History of Iran

In this essay I seek to explore the icon of the Fighting Cock movement (Khorus Jangi) and of its Manifesto, " The Slaughterer of the Nightingale, " in order to consider its implications and imagistic allusions. In outlining the background of the Khorus Jangi and associated movements, I discuss the imagery of the khorus both in ancient Iran and globally, and in the context of the ideology of the Khorus Jangi. The Manifesto is discussed and analyzed and it is seen that the khorus prefigured the Manifesto, and heralded the appearance of a new movement in painting, as distinct from what had already happened in surrealist and modernist circles in writing. The manifestation of surrealist and modernist ideology in imagery seems to have been a response to this wake-up call of the Khorus Jangi.

Aida Foroutan, “Why the Fighting Cock? The Significance of the Imagery of the Khorus Jangi and its Manifesto ‘The Slaughterer of the Nightingale,’” Iran Namag, Volume 1, Number 1 (Spring 2016), XXVIII-XLIX.

https://www.irannamag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1.1-English-Foroutan-Iran-Namag.pdf

This article analyzes the techniques by which the kings of the early Sasanian dynasty engaged the past and shaped the experience of future generations. I concentrate on the innovations and legacy of the first two kings of kings of the dynasty, Ardashir I (r. 224–239/40 C.E.) and his son Shapur I (239/40–270/2 C.E.). These sovereigns fashioned a new and politically useful vision of the past to establish their dynasty's primacy in Persia and the wider Iranian world, eclipsing their Seleucid, Fratarakid, and Arsacid predecessors. I identify and examine the artistic, architectural, and ritual means by which the early Sasanians conformed the built and natural environment of their homeland to their grand new vision of the past. I argue that the Achaemenid patrimony of the province of Pars played an important role in these efforts, serving as inspirations and anchors for the Sasanians' new creations.

Cengiz Han’ın ölümü ile birlikte onun kurmuş olduğu büyük imparatorluk oğulları arasında pay edilmiştir. Çağatay Han,  Doğu ve Batı Türkistan’ın hemen hemen bütün bölgelerinde hakimiyet kurmuştur. Çağatay Hanlığı dini çeşitlilik bakımından kozmopolit bir yapıya sahiptir. Çagatay Han bu bölgelerde hakimiyetini sağlamlaştırmak maksadı ile istimâlet politikası gütmüştür. 1326 tarihinde Tarmaşirin Han Çağatay Hanlığı’nın hükümdarlığına geçmiş ve Müslümanlığı kabul ettikten sonra Alâeddin adını almıştır. Tarmaşirin’in İslamiyet’i kabul etmesi ile birlikte İslam ülkeleri ve Çağatay Hanlığı arasındaki ticari ve siyasi ilişkiler gelişme göstermiştir. Tarmaşirin’in İslam ülkeleri ile iyi ilişkiler içinde olması Moğol gelenek ve göreneklerine bağlı bazı kesimler tarafından hoş karşılanmamış ve Tarmaşirin’in amcaoğlu Bûzun’a bağlılıklarını bildirmişlerdir. Çağatay Hanlığı’nı yeniden canlandırmak isteyen gelenekçi Yedisu ve Cungarya’da bulunan Moğol beyleri Tarmaşirin’i tahttan indirerek onu öldürmüşlerdir. Tarmaşirin Han’ın öldürülmesi üzerine çıkan karışıklıklar ve istikrarsızlık hanlığın çöküşüne kadar gitmiştir. Siyasi bir birlikteliğin olmaması sonucu  Çağatay ulusu ikiye ayrılmıştır. Birisi yerleşik ve halkın çoğunluğu Müslüman olan Maverâünnehir, diğeri ise Moğol gelenek ve göreneklerine bağlı, atlı-göçebe kültürünü devam ettiren Moğolistan olmuştur.

