This article addresses the paradigm shift of the model of masculinity in the discourse and imagery of the 2022 "Women, Life, Freedom (zan, zendegi, azadi)" movement in Iran. Analyzing the ways in which the movement challenged hegemonic masculinity and dismantled the gendered structure of dominance and subordination, the paper aims to introduce a new discourse of manhood as the actual reconfiguration of preexisting patterns, descending from Iranian epic and religious tradition as well as the youth culture of the country. Unlike the state-sponsored hegemonic masculinities of the Islamic Republic and the Pahlavi period, the new project values inclusiveness, cosmopolitism, and individuality, and tends to redefine existing models flexibly, notwithstanding sharing authority, attributes, and experiences with other groups and identities. As a result, it is also open to feminine qualities that were perceived traditionally as unmanly.
This article demonstrates the influence of the Arabic "poetics of wonder" on the rhetorical thought and creative psychology of the medieval Persian poet Amir Khosrow (1258-1325), which I reconstruct through close-readings of his neglected prose writings. I argue that Khosrow's articulation of this poetics to a Persian literary audience should be considered a major component of his legacy, which was not restricted to Persianate South Asia, despite the desire of the poet and more recent critics to distinguish his literary sensibilities as distinctively Indian. I consider the role of nationalist historiographies and twentieth-century editorial practices in marginalizing elements of Khosrow's work in the modern period, and suggest that his valorization of complexity, intellection, and delayed comprehension as requisites for the experience of literary wonder offers a productive framework for appreciating the self-consciously difficult and abstruse poetics of what has been called the "Indian style (sabk-e Hendi)" of Persian poetry.
Previously, I have argued that the idea of “honor” is deeply embedded in Iran’s legal culture. In this article, I examine the 2013 Islamic Penal Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran, focusing on the changes introduced since the previous code. In particular, the concept of mahdur al-dam , a person whose blood is forfeit, as outlined in Articles 302 and 303 of the new penal code, appears to have significance beyond questions of honor. It can be considered as a powerful legal-religious concept with implications for state-sanctioned violence, religious discrimination, and vigilantism—even as the term itself is not mentioned directly in the text of the penal code.
The article discusses the transformation of modern Zoroastrian collective identity in the diaspora in comparison with Iran. It has been inspired by Eisenstadt’s reflection on modern collective identities and is based on qualitative research in California, compared with the findings from Tehran. In contrast with shrinking traditional Zoroastrian communities, demographic growth has been observed in North America, primarily in the United States. The American environment, which is very different from the legal marginalization of minorities in Iran, contributes to greater openness, blurs ethnic boundaries, and accepts conversion. However, this poses new challenges, including the fear of US-born Zoroastrians losing links to their heritage and their lack of recognition in the surrounding society.
During the fifth century, the Sasanian administrative system underwent a major change with the introduction of the office of the wuzurg-framadār (“the grand commander”) by Yazdegerd I ( r . 399–420). The holder of this office, roughly equivalent to later post of grand vizier, wielded significant power at the top of the Sasanian administration—and yet, the only specific individual known through epigraphic and sigillographic evidence to have held the office is Mehr-Narseh, who served under four Sasanian rulers in the mid-fifth century. The current study examines a newly-identified bulla, which presents sigillographic evidence for the existence of yet another wuzurg-framadār during the Sasanian era.
Both the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and Āyatollāh Ruhollāh Khomeyni (1902–89)’s conception of Islamic government reflected traces of an opposition to modernism and a discourse of self-return advanced by Iranian thinkers in the 1960s and 1970s. The end of the Iran-Iraq War, the pursuit of economic liberalization policies, the emergence of an urban middle class, and the challenges of theocracy created conditions for a new religious discourse among Iranian post-Islamist intellectuals. Influenced by the historical experiences of the church and Christian theology in the Western world, as well as the need to reconsider religious knowledge, these new Iranian post-Islamist thinkers introduced fresh interpretations of religious and Shariʿa-based government. Drawing on Christian theological approaches, they initiated a dialogue with Shiʿi Islamic texts. Focusing on the thought of Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari (b. 1936), this paper argues that Iranian post-Islamist scholars, in adapting Islam to contemporary realities, employ Christian theological frameworks to reinterpret Shiʿi jurisprudence.
