Drawing on a rich tradition of anacreontic poetry and taking inspiration from works by Nizāmī and Hāfiz, the sāqī-nāma or “cupbearer's song” emerged as an independent genre in the early sixteenth century and flourished throughout the Persian literary world for the next 250 years. Looking back on the development of the genre, the early seventeenth-century literary historians ‘Abd al-Nabī Qazvīnī and Awhadī Balyānī give contrasting accounts of its formation, but both agree on the significance of the work of Hakīm Partuvī Shīrāzī (d. 928/1520–21). An examination of his sāqī-nāma, together with two other early representatives of the genre by Sidqī Astarābādī (d. 952/1545) and Sharaf Jahān Qazvīnī (d. 968/1561), shows how closely this new genre was tied to the politics and ideology of the new Safavid state and reveals profound structural similarities to the preeminent panegyric genre of the Islamicate world, the qasīda. But once the basic components of the sāqī-nāmā were distilled and taken up by poets outside this socio-political environment, the genre proved to be as protean as the wine symbolism at its core. Cupbearer songs from the end of the century, particularly those of Muhammad Sūfī Māzandarānī (d. 1035/1625–26) and Sanjar Kāshānī (d. 1021/1612), show how the basic elements of the genre could be reconfigured to serve a variety of more personal interests.

As everyone knows, alcoholic drinks, including wine, are forbidden by Islam. Readers of Persian poetry often wonder how is it possible that Persian wine literature is one of the richest in the world and whether the poets and authors ever address the illicitness of the wine in their works. This article examines how one author, Zangī Bukhārī, presents a catalogue of positive and negative qualities of wine in his Gul u mul (“The Rose and the Wine”). Through the genre of debate (munāzara), he shows how a courtly audience may have tried to justify the drinking of wine. The article examines the formal generic characteristics of such debates, showing how the form of the debate is rather appropriate to let forbidden objects or ideas, in this case the wine, speak for themselves thus defending their position in an Islamic society. entertaining in is richness in metaphors and imagery used by the wine and the rose to voice their superiority to each other, but it also addresses a rather controversial topic in an uncontroversial style.

The argument proposed by Professor Leonard M. Helfgott in a recent article in Iranian Studies (Vol. X, Nos.1-2, 1977) cannot be accepted as an accurate evaluation of the social and economic structure of tribalism in Iran. The picture presented in his article portrays the situation almost solely in terms of theoretical considerations, with relatively little attempt to substantiate the theories with fact. As a result, a monolithic view of tribal society is put forth. The most objectionable theoretical approach proffered in his article is expressed in the following statement: “Tribal societies contain neither a concrete superstructural entity such as the state nor a separate economic sphere….But that is not to say that these functions do not exist or are not necessary for the production of pre-state societies. Rather superstructural functions appear as embedded within the kinship system.” Traditionally, tribes throughout Iranian history existed above and beyond the reach of the various kinship entities that they governed or controlled; indeed, they provided formal superstructures by which they exploited the various sources of wealth, and maintained order.

In Iran, ancient mythical elements are very much alive in the present as a part of the fabric of ordinary people's lives and worldview. This paper explores the relationship between culture, myth, and artistic production in contemporary Iran, using the specific examples of symbols and mythological themes evoked in the work of painter/writer Aydin Aghdashloo and photographer/video artist Shirin Neshat. The paintings of Aghdashloo, in which he deliberately damages beautifully-executed classical style Persian miniatures, convey a sense that the angelic forces have failed and that the world is succumbing to the destructive and degenerative activities of the demonic. The photographs, videos and installations of Neshat likewise draw heavily on cultic forms inherited from ancient Iranian tradition. It is important to note that in none of these cases does the artist use mythological themes and symbols to express their original cultural meaning; rather, they appropriate well-known elements of ancient Iranian culture and imbue them with new meanings relevant to contemporary issues and understandings. What these examples do illustrate is the persistent resonance of ancient Iranian culture among Iranians up to the present day. Iranian artists have demonstrated the effectiveness of evoking their target audience's deep sense of cultural identity to convey contemporary messages using ancient cultural concepts, sometimes on a subconscious level.

