Category Archives: Iran

Music in the World of Islam

Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Central Asia, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Malaysia, Morocco, Music and Dance, Syria, Teaching Resources, Turkey, Yemen

A year ago from August 8-13 an international conference on “Music in the World of Islam” was held in Assilah, Morocco, jointly sponsored by The Assilah Forum Foundation (Assilah, Morocco) and the Maison des Cultures du Monde (Paris, France). The papers from this conference are now available in pdf format online. Music and dance are described for Afghanistan, Algeria, Andalusia, Azerbeijan, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Central Asia, East Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan, Kuwait, Liberia, Malaysia, Morocco, Russia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey and Yemen.

A description of the conference is described by its main organizer, Pierre Bois: Continue reading Music in the World of Islam →

Playing Games with Iran

Anthropology/Sociology, Arab-Israeli Conflict, Election 2008, Iran, Iraq War, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue


Clergymen watched a missile during war games Thursday near Qum, Iran. The exercise was conducted by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Fars News Agency, via Agence France-Presse

by William O. Beeman, Foreign Policy In Focus, July 21, 2008

By now the structure of the U.S. game with Iran is clear. In the first move, the United States and Iran make some small progress toward improved relations. In the counter move, hardliners in the United States and Israel launch attacks against Iran in order to sabotage these improving relations.

In the latest iteration of this game, the U.S. State Department has made an interesting gambit. It announced that Undersecretary of State William Burns would sit at the table on July 20 as members of the European Union entered into talks with Iran over its nuclear program. At the same time, the United States has been reported to be considering opening a formal American Interests Section in Tehran. These two actions will be the first serious public diplomatic activities between the two nations in nearly three decades. (Three earlier meetings in Baghdad between U.S. Iraqi Envoy Ryan Crocker and Iranian Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi-Qomi focused on security in Iraq). Continue reading Playing Games with Iran →

Divided We Stand

Gender and Sexuality, Iran, Literature

Divided We Stand: A Woman’s Word about the Iranian-American Experience

by Dagmar Riedel

Gertrude Stein is alleged to have advised young Ernest Hemingway that he’d better stick to writing postcards if he had messages for his readers. It is understandable that Iranian-Americans want to reach American-American audiences with their stories about men and women with legs astride in two different cultures. But who is authorized to question a novel with a message, if its content is certified by the author’s traditional upbringing in Iran before the Islamic Revolution?

The fourth novel of Nahid Rachlin, Jumping over Fire (City Lights Books, 2005; cf. www nahidrachlin.com), has an intriguing black cover. Above the title a pair of blue eyes are staring intently at the viewer through the eye slit of a head scarf, while the bottom half merges a floral Arabesque with the yellow-red flames of a Nowruz bonfire. The title’s reference to the Nowruz purification ritual of jumping over fire is explained in the course of the novel. But on the cover the Zoroastrian tradition is presented as a variant of Western stereotypes of both the Oriental harem and Shia fanaticism because the collage promises a peek in the otherwise hidden world of a secluded Iranian woman and her burning desires. The reader has just to turn to the back cover to receive from Andre Dubus III, the son of the famous short-story author Andre Dubus, the confirmation that this is indeed a novel about a forbidden desire. The interpretation is further reinforced by the one-page biographical sketch in the back, written in the third person singular and designed to highlight in an objective language the author’s lifelong personal experience with displacement and gender-based social restrictions. Continue reading Divided We Stand →

Not your Daily Bread

Afghanistan, Food and Drink, Iran, Orientalism, Photography


Baking bread in Seyistan on the Afghan Border

[It is hard to find a society in the Middle East without a thriving history of bread preparation. Before the modern loaf and bleached flour assaulted our tastebuds, a variety of flat breads were baked, either in clay overs or other makeshift ovens. Here is a description of both Afghan and Turcoman bread making from a century ago, as reported by Ellsworth Huntington in the National Geographic Magazine in 1909. Webshaykh.]

The method of cooking it was very different from that employed in the oases, where ovens of mud shaped like beehives, with a hole in the top, are heated with a fire of weeds, and the dough is stuck against the inside of the hot oven, where it hangs until it is so far cooked that it falls down into the ashes. The bread of the Afghan caravan was cooked by heating small, round cobblestones in the fire and then poking them out and wrapping dough an inch thick about them. The balls thus formed were again thrown into the fire to be poked out again when cooked. The bread tasted well there in the desert, although in civilized communities the grit and ashes would have seemed unendurable. Continue reading Not your Daily Bread →

From Failed Resolution 1696 to Real Diplomacy

Anthropology/Sociology, Iran


Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

by William O. Beeman

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 1696 calling for Iran to suspend nuclear enrichment was passed on July 31, 2006 — nearly two years ago. Every sanction and demand placed on Iran since that time has been based on this Resolution (and its strengthened re-iteration, Resolution 1737 on December 23 of the same year).

