Iran Facing Others: Identity Boundaries in a Historical Perspective Abbas Amanat and Farzin Vejdani, eds., New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2012, ISBN 9780230102538
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Iranian national identity continues to be an engaging subject for a myriad of articles, books, and conferences. This evolving debate examines both ancient text, such as the Shahnameh, and recent cutting-edge research. Still, the question of what Iranian nationalism consists of, and what contributes to its ever-changing character, is not yet exhausted.
This volume of 12 articles (and an introduction by Abbas Amanat) brings new approaches to the academic conversation. Its goal is to investigate the geographical and cultural boundaries of Iranian nationalism. Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh anchors the discussion as the most influential text on perceptions, both by foreigners and Iranians, of the Iranian identity question. Amanat notes that throughout the ages the Shahnameh served Iranians not only as an “epic tale and [for its] captivating storytelling values, but also as a supreme model for governance.”
The book is divided into four sections. Each deals with different facets of Iranian national identity: cultural exclusion, encounters with other empires, modern nationalism construct, and internal “others.”
In the introduction, Amanat sets the ground for the entire volume. He points out inherent tensions: territorial integrity vs. cultural spheres; centralized ethnicity vs. tribal and multi-denominational histories; and international connections vs. local development. He surveys the evolution of Iran from the days of the Arab invasion (as remembered through poetry) to the Islamic Republic. A recurring theme in the volume as a whole is the essentiality of hostile encounters to the forging of national identity, be it domestic encounters between competing factions or foreigners contesting the national ethos.
Amanat presents an interesting argument in his discussion of the “Nationalist identity in the Pahlavi era.” He points out the appeal and historical connection Iranian nationalism had to the minorities. As proof, he presents the failures of local nationalisms to develop in the periphery and hinterland, despite the attempt to create them (Kurdish and Azeri movements). This argument departs from much of the existing scholarship that ascribes these failures to the balance of power between the superpowers (USSR and Britain) and Iran. It does, however, support the general agreement that the Pahlavi era national identity was as inclusive as possible and reflected the values of a state-sponsored “Greater Iran.”
Dick Davis’ chapter, “Iran and Aniran: the shaping of a legend,” returns to the Shahnameh and underscores its significance in the Iranian self-perception, and how it fused myth and history into the modern Iranian national consciousness. A fascinating argument that is presented in this chapter concerns the role of race in the Shahnameh and in the legacy of ancient Iran. Davis analyzes the protagonists’ genealogy and holds that “Kay Khosrow, the paradigmatically perfect Iranian king of the poem’s first half, only has one indisputably Iranian grandparent; the other three are from Turan.”
This problematizes the reading of the Shahnameh as a nationalistic text that was placed as the paragon of “pure Iranianism.” Davis shows that the contrary is true; the text offers favorable views of foreigners, welcoming them to the greater Persian Empire. This chapter also traces the roots of the Arab-Persian animosity in the Shahnameh: “The oppressor of Iran, the potential destroyer of its people and its heritage, turns out to be not Turan, or India, or China, or even the demonic world, which had been the constantly evoked adversaries of the poem’s legendary narratives, but a man who comes from Arab stock.”
In the next chapter, Sunil Sharma explores the evolvement of the “’Ajam” concept. Sharma examines what values are inherent in this term, in multiple literary traditions. The old cultural animosity between the Arabs and the Persians appears in the contrasting definitions of this word. As Sharma shows, one of the concepts represented by “’Ajam” is cultural conquest over the Arabs. Sharma’s article helps to define the ever-changing boundaries of Persian literature. Using literary traditions from Iran, India, and Europe, Sharma evaluates their different perspectives and looks at how their content changed following the transition within the Persianate world.
In chapter three, “Iranian History in Transition,” Touraj Atabaki studies the ninth-century revolt of Babak Khorramdin. He compares historical fact with the contemporary interpretations of this story by different sects, and studies how it was used as a model for Iranian nationalism. Khorramdin’s revolt against the ‘Abbasid caliphate was used to teach modern Iranians what their ‘true’ nature is.
