Sixth Biennial Conference of Iranian Studies

Listed alphabetically by surname of first author

Between Fact and Fiction - History and Story in Amirshahi's Dar Hazar

Eskandar Abadi
Deutsche Welle World Service, Germany

This paper analyzes Mahshid Amirshahi's novel Dar Hazar as she describes a series of impressions depicting an Iranian exile's homecoming during the tumultuous events that immediately followed the start of the Iranian revolution. The novel takes place during the 14 months that followed the events of 17 of Shahrivar of 1367. Amrishahi's novel is often valued as a historic record. This paper argues that the most significant characteristic of this original work is its quality as a well crafted piece of fiction, a novel. The discussion includes a formal analysis of the book centred around a basic distinction between the author of the novel and the narrator of the text. That is, while the linear notes claim that the protagonist in the pages is the author herself, a closer analysis reveals a narrator complexly constructed and distinct from the author. This paper characterises the narrator against five formal dimensions: the narrator's personality and voice, her ego as she travels within time; the impact of the patriarchal culture in the gender identity of the narrator as it acquires manly traits; the difference between the narrative voice as it moves in the present tense and the historic time as is ultimately revealed; and finally, the differences between the personality of the narrator and that of the author of the book.  The central question is: can a text that has all the trappings of a high-quality novel have historical value at the same time? Is this text a work of fiction, a historical fiction, or history proper? How does the individual experience measure against historical distance? What are the differences between historic and fictional plausibility? In conclusion, the presentation argued that Amirshahi's book Dar Hazar is not only a shining example of skilful and intricate fictional writing but also of historical value.

The Great Famine of Tehran, 1917-1918

Hossein Abadian
Qazvin International University, Iran

During the Qajar period Iran was afflicted with two great famines which were the most disastrous events of their kind in Iran's history. The first, in 1871, wiped out a third of the population and, according to Sheikh Ebrahim Zanjani, the people were forced to consume dog and cat meat. The second famine, in 1917-1918, was concentrated mainly in Tehran where, according to police statistics, about 186,000 of Tehran's population died.  Once the 1917-18 famine passed, the bread crisis changed into a political crisis during which terror squads were formed, crime increased, and governments became unstable and resigned one after the other. In spite of the wide range of the human catastrophe, the famine has not been seriously understood. Except for a few references in Russian and British sources during their occupation of Iran during the First World War, there is little public knowledge about the event.  This paper uncovers the history of the great famine through the study of primary sources such as contemporaneous periodicals (Aftab, Ra'd, Nowbahar, Zaban-e Azad, Asr-e Jadid, Kowkab-e Iran, Sobh-e Iran and specially Setareh-ye Iran) as well as unpublished records and references such as records of the cabinets of Vosuq al-Dowleh and Ala' al-Saltaneh. The study considers such questions as the main causes of the famine, the impact of the First World War as well as individuals on the economic situation of the country, and the nature of the terror squads in the post-famine period. This study is a part of a book on the subject of the socio-political changes in Iran between the post-constitutional period and the end of the First World War.

Illustrated Shahnameh Manuscripts in the National Library of Russia and Their Relatives Abroad

Firuza Abdullaeva
University of Oxford, UK

The range of the Shahnameh mss represented in NLR is very wide chronologically and geographically: from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century and from Tabriz to India. The paper concentrates mostly on two pearls from this collection: The third-earliest dated illustrated manuscript of 1333 (Dorn 329) and the luxurious copy of the middle of the seventeenth century, executed in the royal atelier of Shah Abbas II (1642-1666), and decorated with 192 miniature paintings, belonging to at least three hands (Dorn 333).  The first ms, Dorn 329, is compared with another of the earliest known Shahnameh mss, which now is in possession of the Topkapi Saray Museum (Hazine 1479). This gives a unique opportunity to trace several iconographic traditions that existed at the beginning of the fourteenth century in Shiraz, the only surviving Iranian centre of 'book mass-production'. The Istanbul ms is the earliest illustrated one, which has not been introduced properly to the scholarly world. It was produced two years before the NLR one, and demonstrates a different approach in representation of the scenes both in their selection and the manner of artistic execution. This bears witness that at that time, the tradition of a more or less restricted list of obligatory subjects to be depicted in the Shahnameh as well as their iconography had not yet been fixed.  As for Dorn 333, paintings signed by two of the artists can help to identify their work also in the miniatures in a manuscript from the collection of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, which are probably also made by Afzal al-Husayni and Reza-ye Mosavver.

Central Banking and Iran's Economic Performance

Siavash Abghari,
Morehouse College, USA

This paper discusses central banking laws in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the relationship between inflation and central bank independence in the country. Two indices of legal independence of the central bank are constructed, which cover economic and political aspects of independence. Most transition economies experiencing high-inflationary periods in the recent past that have strengthened the position and independence of the central bank by changing the banking laws have experienced an inverse relationship between inflation and central bank independence indices. The relationship between inflation and central bank policy and its structure since the inception of the Islamic republic is examined. To improve the economic performance of the country and relieve some of the inflationary pressures, reform of the central banking laws and its structure is proposed.

From a Universalistic Islamic Revolution to Specific Demands for Legal Rights and Socio-economic Equality: The Iranian Revolution and the Contextualisation of Social Movements' Agendas

Fariba Adelkhah
Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales, France

At the time of the upheaval against the Shah, all tendencies within the opposition were articulating grievances centred on the notion of haqq: social justice and God's will merging to guarantee economic, social, and women's rights. This goal reflected the alliance between different and often antagonistic schools of thought, including Third Worldist ideologies, as well as Islamic, communist, liberal and democratic ones. After the Shah was overthrown, the movement radicalised and was taken over by elements from within the Islamic trend, and the subsequent debates focused largely on differences among different factions within this group. Yet, the tension between the ethical universalistic agenda and the ones unique to the Islamic revolution was not over. The differences were re-articulated by factions within the Islamic trend that had emerged in the course of the revolution itself, manifesting themselves in the debates between the conservatives, radicals and the reformists. The differences were, in other words, not so much about the role of religion on earth as doubts about how a religious revolution should find its way between ethical and contextualised agendas, between a unanimous revolutionary movement at its beginning and the new alliances and divisions among social groups after the revolution, between what a state could achieve and what it should accept.

Mastering the Ego Monster: Ezhdaha-ye Khodi as an Allegory of History

Wali Ahmadi
University of California, Berkeley, USA

This paper deals with Ezhdaha-ye Khodi (The Ego Monster), a seminal four-volume philosophical 'novel' written by the late Sayyed B. Majruh, a former professor of Western philosophy at Kabul University. The paper attempts to read Majruh's 'novel' not so much as a philosophical allegory – with its emphasis on the transcendental valorisation of abstract, metaphysical concepts – but as an allegory of history and a critique of ideology. The paper contextualises the text within the framework of historical incidents of far-reaching socio-political consequences in contemporary Afghanistan, such as the 'communist' coup, the (former) Soviet invasion, and the emergence of a fractured 'resistance' movement. Through a close analysis of the narrative elements and possibilities that form the fictional discourse of the allegory, the paper traces the paradoxical journey of the principal character – Rahgozar-e Nimehshab (The Midnight Traveler), a persona who remotely resembles Nietzsche's Zarathustra – from the apparent 'conquest of the ego' and the 'death of the [ego] monster' to the 'return of the [ego] monster' and the 'reign of [egocentric] Reason.' The intricacy of the journey, despite its disjunctive schemes, both reflects and generates an ideology of self-hood that is profoundly historical. Majruh neither denigrates any one specific ideological tendency nor valorises its rival ideology. Instead, he painstakingly discovers illusory 'idols' – mainly, as he maintains, 'idols of raw Reason,' 'idols of Progress,' and 'idols of Revolution' – within the very fabric of each and every ideology and ideological inclination. As such, as this paper illustrates, the historical topicality of Ezhdaha-ye Khodi consists of the fact that it deconstructs the equally 'idolatrous' motives of the progressive 'communist' revolution as well the reactionary motives of the opposition 'resistance' groups who used to wage an 'Islamic' revolution in Afghanistan.

The Role of Dreams in the Political Affairs of the Safavids

Nozhat Ahmady
Iran

One of the characteristics of the Safavid reign is the formalisation of Shiism as the official religion of the land. Various studies have dealt with this issue, but only a few studies have addressed Shah Esmail's dreams concerning his mission to formally establish Shiism as his official religion. This paper does not aim to study the truth or falsehood of such dreams and the role they played in history, rather, it aims to clarify the role of dreams in the political affairs of the Safavid dynasty. In this regard, it becomes clear that the Safavids manipulated dreams to promote Shiism and to justify many of their actions.  The paper looks at the sources of the dreams and the issues they tried to address. It also looks at the various religious figures in the dreams (the Prophet, various Imams, etc.) as well as the timing and the political context of the dreams. Were dreams told more often during critical times such as the transfer of power or wars? Did the Safavid kings manipulate their dreams in order to justify killing their associates? And, in general, what dreams were the most common and in which periods of the Safavid era were they most widespread?

Iranian Society in Transition: A Socio-Cultural Approach to Political Behaviour

Mahdi Ahouie
Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland

This paper provides an analytical perspective on Iranian people's perception of their lives and their society at the edge of the fourth decade of the Revolution. This is a documentary study based on up-to-date official statistics that have been collected by the Iranian government for use in high-level cultural and social policy making almost one and a half years before the presidential elections of June 2005. According to these statistics, one could observe that Iranian society, deeply frustrated by economic depression and other social problems, is experiencing a dramatic transition which provides a fertile ground for populist socialist slogans based on an extremist nationalism. In this context, this paper analyses the social and cultural reasons behind the outcomes of the presidential elections of the past year.

Peasant Road to Capitalist Agriculture: Recent Iranian Experience

Amir Esmail Ajami
University of Arizona, USA

This paper examines agrarian transition in Iran using a general typology of units of agricultural production: peasant/farmer/capitalist. By drawing on evidence from village case studies and data provided in the national censuses of agriculture, the geneses, trajectories and performances of these three types of agricultural production systems are empirically investigated.  The study shows an increasing degree of differentiation among the peasants including their transformation into farmers. This illustrates the complexities and disruptions in the development of capitalist agriculture, which tends to refute the notion of a unilinear evolutionary process, as postulated in the Marxian classical model. A striking feature of agrarian transition documented in the study is the transformation of a dualistic agrarian structure, developed largely in the post-land reform era, into petty capitalist and medium production systems, coexisting with predominately small farmer units of production. The analysis demonstrates that various forms of state intervention have largely influenced the processes and outcomes of agrarian transition in contemporary Iran.

Foreigners Mapping Persia

Cyrus Alai
UK

Since ancient times Iran, or Persia as it was known in the West, has been mapped extensively. The world's oldest known topographical map is a clay tablet from 2300 BC, showing a part of western Persia. Persian geographers, like Balkhi, Estakhri, Zakariya Qazvini and others, were the main contributors to the thriving field of cartography throughout the early Islamic period (eighth to fourteenth centuries). Ptolemy's fifth map of Asia, which depicts Persia, appeared in all the 59 editions of Geographia, published between 1477 and 1730. Gastaldi produced the first post-Ptolemaic map of Persia in 1559 in Venice, which served as the basis of many later maps for about a century. The first notable innovation in this field came to light when Olearius in his New Map of Persia (1646) changed the Ptolemaic oval shape of the Caspian Sea to an upright rectangle, correcting the latitude of the northern provinces. His map influenced the cartography of Persia for seven decades, until a full Russian survey of the Caspian was carried out in 1720. Dutch, French and German cartographers were all active in mapping Persia.  However, it was their British counterparts who succeeded during the nineteenth century to improve the mapping of Persia considerably, based on new surveys, including those carried out by the Survey of India. Some of these maps were politically motivated, showing Baluchistan as a separate state until 1872, when the Goldsmid Commission settled the eastern boundaries of the country. The Pahlavis established several new cartographic institutions in Iran, as a result of which numerous modern maps of the country and its provinces were produced locally from 1930s until the present time. The absence of a good cartobibliography has often deterred scholars from making use of the many detailed maps that were produced. For the period of 1477-1925 the newly published General Maps of Persia (2005) by this author has made such a required work available.

