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The Politics of Zoroastrian Philanthropy and the Case of Qasr-e Firuzeh

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Sarah Stewart
Sarah Stewart*
Affiliation:
SOAS, University of London
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Abstract

In Iran and India religious philanthropy has been a feature of Zoroastrian piety as well as providing the means by which both communities have prospered throughout their respective histories. In Iran an elaborate structure for the regulation of charitable donations was already in place during the Sasanian period and laid the foundation for the laws governing pious foundations, awqāf, after the Islamic conquest. The increased interaction between Iranian Zoroastrians and Parsis from the mid-nineteenth century onwards led to the expansion of the Tehran Zoroastrian community and the rise of a wealthy merchant class which in turn enabled philanthropic activity to flourish. This development will be discussed here with reference to a particular vaqf, that of the first ārāmgāh or Zoroastrian cemetery to be established in Tehran in the early twentieth century. The case of Qasr-e Firuzeh spans three successive governments in Iran and gives an insight into the management of a charitable endowment within different political contexts.

Type
Research Article
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 59 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2012

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References

1 Maneckji Limji Hataria, “A Millennium of Misery: Travels in Iran: 2,” Parsiana (January 1990): 35 (abridged and edited by Parsiana from the English translation by Jamshed M. Bilimoria of M. L. Hataria, Rishale Ej Har Shyaate Iran).

2 For a discussion of the administration of charitable endowments generally, see Lambton, Ann K. S., Landlord and Peasant in Persia (Oxford, 1969, first printed 1953): 230–37.Google Scholar

3 The likely reason for this has been the paucity of accessible documentation inside Iran. The recently published Pūrūstāmi, Feroz, ed., Anjoman-e Zartoshtiyān-e Tehrān: Yek Sadeh Talāsh va Khedmat (Tehran, 2008),Google Scholar provides some early documents, but these are often without dates. I am grateful to the Tehran Zoroastrian Anjoman for their cooperation and assistance with this research.

4 The earliest financial records of the TZA (dating from the beginning of the twentieth century) show the contributions of Parsi benefactors from Bombay, Shanghai and Moscow, as well as the growing number of Iranian Zoroastrians who were in a position to make vaqf endowments. See Sarah Stewart, in collaboration with Mandana Moavenat, Zoroastrianism in Iran: A Contemporary Perspective (forthcoming).

5 Perikhanian, A., “Iranian Society and Law,” Cambridge History of Iran (Cambridge, 1993) 3(2): 631–46.Google Scholar

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8 See Macuch, “Zoroastrian Principles,” 232–33, where she develops this theory.

9 See Perikhanian, “Iranian Society and Law,” 629, where she mentions the “Memorandum” of Veh-Shāpūr, which detailed records of interrogation that took place when capital offences were under investigation and which were then copied and distributed to the provinces.

10 Perikhanian “Iranian Society and Law,” 679.

11 An example usually cited is the inscription on the bridge in the town of Gōr (modern Firuzābād), which states that it was built at the expense of Mehr-Narseh, the vazurg-framātar of Iran, for the sake of his soul. He also founded four fire temples, one for his own soul and the other three for the souls of his three sons. See Perikhanian, “Iranian Society and Law,” 661–62.

12 Perikhanian, “Iranian Society and Law,” 662–63.

13 M. Macuch, “Charitable Foundations: i. In the Sasanian Period,” Encyclopaedia Iranica V: 381.

14 See John R. Hinnells, Mary Boyce and Shāhrokh Shāhrokh, “Charitable Foundations: ii. Among Zoroastrians in Islamic Times,” Encyclopaedia Iranica V: 382.

15 Shaul Shaked suggests that to perform charitable actions in honor of one's own soul was so commonplace in Sasanian times that it was regarded as characteristically Iranian by certain Islamic scholars. See Shaked, S., “For the Sake of the Soul: A Zoroastrian Idea in Transmission into Islam,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 13 (1990): 21.Google Scholar

16 See Lambton, Ann K. S., “Awqāf in Persia: 6th–8th/12th–14th Centuries,” in Islamic Law and Society, 4, no. 3 (1997): 303–08,Google Scholar where she refers to documents detailing the frequent injunctions to prevent the confiscation of awqāf during the Ilkhānid period.

