Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Shiʿi theocratic state in Iran has occasionally prioritized state interests over traditional shariʿa rulings. This dynamic is best understood through the lens of the principle of maslahat (variously translated as “public good” or “the interests of the state), which has played a central role in guiding strategic state decisions. By invoking maslahat, the state has justified the modification or suspension of certain shariʿa prescriptions in pursuit of broader political and social objectives. These objectives, primarily safeguarding the Shiʿi theocratic order (hefz-e nezām) and protecting the religion from defamation (vahn-e din), were key tenets articulated by Ayatollah Khomeini and remain foundational to the state's governance. This pragmatic utilization of maslahat has enabled the Shiʿi theocratic state to adapt its legal framework to meet contemporary challenges while ostensibly adhering to shariʿa principles. Notable examples of this adaptability include reforms such as the equalization of blood money for religious minorities and the imposition of moratoriums on stoning executions. However, the inherently subjective nature of maslahat raises concerns about potential arbitrariness and misuse, prompting debates among Shiʿi jurists regarding its legitimacy and scope. This study offers a comprehensive analysis of maslahat within Iran's legal system, exploring its mechanisms, applications, and implications, and highlighting its complex role in both advancing and potentially challenging the principles of Islamic law.

This article centers on tsarist Russian officials’ understandings of and approaches to the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1905–11). Although these officials relied on fragmental information and reflected internal discoordination in their dealings with Iran over the course of the revolution, a diachronic shift marked the policies they formulated in response. Although many of them attempted to navigate the Constitutional Revolution’s complexity in its early phases, they tended toward the use of force as unrest continued, culminating in the Russian invasion of northern Iran in December 1911. Uncritically confident in their exercise of power, Russian officials proceeded without considering alternative courses of action or the potential costs of military engagement in the revolution’s final stages. This heavy-handedness reflected continuity with the tsarist government’s crackdowns on socialists in the Caucasus after the Russian Revolution of 1905, and presaged its repressive, self-defeating responses to uprisings across the Russian Empire from 1912 to 1917.

This paper examines the funding model of the Shahyad Aryamehr Monument (c. 1971) and the architectural strategies employed by the monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to project the narrative that the monument, a symbol of Iranian modernity and an international brand, was fully funded by voluntary donations from merchants and industrialists. This claim was positioned as a testament to the shah’s path to modernization through the White Revolution, a Cold War-era policy presenting Iran’s modernity as an alternative to capitalism and communism. Drawing on archival documents, print media, oral histories, and visual records, this paper contextualizes the Shahyad Monument within the broader philanthropic landscape of Iran’s 2500th Anniversary of the Founding of the Persian Empire by Cyrus the Great (Imperial Celebration), particularly projects such as Persepolis Forest. The analysis reveals significant doubts about the voluntary nature of the donations, in contrast to the monarchy’s narrative. Despite this, the celebration deployed various tactics to amplify the funding model’s symbolic power, including print proclamations, visual campaigns presenting Shahyad as a symbol of industrial progress, commemorative plaques, and the choreographed prominence of donors during the inauguration ceremony. These strategies underscored the shah’s leadership and sought to reinforce the image of widespread public support for his modernization agenda.

1911 to 1935 was a chaotic, yet foundational, period in the transformation of the police force in Tehran and Iran more broadly. The nationalization of modern Iranian policing can be traced back to this time period. This article explores the role of nationalism and anti-imperialism on policing, how the structure and process of policing underwent transformation, including how police were recruited, trained, and deployed. Localized and decentralized policing was slowly abandoned in favor of an integrated national force, with policing through mediation being replaced with the exercise of power in a top-down and center to periphery manner. Education of police officers also underwent transformation, as new strategies were pursued to create a modern nationalist Iranian police force.

The epic folk story of Köroğlu, popular among various Turkic peoples, was also widespread among the Tajiks of the upper Oxus valleys of southern Tajikistan and adjoining Badakhshān of northern Afghanistan. The Tajik versions of the story, known as Gurughli or Gurghuli, while sharing parts of the plot and outline with Köroğlu, are distinctly shaped by Tajik culture and Iranian national traditions in both form and content. This study explores various aspects of this oral tradition, including bards and their performances, the structure, plot, and themes of their repertoires, and the documentation history. This study also assesses scholarly views on the origins and development of Tajik Gurughli. The article is supplemented by five sample texts, selected to represent major cycles of the genre.1

This paper provides a sociolinguistic and grammatical synopsis of Bavadi Bakhtiari, spoken in Chahar Mahal va Bakhtiari Province, Iran. The results presented here are based on the collection of linguistic and cultural data through field research, including ethnographic research, recording of oral texts, elicitation of a language data questionnaire, and follow-up interviews with speakers of the language. In addition to providing a linguistic snapshot of the Bavadi variety of Bakhtiari in its social context, this study offers a novel contribution to the documentation of Iran’s linguistic heritage through the presentation and analysis of culturally important oral texts of various genres. While one text belongs to the controlled and formulaic genre of the folktale, two other texts are based on free conversation among groups of speakers.

