Iran: Empire of the Mind

by Michael Axworthy

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  IRAN: EMPIRE OF THE MIND

  Michael Axworthy was head of the Iran section in the British Foreign Office from 1998–2000. He has written on contemporary Iran and other subjects for Prospect magazine, has debated Iranian affairs on BBC World and is now a lecturer at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter. His first book was the highly praised Sword of Persia.

  To my wife Sally

  Das Ewig-Weibliche zieht uns hinan

  MICHAEL AXWORTHY

  Iran:

  Empire of the Mind

  A HISTORY

  FROM ZOROASTER

  TO THE PRESENT DAY

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  PENGUIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

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  First published as Empire of the Mind by HURST Publishers Ltd., 2007

  Published under the current title in Penguin Books 2008

  1

  Copyright © Michael Axworthy, 2007

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

  978-0-14-190341-5

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgements

  Illustrations

  Maps

  Preface

  1. Origins: Zoroaster, the Achaemenids, and the Greeks

  2. The Iranian Revival: Parthians and Sassanids

  3. Islam and Invasions: the Arabs, Turks and Mongols: the Iranian Reconquest of Islam, the Sufis, and the Poets

  4. Shi‘ism and the Safavids

  5. The Fall of the Safavids, Nader Shah, the Eighteenth-Century Interregnum, and the Early Years of the Qajar Dynasty

  6. The Crisis of the Qajar Monarchy, the Revolution of 1905-1911 and the accession of the Pahlavi Dynasty

  7. The Pahlavis, and the Revolution of 1979

  8. Iran since the Revolution: Islamic Revival, War and Confrontation

  9. From Khatami to Ahmadinejad, and the Iranian Predicament

  Notes

  Select Bibliography

  Index

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  The title of this book, if not the idea of it altogether, is unusual in that it originated at a public event—a panel discussion in front of an invited audience, arranged to inaugurate the Forgotten Empire exhibition at the British Museum in the autumn of 2005. The panel was chaired by the journalist Jon Snow and included the Iranian ambassador, Seyyed Mohammad Hossein Adeli (recalled to Tehran shortly afterwards), Haleh Afshar, Ali Ansari and Christopher de Bellaigue. Neil MacGregor, the Director of the British Museum, made an introductory presentation. The discussion ranged widely but centred on the question of continuity in Iranian history, and on the enduring power of the idea of Iran, the influence of its literary and court culture on the other powers and linguistic cultures of the region, and its resilience over millennia despite war, invasion, religious change and revolution. Then Jon Snow asked the audience to put questions to the panel. I put a question toward the end, to the effect that if, as members of the panel had suggested, the centre of Iranian culture had moved at different times from Fars in southern Iran to Mesopotamia, to Khorasan in the north-east and Central Asia, and to what is now called Azerbaijan in the north-west; and given its strong influence far beyond the land of Iran itself, into Abbasid Baghdad and Ottoman Turkey for example on the one side and into Central Asia and Moghul India on the other, and beyond; then perhaps we should set aside our usual categories of nationhood and imperial culture and think instead of Iran as an Empire of the Mind? The panel seemed to like this suggestion, and someone in the audience called out that it would make a good book. So here it is.

  I have benefited greatly from the generous help and advice of a number of people, especially Baqer Moin, Ali Ansari, Willem Floor, Sajjad Rizvi, Lenny Lewisohn, Hashem Ahmadzadeh, Chris Rundle, Touraj Daryaee, Michael Grenfell, Peter Melville, Duncan Head, Haideh Sahim and Mahdi Dasht-Bozorgi, and one anonymous reviewer, who all read all or part of it in advance of publication; but also my father Ifor Axworthy and my sister Janet Axworthy, Peter Avery Frances Cloud and Gordon Nechvatal, Paul Luft, and Paul Auchterlonie, and as well as the other staff at the University Library in Exeter, and at the London Library. I should also thank my other friends and colleagues in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies in Exeter for their help and support, especially Tim Niblock, Rasheed El-Enany Gareth Stansfield, James Onley and Rob Gleave, as well as Michael Dwyer (simply the best editor it has been my good fortune to encounter), Maria Petalidou and their colleagues at Hurst; my agent Georgina Capel; and (not just last but not least this time) my wife Sally for her unfailing cheerfulness and encouragement.

  The author and publisher wish to thank the following for kindly agreeing to reproduce copyright material included in this book. Penguin Books Ltd., for permission to reproduce the quotations from Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon, ©Penguin Books Ltd, 1969, and from The Conference of the Birds, by Farid al-Din Attar, translated by D. Davis and A. Darbandi, © Penguin Books Ltd, 1984; Ibex Publishers, Inc., for permission to reproduce the poem on p. 116 from A Thousand Years of Persian Rubaiyat, translated by Reza Saberi, © Ibex Publishers, Inc., 2000; The University of Washington Press for permission to reproduce the excerpt from The Tragedy of Sohrab and Rostam, translated by J.W. Clinton, © The University of Washington Press, 1996.

