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In recent years, Iran has gained attention mostly for negative reasons-its authoritarian religious government, disputed nuclear program, and controversial role in the Middle East-but there is much more to the story of this ancient land than can be gleaned from the news. This authoritative and comprehensive history of Iran, written by Homa Katouzian, an acclaimed expert, covers the entire history of the area from the ancient Persian Empire to today's Iranian state. Writing from an Iranian rather than a European perspective, Katouzian integrates the significant cultural and literary history of Iran with its political and social history. Some of the greatest poets of human history wrote in Persian-among them Rumi, Omar Khayyam, and Saadi-and Katouzian discusses and occasionally quotes their work. In his thoughtful analysis of Iranian society, Katouzian argues that the absolute and arbitrary power traditionally enjoyed by Persian/Iranian rulers has resulted in an unstable society where fear and short-term thinking dominate. A magisterial history, this book also serves as an excellent background to the role of Iran in the contemporary world. © 2009 Homa Katouzian. All rights reserved.

Sadeq Hedayat was born on 17 February 1903 and died on 9 April 1951. He was descended from Rezaqoli Khan Hedayat, a notable 19th century poet, historian, and historian of Persian literature, and author of Majma‘ al-Fosaha, Riyaz al-‘Arefin and Rawza al-Safa-ye Naseri. Many members of his extended family were important state officials, political leaders and army generals, both in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

There is no universal theory of revolutions if only because no scientific theory can be universal. Neither is there even a general theory of European revolutions. But elements of such a theory do exist, including the crucial fact that European revolutions, though very different in time and space, were revolts against the ruling social classes by the rest of the society. Iranian revolts were typically against an 'unjust' arbitrary state, and were not resisted by any social class. The two revolutions in the twentieth century shared these basic features, notwithstanding the differences between them as well as with traditional Iranian revolts.

Featuring contributions from leading scholars of Iranian studies and / or comparative literature, this edited comprehensive and critical edited collection provides detailed scholarly analysis of Hedayat's life and work using a variety of methodological and conceptual approaches. Hedayat is the author of The Blind Owl, the most famous Persian novel both in Iran and in Europe and America. Many of his short stories are in a critical realist style and are regarded as among some of the best written in twentieth century Iran. But his most original contribution was the use of modernist, more often surrealist, techniques in Persian fiction. Thus, he was not only a great writer, but also the founder of modernism in Persian fiction. Yet both Hedayat's life and his death came to symbolize much more than leading writers would normally claim. He still towers over modern Persian fiction and will remain a highly controversial figure so long as the clash of the modern and the traditional, the Persian and the European, and the religious and the secular, has not led to a synthesis and a consensus.

This book offers a view of Iran through politics, history and literature, showing how the three angles combine.

Introduction: Due to limitations of current treatments for degenerative disc disease, arthroplastic methods to repair the diseased disc have been proposed. The artificial disc is a mobile implant for degenerative disc replacement that attempts to lessen the degeneration of the adjacent elements following interbody fusion procedures. Because the success of artificial disc replacement depends on maintenance or restoration of the mechanical function of the intervertebral disc, it is useful to study the initial mechanical performance of the disc after implantation in the spine. Materials and Methods: A three-dimensional finite element model of the L3–L4 disc was analyzed. The model took into account the material nonlinearities and it imposed different loading conditions. In this study, we validated the model by comparison of its predictions with several sets of experimental data; we determined the optimal Young’s modulus as well as the Poissan ratios for the artificial disc under different loading conditions. Results: The artificial disc was subjected to three loading conditions: 1) compression, 2) bending and 3) torsion. In each case, optimum elastic parameters were determined. Then, by using the root mean square method, optimum parameters for all loading conditions (and therefore minimum error) were calculated. Discussion and Conclusion: The results of this study suggest that a well-designed elastic arthroplastic disc preferably has Young’s modulus values of 18.63 MPa and 1.19 MPa for the annulus and nucleus sections, respectively. Elastic artificial disc with such properties can then achieve the goal of restoring the disc height and mechanical function of a normal disc under different loading conditions.

