My earlier article on this subject (Iranian Studies XVI, 1-2, Winter-Spring 1983) concerned the situation up to the summer of 1981, i.e., the time of Bani-Sadr's dismissal and the first major bombing of the clerical leaders. This article, based on another visit I made to the village in 1983, describes the attitudinal changes that had occurred during the two intervening years.

For the most part, there appeared to be increasing pressure to adhere strictly to the “Islamic” code of dress and public behavior. Not only were there now a permanent contingent (of varying size) of mainly locally derived pasdar in the village, and a hezbollahi (i.e., fanatic, in the usage of the liberals) bakhshdar who served to enforce such behavior, but the members of the newly established village council and also government employees served the same function. Even school children were requested to tell their mothers to wear proper hejab.

The Iranian constitutional movement of the early twentieth century involved various segments of Iranian society. Intellectuals, enlightened members of the bureaucracy, religious leaders, merchants and the urban population, each to a greater or lesser extent participated in this reform movement. Naturally their political attitudes, objectives, and interests differed. The intellectuals, who were secular in outlook and influenced by liberal Western ideas, hoped for the establishment of a constitutional form of government. A small group of reformers in the government sympathized with these men and were in close contact with them. Indeed, it is difficult to distinguish between the former and the latter since most of the intelligentsia were also a part of the ruling class. Perhaps one of the best examples is Mīrzā Malkam Khān Nāẓim al-Dawlah (1834-1908), who represents the attitude of a liberal thinker as well as a reformist member of the bureaucracy.

This paper is based on an earlier one about James Baillie Fraser's trip to Khorasan in the 1820s, the first European to travel there in the Qajar era. But instead of focusing on Fraser's experience, the information given by him is used to view the circumstances in Khorasan from an Iranian perspective, which, in turn, is derived from a study of the three main categories of people met by Fraser. Through them and their careers, the paper analyzes the problems, both inherited and new, that the early Qajars faced from the outset. Each of the three categories is dealt with separately under the headings of Prince-Governors, Princes in Exile or in Obeisance and, finally, High Priests. Together these complete the overall picture in Greater Khorasan and, by extension, throughout Iran at that particular time. What emerges from a study of their careers are the seeds of some of the major trends that were to mark nineteenth-century Iran. Khorasan, with its size and position, was particularly well placed to afford a view of a society still dependent on tribal vagaries and the dominant role of the religious hierarchy. Above all, the geo-strategic location of the province affords a privileged view across to the outlying parts of Greater Khorasan which, although still viewed from inside as a part of Greater Iran, were, due to inherent instabilities, liable to manipulation by British and Russian imperialism. The most effective tool of the latter was a propensity to promote new national entities on the ruins of an empire struggling to sustain itself without means and with a dated mindset of which most people were sorely unaware. By projecting the circumstances of time and place onto the future, one can perceive a certain degree of inevitability in the upcoming history of Qajar Iran.

Mohammad Ali Mojtahedi occupies a prominent place in the development of modern education in Iran. Yet, though not a politician, his influence exceeded far beyond education into the social and political life of contemporary Iran. Deeply convinced of the central role of education in development, his career made important contributions to changes in the landscape of modern education in Iran at both high school and university levels. Within this context, the paper traces the outlines of Mojtahedi's life and work from his birth in 1908 in the city of Lahijan in the northern province of Gilan, up to his death in 1997 in southern France. The paper's most seminal contribution covers the events of the period between the summer of 1964, when Mojtahedi was director of Tehran Polytechnic, and his dismissal in February 1967 by the shah as the head of Aryamehr (now Sharif) University which were closely related to the unsuccessful attempt on the shah's life in April 1965.

This paper aims to describe and explain the different morphosyntactic and semantic features of some double verb constructions in Persian, an Indo-European language mainly spoken in Iran. It is argued that these double verb constructions are not instances of serial verb construction, but instances of emerging aspectual verbs with varied degrees of grammaticalization. It is argued that numerous factors lead to grammaticalization of these verbs, including context, the semantic class of the verbs, and their frequency. A corpus-based analysis shows that these aspectual verbs have been grammaticalized in different ratios during the last one hundred years, demonstrating ongoing change in the Persian language.

