This article offers a chronology of climate events in Iran over the last millennium to challenge traditional chronologies of the Iranian past based on politics, war, and economics. Using insights gleaned from the historiography of climate in Iran, and from neighboring regions, especially the Ottoman Empire, four episodes of climate cooling show how climate-induced environmental processes affected more people for longer in Iran than did the policies of the empires ostensibly ruling over them. Thus, the article aims to put climate more squarely on the agenda of historians of Iran so that the conjectures advanced here can be confirmed, revised, or discarded through future empirical research. Moreover, the article seeks to bring Iran into wider conversations in environmental and global history.

This study employs keyword searches of literary databases such as Literature Online (LION) in an attempt to map the image of “Persia” in nineteenth-century English poetry as it was molded by a proliferation of thoughts and ideas in a variety of contexts. Completeness is not possible, of course, but the article aims to identify and explore some of the major categories within which the image of Persia was formed and disseminated in the nineteenth-century. The scope of the study is not confined to a corpus of poetic works that were written specifically on or about “Persia,” but takes account of a broader range of poems, and attends to the structure, texture and variations of the presence of “Persia” in nineteenth-century English poetry.

The Iranian trade delegation’s visit to the USSR in April–May 1935 was an event of global significance, underscored by its extensive coverage in the international press. Marking the culmination of a new turn in the Soviet Union’s policy approaches towards Iran with respect to bilateral economic relations, this event is also considered in view of earlier incidents involving Iranian merchants who had boycotted Soviet trade organizations. Along with these political developments, the perspectives of Iranian government officials on foreign trade and industrialization are analyzed within the context of the increasing expansion, centralization, and bureaucratization of Iran’s national economy during the 1930s.

This study explores the perspectives of female Iranian students living in both Iran and the UK concerning violence against women. A qualitative approach, in the form of in-depth interviews, was carried out with 21 participants. Drawing on Stark’s concept of “liberty crime” the research found that the participants, regardless of their country of residence, perceived violence against women (VAW) as denying the opportunity for equal personhood by stripping away the victim’s sense of self. However, the scope of what was considered to be liberty crime was affected by the individual participants’ religious beliefs and their degree of acceptance of the Iranian state’s gender ideology. The research highlighted the extent to which different forms of VAW are interlinked and combine in order to control and subjugate women irrespective of their country of residence.

Zoroastrians of Babylonia had long lived alongside an important Jewish community whose presence in the region can be traced back to the Achaemenid period (c. 550‒330 BCE). Such long coexistence should justify an interest in the examination of cultural sharing between these two religious groups of Ērānšahr; however, it is just recently that the question of the level of cultural contact between them has become a more important source of inquiry and research by scholars of Iranian history, religious studies and Late Antiquity. The exchanges between the Jews and Zoroastrians of the Sasanian period and their impact on the character of the Babylonian Talmud have been the subject of a number of recent studies, notably by Shaul Shaked, Yaakov Elman, Geoffrey Herman and Shai Segunda, among others. The aim of this article is to contribute to these efforts by exploring the roots of some distinctly Sasanian marriage customs that transcended religious lines and were shared by the rabbinic Jews and Zoroastrians of Ērānšahr.

This article focuses on the development of the tobacco industry in Iran during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It uses this discussion as an entry point to inquire about the early modern Iranian economy. Using a wide range of primary and secondary sources, it makes several historiographical interventions. In explaining what the development of a completely new agrarian industry means in Iranian society, the paper suggests that innovation and intensification may not have been completely absent in agriculture and that in contrast to the way some of the available literature tends to argue, the Iranian economy may not have experienced continuous decline in all sectors throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In addition, this article contends that the tobacco industry helped bring about the rise of merchants and landowners in Iranian society, and with that the further development of mass consumption and ever-increasing cycles of production and accumulation that expanded the commercialization of agriculture, domestic and international trade networks, and Iran’s agrarian economy.