Regional Trade Cooperation

Nozar Alaolmolki
Hiram College, USA

Globalisation is transforming the world economy and challenging the managers of many multinational enterprises (MNEs). Free trade flows have been increasing in response to the World Trade Organisation and regional free trade organisations like NAFTA. Regional trade and investment policies have encouraged regional corporate strategies by MNEs, rather than multi-domestic or global strategies.  A number of smaller regional cooperation institutions are in existence, such as ECO (Economic Cooperation Organisation) and the Gulf Cooperation Council. These smaller regional developments are playing an important role in the global economy. Also, these institutions cannot be ignored in the broader context of regionalisation.  This study proposes the establishment of a larger regional organisation that would incorporate the two into a single one. This proposal is made on the basis of the proximity between the countries, and the need for the expansion of trade between them. More specifically, this paper deals with the following questions and related relevant issues: Under what conditions do states attempt or see the opportunities to establish principles, norms and rules intended to promote regional cooperation? Do nation-states have economic power, political credibility and stability to maintain the regional regime or organisation once it is created?

Dream Visions of Mystical Time: Shams al-Din al-Daylami between Sufism, Theology and Philosophy

Elizabeth Alexandrin
University of Manitoba, Canada

Existing in a set of manuscripts, representing the author's stages of revision of his work and his changing doctrinal stance, is a medieval Sufi treatise by Shams al-Din al-Daylami (d. ca. 1197 CE), entitled Mir'at al-arwah wa surat al-wijah. The Mir'at al-arwah presents a range of models of time and space in addition to offering a relatively early hermeneutical approach to dream visions in the medieval Islamic context. Although by the end of his scholarly career, Shams al-Din al-Daylami would distance himself from contemporary trends in Islamic dialectical theology and classical philosophy, he originally broached the theological question of the mystic's potential 'vision of God' in the Mir'at al-arwah, and another one of his works, the Jawahir al-asrar. The Jawahir al-asrar, a work guided by the principles of Islamic dialectical theology, is therefore of equal significance to the study of al-Daylami's changing hermeneutical approach to the interpretation of dreams and individual mystical experience.  It is most likely through the vehicle of al-Daylami's Jawahir al- asrar that this author's discussions of time and space were transmitted to a number of authors of the Sufi traditions in Azarbaijan and Central Asia; in particular, Mahmud al-Din al- Oshnuhi (or variant spelling, Oshnuwi, fl. twelfth century), Sayf al-Din al-Bakharzi (fl. thirteenth century), and Aziz-i Din Nasafi (fl. thirteenth - fourteenth centuries). This will set forth an account of one period of Persian Sufism in which there was a greater rapprochement between Sufism, Islamic theology, and philosophy than previously assumed through a comparison of al-Daylami's Jawahir and al-Oshnuhi's Ghayat al-imkan, a work often mistakenly attributed to Ayn al-Quzzat al-Hamdani (fl. twelfth century). The paper suggests that a closer examination of the developments within the twelfth-century Persian Sufi traditions provides further insight into the emergence of a new genre of literature concerned with the hermeneutics of dream visions.

Memory and Commemoration Amongst Yezidis in Armenia

Christine Allison
Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, France

The Yezidis, a Kurdish-speaking religious minority, possess a strong community identity and a rich collective memory. Many of their historical traditions have until recently been transmitted orally. Some of these are part of a wider discourse of events in Kurdish tribal history and are also told by non-Yezidis; others are exclusive to Yezidis themselves.  The past two decades have seen a drive towards recording, compilation and publication of religious traditions amongst the Yezidis of Iraq and the European diaspora, processes which include a considerable element of selection and editing.  During the First World War a substantial number of Yezidis came to live in Armenia, joining some who had been there since the early nineteenth century.  Many of their religious traditions are different from those practised in Iraq, and discourses of identity are in line with the political context of contemporary Armenia, with many defining themselves as non-Kurdish. Alongside the wider discourses of tribal history, other, more localised defining events are also told, in particular accounts of how Yezidis came to their Armenian villages as refugees, and of the Yezidi military role in important battles against the Turks.  Recently, the economic situation has forced many Yezidis to emigrate, to Russia in particular, to find work. Villages are often now inhabited predominantly by the middle-aged and elderly. The role of the village has changed from a socio-economic centre, frequently visited even by those living in towns, to a symbolic lieu de memoire. This paper draws on the preliminary findings of a project begun in 2005 on Yezidi discourses of memory in Armenia. It focuses particularly on the annual day of commemoration of the dead, when Yezidis return to the villages to share a communal meal by the graves of their ancestors.

Messianism and Identity: Jewish Conversions to the Baha'i Faith

Mehrdad Amanat
USA

The Baha'i faith, a newly founded religion with modern elements, grew out of the messianic Babi movement in mid-nineteenth-century Iran.  It attracted large numbers of mostly Muslim converts but later its ecumenical message appealed to Iranian Jews who through conversion shared Iranian cultural values and greater harmony with Iranian identity. This study explores the causes and examines the circumstances of these conversion experiences within their social and cultural contexts and addresses the question of why a persecuted minority would choose to join a new religion that was subject to even harsher persecution, rather than seek the relative security of conversion to Islam.  It has been argued that Baha'i conversions highlight the convergence of a number of distinct processes at a time of grave historical change, most notably the advent of modernity and national integration.  Many Jews migrated from ancient ghettos in order to benefit from economic and social mobility.  At a time of high messianic expectations (a primordial theme among Persian Jews), a new faith promising equality and tolerance inspired a sense of optimism and the expectation of an end to prejudice and discrimination.  Its acceptance of multiple religious identities provided the necessary space to negotiate new identities in new environments.  Economic conditions necessitated a departure from the ghetto that gave the Jews a greater desire to rid themselves of the stigma of the "unclean" Jew and a willingness to re-evaluate traditional belief systems.  Baha'i conversion to a large extent removed old cultural barriers and allowed greater assimilation. 

Qajar and Pahlavi Public Diplomacy in Press and Radio

Camron Michael Amin
University of Michigan in Dearborn, USA

The very opening lines of the Qajar official gazette, Vaqaye'-e Ettefaqiyeh in 1851 announced the aim of overcoming 'lies' spread about the kingdom. From its inception, the media were as much about controlling Iran's global image as it was about controlling information inside Iran. Where censorship reached its limits, the Qajars sought to befriend expatriate Iranian journalists and make contact with sympathetic Western journalists to bolster their image. The cumulative effect of Qajar efforts was to attempt to modernise, militarise, sanctify and masculinise Iran's global image. When the Pahlavis replaced the Qajars, a more coherent, and less religious public image came to the fore. Though quite different from Qajar propaganda in form and emphasis, the Pahlavis' efforts at public diplomacy through the press employed similar strategies and influenced the priorities of state radio propaganda towards the end of Reza Shah Pahlavi's reign. The programming and scheduling of broadcasts were designed to reach regional audiences and global interests. But in the 1940s, a new element came into radio programming and Pahlavi public diplomacy: Islamic propaganda. These efforts need to be seen in the light of great power propaganda campaigns in the region and with regards to the Iranian press itself. British efforts to silence Habl al-Matin (Calcutta), Kaveh (Berlin) and the Iranian domestic press in the 1920s through the instrument of Reza Khan/Shah were coupled with the production of pro-British press propaganda (an effort which seems to have reached a fever pitch during First World War).  These efforts to control information developed alongside new means of mass communication. For example, during Second World War, the British even tried to confiscate radios in Iran to control the flow of information during the Allied Occupation. Fortunately, the story of the battle for global and regional public opinion is well documented in recently published Iranian state archives (on the history of radio in Iran), British India Office Records, and, and its effect on the Iranian media is visible in the pages of the Iranian press - this study draws on all these sources for evidence.

The Iranian Diaspora in the United States - How They View Iran, the United States, and the Future

Fariba Amini
USA

Since the 1979 revolution which brought to power an elite clerical regime, Iranians have left their homeland en masse, whether voluntarily or by force, mainly emigrating to the USA and Canada. 

Since then a huge population has lived where opportunity for education and employment has been higher than in any other Western democracy: the United States. Children who were born to these families are Iranian-Americans, consider themselves to be citizens of the United States, and have become part of American society. Nevertheless, many have shown a bonding towards their mother country and language, and the attraction towards Iran has been more widespread in the last decade as Iran has been in the spotlight. Iranian youth who have been born to these families have a higher interest in the history, culture, and politics of their motherland. Many travel to Iran to discover their past and find out more about their ancestral background.  This study shows the changes taking place within the Iranian youth in diaspora. It is based on interviews with people from all walks of life: university students, young and successful Iranians in many fields, lawyers, engineers, doctors.  This study shows a trend that has taken place within the last few years, especially after the Republican administration took over the White House and President Bush's famous Axis of Evil Speech. The study is broad, examining and speaking to Iranian-Americans in New York, Boston, Berkeley, Los Angeles and Washington DC. In trying to determining a trend within the Iranian diaspora, individuals from different ethnic, social and religious backgrounds were interviewed. Their responses and their behaviour are the core of this paper.  Iranian Americans have an impact and influence over the policies of the United States towards Iran and the future relations between the two countries. This study also shows how these young Iranian-Americans can be a major force within their respective communities.

Iran's International Relations

Hooshang Amirahmadi
Rutgers University, USA

The international relations of the Islamic Republic of Iran have been in perpetual crisis since its inception in 1979.  While hardly anyone would argue against the fact of the perpetual crisis, there is no unanimity about its causes. The explanations range from foreign conspiracy against the revolution, to premeditated nature of the crisis, to mismanagement of the foreign policy.  While such explanations are helpful, they are not adequate for a deeper appreciation of the problem and for remedial prescriptions. This paper argues that the perpetual crisis is rooted in the Islamic nature of the state, failure of the republic in the arena of domestic democratisation, the emergence of a globalised world, the misguided foreign policy priorities, the lackadaisical eastward orientation, and the spiral conflict with America. The paper first offers a periodisation of the international crisis of the Islamic regime, and then explains why the crisis is rooted in particular factors, specifying the factor load for each given period.  Examples are provided to demonstrate the arguments, focusing on US-Iran relations. The paper also attempts to project the future direction of the republic's foreign relations if its basic premises were to remain unchanged, and offer recommendations for a more proactive international policy that is more in accord with Iran's national interests.

Caesarean Childbirth as Reflected In Islamic Visual Arts - Illustrations in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh Manuscripts

Raisa I Amirbekyan
Yerevan State University, Armenia

This paper is devoted to the Islamic views on the medical operation known as Caesarean section as reflected in visual arts. I intend to discuss this phenomenon against the background of the illustrative cycles of the various manuscript copies of Ferdowsi Shahnameh from different collections around the world.  Early Islamic medicine was an amalgam of Greek, Persian, Jewish and Indian science, side by side with Arabian folk-medicine. Muslims had their own version of Caesarean childbirth, and in the Middle Ages they were the first to write about it in text and poetry and to represent Caesarean childbirth in illustrations of scholars' manuscripts as diagrams, schemas and images, and in compositions of the miniature cycles added to poetic, prose, and didactic books.  As the first-ever illustration of such operation in the text book at least 500 years ahead of others, one can regard the miniature from the extremely rare manuscript copy of the book written by al-Biruni (973-1084 CE) called al-Asrar al-baqiyah'an al-Quran al-khaliyadh (The Chronological History of Nations), at the Edinburgh University Library (N161). In his poem Ferdowsi described as well the birth of Rostam. In the illustration of this theme, the visual language is very close to the Shahnameh's original text. Tracing the origin of the iconography of the Caesarean childbirth visualisation in illustrations of Persian, Turkish, and Indian Shahnameh manuscripts made in different regions of the Islamic world during some ten centuries, one can find many common details but also differences connected with various artistic styles, masters' mentality, the seal of time et al., in the framework of the Islamic art tradition.

