvious Starting Point for an Examination of the role of guile in Persian literature. It is the earliest major work in which male and female characters both play significant roles, and in many of its stories guile, by which I mean the whole range of dishonest or deceitful behavior, plays a central role. Rethinking the stories in the Shāhnāmah from this perspective leads to several general conclusions. First, guile is a pervasive presence in the Shāhnāmah. Despite the consistent and ubiquitous condemnation of all forms of dishonesty, and the parallel exhortations to honesty and truth, lies and deceit are familiar weapons in the armory of heroes as well as villains. Second, warriors employ guile, as they do more conventional weapons, when it will yield some advantage over an opponent, and, in particular, when their own strength by itself will not be enough to assure victory. Third, although the ways in which men and women deploy guile varies according to their very different roles in society, men use it as readily as women do. Finally, when a woman does lie or dissimulate, men do not generalize from her behavior to that of all women.

Pantheism is generally defined as “all is God and God is all (I) but it can therotically assume two different forms. First, it is said that the finite and temporal world is nothing in front of God, and it is swallowad up by the sole absolute Reality of God, or in the second instance, God is considered as dissolved in the world, poetically sung or scientifically demonstrated as a Whole, in which an immanent Life-Energy acts. In both cases, however, what most sharply distinguishes pantheism from non-pantheism (or theism) is the fact that God is always considered by pantheists as something impersonal; pantheists generally affirm the superiority of their view on theistic “inferior” forms of religion pointing out that (a) calling God a “person” restricts and diminishes His greatness, as it necessarily implies a body and a limitation, (b) pantheistic piety is not a feeling of devotion of an Ego to a Thou, but rather the sensation of being a part belonging to a Whole, a wave in the immense sea of Being.

In January 1988, the Speaker of Parliament, Hojjat al-Islam ‘ Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, delivered a lengthy Friday sermon (khuţbah) in which he discussed a “very important message” previously issued by the “leader,” Ayatollah Khomeini. The message, as expounded by Rafsanjani, was a reiteration of Khomeini's well-known views on the nature and function of Islamic Government and, specifically, on the duties and privileges of the ulama as the political leaders of the Muslim community. The gist of the sermon was that “it is the jurists (fuqahā’) who determine the Muslims’ way of life under every condition and at any given time.” In a world where “people extract economic minerals from the depths of the earth,” where “war is waged for the conquest of space and Mars,” and where “atom [bombs] are built … as weapons of intimidation,” the Qur'an could not provide answers to all problems and issues.

The demonic plays an integral role in the Shahnameh, manifesting itself in countless forms. Early kings and heroes fight demons at every turn, and in one of the most memorable tales in the poem—the story of Zahhāk—Iran itself falls under the rule of demonic forces. But demons are not always physical creatures; we also encounter them as immaterial forces of temptation, distraction, and fate. One of the most fascinating aspects of this multifarious presentation of the demonic is the way it intersects the poem's portrayal of what it means to be human. This article focuses on that intersection, highlighting encounters between human beings and the demonic and arguing that they not only complicate notions of humanity, but also construct and reinforce categories of masculinity and femininity. A close examination of two phenomena at the heart of human–demon contact—serpents and sorcery—reveals how evil is embodied and enacted in highly gendered ways. Male and female characters in the Shahnameh diverge in their abilities to combat the demonic and are lured into wickedness by different means. What emerges from the interplay between human beings and demons and between the categories of masculinity, femininity, and the demonic is a multifaceted and sophisticated portrayal of evil that informs even the simplest and most straightforward tales in Ferdowsi's work.

This article aims to present a political analysis of the relationship between the Shiʿa community in Afghanistan and the new political system that emerged after the US military intervention of 2001. In light of the sectarian conflicts in the greater Middle East and the connection between South West Asia and the Syrian war since 2011, this article illustrates the limits of the social empowerment of the Shiʿa communities in Afghanistan. The article outlines the internal religious scene and the connections between āyatollāhs (marājeʿ), mainly from Iran or Iraq, and Afghan Shiʿite believers. It also examines how the Afghan Shiʿite community differs from those of Iran and Iraq.

Isabella Bird Bishop's Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan is presented as an objective picture of Persia, purportedly reflecting eye-witness accounts. Setting the narrative in its historical context and employing the concept of exoticism, this paper aims to unearth its subtle imperialist underpinnings. It argues that Bird's portrayal of Persian women and their mores and manners as exotic is an effect of a mode of representation which depicts and constructs difference based on a British-oriented system of evaluation, in line with its imperialist interest in Persia. As such, the exotic representation of Persian women in need of British benign tutelage and a chivalric mission could be interpreted as lending implicit support to Britain's colonial intervention in and imposition on Persia.

