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Persia: Place and Idea

Persia/Persians and Iran/Iranians

“Persia” is not easily located with any geographic specificity, nor can its
people, the Persians, be easily categorized. In the end Persia and the
Persians are as much metaphysical notions as a place or a people. Should
it be Iran and the Iranians? Briefly, “Persia/Persians” is seldom used
today, except in the United Kingdom or when referring to ancient
Iran/Iranians – c. sixth century bc to the third century ad. Riza Shah
(1926–1941) decreed in 1935 that Iran be used exclusively in official and
diplomatic correspondence. Iran was the term commonly used in Iran
and by Iranians, except from the seventh to the thirteenth centuries. Fol-
lowing the Second World War, oil nationalization, the Musaddiq crisis,
and subsequent greater sensitivity to Iranian nationalism, the designa-
tion Iran/Iranian became widely used in the west. Until recently the use
of Persia/Persians was often rejected among Iranians themselves.
Iran/Iranian also had its own hegemonic dimension, especially from the
experience of some of Iran’s multi-ethnic population. The usage of
Persia/Persian, however, was revived by Iranian expatriates in the post-
1979 era of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This common usage among
them represents an attempt on their part to be spared the opprobrium
of “Iran” and its recent association with revolution, “terrorism,”
hostages, and “fundamentalism,” while Persia/Persian suggested to them
an ancient glory and culture – a less threatening contemporary political
identity. Nevertheless, the political ramifications of either Persia or Iran
cannot be escaped. Above all, the history of Persia/Iran is the history of
the interaction between place and the peoples who have lived and who
currently live there.

Place

Usage of Persia or Iran and its geographical location depends not only
upon context, but also upon historiographical traditions and their under-
lying assumptions. Where is Persia/Iran? In the beginnings of recorded
Persian history, Persia was the home region of the Achaemenian dynasty
(c.550–331 bc), located in the southwestern part of the Zagros moun-
tains and Iranian plateau. Persia was derived from Pars, or in Old Persian
Parsua, or today’s Fars province. (The Sasanian dynasty, c.224–641 ad,
the fourth of the ancient Persian dynasties, came to power from their
home in Fars, too.) The use of Persia, or the Greek Persis for the larger
region of what we know as Iran was a Greek concept that becomes reified
in the west. Interestingly, the Achaemenians appear not to have had a
general designation for the whole of their empire, but utilized existing
regional names for specific parts of it. The designation “Iran,” was used
by the Greek historian, Erastothenes (third century bc) and derives from
the Old Persian word ariya (Aryan). The Sasanians, however, called the
core of their empire Iranshahr (the empire of the Iranians) or Iranzamin
(the land of Iran). Subsequent and modern usage derives from this
Sasanian precedent. The boundaries of these ancient empires fluctuated
and reflected the ability of their dynasts to defend or expand them. The
greatest territory of any Persian empire was that established by the
Achaemenians and extended from the Mediterranean to Central Asia,
while the Sasanian empire, the next largest in extent, stretched from
Mesopotamia to Central Asia.

Geography

Political history compounds the problem of locating Iran. In terms of
geography, there is the specific place of the Iranian plateau that extends
from Mesopotamian lowlands to the Amu Darya (Oxus river) and south
to the Indian Ocean. The western border is defined by that great moun-
tain chain known as the Zagros, some 2,000 kilometers in length, that
separates the Iranian plateau from the lowlands of Mesopotamia. The
Zagros chain meets the Caucasus mountains in the north with the Alburz
mountains to the north and east. The northern border of the Iranian
plateau continues from the Zagros and the Alborz, across the Syr Darya
to the Amu Darya, Transoxiana and to the Hindu Kush, where it turns
south to the Indus Valley to the Indian Ocean, Gulf of Oman, and Persian
Gulf. Although the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and plains are not
encompassed by the Iranian plateau, they were vital to it, as were Central

Persia: Place and Idea

Asia and the Indus Valley. Like so much of the history of such a vast,
strategic region, geographic designations relate to political factors
and to historic patterns of hegemony. At the start of the twenty-first
century, this extensive region – some 2,300,000 square kilometers! –
comprises the modern states of Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, southern
Turkmenistan, and the western half of Pakistan. The ancient empires
of the Achaemenians, Seleucids, Parthians, and Sasanians centered
on the plateau and often extended far beyond it to the west and to
the east.