17 For patterns of growth, see the charts given by Hinnells, John, “The Flowering of Zoroastrian Benevolence,” Zoroastrian and Parsi Studies: Selected Works of John R. Hinnells (Aldershot, 2000), 215–17.Google Scholar

18 Hinnells, J., “Authority and Parsis in British India,” in Hinnells, J. and Williams, A., eds, Parsis in India and the Diaspora (Oxford, 2007), 101–02.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

19 See Maneck, Susan Styles, The Death of Ahriman: Culture, Identity and Theological Change among the Parsis of India (Bombay, 1997), 165–70.Google Scholar

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21 Amighi, Janet Kestenberg, The Zoroastrians of Iran: Conversion, Assimilation, or Persistence (New York, 1990), 130.Google Scholar Although the jizya was intended to protect dhimmis during wartime, in practice this did not always happen. One popular story tells of the Afghan raids on Kerman perpetrated by Mahmud Khan Ghilzai between 1719 and 1724. Zoroastrians, who were obliged to reside outside the city walls, were slaughtered in such numbers that a makeshift dakhmeh had to be constructed. See Choksy, J., “Despite Shās and Mollās: Minority Sociopolitics in Premodern and Modern Iran,” Journal of Asian Studies, 40, no. 2 (2006): 139.Google Scholar

22 See Fischer, Michael, Zoroastrian Iran Between Myth and Praxis (Chicago, 1973), 1: 97–98.Google Scholar

23 See Choksy, “Despite Shās and Mollās,” 143–44.

24 Tsadik, Daniel, Between Foreigners and Shi'is: Nineteenth-Century Iran and its Jewish Minority (Stanford, CA, 2007), 118.Google Scholar

25 See Sanasarian, Eliz, Religious Minorities in Iran (Cambridge, 2000), 49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar British officials exerted considerable effort to improve the rights of all dhimmis. As Tsadik notes, as a predominantly Christian nation, Britain was predisposed to support Christian minorities in Iran (Between Foreigners and Shi'is, 43–44). The Foreign Office minister in Tehran appointed in 1881, R. F. Thomson, entered into discussion with the shah and his minister for foreign affairs with respect to Nestorian Christians and Jewish as well as Zoroastrian communities (Between Foreigners and Shi'is, 113–15).

26 For example the repair of the Yazd Ātash-Bahrām (1855), and the Kerman Ātash Bahrām (1857). By 1864 Hataria had replaced the existing dakhmehs in Yazd, Kerman and the village of Sharifābād-e Ardakān-e Yazd, and the following year he had a small dakhmeh built at Qanāt-ghesan, near Kerman. See Boyce, Mary, “Manekji Limji Hataria in Iran,” in K. R. Cama Oriental Institute Golden Jubilee Memorial Volume (Bombay, 1969), 23.Google Scholar

27 Maneckji Limji Hataria, “Support from the Sethias: Travels in Iran 5,” Parsiana (December 1990): 29–32.

28 See Ringer, Monica, “Reform Transplanted: Parsi Agents of Change amongst Zoroastrians in Nineteenth-Century Iran,” Iranian Studies, 42, no. 4 (2009): 556–58 (with references).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29 In 1869 the population of Tehrān was given as 155,000 and increased steadily since that time, reaching 400,000 according to the census of 1939/40, and 2,719,730 by 1966 (see also note 39, below). Firoozi, F., “Tehrān: A Demographic and Economic Analysis,” in The Population of Iran: A Selection of Readings, ed. Momeni, J. A. (Honolulu and Shiraz, 1977), 342.Google Scholar