This article examines the challenges of subject formation within state-building efforts by analyzing Keyhān-e Bachcheh-hā (Children’s Universe), a widely circulated Iranian children’s magazine during the post-revolutionary period. Through analyzing the magazine’s content from 1979 to 1989, when the Islamic Republic was consolidating its power and building institutions, this study reveals how the publication served as a key informal education platform, attempting to create politically conscious yet ideologically compliant young citizens. While the magazine aimed to cultivate revolutionary consciousness through anti-imperialist rhetoric and Islamic values, it simultaneously imposed rigid behavioral and ideological boundaries to produce what I term “docile revolutionary children.” The research demonstrates how political themes permeated every aspect of the magazine—from stories and poems to puzzles and contests—transforming it from an entertainment platform into a vehicle for political socialization. Through examination of revolutionary and wartime discourses, gender representation, and the promotion of social humility, this study argues that Keyhān-e Bachcheh-hā embodied a fundamental tension in the state’s vision of ideal citizenship: the simultaneous demand for revolutionary agency and absolute submission to clerical authority. This research contributes to our understanding of how post-revolutionary states employ cultural institutions to shape young citizens and the inherent contradictions in such efforts at political socialization.

The Mongol conquest of Iran (1220–1231) coincided with the “literarization of history” across the Islamic world. In Iran, this phenomenon was characterized by the production of verse histories, modeled on Firdaūsī’s Shāh-nāmah. Ḥakīm Zajjājī’s Humāyūn-nāmah is one of the lesser-known examples of this genre, with modern scholars disputing both the date of its composition and the historical value of its contents. The present article analyzes the personalities and events described in the Humāyūn-nāmah, situating it in the broader community of letters cultivated by the Īlkhānid vizier Shams al-Dīn Juvaynī between 1249–1284. This article shows that the Humāyūn-nāmah was not only a piece of art, but a valuable eye-witness account of early Mongol rule in Iran (1220–1258).

Abdol-Hossain Taymourtash, Reza Shah’s first minister of court, was universally recognized as the most powerful man in Iran after the shah himself. He was the lieutenant, ran the government for him. He played a key role at the shah’s side in selecting cabinet ministers and the deputies to be elected to parliament. He helped shape and realize Reza Shah’s vision for the revival and modernization of Iran. Yet in 1933, royal favor was suddenly withdrawn, and Taymourtash was arrested and imprisoned where, in all probability Reza Shah had him put to death. This article focuses on the always fraught relationship between a powerful autocrat and his loyal and efficacious lieutenant, and on the dilemma of those who wish to serve their countries and end up doing so at the cost of serving as the agents of a dictatorship.

This essay considers the “great” status of Shah ‘Abbās I, the most consequential Safavid ruler, by comparing European descriptions to his portrayal in the Persian-language sources. While both depict him as energetic, resolute, and unadorned in attire and demeanor, European sources present him primarily as an empire builder while Persian-language works focus on his role as a warrior on horseback, fighting external enemies and putting down domestic revolts. Neither accounts ignore the violence that came with absolute power, but while Europeans viewed such violence as an unfortunate byproduct of power, Persian chronicles celebrate ‘Abbās as a ghāzi warrior, merciless in his efforts to root out heretics and unbelievers. The surviving image of the shah as a “great” ruler was first reported by European visitors and is primarily a composite of the way they depicted him – as a Renaissance prince and determined empire builder who remained close to his subjects and their concerns.

This article challenges the dominant narrative of AI in Iran as a symbol of national success and technological sovereignty by examining its materiality. The Iranian government often underscores AI’s role in countering sanctions and securing national interests. However, this national narrative overlooks the complex realities of AI’s implementation. By examining the material endpoints of AI – such as data centers, supercomputers, and digital labor – this article reveals a fragmented vision of AI, one that is entangled with global neoliberal practices. The analysis uncovers the sociopolitical and economic forces shaping AI in Iran, arguing that it reflects both the nation’s ambitions and its vulnerabilities, offering a nuanced perspective on AI and its role in contemporary Iranian society.

By examining the history of the Ahvāz pipe mill in the 1960s and 1970s, this article investigates the manner in which competing understandings of Iran's modernizing trajectory among Pahlavi officials were bound up with the material aspects of steel, such as weight, volume, and form. The mill was built to provide pipe for the First Iran Gas Trunkline, a sprawling system intended to gather, refine, and transport natural gas to Iranian cities and the Soviet Caucasus. Officials overseeing the project debated whether the mill's design should prioritize serving the pipeline project or, more ambitiously, establish a new pipe rolling industry able to serve domestic and regional markets. Argued in this article is the significance of attending to infrastructure and materiality in understanding Iran's twentieth-century history of developmentalism.

