The historiography on the early Safavids emphasizes the political role of Turkish tribes called collectively the Qizilbash. Ismail I founded the Safavid empire in 1501 with the military support of the Qizilbash, whose loyalty was due to their devotion to him as a divine figure. According to Roger Savory and Hans Roemer, Qizilbash respect for the Safavid house diminished after the defeat at Chaldiran in 1514 such that when Ismail was succeeded by his 10-year-old son Tahmasp, the Qizilbash amirs seized power for themselves. For these scholars, the first ten years of Tahmasp’s reign (the “Qizilbash interregnum,” 1524–34) saw a near-constant conflict among the Qizilbash tribes over control of the empire. The leaders of these tribes, according to the standard narrative, competed for the office of vakil, which would allow them to act on the shah’s behalf even while they marginalized and excluded him from important decision-making. This paper offers a different view of the relationship between the shah and the Qizilbash during the interregnum. Through close reading of several sixteenth-century Safavid chronicles, a picture emerges of a strong shah and a largely loyal Qizilbash during much of the so-called interregnum. Particularly after 1527 with the advent of the Tekelu Period of the interregnum, the shah played an increasingly influential and independent role in Safavid politics, operating independently of the vakil and sometimes making decisions counter to the vakil’s best interest. The paper will focus on certain key events in the interregnum – the Battle of Jam (1528), the Tekelu Disaster (1531), and the fall of Husayn Khan Shamlu (1534) – to show that the shah always held a position of respect among the Qizilbash, and that his political authority grew gradually throughout the period. Analysis of this period sheds light on the larger patterns of tribe-state relations in sixteenth-century Iran. It contributes to a broader study that reconceptualizes tribes as an integral part of the Safavid system, rather than casting them simply as troublesome outliers that the state had to marginalize in order to govern effectively.

In 2009, President Ahmadinejad and his administration began to invoke nationalist sentiments, paying homage to Iran’s pre-Islamic history—a significant shift from the Islamic Republic’s 30-year practice of disparaging this period. Does the official use of this discourse indicate the emergence of a new form of nationalism based in Islam and Persian history and even a shift in Iranian conceptions of a nation? Or the government is trying to co-opt the symbols of their political opponents? What are the political conditions creating this new discourse? Does it differ from versions of nationalism promoted by the Shah and its counter proposed during the early years of the Islamic Republic? This essay, based on two years of fieldwork in Iran, examines the conditions and ramifications of this discursive shift through a qualitative comparative analysis of an array of textual materials. In particular, it asks how the new discourse’s conception of the relationship between history, religion, and politics differs from the Shi‘i-oriented nationalism promoted during the early years of the Republic as well as from the secular alternative proposed by the previous Pahlavi dynasty. I discuss the internal political context and growing domestic opposition that have made this discourse possible and that result from a political climate that has rendered both of the older brands of nationalism inadequate. Ahmadinejad has responded to this climate by strategically adopting the new discourse, which is built on a return to the pre-Islamic grandeur of Persia and is buttressed by apocalyptic Shi‘i eschatology. The paper will also address religious and political genealogies of Ahmadinejad’s discourse by looking at the modes by which Abbasid, Safavid, and Qajar dynasties mobilized support and legitimated their rules. Through this analysis, the hope is to present a multi-layered portrait of the roots and ramifications of this contemporary shift toward what I term “Neo-Iranian Nationalism.”

The Baloch make up approximately three percent of Iran’s population, or 2.7 million inhabitants, compared to 8 million in Pakistan. Throughout the twentieth century the transborder Baloch population has maintained a strong sense of ethnic identity despite being divided between the two nations. The Iranian government in particular has invested in Balochistan significantly since 1979 but most of the Sistani-Baloch villages still lack proper facilities, including schools and good roads. Pakistan’s Balochistan province also remains one of the poorest in the country. This paper will examine three major influences that have transformed the Baloch populations in both Iran and Pakistan in recent years: the rise of Salafism, the U.S. war in Afghanistan, and the instability of Pakistan. Further, it will examine how an increase in Baloch separatist activity has drawn Pakistan and Iran closer together recently as they seek new ways to confront such groups as the Jondallah, or People’s Resistance of Iran, and other Baloch separatist movements operating in Pakistan. With Pakistan increasingly destabilized due in part to an uncertain domestic political dynamic, both Iranian and Pakistani Baloch have leveraged the volatile environment to call for greater autonomy and, in some cases, independence. As a result, Tehran and Islamabad have grown increasingly uneasy with the current situation and are seeking new ways to collaborate and cooperate as demonstrated by the recent conclusion of a bilateral preferential trade agreement and proposals for a bilateral security pact. Indeed, this opposes certain thinking about the Shi’a-Sunni regional divide. Moreover, strategic national interest trumps this historical division between the two nations and demonstrates the pragmatic foreign policies of both Iran and Pakistan. As the U.S. military withdraws from Afghanistan, the national security strategies of Iran and Pakistan will depend on close collaboration to mitigate any negative spillover effects following a U.S. departure.