After the Recent Work of Merguerian and Najmabadi, Najmabadi, and Milani (in this volume), it can be little surprise that the topic of women's tricks (makr-i zan) is explicit and pervasive in traditional oral narrative in Persian-speaking communities. In afsānah or fictional folktales, makr-i zan serves as a generic title for a large, but shifting, corpus of individual tales which are perceived by their tellers as primarily concerned with the topos (though the tales may be otherwise identified or characterized by other sources, including literary ones). Indeed, from the general perspective of a strongly patriarchal popular ideology which promotes male authority over female action, any and all female-initiated action (“female agency”) may be construed, explicitly or implicitly, as subversive of the ideal order of patriarchy. While the female actor and female agency are marked as “other” (than ideal) by the topos (or stereotype), women as well as men perform tales about makr-i zan. This paper begins the task of sorting out perspectives on this “otherness” and agency as reflected in the repertoires of various male and female traditional storytellers, in individual oral performances in which makr-i zan are central.

A bureaucrat and historian of Iranian origin, Idris-i Bidlisi (b. Ray/Iran 1457–d. Istanbul 1520), is undoubtedly one of the most original and important intellectual figures in the Ottoman‒Iranian borderland in the sixteenth century. He lived in a very turbulent period and established different relationships with Iranian and Ottoman dynasties at the end of the fifteenth century and at the beginning of the sixteenth century. He and his works have been the focus of long-standing historical debates in Turkey that have continued to the present day. Until now, most modern scholarly works on Bidlisi have failed to provide a proper, in-depth textual and historical analysis. As a result, such modern works have come to present a skewed, romanticized image of Bidlisi, largely detached from the nature and dynamics of the historical context in which Bidlisi lived and evolved as an intellectual and writer. This paper provides a realistic appraisal of Bidlisi and discusses the shortcomings of modern historiography on him. By looking at Bidlisi and his corpus, and more specifically at the ways in which the latter was shaped by Bidlisi’s patronage relationships, the paper aims to open up a window into Bidlisi’s evolving mindset and worldview. In other words, through an in-depth analysis of his corpus and new archival sources the paper strives to unveil the intellectual life and career of an Iranian bureaucrat and historian positioned between Ottoman‒Iranian borderland and provide a glimpse into the nature of patronage in the sixteenth century.

This article explores Salāmān va Absāl, one of seven poems which comprise Jāmī's collection of long masnavīs, known collectively as the Haft aurang. The work, which gained some renown outside Iran due to the English version of Edward FitzGerald, has nevertheless received little attention in modern scholarship. The few investigations of Salāmān va Absāl, moreover, have dwelled on its narrative, which tells the story of the carnal attraction of a prince for his wet-nurse, and never situated the work in its historical context or examined its political content. In addition, the allegorical symbolism of the tale, especially its depiction of key stages of the Sufi path, such as the act of repentance, has not been discussed in terms of representing a work of mystical advice. With these concerns in mind, the present article discusses the possibility that the political elements in Salāmān va Absāl complement the advice it gives on becoming a Sufi. Seen from this perspective, it would appear that Salāmān va Absāl correlates the notion of the just ruler to the Sufi concept of the “Perfect Man” to the extent that Jāmī presents the Sufi-king as the ideal medieval Islamic ruler. By implication, the work advises its royal patron, Sultān Ya‘qūb, to repent and embark upon the Sufi path, doing so, Jāmī intimates, would lead Ya‘qūb to realize his rank as God's “true” vicegerent.

During the years of the constitutional revolution and the Great War, Iran experienced a widespread and general reassertion of tribal power and by 1921 much of the country was under tribal control. Riza Khan's seizure of power, however, inaugurated a transformation in the relationship between the center and periphery in Iran. For the new regime and for the nationalist elite which supported it, the suppression of the tribes was an indispensable element of their larger project: the construction of a modern, centralized state, with a culturally homogeneous population. Their agenda was clear: the destruction of the autonomy and feudal authority of the tribal leaderships was to be closely followed by the subjection of the tribal populations to the unmediated power of the modernized state and their integration into settled society. From the very moment of seizing power in Tehran, the new regime embarked on a sustained effort to establish its military and administrative hegemony over the tribes.