This thesis examines the intersection of ideology, popular culture, and style in Iran from 1965 to 1979. This period saw a drastic shift in Iranian beauty standards, with prevalent aesthetic standards inching closer to Euro-American markers of beauty as opposed to indigenous beauty standards already entrenched within the culture. This aesthetic shift also happened to be closely bound to the ideology purveyed by the White Revolution, which sought to modernize Iran by way of westernization. Though not as pronounced as the dress reforms decreed by Reza Shah Pahlavi, the modernizing efforts undertaken by Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi also happened to constitute its own distinctive approach to dress reform. No longer contingent on top-down policy, styles compliant with Euro-American beauty markers were not necessarily decreed at this time, so much as they were encouraged and standardized by media that were heavily regulated by the Pahlavi state. These media often echoed the Pahlavi credo to “transform the culture whole,” and as such, endeavored, in their own distinctive ways, to promote Euro-American beauty culture as the modern Iranian standard. As this thesis shall investigate by ways of its examination of highly circulated magazines like Zan-e Ruz, Tamasha, and Javanan as well as National Iranian Television, this period saw the state utilize its official and semi-official media in encouraging the modernization of Iranians in dress and conduct. Both popular magazines and Iran’s nationalized television network were taken up by the state as means through which to modernize the contemporary Iranian, instructing them on the appropriate dress and behavior befitting “the Great Civilization.” Ethnic dress and religious dress were likewise discouraged in favor of sartorial items more appropriate to the state’s vision of a modern Iran. The concomitant proliferation of an urban consumer culture also happened to bolster the standardization of Euro-American styles during this period, soon giving way to the popularization of plastic surgery and body management regiments among the urban classes, which, in turn, further widened the gap between the westernized urban classes and segments recalcitrant toward such methods of modernization. With the socio-economic gap widening evermore, these conspicuous changes managed to alienate a significantly large portion of the population ill at ease with the state’s modernizing efforts. As informed by the oppositional discourses of critics and dissidents like Jalal Al-e Ahmad, Ali Shariati, and Ayatollah Khomeini, the Pahlavi state’s modernizing efforts were soon met with more vociferous opposition. These oppositional discourses further pointed to the aesthetic shifts of the era, dubbing them as illustrations of gharbzadegi (weststruckness), and likening these acts of westernization to an ailment or disease having befallen Iran. In line with this, by investigating both the top-down modernization efforts of the state as well as the bottom-up reactions to this endeavor, this thesis will ultimately provide an extensive examination of the politics of style pervasive in 1960s and 1970s Iran.

This dissertation is an examination of the transition of Iranian residents of the Ottoman Empire into a visible, foreign Iranian community in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The Ottoman-resident Iranians, who in earlier centuries had been treated as Muslim subjects or, if non-Muslim, as dhimmis, were legally classified as foreigners and Iranian nationals in the late nineteenth century and came to constitute a visible Iranian community. This dissertation discusses this transition as a process of conflict and negotiation among various actors: the Ottoman and Iranian States and the Ottoman-resident Iranians themselves. Through a discussion of this transition, this dissertation simultaneously presents a legal and social history of these Iranians living in the Ottoman Empire. In doing so, this dissertation aims to engage Iranians in contemporary discussions about Ottoman communities. In the first part, which consists of two chapters, this dissertation analyses the extent and ways in which Iranians living in the Ottoman Empire actively participated in and were influenced by the legal, intellectual and social changes of the Ottoman and Iranian States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This part suggests that Ottoman and Iranian modernisation and identity-defining efforts directly affected the Ottoman-resident Iranians constituting an Iranian community within the late Ottoman Empire. After the distinction of Muslim and non-Muslim subjects was replaced with the concepts of Ottoman nationals and foreigners, these Iranians demanded a change of their legal status. The change began with the Erzurum treaty (1823), but Iranians legally became classified as foreigners – a milestone in their transformation into a foreign Iranian community – in the context of Nasir al-Din Shah’s visit to Istanbul in 1873. The Ottoman-resident Iranians were involved in discussions of the concepts of tabe’iyat (subjecthood), vatan (homeland) and mellat (nation) in Iranian legal and intellectual spheres, which made them feel an affinity for an ‘imagined Iranian community.’ The Iranian Tazkereh (1900) and Tabe’iyat (1894/1901) Codes redefined the boundaries of the Iranian tabe’iyat and included Ottoman-resident Iranians as Iranian nationals. In the second part, this dissertation discusses the consequences of the Iranians’ being categorised as foreigners and Iranian nationals and feeling affinity to an ‘imagined Iranian community’ in the social sphere, as well. Their unique category of foreigner paved the way for conflicts between the Iranians and the Ottoman State on some issues: tax payment, their forcible conscription into the Ottoman army and the Ottoman State’s intervention into their business. As they formed legal, intellectual and spiritual bonds with Iran, the Ottoman-resident Iranians asked for Iranian protection when they conflicted with the Ottoman State on those issues. By using the approaches of ‘history from below’, this part examines the extent as well as the ways that Iranians used the ‘methods of resistance’ to the Ottoman State and explores the ways in which they asked for Iranian protection. The second chapter of this part discusses the extent to, and ways in which becoming foreigners, being considered Iranian nationals, and feeling an affinity for an ‘imagined Iranian community’ led to a social transformation in which these Ottoman-resident Iranians actively participated. This included the process in which the Ottoman-resident Iranians established their communal institutions just as Europeans living within the Ottoman Empire and organised ceremonies where they manifested their Iranianness publicly. All these made Iranians visible within the Ottoman social sphere.

