By conceiving two emergent nation-states as a single region linked by conjoining roads, shared technologies and circulating researchers, this essay traces the emergence of a common “intellectual infrastructure” that during the interwar decades enabled European, American, Iranian, Afghan and Indian scholars to promote archeological and architectural interpretations of the Iranian and Afghan past. Taking Robert Byron’s Road to Oxiana as a fixed point of reference, the following pages survey the motor-linked sites where these new disciplinary approaches were developed and disseminated. By positioning Byron amid a larger cadre of investigators publishing in Farsi, Dari and Urdu no less than English, French and German, the essay shows how shifts in Iranian perceptions of the ancient and medieval past were part of a larger regional development, unfolding not only in familiar dialogue with Europe, but also in conversation and to some degree competition with nationalist scholarship in Afghanistan and India. Together with the journals, museums, learned societies and congresses which were launched in the 1920s and 1930s, cars and cameras—those key tools of the “age of speed”—were central to these learned ventures. Far from generating uniformity, this shared intellectual infrastructure enabled multiple interpretations of the archaeological and architectural past that were nonetheless mutually intelligible and methodologically consistent.

This paper investigates the usage and frequency of what is referred to as K-suffixes in three Balochi dialects, namely Koroshi, Coastal and Sistani Balochi. It shows that K-suffixes are most likely the reflexes of earlier evaluative morphology, traditionally termed “diminutives,” and are characterized by a high degree of multi-functionality. While in Coastal and Sistani Balochi evaluative functions continue to dominate, they have been largely lost in Koroshi Balochi, and the suffix is now used to indicate definiteness. The development appears to have been spearheaded by female speakers, and its frequency is also dependent on genre and speech situation. Data is taken from an extensive corpus of spoken Balochi narratives and from a questionnaire with thirty-six speakers. The results suggest that evaluative morphology can develop into definiteness marking, with the development passing over a stage of combination with deictic markers. The paper concludes that the development of definiteness marking can proceed down a pathway that is distinct from the one normally assumed for demonstrative-based definite marking, though the endpoint may be similar. This is the first detailed documentation of this process for any Iranian language, and one of the few well-documented cases of a non-demonstrative origin of definiteness marking worldwide.

This paper examines the notions of Shiʿism and kingship in Safavid cultural materials (coins, architectural inscriptions, enthronement orations, and panegyrics) to trace the role of Safavid ideology in the dynasty’s transformation from a Sufi order into a monarchic institution with a sectarian identity. It examines these materials in order to reconstruct the dominant ideology of the Safavids in various venues. Examination of the ideologies of Safavid rulership shows a marked difference between ideologies expressed in these cultural mediums. We argue that this difference points to a multi-pronged Safavid strategy of projecting political legitimacy in distinct registers for different audiences. By combining ideologies that were embraced and practiced by people of different regions and sects in the Persian empire before the Safavids, the Safavid monarchs managed to spread widely their power within the empire and beyond, to change the religio-political ideology of the empire, and to remain in power for more than two centuries.

In February 1617, Jan Lucasz. van Hasselt arrived in Persia accompanying Pietro Della Valle (1586–1652), a Roman noble. Sometime between 1618 and 1621 Van Hasselt entered the service of Shah ʿAbbas I (r. 1588–1629), for whom he worked as a painter until the death of the shah. Later, during the reign of Shah Safi I (r. 1629–42) and until 1654 he tried to establish himself as a commercial agent for Persia. The present paper examines the career of this Dutch painter in Persia and the Netherlands. Meanwhile the artworks that may be attributed to him will be discussed.

At the turn of the century, Azeri intellectuals embraced their unique position at the intersection of the Russian, Ottoman, and Iranian Empires by taking on the self-appointed role trans-imperial reformers. Moving with relative ease from Baku to Istanbul, Tabriz, Tehran, Bukhara, and beyond, Azeri reformist intellectuals were neither insular nor modest in their aspirations as they promoted social and cultural reform. This article explores Azeri efforts to promote their vision of progress to fellow Muslims in Iran and Central Asia through the most radical genre of cultural expression embraced by Azeri intellectuals: the theater. Using indigenous language sources to focus on these activities, this article demonstrates the far-reaching influence of Azeri cultural productions and the expansive ambitions of Azeri reformist intellectuals.

