The Qajar rock reliefs are without doubt an anachronistic group of monuments in Iranian art. An expression of royal power in pre-Islamic Iran, with the emergence of Islam, they more or less disappeared. The reason is obvious—they were representing human beings in a demonstrative, outgoing fashion. But even more important was their public character. In contrast to book painting and probably less to painting on canvas, the art of rock reliefs is intentionally turned towards an audience beyond the walls of the court. In some way they belong to the public and were put there with the aim of glorifying and propagating rulership.

All together there are eight reliefs, seven from the period of Fath āAli Shah (1797-1834) although not all were commissioned by him, and one from the time of Nasir al-Din Shah (1848-96). This last one is situated on the Haraz Road, near Tangah-i Band-buridah.

This article reveals the story of Russia's attempts to colonize Astarabad and Mazanderan provinces of Iran in the early twentieth century. By backing and sponsoring Russian settlements there, the Russian government sought to eventually annex the territories in the northeast of Iran. Drawing on Russian and Iranian sources, the article follows the development of the settlements from their spontaneous beginning in 1907 to a state-supported colonization project by 1914. After the Russian government tried to accelerate colonization of the occupied Iranian territories during the First World War, this ambitious project came to an end with the Bolshevik coup of 1917.

This essay discusses the position of Sasanian Studies from its inception in the late nineteenth century, to its reinvigoration at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The work also discusses the development of the field of Sasanian history and civilization vis-à-vis the three fields of Iranian, Islamic and Late Antique Studies. It is posited that Sasanians have benefited from cross-disciplinary and new historical frameworks that go beyond the traditional field of Iranian Studies, which was never as interested in the history of the period.

Iranian modernity has chiefly been examined in the context of a dialectical antagonism between “traditionalists” and “modernists”—main categories comprised of related sub-headings such as “Islamist” versus “secular,” “reactionary” versus “revolutionary,” and “regressive” versus “progressive.” Following this approach, Iranian adaptations of modernity have often been (de)historicized as a theater of national “awakening” resulting from the toils of secular intellectuals in overcoming the obstinate resistance of traditional reactionaries, a confrontation between two purportedly well-defined and mutually exclusive camps. Such reductionist dialectics has generally overwritten the dialogic narrative of Iranian modernity, a conflicted dialogue misrepresented as a conflicting dialectic. It has also silenced an important feature of Iranian modernity: the universally acknowledged premise of the simultaneity and commensurability of tradition with modernity. The monazereh (disputation or debate) is the account of the interaction between rival discourses that engaged in opposing, informing, and appropriating each other in the process of adapting modernity. Narrativizing the history of Iranian modernity as the conflict between mutually exclusive binaries overlooks its hyphenated, liminal1 identity—a narrative of adaptation rather than wholesale adoption, of heterogeneity rather than homogeneity, of dialogues rather than dialectics. The monazereh is the account of modern Iranian histories.

The Study of Classical Persian Literature Can be Separated from the study of modern Persian literature for heuristic reasons—one can be emphasized more than the other in teaching, and the path away from classicism to modernism and beyond can be charted—but it is impossible to draw a decisive line dividing the two. The modern develops out of the classical and constantly interacts with it. The two may be separated, but in the end Persian literature is one and is best thought of as such. The present review, in which classical literature will be the focus, is one such heuristic occasion.

This review will survey the field in terms of the major concerns of literary scholarship that are affected by the work of the Encyclopaedia Iranica and will try to illuminate the role of this reference work as a source of, and an aid to, literary scholarship.

A Multi-Volume, Multi-Author Encyclopaedia Such as this is a Desktop library; but, more than any library, it represents a set of conscious editorial decisions. The basis of these decisions (if, as is common, the editors do not make it explicit to the reader) may be inferred not just from the choice of topics, but from the balance between them, and from the length and nature of entries. In every case, choice and balance must be largely determined by the availability of previous research: if someone is known to be the world expert on X, then it makes sense to invite them to give a reasonable summary of their findings, even if in the grander political and cultural scheme it might be hard to justify. Bizarre—but delightful—anomalies are bound to result: among many in this encyclopedia, I would single out Willem Floor's two-page entry on DUNG; it is shorter, more approachable, and more inviting to the casual reader than, for example, the anomalous chapter on lizards that occupies a full 70 pages of the first volume of The Cambridge History of Iran.