'Unveiled' Women in the Iranian Blogosphere

Masserat Amir-Ebrahimi
University of California, Los Angeles, USA

Over the last five years, weblog writing has created a new public sphere in Iran. Indeed, weblogs reflect the experiences, needs, and aspirations of the population in the real physical world, bearing close relations to the socio-cultural aspects of everyday life. The presence of female bloggers in the Iranian blogosphere (weblogestan) clearly reveals a strong wish to compensate for their restricted presence in a highly moralistic society. For most of these women, weblog writing is initially a means to rediscover their 'true selves', which have been 'hidden' and/or 'repressed' in the real physical spaces in the Islamic Republic of Iran.  This process of 'self-discovery' in public and in virtual spaces is based on the absence of body and face to face interactions. These factors allow people to hide their real identity and consequently have a better security publicly to discuss their personal problems or social concerns with the others. However, five years of experiences of blog writing show that many female bloggers, especially those who write under their real names, are likely to encounter more or less the same types of socio-cultural limitations and self censorship that they would in the real world. This study, based on four years of research including focus groups, personal interviews and regular observation of new and continuing weblogs, shows that Iranian women's experience of an 'unveiled' presence in virtual space has also an important impact on their real physical life. It encourages these women to act more freely in their physical public spaces and gradually to alter their behaviour and increase their presence in Iranian physical social space as well.

Iranian Youth and their Physical Fitness Standards

Amir Mohammad Amirtash
Tarbiat-e Mo'allem University, Tehran, Iran

Normative studies on the Physical Fitness (PF) of the Iranian people in general, and the younger population in particular, are very few. As a result, the purpose of this study is to investigate the physical fitness levels of the 6-18 year old Iranian schoolboys and to develop standard class norms accordingly.  A sample of 14,000 schoolboys, from grades 1 to 12, was randomly selected from 65% of the provincial capitals of Iran for the study. The mortality rate was less than 3%. The 'Canadian Award Fitness Test' battery was used to collect data on the different PF components of the subjects.  Descriptive statistics were used to provide information such as central tendency and variability indices for each PF Component over the school grades in each one of the participating state capitals. The data were also used to develop standard norms, as well as to create tables and graphs, not only for the necessary statistical representation of the data, but also for providing a basis for comparing grades among themselves and the provincial capitals that were selected for the study as well.

Russians in the Court of Mohammad Ali Shah

Elena Andreeva
Virginia Military Institute, USA

Part of a major research project entitled 'Russians in Iran (prior to 1917)', this paper analyzes how the Russian government placed people in the Shah's court early in the twentieth century in order to strengthen its influence over the Qajar rulers. The Russian presence aimed at gathering information and promoting Russian interests at the court and was one of several steps taken by Russia as part of its competition with the British to control Iran. Other important moves included taking over Iranian territories, establishing and leading the Persian Cossack Brigade, attempting to dominate the economy and trade of Iran through loans and concessions, and colonizing northern Iran.  Russia's grip on Iran's internal affairs in the last decade of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century tightened during the reign of Mozaffar al-Din Shah and Mohammad Ali Shah (r. 1907- 09). The paper covers the appointment of two Russians to important positions in the court of Mohammad Ali Shah. In early February 1907, immediately after his accession, Doctor Sadovskii, the physician at the Cossack Brigade, was appointed as the Shah's physician. And in June of the same year, Captain Smirnov replaced Captain Kol'man as a tutor for two sons of the Shah, including the crown prince. Since the time when Mohammad Ali himself was a crown prince residing in Tabriz, he had employed several Russians in his retinue: Mr Shapshal as his personal secretary, Captain Kol'man as a tutor for his children, Cossack Captain Khabalov in his guard and a Russian head of his arsenal.  This paper is based on Russian archival material that reflects the joint efforts by Russian military and diplomatic officials to obtain these two appointments and emphasises in a straightforward way their goals – to increase influence on the Shah and information-gathering at his court. The documents also explain in detail why Doctor Sadovskii and Captain Smirnov were chosen as the best candidates for these sensitive missions.  Although Mohammad Ali Shah used the Russian-officered Cossack Brigade for his successful 1908 coup and went into exile in Russia after constitutional forces marched on Tehran in July 1909, the material in this paper is not put into the framework of the constitutional revolution. Instead, it provides detailed examples of an important aspect of Russian imperial politics in Iran – the attempt to gain dominant influence over Qajar rulers by attaching Russians to the imperial court.

Development of the Third Singular Copula in the Post-revolutionary Colloquial Persian

Koorosh Angali
University of Texas, Austin, USA

One of the results of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 was (and is) the dominance and sovereignty of the lower-class populace over the rest of the nation. The ascendancy of the common man has brought many changes (in many instances disastrous changes) culturally as well as linguistically and otherwise. Particularly disturbing is the rather damaging influence of the illiterate or the poorly literate upon the Persian language; e.g., the widespread use of  are 'yep' vs. the traditional formal/polite bale 'yes'.  A rather peculiar change in the usage of pre-revolutionary words and expressions is the replacement of the colloquial 3rd singular copula –e 'is' (for the formal ast) with the long copula hast '(s)he, it exists'. Although in modern Persian both these verbs are derivatives of the Middle Persian (h)ast, they already have taken two different meanings in modern Persian. Therefore, the post-revolutionary colloquial Persian has practically confused two different verbs.  What is even more disturbing is the submission of the literate and the scholar to such grave mistakes: even they are now using hast for the colloquial –e.  It is very important rapidly and astutely to detect and correct these mistakes in the Persian language, which is already under constant attack from outside Iran, as well as inside (e.g., the penetration of the Los Angeles Far-Gelisi into Iran by the visitors, technocrats, with poor knowledge of Persian, etc.)

Dynastic Nationalism and the Cult of the Monarchy

Ali M Ansari
University of St Andrews, UK

This paper examines the development of dynastic nationalism under the Pahlavi monarchy (1925-1979), looking in particular at the attempts by Mohammad Reza Shah to define himself and his dynasty within a national narrative with a view to legitimizing the dynasty. The paper looks at the construction of the myth of monarchy and its associations with a specifically Persian/Aryan nationalism, with particular reference to the organisation of the celebrations at Persepolis for the 2500th anniversary of the monarchy, and the Shah's subsequent attempts to define himself as a legitimate and deserving heir to Cyrus the Great. The transition of the Shah from a 'constitutional monarch', to 'democratic sovereign', and finally revolutionary saviour of his people is charted, with particular attention to his increased use of popular mythology and religious symbolism. In this way it is argued that the Shah created the ideological space for the Islamic revolution which followed and that Ayatollah Khomeini successfully moulded the Shah's image to his own purposes. The paper concludes with an assessment of the post-revolutionary reaction to the myth, both in Iran and abroad and suggests that elements of the 'cult of the monarchy' are returning to the popular culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Leyli o Majnun as Mirrored in Leyli o Majnun ... or ... Jami, Reader of Nezami

Leili Anvar-Chenderoff
Institut National des Langues et Civilisations Orientales, Paris, France

Although the far-reaching influence of Nezami's work on Persian poetry is widely accepted, it has yet to be assessed with more precision by digging into the texts. As far as literary history is concerned, there is no doubt that Leyli o Majnun has been one of the most influential works in Persian poetry and can be considered as a major 'palimpsest text'. It has inspired numerous poets who not only wrote (for some of them) their own versions of the romance but also to simply refer to the story as a model and to the characters as types or literary topoi.  One of the acutest and most complex readers of Nezami was the theologian, spiritual master and poet, Jami of Herat. Jami constantly and almost obsessively refers to Nezami as his master in poetry and to his works as his source of poetic inspiration. His Haft Owrang (or Seven Colours) is composed as an echo to the Khamseh (or the Five Romances) of his elder. This 'mirror effect' is particularly interesting to examine in Leyli o Majnun: a study of the resemblances and the divergences with the original by Nezami will show how Jami has crystallised a spiritual interpretation of the original work.  This paper offers a comparison between the poems in order to show that what Jami proposes is a spiritual and poetic commentary on the romance of Leyli o Majnun, on Nezami's work at large and on the concept of metaphysical love.

Scholars and What they Unwittingly Reveal: The Archaeology Survey of 1968 in Iran

Roya Arab
Institute of Archaeology, UK

In 1968 a group of luminaries in the field of pyrotechnology travelled to Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey, collecting field samples and doing ethnographic studies.  They were accompanied by a geologist who took geological samples. The team and trip were organised by Theodore Wertime, 'Cultural Attache' to the American embassy in Iran, who was also a keen student of ancient technology. After the expedition, the artefacts got entangled in bureaucratic knots in Turkey. Luckily, Beno Rothenberg got an exit permit for the artefacts, retrieved them, and stored them in Israel, where they remained until a chance meeting with an Iranian student at the IoA.  As part of a dissertation, they were re-boxed, re-labelled, catalogued and stored at the Institute of  Archaeology, with the help of field notes, photographs, personal letters, published and unpublished reports, which were collected from the team members.  This paper examines the socio-economic and political context of the 1968 expedition. Besides the 'Pyrotechnological Survey' there was much else that went on, including the fact that despite very little research being carried out on the artefacts and few articles being published about the expedition, the geological samples became the subject of a 260page report paid for by the US Naval Research.  The report lists the resources of the areas visited in the three countries during the survey. In the case of Iran, most interestingly, uranium was located in the heart of the country. Meanwhile since 2000 Iran has been under scrutiny and at times threat for its civilian nuclear energy ambitions.

In a memoir published by his son, Wertime is quoted as being a CIA man, but the geologist Klinger could not have known the multiple uses to which his 'collection of scientific samples' would be put.

Relations between Gregorian Armenians and Western Catholics in Safavid Julfa

Shokoh Arabi-Hashemi
Islamic Azad Universtiy, Iran

New Julfa is a quarter in the southern part of the city of Isfahan established by the order of Shah Abbas I as a temporary and later permanent district for the Armenian residents of the city. At first, other than a very small Zoroastrian minority, New Julfa was exclusive to the Armenians.  Eventually, other Eastern Christian communities found residence in the neighbourhood and with increased connection with the West, Catholic missionaries from Europe gained access to the quarter and began soliciting the Safavid kings for permits to build their own churches. This act created animosity between the predominately Gregorian Armenians and the various Catholic orders – such as the Augustines, Carmelites, Capuchins and Jesuits – vying for presence amongst the Armenian community. These antagonisms were more than intra-Christian sectarian strife; they signified competition amongst the various Catholic orders for access to the Persian court. At times, the Armenian resistance to Western Christian encroachment led the leaders of o the community actively tpseek the banning of other orders from residing and building churches in New Julfa.  This paper, on the celebration of the 400th anniversary of the establishment of New Julfa, looks at the Christian community of New Julfa under the Savafids by studying unpublished documents from the Vank Church archives, reports from Catholic missions in New Julfa, as well as eyewitness reports from travellers of the period.

Educational Institution, Economic Development, and Democracy: A Case Study of Iran and Turkey

Nader Asgary
Jones School of Business, State University of New York at Geneseo, USA

Mazdak Asgary
Cornell University, USA

There is much literature written about the economic principles that promote economic development. However, there is not enough emphasis in the literature on the importance of institutions that impel for a sustainable economic development. The existence of a representative and sustainable governmental institution is critical to a country's long term economic development.  An educational institution that is built up on fundamentals of democratic values is required; applying democratic processes for the development of human resources would in the long run guarantee a democratic system.  In the past one hundred years Iran and Turkey have tried to build a sustainable democratic system.  Some empirical evidence shows that, regardless of political system in short run, a country needs some degree of economic stability and growth (i.e., South Korea) to build a long term stable government institution. The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that a transparent and representative political institution is essential for sustainable economic development and that an educational institutional system is the foundation of it. We discuss different components of institutions and their relationship with economic development in a Iran, South Korea, and Turkey.  In our study we learn from the recent democratic process of other countries (e.g., South Korea) and we propose some fundamental issues (e.g., organisation) that need special attention in order to build a sustainable democratic system.