30 Boyce, “Manekji Limji Hataria in Iran,” 28.

31 Maneckji Limji Hataria, “Education for Amelioration: Travels in Iran: 6,” Parsiana (January 1991): 14.

32 See Brookshaw, D. “Instructive Encouragement, Tablets of Baha'ullah and ‘Abdu'l-Baha to Baha'i Women in Iran and India,” in The Baha'is of Iran: Socio-Historical Studies, ed. Brookshaw, Dominic Parviz and Fazel, Seena B. (London and New York, 2008), 71,Google Scholar where he presents a table of the number of tablets addressed to Zoroastrian converts to Baha'ism by ‘Abdu'l-Baha according to the geographic location of the recipient.

33 Amighi describes the dynamics of the relationship between Baha'is and Zoroastrians and the various influences for and against conversion (Zoroastrians of Iran, 119–27). Fischer devotes a section of his study to Baha'i development in Yazd (Zoroastrian Iran II: 351–9), in which he draws attention to the fact that relations between Zoroastrian elites and Baha'is remains a controversial subject (353).

34 See Maneck, S. Stiles, “Conversion of Religious Minorities to the Baha'i Faith in Iran: Some Preliminary Observations,” Journal of Baha'i Studies, 3, no. 3 (1991): 35–48,CrossRefGoogle Scholar where she describes the way in which Zoroastrians, Christians and Jews reconcile their respective eschatological teachings with those of Bahai'sm.

35 In 1890 the anjomans of Tehran, Kerman and Yazd were reorganized under the influence of Kai Khusrawji Khān, who was born in the village of Kucheh Buyuk, near Yazd. He went to India with his family, returning after Hataria's death as the emissary of the Amelioration Society to Iran. From this time until the end of the Qajar dynasty, these anjomans were known as Nāseri after Nāsir al-Dīn Shah. See Amini, T., Asnād az Zartoshtiyān-i mo'āser-e Iran (Tehran, 2001), 284.Google Scholar The anjoman of Yazd evidently included a large number of Baha'i converts among its twenty-eight members (see F. Vahman, “The Conversion of Zoroastrians to the Baha'i Faith,” in Brookshaw and Fazel, eds, The Baha'is of Iran, 42–43 and fn. 27). The significance of this is hard to determine since the structure and remit of the Yazd anjoman would suggest that it was formed for the sole benefit of Zoroastrians. See Oshidari, Jahangir, Tārikh-e Pahlavi o Zartoshtiyān (Tehran, 1976), 283.Google Scholar As Cole points out, it is likely that Zoroastrians who embraced Baha'ism did not give up all communal devotional life, but assumed their new identity gradually (Cole, J. R. I., “Conversion v. To Babism and the Baha'i Faith,” Encyclopaedia Iranica VI: 237.Google Scholar

38 Literally the gate/home of the Caliphate or seat of governance.

39 1278 lunar calendar = 1861 CE. Oshidari, Tārikh-e Pahlavi, 371–72.

36 The term astūdān is commonly understood to refer to a receptacle for bones (the central well in a dakhmeh is referred to as the astūdān). For a detailed discussion of the Iranian dakhmeh and astūdān and the various terms of reference pertaining to them, see Huff, Dietrich, “Archaeological Evidence of Zoroastrian Funerary Practices,” in Zoroastrian Rituals in Context, ed. Stausberg, M. (Leiden, 2004), 596ff.Google Scholar

37 See Jackson, A. V. Williams, Persia Past and Present: A Book of Travel and Research (New York and London, 1906), 439–40,Google Scholar where he points out that the dakhmeh at Reyy is likely to be situated on one of the oldest Zoroastrian burial sites because of the association with Zoroastrianism of the historic city of Ragha, and also because it is in keeping with the instructions for exposure contained in the Vendidād.

40 At around the same time a Tehran resident, Arbāb Jamshīd Shahriyār Sorūshyār, built a khaile in memory of his son, Fereydun, further down the mountain, and made it accessible by road (Oshidari, Tārīkh-e Pahlavi, 372).

