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15 Dec, 6 tweets, 3 min read
The history of the Sikh community in Iran, historically based in Iranian Baluchistan.

It's said that Zahedan ("Ascetics") was renamed in their honor (from Dozdab, meaning "water-thieves").

Today most Iranian Sikhs live in Tehran, home to a gurudwara.

scroll.in/magazine/10122…
Some images I took a few years back of the Sikh gurudwara in central Tehran from the outside. ImageImage
For more information, here's an academic paper about the Sikh community in Zahedan, focused on the languages (mostly Persian and Punjabi) that they speak

ijli.uoz.ac.ir/article_33195_…
Excellent piece tracing the Sikh Iranian community's emergence in the early 20th century

"Despite the British and Iranian ambivalence toward border crossers, Sikhs thrived while participating in global networks of Indian anticolonialists."

read.dukeupress.edu/cssaame/articl…
And for more on Iran-South Asia connections and how they evolved in the 20th century, an article I wrote on the topic:

Neighboring Iraq is home to a Sikh holy site, a shrine that marks the site of Guru Nanak's visit to Baghdad in the 16th century that was rediscovered by British Indian Sikh soldiers in the mid-20th century

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Alex Shams Profile picture
16 Dec
Imamzadeh Yahya, a beautiful shrine in Varamin, near Tehran, Iran, dating back 700+ years.

Notice the white gaps between the wall tiles.

What you see is a holy place stripped of its beauty by Western archaelogists.

A thread about archaeology, colonialism, museums, and theft: ImageImageImage
In the 1800s, Western archaeologists began excavating in Iran.

The French pressured Iran, weak and indebted, to give it a monopoly.

This allowed them to take half of what they found.

Religious sites were exempted.

Yet, Imamzadeh Yahya was pillaged. ALL tiles were stolen. Image
Hundreds of lustrous tiles once covered the shrine's wall, many from the 1200s.

They were stripped and stolen by archaeologists, spirited away to Western museums.

This is what those tiles looked like.

These images are taken from the sites of the museums that keep them today. ImageImageImage
Read 17 tweets
Alex Shams Profile picture
9 Mar
The story of Tehran Street in Seoul, South Korea.

In the 1970s, Tehran and Seoul became sister cities and renamed streets for eachother.

Tehran Street, Seoul was located in a farmland area called Gangnam.

It would soon grow to become Seoul's most important economic hub...
Teheran-ro got its name in 1977, following a visit by Tehran's mayor.

Tehran was more developed than Seoul at the time. What is now Teheran-ro was mostly farmland and gravel.

But in the decades that followed, Gangnam grew into an economic hub as Korea's economy boomed.
When Tehran Street was named, the name was largely aspirational- expressing hope that Seoul could grow like Tehran had

Teheran-ro indeed grew quickly.

Today Gangnam is a business and tech hub- and Teheran-ro it's biggest street, nicknamed "Tehran Valley," after Silicon Valley.
Read 7 tweets
Alex Shams Profile picture
24 Sep 20
Proposed designs for the Palestinian flag, submitted by readers to Filastin magazine amid the 1929 Palestinian Revolt against British colonialism and Zionist incursion.

Arab colors were a constant, and some included the Jaffa orange and/or the Cross and Crescent

THREAD:
The addition of orange to the Arab colors reflected the importance of the Jaffa orange in Palestine's coasts

The Cross & Crescent, meanwhile, was likely an inclusive Arab response to the Zionist mvmt's use of exclusively Jewish symbols

More info: plaza.ufl.edu/tsorek/article…
Beginning in the mid-1800s, citrus groves were planted around Jaffa in Palestine's central coast, and became a key prt of local identity and economy.

The famous "Jaffa orange," appropriated by Israel as their own symbol following the mass expulsion of Palestinians in 1948
Read 12 tweets
Alex Shams Profile picture
21 Sep 20
Historical gems from/about Pakistan, found in Tehran’s second hand book markets
First off is this 1966 magazine of The Voice of Pakistan, the Persian-language Pakistani radio station that broadcasted nightly into Tehran

On the cover is “Hazrat President,” Ayub Khan, as he was referred to in the Persian
The magazine was printed in Karachi and flown by post to a Tehran- notice the postal stamps
Read 14 tweets
Alex Shams Profile picture
13 Sep 20
The countryside of Lorestan, in western Iran, is dotted by dozens of old bridges and aqueducts.

They carefully bring precious water down from western Iran’s springs and glaciers across great distances. ImageImage
Qaleh Hatem Bridge, Negar Borujerd, is an example of both in one.

It’s an aqueduct across a river that connects an old castle on the hill with the town across the river, and also separates drinking water from that used for watering the fields along the riverside. ImageImage
Among the hillsides, pools keep water together for irrigation, and they serve as watering holes for shepherds and nomads bringing their flocks to drink up. ImageImageImage
Read 4 tweets
Alex Shams Profile picture
23 Aug 20
The moment you enter Harun Vilayat Imamzadeh shrine in the heart of the old city of Esfahan, Iran, you’re overwhelmed by the walls - covered from floor to ceiling in tiles and murals depicting some of Islam's holiest figures. Image
To the right, Imam Ali alongside Imams Hassan and Hossein; to the left, the Prophet with a veiled face. They are surrounded by angels and animals commonly associated with them. Imam Ali is represented by a lion, for example. The fire above their heads is the equivalent of a halo. ImageImage
The shrine - and many others like it - give lie to the popular misconception that Islam forbids representation.

It forbids idol worship, not simple depiction, and at different times and places these rules have been interpreted quite differently. ImageImage
Read 5 tweets

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