With the death of Genghis Khan, the great empire he founded was shared among his sons. Chagatai Khan established dominance in almost all the regions of East and West Turkistan. Chagatai Khanate has a cosmopolitan structure in terms of
religious diversity. Chagatai Khan pursued a policy of exploitation in order to consolidate his dominance in these regions. In 1326, Tarmashirin Khan became the ruler of Chagatai Khanate and took the name Alaeddin after converting to Islam. With
Tarmashirin's adoption of Islam, trade and political relations between Islamic countries and Chagatai Khanate developed. The fact that Tarmashirin had good relations with Islamic countries was not welcomed by some sections of the Mongolian
traditions and customs and they announced their allegiance to his uncle's son Buzun. The traditional Mongolian lords in Yedisu and Dzungaria who wanted to revive the Chagatai Khanate, dethroned Tarmashirin and killed him. The turmoil and
instability following the killing of Tarmashirin Khan led all the way to the collapse of the khanate. As a result of the lack of political unity, the Chagatai nation was divided into two. One was the settled Transoxiana, the majority of which was
Muslim, and the other was Mongolia, which maintained its equestrian-nomadic culture, adhering to Mongolian traditions and customs.

This chapter seeks to place Iran’s recent foreign policies in the Cold War and beyond in the broader context of the country’s experiences in international affairs. Modern Iran emerged around 1501, when Esma‘il I, a youthful prince descended from Muslim, Georgian, Turkish, and Byzantine royalty and nobility, proclaimed himself shah and re-established a Persian state after a hiatus of nine centuries. From that time onward, ensuring Iran’s security and at times its survival repeatedly impelled its leaders to seek support from imposing external allies or patrons who could help the new state to resist the threats, demands, and assaults of powerful and often threatening neighbors. From the late fifteenth to the early eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was by far the most dangerous international opponent of Iran. In response, Esma‘il and his successors turned to European powers and Russia for assistance. From the late eighteenth century, expansionist Russia represented the greatest threat to both Iran and the Ottoman Empire, prompting both states to seek the protection of the British Empire. In practice, for much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this often meant that Britain and Russia effectively colluded in dividing Iran into spheres of influence. This pattern recurred when Britain and the Soviet Union were allied against Adolf Hitler’s Germany during World War II, a conflict that also brought the United States into direct involvement in Iran’s affairs. As British power in Iran declined, the United States stepped in, organizing a coup that cemented the hold on power of Shah Reza Mohammad Pahlavi and effectively replacing Britain as Iran’s foremost international ally and patron. Following the Shah’s overthrow in 1979 and the Islamic Revolution, which left the nation locked in bitter antagonism with the United States and vulnerable to attack by neighboring Iraq, Iran was initially somewhat friendless. From 1980 to 1988, it was locked in a bitter, stalemated war with Iraq, in which up to one million Iranians died or were seriously wounded. Facing continued hostility from the United States and also from Israel and Saudi Arabia, together with threats to its nuclear program, in the early twenty-first century Iran turned for security to post-Soviet Russia. As China’s reach expanded dramatically in these years, stretching well into Central Asia and beyond, Iran’s leaders also believed it profitable to align their country with the ambitious and increasingly influential new global superpower. The history of Iran’s involvement with major external powers nonetheless suggests that the purported new triple alliance will soon find itself navigating treacherous territory and troubled waters.

PDF ON REQUEST
Dynastic connections in the Arsacid Empire and the origins of the House of Sāsān, in: The Parthian and Early Sasanian Empires: Adaptation and expansion, Editors: Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis; Elizabeth Pendleton; Touraj Daryaee; Michael Alram, Oxford and Philadelphia: Oxbow, 2016, 23-35.

See http://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/the-parthian-and-early-sassanian-empires.html [Published by the British Institute of Persian Studies (BIPS) Archaeological Monographs Series]