Even when Mohammad Reza Shah became an autocrat by the early 1960s, systemic constraints on his power persisted. One was government officials. They certainly accepted the shah’s governmental centrality. But in parallel they inventively created more elbowroom for themselves than they are normally credited for, shaping everyday administration and co-shaping policies. The article substantiates this argument in two steps. First, it looks at Iran’s Sāzmān-e bimeh-hā-ye ejtemāʿi-ye kārgarān (Workers Social Insurance Organization [SBIK]), drawing principally on French-language International Labor Organization (ILO) archival files. Although the shah had a well-publicized stake in social insurance expansion, the SBIK influenced policy strategy, sometimes against his explicit wishes; also, it handled routine operations and relations with the ILO independently from him. Second, the article zooms out to analyze Persian-language Harvard University Iranian Oral History Project interviews with high-ranking officials, alongside other published and unpublished sources, to show how government officials maintained some autonomy vis-à-vis the shah. Their strategies included self-effacement, the agreement on a unified cabinet policy position before a royal audience, resignation threats, open pushback, and gifts, including favors, to third parties.

This article examines the life and works of Hossein Kazemzadeh Iranshahr, focusing on the evolution of his thought from an ardent nationalist to a cosmopolitan mystic. It offers a detailed account of the spiritual transformation that Iranshahr went through around 1920 in Europe—a topic that has never been addressed in existing scholarship. It contextualizes his esoteric views, especially the influence of Theosophy on his thought in the context of the so-called “Occult Revival” in Weimar Germany. Finally, it discusses how Iranshahr's emerging spiritual worldview impacted his intellectual outlook, especially his views on religion, nationalism, civilization, and race.

Approximately Sixty Entries in Volumes I-VI of Encyclopaedia Iranica deal with painting and calligraphy in Islamic Iran. While Priscilla Soucek has contributed many of these, other authors include Dorothea Duda, B.W. Robinson, Barbara Schmitz, M. Dabirsiaqi, A.S. Shahbazi and Thomas Lentz. Anthony Welch, Jennifer Scarce, G. A. Pugachenkova, Soucek, and Robinson have also written general entries on art in Iran in the Islamic period. Rather than treat each entry individually, this review will assess the contribution of each author, characterizing his or her approach and noting some but not all of the entries on painters and calligraphers and their work. Additionally, this review will consider James Allan's article on ARMOR, May Beattie's on the ARDABIL CARPET, Dorothy Thompson's on silk (ABRĪŠAM), and 34 articles on CARPETS and CLOTHING.

Taken as a whole, the 34 entries by Priscilla Soucek validate her reputation as an extremely rigorous scholar of Iranian painting and calligraphy. Professor Soucek's entries raise our hopes that she will eventually publish the definitive book on these fields.

One of the most exceptional among the world renowned historical treasures is the repository of valuables of the olden shahs of Persia found in the Jewels Museum in Tehran. The outstanding jewel among those kept there is the diamond called Daryā-ye Nur, weighing about 182 carats. The history of this stone, according to the literature on the subject, starts in seventeenth century India, in the city of Golconda. Analysis of primary sources, however, allows for the supposition that this stone may have a longer history.

This essay parts with the compartmentalized way in which scholarship tends to view Iran’s military predicament in the Safavid era by examining the perennial threat the Ottomans posed to the country largely in isolation from the recurring conflict between the Safavids and their other main adversaries, the Mughals and Uzbeks, respectively. The security dilemma facing Safavid Iran, it is argued here, was acute as well as multifaceted, and should be approached as such. All three of its direct neighbors were Sunni and two, the Ottomans and the Mughals, were capable of mobilizing far greater military resources than Iran. The main strategic concern of the Safavids was to prevent these neighbors from joining forces and engaging them in a two-front war. This study examines balancing the strategies employed by the three most consequential Safavid shahs, Esma‘il I (1501‒24), Tahmasb (1524‒76), and ‘Abbas I (1587‒1629), to avoid becoming the target of a simultaneous or combined assault by their neighbors. This analysis provides the backdrop to the rational decision the Safavids made in 1639—to end the threat of a two-front war by concluding a lasting peace accord with their most formidable enemies, the Ottomans.

When Dihkhuda published his poem Inshallah gurbah ast (“God willing, it's a cat”) in 1933, he created quite a stir in Iranian literary circles. The great scholar Muhammad Qazvini, for example, was inspired to call the poem “without a doubt one of the masterpieces of modern literature.” Even a poem of lesser quality, however, would have been the cause of some wonderment, for Dihkhuda's pen had been silent for nearly fifteen years. After transforming Persian prose during the Constitutional Revolution of 1905 with his column Charand parand (Chit-Chat), Dihkhuda gave up writing satirical social commentary in the tumult and disillusionment of the First World War. While sitting out the war in the mountains southwest of Isfahan, Dihkhuda occupied himself with the only book he had available—a Larousse French Dictionary.

This paper is an in-depth study of The Confessions of Dolgoruki, the purported memoirs of a nineteenth-century Russian ambassador to Iran, long adduced as a document proving the claim that the Bahā'īs of Iran are spies of foreign powers. It unearths several early versions of the text, contextualizes the creation of The Confessions, exams the zeitgeist that produced it, and tracks the changes the text went through as the dominant socio-political discourse changed over time. In discussing the range of reactions The Confessions provoked, this paper traces the intriguing path through which this text created the masternarrative of Bahā'ī espionage. Finally, a hypothesis regarding the identity of the original creator of the text is advanced.