41 Boyce, Mary, Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (London, 1979), 218.Google Scholar The estimated population of Tehran in 1900 was 200,000, as against Kermān (60,000) and Yazd (75,000). See J. Bharier, “The Growth of Towns and Villages in Iran, 1900–66,” in Momeni, ed., The Population of Iran, 333–34.

42 Amighi, Zoroastrians, 152.

43 Amighi, Zoroastrians, 159–61, 165.

44 Amighi, Zoroastrians, 169–71.

45 Abrahamian, E., Iran Between Two Revolutions (Princeton, 1983), 140–41.Google Scholar

46 Amighi, Zoroastrians, 170. The phenomenon of returning to ancient traditions (bāstāngarā'ī) in order to reproduce a new social, political and cultural order began in Iran at the end of the Qajar period.

47 The Tehran and Yazd anjomans had ceased to function following the death of Arbāb Dinyār Kalāntar, who had been made the “Trustee of the Persians” by Mozaffar al-Din Shah (r. 1896–1907). See Shāhrokh Shāhrokh and Rashna Writer, The Memoirs of Keikhosrow Shāhrokh (Lampeter, 1994), 28.

48 Jackson mentions that he walked up the hillside at Reyy in order to be able to see the interior of the dakhmeh. He also mentions that there was no door into the tower, indicating that this must have been closed in before his visit to Persia in 1903. See Jackson, Persia, 440.

49 Oshidari, Tarīkh e Pahlavi, 372.

50 Boyce, Mary, “An Old Village Dakhma of Iran,” in Mémorial Jean de Menasce, ed. Gignoux, P. and Tafazzoli, A. (Louvain, 1974), 4–5,Google Scholar notes that there is no evidence, in old dakhmehs in Iran, for outer staircases leading up to the door set high in the tower. She points out that ropes and ladders were used instead to convey the body up to the doorway. The only stairs in evidence were those that led from the door down to the exposure platform on the inside of the dakhmeh.

51 Since the purity laws, including methods of disposing of the dead, belong to the later, prescriptive texts of the Avestā, in particular the Vendidād, Kheikhosrow Shāhrokh was among those Zoroastrians who held that they had little or nothing to do with the teachings of Zarathustra.

52 Shāhrokh and Writer, Memoirs, 11–13.

53 Shāhrokh and Writer, Memoirs, 13–14.

54 Minutes from the meeting of the TZA Board of Directors.

55 Interestingly, the Jewish community had offered 40,000 tomāns for the land, but Keikhosrow Shāhrokh evidently had good relations with government officials, in particular the finance minister ‘Ali-Akbar Dāvar, and the shah agreed to sell the land, for a lesser amount, to the Zoroastrians. See Shāhrokh and Writer, Memoirs, 14.

56 Other members of the Anjoman—namely Arbāb Rostam Bahman Shāpur, Mr Sirusi, Mr Forutan, Mr Ārash, and Mr Ābādiyān—were called upon to contribute to the sum and to reimburse Shāhrokh within two years. See Shahmardān, Rashid, Parasteshgāh-e Zartoshtiyān (Bombay, 1967), 253–56.Google Scholar

57 See Shāhrokh and Writer, Memoirs, 15 and notes 6–10 for information about the donors.

58 The Deed of Ownership was issued by the Department of Registration of Documents and Properties of the Ministry of Justice, Vezārat-e ‘Adliyyeh, and dated 1314/7/1 (24 September 1935).

59 Vaqfnāmeh, no. 7249, dated 1315/7/28 (20 October 1936) of the Records Registry no. 18 in Tehran. Keikhosrow Shāhrokh had already been made responsible for dealing with Zoroastrian endowments throughout Iran. In a letter from the Ministry to the TZA dated 1332 lunar calendar (1914), it is stated that Zoroastrians are free to manage their own awqāf, providing that they submit reports to the Ministry, and that none of the agents of awqāf are permitted to interfere with the awqāf of the Zoroastrians.