This paper investigates the difference of perspective which informs The Qābūs Nāmih’s and The Nasirean Ethics’ respective treatments of the topic of slavery. While in various parts of their discussions both works show an engagement with each side of the hybrid status of a slave’s existence as both subject and object, The Qābūs Nāmih deals with the issue almost entirely in terms of the slave’s status as an object, while The Nasirean Ethics engages this issue with clear acknowledgments to his/her status as a subject. It is possible that the divergent approaches of these two works are a reflection of the two distinct modes of the genre of Islamic advice literature in which they were respectively written.

Focusing on the cultural influence of the cigarette, this paper synthesizes a wide range of evidence to argue that the cigarette was a fundamental primer for Iran's encounter with modernity, especially as understood in the context of western influence. Applying the dramaturgical theories of sociologist Erving Goffman, it is argued that the cigarette is an instantiation of the “sign-equipment” of modernization used to refashion the identity and subjectivity of Iranian men and women. This refashioning has occurred in three distinct periods. In the first period (1860–1930), cigarette smoking was a habit adopted by the Persian elite in an attempt to mediate the encounter with European colonial figures. In the second period (1930–70), cigarettes were leveraged by Iranians who wished to be seen as upwardly mobile. In the final and contemporary period (1970–present), cigarettes have become ubiquitous among the adult population, but smoking itself has become the act of youth rebellion as experimentation occurs at increasingly young ages.

Uniquely among the world’s temperate forests, much of the vegetation of the Caspian forests is now endangered. But while deforestation has accelerated in Iran, these processes were actually underway in the nineteenth century. This article offers a brief introduction to the history of forest exploitation and concessions during the Qajar and Pahlavi periods, addressing actions taken by the Iranian state to protect and extend forest cover, but also the deficiencies of that legislation and the reasons for its failure. Though it is one of the most forested countries in the Middle East, Iran’s forests remain understudied. Existing scholarship mostly addresses the contemporary period; this paper extends the scope of our knowledge, offering a deeper history of forest exploitation in Iran.

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.

Iran is currently experiencing serious water problems. Frequent droughts coupled with over-abstraction of surface and groundwater through a large network of hydraulic infrastructure and deep wells have escalated the nation’s water situation to a critical level. This is evidenced by drying lakes, rivers and wetlands, declining groundwater levels, land subsidence, water quality degradation, soil erosion, desertification and more frequent dust storms. This paper overviews the major drivers of Iran’s water problems. It is argued that while climatic changes and economic sanctions are commonly blamed as the main drivers of water problems, Iran is mainly suffering from a socio-economic drought—i.e. “water bankruptcy,” where water demand exceeds the natural water supply. In theory, this problem can be resolved by re-establishing the balance between water supply and demand through developing additional sources of water supply and implementing aggressive water demand reduction plans. Nevertheless, the current structure of the water governance system in Iran and the absence of a comprehensive understanding of the root causes of the problem leave minimal hope of developing sustainable solutions to Iran’s unprecedented water problems.

The debate over political commitment in Iran was never limited to adjudicating content: it was frequently a debate over form as well. In the realm of fiction, this debate fixated on realism, the nature of mimesis, and the autonomy of art and the literary text. Within a few short years after forming the iconoclastic journal Jong-e Esfahan in 1965 with a group of likeminded colleagues, the writer Hushang Golshiri had become the preeminent modernist fiction writer in Iran. His critical essays represented a passionate defense of aesthetic autonomy at a time when realism and, particularly, socialist and “engaged” literature were powerful shibboleths in the Tehran literary scene. This paper begins with a look at Golshiri’s critical interventions in this debate and then moves on to show how the short stories he produced in the Jong era were an even more integral part of his response to the mimesis question. By reading his stories with a methodology drawn from “possible worlds” theories of narratology, Todorov’s fantastic, and Golshiri’s own theories, we see how these works break down the “one-world” frame of reality that realism takes for granted, and require the reader to grapple with multiple, often contradictory, possible realities in its stead.

It has been said of Atiq Rahimi’s novel Earth and Ashes that the author intends it to convey a loss of any vision for a better future in Afghanistan. This essay neither disputes nor affirms this, but instead argues that this tone of disillusionment is sustained for a specific purpose—namely, to show how a belief in the Afghan requirement of vengeance helps sustain cycles of violence in Afghanistan. No critical work has explored this key motivation for the writing of the novel; this article does so using a method of close reading that enables an evaluation of the role the reader is afforded as part of this endeavor, be they natives or outsiders to this culture.