Visual Communication and American Image-Building for Iranians

Hesameddin Ashna
Imam Sadiq University,Tehran, Iran

Visual communication is one aspect of American public diplomacy that was visible in Iran throughout the Pahlavi reign. This paper analyses the propaganda messages produced by Marzha-ye Now (New Frontiers), a monthly official publication of the US Information Agency (USIA) from 1964 to 1979. This fully-illustrated magazine was published for an audience of Iranian intellectuals in order to promote the American way of life. Visual analysis of Marzha-ye Now uses persuasive, informative and agenda-setting indicators through 20 expressive, 2 descriptive and 12 interpretive analytical questions. By analyzing a sample of 2151 images (photographs, paintings and graphic designs) from 162 issues of this magazine, this study shows that in contrast to similar American and Soviet illustrated magazines which reflected audience values ('Look! We are just like you!'), Marzha-ye Now insisted mainly on the expression of sender values ('Look! You too can be just like us!').

Limitations of the Linguisitic Development of Persian in the Modern Period

Daryoush Ashouri
France

This talk concentrates on the linguistic evolution of modern languages in general and the efficacy of Persian as a vibrant and fluid living language in today's world of evolving technology, human thought and social progress. The talk is based on the author's study of the evolution of the English language and its transformative relationship to the intellectual and scientific development of the modern world for the past few centuries.  The study shows that the growth of English as a modern language has enjoyed a dialectical existence vis-a-vis the concepts and ideas.  underpinning the modern world. This existence has been sustained by the constant development of innovative linguistic structures and systems for the creation of new concepts. The process is one that has continuously overcome the language's own limitations through returning to its own linguistic 'raw material' (primarily from the Classical languages of Greek and Latin) and by placing this raw material in novel mechanical and technical formations.  In comparison, the Persian language has remained within its predetermined 'natural' formulations, i.e., it has retained the language's 'acceptable' evolutionary process defined primarily through the rules and structures of its classical poetry. As such, Persian has not found new formulations to adapt to the exigencies of the modern world. The Persian language, much like the under- and uneven development of the society and economy of the Iranian nation, has failed to find a stable and structured existence in modern society.

The Model Cinema

Nilufar Ashtari
Belgium

In the Islamic Republic different political forces and cultures are vying for power and control over the political and cultural battleground. These cultures are constructed in and represented by three different types of cinema, 1) the 'model cinema', 2) the 'social problem cinema', and 3) the 'quality cinema'. This paper examines some of the recurring themes in the 'model cinema', consisting of war and 'revolutionary' films. This cinema is supported by the hardline factions in government and is the least popular of all genres. The papers looks at how revolutionary cinema coopted the anti-imperialist, anti-feudal discourse from the left, dehumanised the counterrevolutionary forces, reconstructed the past and, in 1990s film, tackled the Bosnian and Palestinian cause and changed its focus from Savak to terrorism aimed at the Islamic Republic.

From Madras to Venice: Circulation of Capital and the Patronage Activities of Julfa Merchants in India

Sebouh David Aslanian
Columbia University, USA

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, New Julfans were not only successful merchants in India but also great benefactors of the Armenian cultural 'revival movement' underway in the eighteenth-century Armenian diaspora settlements in Europe and India.  This paper examines the patronage activities of Julfa merchants in eighteenth-century India. It focuses, in particular, on the circulation of merchant capital and financial backing that allowed a small band of Armenian Catholic missionaries, based in Venice and known as the Mechitarist Congregation, to establish not only a new canon for Armenian literature through their prolific literary and publishing activities, but also an Armenian College in Venice and Paris. The Moorat Raffael College was the leading Armenian centre of higher education during the nineteenth and most of the twentieth centuries. It was established in accordance with the express wishes of a wealthy Catholic Armenian merchant from New Julfa named Eduard Raffael Gharamiants who had settled in Madras and the nearby French settlement of Pondicherry in the second half of the eighteenth century. Relying on the will of Eduard Raffael, court papers stored in London concerning the Moorat Raffael College, and travel diaries of Mechitarist monks who were sent to the Armenian community of Madras in the second half of the seventeenth century to raise funds for their educational and cultural activities in Venice, this paper explores the vital role of Julfa merchants in bankrolling the Armenian 'revival' movement in Venice. Theoretically, this paper argues that the circulation of capital was a crucial aspect not only of Julfan economic history, but also of the cultural history of the Armenian 'revival movement' in the diaspora.

Arsaces IV (c. 170-168 BC) the First Missing Parthian King

Farhad Assar,
University of Oxford, UK

In his Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus, Justin (41.5.8-10) relates that the third Parthian ruler Phriapatius reigned fifteen years and bequeathed the throne to his eldest son, Phraates I. Having defeated the powerful Mardian tribes, Phraates appointed his brother Mithradates as his successor and died shortly thereafter. Although Justin omits Phriapatius' paternity and dynastic link with Arsaces II, the genealogical record on the Nisa ostracon 2638 (1760) confirms Phriapatius as a descendant of the brother of Arsaces I, the founder of the Parthian dynasty. In recounting Arsacid exploits in Bactria and Babylonia, Orosius (5.4.16) states that Mithradates I was the sixth king after Arsaces I. Unfortunately, Orosius offers nothing further on Mithradates I, including his relationship with the intervening rulers.  A recently published inscribed ostracon from Nisa attests that a great-grandson of Arsaces I also ruled as Parthian king. I have shown elsewhere that this prince succeeded Phriapatius, reigned briefly as the fourth Arsaces and left no mature son on his death. Crown and command passed, once again, to the collateral Arsacid branch enabling the sons of Phriapatius, Phraates I and Mithradates I, to assume the diadem as the fifth and sixth Parthian rulers.  This paper presents additional evidence to amend Justin's incomplete genealogy of the early Parthian rulers and show his intentional omission of the reign of Arsaces IV.

Ethnic Minorities, Regionalism, and the Construction of New Histories in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Touraj Atabaki
International Institute of Social History, Netherlands

During the revolution of 1979, social and political unrest with an ethnic flavour was often registered. The revolts in Kurdistan and Turkmensahra in early 1979 - which in the Kurdistan case lasted for another six years – the political unrest in Khuzistan and Baluchistan in mid-1979, and the political unrest in Azarbaijan in late 1979 to early 1980 were the major ethnic unrests the new regime faced in its early days of formation. However, all these rebellions were exclusively founded and organised by local political elites and activists and there were barely any references to non-elite popular autonomous participation. However, by the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, and during the period of 'reconstruction' and partial liberalisation under President Rafsanjani, the notion of ethnic rights gradually entered into the general discourse of individualism, individual autonomy and citizenship which was the preoccupation of the reformist circles. Such contributions became even more vivid during President Khatami's terms, exposing connections between the issues of citizenship and individual rights, including the rights of ethnic minorities in contemporary Iran. It was indeed during this period that writing on ethnic groups' distant past gradually became an intellectual enterprise engaging a large number of ethnic minorities' intelligentsias. Writing ethnic history has developed into a persuasive political project, shaping a significant and unbroken link with each ethnic group's constructed past, aiming to fill the gap between the ethnic group's origin and its actuality.  The aim of the present study is to present a picture of tireless endeavours among ethnic minorities in Iran in constructing their immediate or distant past. The paper further examines the contribution of crafted ethnic historiography in Iran's contemporary political culture.

In Search of Earthly Paradise: Spatial Justice in Urban Iran

Kamal Athari
Iran

Spatial justice in the city, or fair and equal access to housing and urban amenities as basic citizenship rights and expectations, has been an integral part of the political imaginary and the public discourse of key social actors in Iran, both prior to and after the 1979 revolution. The persistent articulation of the demand for equal access to urban space by these social actors - whether state planners, politicians, political leaders, shanty dwellers, migrants, or public employees - succeeded in turning the issue into one of the essential agendas of the revolution, to the extent that the right to decent housing was enshrined in a key article in the constitution of the Islamic Republic. Furthermore, spontaneous public land grabs, populist state policies, and the confiscation of the landed properties of former regime associates, led to a major transfer of urban land and public resources after 1979. As a result of this combination of grassroots actions and public policy the shape of Iranian cities, their scale and the composition of their population has been radically transformed.  The aim of this paper is to analyze the material, as well as the socio-cultural implications of this transformation of urban space, and the redistribution and reconfiguration of urban housing in post-revolutionary Iran. Evaluating the impact of the praxis of 'spatial justice in the city' demonstrates that major strides were indeed made in the first two decades after the revolution, in providing a more egalitarian access to urban space to various social groups and classes. Nevertheless, the actual impact of this urban transformation is paradoxical and far from clear-cut, as demonstrated by recent reversals in this relatively egalitarian trend. The unintended consequences of this experience, from the uncontrolled expansion of cities to the mounting difficulties of effective democratic governance, is the focus of the second part of the paper.

The Army of Nader Shah

Michael Axworthy
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, UK

The paper presents one of the central themes of my forthcoming book on Nader Shah. Nader initiated in Persia a military revolution comparable to that which had been achieved in many European states in the preceding centuries, through the introduction of gunpowder weapons for all his troops, through the improvement of drill and training to maximise firepower, through his establishment of a permanently constituted and regularly paid army, and through its enormous expansion. These developments meant that at its peak in the early 1740s, Nader's army was the most powerful single military force in Asia, and possibly the world.  Building on recent research by others (notably Rudi Matthee), which has suggested that geographic conditions and cultural factors meant that the Safavid regime never fully realised the potential of gunpowder weapons, the paper examines the state of the Safavid military system in the last years of the dynasty, suggesting that its decline may have been exaggerated. The paper then considers the Afghan revolt, its military effects, and Nader's response. After an examination of the nature and structure of Nader's army at its height, drawing on new source material (and addressing the significance of religious factors) the paper then looks at the effects of Nader's military policies on the country generally and briefly consider where they could have led if his regime had not crashed to disaster in the later 1740s. Given the widespread view that the military revolution in Europe was centrally important to the processes of state formation and economic development there, the paper suggest sthat the failure of Nader's Afsharid dynasty was a great lost opportunity in Iranian history.

Idioms of Friendship in Safavid Iran

Kathryn Babayan
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

In the spirit of Alan Bray this paper looks at the connections between idealised representations of masculine friendship and the official condemnation of sodomy in the Safavid period. Concentrating on the idioms of friendship produced in two epistemologically related spaces - the confraternities and the Safavid court in Isfahan - the paper begins to distinguish the meanings and protocols of intimacy and the ethical contours of a practice that has traditionally tied men together in amity.  The paper explores these overlapping coordinates of friendship, love, and spirituality in order to understand the range of social systems in the Safavid world. How does the characterisation of friendship in visual and literary texts bear upon its particular social contexts? What becomes evident is that intimacy and its potential for erotic expressions in these male homosocial spaces came to be perceived at various crucial moments in history as a threat to productive society. This paper is a preliminary study for a larger analysis of the relations between gender segregation and sexual politics and the social and political economy of institutions such as the court, the guild and the marketplace.

The Iranian Thought in the Divan of Naser Khosrow

Askar Bahrami
Centre for the Great Islamic Encyclopaedia, Iran

In Zoroastrian and Manichaean thought, az (greed) is a demon which causes the body to be destroyed, and deprives the spirit of salvation. The word az means 'try and effort' in Old Iranian, but its meaning has been changed and limited to the currently used one, referring to greed. One of the very few Persian literary texts in which this word has been treated in its mythical sense, is Naser Khosrow's Divan, where az has kept its demon character, which shows the influence of  Zoroastrian thought on Naser Khosrow's poetry. This paper deals with the instances which prove this claim.