Although art historical evaluation of visual art was taught by the 1950s in Iran, educators normally evaluated art in the context of aesthetics and classical theories of beauty. In systematic discussions, they would describe artworks from the European historical points of view. With the emergence of first modern galleries and local modern art many critics championed the new art movement and proclaimed it as the epitome of aesthetic values and still others wrote negatively about new trends and exhibitions. Many dominating figures wrote bold and novel reviews about the first Tehran Biennials, new exhibitions and modernist artists of the time. This paper proceeds in three steps. First, it focuses on early reviews written about avant-garde exhibitions in Tehran of the late 1950s and 1960s and the emergence of early signs of modern art criticism. It discusses how articles, write-ups and interviews about early modernist trendsetters paved the way and became sources of academic art criticism, not only in regards to method and analysis, but for documentations and knowledge about those artists, setting the framework for further scholarship. Among the print sources used for analysis are: Ayandegan, Ettela‘at, Ferdowsi, Ketab-e hafteh, Keyhan & Kayhan International, Negin, Rastakhiz & Rastakhiz-e Javanan, Sokhan, Tamasha, various exhibition catalogs, and documents from Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art. Second, the early writings lead to inception of critic-historians who combined different areas of traditional art historical study with critical knowledge of intellectual issues and development of alternative perspectives about popular culture and visual art. This paper intends to place art literature of the mid twentieth century Iran in its historical context, examining notable trends and important popular themes, as well as negative reactions towards early modernists and provocative exhibitions. Third, it focuses on the role major critics played in future direction and development of modern art and the field of art criticism, examining how they directly and indirectly impacted modern trends and promoted artists through print-media.

The decades-long crisis in Afghanistan continues to constitute a matter of geopolitical import in Iran and internationally. Focusing on the five-year period of Taliban rule (1996-2001), in this paper I analyze the discourse of the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding the Afghanistan crisis. In order to contribute to our knowledge of Iranian-Afghan relations, I explore changes and continuities in that discourse—treating the Taliban’s 1998 murder of Iranian diplomats and the 2001 American-led assault on Afghanistan as critical historical junctures. Quantitatively, I examine the extent to which the discourse dealt with the crisis. Qualitatively, I employ critical discourse analysis so as to explicate the language used by members and organs of the Iranian government to discuss the crisis. Conclusively, I present the relatively continuous (purported) beliefs and concerns which dominated official Iranian discourse on Afghanistan: Iran’s rhetorical opposition to military intervention; propagation of the crisis by the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan; the Taliban’s damage to the international image of Islam; women’s rights; and, to a lesser degree, drug trafficking, Iranian national security, and the influx of Afghan refugees to Iran. Despite marked continuity in the expression of most of these concerns and beliefs, the discourse indeed displayed some ambivalence regarding military intervention after the aforementioned historical junctures in 1998 and 2001. My research encompasses numerous articles published from 1996 to 2001 in three Iranian periodicals. First, Echo of Islam is an English-language international magazine published originally by the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and later by the Islamic Thought Foundation—an organ of the Islamic Republic. Second, Saturday editions of the newspaper Ittila‘at constitute another major source. Though privately owned, Ittila‘at contains many articles from the Islamic Republic News Agency and Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting—both of which cover domestic and international affairs, as well as related statements by high-ranking Iranian officials. Additionally, Ittila‘at regularly highlights Friday sermons in which high-ranking clerics communicate the Islamic Republic’s concerns and beliefs regarding the Afghanistan crisis. Lastly, articles published by the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution in Payam-i Inqilab supplement the other two sources. Whereas the articles in Echo of Islam represent rhetoric targeting foreign audiences, articles in Payam-i Inqilab and Ittila‘at exemplify discourse directed at the domestic audience. Consequentially, in this paper I deliver novel, well-rounded research on the discourse of various members and organs of the Iranian government regarding the Taliban and the crisis in Afghanistan.