Social hierarchy in Iran, as in other modernizing nations, has undergone major changes in the twentieth century. Nevertheless, contemporary patterns of social hierarchy are rooted in the traditions of inequality that prevailed during the Qajar era. In provincial Iran, these traditions of hierarchy and inequality were structured in part by the form of political authority. In the nineteenth century, many provincial regions were ruled by local notables who maintained varying degrees of independence from the royal court. Along with leading landowning families, merchants, and clergy, they formed the elite of provincial society. The culture of social hierarchy was also shaped by traditional Islamic and Persian views of society and by the meaning attributed to the distribution of wealth, power, and prestige in Iran.

The legendary King Midas was the first Near Eastern ruler to cherish the belief that untold mineral wealth would enable him to realize all his dreams and ambitions. But just because all he touched turned into gold, he soon discovered he could no longer eat. The moral of this legend may be coming home to various regimes in oil-rich countries, which are encountering problems of agricultural decline, overrapid rural-urban migration, inflation, increased income distribution gaps, and so forth. Nowhere have the expected achievements to result from oil income been more touted than in Iran, where the “White Revolution” (later the “Shah-People Revolution”) and the “Great Civilization” proclaimed from the throne since the early 1960s were not only to provide social and economic well-being for all, but also to put Iran among the world's top industrial powers before the end of the century (whether it was seriously going to be among the five top world powers varied from statement to statement, but this was said at one time).

The rich subtlety of the Iranian political process has long defied scholarly attempts to comprehend and explain. Native Iranian writings have been stunted both by a traditional tendency to stress chronology over analysis as well as by sociopolitical deterrents that have deflected the academic searchlight away from the political system. European scholarship has seldom focused directly upon the Iranian polity but has instead preoccupied itself with history very broadly conceived. This historical discussion has closely followed the Persian sources both in method and substance. This thrust has been joined with the European concern with formal-legal structures and cultural determinants. The result has often been descriptive history in which the political component has been ultimately viewed as a by-product of cultural traits, religious heritage, or the idiosyncracies of particular political actors.

In any program of land reform, the method of determining compensation for the land to the former landlord and the cost to the peasant can be of great social and economic significance. This possibility arises from the fact that the officially determined value of redistributed land—whether it is below, equal to, or above the true market value—could have a considerable direct effect on the distribution of wealth among the various socioeconomic classes. Especially in more traditional societies, where the tax system is not well developed, such a one-time redistribution of wealth may be the most dramatic option open to the policy maker who wishes to mitigate income inequalities. Furthermore, such a change in income distribution, in turn, will influence many other economic variables. For instance, an increase in rural incomes, ceteris paribus, would tend to slow down rural-urban migration; this would then lower urban unemployment and raise urban incomes.

The growth of Iran's economy, like that of any developing country, is dependent not only on how its natural resources are used, but also its human resources. The two together can lead to increases in both the quantity and quality of physical capital. This process does not require absolutely synchronous improvements in the way both natural and human resources are employed, but certainly changes must be parallel.

If, on the other hand, exploitation of natural resources moves forward much more rapidly, considerable physical capital can be acquired in a short time. But without ample supplies of skilled labor, capital goods may then be used inefficiently or even stand idle. This problem can be partly overcome in the short run if it is possible to hire foreigners to supplement the domestic labor in sufficient amounts and with the proper skills. On the other hand, if a nation's growing educational system turns out skilled people at rates faster than the growth in available jobs, then employment, underemployment, or migration are the immediate choices facing many workers and their families.

Historians have tended to ignore the structure of tribalism in writing the history of Iran. Numerous references to tribal leaders can be found in the literature (Turkoman, Bakhtiyari, and Qajar khans appear and reappear as important figures in Iranian political history), but the nomadic societies that produced these leaders and shaped and limited the contours of their actions have been left to the researches of anthropologists and other social scientists. While historians have undertaken detailed studies of urban and agrarian institutions, they have continued to ignore tribalism as a factor in Iranian history.

Between the twelfth and the nineteenth centuries, pastoral nomads comprised approximately one-fourth of the population of Iran. Forming over two hundred separate tribal units divided into five major ethnic groupings (Turkoman, Iranian, Kurdish, Arab and Baluch), these pastoral groups have been and continue to be integral elements in the shaping of Iranian history.

Although contemporary Persian folk poetry does not receive much scientific attention presently, this is not necessarily a sign that it is of little importance among renown arts in Iran. In fact, folk poetry seems to be quite alive and thriving in tents and behind mud walls—still alive, one probably has to caution, in spite of the rapidly changing channels of creativity in Iran. The ephemeral folk songs and poems can, indeed, be found everywhere, in cities as well as in camps and villages. However, it is in the countryside where they often take on special significance as the only truly “popular” art, the only means for many people to be, as we say, artistically expressive.

In Boir Ahmad, a tribal area in the Southwest, for example, a student of folk art finds himself in a void, after his initial rapture over spectacular tribal rugs has calmed. The Boir Ahmadi do not paint, do not draw, do not carve, do not play musical instruments, do not mold pots, do not embellish their tools, and rarely dance.

Sadeq Hedayat's life and works have been subjected to numerous comments and criticisms of both a general and particular nature. But, with the possible exception of The Blind Owl, there have been very few detailed studies of his individual short stories. This has created two major defects in the understanding of the man and his works: on the one hand, it has resulted in a serious neglect of many of Hedayat's stories which are well worth studying in their own right; and, on the other hand, it has contributed to an imbalance in the overall assessment of his socio-literary achievements. Indeed, it can be argued that a full appreciation of The Blind Owl itself is not quite possible without a careful study of Hedayat's earlier and--to some extent--later works.

In a previous paper, on the basis of the definition of feudalism as a mode of production, it was shown that the extra-economic obligations of Iranian peasants in the period between the fourth and the seventeenth centuries resembled those obtaining under feudalism, though these obligations exhibited, also, certain peculiarities that could be attributed to the specific conditions of Iranian history. In the present paper, I will examine the other aspect of the exploitative feudal relations in Iran for the same period, i.e., the economic obligations of peasants to landlords and the state in the form of feudal rent. I will examine, more specifically, the extent of and the forms in which rent was exacted from the peasants by the landowning class and the state during the period in question.