The Qanats of Tabris

Farahnaz Bahrampour
Shahriyar Library, Tabriz, Iran

Iran's history has been one of a continuous search for sources of fresh water and the qanat is one of the oldest and primary solutions to this problem. Historians and specialists do not agree on the exact origins of the qanat system in Iran, but it is certain that the use of these underground canals goes back a few millennia, making Iran the probable birth-place of this technology.  The city of Tabriz has played an important role throughout the history of Iran and according to numerous travelogues and memoirs it is said to have been enriched by at least one hundred underground qanat waterways of which only a few have remained.  This paper is a culmination of studies on the destruction and abandonment of the qanats of Tabriz in the past one hundred years based primarily on the manuscript of Tarikh va joghrafiya-ye Dar al-Saltaneh-ye Tabriz by Nader Mirza. The paper also presents a study of the few remaining qanats that are still in use.

Rethinking Human Rights in Iran: A Feminist Critique

Golbarg Bashi
Columbia University, USA

In the modern Iranian context proper, both under the Pahlavis and the Islamic Republic, the systematic abuse of human rights has always been a paramount concern among both Iranians and foreign observers. The purpose of this paper is to open up the domain of discussion by 1) exploring the endemic issues and problems within the human rights discourse proper, 2) expand that discussion into a wider spectrum of contemporary Iranian history during the twentieth century, and 3) subject the result to a feminist critique.  Often a categorical, uncritical, and abstract notion of human rights is applied to an Iranian context that has already been radically Islamicised. The paper therefore exposes some of the innate issues domestic to the human rights discourse before we have even applied it to a condition similar to Iran, while at the same time opening up the Iranian political culture beyond its current and forced cornering into an absolutist and Islamist domain. The presentation intends to demonstrate that a familiarity with modern Iranian history over the last two hundred years shows that a multiplicity of ideologies and political practices have allowed for a much wider reading, interpretation and application of universal human rights than the current Islamic discourse allows or projects. The current leaders and ideologues of the Islamic Republic who are in opposition with certain norms and practices of the Islamic Republic have in effect plunged the current Iranian political culture ever deeper into an Islamist language. The paper thus opens that domain to a wider reading of modern Iranian history, extend it to its origin in pre-Islamic Revolution era of the Pahlavis, and back to the constitutional period, all by way of navigating a fuller spectrum of ideological and political operation, within which we can have a more historically accurate and thematically cogent conception of human rights, its uses and abuses, in the Iranian domain. Finally, the paper offers a postcolonial feminist critique, to open up the false binary opposition between human rights and Islamism, yet another version of 'Islam and the West', and propose a more historically balanced view of the predicament of human rights in Iran.

The 'Quest for a Third Power' and Public Opinion during the Late Qajar Period

Oliver Bast
University of Manchester, UK

The history of Iranian foreign policy under the Qajars and under Reza Shah (as opposed to the history of the policies pursued by other powers vis-a-vis Iran) has so far received extremely little scholarly attention. However, from the slightly more abundant literature on other powers' Iran policies it transpires that ever since the early nineteenth century those in charge of Iran's foreign policy had been trying to mitigate the pressure on the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity that resulted from the constantly increasing Anglo-Russian economic, political and military encroachment by a two-fold strategy: the attempt to play Iran's two imperialist neighbours off against each other and the quest for a – colonially non-interested – benevolent 'third power' that would allow the Iranians to counter-balance the dangerous growth of Anglo-Russian influence, and ideally even provide some sort of security guarantee for the independent survival of the Iranian realm.  This paper tries to shed light on the relationship between this 'third power' diplomacy and Iranian public opinion between 1896 and 1924, a period that witnessed not only a great upsurge in newspaper/journal production but also longish periods of relative great freedom of press thus arguably being a time when public opinion in the common sense of the word emerged for the first time in Iran. Hence for the purpose of this paper, public opinion is gauged mainly by a case study-based analysis of influential specimens of the contemporary print media although memoirs and official papers are also scrutinised where appropriate.  he main ambition of this paper is to chart how public opinion perceived and assessed Iranian diplomacy's (often elusive) quest for a third power, but it also asks to what degree public opinion had spawned discourses of qodrat-e sevvom, which in turninfluenced foreign policy-makers' decisions. The paper thus tries to make a contribution towards an endeavour that remains currently a desideratum, namely an analysis of the genesis, impact, and legacy of some major foreign policy discourses such as neutrality, third power, negative equilibrium, equidistance, non-alignment, neither East nor West etc. that have surfaced since Iran's emergence as a modern nation-state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Zanjan in the Second World War.

Masoud Bayat
Urmia University, Iran

In September 1932, Zanjan was one of the many northern Iranian cities that were put under Soviet bombardment. This attack and the ensuing occupation of the region by the Soviet army had short and long-term repercussions. In the immediate aftermath of the bombing and occupation of the city, the Soviet troops began interfering in the formal and informal administration of the area (from military engagement to the encouragement of the peasants to withhold payments to the central government). In the aftermath of the war, the Soviets retained their influence in Zanjan through the Tudeh Party which was formed in 1935. The occupation of Zanjan by the Ferqeh-ye Demokrat was a direct result of this influence. This influence continued for almost a decade where the party's presence was an unavoidable part of Zanjan's daily life and administration.  This study is based on the analysis of primary sources from the era about the events preceding and succeeding the formation of the Tudeh Party in Zanjan during Second World War.

Tracking Suri: Narrative Pace in Mahshid Amirshahi's Early Stories

Michael Beard
University of North Dakota, USA

Narrative pace can refer to the ratio of events plotted against the page count; it can mean the tactics a writer devises to move from one scene to the next. It can also refer to the sentence-by-sentence experience of reading story. Mahshid Amirshahi's narrative speed is easy to demonstrate, and can be analyzed at all three levels. There are cases where the right narrating voice creates opportunities for flexibility and a sense of speed. The eight stories recounted by her adolescent narrator Suri (translated, by J. E. Knoerzer, as Suri and Co.) make an appropriate laboratory for examining this phenomenon. This paper proposes to track them as one might a film, in which we can visualise the point of view as one might a series of camera shots, where the camera may move, where the scene may shift, where a voice-over may intervene unexpectedly.

Peasantisation and Proletarianisation of Iranian Agriculture in the Post-revolutionary Decades

Sohrab Behdad
Denison University, USA

Farhad Nomani
American University of Paris, France

This paper is a theoretical-empirical examination of the effects of revolution, Islamic populism, protracted war, and economic crisis on the class nature of the work force in the agricultural sector of Iran. Relying on decomposition technique and class theory, based on the data for three censuses of 1976, 1986 and 1996, the study maps the trajectory of agricultural class changes in Iran. This analysis is in the context of a model of structural involution and de-involution for the examination of post-revolutionary type of economic crises. By differentiating the employment effect from the class effect, the study confirms that in the involutionary period (1986 in comparison to the pre-revolutionary year, 1976) Iranian agriculture underwent a process of peasantisation, corresponding to the de-proletarianisation process experienced in the rest of the economy. In the second period (1996, compared to 1986), the policy of economic liberalisation (starting from 1990), and rejuvenation of capitalist relations of production, began the de-involutionary process, which set into motion a notable trend toward de-peasantisation (proletarianisation) of agriculture, and the rural sector, more or less in step with the same trend in the rest of  Iranian economy.

Leftist Interpretations of the Iranian Revolution: Then and Now

Maziar Behrooz
San Francisco State University, USA

The 1979 Iranian revolution has produced a large amount of literature by various leftist groups, from the Muslim Mojahedin to pro-Soviet Tuden Party to the 'Majority' and 'Minority' factions of the Feda'iyan Guerrillas. This paper will examine the analysis of the revolution and the Islamic Republic state by the aforementioned leftist organisations. Next, the paper will examine the approaches of the same groups 25 tears later and in light of changes that has occurred both in Iran and in the international environment. The paper will base its argument on both primary sources publications of various organisations) and secondary sources (books and articles published about various organisations).

The Sheriman Family between Julfa and Venice: Migratory Circulation and Cultural Hybridity

Houri Berberian
California State University, Long Beach, USA

This paper examines the Sherimans, a wealthy Iranian-Armenian merchant family, with origins in early seventeenth century New Julfa and branches as far west as Italy, especially Venice, and as far east as Madras (India) and Pegu (Burma) and as recent as the nineteenth century. In addition to merchants, the Sheriman family included highly-placed state officials, military and religious officials, and counts. The family's journeys and dispersion from southwest Asia to western Europe and southeastern Asia began decades after they were first established in Iran, which in itself was the consequence of displacement and dislocation. The Sherimans were among Shah Abbas' deportees, being settled in New Julfa in the early seventeenth century and playing a significant role in the domestic and international commerce of Iran by taking advantage of its contacts within and outside the country.  Through the study of family correspondence, memoirs, and other family material acquired in Venice and the Vatican, this paper views the Sheriman family as a link between Iran and Europe and more generally East and West as they travelled and toiled between southwest Asia, Europe, and southeast Asia. The Sheriman case illustrates the important role of migratory circulation and cultural hybridity in the family's networks, survival, and even success in different parts of the world. The Sherimans are a perfect example of the significance of the function of merchants in bridging political and cultural gaps through extensive travel and economic transactions in multiple empires and regions. The Sheriman family's history also sheds light on the important role that multiple identity plays in the cosmopolitan existence of the Armenian merchant family. A pliable and fluid identity was a key factor in the ability of the multi-generational members of the Sheriman family, whether in Julfa or Venice, to achieve religious, military, and intellectual distinction as well as great wealth, political influence, and social clout.

A New Julfa Merchant in India: the Book of Will of Khoja Petrus Woskan

Bhaswati Bhattacharya
International Institute of Asian Studies, Netherlands

This paper traces the social and economic relations between Iran and India in the eighteenth century through the study of the Armenian migration and community in India.  Large-scale settlement of Armenians in India followed the forced evacuation of Julfa in Armenia by Shah Abbas in the beginning of the seventeenth century. While proximity of Iran to India – the key-role player in Asian trade in premodern times – partly explains the situation, the politico-social developments in New Julfa from the late seventeenth century onwards played an equally important role in the decision of Armenians of New Julfa to seek other bases of operation. Khoja Petrus Woskan (b. New Julfa, 1680 - d. Madras, January 15, 1751) was such a person who left New Julfa for Madras in 1705. His Book of Will, containing the last will and testament that Woskan prepared before he passed away, was translated into English and presented to the Mayor's Court in Fort St George, Madras. While the will is an important document showing the networks of Petrus and the continuous circulation of goods, information, human and capital resources between Iran and India that sustained Armenian trade in that period, it also sheds important light on the historiography of the Armenians of New Julfa and India.

Art and Mithal: Reading Geometry as Visual Allegory

Carol Bier
The Textile Museum of Washington, USA

By the eleventh century CE, from Spain to India, seemingly complex geometric patterns adorn most major Islamic monuments. Too often this extraordinary phenomenon is treated as inconsequential, as geometric patterns in the treatment of Western art history are considered to be ornamental and decorative, nonrepresentational and, therefore, meaningless. The reasons for this rapid proliferation have not been adequately explained. This paper focuses on two octagonal tomb towers dated to the 11th century, which are located on the Iranian Plateau between Hamadan and Qazvin at Kharraqan, in an effort to shed light on representational meanings associated with geometric pattern in Islamic monuments. Dated by inscription, these monuments are constructed of fired, unglazed bricks, which are arranged to form numerous geometric patterns that cloak the building's eight faces as a revetment. In addition to the date, the inscriptions also give the name of the architect, Muhammad ibn Makki al-Zanjani.   Beyond the raw historical data of name and date, what means are available for us to assess the constructed meanings these buildings once had within their original cultural milieu? This paper takes as its starting point an assumption that art, as allegory, may be interpreted on many levels. Mithal is the Arabic term used to refer both to Islamic philosophical allegory and to geometric example or model; the word itself presupposes likeness or resemblance. Looking at location, choice of inscription, and contemporary issues in local philosophical discourse, this paper articulates a direct relationship between geometric patterns visually expressed, and topics of ontological interest and metaphysical exposition that were being discussed in early Saljuq Iran. Drawing upon tenets of Islamic theology, it is argued that these designs, far from being merely ornamental, designate meanings appropriate to their funerary context, thereby illuminating a temporal and spatial specificity of meaning for Islamic geometric ornament.

