Historians of Iran Profile picture
Jan 21, 2020 18 tweets 13 min read Read on X
It took nearly 8 years for Ahmad’s mom to get her pooshesh right. Bounding across the pages of the 1987 Farsi primer, their destination the 1st day of 2nd grade, mother & son represented the severity of virtue, of proper Islam, Islam as it was meant to be according to the IRI
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@Swarthy_Bastard Draped entirely in formless black, the mother embodied what we’ve come to expect from a postrevolutionary curriculum purportedly devoted to the inculcation of political Islam, her piety and devotion matched by the Second Grade textbook's back cover.
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@Swarthy_Bastard Young girls in full-length chadors, marching alongside defiant boys, fists raised beneath the accompanying text: "We with faith in God, with purity and good works...with hard work, sacrifice, and thrift, do defend independence, freedom, and the Islamic Republic."
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@Swarthy_Bastard Except this account of Islam, its official version, was only the latest version. In the space of the previous 8 years ('79-'87) the lesson featured mother & son, the same mother wearing a pink hejab, an unadorned blouse and skirt, and what appear to be sensible shoes.
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@Swarthy_Bastard And in those same 8 years, the back cover of the primer was, well, blank. And in less than 8 years the cover would take on an altogether different project...
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@Swarthy_Bastard "Children, be careful" and above all, watch out for that meat grinder!
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#IslamicPSA #ARevolutionInSafetyValues Image
@Swarthy_Bastard These brief, almost comical, examples speak to the instability of texts and the contested nature of schooling in #Iran. Scholars have tended to treat the changes made to Iranian schoolbooks in the aftermath of the 1979 Revolution as complete, coherent, and final.
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@Swarthy_Bastard I’ll argue that very nearly the opposite is true, that when we speak of fundamental change in Iran, we must do so as a perduring process, never-ending.
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@Swarthy_Bastard Constant changes to the curriculum foment greater instability as successive ed ministers come into office w/ an agenda to implement fundamental change, to “finally get schooling right,” only to be removed from office, accused of either rank partisanship or incompetence.
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@Swarthy_Bastard (apologies for the intermission, took a Nilu break)

#DaddyDuties #FirstDayofSchool Image
@Swarthy_Bastard The benefits of taking a historical approach to the development of schooling in postrevolutionary Iran, even when said approach is in the hands of a political scientist (ahem), are at least two-fold.
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@Swarthy_Bastard The first is as a corrective to the unbearably flat and binary analyses of the purpose and effect of schooling, not only in Iran but in other openly ideological states, countries that have what might be described as an “unhidden curriculum.”
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@Swarthy_Bastard Fitting that my predecessor here, the amazing @razaraz, presented a master course in the stubbornness of tropes re: Iran. I can think of no other area in Iran studies where tropes not only persist, they thrive. Ed either succeeds (brainwashes) or fails (youth rebellion!).
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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz Rather than measuring the success/failure of inculcation, textbooks might be a better instrument/mirror for understanding how the IRI sorts out its own business, what Chatterjee defines as the (supposedly coherent) "inner domain," i.e., what it means to be Islamic-Iranian.
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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz Secondly, more broadly, Iran reminds us that hegemonic projects exist not as implacable, top down projects steamrolling society, but as fractured, incoherent, ad hoc endeavors, the assembly of authority being a deeply contested and unending process.
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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz To that end, here's a preview of this week's topics:
-Ruptures in political Islam within the curriculum (Chatting with Chatterjee)
-Continuities in Iranianess/Nowruz (It's the nationalism, not the theocracy!)
-The figure of the forlorn Arab as nationalist trope
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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz -Importing foreign knowledge, preserving authentic selves (the "modernization dilemma")
-Democracy, religious or otherwise

16/Fin
#HistoryOfIran

Signing off, @Swarthy_Bastard Image

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More from @HistorianofIran

Mar 8, 2022
Khodadad Rezakhani @sasanianshah here:

In honour of the International Women’s Day, let’s talk about one very famous women of ancient Iran, Queen Shirin. She’s perhaps the most famous queen consort of the Sasanian period & a main character in many later historical accounts.
In popular imagination, she is mostly associated with the dual romances of “Khosrow & Shirin” and “Shirin & Farhad”… yeeees, this legendary woman has TWO medieval romances written about her! Take that Guinevere!