This study provides an in-depth analysis of Iran’s foreign policy in the South Caucasus after the collages of the Soviet Union. Using a non-foundationalist theoretical framework, it offers a new perspective towards the issue, deviating from the popular argument of considering Iran’s behaviour in the region pragmatic. Here, Iran's agency as a foreign policy actor is assumed to be decentred. It is continuously produced by various competing and intertwined discursive and recognitive practices. Based on this ontological premise, new conceptualizations of identity, interests, and policies are introduced that allow looking into different aspects of Iran's behaviour in the aforementioned region. The research investigates Iran’s policies in the South Caucasus during the presidencies of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-1997), Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-213) as its main case studies, and each of them is discussed in corresponding three empirical chapters. The latter are based on a discourse analysis of extensive textual data from the respective periods. The result is a more complicated image that shows how dualities, hesitance, status anxiety, and routinized practices are an integral part of Iran's policies in the South Caucasus. In this way, the study puts forward a different understanding of the issue and tries to move beyond the ideology vs. pragmatism debate in the literature on Iranian foreign affairs.

This is a study of British policy during the British–Soviet occupation of Iran from 1941 to 1946, as understood through British attitudes towards and opinions of the Tudeh Party. This thesis makes two main arguments. Firstly, that British policy was robust and flexible enough to withstand and adjust to changes in circumstance when seeking to prioritise its interests at any given time during the occupation. Secondly, that the Tudeh occupied an important position in British policy, both in and outside of Iran. Key to the analysis is the question of how the Tudeh went from being regarded as an asset to becoming a threat to British interests. By touching on changes in Britain’s global position, how the Tudeh featured within its major policies in Iran will be placed alongside wider Second World War and early Cold War histories. This positioning of the Tudeh is filtered through Britain’s key interests, which were impacted by the outcome of the Second World War, relations with the Soviet Union, relations with Left-wing parties, the importance of oil and Britain’s strategic position in the early Cold War. By focusing on the views of British officials, the Tudeh is seen in a different light, as interrupts the Soviet–Tudeh paradigm that has long-dominated discourse and historiography. While British primary sources are mainly used here, where relevant and possible Iranian (including Tudeh) and Soviet views are introduced. Each chapter covers a specific era of the occupation, as corresponds to a specific set of strategic interests being held. These, in turn, are analysed to identify how they affected the way the Tudeh, and its members were viewed and treated.

This thesis explores the socio-political mechanisms that shaped the authority of three Muslim thinkers – Mohammed Arkoun, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd and Abdolkarim Soroush – in the European-Anglophone intellectual field between 1989 and 2010. Specifically, it investigates the role of transnational networks of individuals and institutions in the intellectual legitimation of these three thinkers. Moving beyond existing literature that focuses on their intellectual contributions, this research situates their discourses within a specific socio-political context. Relying on government papers, newsletters, interviews, bibliometric data, as well as academic and journalistic publications by and about them, the study maps and investigates the modus operandi of their networks. For this purpose, it engages and expands on Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of social capital (resources embedded in an individuals’ network) and field theory, to explore how ‘power’ operates among different fields of interaction to shape their ‘legitimacy’. In unpacking the process of intellectual legitimation, this study identifies three interacting elements: 1) the socio-political context concerning the domestic and global emergence of Islam, and the polarisation of attitudes towards Muslims which renewed interest on authoritative ‘moderate’ voices speaking for Islam; 2) their identities and ideas, which reflected this demand for specific profiles – Muslim organic voices positioned between academia and the public sphere, engaging with a synthesis of Islam and modernity, democracy, and human rights; 3) their social capital, in the form of networks of actors they engaged with: these functioned as the infrastructure through which knowledge and resources were mobilised and ultimately converted into symbolic capital, leading to their intellectual legitimacy. The nodes of these networks, this study argues, promoted their ideas and facilitated their access to resources and institutions. The conversion of this social capital into symbolic capital, and therefore legitimacy, was conditioned not only by the internal dynamics of each field they engaged but also the power relations across the fields through which they migrated (such as Middle Eastern vs European academia or academia vs the public sphere). While this thesis accounts for the socio-political dimension of these thinkers’ emergence, it also addresses their agency in negotiating their position within different fields.