60 An example cited by Amighi was the housing project established by Rostam Giv on his property, Rostam Bagh, whereby Zoroastrians, mainly from Yazd, could obtain affordable housing provided they spoke in Dari and maintained “proper codes of Zoroastrian behaviour” (Amighi, Zoroastrians, 201).

61 For an account of the various disputes often voiced via anonymous pamphlets—for example Zang-e Khatar (“Bell of Warning”), and the response of Rostam Giv in his Bayān-e Haqāyeq (“Declaration of Truth”), both written in 1952—see Amighi, Zoroastrians, 195.

62 1335/11/16 (5 February 1957).

63 Oshidiri, Tārikh- e Pahlavi, 374.

64 Amighi (Zoroastrians, 225–28) uses this term in preference to bāstāngarā’ī with reference to the shah's attempts to invoke the glories of Persian heritage and kingship.

65 Abrahamian, Iran, 424–25.

66 For the wealth of the Imām Reza shrine, see Lambton, Landlord and Peasant, 235.

67 The announcement appeared in the ‘Ettelā’āt newspaper, no. 12,255, on 28 Farvardin 1346 (17 April 1967), and stated that the decision was taken by the head of forestry for Tehrān Province (sar jangaldāriye ostān-e Tehran) to enforce Article 20 of the new laws governing nationalization of forests and pastures.

68 The TZA had submitted a formal complaint to the Commission concerning Article 56 of the Policy for the Protection and Use of the Forests and Pastures of the Country, Komīsyon-e Māddeh-ye 56 Qānun- e Hefāzat u Bahreh-bardāri az Jangal-hā u Marāti' e Keshvar. However, apart from the addition of 40 hectares, the rest of the vaqf land was removed from the ownership and control of the Anjoman.

69 Minutes of the meeting held on 1356/7/1 (23 September 1977). The transfer was duly registered in an official document (sanad-e rasmi) no. 115,758, dated 1356/12/17 (8 March 1978) issued from the Registry Office (daftarnāmeh ye asnād-e rasmi) no. 47 of Tehran.

70 In 1996 the TZA continued proceedings to annul the document pertaining to the sale of the awqāf land, but despite initial success, in which six separate judgments were passed down from various courts in Tehran including the High Court, divān-e ‘āli, indicating that the sale had been unlawful, so far the Anjoman's request has been unsuccessful. The TZA was also fighting a case to contest the seizure of lands in Qasr-e Firuzeh by the army, which had taken place in the early 1970s to provide for the construction of a military barracks (minutes of a meeting during the 31st session of the TZA dated 1355/9/15 [6 December 1976]).

71 Mahnāmeh-ye Zartoshtiyān (Tehran, Farvardin 1356 [1977]).

72 Letter from Arbāb Shāhjahān Varzā to the TZA (September 1977), in which he refused to pay for the completion of the hall.

73 The paucity of first-hand narrative and/or anecdotal material available since 1979 means that an account of the latter part of the case is dependent mainly upon official documentation. I am grateful to Rastin Mehri for his work in translating these and other documents.

74 Ansari, Ali M., Confronting Iran (London, 2006), 49.Google Scholar The ‘ulamā had been further alienated by the shah's intention to replace their authority with a new structure whereby religious institutions and ulāmā would be controlled by the state. See Axworthy, Michael, Iran: Empire of the Mind (London, 2007), 259.Google Scholar

75 For a detailed account of the land seizures after the Revolution, the political parties that supported land redistribution, the committees that managed it and the subsequent amendment to the law, see Amid, Javad, “Land Reform in Post-Revolutionary Iran Revisited,” Middle East Critique, 18, no. 1 (2009): 80–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

76 The villages of Hamesin in Torkaman-deh and the Hāshem-Khāni Springs were among those assessed (pelāk-hā 4749 and 4748).