This article examines history-writing in Safavid Iran and, in particular, the notable chronicle from the time of Shah ʿAbbas I, the Tārīkh-e ʿĀlam-ārā-ye ʿAbbāsī(TAAA). It rethinks Safavid history-writing via the perspective of environmental history. This article asks, “How was the natural world represented in the chronicle, and in what way did this representation shape the Safavid historical narrative?” It argues that the ways in which the TAAA portrays human encounters with nature suggest ʿAbbas’ unique sovereignty over it. Because of his piety and devotion, he was considered blessed with divine grace, making him the only human being with the ability to regulate natural manifestations—that is, to dominate, to manipulate, to survive, and to contain nature. Against a backdrop of an absence of environmental readings of Safavid history, the article suggests looking at the TAAA’s representation of this natural world as a powerful legitimizing force for ʿAbbas’ reign, as it is one that has not yet been foregrounded.

The metrical requirements of Persian poetry are highly restrictive. Traditionally, the rigidity of the metrical system was compensated for by a high degree of flexibility in the poetic language in terms of lexicon, phonology, and morpho-syntax. Using statistical data from different periods of Persian poetry, this paper argues that the degree of flexibility of the language used in metrical Persian poetry has been in constant decrease, moving towards what may potentially be a language crisis for metrical Persian poetry. This study traces the linguistic and meta-linguistic origins of the initial flexibility of the poetic language and its subsequent change, suggesting that some of the recent trends in Persian poetry may be viewed in part as reactions to this potential crisis.

This article is about the doctrine of the formation of celestial bodies in Pahlavi texts. The doctrine is peculiar. It clashes not only with the accounts of the Gāϑā and the Younger Avesta but also with the general cosmology of Pahlavi literature. Nonetheless it must be authoritative since it is found in our main sources of Zoroastrian (Pahlavi) cosmogony and there does not seem to be an alternative account of the formation of celestial bodies. It thus prompts us to look for its background. This article presents and discusses the texts that contain the Pahlavi doctrine, examines its Avestan roots, and shows the influence of Presocratic cosmogonic speculations on the doctrine. Further, comparative material allows us to propose a conceptual genealogy of the basic constituents of the doctrine.

This paper examines the textual and performative functions of early women’s writings on the example of three accounts of the pilgrimage to Mecca written during the Qajar era by Mehrmāh Khānom ʿEsmat al-Saltaneh (1880–81), the anonymous Hājiyeh Khānom ʿAlaviyeh Kermāni (1892–94), and Sakineh Soltān Vaqār al-Dowleh Esfahāni Kuchak (1899–1901). It ponders on the relationships between the female writers and textuality, their readers and, finally, the diary personas they created. It claims that their writings emerged in the process of negotiating the then existing, masculine models of textuality and authorial authority. By rejecting the monologic authoritativeness of literature and textuality, the women diarists transformed their texts into a space for dialogue—including dialogue with themselves.

The study of the language of religious minorities in Iran is particularly important for understanding the historical development and typology of Iranian languages. Historical and linguistic evidence substantiates the idea that Zoroastrians and Jews in cities in central and western Iran preserved their former vernacular language, whereas the majority of the population replaced it with Persian in the New Iranian period. This paper focuses on the language of Jews in Hamadan and has two main objectives: first, it examines numerous distinctive features of Judeo-Hamadani; second, it reviews and updates recent research to clarify the language origins, using data from new materials recorded during fieldwork in Hamadan from October 2018 to August 2019, and in Yazd in 2017.

How could one translate into any European language a Persian poem as culturally and aesthetically embedded as this hemistich by Hāfez: beh may sajjādeh rangin kon garat pir-e moghān guyad. This is the central question Mohammad-Rezā Shafiʿi-Kadkani addresses in his essay titled “On Poetic Untranslatability.” For Shafiʿi, translation is primarily a function of cultural—and not linguistic—affinity. Therefore, he argues that Hāfez’s poem is all but untranslatable in European languages given their fundamental cultural difference from Persian. This article critically engages Shafiʿi’s essay by outlining and analyzing the set of problematic assumptions embedded in its rubric of untranslatability. It places Shafiʿi’s view on translation in conversation with theorists of untranslatability in comparative literature and translation studies. Ultimately, it outlines why untranslatability is not a useful conceptual framework for the analysis of linguistic and cultural difference.