ABSTRACT
The old rivalry between branches of the Parthian royal house
and clans, including the Younger (western) Arsacids, the
Gondopharids in Indo-Parthia, the Sūrēn and Kārin, revived
when a rebellion broke out in Persis under the leadership
of Ardashir I, son of the Gondopharid prince Sāsān. The
connections between the Gondopharids of Sakastan and
the Sūrēn with Persis under Ardashir eventually led to the
overthrow of the Younger Arsacids.
A comparison of the diverse traditions about Sāsān shows
that the Persian writings and Sasanian inscriptions were
manipulated for specific political reasons. The Shahnameh
tradition traces Sāsān’s ancestry to the late Kayanids, harking
back to the historical Achaemenids. The same tradition
suggests that the ancestral seat of Sāsān’s forebears was in
India, where they had fled in fear of Alexander. Sāsān was
in fact a member of the Arsacid Gondopharid line, the ruling
dynasty of Indo-Parthia, who reigned in Afghanistan and the
north-western regions of India. Even under Farn-Sāsān they
held Sakastan, Arachosia and probably part of Sind.
Most probably Sāsān was the father of Ardashir, as
indicated by the Shahnameh, Agathias and the Armenian
authors, and as implied by Narseh’s inscription at Paikuli.
The coins and inscriptions of Ardashir I and Shapur I say
Ardashir I was the son of Pābag. Tabari, Kārnāmāg and
Bundahishn give a version that Ardashir’s father was Pābag,
but include Sāsān in the genealogy.
For reasons of propaganda Ardashir I, and later Shapur I,
endeavoured to downplay Sāsān’s role, so as not to be
perceived in Persis/Fars as a foreign dynasty. The paradox
is that, assuming Sāsān was Ardashir’s father, the Sasanian
dynasty in fact had a Parthian, and perhaps even an Arsacid
ancestry. Moreover, the early Sasanians built up their empire
thanks to the support of the chief clans of Parthia including
the Sūrēn and Kārin. That is why the Sasanian Ērānšahr
has been referred to as “the empire of the Persians and
Parthians”. And that is why Ammianus perceived the royal
house of Persia as the Arsacids.

Prof. Hamid Dabashi’s book, focusing on the dynamics of change and transition within the Shi’ite historical context, presents a panoramic perspective discussing conflict, uprising and conciliation periods of this significant sect within the history of Islam. Using Freudian psychoanalysis theory, Dabashi evaluates Shi’ite positioning against the regime and authority along with its protest discourse as a result of martyrdom at Karbala of Hossein, a grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

While discussing this process, the author not only analyzes the significance and fight of the historical figures but also modern ideologues and artists. At the end of his analysis on the 1979 Revolution, Dabashi summarizes entire historical process as; “It thrives and is triumphant when it is combative and wages an uphill battle; it loses
its moral authority and defiant voice the instant it succeeds and is in power. It is, paradoxically, only in power when it is not in power—when it in power, it lacks legitimacy, authority, audacity.”

Mustafa Bıyıklı’nın Editör olduğu Türk Dış Politikası kitabının - Cumhuriyet Dönemi, “Türkiye’nin ve Büyük Güçlerin İran Politikası (1945-1979)” başlıklı bir kitap bölümü yazmıştır. Kitap bölümünde İkinci Dünya Savaşı sonrasında Türkiye-İran ilişkilerinde önemli gelişmeler ele alınmış. ABD, Orta Doğu’da komünizmin yayılmasını önlemek üzere öncelikle Türkiye, Yunanistan ve İran’a ekonomik yardımları vurgulanmış, CIA’nın girişimleri ve Musaddık’a karşı yapılan kara propaganda ile Şah yanlısı askerler ve CIA’ın adamlarının 1953’te özel bir operasyonla Musaddık’ı devirmeleri ve İran’da 1979 Rıza Pehlevi yönetiminin devrilmesi ele alınmıştır.

The Israeli-Iranian relations have undergone different friendly and hostile periods for decades. The current fundamentalist period is only one among different durations that reshaped the foreign policy for both states before and after the Islamic revolution in Iran 1979. It is widely believed that the current dispute is nothing but a game between the U.S , Israel and Iran to get some special benefits agreed upon. This paper answers the question Is the war between the Iranian and Israeli regimes real or a lie that has been present for decades. Is what happening really harming both states or not? How such a paper can figure out this issue? By applying the realist theory that can appropriately explain the situation, the paper argues and emphasizes the exist conflict between the two states at least in some points. Such an understanding will help reconsider the current issues and predict the future implications regarding the relations between the two states.