The Iranian Green Movement emerged after the presidential election in June 2009. The paper tracks down its foundational origins through the concept of ‘fragmented collective action’, that points to the dispersion of a social movement's political energies and the fragmentation of its constitutive groups. It also addresses the significance of informal mobilizing networks and the widespread use of modern virtual space to bring together an intersubjectively constructed collective identity which was shaped by the movement’s interactions with political forces and with its interlocutors. Finally, the paper argues that the collective identity shaped the movement's strategies over the course of its evolution.

Yesterdays they changed my room. Am I completely cured now? Will I be free to leave next week as the superintendent promised? Have I been sick at all? For one year, they wouldn't give me a pen and paper which I wanted more than anything else. I always thought about the many things I would write once they gave me a pen and paper. Yesterday, without asking, they brought me paper and a pen...something I longed for so much...something I waited for so long. But what's the use? Since yesterday, I have been able to write nothing, no matter how hard I try. It's as though someone were holding me back, as though my arm were paralysed. Now, as I read over the garbled lines which are etched into the paper, the only words I can make out are... “three drops of blood.”

This essay explores the experiences of a young community of diasporic Iranians living and working in Tehran during the years 2007–2009 when the author lived there. Through analysis of the lived experiences of this group, the article highlights a unique experience that is often absent from current discussions of “diaspora.” In the preliminary research, a redeployment of often taken-for-granted concepts such as “home” and “abroad” are proposed and a conceptualization of migration and diaspora that problematizes stasis and movement is reconsidered.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Qajar dynasty (1797–1925) of Iran engaged in a continuous process to build a regular army under the leadership and tutelage of professional European military missions. These continuous attempts at military reform and Europeanization reached a peak with the creation of the Persian Cossack Brigade (1879–1921) by the Russian military mission. This article focuses on the genesis of the Brigade and the Russian military mission, which followed some of the previously unsuccessful European military missions. The scholarly literature has paid little attention to the fitful beginnings of the Brigade. This article, however, deals with the early challenges faced by the Brigade during the period between 1879 and 1894, at the end of which it was on the verge of dissolution. The article tackles formative issues raised in under-explored Russian archival material and supplemented by Russian-language primary sources, as well as other relevant sources. It attempts to re-evaluate the origins of the Persian Cossack Brigade and provide a well-balanced portrait of the Brigade in light of the changing regional politics of the period.

Rebellions bringing together peasant-pastoralists, local dignitaries, and a few Sayyids prevented the Safavid monarchs from effectively controlling the political and economic activities in the province of Astarabad until the late sixteenth century. This paper investigates the nature of these rebellions led by the siyāh pūshān (wearers of black), and the socio-economic background and religious leanings of these rebels and their diverse allies. It also pays special attention to Astarabad’s Sayyids, their intellectual formation, and their distinct approaches to the Safavid state from the early sixteenth century until the late 1570s when the uprisings lost much of their vigor. While heterodoxy may have been part of Astarabad’s religious landscape, there is no evidence that it had a significant manifestation in the Siyah Push movement. More importantly, urban Shiʿi doctrinal and legal traditions had profound roots in Astarabad, nurtured by the Sayyids and promoted by the Betekchi dignitaries prior to the rise of the Safavids. This is significant given the fact that a group of Sayyids from Astarabad (especially the town of Fenderesk) were directly involved in the insurgency against the early Safavids.