Influence of Attar's Mantiqu't$ T$air onAlaoland Jayasi's Padmavati – A Special Reference to Fana and Baqa

Abu Musa Muhammad Arif Billah
SOAS, University of London, UK and the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh

Persian influence on Hindi and Bengali or other South Asian literatures is a common phenomenon. History reveals that since time immemorial a close cultural relation has existed between these two regions. After the advent of Islam in India this relation reached its zenith. Sana'i, Attar, Rumi, Hafez, Jami, Nezami etc, contributed a lot to produce voluminous work in this field. Fana, baqa, asheq, mashuq, etc. are the main features of Persian Sufi tradition. As Persia is considered a cradle of the Islamic Sufi tradition, medieval Persian poetry played a significant role in generating the Sufi poetic genre within its framework, which left much influence to reproduce an Indian style of Sufi literary tradition. Based on this tradition, hundreds of poets wrote thousands of poems. Malik Muhammad Jayasi's Hindi Padmavati and Alaol's Bengali Padmavati are the best examples of them. Jayasi not only embellishes his Sufi thought by Attar's fana concept but he also designed the narrative structure of his poem following Attar's Mantiqu't$ T$airespecially the story of Sheikh-e San 'an. Alaol gets further infusion by the mystic trend of Attar and extended his Sufi thought from his predecessor Jayasi's fana to Attar's fana and baqa in his poem. The principal aim of this paper is to focus on how these two medieval poets were influenced by Attar in developing their poetic and mystic thoughts.

Oghuz Khan Narratives, Politics and Legitimacy in the Late Medieval Persianate Historiography

Ilker Evrim Binbas

University of Chicago, USA

This paper focuses on the Oghuz Khan Narratives in late medieval Persianate historiography. The Oghuz Khan narrative is an ethnogonic myth on the mythistory of Oghuz Khan and his descendants recorded in a cycle of genealogical narratives. Competing to a certain extent with the Mongol genealogical narratives, the Oghuz Khan narrativesbecame a common theme in many dynastic genealogies and also in the universal histories written in the post-Mongol political context in the area stretching from Istanbul to Samarkand. Especially in the fifteenth century, when Islamic dynasties like the Ottomans traced their ancestry back to Oghuz Khan, these narrativesgained an additional political impetus due to the competition between the Ottomans and Timurid successor states, such as the Aqquyunlu and Qaraquyunlu. However, even in the areas where Chingizid prestige was strongly felt, the Oghuz Khan narratives were commonly circulated, and probably some oral versions entered into the literary historical traditions and vice versa, especially in Central Asia.  The presentation compares three representative Oghuz Khan narratives found in three chronicles. The first one is the Ilkhanid historian Rashid al-Din's Jami' al-tavarikh, the second is the Timurid historian Sharaf al-Din Yazdi's Zafarnameh, and the third is the Ottoman historian Shukr Allah's Bahjat al-tavarikh. The paper argues that the change in and the use of the Oghuz Khan narratives in different historical sources and contexts can be explained with the narratives' relationship with the competing models of sovereignty in late medieval Islamic history.

Stories of Imam Ali and Imam Reza as Sung in the Kurdish and Turkish of Khorasan

Stephen Blum
City University of New York, USA

This paper discusses three narrative poems that for several decades have occupied a prominent position in the repertoire of the Bakhshis in northern Khorasan. The verses in Kurmanji Kurdish about 'Imam Reza: Protector of the Gazelle' and 'The Meeting of Imam Ali and Khezr' are attributed to the nineteenth-century poet Ja'far Qoli, as is the Kurmanji version of 'Imam Ali: the Hawk and the Dove.' A second version of the latter story that is currently sung in Khorasani Turkish is an adaptation of a Turkmen poem evidently composed by the eighteenth-century poet Magtymguly Pyragi (1733-1783), and it is sung to a musical mode (maqam) that strongly resembles a mode used by the Yarsan and Ahl-e Haqq in Iranian Kurdistan.  The music history of northern Khorasan has been shaped by interaction among speakers of Persian, Kurdish, Turkmen, and Khorasani Turkish. Several aspects of that history can be approached through an analysis of these texts and the musical resources used in performing them. The materials on which this analysis is based include recordings made at various times during the past 36 years and the critical edition of Ja'far Qoli's poems published by Kalimollah Tavahodi.

A New Lexical Resource: Persian WordNet

Farhad Keyvan
Netservia Labs, USA

Habib Borjian
Hofstra University, USA

Manuchehr Kasheff
Columbia University, USA

Christiane Fellbaum
Princeton University, USA

The authors of this presentation discuss the design and creation of a unique electronic lexical resource, dubbed PersiaNet, as an important step towards making Persian more accessible for linguistic, literary, and cultural studies.  PersiaNet is modelled on WordNet, a lexical database that has been created for over 30 languages world-wide and has found wide acceptance among theoretical and applied linguists (Fellbaum 1998, Vossen 1999). Nouns, verbs, and adjectives are grouped into sets of synonyms (synsets), each representing a canonicalised concept. Synsets are interrelated by means on conceptual-semantic and lexical relations including hyponymy, meronymy, antonymy, and entailment. The result is a large semantic network, where word meanings are represented and made accessible not by means of definitions but in terms of their relations to other words.  The authors developed an interface, compatible with both Roman and Persian script, that allows lexicographers in different locations to populate the database with Persian synsets and to develop the semantic network. PersiaNet utilises a single common database that can be accessed and shared by each lexicographer.  PersiaNet will constitute a powerful tool for various Natural Language Processing applications including machine translation and information retrieval. It is directly mappable onto dozens of other wordnets, allowing for cross-linguistic applications and lexical comparison. Applications for creating Persian language education materials, multi-lingual dictionaries of Persian, and a tool for converting digital Persian text in the current Perso-Arabic alphabet into Latinised Persian transcription will be potential by-products of PersiaNet.

Circulation of Elites in Post-revolutionary Iran

Mehrzad Boroujerdi
Syracuse University, USA

It is generally accepted that the post-revolutionary political leadership in Iran is radically different from its predecessors. Yet, even after 26 years, our knowledge of the new ruling elite is still rather skeletal. To address this problem the author created an up-to-date and comprehensive data set containing biographical information on over 1,500 political personalities in post-revolutionary Iran. This dataset covers ministers in eleven different cabinets, members of seven parliaments, members of five Council of Guardians, and members of three Assemblies of Experts. Based on an analysis of the information contained in the database, the paper analyzes the recruitment, composition, and rotation of the new ruling elite in Iran by discussing such issues as their class origin, provincial background, age composition, educational pedigree, and frequency of election/appointment.  The analysis of the data shows that circulation of elites in post-revolutionary Iran happens most at the bottom of the elite pyramid (the majles) due to the public's desire for change. At the same time, the institutions wielding greatest power have been the ones most resistant to change (Assembly of Experts and the Council of Guardians).

The Herat Issue in the Context of Afghan-Iranian Relations

Vladimir Boyko
Centre for Regional Studies, Barnaul State Pedagogical University, Russia

This paper aims to shed light on a little-known and ill-investigated quasi-democratic experiment in Afghanistan localised in the Herat area (1929 to early 1930s), and the role of Herat in Afghan domestic as well as international/regional politics. The study is primarily based on recently declassified Russian foreign ministry archives.  Herat is one of the oldest cities of Asia, and the capital of the province by the same name, currently in Afghanistan. Historically, Herat was the largest centre of Safavid Iran, and later the Durrani Empire. The most powerful rulers of central and western Asia have constantly struggled for Heart: Persians tried to maintain their historical and cultural influence on this area, while Afghans always feared what they perceived as centrifugal trends. British and Russians made their own stakes in the 'Great Game' and kept their eye on Herat as well. Geographically and ideologically Heart accepted the influences of bordering Persia since the early twentieth century.  The failure of King Amanullah's reforms (1919-1929) resulted in the split of Afghanistan into several centres of power: the Tajik Bacha-e Saqao in Kabulistan, the turbulent southern and eastern provinces, the coalitional Afghan north, and finally the Herat Republic by Abdurrahim. The latter actually introduced an autonomous self-governance in Herat that allowed him to maintain socio-economic and political balance within this large border region during the civil war (Enqelab of1929). The political set-up of 'Herat Republic' was conditioned by his charismatic leadership, counterbalanced by the newly-established majles dominated by the clergy and local nobility. Herat's populist version of democracy was undermined by the functioning of Sharia courts and oppression of the Shiites.  The idea of Herat regional autonomy was repeated during the recent civil war in Afghanistan and the agenda of local self-governance is still open. The paper looks at one other major factor: the contradictory, competitive and collaborative influences of Russia and Iran in Afghanistan and in the northwest areas in particular.

The Persian Tradition of Euclid's Elements of Geometry

Sonja Brentjes
Aga Khan University, UK

The Persian tradition of Euclid's Elements is closely connected with the Arabic transmission of the work in Iran, Central Asia and India. This tradition does not have a single but, rather, multiple starting points, i.e., despite the overwhelming impact the Nasir al-Din al-Tusi's Arabic edition of the Elements had upon the Persian tradition of the text, it was not the only Arabic version translated into Persian. As for its impact upon other genres of mathematical texts, there seems to have been no marked differences between the two linguistic traditions. On the institutional level, too, the Persian tradition like the Arabic one lived in different spaces – the courts, the madrasa and the sphere of the interested individual. This paper discusses whether these macro-level parallels dissolve or at least modify and show greater variations when we start looking at them from various micro-level perspectives. A second issue discussed in the paper is whether the profound differences in the arts that evolved with and after the Ilkhanid dynasty between the Arab-speaking and the Persianate regions, included a different attitude or usage of Euclid's Elements.

Sweetness and Light: Wedding Music in Iranian-Australian Communities

Gay Breyley
Monash University, Australia

The wedding ceremony traditionally represents a community's most significant celebration and an opportunity for a broad musical repertoire to be performed. As a celebration of both transition and continuity, the wedding is a site of hope and nostalgia, joy and poignant reflection. It is also, of course, a community gathering and therefore a performance site on a more general level. All these aspects are reflected in the ways music is chosen and performed at weddings. This paper explores musical practices at weddings in Australia's Iranian migrant communities and analyses some of the sociopolitical and cultural meanings of musical choices and performances.  For migrants from Iran to Australia, the significance of the wedding as turning point is complicated by the experience of migration and its various effects on different generations, and by the community's changing collective position in Australian society and its changing relations with its 'homeland'. In many cases, when the bride and groom celebrate their transition from their two respective homes to their marital home, they also imaginatively enact a transition from the 'Iranian' world of their parents to the 'Australian' world of their (usually) desired children. However, the meanings of 'Iranian' and 'Australian' are rarely clear and the desire to be affiliated with aspects of one or the other often relates to paradoxical notions of success and morality, tradition and modernity, pleasure and security. Often difficult to verbalise, these desires and ideals are reflected in musical performances. In this paper I examine a few examples of the particular combinations of 'Iranian', 'Losanjelesi' and 'Australian' wedding music sounds that reflect the various subtleties of particular migrants' cultural memories and imaginaries and their forms of sociopolitical identification.