The Armenian general Smbat Bagratuni's remarkable rise to military and political preeminence in the late sixth- and early seventh-century Sasanian Empire presents a fascinating historical question: how did a liminal figure, a Christian from a frontier region, become the “Joy of Ḵusrō” and “Warrior of the Lords” of king Ḵusrō II Aparvēz (590–628 CE)? This essay argues that Bagratuni's accomplishments were rooted in Sasanian patterns of political decentralization, provincial regionalism and strategic politics. The Sasanians were ethnically Persian, but Parthian and Armenian aristocrats from the periphery of the empire played a central role in upholding the regime. Granting titles, wealth and personal support, the king sought to turn aristocratic families against each other to enhance royal authority. Simultaneously, regional aristocrats like Smbat Bagratuni used royal patronage to advance their local interests, often at the expense of the royal center. The life of Smbat Bagratuni illustrates how complex negotiations of individual and collective identity shaped relations of “center” and “periphery” in Sasanian Iran.

This paper assesses the extent to which the modern historiography of Iran is indebted to a nationalist construction of Iran’s past, rather than proceeding from impartial and critical historical research. The paper pursues this aim by applying the distinction between history (as a scholarly discipline) and memory (as a nationalist construct) to one of the central tropes of the country’s historiography. According to that trope, Iranian history can be summarized as a succession of violent invasions by foreign “races,” which never stamped out Iran’s separate ethnic identity. This resilience is attributed to Iranian civilization’s inherent superiority, which Iranianized the invaders and thus ensured Iran’s survival as a primordial nation. The analysis shows that—counter-intuitively—twentieth-century Iranian historians, instead of subjecting this narrative to critical assessment, have in fact played a central role in developing it into a self-serving historiography. Special attention is given to Zarrinkub’s seminal Two Centuries of Silence.

Zoroastrian theology's emphasis on living the good life; the encouragement to create material wealth with the accompanying social obligations to put it to good use, explains the immensely extensive welfare system put in place by the Parsi community in India. Following the Arab conquest of Iran, the diminution in numbers and stature of the Zoroastrians in the ancestral land and the subsequent Parsi settlement in India, meant the marginalization of a people whose forebears once ruled a mighty empire. Once the Parsis acquired financial success, they put in place a community-wide network of benevolent institutions. This was followed by extending a muscular benevolence to the Zoroastrians of Iran, which evolved into a highly structured undertaking to ensure the safeguarding of the community from virtual extinction. Thus, Zoroastrian philanthropy was as much a reaffirmation of religious traditions as it was a means of self-preservation.

Iran has a long history of effective and sustainable water resource management under arid and semi-arid conditions. However, today the country is faced with serious challenges in the water sector, including rising water demand and shortages, declining groundwater levels, deteriorating water quality, and increasing threats to the environment and various ecosystems. If these issues persist, tragedy will be the inevitable result. Over the last three decades tremendous efforts have been made to supply water, primarily through an extensive program of development, with dam building at the forefront. This paper offers an introduction to the different factors and elements influencing the water balance in today’s Iran and presents a perspective on the trend of dam building in recent times.

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.

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.

Modern scholarship on Arabs in the pre-Islamic period has focused on Rome's Arab allies—the so-called “Jafnids” or “Ghassānids,” with much less attention paid to Persia's Arab allies, the so-called “Naṣrid” or “Lakhmid” dynasty of Arab leaders at al-Ḥīrah in Iraq. This article examines select pre-Islamic sources for the Persian Arabs, showing that even with the meager evidence available to us, and the lack of archaeological material, it is possible to draw a relatively complex portrait of the Persian Arabs. This article situates the Persian Arabs as important figures in some key themes and phenomena of late antiquity, such as the growth of Christian communities, the conflict between Rome and Persia, and the struggle for influence in the Arabian peninsula.