Of course, the interpretations vary according to who was teaching about the revolt. Some describe Babak Khorramdin as a warrior for independent Iran and the sovereignty of its people, and defender of its rich history; Marxists (including Tudeh members) see him as a fighter against injustice and exploitation; yet others decry him as an infidel and see him as an “other.”
This story was also used to make territorial claims, in which Khorramdin’s geographical “spheres of influence” were emphasized. Atabaki shows that some of these narratives were prominent enough to appear in official history textbooks. He demonstrates how historians of the Islamic Republic suffered from selective amnesia when writing about Khorramdin. They chose which details to put forward (Khorramdin’s Azeri background and the actual revolt) while neglecting to mention others (the success of his campaign). In this period, the story was used to contextualize contemporary struggles in Azerbaijan, where Khorramdin has remained an icon.
The second part, “Empires and Encounters,” opens with an article by Fariba Zarinebaf, “Rebels and Renegades on Ottoman-Iranian Borderland.” It makes a great contribution in more than one aspect. First, it sheds new light on a much-neglected part of borderland studies: the geographical and political conditions there created hybrid identities that could not have been created elsewhere. Second, the Ottoman-Safavid rivalry is very much under-studied. Zarinebaf examines political practices in the frontier provinces, showing how local governors maneuvered between central government demands, their private interest, and local subjects’ wants.
Methods like changing loyalties, and thus changing the borders between the two empires, were endemic and reflected the very same hybridism that is embedded in the frontier gray-zone. The nature of this rivalry also sheds an interesting new light on mixed identities: the Ottomans appealed to the Qizilbash to facilitate Ottoman takeovers; Janissaries crossed the border to serve the Safavids; Turkoman-Azeri heterodox Sufi orders challenged Ottoman orthodox Islam. This chapter opens new grounds for future research and new reading of both Ottoman and Safavid historiographies.
Chapters 5 and 6 deal with more recent encounters between Iran and Russia and Britain. In chapter 5, Rudi Matthee investigates why, despite aggressive and violent encounters, Russia does not have as infamous a reputation in Iran as Britain. The Iranians feared Russia’s expansionist tendencies and despised “ominous Russia” (Rus-e manhus), but also looked at Russia as the premier European or Western superpower that balanced the Ottoman Empire and opened a door for Iranian modernization. The “Russian legacy” may also be less notorious than it could and should have been because of the relative weakness of the Qajar central government; since the Qajars were not perceived as rigid defenders of the Iranian borders, the legacies could become less confrontational.
Chapter 6 focuses on the impressions of the Iranian encounter with the British Empire during the Qajar era. The encounter with Britain instigated conflicting trends within the Iranian public sphere. On the one hand, Britain represented modernity and power, and in many senses became a source of emulation. On the other hand, the ruthless exploitation of Iran’s resources, the corruption, and the interference with Iran’s domestic issues kindled hatred that lasted longer than Britain’s actual presence in Iran. Amanat analyzes this tension, arguing that Britain is Iran’s ultimate external “other.”
Chapter 7 too concentrates on the Anglo-Iranian relationship. H. Lyman Stebbins’ article, on the period from 1890 to 1919, examines the impact of the British presence on the emergence of anti-imperial movements and their impact on shaping national identity. His focus becomes more interesting when he shifts the location of the research from Tehran to South Iran, where the British presence was much more massive. The interactions between the British and the tribes in the Gulf region created unique national consciousness that served the Qajar state to some extent; later, they helped the Pahlavi dynasty to portray Britain as a threat and to “other” it.