77 This was later recorded in the Hamshahri newspaper 1388/2/12 (2 May 2009), no. 4823: 21–24.

78 Authorization number 2840, dated 1361/6/21 (12 September 1982).

79 At a meeting held in January 1983, in the property section of the Ministry of Finance, the boundary between the lands of Qasr-e Firuzeh (pelāk 4478) and the 40 hectares of land belonging to the shah's palace that had been subject to the forced sale (pelāk 4480) was agreed between all parties. Accordingly, a letter was sent to the Prime Minister's Office and copied to the Department of Environment, the TZA, the Central Committee of the Islamic Revolution, the Property Records Office and the Department of Forestry, Ministry of Agriculture (letter no. 4689, dated 1361/10/27 [17 January 1983] and signed by the president of the property section of the Ministry of Finance and Economy). There followed an announcement by the Prime Minister's Office (NM/8018, dated 1361/11/23 [12 February 1983]), and a letter (NM/329, dated 1362/1/17 [6 April 1983]) to the TZA (Anjoman archive no. 32/3560, dated 1362/1/20 [9 April 1983]), both pertaining to Qasr e Fīrūzeh.

80 A copy of the report is kept in the TZA (report 21,171/100/10, dated 1361/11/14 [3 February 1983]). During the first decade of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the land seizure would increase from 300 hectares to approximately 4,500 hectares—that is, a large part of the original endowment.

81 Letter no. 10/9-10-1045, dated 1362/8/11 (2 November 1983).

82 The meeting was held on 1362/8/16 (7 November 1983), and the letter no. 32/4539, dated 1362/8/23 (14 November 1983), was sent to the Command Center of Sepāh-e Pāsdārān agreeing to their request to use the land for training purposes.

83 Letter from the president of TZA to Hāshemi Rafsanjāni, speaker of the Majles, dated 1366/5/6 (28 July 1987); letter from TZA to Brother Shamkhari, minister of Sepāh, dated 1367/9/26 (17 December 1988); letter from the president of TZA to General Mohsen Rezā’i, dated 1367/9/2 (23 November 1988); letter from the Zoroastrian representative of the Majles, Mr Ziāfat, to Mr Larijāni, deputy of legal affairs of Sepāh, dated 1367/8/24 (15 November 1988).

84 Letter from TZA to Brother Akhavān of the Sepāh command centre based in Qasr-e Firuzeh, dated 1367/8/17 (8 November 1988).

85 Letter from TZA to the Sepāh command centre, dated 1367/8/22 (13 November 1988).

86 Letter from TZA to Sepāh command centre dated 1365/3/20 (10 June 1986).

87 1363/1/28 (17 April 1984). A government committee (Committee number 2 of the Sāzman e Awqāf e Iran) was established to consider and renegotiate all the documents pertaining to the nationalizing or sale of vaqf lands. Prime Minister Hossein Mousavi wrote to the Sāzmān-e Awqāf-e Iran revoking the law that had permitted the sale of awqāf water and lands (letter dated 1363/9/19 [10 December 1984]).

88 Letter no. 1/5,527, dated 1363/10/10 (31 December 1984).

89 The letter, no. 1/2,748 dated 1369/6/6 (28 August 1990) addresses Dr Firuzābādi as commander-in-chief of the army.

90 Reference no. 662, dated 1370/02/16 (6 May 1991), and document no. 8543, dated 1371/09/08 (29 November 1992).

91 This sum was paid under the clause pazīreh-ye ebtedā'i, which means “initial acceptance” and is permitted, in certain circumstances, under vaqf law.

92 Minutes of the meeting held on 1383/9/10 (30 November 2004).

93 Letter dated 1383/8/12 (2 November 2004).

94 Letter to Sepāh from Dr Rostam Khosraviyāni, dated 1389/5/10 (1 August 2010).

95 http://www.berasad.com/fa/content/view/3815.

96 For the role of the Mobedān Council in Iran, see Stewart with Moavenat, Zoroastrianism in Iran.