Rustam's Origins are Certainly Complex, Multilayered, and it Would seem only partly Iranian. His legend itself indicates this; his mother is a foreigner living in Kabul and descended from Zahhak, so that both Sudabah and Isfandiyar are able to refer to him as demon-born, (dīv-zād). Mehrdad Bahar has concluded that much of his legend is Saka, or Scythian, and that it also has strong parallels and probable connections with that of Indra, the Vedic god of war. His integration into Iranian national history as its defender and savior betrays some strains: he is Iran's greatest champion but he enjoys very uneasy relations with some of Iran's kings (notably Kavus and Gushtasp), his sons Suhrab and Faramarz each launch independent attacks against the Iranian court, and his own last battle is against the crown prince of Iran whom he kills. Half foreigner, with a partially demonic ancestry, a man who kills the nation's heir apparent and whose sons declare war on two different Iranian royal families—these are troubling attributes for an ethnic hero, and point to some ambiguity in the evolution of his legend.

Against the background of the Russo-Persian wars of the early 1800s, the Iranian government sponsored a series of Iranian students to travel to the homeland of its erstwhile British allies in search of the new scientific and technological learning. Along with members of the Iranian embassies to London in the same period, the students were the first Iranians to acquire extensive and direct knowledge of British society as it entered the industrial era and the earliest to gain access (albeit short-lived) to the English universities. Yet in spite of the practical agenda of the students and their sponsors, on reaching Britain the students found it necessary to engage extensively with the evangelical and more generally religious agendas of their British co-operators. In reconstructing in detail the intellectual circles in which the Iranian students moved in England between 1815 and 1818, the article uncovers the series of religious negotiations that were a necessary part of Iran's early path to modernization.

The two decades, 1925–45, witnessed a dramatic transformation and revitalization of the Persian carpet industry in response to developments in Iranian governance, society and economy. Two historical watersheds were covered by that period, notably the replacement of the Qajar dynasty by a modernizing administration under Reza Shah Pahlavi, and the subsequent wartime occupation of Iran jointly by the Soviet Union and Great Britain. It was during those two decades that Iran acquired a centralized system of government and the beginnings of a modern industrial base. The accompanying social transformation brought about the emergence of new classes of administrators and managers who constituted the dominant elite of the Reza Shah era. This twin process of centralization and modernization had a telling impact on Iranian culture and the arts, including the carpet arts.

This article pursues the goal of going beyond Saidian notions of Orientalism and Said's assumption of the “complicity of knowledge with power” to reach back to Foucault's initial postulations on the role of institutions and the intellectual in the interplay of power/knowledge relations. The article concentrates on the role of Russian military Oriental studies institutions and Orientologists in the context of discourses (the promotion of Russkoe Delo, the juxtaposition of Russia with the West and the Orient, etc.) that existed in late Imperial Russia and influenced the accumulation and development of scholarly knowledge on the Orient. Therefore, the significant contribution of the military domain to Russian Oriental studies on both the institutional and individual levels are examined from the angle of intra-Russian discourses in the period from the establishment of the Asiatic Section of the General Staff in 1863 up to 1917.

The popular press and the Iranian exile community have suggested that the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces ceased for the most part to exist as a result of the Islamic Revolution. This view has also been held by some scholars. However, the continued success of the Iranian military on the battlefield against Iraq is strong circumstantial evidence for questioning such a view. While it is true that Iran's professional military fell into considerable desuetude during and after the revolution, this results from other factors, not the postrevolutionary purge of the armed forces. This study will demonstrate the relatively limited scope and impact of the postrevolutionary purge.

The purge of the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces took place in two phases: the first from February 1979 to September 30, 1979, the second from October 1979 to mid- September 1980. Each phase differed in intent, scope, intensity, and method.

This paper examines the Pahlavi National Library, the planning for which began in 1972 and expired in 1978 on the eve of the Islamic Revolution. The Pahlavi National Library was to rank in size and eminence with the great libraries of the world, yet this extraordinary project has hitherto received little to no scholarly attention. Using documents primarily from the archives of the shah’s cultural counsellor at the imperial court, Shojāʿeddin Shafā, this paper looks in detail at a number of initiatives spearheaded by Shafā from the early 1960s, which essentially laid the groundwork for the Pahlavi National Library, in order to understand how the shah’s regime used culture and scholarship to further its political goals. The paper proceeds to investigate the Pahlavi National Library, analyzing it in the context of the shah’s domestic and foreign policy objectives.