Structural functionalism is a social approach to trace out the complex society where all segments work together regarding promoting solidarity and stability. Likewise, cosmopolitanism means a society where people from distinct cultures, ethnicities and religious backgrounds not only live together but interact with each other too. This study aims to highlight that any state and the society can experience both; structural functionalism and cosmopolitanism only when it establishes economic relations with its counterpart. As Iran and Turkmenistan are neighboring states while, Iranian Turkmens (staying at borderland) had dream to get regional autonomy on ethnic bases within Iran (under federal state structure) or amalgamation of Iranian Turkmen-populated region with Turkmenistan. Study proves that railway connectivity between both states regarding trade and cooperation (in different sectors) not only undermined ethnic dilemma at Iran-Turkmenistan border but it has been promoted structural functionalism and cosmopolitanism in major Turkmen-populated cities of Golestan Province, North Khorasan Province and Razavi Khorasan Province in Northeastern Iran.

“Wanderings Beyond Codification and Desire,” in Anthrohistory. Unsettling Knowledge, Questioning Discipline. Edward Murphy, Chandra D. Bhimull, Fernando Coronil, Monica Eileen Patterson and Julie Skurski eds. University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 2011.

Much attention in the West has focused on Iran as a problem country. This book challenges the representations of Iran as a hostile regional power led by ideologues, and goes further by discussing how international relations are viewed from inside Iran itself, outlining the factors which underpin Iranian thinking on international relations and considering what role Iran, as a large and significant country in the Middle East, ought to play in a fairly constructed international system.

The book is written by leading scholars and policy makers from inside, as well as from outside, Iran and includes academics with unparalleled access and insights into the world-views of the Iranian leadership. Subjects covered include: the rationale of Iran's Islamic constitution, including its electoral system, and the impact this has on international relations; Iran's view of the ideal international system, including the place therein of ethics, justice, and security; Iran's international interests, including energy needs; and relations with the West, including the clash between Iranian and Western views of the world order.

In this article, I attend to two forms of hearings (or nonhearings) in two distinctive courtsof law, both involving the persecution of Iranian dissidents in the 1980s. Drawing on myethnographic and archival research, inside and outside of Iran, I ponder the conditionsof possibility of confessions/testimonies and their affects and after-lives. The first caseinvolves the Islamic Republic’s televised trials of a group of leftist prisoners. The secondone is a symbolic court in The Hague, known as the Iran Tribunal, organized by somedissidents in diaspora, where witnesses testified against the Iranian regime. I meditate onthe relationship between these two different spaces of the “law” in their differing milieus,and the divergent modes of speaking and hearing they render possible or impossible. Icontemplate the kinds of ethical subjectivities they produce or shatter and reflect on theconditions and modes of speaking and hearing in relation to these topographies of coerciveand sympathetic courts.[Iran, revolution, people’s tribunals, witnessing, testimony]

In this paper, an attempt has been made to gather information about the Elamite cities and lands in the period when the Awan dynasty was known as the ruler of the Elamite world, and some suggestions have been made about the history, chronology and genealogy of the Elamite rulers in this period. Finally, a new periodization on the history of Elam in the third millennium BC is proposed.

«تشیع علوی و تشیع صفوی»، نظریه‌ای است که 44 سال قبل توسط علی شریعتی طرح شد و مباحث، نقدها و حتی تنش‌های قابل توجهی را برانگیخت. اینک، پس از گذشت بیش از چهار دهه از طرح این نظریه، شاید وقت آن باشد که با نگاهی به مختصات درونی این متن، به بررسی منتقدانه‌ی آن بنشینیم. چرا که فراتر از میزان دلبستگی، نوع ارزشگذاری و نقدهای سلبی و ایجابی وارد بر این نظریه و سایر آراء شریعتی، از یک واقعیت نمی‌توان چشم پوشید: این نظریه و برخی دیگر از نظریه‌های اجتماعی بومی در یک‌صد سال اخیر، بخشی مهم از میراث فکری، حافظه‌ی جمعی و سنت علمی مطالعات اجتماعی دین در ایران هستند.

The notion of revolution has been observed through various definitions. For instance, in political
science, revolution is a sudden and fundamental change in the government, whether a complete
change from one constitution or a modification of a current constitution (Aristotle). Another view
would suggest that revolution is the violent destruction of the regime to introduce previously
rejected groups into politics. Similarly, for Karl Marx, revolution is political and economic
changes in social structure and class domination (class struggle). However, not all believe in
Structural theory like Marx. Chalmers Johnson is not highlighting "Class Struggle." He precisely
eliminates the indication of struggle and proposes a Socio-psychological theory. However, Theda
Skocpol argued with her old generation and emphasized the social structure and political
institutions as the main revolution theory factor. Further, in this paper, the aim is to explain the
prominent theory of revolution (Marxism, revolutionary change, and structural theory of Skocpol)
and elect the theory that best supports the Iranian revolution that can illuminate the sequence of
how and why the Iranian revolution occurred.

