Historians of Iran Profile picture
Jan 27, 2020 16 tweets 16 min read Read on X
Tonight's theme, the final theme:
The Incredible Shrinking Khomeini

From absence to austere founder to...kindly grandfather?
1/SM

#Day7
#WrapItUpYo
#ConstantChanges ImageImage
@Swarthy_Bastard We started out this week building on the work of @razaraz, applying the leverage of the historical method to give dimension to a country and revolution that, for the most part, remains flat in the analysis of "experts." For the scholar, tropes are opportunities.
2/SM ImageImage
@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz Iranian-backed-Shiite-militias. The ayatollahs. The mullahs. The notorious Evin prison and that wall, that stupid wall. I can think of no other topic in which tropes pass for analysis and rigor, in which the shorthand for content is *the* content.
3/SM

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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz When it comes to postrev ed, Khomeini takes center stage. In fact, he takes *all* the stage. The Leader we are told not only imposed his Islamic vision but designed the curriculum himself! An old Khomeini running around like the young Castro, micromanaging the revolution...
4/SM ImageImage
@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz Which is wild since Khomeini is practically absent from the early primers (Grades 1-3), in word and in image. Khomeini appears first in word in 1981, sharing the stage with the revolutionary crowd in the First Grade lesson “The Islamic Revolution of Iran."
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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz And as we've seen, he was *completely* MIA in terms of the front matter. Supreme Leader, but for most of the 1980s, never a Dear Leader.
6/SM

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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz Khomeini remains absent from the front matter of the 2nd Grade primer even longer than in the 1st. He debuts in '90 with a message familiar to all nasl-e sevom (3rd Gen) kids: "My hope is with you, the elementary student." This phrase & his image becomes standard issue.
7/SM Image
@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz For a brief time the illustrations veered towards the flinty and harsh, the portrayal of Khomeini most familiar to North Americans. Here was the imposing Leader, defiant, distant, unapproachable.
8/SM

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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz Representations of K mellow considerably by the late 1990s. Drawn in watercolor, shown reading a book out of which emerge flowers and butterflies, surrounded by grandkids, the transformation from revolutionary force to gentle leader is complete.
9/SM ImageImageImage
@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz In the fullness of time Khomeini transforms into a historical figure that has to be recovered from oblivion. Fittingly, “A Memory of Revolution" replaces “The Islamic Revolution of Iran” in the 1st Grade primer.
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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz A principal describes to his young students what it was like during the Revolution, how the people were waiting for their “Imam” to come back to Iran: "You were not yet born in those days. Our people under the leadership of Imam Khomeini had taken to the streets..."
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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz "They shouted slogans: Allah Akbar, Khomeini rahbar (leader)! The people didn’t want the Shah. Before long the Shah escaped from Iran. Imam Khomeini came to the homeland..."
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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz The story of Khomeini’s return is taught as a memory, and includes an image of uniformed children adorned with paper hearts bearing a picture of the late leader.
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@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz They are met with an approaching airplane showering daisies from its undercarriage over the countryside below, the timeless Persian obsession with flowers unchanged by revolution. Their eyes turn skyward to a plane that circles but never lands
14/SM Image
@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz ...promises from a future that never arrives.
15/SM

(Photos by @Swarthy_Bastard) ImageImageImageImage
@Swarthy_Bastard @razaraz 16/Fin fin
#HistoryOfIran
#WithDreamsOfOurFuture
#BaOmid

Signing off, @Swarthy_Bastard and Nilufar 🌸

Thank you ❤️🌹 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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