Although The Title of this Paper is Inspired by the Title to Abbas Amanat's now classic history of the 19th-century Babi movement, its concerns are in essence different. Its aims, rather than being a study of the history of the messianic movement itself, are to reflect on the theoretical conditions or the modes of witnessing that structured the engagement with that history by the movement's contemporaries and early inheritors. This paper emerges out of a larger cultural and literary study of the early texts that narrate Babi history.

Hundreds of Manuscript Copies of the Qur’anic Commentary of Husayn B. ᶜAli Vaᶜiz-i Kashifi (d. 910/1504–05), known as the Mavāhib-i ᶜaliyya or Tafsīr-i Husaynī, have been catalogued in libraries and personal collections throughout Iran, Central Asia, Pakistan and India. The enormous popularity of Kashifi's commentary, which was known simply as Tafsīr-i Mullā, can be understood primarily by its unique accessibility and literary quality. Although Kashifi himself was well-versed in the many different sciences of commentary, the Mavāhib rarely addresses the kind of linguistic, philological, legal and theological issues that would require an extensive background in Arabic and Islamic religious scholarship. Instead, Kashifi combined an explanatory translation of Qur’anic verses in simple, concise Persian with highly selective citations from other works of tafsīr and Sufi poetry and prose, to create a remarkably short work for a commentary addressing the entire Qur’an.

The Word for Guile (Kayd) Itself Seems to be Shifty. Sometimes it is positive, sometimes negative, at times divine. It seems to assume its significance from its context. It becomes positive or negative according to the point of view of the one who uses it. It has a variety of meanings: Steingass's listing “deceiving, laying snares, entrapping, plotting mischief; applying a remedy, vomiting; being menstruous; the croak of a raven; war, warfare; deceit, fraud, stratagem; treachery, malignity, malice” illustrates its large semantic field. Kayd can also be a divine attribute. In the Qur˒anic chapter in which the Egyptian ruler admonishes his wife and utters the often repeated verse 29, “Indeed your guile is great,” verse 76 links kayd with God who “did devise a plan for Joseph.” “There are at least thirty-four uses of the Arabic root K.Y.D in the Qur˒an, and a number of them refer to God's action.”

Some of the most admired heroes and heroines of Persian literature are guileful. Most writers, however, have formulated their paradigms of guile with women in mind. Kayd and its numerous synonyms, although not gendered words, are frequently “feminized.”

This article explores the ideas of Iranian reformist scholar Sedigheh Vasmaghi and her contribution to religious reformist thought in Iran. As this article demonstrates, a significant aspect of Vasmaghi's work concerns how she understands the extent to which the legal aspects of the Qurʾān and the associated rulings found in fiqh literature are relevant to the conditions of the modern world. This article investigates Vasmaghi's ideas about the Qurʾān and her contextualist approach to interpretation, arguing that her views on Islam's socio-legal rulings are rooted in her approach to the Qurʾān. As the article will demonstrate, Vasmaghi's ideas add to the work of other prominent Iranian reformist scholars such as Abdolkarim Soroush, Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari, Mohsen Kadivar and Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari, but her approach is also subject to criticism, in particular her manner of differentiating between the mutable and immutable aspects of religion.

This essay details Leo Valiani's mission to Iran in 1952–53 on behalf of Mediobanca, in order to identify opportunities to promote investments for the development of both the country itself and Italian exports. The events are reconstructed through Valiani's correspondence with Enrico Cuccia (Mediobanca's CEO). A new picture of Valiani as banker emerges, effective on the ground, but also a subtle observer of local situations and prospects. The documents discussed herein highlight certain weaknesses in Mosaddeq's policies, mainly the weak relationship with the heads of finance. The oil dispute between Mosaddeq and the British and the coup orchestrated by the latter in collaboration with the Americans in order to bring down Mosaddeq's government complicated the picture so that every form of co-operation had to be postponed.