This paper traces the intellectual trajectory of Iranian nationalism to delineate when and how language and ethnicity in Azerbaijan came to be construed and framed as obstacles to Iran’s national unity. It spotlights historical moments that have sculpted the discourse of Iranian nationalism vis-à-vis Azerbaijanis. Contrary to established narratives that link the emergence of the assimilationist agenda to the polemical debates between Iranian and Turkish intellectuals after the First World War or to the early Pahlavi period, this paper focuses on the neglected debates and disputes about Azerbaijan’s language and identity in Persian periodicals at the turn of the twentieth century. It argues that these early debates anticipated the advent of homogenization policies in Iranian Azerbaijan. Drawing on archival documents, it illustrates how these debates ultimately crystallized into the formal policies enacted in Pahlavi Iran.
As knowledge of the historical context of the mass movement of Poles through Iran during the Second World War grows after many years of absence, the motif of the Siberian exile has entered the Persian literary repertoire as a symbol of the fate of the wartime Polish migrants. The stereotypical image of Polish women is also undergoing a transformation. Using the example of the novel Tō ba Esfahān bāz khāhi gasht (You Will Return to Isfahan, 2016) by Mostafa Ensafi (b. 1987), the present article explores new themes related to the presence of Polish refugees in Iran, as well as their sources. Ensafi’s book covers three main, interrelated topics, which can be defined as: “a pseudo-Polish child,” “an assassinated journalist,” and “the Siberian exile.” This study emphasizes the role of the memoirs of Helena Stelmach (1931–2017) as the principal source of both conceptual inspiration and factual material for the novel, an influence that Ensafi himself confirms. The present article traces the ways in which the writer used and processed Stelmach’s account.
Written in 1973, Hushang Golshiri (1938–2000)’s Ma ʿ sum-e sevvom (The Third Innocent), is a multilayered short story that can be read from various perspectives. In this study, I examine both its historical context and intertextual references to the twelfth-century romance of Khosrow ō Shirin by the poet Nezāmi Ganjavi (1141–1209). Indeed, that medieval romance serves the reader as a hermeneutical key, providing insight to the puzzle-like, modern work of fiction and legitimizing the possibility of its reading as a political thriller.
The present paper investigates the development of taking minutes and record-keeping in Mughal India and Safavid Iran from the early modem period, including protocols taken as the part of legal processes, diplomatic discussions, government administration, and leisurely gatherings, through an analysis of administrative manuals, stylized literary letters (monsha'at), narrative sources, and documents. This study also addresses the relationship between official writings and Sufi literature. Even prior to the import of European bureaucratic practices, the tradition of writing reports of assemblies was well established in the Persian language, though the research here demonstrates how some passages found in the chronicles are probably an embellishment of official records. The practices discussed show a commitment to keeping the account of meetings and oral exchanges in the Persianate world.
Sufism in South Asia has enjoyed a rich heritage of interactions with Indian cultures, religions, and learned traditions. Sufis have continuously exchanged ideas and practices with adherents of Indian religions, as well as reactionary trends opposing such dis- course. The reformist Sufi Mojaddediyya ("Renewal") movement, founded by Ahmad Serhendi (1564-1624), with its call for a return to a pure Islam, is a remarkable example of such anti-hybridization dynamics. "Pure" refers, among other meanings, to a kind of Islam that is stripped of religious innovation ( bed` a ), including non-Muslim traditions, beliefs, and social and moral norms adopted by Muslims. By means of textual and intertextual analysis, this article tries to shed light on the position of the Mojaddedi "pure Mohammadi way ( tariqa Mohammadiyya khalesa)" towards Indo-Persian and Indo-Muslim interactions. For this purpose, we shall examine closely the Nala-ye A`ndalib (The Nightingale's Lament), the Persian masterpiece by the founder of this path, Mohammad Naser Andalib (1693/4-1759).