Published by the Institute for History of Science, University of Tehran, Tarikh-e Elm is an Iranian journal founded in 2003 by Prof. Hadi „Alem-Zadeh, the then institute director. The Tarikh-e Elm is the first journal wholly dedicated to the history of science in Iran, although before the journal was established, other Iranian journals such as Tahghighat-e Islami, Farhang, Mirath-e Javidan, had published special issues in this field. Prof. Hadi „Alem-Zadeh was the editor-in-chief for the first five issues. Having retired, he was succeeded by Dr. Mohammad Bagheri since.
The journal, as its editor-in-chief announced in the sixth issue, aims “to acquaint those who are interested in the scientific heritage of Iran and other parts of the Islamic world with scientific researches in this field, to inform them of events in the history of science taking place in Iran, and to provide a context for circulation of scientific contributions in the history of exact and natural sciences from the Islamic period.” The language policy of the journal has changed over the course of its publication. In the first two issues, Persian was the only language used. However, from then on, the policy changed to include English and French. From the beginning, all abstracts of articles have been printed both in English and Persian.

As the theory of multiple modernities began to question the uniform transformation and conversion of all modern societies, several culturally specific definitions of secularism/laïcité by modernising elites were already prevalent in different nation states in the non-Western world. Although the Turkish constitution of 1928 was the first to set up a secular state and to explicitly define laïcité, as Talal Asad and others have noted, de facto secularisation in the form of control and definition of religion by the state had already been ongoing for the better part of a century.

This text gives some very small selection of details included in the forthcoming Caracalla: A Military Biography (as an advertisement) due to be published by Pen & Sword this year and in fact provides also a short overview of some of the unconventional strategies and tactics employed by Caracalla together with some quite new info regarding period equipment and military practices. A much fuller discussion of all things connected to military matters in its widest sense can be found in the book.

Sixty-six years ago, “Operation Ajax,” as the plot was code-named, reshaped the history of Iran, the Middle East, and the world. Following WWII, the tides of nationalism and anticolonialism poured across Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Iranian military officers supported and financed by the CIA from the U.S. and Britain’s MI-6 intelligence agencies along with several million dollars initiated a coup d'etat whose ‘blowback’ is still felt today. The events, regarding Iran’s burgeoning democracy in 1951, transpiring over a five-day period from August 15-19 resonated far beyond Iran's borders and despite sixty-six years of history, the coup continues to weigh heavily on Iran's national psyche. The United States, which depicted itself as the protector, custodian and godparent of freedom, liberty and democracy was seen as resorting to nefarious affairs to rid itself of a democratically elected government to fit its own geopolitical strategic interests.

For a country that was never colonized, the title of the present article is greatly preoccupying; and indeed, what happens in today’s Turkey should consume much thought and analysis among not only Turks but also Russians, Chinese, Persians, Mexicans, Indians, Brazilians, Japanese, and useless to add it, Africans.

Having been formed in the nucleus part of the Ottoman Empire that constituted an uninterrupted continuity of more than 600 years, Turkey was first constrained to fight against all sorts of colonials: the Russians had been defeated in the North-East by Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later known as Ataturk) already before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. But there were French in the South, Italians in the South-East, English in Istanbul, and in the West, the Greeks were incited by the colonial powers to expand around Izmir. After the liberation of these territories, foreigners were not allowed to move through Turkey – except in rare cases and in custody. Thanks to Kemal Ataturk, Turkey was not colonized.
First published in AfroArticles, American Chronicle, and Buzzle on 23rd February 2009
Republished in Illyria Proboards on 29th January 2010