  TRANSLITERATION

  The transliteration of names and other terms from Persian into English is an awkward problem, and it is not possible to be fully consistent without producing text that will sometimes look odd. As with my previous book, on Nader Shah, I have used a transliteration scheme that leans toward modern Iranian pronunciation, because I did not want to write a book on Iranian history in which the names and places would read oddly to Iranians. But there are inconsistencies, notably over the transliteration of names that have had a life of their own in western writing: Isfahan, Fatima, Sultan, mullah, for example. Other, less justifiable inconsistencies, of which there will doubtless be some, are in all cases my fault rather than that of those who tried to advise me on the manuscript in its different stages of completion.

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  1. Image of a bull attacked by a lion, p. 8.

  2. Darius I presides over his palace at Persepolis, p. 21.

  3. Alexander attack
s the troops of Darius at the battle of Issus, p. 28.

  4. Bronze statue of a Parthian warrior from Shami, p. 34.

  5. Rock carving of Ardashir from Naqsh-e Rostam, p. 46.

  6. Khosraw II, depicted hunting on a dish of gilded silver, p. 67.

  7. Shah Soleiman, p. 143.

  8. Nader Shah, p. 158.

  9. Agha Mohammad Shah, p. 173.

  10. Fath Ali Shah, p. 178.

  11. Naser od-Din Shah, p. 201.

  12. Ayatollah Behbahani, p. 206.

  13. Ayatollah Tabataba’i, p. 206.

  14. Kuchek Khan, p. 216.

  15. Sadeq Hedayat, p. 229.

  16. Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, p. 235.

  17. Mohammad Mossadeq, p. 240.

  18. Jalal Al-e Ahmad, p. 243.

  19. Ruhollah Khomeini, p. 249.

  MAPS OF IRAN

  1. Linguistic, p. xi.

  2. Achaemenid, p. 16.

  3. Parthian and Sassanid, p. 50.

  4. Arab conquests, p. 70.

  5. Ghaznavid and Seljuk, p. 92.

  6. Mongols, p. 102.

  7. Nader Shah, p. 164.

  8. Qajar, p. 186.

  9. Modern Iran, p. 264.

  … However, when I began to consider the reasons for these opinions, all these reasons given for the magnificence of human nature failed to convince me: that man is the intermediary between creatures, close to the gods, master of all the lower creatures, with the sharpness of his senses, the acuity of his reason, and the brilliance of his intelligence the interpreter of nature, the nodal point between eternity and time, and, as the Persians say, the intimate bond or marriage song of the world, just a little lower than angels, as David tells us. I concede these are magnificent reasons, but they do not seem to go to the heart of the matter…

  … Euanthes the Persian… writes that man has no inborn, proper form, but that many things that humans resemble are outside and foreign to them: “Man is multitudinous, varied, and ever changing.” Why do I emphasize this? Considering that we are born with this condition, that is, that we can become whatever we choose to become, we need to understand that we must take earnest care about this, so that it will never be said to our disadvantage that we were born to a privileged position but failed to realize it and became animals and senseless beasts… Above all, we should not make that freedom of choice God gave us into something harmful, for it was intended to be to our advantage. Let a holy ambition enter into our souls; let us not be content with mediocrity, but rather strive after the highest and expend all our strength in achieving it.

  Pico della Mirandola, Oration on the Dignity of Man

  (translated by Richard Hooker)

  PREFACE

  THE REMARKABLE RESILIENCE OF

  THE IDEA OF IRAN

  Har kas ke bedanad va bedanad ke bedanad

  Asb-e kherad az gombad-e gardun bejahanad

  Har kas ke nadanad va bedanad ke nadanad

  Langan kharak-e khish be manzel beresanad

  Har kas ke nadanad va nadanad ke nadanad

  Dar jahl-e morakkab ‘abad od-dahr bemanad

  Anyone who knows, and knows that he knows,

  Makes the steed of intelligence leap over the vault of heaven.

  Anyone who does not know, but knows that he does not know,

  Can bring his lame little donkey to the destination nonetheless.

  Anyone who does not know, and does not know that he does not know

  Is stuck for ever in double ignorance

  (Anonymous, attributed to Naser od-Din Tusi (1201-74); anticipating Donald Rumsfeld by perhaps seven centuries.)

  Iranian history is full of violence and drama: invasions, conquerors, battles and revolutions. Because Iran has a longer history than most countries, and is bigger than many, there is more of this drama. But there is more to Iranian history than that—there are religions, there are influences, intellectual movements and ideas that have changed things within Iran but also outside Iran and around the world. Today Iran demands attention again, and the new situation poses questions—is Iran an aggressive power, or a victim? Is Iran traditionally expansionist, or traditionally passive and defensive? Is the Shi‘ism of Iran quietist, or violent, revolutionary, millenarian? Only history can suggest answers to those questions. Iran is one of the world’s oldest civilisations, and has been one of the world’s most thoughtful and complex civilisations from the very beginning. There are aspects of Iranian civilisation that, in one way or another, have touched almost every human being in the world. But the way that happened, and the full significance of those influences, is often unknown and forgotten.