Academic literature on Iran has prioritized the relationship between the Islamic Republic and 'popular' and informal sectors over industrial labour, yet without investigating the way in which such sectors contribute and participate in labour politics. The multidimensional position of labour, its complex relationship to political change, and its role in re-producing the legitimacy of the state, have been neglected. This thesis relies on archival research, participant observation and interviews to argue that state-labour relations remain key to understanding processes of political change, development, and democratization in contemporary Iran. Employing critical juncture analysis, I contend that the absence of labour from the 2009 Green Movement was not only a product of the oft-quoted 'populism' of Mahmud Ahmadinejad, but can be traced back to longer dialectics of labour incorporation paired with political integration and dis-integration. In the early post-revolutionary years, the state paid little attention to labour, partially because the elite could not agree on how to interact with workers and feared their independent power. This changed after the end of the Iran-Iraq War, when the centrist Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani incorporated labour through welfare expansion, and employed corporatist-minded political organizations, notably the Workers’ House, to mobilize labour support for his government. With these labour organizations continuing to fulfil such mobilizing functions in alliance with the reformists after 1997, they gradually became semi-autonomous empires influencing enterprise unions, welfare institutions and other labour-related organizations. The incorporation projects pursued by Rafsanjani and the reformists generated internal contradictions and political obstacles, including the Workers' House's 'imperialistic' tendencies, entrenched opposition, and class struggle within the ruling coalitions. As a result, labour increasingly moved in opposition to the reformist project, helping to bring to power the conservative Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad's subsequent attempts at extending welfare and building parallel corporatist organizations weakened and divided labour, fundamentally altering structures of political contestation.

This thesis is primarily concerned with the literary aspects of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Its immediate focus rests on the evolution of the Islamic republican poetic trend, encompassing both the disillusioned and conformist voices that rose to prominence in the course of the 1979 Revolution and their on-going engagement with the ruling political power. In this vein, this thesis investigates the various cultural policies of the state, as well as select political transformations of the past three decades, all of which played a pivotal role in this literary evolution. The thesis shows how the official poets that emerged during the 1979 Revolution, and which proved significantly active throughout the immediate history subsequent to that event (war with Iraq, the death of Ayatollah Khomeini and the rise and fall of the reform movement), evolved over time and thereby either received political support for their commitment to the state ideology or became gradually excluded from official cultural institutions. Finally, this thesis reviews the manner in which state strategies have shaped an institutionalised form of poetry that is monitored and reinforced by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic and official cultural authorities. It demonstrates how an innate linking of the project of Islamic republican literature to underlying ideologically defined notions such as 'religious verse', 'legitimate poetry' and 'commitment' was and continues to be an intrinsic part of the literary foundations of the ideological apparatus of the Islamic Republic.