Caught between Zulaykha and Farhad: Gendering the Poetic Voice in the Ghazals of Jahan-Malek Khatun

Dominic Parviz Brookshaw
McGill University, Canada

Jahan-Malek Khatun (d. ca. 1390) is premodern Iran's most prolific woman poet. Her divan (edited and published for the first time in Tehran in 1995) contains over 1,400 ghazals, several hundred ruba'is and a small number of muqatta's and qasidas. Jahan-Malek was an Injuid princess, the only child of Jalal al-Din Mas'ud Shah ibn Sharaf al-Din Mahmud Shah to survive to adulthood. After the death of her father she sought the protection (and possibly also the patronage) of her uncle, Sheikh Abu Ishaq. Jahan-Malek Khatun married her uncle's chief nadim, and she appears to have begun composing poetry during his lifetime. What makes Jahan-Malek Khatun and her poetry so interesting to scholars of Persian ghazal poetry in the fourteenth century is that she composed poetry for (or during the reign of) many of the same Injuid and Muzaffarid patrons as her more famous male contemporaries, such as Hafez and 'Obayd-e Zakani. The volume of Jahan-Malek's poetry is impressive, as are the style and complexity of her ghazals which echo that of the poems of Hafez in particular. This paper provides a brief biography of Jahan-Malek Khatun, locate her within the literary milieu of fourteenth century Shiraz, and discuss the various ways in which she ingeniously employs both male and female poetic personae in her poetry. The discussion of the gender of the poetic voice in Jahan-Malek's poetry is focused on her incorporation of elements from well known Iranian amorous tales, such as Khosrow va Shirin, Yusof o Zolaykha and Layli o Majnun.

A Tight Rope Act Over Common Moral Ground

Elizabeth M Bucar
University of Chicago, USA

Following the 1979 Revolution that established the Islamic Republic of Iran, veiling became obligatory, the Family Protection Law was repealed, and groups like the Sisters of Zaynab patrolled the streets in search of offenders of sharia law. For these reasons and others, the collusion of politics and religion in Iran is often interpreted by Western scholars as patriarchal by design and detrimental to Iranian women. In contrast, many leaders of the contemporary women's movement in Iran participated in the Islamic revolution and consider the publicisation of Islam to be liberatory for women. This paper considers the creative arguments Iranian women make about their proper roles in contemporary Iranian society and how they draw on Islamic teachings. It focuses on the work of one exemplary leader of the Iranian women's movement, Shahla Sherkat, founder and managing editor of Zanan magazine, and how she rhetorically draws on and shifts the moral and political teachings of Ayatollah Khomeini.  Sherkat's argument for the creativity of self-censorship is juxtaposed to the Khomeini's teaching on the necessity of political unity (later codified in the 1996 Iranian press law) in order to demonstrate  how, in Sherkat's words, censorship was a "bestowed blessing."  Two major points are argued. First, a scholar's prior secular feminist commitments can interfere with her analysis of the dynamic actions of women within Iran, particularly if they lead her to dismiss religion as a potential resource for women's rights. Second, perhaps ironically, women who work within an Islamic framework in Iran are able to widen subtly the discursive parameters of this often male-inscribed tradition, even as they operate within it.

The Diadem, Nimbus, Red Footwear and the Veil: Insignia and Court Practice as Cross - Cultural Mediators between Rome and Sasanian Iran

Matthew P Canepa
College of Charleston, USA

The relationship between Sasanian and Roman ruler representation has presented both an intractable problem and challenge for scholarship in both fields for almost eight decades. Beginning in the mid-third century, the Roman and Sasanian systems of ruler representation and courtroom etiquette grew increasingly similar with regards to several key elements. These involve the most basic markers of royalty including such emblematic features as the diadem, nimbus, red shoes, prostration, and the ceremonial use of veils and silence around the sovereign. Trying to disentangle the process that led up to this state of affairs is more difficult, especially if one follows those Roman sources that claim that any change in the emperor's appearance was the result of a whole scale importation of Sasanian customs, which is not borne out by the visual evidence or majority of the textual evidence, or modern scholarship which typically ignores any interchange at all. Since Alfoldi's articles in 1934/5, previous considerations of these issues have largely understood it as a problem of cultural origins, seeking to fix certain elements of court culture as absolutely Iranian or Roman.  In a new approach to the evidence, I argue that the fundamental significance of these commonalities in insignia and ritual, and the motivations behind their emergence, lies in their conversational function as cross-cultural mediators. Both courts highlighted features such as full prostration or red, bejewelled shoes since they provided an intelligible focus for their struggles to exert dominance or establish parity and, as such, were useful mediators of ideas of power and legitimacy in a language of cross-cultural debate. This state of affairs developed from a complex process wherein indigenous developments in each culture gained a cross-cultural layer of interpretation. In this paper I argue that the courts often gave indigenous practices a new cross-cultural meaning as they became sites of competition between the two realms either in their shared experience of each others' courts in the diplomatic process, or in viewing their own images or investing their client kings.

Manuscript Transmission of the Avestan and Pahlavi Videvdad

Alberto Cantera
University of Salamanca, Spain

Miguel Angel Andres Toledo
University of Salamanca, Spain

This paper is a presentation of a new edition of the Avestan and Pahlavi Videvdad. The new edition is a collection of as many Videvdad-manuscripts as possible in digitised form. These new ly gathered and digitised manuscripts have shown that the Avestan edition of the Videvdad is not a reliable source and also that Geldner's stemma of the Videvdad manuscripts are in need of revision. The authors describe the collected manuscripts, their colophons and try to present a new, more convincing stemma. For further information about the project, please see www.videvdad.com.

From Husraw I to Husraw II:  Some Thoughts on the Late Pahlavi Cursive

Carlo G Cereti
University of Rome 'La Sapienza', Italy

Among the great cultural achievements of the Sasanian Empire is the invention of the Avestan script, derived from a late Pahlavi cursive.  This subject was widely discussed in earlier years, notably by W. B.Henning and K. Hoffmann, and has now been taken up again by J. Kellens in his most recent book. In the present paper the author tries to put together all the philological and epigraphic evidence relevant to date the birth of the Pahlavi cursive, reaching the conclusion that it should be placed in the later years of the empire.

The Shiraz Festival of Arts

Houchang EChehabi
Boston University, USA

The Shiraz Festival of Arts has become a major trope in criticisms of the Pahlavi regime. There is a consensus in the scholarly literature that it was elitist and offensive to the sensibilities of the average Iranian, in addition to being a colossal waste of money.  This paper examines the genesis of the festival, provides a synopsis of the programming over eleven seasons, and ends with a detailed discussion of the most talked-about production, a play from Hungary. The conclusion of the paper is that while a few productions were indeed very offensive, most programmes were not, and some of them, such as the concerts of traditional Persian music, had a lasting beneficial effect on Iran's cultural life.  Sources for the paper are personal memories, interviews with the director, the memoirs of Empress Farah, contemporary newspaper accounts, and the actual catalogues of the eleven festivals that were held from 1967 to 1977.

Identifying the Parthian Statue Shami

Mohammad Reza Chitsaz
al-Zahra University, Iran

The largest metal sculpture of a man made in ancient Iran at the Iran Bastan Museum Iran. This one-armed statue is comparable in size and in medium to the sculpture of the Elamite Queen Napir-Asu in the Louvre. The Iranian statue was found in 1934 by peasants of Shami (Kal Chenar), north of Izeh, in Khuzistan. There have been numerous studies of this important archaeological find but a unified designation for the sculpture remains to be agreed upon. General appellations such as The Shami Sculpture or the Parthian Prince or the Parthian Ruler have all been applied to the piece with little definitive agreement of whom the statue represents.  

But upon studying contemporary coins of the Parthians and the relief statues of the period, a similarity emerges with one of the kings the Elimite strand of this dynasty. Furthermore, the location where the Shami statue was discovered is significant because the area contained an important temple which was conquered by Antiochus III and later on Antiochus IV only to be re-conquered at the end of the Parthian Mehrdad I period. This paper is based on close scrutiny of the contemporary sources and attempts to identify the statue and the person whom it represents.

The Eight Pointed Rosette: A Possible Important Emblem in Sasanian Heraldry

Matteo Compareti
Italy

The eight-pointed star resembling a flower is an astronomical-astrological symbol which has been very widespread in the art of the Near East since ancient times. It possibly had also a special meaning in Sasanian Persia since it can be seen on the shoulder of some shahanshahs and, at least in one case, on the garments of a noble lady within pearl roundels in precious metalwork. In two 5th-6th century Sasanian silver dishes embellished with complex religious scenes, an eight-spokes visible wheel resembling a flower or the astronomical symbol is even flanked by winged putti (a clear borrowing from Byzantine Christian art). Furthermore, a recently studied probable Sasanian textile fragment kept in Athens shows exactly the eight-pointed star in a clear position of prominence in the composition representing a central king on horseback and some attendants around him. Parallels with literature referring to the Sasanian period can be traced in order to find an explanation for the position of the eight-pointed star in that textile.  The aim of the present paper is to analyse the pieces of art just enlisted and try to identify (cautiously) the eight-pointed star as an important symbol in Sasanian art which was most likely connected to the royal family itself.

Popular Politics in Iran -The Urban Crowd and the Fall of the Qajar Dynasty

Stephanie Cronin
University College Northampton, UK

This paper looks at the continuing political vitality of the urban crowd in early Pahlavi Iran and the role it played in the crisis which wracked the country in the first half of the 1920s. It focuses in particular on the part played by street politics in the mortal struggle between Reza Khan, supported by the new nationalist elite, and Ahmad Shah and the partisans of the Qajar dynasty.

The paper locates the crowd actions of the crisis years of 1924-5 in their historical context, insisting that, for the people of Iran's towns and cities, as they entered the Pahlavi era, there was nothing unusual or exceptional about popular protests. Such protests were, rather, a familiar feature of urban life throughout the country. Urban crowds habitually employed a wide variety of methods in their efforts to influence, manipulate, resist and sometimes confront local and national authorities. Indeed there existed a repertoire of actions with which both the people and the authorities were intimately acquainted and through which conflict between rulers and ruled could be choreographed. This repertoire was deeply ingrained in the historical experience of broad layers of especially the urban, but also to some extent the rural, populations, who resorted to it spontaneously and almost instinctively. Among the actions constituting this repertoire, perhaps the most well-known are the addressing of appeals in the form of petitions and telegrams to the central authorities, either the government or the majles, the use of mosques for political meetings, the taking of bast, the guild strike and the closure of the bazaars, the distribution of anonymous and often menacing and intimidatory shabnamehs and, when these methods were exhausted, collective bargaining through riot.  In attempting to rescue the urban crowd in Iran from obscurity or from condemnation as a fanatical and blindly reactionary mob, the paper hopes to rectify the imbalance in much older scholarship and to introduce into the study of Iranian history some of the perspectives of 'history from below.'

The Origins and Development of Persian Epic Literature

Ghazzal Dabiri
University of California, Los Angeles, USA

This paper examines the development of the Persian epic from the early Islamic period to the late thirteenth century CE. The origins of the genre lie within two overlapping movements. The first was the translation movement, which made Middle Persian histories and works of wisdom literature available first in Arabic and later in New Persian. The second was the adaptation movement, which was the deliberate and conscious effort of litterateurs to use poetry as a vehicle of expression. The works of Ferdowsi, Nezami, and Attar illustrate some of the ways in which epic literature developed as a result of the translation and adaptation movements. Ferdowsi adapted prose histories into a historical epic, while Nezami and Attar combined, in varying degrees, the use of histories and wisdom literature to compose romantic and quest epics respectively.  The paper briefly explores the ways in which the translations of texts from Arabic to New Persian influenced the direction Persian epic would take. A comparison and analysis of selected excerpts of Arabic texts and their Persian translations illustrate the translators' methodologies and objectives, including the techniques they employed to render narrative. The paper proceeds to argue that poets later implemented these narrative techniques and objectives and adapted them into epic form. To trace the development of Persian epic from within, an analysis of the structure and styles of the three poets is undertaken and a look into the way in which elements of oral literature and composition in performance were appropriated and borrowed by Ferdowsi and Nezami.