The figure of the ascetic cat, one known for his pretense to piety, appears throughout the medieval Persian literature. This study examines the movement of this literary motif along the Silk Road where Buddhism and Manichaeism facilitated its transmission into the nascent Islamic civilization. The study traces the possible paths of their journey by examining both the literary transmission of two anecdotes of the ascetic cat from India to Shiraz, as well as by considering the historical context for such transmission.

Highlighting certain fallacies in a recent anthropological study of three branches of the Ni‘matu’llāhī Sufi Order in modern Iran, this review article tries to cast light on the little-understood relationship between legalistic Islam and Persian Sufism. It also attempts to clarify the connection (or rather, lack thereof) between Sufism and the Pahlavi state and the current Islamist regime, while discussing the subtle distinction between and ‘irfān in the mystical philosophies of Shi‘ite Islam. Some of the vicissitudes of three decades (1978–2008) of suppression and persecution of Sufis by the fundamentalist Shi‘ite state in Iran are also chronicled.

The patronage system at the Mughal court drew many Safavid poets and men of learning to India who interacted with Indians at various levels. In an unusual case, the young Iranian poet ‘Urfī's attachment to his patron, Prince Salīm (later Emperor Jahāngīr), was interpreted by some as more than merely professional and the poet's death at a young age gave rise to speculations of intrigue. Mughal princesses were also actively involved in the literary scene of the time. In another instance, the association of Princess Zībunnisa, daughter of the Emperor Awrangzīb, with Persian poets was sometimes personal, leading to gossip and scandal about her. It turns out that in both cases stories about the sexual aspects of the relationships between Mughal patrons and Iranian poets arose in the eighteenth century and are more reflective of the concerns of the literary culture of that period. This paper explores the power and gender dynamics of these poet–patron relationships in the context of the general Iranian–Indian tension at the Mughal court and a highly developed and creative tradition of crafting biographical accounts.

Iran is the largest economy that is not currently included in the World Trade Organization (WTO). This paper addresses why Iran has not yet joined the WTO and whether it is ready to join. Iran's interaction with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1948 marks the beginning of the relationship between Iran and the WTO. To determine why Iran has not yet entered the WTO, the role and penetration of powerful members of the WTO and Iran's economic position are examined. To determine whether Iran is ready to join the WTO, literature is reviewed concerning the effects of joining for the five most-affected major industries in Iran. The major disadvantages of joining the WTO are described as short-term effects, and the advantages of joining are described as long-term goals. Currently, no clear scheme has been offered to handle the negative effects on the Iranian economy. As the major player, the Iranian government could achieve the long-term goals with a realistic and well-planned strategy or miss the mark through its inattention to the critical economic effects.

The Shatt al-Arab question has been the subject of several studies, most of which concentrate on the internationalization of the subject. However, few, if any, works have analyzed how this territorial dispute was perceived within Ottoman bureaucratic circles. When the Ottoman Empire reinstated a constitutional monarchy in 1908, the Ottoman–Iranian border dispute regarding the Shatt al-Arab had to be readdressed, with international players involved in the process. Considering the role of foreign factors, this study focuses on the contesting interests of the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of War on the Shatt al-Arab question (1912–13) and considers how these interests shaped foreign policy in the process of negotiating a resolution.

Fars is among the largest provinces of Iran that received the most technical assistance from the American economic delegation in the 1950s. After settling in the province and during ten years of activity, the American delegation provided technical assistance in the fields of health engineering, health education, preventive medicine, nursing, medical services, and medical education. This paper explains how the technical assistance of US personnel contributed to the general health of the Fars province. The findings of this research show that after the formation of the Public Health Cooperative Organization (PHCO) in 1950, not only did most of the cities and villages of this province began to enjoy safe drinking water, but also public health improved. Additionally, the birth of children with disabilities and the spread of infectious diseases such as malaria and trachoma declined by means of preventive medicine centers and health education.