The fifth chapter assesses the IRGC’s extraterritorial activities. The IRGC is a constitutional organization and has the characteristics of a regular army structure. Generally, the conditions of the use of military force are defined by international law and norms. Owing to the IRGC’s extraterritorial activities, Iran is accused of being a state sponsor of terrorism. The state sponsorship of terrorism literature gives comprehensive insights on the dynamics of state-terrorist organization relations. Thus, this chapter intends to analyze the IRGC’s extraterritorial activities through the lenses of international law and state sponsorship of terrorism literature.
The following questions are the focus of the chapter: what is the status of the IRGC’s extraterritorial activities within the international legal framework of use military force? What is the basis of these activities in international law? Are these activities categorized as state sponsorship of terrorism? If so, what is the regime’s real motivation behind the decision to use the IRGC in extraterritorial activities, despite the risk of being labeled as a terrorism sponsor?
Since the revolution, Iran has always prioritized internal security concerns above external ones. Iran's first priority has consistently remained the survival of the regime and regime survival has been the most influential factor in the decision-making process. I argue that there is a strong connection between the IRGC’s extraterritorial activities and the ruling elites’ regime survival strategy. This issue has not been addressed adequately in the literature of state terrorism sponsorship, and studies on Iran and the IRGC. To fill this gap, the remaining part of the chapter will investigate the dynamics between the IRGC’s extraterritorial activities and the survival of the regime, which is also the specific objective of this study.

Recovering Biographies of Enslaved Africans in Nineteenth-Century Iran: A First Attempt

Anthony A. Lee
Lecturer, UCLA 

Abstract

African slaves were brought to Iran in large numbers in the nineteenth century as part of the Eastern slave trade. While there are no definite historical statistics on the number of slaves exported from Africa to Iran, estimates among scholars for the Indian Ocean trade during the nineteenth century vary from between one and two million.  Possibly two-thirds of these slaves were women and girls.  In Iran, these Africans were almost always destined for residence in Iranian households as servants, eunuchs, and concubines.
Little scholarship has been undertaken on the history of Africans in Iran.  There are enormous gaps in our knowledge of slavery in Iran and of the influence of African people and culture on Iranian history.  More than a decade ago, Edward Alpers called forcefully for the study of the history of Africans in the northwestern Indian Ocean.  However, his pioneering call for more research, for the most part, has not been taken up by other scholars.  This paper is a first attempt to discover the individual biographies of slaves in nineteenth-century Iran and to reconstruct at least a part of their lives. 
  Scholars of Middle Eastern slavery have warned about the limited value of Western legal distinctions between slavery and freedom when applied to the Muslim world.  Such binary, legal concepts of slave vs. free presuppose a secular state that is able to protect the lives and property of individuals based on their claim to citizenship.  They are unhelpful when discussing societies which are not built around the power of the state, but rather on concepts or kinship, belonging, religious authority, and hierarchies of dependence. 
This paper will examine four cases of slave experience in Iran in an effort to demonstrate the widely varying conditions of enslaved persons during the nineteenth century.  First, Bahrazian Khanum and Nur Sabbah Khanum, two sisters who found their freedom in 1892, but who in the absence of protectors were quickly re-enslaved.  Second, Haji Mubarak and Fezzeh Khanum, servants of the middle-class merchant and Babi (later, Baha’i) Prophet, Mirza ‘Ali-Muhammad Shirazi, the Bab (1819-1850).  The former an educated eunuch entrusted with his master’s business affairs; the latter a lifelong companion to the Prophet’s wife who became a holy figure in her own right.  Third, Khyzran Khanum and a young boy named Walladee, two slaves who fled to the British consulate in Lingeh in 1856 seeking freedom, but found no protection.  And, fourth, Gulchihreh Khanum, captured and enslaved as a child in the late 1800s.  She became a servant in a wealthy Iranian home and the beloved nanny of the family’s children, but continued to protest her enslavement to the end of her life.