The Holy Fool in Medieval Islam - The Qalandariyat of Fakhr al-Din 'Araqi

Ashk P Dahlen
Uppsala University, Sweden

Fakhr al-Din Ibrahim Araqi's (d. 1289)mystical poetry has been considered to be unparalleled and he has been celebrated as the most eloquent spokesman of divine love in the history of Persian literature. His literary production is above all distinguished by the depth and audacity of its unbridled esoteric speculations and the intensity and brilliant colour of its religious expression. As a disciple of Sadr al-Din Qunawi, he was the first writer to introduce Mohi al-Din ibn Arabi's mystical teachings in the Persian language. He composed Sufi love poetry in the tradition of Sana'i and Attar, and also wrote a commentary on the Fusus al-hikam in elegant Persian prose. Due to his creative talent and the synthesizing character of his spiritual vision he made a fecund contribution to Islamic mysticism.  The task in this paper is to draw attention to a feature of Araqi's production which has so far been largely neglected by modern scholarship, namely the genre of qalandariyat. The examination is based on a close reading of selected passages of his divan, which are analyzed by initially taking into consideration hagiographical accounts about his life. Before exploring the qalandariyat poems, it is however necessary to look at the religious and historical background against which this genre emerged and developed. In this respect, the essay initially examines the qalandar phenomenon, its spiritual doctrine and practice, in the context of Medieval Islam, and then give attention to it as a distinct literary type.

The Proliferation of the Iranian Tradition of Viziericide in the Ilkhanid Period

Gholamreza Dar-Katanian
Islamic Azad University, Shabestar, Iran

This paper is a preliminary study of the tradition of assassination of ministers or viziers prevalent throughout Iranian history up to and including the Qajar period. The paper specifically looks at the charges of takfir (apostasy) that were levied against ministers both before and after the arrival of Islam as a reason for their assassination. The Ilkhanid period, aside from its many social, cultural, scientific and literary achievements, was a period that has remained unequalled in the history of Iran in regards to the practice of viziericide. The paper discusses the nature of the Ilkhanid court and the role of the Yasa or the imperial code of Chingiz Khan, which formed the backbone of the Ilkhanid state and contributed greatly to this practice.

The Rise and Early History of Ardashir-e Pabagan

Touraj Daryaee
California State University, Fullerton, USA

The rise of Ardashir (224-240CE) and the Sasanian Empire presents a special problem for historians of late antiquity. This is not so much because of a lack of sources, but rather because of their conflicting and anachronistic nature. We may not know exactly what happened in the first decades of the third century, but by sifting through the evidence that does exist one may arrive at a safe conclusion as to who Ardashir was and how it was that he burst unto the scene of political hegemony on the Iranian Plateau. This paper attempts to demonstrate that Ardashir's origin was much more humble than mentioned in the various sources and that this upstart would manipulate all records to achieve political legitimacy. It will also be shown that the location of the early stronghold of Ardashir was far away from Estakhr, the centre of the province of Persis, which can only mean that he was at best a local upstart on the fringes of the province, and that the taking of the patronymic name of Sasan was a further evidence for his non-noble lineage.

Moral Choices in the Shahnameh

Olga M Davidson
Wellesley College, USA

This paper focuses on two epic situations in Ferdowsi's Shahnameh where a hero is faced with a moral choice. Either of the two alternatives facing the given hero is justifiable in terms of one moral code and unjustifiable in terms of another.  In the first situation, the hero Rostam is commanded by the prince Esfandiyar to submit to the authority of the king, who is Esfandiyar's father. Although Rostam is sworn to defend the king in any situation where the king's rule is threatened, the hero refuses to submit to the bondage demanded by the king precisely because this bondage has to be enforced by the prince Esfandiyar - who is acting in this situation not as a prince but as a warrior. Rostam's refusal to submit to the authority of the king thus violates the moral code that demands loyalty to the king but it ratifies the moral code of the epic warrior who must not allow himself to be controlled by someone he considers to be inferior to him as an epic warrior.  In the second situation, the hero Siyavosh is commanded by his father the king to kill the hostages whom the hero has taken for the king. Although Siyavosh is sworn to obey the command of the king, he refuses to kill the hostages because such a killing would violate the terms he had negotiated with those hostages and with their families. The refusal of Siyavosh violates the moral code that demands loyalty to the king but it ratifies his own moral code as a negotiator who is true to his word.  In both situations the poetry of the Shahnameh presents a conflict between two moral codes, and, in both situations, the principle of loyalty to the king loses out to other principles, despite the fact that the medium of this poetry is founded on the authority of kingship. That authority, however, is flexible enough to test the morality of heroes who strive to live by its rules - even if they are forced in some situations to defy those rules.

Literary Societies and Journals in Post-revolutionary Iran

Ali Dehbashi
Bukhara: a Persian Review of Culture, Art, and Iranology, Iran

Literary societies proliferated in the decades following the Constitutional revolution of 1909-11 in Iran. They were scattered in the major cities and played a significant role in the emergence and development of literary trends and publicised the works of numerous new poets and writers. Many eminent literary figures of the twentieth century, including Dehkhoda, Bahar, Eshqi, and Aref, were themselves members of these societies, and both published their works in the literary journals and occasionally served as their editors. Hedayat, Farrokhzad and Sepehri, for example, first published their work in Sokhan, Arash and Sadaf, respectively.  This study begins with a brief elaboration on the history, socio-political background, and influence of some of the major literary societies and journals throughout the first eight decades of the twentieth century. The bulk of the paper concentrates on their changing fortunes during the turbulent years of the Islamic revolution of 1979, and the course of their developments in the following decades. In order to clarify patterns of change, as well as the nature and significance of the radical transformations that characterise the history of post-revolutionary literary journals and societies, a framework is adopted by way of which developments are classified chronologically, into three successive decades.

Modernisation and Clothing: Politics of Dress under Reza Shah

Bianca Devos
Albert-Ludwigs-Universitaet Freiburg, Germany

During the twenty years of his rule, Reza Pahlavi (1921-1941) pursued a policy of authoritarian modernisation which aimed at transforming Iranian society along European models. Western-styled clothing, including a peaked cap called 'Pahlavi hat', were made compulsory for all male Iranians in 1929, in order to give the Iranian people a modern appearance and to construct a uniform national identity. This process was carried farther by the substitution of the 'Pahlavi hat' as the official headgear with the 'European hat' in 1935 and resulted ultimately in the forced ban on veiling (kashf-e hejab). The Uniformisation-of-Dress law (Qanun-e motahhed al-shekl nemudan-e albaseh) and the supplementary regulations (nezamnameh) entitled the government to examine the clerical status of certain individuals: only Muslim (and non-Muslim) Iranian clerics still had the right to wear traditional clothes like abas and turbans.  This paper discusses the impact of the dress reforms on two antagonistic groups in Iranian society, theulama and the Pahlavi state officials, by looking at a particular product of the dress codes, namely the licence to wear clerical clothing (javaz). Based on both published and unpublished sources from Iranian archives, the following questions will serve as a guideline. How successful was the newly modernised Pahlavi bureaucracy in implementing the nationwide dress regulations and which developments can be traced from interpreting the bureaucracy's documents? To what extend did the dress reforms – and the allocation of javaz-licences in particular – enable the Pahlavi state authorities to penetrate people's everyday life and to weaken the ulama' s social position? That theulama themselves did not constitute a uniform social group can be gleaned from the different reactions from various levels of the ulama hierarchy. What concrete effects did the change of clothing for clerics have for those who did not fulfil the necessary qualifications to maintain their status?

The New Great Game of International Reconstruction in Afghanistan

Andreas Dittmann
Univertitaet Bonn, Germany

The plans of reconstruction for Afghanistan face various challenges. The political pre-considerations include both the implementation of programmes of national security and development programmes at the same time. Especially the National Development Plan (NDP) demands a certain coordination of international assistance. There is an uncharted jungle of national and international governmental and non-governmental organisations, especially in the field of humanitarian aid. Overlapping interests amongst them cause certain forms of severe competition, which is further fuelled by the fact that most aid institutions gather in Kabul due to security reasons. This 'New Great Game' for development-related resources proves partially to be a serious obstacle for the development of Afghanistan itself.

Where Did the Saljuqs Live? Turkish Lords and City Life in Pre-Mongol Iran

David Durand-Guedy
Institut Francais de Recherche en Iran, Tehran

The attitude the Turks had toward city life during the medieval era has been subject of various enquiries. However, most of them concern later periods and not the first stage of the Turkish era, that is the Saljuq period. The Saljuqs have been described sometimes as familiar with urban life, at other times faithful to their nomadic roots. A precondition to address this issue is to determine as precisely as possible where they lived, in which location (inside or ouside city walls)? In what type of accommodation (palace or tent)? The example of Isfahan - capital of the Saljuq state for half a century - has already provided us with concrete elements which lead us to think that the Great Saljuqs sultans had a more nomadic way of life than hitherto thought. The aim of this paper is to propose a broader analysis of the issue, by considering the case of all the Turkish lords (Saljuq sultans, but also great emirs including Atabegs) throughout Iranian territory. In addition to Isfahan, the situation of the numerous centres of power in Khorasan, Jibal, Kerman, Fars and Azarbaijan are examined. Eventually, the results of this enquiry could contribute to a better understanding of the nature of the Saljuq state, of its evolution, but also of the nature of the Turkish domination.

Modern Medical Education in Nineteenth-Century Iran - An Arena of Dialogue between Traditional and Modern Medicine

Hormoz Ebrahimnejad
Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Oxford, UK

Iran established its first 'modern' school, the Dar al-Fonun (Polytechnic College or Academy of Applied Sciences), in 1851, in which modern medicine was taught. This paper examines the curriculum, the composition and the nature of medical course materials at the Dar al-Fonun. For the Qajar government, the Dar al-Fonun was created not only to introduce modern Western sciences but also - a fact that has never been duly emphasised - to bring the educational system, dominated by the Shiite clerics, under the control of the state. The education at the Dar al-Fonun incorporated both Western modern sciences and traditional Iranian sciences. Accordingly, the audience of Western physicians at the Dar al-Fonun was not limited to young students destined to study modern medicine. Many established traditional physicians of the army also attended the courses of the Dar al-Fonun, either out of their personal interest or by the order of the government. This made it impossible for Dr Tholozan, the French physician to the Shah and professor of medicine at the Dar al-Fonun, for instance, to sweep away the traditional medical texts from the curriculum of this modern school, as he had planned to do. There was a gap between what Dr Polak or Dr Tholozan wanted to teach and practice in nineteenth-century Iran, on the one hand, and what they were practically able to, on the other. In such an institutional and intellectual context, the education of modern medicine involved the coexistence of, and necessarily dialogues between, modern and traditional medicine.

What is Persian about the Persian Carpet Today? A Case Study on Carpet Manufacturing and Carpet Trade at Kashan

Eckart Ehlers
Universitaet Bonn, Germany

Carpets are one of the icons of Persian history and Persian culture. However, this icon is currently threatened by economic competition and globalisation. The Persian carpet industry and trade are undergoing severe changes with deep impacts on the local and regional levels of production and marketing. Kashan as one of the traditional centres for Iranian carpet manufacturing and its specific carpet industry are represented as a case study of this both internal and external competition vis-a-vis the traditional patterns. The presentation is based on fieldwork in 2002-03 as well as on most recent data on the Kashan carpet industry in 2004.

The Nation and its Periphery - Provincial Urban Iran in Revolution and War

Kaveh Ehsani
University of Illinois, Chicago, USA

This paper is a study of the transformation of Iran's provincial urban periphery since 1979. The premise of the paper is that the Islamic Republic should be categorised as a provincial regime, as much as an Islamist polity. Once again, after the highly centralizing Pahlavi interlude, urban provincial society has entered the mainstream of Iranian history. Taking the small town of Ramhormoz, Khuzistan, as a case study, the paper analyzes the impact of the 1979 revolution and the Iran-Iraq war in orde