In 1906, popular protests which had begun over the treatment of some merchants by the governor of Tehran grew in size until a group of several thousand merchants, artisans, religious leaders, students, and intellectuals took refuge (a customary right to sanctuary known as bast ) on the grounds of the British legation, where they began […]
The early Qâjâr rulers saw themselves as the heirs to the Safavid legacy, in much the same way as the Safavids served as heirs to the Timurids. Left to themselves, they would probably have sought to re-create that heritage as much as possible, both territorially and culturally. Âghâ Mohammad Shah had demanded the cession of […]
The Turko-Mongol rulers of Iran generally derived their power from tribal confederations that were notoriously fractious and undisciplined. Their principalities also tended to be patrimonial in nature; that is, territories and resources were shared among members of the ruling family and their retainers, with the head of the family as at least a nominal overlord. […]
At least at the political level, the Iranian revival was cut short by the arrivalof the Turks. The Turkish nomads of central Asia, identified in the popularmind with the Turanians of the national history, had been a threat on Iran’snortheastern frontier for several centuries but had been decisively defeatedby the Samanids in a.d. 893. Many […]
The decline in Sasanid power following the deposition of Khosrow II was dramatic and caused by many factors, ranging from the financial and military exhaustion that resulted from the wars with Byzantium to bloody disputes over the succession to the throne to continuing popular unrest. Just when it appeared stability might be restored with the […]
The preceding summary reflects the way pre-Islamic Iranian history has been understood by modern and non-Iranian historians. In Iran itself after the Sasanid period, historical memory of the Achaemenids was almost totally lost, that of the Parthians largely forgotten, and only that of the Sasanids preserved in recognizable form until fairly recently. Instead, most Iranians […]
The Medes had also established a kind of alliance with another Iranian tribal group, the Persians. The Persians had settled in the southern areas of the Zagros, the old homeland of the Elamites, and their rulers styled themselves “kings of Anshan” (a former Elamite stronghold). Presumably to strengthen the bonds between the two people, the […]
The area occupied by the modern country of Iran was home to simple semiagrarian cultures as early as 13,000 b.c. Conditions on the plateau, however, were not well suited for the development of the kind of advanced agricultural societies that appeared in other parts of the Fertile Crescent. Without any great rivers to exploit, that […]
The northernmost part of Iran lies at approximately latitude 40º north, about the same as Philadelphia in the United States, and its southernmost part around latitude 25º north, about as far south as Miami. The diversity of climate between Philadelphia and Miami, however, is not nearly as extreme as that to be found in Iran, […]
There are a few important precautions that you should take into consideration while traveling in Iran: 1. Like any tourist attraction in the world do not carry too much money on you. 2. Avoid showing your money in public places. 3. Do not be scared if you are lost; ask people for directions. They […]