Clearly after two years the Resolution and its follow-ups have not worked. Iran has not suspended its uranium enrichment activities, and indications this week are that it is not likely to do so in the future. The United States and its reluctant European allies obviously can not put enough pressure on Iran to cause it to abandon what the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — to which Iran (but not Israel, Pakistan or India) is signatory – provides as is its “inalienable right”: peaceful nuclear development. As long as it does not violate Provision One of the NPT, namely the agreement not to develop nuclear weaponry. Continue reading From Failed Resolution 1696 to Real Diplomacy →

Demise of IsIAO

Archaeology and Antiquities, Iran, Orientalism, Scholars

[Note: IsIAO teaches and researches most Oriental languages and cultures. More information on the situation is available here.]
Dear colleagues and friends,

I have been informed of the shocking news that a decree has been passed by the Italian Council of Ministers to shut down the famous Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (IsIAO). It is inconceivable that such an extraordinary institution which has been active during the past 100 years in promoting a knowledge of Iran, India, Afghanistan, the Far East, and recently also Africa with amazing success should be abolished.

Professor Giuseppe Tucci and his successor Professor Gherardo Gnoli have done wonders in spreading the knowledge of Iranian lands, their archaeology, their history and their culture. To deprive the Iranian Studies from the services and contributions of this marvelous institution is a severe blow to the promotion of the knowledge of Iran on the international scene.

Professor Tosi has sent an email requesting all supporters of Iranian studies to sign a letter written to the President of the Italian Republic to support the continuation of IsIAO. Please by all means add your signature to this letter and encourage your friends and colleagues to do so as well.

To add your signature visit http://iranica.c.topica.com/maalZ1nabItGzaE1MJ2b/ and please do this as soon as possible, hopefully before the end of the week. Thanks.

With best wishes,

Ehsan Yarshate, Encyclopaedia Iranica

Iranian Revolutionaries, 1906

Iran, Photography, Shi'a

“Crowd of Persian Revolutionists, Who, fearing the vengeance of the royal troops, took refuge int he British Legation in Teheran in 1906, and insisted on remaining there until the Shah gave them a parliament.”

Revolution is no stranger to modern Iran. In the May, 1908 issue of The National Geographic Magazine, published just a century ago, there was an article by W. P. Cresson entitled “Persia: The Awakening East.” Here is an excerpt from Cresson’s account of the newly formed parliament:

The strong nationalistic spirit that marks the new era in Persian affairs is one of the most interesting features of the present movement in Persia. It is not among the frock-coated European dandies of the court that we must look for the men who are now taking the leading part in the new agitation for reform. Many of the constitutionalistic leaders wear the flowing robes and white turban of the Mohammedan priesthood. Recently the Liberal Parliament by an overwhelming majority voted to suppress the publication of a Teheran newspaper which had dared to propose the substitution of a new civil code modeled on European lines for the old common law based on the precepts of the Koran. One of the chief causes of popular complaint against the leaders of the Court party is their subserviency to foreign influences and their unpatriotic policy of importing foreign officials into Persia, notably in the case of the customs administration. Continue reading Iranian Revolutionaries, 1906 →

Keith Ellison’s Iran Forum

Anthropology/Sociology, Iran, Terrorism Issue

Keith Ellison’s Iran Forum and the June 10 Call-In to Congress

By Lydia Howell, Engage Minnesota, June 6, 2008

On May 28, U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., hosted Iran scholars for a community forum in a packed hall at the First Unitarian Society church in Minneapolis. The focus was on the U.S.-Iran relationship, estranged for over 30 years, which many fear may become the next chapter in the Bush administration’s “war on terrorism.”

“Nary a day goes by that someone isn’t saying something abut Iran in the media. Part of my responsibility as a U.S. congressman is to be a forum to discuss the critical issues we face and to promote dialog about the most pressing issues,” said Ellison. “To quote [African-American writer] James Baldwin: Anything that cannot be faced cannot be fixed.”

In the first half of 2008, newspaper front pages and television news have begun repeating a message about a Middle Eastern country that has not attacked the United States but which allegedly “poses a grave threat,” “may build nuclear weapons” and “must be prevented from making war on its neighbors.” In 2002-3, such stories were about Iraq; now, Iran is being described in similar ways. No actual evidence is given for the frightening allegations about Iran—which are too often made by unnamed “Pentagon officials” or the same members of right-wing think tanks that previously pushed the disastrous attack on Iraq. Continue reading Keith Ellison’s Iran Forum →