But she was MUCH more than that…
Syriac sources call Shirin an Aramaean, either an Aramaic speaker or from the area of Beth Aramaye (Asorestan/Cent Iraq). Sebeos says she was from Khuzistan, which works, as cities like Beth Lapat had large Aramaic speaking populations. She might have been from Porath/Furat.
Read 30 tweets
Jan 21, 2021
As promised, tonight I'll talk about religious storytelling or Pardeh Dari with a focus on Pardeh paintings. This is Golnar Touski, tweeting from Historians of Iran./1 @GolnarNemat
While reenactment and recitation of Shi’a tragedies were established by Safavid rulers (1501-1736) the practice gained popularity in Qajar Persia where Tekieyeh (تکیه) was a place of congregation for religious ceremonies. Here's a painting of one by Kamal al-Molk./2 @GolnarNemat
The stories were taken from existing Safavid literature of martyrology such as Rowzat-Al-Shohada or Toufan al-Boka. In Qajar Persia these were reproduced as lithographed books. In fact, emergence of printing was partly responsible for Pardeh./3 @GolnarNemat
Read 15 tweets
Jan 20, 2021
If you ever watched a Morshed (storyteller) performing from scenes of battles,heroes,infernal serpents and paradise birds, you know the absolute joy of Naqali,the art of storytelling. This is Morshed Mirza Ali whose family have been storytellers for generations. 1/17 @GolnarNemat Image
These days brilliant women storytellers are part of this traditionally male-exclusive profession. This is Sara Abbaspour; one of Morshed women today. The staff stick is a crucial part of performing, used to dramatize and to point to the painted scenes. 2/17 @GolnarNemat Image
In 19th century Persia forms of storytelling ranged from literature and oral anecdotes to themes of romance, chivalry and history of Shi'a Islam. Today we know Naqali mainly as reciting the epic of Shahnameh (Book of Kings) by 10-11th c. poet, Ferdowsi. 3/17 @GolnarNemat Rostam and Sohrab, from the...
Read 17 tweets
Jan 11, 2021
Thank you all for your support this week. It's been a blast! If you missed anything, here's a "thread of threads" of everything I talked about this week.

Please follow me at @IranChinaGuy for more posts like this! Also please check out my other project, @iranstudiesUS
1/ How far back can ties between ancient China and early Iranian societies in Central Asia be traced?

2/ On Sassanian-Tang relations, especially after the Muslim conquest of Persia.

Read 16 tweets
Jan 11, 2021
1/ In 1965, a leftist Iranian student movement in Europe declared its support for Mao Zedong's theories. The Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party (Sāzmān-e Enghelābi-ye Ḥezb-e Tūdeh) would become a major faction of the student opposition.

#IranChina by @IranChinaGuy ImageImageImage
2/ The ROTPI claimed “Comrade Mao has evolved Marxism, [and] we must solve issues from the point of view of Mao Zedong Thought." They began circulating translations of the works of Mao Zedong and other militant texts among Iranian students abroad. In pamphlets and periodicals... Image
3/ they extolled the virtues of andishe-ye māu se dūn (Mao Zedong Thought). They were an offshoot of the Tudeh, and bitterly opposed to its leadership. To them, the Tudeh were ineffective, disconnected from the situation in Iran, and excessively under Soviet influence. Image
Read 20 tweets
Jan 9, 2021
1/ Persian was an important admin. and religious language during the Yuan and Ming, but declined under the Qing (1644-1912).

On the rise (and fall) of Persian language use in China and the decline of traditional Sino-Iranian ties by the 20th century.

#iranchina by @IranChinaGuy
2/ During the Yuan, China and Persia were linked by Mongol rule, and Persian was one of the official administrative languages. A few Persians held important status as members of the semuren (色目人), an administrative class made up of non-Mongol, non-Chinese subjects.
3/ For example, Sayyid Ajall Shams al-Din Omar al-Bukhari, a Persian Muslim from Bukhara, was appointed by Kublai as governor of Yunnan in 1274, a fact mentioned by Marco Polo. Chinese sources record him as Sàidiǎnchì Zhānsīdīng (赛典赤·赡思丁).

(Img: Tomb in modern Yunnan)
Read 17 tweets

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