  Iran is replete with many paradoxes, contradictions and exceptions. Most non-Iranians think of it as a country of hot deserts, but it is ringed with high, cold mountains, has rich agricultural provinces, others full of lush sub-tropical forest, and reflecting the climatic variations, a diverse and colourful range of flora and fauna. Between Iraq and Afghanistan, Russia and the Persian Gulf, the Iranians speak an Indo-European language in the midst of the Arabic-speaking Middle East. Iran is commonly thought of as a homogeneous nation, with a strong national culture, but minorities like the Azeris, Kurds, Gilakis, Baluchis, Turkmen and others make up nearly half of the population. Since the 1979 revolution, Iranian women are subject to one of the most restrictive dress codes in the Islamic world, yet partly in consequence Iranian families have released their daughters to study and work in unprecedented numbers, such that over 60 per cent of university students now are female and many women (even married women) have professional jobs. Iran has preserved some of the most stunning Islamic architecture in the world, as well as traditions of artisan metalworking, rug-making, and bazaar trading; a complex and sophisticated urban culture—yet its capital, Tehran, has slowly smothered itself in concrete, traffic congestion and pollution. Iranians glory in their literary heritage and above all in their poetry, to a degree one finds in few other countries, with the possible exception of Russia. Many ordinary Iranians can recite from memory lengthy passages from their favourite poems, and phrases from the great poets are common in everyday speech. It is poetry that insistently dwells on the joys of life—themes of wine, beauty, flowers and sexual love, yet Iran has also an intense popular tradition of Shi‘ism which in the mourning month of Moharram emerges in religious processions dominated by a mood of gloom, and a powerful sense of betrayal and injustice (within which the oral delivery of religious poetry also plays an important part); and Iran’s religious culture also encompasses the most forbidding, censorious and dogmatic Shi‘a Muslim clerics. It is a country with an ancient tradition of monarchical splendour, now an Islamic republic; but one where only 1.4 per cent of the population attend Friday prayers.

  One thing is best explained at the start—another apparent paradox. Iran and Persia are the same country. The image conjured up by Persia is one of romance: roses and nightingales in elegant gardens, fast horses, mysterious, flirtatious women, sharp sabres, carpets with colours glowing like jewels, poetry and melodious music. In the cliché of western media presentation Iran has a rather different image: frowning mullahs, black oil, women’s blanched faces peering, not to their best advantage, from under black chadors; grim crowds burning flags, chanting ‘death to…’

  In the south of Iran there is a province called Fars. Its capital is Shiraz and it contains Iran’s most ancient and impressive archaeological sites: Persepolis and Pasargadae (along with Susa, in neighbouring Khuzestan). In ancient times the province was called Pars, after the people who had settled there—the Persians. When those people created an empire that dominated the whole region, the Greeks called it the Persian empire, and the term ‘Persia’ was applied by them, the Romans and other Europeans subsequently to all the dynastic states that followed that empire in the territory that is Iran today—Sassanid Persia in the centuries before the Islamic conquest, Safavid Persia in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Qajar Persia in the nineteenth century. But all through that tim
e the people of those empires called themselves Iranians, and called their land Iran. The word derives from the very earliest times, apparently meaning ‘noble’. It is cognate both with a similar word in Sanskrit, and with the term ‘Aryan,’ that was used and abused in the racial ideologies of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries1. In 1935 Reza Shah, wanting to distance his state from the decadent, ineffectual Qajar government he had displaced, instructed his embassies overseas to require foreign governments henceforth to call the country Iran in official communications. But many people, including some Iranians outside Iran writing in English, still prefer the term Persia, because it retains the ancient, often happier, connotations. It is not unusual for foreigners to have a name for a country that is different from the one used by its inhabitants: what the English call Germany is called Allemagne by the French and Deutschland by Germans. The Persian word for Britain is Inglistan, which some Scots might resent. Iranians themselves call their language Farsi, because it originated in the Iranian dialect spoken in Fars province (the language is now spoken not just in Iran but also extensively in Tajikistan; as the Dari dialect, in Afghanistan; and has had a strong influence on the Urdu spoken in Pakistan and northern India). My practice is to use both terms, but with a preference for Iran when dealing with the period after 1935, and for Persia for the preceding centuries, when it was the normal word used for the country by English-speakers. In the earlier chapters the term Iranian is used also to cover the non-Persian peoples and languages of the wider region, like the Parthians, Sogdians, and Medes.