This thesis intends to explore the development of the Shiʻi religious institution in 20th century Iran through a case study of the life and work of Grand Ayatollah Burūjirdī (1875-1961), who was the head of the Qum Seminary for seventeen years (1944-1961) and was the pre-eminent marjaʻ al-taqlīd of Iran from 1947 until his death. No serious academic study has been undertaken on Burūjirdī in English. This thesis draws on a range of primary sources (both written and oral), most of which are as yet unpublished and are used in this thesis for the first time. Burūjirdī’s own life illustrates the traditional career path of a senior cleric, passing through several stages of education in Burūjird, Isfahan and Najaf before establishing himself as the marjaʻ of his home city, a position he held until his move to Qum. The thesis discusses how Burūjirdī was recognised as the pre-eminent marjaʻ for the world’s Shiʻis and the sole marjaʻ for Iranian Shiʻis, although throughout the recent history of the marjaʻīyat, it has been normal for several individuals to hold this position simultaneously. The findings suggest that family and local ties as well as excellent education and intellectual achievement were central factors in Burūjirdī’s success. Burūjirdī’s contribution to the institutional and intellectual development of the Qum Seminary is also studied in this thesis. Particular attention is paid to questions such as the expansion of the seminary, the attraction of substantial funds for its administration, the increase in the seminary’s financial income and the establishment of Shiʻi centres in not just the Islamic world, but in Europe and North America. The thesis also discusses the reforms in the intellectual tradition of the clerical educational curriculum and their part in allowing the Qum Seminary to become the main Shiʻi religious school in the world. It argues that Burūjirdī’s management style, which relied on working closely with a small number of long-standing and trusted associates allowed him to lead the seminary effectively over a long period.The Qum Seminary’s role in Iranian politics is discussed, in particular, the numerous difficulties for Burūjirdī in dealing with the state as well as with Islamist parties in the country who also sought the support of the faithful. Some debates between Burūjirdī and other important Shiʻi clerics are discussed including fundamentalist and radical Shiʻis who held different views to him on matters such as Muḥammad Musaddiq’s government, the coup d’etat of 1953 and the ideological assassinations carried out by Fidāʼīyān-i Islām. The thesis proposes that the established pattern for his relationship with the state, which was mutually beneficial and helped the seminary to develop in a satisfactory way, constituted a middle ground between quietism and radical activism. In this it departs from the widespread view that Burūjirdī was a quietist, arguing that he did engage with political issues and actors, but only when so doing helped to reinforce the religious institution. The thesis also illuminates Burūjirdī’s policy regarding the common social problems of the Shiʻi community in their relations with other Muslims in the Islamic world as well as their clashes with the Baha’is inside Iran. In this too, Burūjirdī had his own approach, which was clear and focused, even if not a radical departure from previous approaches. He emphasised proximity: bringing Shi’is and Sunnis closer together, and in relation to the Baha’is he sought to minimise clashes and co-operate with the state. Overall, the thesis concludes that the nature of religious authority in Iran as well as the wider pattern of social relations were such that a study of the life and work of the pre-eminent marjaʻ al-taqlīd of the mid 20th Century provides a useful lens through which to analyse the development of the Qum seminary in this period.

The present DPhil research attempts to develop an appropriate method for the historiography of ideas by taking into consideration cultural, linguistic and socio-political limitations and obstacles to free thinking in a predominantly closed society like Qajar Iran. By applying such a method the study then investigates the history of the idea of freedom in Iran during one of the most important periods in the evolution of this concept. The research method is grounded in a hermeneutical interpretation of Collingwood's logic of question and answer. It also employs MacCallum's meta-theoretical frame of analysis which states that freedom is always of something (an agent or agents), from something (conditions), to do something (actions). Using this methodological framework, the research shows how most locutions about freedom uttered in the last century of the Qajar period were formed within the horizon of the question of decline and were somehow related to remedy such situations. It then explores how late Qajar interpretations of the three variables of freedom manifest themselves in the socio-political life of early 20th century Iran. During the first constitutional period (August 1906-June 1908), the major concern of the first majlis was to establish the rule of law. In legislating the constitution and its supplement, the majority of the majlis believed that the main obstacle to freedom was arbitrary rule. Therefore, they endeavoured to restrain the government’s illegal and arbitrary interferences in the people's freedom. However, they did not develop a rational criterion for identifying legitimate and justifiable legal interferences. During the second constitutional period (July 1909– February 1921), the main concern of the second majlis was to restrain chaos and to strengthen the central government in order to put an end to domestic insecurity and foreign threats. To rectify such a situation, the majlis empowered the government to interfere even in the freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. As a result, the situation began to turn from chaos towards arbitrary rule. The research also argues that in most of their interpretations of the aim of freedom, constitutionalists considered an action permissible only if it was compatible with public interest as well as the material and spiritual progress of individuals and society. Theoretically, the aim of freedom could not have been the doing of an action that harmed another person or violated his/her freedom. Furthermore, 'the right to be wrong,' even if it harmed no one, was never defended. Nonetheless, in practice, freedom turned into chaos and licence in both the first and in the second constitutional periods. Finally, this study investigates how the Iranian pioneers of the freedom-seeking movement responded to the question of the eligibility of the agent of freedom, and the question of the equality of agents in having freedom. Iranian society was taking its first steps in experiencing the rule of law and had a long way to go to rectify its discriminatory culture and to establish equal rights. In such conditions, accepting a set of equal fundamental rights for all Iranians should be considered a great achievement for the constitutional movement.