Farvi, also known as Farrokhi, is an Iranian language spoken in the village of Farvi in Khur district of Kavir desert in central Iran. It shares features with other languages in Kavir region such as Khuri, Irāji and Garmayi. This paper describes synchronic and historical phonology and the grammar of Farvi based on data collected in Farvi village during April 2019. The study of historical phonology and morphological evidence show that though basically Northwestern, Farvi shares some features with Southwestern Iranian languages so that, like Kurdish and Balochi, it is separated from the other Northwestern Iranian languages. In later changes, Farvi shows some areal features that put it alongside Southeastern languages such as Northern Bashgardi and Balochi.

This paper explores the unity of the Hadiqat al-haqiqeh, a medieval mystical didactic work composed by the twelfth-century Persian poet Sanāʾi. It provides one possible reading from the text by following the link between some of the major themes discussed in its chapters. By doing so, the paper first challenges the common view of the work as a fragmentary, non-narrative text, and second it draws attention to the synthesis of political ethics and Sufi didacticism as a possible starting point in the interpretation of the work. It also highlights the possibility—and necessity—of further scholarly inquiry into the Hadiqeh, regardless of issues caused by its complex textual history.

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.

The emergence and rapid but short-lived presence of Students for Freedom and Equality (SFE; in Persian: Daneshjuyan-e Azadikhah va Barabaritalab or DAB) across major Iranian campuses and their fateful 4 December 2007 protest rally on the campus of the University of Tehran speaks of the return of leftist student activism to Iranian campuses after almost two decades of absence or invisibility within the context of post-revolutionary Iran. SFE was an umbrella democratic organization: its activists came from a plurality of social and political backgrounds and adhered to diverse leftist ideas. But in the context of pro-Reform Movement student activism in Iranian post-secondary institutions in the late 1990s and in 2000s, for a short time the SFE tried to hegemonize student activism and challenge the various pro-government tendencies in university campuses. Before state repression forced the SFE out of operation in 2007, Students for Freedom and Equality brought to campuses candid discussions of social justice issues, critique of Iran’s neoliberal economic policies, and challenges to censorship and lack of freedom.

As a polymath in fifteenth century Central Asia, Jāmī’s (1414–92) works were widely circulated around the Muslim world. From a global perspective, Jāmī and his prose works achieved outstanding recognition in China in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This paper follows the author’s previous research on the introduction of Jami’s works in China, seeking to answer the question of what it was that made Jāmī a legend in China and how this came about. By focusing on the transmission and transformation of Jāmī’s two Persian Sufi prose writings as they moved from Central Asia into China, the article concludes that two groups of people played a role as transcultural agents in this process; these were individual Sufi travelers and the Muslim intellectuals

Iran's subjection to Russo-British influence has received the bulk of attention of modern scholarship dealing with the country's interaction with the outside world in the nineteenth century. This article, while not denying the central role played by these two powers in Iran’s domestic affairs at the time, draws attention to a third power with long-standing claims to influence in the country by way of trade policies—France. From the fall of Napoleon in 1815 until the French Revolution of 1848, the French monarchy was especially keen to encourage commerce with Iran, less as a source of increased wealth than to restore and expand French prestige and political influence. This strategy became more significant, when the British and Russian superpowers opposed an active French presence in Iran and prevented France from asserting influence in the country. To contain those powers, France pursued its plan of reaching a trade treaty with Iran as a means of obtaining commercial concessions and privileges as well as to secure its permanent presence in the country. France also aimed to connect Iran to its network of regional trade extending from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

The advent of “modern” education in Iran and its acceptance by political and cultural elites dates to the Qajar era. But the elitist nature of state reforms prevented modern education from spreading throughout society until the Pahlavi era. Especially during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, modern education reached most segments of the population, including religious families from the middle classes. This research is based on Persian-language documents and informed by the English-language historiography. The article finds that the Islamic Education Society (Jāmeʿeh-ye taʿlimat-e eslāmi) propagated religious modernism through a national network of private schools beginning in the 1940s. In the 1950s and 1960s private cultural foundations used the Islamic Education Society’s model to establish the Alavi, Kamāl, and Refāh schools in Tehran. The network that supported them was a reflection of the revolutionary movement and a vehicle for its organization by the 1970s.