The security apparatus of the Islamic Republic of Iran-that is the combination of those institutions and organizations that are responsible for internal and external security including matters of national defense and intelligence-differs slightly from other authoritarian regimes as it combines revolutionary and state institutions. Hence forces like the army and police are balanced by ideological units like the Corps of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (Corps), the revolutionary committees and irregular forces (Hezbollahis). The result is a cohabitation of a numerically strong but technologically obsolete conscript army and police force with an overlapping network of intelligence and paramilitary forces. Limited military capacities are compensated with anti-imperialist revolutionary rhetorics. Hence the US remains enemy no: 1 notwithstanding the completion of the nuclear agreement (JCPOA Joint Common Plan of Action) with the E3+3. Until now, US-Iranian alignements of interests in the region (the stabilization of Iraq, the fight against the Islamic State) were not sufficiently substanciated to result in strategic reassessment. National Security is largely defined as regime security. As commander-in-chief the Supreme Leader appoints the higher echelons of military commanders, some of them on suggestion of the president. Parliamentary oversight of the armed and security forces is ensured as all ministers including the ministers of defence, intelligence and interior must be confirmed by parliament. By law the minister of intelligence must be a cleric occassionally the ministry of Interior too has been led by clerics. Political oversight and ideological indoctrination are the responsibilities of the representatives of the Supreme Leader who are present at all echelons and ideological and political offices. The latter are responsible for the obligatory ideological review of all public servants (gozinesh). Additionally in all private and public organizations and institutions the establishment of security offices (daftar-e herasat) is mandatory. In military organizations protection and intelligence organizations or offices (daftar/sazeman-e hefazat va ettelaat), function as intelligence and counter-intel force. In the army, these units exist in addition to the staff positions responsible for military intelligence and security. The Corps' protection and intelligence organization (sazeman-e hefazat va ettelaat SHE) has developped an organizational and political life of its own; at the Law Enforcement Forces (police NAJA) a similar SHE exercises the functions of internal audit and state police. Additional surveillance units are the parastatal Basij and the irregular Hezbollahis. The latter act as moral police but proofed difficult to control. Since 1992, they are organized in a private umbrella organization called Ansar-e Hezbollah, whose influence the Ruhani government tries to curb. Coordination and separation of responsibilities is regulated by a number of laws. The main strategic decision making body is the "Higher National Security Council HNSR" chaired by the President. In HNSR key ministers and military commanders are represented. Sensitive security policy decisions are taken in the informal " Council of the heads of the three powers " (legislative/head of parliament, executive/president and judicial/head of justice). Matters of internal security are taken in the "State Security Council" headed by the Interior Minister. Conflicts of competence exist between the Ministry of Interior, the Corps, the Ministry of Intelligence and the Corps' intelligence service SHE. The development of the Iranian intelligence services is not yet complete it is a unification of most departments of the old SAVAK with revolutionary forces. According to the law the

1905 öncesi dönem, İran için istikrarsızlık- taviz-istikrarsızlık fasit dairesinin giderek daha tahripkâr olmaya başladığı bir devirdir. Harici güçlere verilen tavizlerin en önemlisi, 1890 Mart’ında İran’daki tüm tütünün üretim, satış ve ihraç hakkını bir İngiliz vatandaşına veren tekel anlaşmasıdır.

Land Reform and Expropriation from Female Owners (1962-1972); Western Iran Case Study
Goal: the general aim of the present paper is to outline the evolution of female landlords during Land reform revisions. We want to show why and how expropriation of possession from women happened and its consequences.
Methodology: The present study uses a qualitative approach. Data were gathered based on library documents and resources and in accordance with targeted sampling. For data analysis, grounded theory method was used.
Findings: Findings reveal that over the process of Land reform women were denied ownership in a large scale. The major reasons for expropriation from women were: the Law of Land reform, absence of female owners, quota and quota-setting which was considered a masculine right by convention in rural communities, and finally the collapse of the lord-servant system. Expropriation from women had various implications. For example, submission and subjection of rural women, inequality of rural-urban women, self-burning of rural women and expansion of legal possession were all among the consequences of removing women from land ownership in rural

The Yemen, is the birth place and hub for a number of monotheistic religious convictions . In its North West region, just 243 kilometers away from San'aa, the official capital of the Republic of Yemen , lies a spiritual center, a holy metropolis known as Saa'da  .
It is to Zaidi Islam as Qum is to Shia Islam and Mecca is to Sunni Islam. It is where the scholars dwell, to read, learn and teach their disciples to carry on the doctrine and preserve the faith throughout history.
It is here that the Houthi phenomenon first appeared.
This study focuses on the very beginnings of Houthism as a phenomenon, it's source and affiliations. It is but the first part of a series of papers that will delve into the movement as it expands over time.