The literary genre known as dastan-e ‘ebrat (morality tale or play) had already gained currency before the turn of the century and the awakening that preceded the Constitutional Revolution. It was, however, in the context of that Revolution and the impulses the Revolution brought forth, that this form of writing achieved greater popularity. Through the new medium of newspapers available now to a mass audience, the mode of delivery of the traditional morality tale in daily or weekly installments also took on the new role of entertainment while retaining the old role of socio-political commentary. Combining the tradition of his grandfather, Mohammad Taher Mirza Eskandari, who as translator, brought the romantic novels of Alexandre Dumas to the attention of the court and the Persian public, and that of his father and uncle who were pioneers and founders of the early humanist societies (anjoman) in the late Qajar era, Yahya Mirza Eskandari also used literature as a means of conveying his progressive social and political views. The two works, ‘Eshgh-e doroughi and ‘Arousi-e mehrangiz, in particular, capture the genre and the message of the dastan-e ‘ebrat well while taking it further to a level of political and social critique, particularly directed at the autocratic foundations of the government of the time. While focusing on the political critiques of tradition and traditionalism that these works represent, this article will also try to highlight their entertainment aspect, achieved through the process of serialization and publishing by installment, the publication format the papers Majjaleh-ye nesvan and Iran-e now chose for them.

The fall of Isfahan to the afghans in 1722 marked the end of effective Safavid rule over Iran, but not the disappearance of the Safavids from Persia's political scene. During the entire course of the eighteenth century, many pretenders to the Persian throne made their bids for power by trying to capitalize on their claims to Safavid origins, genuine in some cases, spurious in others. A few of them played a part in the struggle against the Afghans (for instance, Shah Tahmasp II and Mirza Sayyid Ahmad), and others managed to ascend a throne, although only as mere figureheads (like Shah ᶜAbbas III, Shah Sulayman II, and Shah Ismaᶜil III). Since the issue has already been dealt with by John R. Perry in a very detailed article, I need not elaborate further. Perry, however, devoted only a few lines to the very last of them, Abu'l-Fath Mirza b. Shah Sultan Husayn II b. Shah Tahmasp II, also known as Sultan Muhammad II, whose claims Perry dismissed as certainly spurious.

An important event in the early modern history of india was Nadir Shah's conquest, culminating in the battle of Karnal and the sack of Delhi in the spring of 1739. During this campaign, Nadir looted a huge part of the Mughal treasury, including the fabled Peacock Throne and the Kuh-i Nur diamond, and was responsible for the deaths of thousands of citizens of Delhi in a great slaughter carried out by his army. Historians of India have viewed this invasion as a crushing blow from which the Mughal dynasty never truly recovered, paving the way for European power to become established on the subcontinent in the next few decades. It has been remembered by some Iranian historians as Nadir's crowning military achievement, after which he denied his country the benefits of his victory, wasting away the final years of his reign in an orgy of terror and blood.

Since its earliest exposure to Iranian Sufis in the mid-seventh century, Ibn ʿArabī’s mysticism has been the subject of lively discussion and examination. It has also left its imprint on many intellectual tendencies, particularly Sufism, esotericism and ḥikmat discourse. The way Ibn ʿArabī’s books were read, interpreted and commented upon by his Iranian followers is indicative of the fact that al-Shaykh al-Akbar was too grand a figure to ignore. Even scholars such as Shaykh Aḥmad al-Aḥsāʾī (d. 1241 AH/1826), who never hesitated in showing his distaste for Mumīt al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī in one way or another, was influenced by his discourse. However, despite the general interest of a few scholars in al-Aḥsāʾī’s so-called “love–hate relationship” with Akbarīan mysticism, our knowledge of the nature of this relationship is quite limited. Different dimensions need to be examined to see how these two apparently conflicting worldviews understood mysticism and its fundamental tenets, including the doctrines of wilāya, theophany (tajallī), tawḥīd and divine knowledge. This article cites and analyzes al-Aḥsāʾī’s key texts, focusing on Risālat al-Rashtīyah, to examine how he understands Akbarīan mysticism, and how he develops his alternative by emphasizing a definition of the correct mysticism (maʿrifah/gnosis) in its relation to the teachings of the imāms. It explains how by distancing himself from Sufism in general, and from Ibn ʿArabī’s mysticism in particular, al-Aḥsāʾī seeks to draw the boundaries of the Shaykhī cause, not only as the true representative of Twelver Shīʿīsm, but also as the arch enemy of Ibn ʿArabī’s teachings that were but misunderstandings of Islam and of the teachings of the imāms.