The development of calligraphy during the Safavid period was tied closely to the emergence of a new religious and national identity. Nasta`liq, which had emerged in association with Persian literature and culture during the Il-khanid period, became increasingly popular for both artistic and administrative purposes under Safavid patronage, at which time nasta`liq became the favored script for transcribing not only Persian literary manuscripts, but also Shi`i literature. Its privileged position in Safavid political historiography, manuscript illumination, and epigraphy, both in an architectural context and elsewhere, attests to the fact that nasta`liq was institutionalized in Safavid Persia with respect to both Persian and Shi`i aspects. The present study reveals that the material and spiritual support of the Safavids was instrumental in effectively integrating nasta`liq into Persian culture and identity. However, nasta`liq's influence extended beyond Iran, as it became a distinguishing feature of Persian calligraphy and was widely used in other territories, including Mughal India and the Ottoman Empire, to transcribe inscriptions and manuscripts as a distinctively Persian art.
Abstract The development of calligraphy during the Safavid period was tied closely to the emergence of a new religious and national identity. Nastaʿliq, which had emerged in association with Persian literature and culture during the Il-khanid period, became increasingly popular for both artistic and administrative purposes under Safavid patronage, at which time nastaʿliq became the favored script for transcribing not only Persian literary manuscripts, but also Shiʿi literature. Its privileged position in Safavid political historiography, manuscript illumination, and epigraphy, both in an architectural context and elsewhere, attests to the fact that nastaʿliq was institutionalized in Safavid Persia with respect to both Persian and Shiʿi aspects. The present study reveals that the material and spiritual support of the Safavids was instrumental in effectively integrating nastaʿliq into Persian culture and identity. However, nastaʿliq’s influence extended beyond Iran, as it became a distinguishing feature of Persian calligraphy and was widely used in other territories, including Mughal India and the Ottoman Empire, to transcribe inscriptions and manuscripts as a distinctively Persian art.
This article looks at the translation of Indian sources on horses in the Persianate culture of South Asia. Horses were an essential tool of Muslim armies and their military hegemony in South Asia. In the regional sultanates, local rulers competed in making Indian sources on hippology available in the Persian language. This contribution focuses on the Tarjoma-ye Salutar (The Translation of & Sacute;alihotra, 1407-8), a translation of an Indian text on hippology produced in Gulbarga for Ahmad I Shah Vali (r. 1422-35). The Tarjoma-ye Salutar was rendered into Persian by Abdollah b. Safi via an intermediate translation in a vernacular language made by a local scholar named Durgadasa. The use of intermediate translations has often been considered a practice that developed at the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar (r. 1556-1605). Yet the method of translation used for the Tarjoma-ye Salutar shows that this practice goes back to the Sultanate period. This article explores the contents of the book, including sections dealing with omens taken from horses and veterinary medicine. Furthermore, it explores the way translated materials were adapted to render them more suitable for the new Muslim readership.
One of the most important works in the field of medieval Indian mathematics corresponding to algebra is Bijaganita (Seed Calculation), a Sanskrit treatise by the famous mathematician and astronomer Bhaskara II (or Bhaskaracarya, c. 1114-aft. 1183). This paper is a general overview of the Tarjoma-ye Bij ganet (The Translation of the Bijaganita, 1634), a Persian text composed by the mathematician Ata'ollah Roshdi (or Rashidi), who served at the court of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan (r. 1628-58). The translation is divided into an introduction, subdivided in six chapters (bab), and five books (maqala). After discussing both Bhaskara II and Roshdi, I compare the latter's translation with the original Sanskrit text on the basis of available English translations. I will also demonstrate how an intermediate language, which played an important role in the connection of South Asian scientific sources, facilitated this translation.