This article draws on documentary texts from multilingual archives of early Islamic Central Asia to illustrate connections between the Arabic and Middle Iranian scribal world. Here, I contend that some lesser-known evidence from Sogdia contributes new elements to current debates on the contact between Arabic and Middle Iranian scribal traditions and provides a measure of “intensity” of Arab rule in the region more generally. In particular, ostraca from various Transoxanian administrative centers provide documentary confirmation that a class of biliterate Arabic-Sogdian scribes was active in the local bureaucracy as early as the mid-8th century. When viewed in dialogue with archives from coeval Iran and Iraq, the Transoxanian evidence helps lead to a more nuanced understanding of the so-called “Pahlavi diplomatic substrate” model.

This article examines five Sasanian bullae from the fire temple of Ādur Gušnasp with seal impressions depicting Aphrodite and Eros, and Aphrodite Anadyomene. It is argued that the original seal with Aphrodite and Eros likely dates from the late 1st century BCE to the early 1st century CE, reused between the 5th–7th centuries CE, while the Aphrodite Anadyomene seal is from the 2nd or 3rd century CE. Contextualizing these findings within Graeco-Roman and Iranian cultures, this article explores reinterpretations of Graeco-Roman iconography for both Zoroastrian and non-Zoroastrian audiences, as well as highlights that bullae with concave impressions of cylindrically curved objects on the reverse had once been attached to vessels, not just documents. Additionally, this article also discusses other sealings on the new bullae, some with Middle Persian inscriptions, identifying a mgw (priest) and an astrologer, providing the first attestation of the word axtar (constellation) on a Sasanian seal.

The works of prominent contemporary Iranian composers Hossein Alīzādeh and Parvīz Meshkātīān demonstrate a novel approach to the text-music relationship, characterized by a new understanding of the interaction between music's internal syntax and structure and the external world. This innovative approach, which can be described as “musical realism,” strives to represent textual meanings through musical gestures, particularly within the tasnīf genre, a metrical, pre-composed song with a pre-determined way of accompaniment, which developed over the past century.1 This approach, emerging primarily in contemporary compositions, is exemplified by the above two composers, who illustrate textual meaning through the intricate utilization of innovative treatments of modes, rhythm, melody, and texture relying on the potentials of the core of Persian musical tradition, the radīf – a collection of traditional Iranian melodic figures passed down orally through generations and serving as the foundational framework for improvisation and composition.2 By examining select instances from these composers’ works, I highlight the growing emphasis on a realist music-text relationship and its interplay with both the inner structures of Persian classical music and the broader context of Iran's modern position in the world.

In November 1980, a twenty-nine-year-old contract worker in Hammond, Louisiana by the name of Stephen K. Clark was arrested and charged with criminal mischief for painting a thirty-foot mural of Mickey Mouse “making an obscene gesture to Iran” on the side of Sunflower supermarket. According to the store's manager, Clark had been hired to give the store a fresh coat of yellow paint before going wildly off script. The Hammond city prosecutor told the press that Clark would face jail time if convicted for his renegade painting, which, alongside the enormous image of Mickey, featured a word balloon proclaiming “We're fed up. Hey Iran!”1 This was no one-off use of Mickey's likeness to send a message to Iran. At the dawn of the 1980s, the image and sentiment Clark felt compelled to share had become curiously popular across the United States, appearing in surprising places all over the country.

Manijeh Moradian published a memoir essay in 2009 under the penname Nasrabadi in which she described her relationship with her father. The essay appeared in Callaloo—a journal dedicated to “matters pertinent to African American and African Diaspora Studies worldwide.”1 It was a fitting venue given the elder Moradian's years of service as a professor of architecture at Howard University, an HBCU (historically Black colleges and universities) where during the 1970s he sympathized with and supported student activists in the Iranian Students Association (ISA).2 The venue is all the more fitting given the younger Moradian's recent monograph which, among many groundbreaking contributions, demonstrates “affects of solidarity” between Iranian and Black American student activists in the 1970s.

This paper examines the materialization of trauma as both a narrative and embodied phenomenon in Hassan Bani Ameri's 2006 novel, Gonjeshkha Behesht ra Mifahmand, using contemporary narrative and trauma theory. The postmodernist narrative, told from the perspective of a photojournalist, reconstructs events surrounding the death of a celebrated Iran-Iraq War commander. I argue that traumatic truths resist full integration into conventional frameworks of understanding, evident in the novel's non-linear, fragmented narrative and its shift from visual realism to confessional surrealism in an ending that challenges traditional storytelling and historical documentation. By vividly simulating the sensory processing of traumatic memories, the novel emphasizes the material reality of trauma that demands to be seen, heard, and physically felt, thus negating celebratory institutional narratives around the culture of war and martyrdom.