The third part of the volume, “Nationalism and the Appropriation of the Past,” deals with historiographical criticism. Afshin Matin-Asgari’s “The Academic Debate on Iranian Identity” criticizes the academic discourse regarding Iranian nationalism. Matin-Asgari argues that this discourse is based on false presumptions and therefore misleading and partial. He calls for the abandonment of the paradigm of continuous national history from the pre-modern era to today; instead, he maintains, we should understand early Iran as an empire. The model of the multi-ethnic empire (much like the contemporary European empires) explains pre-modern Iran better than the model of an eternal nation. Matin-Asgari offers a compelling argument about the failure of the academic craft in posing alternatives to the nation-state model, even when another, better fitting model is in sight. This chapter’s greatest value, if so, is in its valid criticism of generations of Iranian studies’ academicians.
Houchang Chehabi’s chapter, “Iran and Iraq: Intersocietal Linkages and Secular Nationalism,” criticizes the historiography that, extrapolating from relatively recent animosity between Iran and Iraq, portrays this rivalry as eternal. Chehabi shows that the communities of Iran and Iraq were much more intertwined than we currently think. Family relations, commerce, religion—and more—connected people; the anti-Arab Iranian discourse or the anti-Persian Iraqi discourse are recent constructions stemming from political disputes rather than historic cultural tensions.
The last part of the book, “Self-Fashioning and Internal Othering,” concentrates on three minority communities and the process of “othering” they underwent. In chapter 10 Daniel Tsadik examines how the identity of the Jewish community evolved throughout the ages. The delicate connection between the Jewish minority and the Muslim majority produced yet again a unique hybrid identity comprised of Muslim and Jewish motifs, national Iranian components, and Persian culture and history. Zionism became a factor in the second half of the twentieth century and influenced the community in two prominent ways. First, a quarter of the Jewish population migrated to Israel—some were wholeheartedly Zionist, while others sought refuge from interreligious tensions. Second, Jews were suspected as Zionist sympathizers and, in times of rising Israeli-Palestinian tensions, the Iranian community had to confront their Muslim compatriots who showed solidarity with the Palestinians.
Otherwise, during the Pahlavi era Jews were well integrated in Iran’s economy and society. Tsadik shows that in 1966 about a third of Tehran’s textile merchants were Jews; Jews also were overrepresented among physicians and university professors, and held high positions in banks and government offices. Tsadik also underscores their large participation in the Communist Tudeh party. Overall, this article thoroughly shows the modifications of Jewish Iranians’ identity in response to their changing environment.
Mina Yazdani’s “The Confessions of Dolgoruki: the Crisis of Identity and the Creation of a Master Narrative” focuses on the condition of the Baha’i community following the publication, in the 1930s, of a forged memoir that presented Baha’ism as part of a greater Russian conspiracy to destroy Muslim unity in Iran. Parts of the Iranian population were convinced that this text was genuine; in the wake of its publication, the status of the Baha’is deteriorated. Yazdani suggested that the aftermath of the publication is part of the postcolonial identity crisis and involved conflicting ideas, such as Islamism and racist nationalism. The analysis of the text evokes the instance of the “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which was created in Tsarist Russia to serve similar aims of “othering” the Jews in Russia.
The last chapter, Monica Ringer’s “Iranian Nationalism and Zoroastrian Identity: Between Cyrus and Zoroaster,” deals with the Zoroastrian community. Ringer discusses the unique role Zoroastrians played in Iranian history. Frequently, they are regarded as retainers of the genuine Iranian culture. However, as politicized religion became increasingly important in Iran in the 1960s and 1970s, the Zoroastrians started to play up their ethnic identity which they shared with the Muslim majority, and which hence was more acceptable to the Iranian Muslim public than their religious identity.
To conclude, this volume very usefully helps us understand intricate details of Iranian national identity. It is a well-rounded tome that helps the reader to better understand not only identity issues but also contextualizes it within Iranian history and literature. The different chapters can be used for all levels of courses on Iran and for almost any subfield, be it history, literature or sociology.
Lior Sternfeld
University of Texas at Austin