Topography, too, defines the Iranian plateau, with its extremes of tem-

perature, elevation, and precipitation, giving the region a unity. The
plateau is characterized by eroded high deserts and steppes roughly 3,000
meters above sea level, far higher mountain ranges, and great salt basins
and lakes formed largely by seasonal rivers that disappear into them.
There are great and often stark topographical variations that change
dramatically according to the light and by season. Temperatures are
extreme, very hot in summer and cold in winter, bitterly so at higher
elevations. Similarly, precipitation ranges from 10 centimeters to 250
centimeters (in the lowlands just to the south of the Caspian Sea) per
annum. The Iranian plateau is quite barren, often starkly so, and this
barrenness is the result of both climatic and cultural conditions. For most
of the region, precipitation is sparse and falls mainly in late autumn,
winter, and early spring. Precipitation is affected by altitude, and falls as
snow at higher elevations. Its slow melt there during the relatively cool
summer months provides runoff for agriculture and pastoralism. Perhaps
10 percent of the region is arable and another 15 percent is suitable for
pastoral nomadism. Pastoral nomadism, with the constant problem of
over-grazing by sheep and goats, and political instability, are probably
the prime factors, in addition to climactic limitations, for the region’s
barrenness. Agriculture without irrigation is possible at higher eleva-
tions, though for a shorter season of growth, and in those regions where
there is more certain rainfall, especially in the provinces of Azerbaijan,
Gilan, Mazanderan, and northern Khorasan. In such places, too, and
along rivers, open parkland forest is still to be found. Where there is
water, produce is abundant.

Economic and Social Adaptation

Regardless of where Iran as a place is located, love of the land long pre-
dates modern nationalism, indeed begins with the Achaemenians. The
land with its expanse, variety, and beauty is never far from thought.

Persia: Place and Idea

The topographical and climatic conditions of the Iranian plateau have

shaped its economy and have helped to define its history. The western
edge of the plateau, the foothills and lower elevations of the Zagros
mountains, were areas where the domestication of cereal grains such as
wheat and barley and of sheep and goats – still critical to the whole
region in the twenty-first century – first began to occur some 20,000
years ago. Archaeological sites in western Iran, northern Iraq, and south-
western Turkey provide the evidence for this critical process. The mate-
rial culture – shards, flints, obsidian, bones, architecture – from these
sites also reveal trade in objects and ideas over great distances. From the
beginnings of this process of domestication of plants and animals and
with continuing technological and social changes throughout the Middle
East, important economic, demographic, social, and cultural develop-
ments resulted in larger-scale agriculture in Mesopotamia. Complex
communities developed there. In these complex communities, cities
emerged along with administrative organizations, social and cultural dis-
tinctions, religion and ideas, and writing. In addition to Mesopotamia,
Central Asia, that vast area to the east, was also important in shaping
Iranian history. According to recent archaeological excavations and
analysis complex communities developed there also.

The most important long-term factor in Persian history was human

adaptation to the Iranian plateau with the development of agriculture,
pastoralism, pastoral nomadism, and urban communities. Agriculture
was – and continued to be – focused on production of cereal grains and
then fibers, initially wool and flax. The raising of sheep and goats par-
alleled the domestication of wheat and barley. And there is early evidence
for transhumance, that is, seasonal movement from lowlands to upland
pastures, where snow melt provided water and grass throughout the
summer for sheep and goats. Transhumance, and longer-range pastoral
nomadism, represented further specialization and dependence on flocks.
Cereal production, however, was part of the pastoral economy. Pas-
toralists probably represented more of a difference in emphasis from
agriculturists, who were more dependent on fields than pastures. Pre-
sumably, differences in social organization and culture between agricul-
turists and pastoral nomads emerged, although both probably shared a
kin basis for production and organization.

Pastoral nomads played and continued to play a significant role in

Persian history beyond their critical economic one in the form of
social–political federations tied to the pastoral economy of access to and
protection of pasture and water. Federations formed into confederations
for military purposes and for the achievement of political and economic

Persia: Place and Idea

goals that required greater numbers than a federation; typically, confed-
erations were of short duration, for tension would develop between the
short-term needs of the pastoral economy and the longer-term political
and military ones of the confederation. In pre-Achaemenian history, con-
federations from the Iranian plateau, the Zagros in particular, challenged
Mesopotamian hegemony, and sources suggest that small kingdoms, for
example the Medes, emerged from them. Such confederations possessed
leadership, necessary skills and organization, weapons, and an economy
and culture that could mount a defense as well as an offense to main-
tain autonomy in the Zagros. Pastoral nomadic culture required care and
defense of flocks and pastures that entailed certain organizational and
military skills that were reinforced by hunting skills. While the agricul-
turists, pastoral nomads, and urban dwellers complemented each other
in the larger economy and society, pastoral nomadism required a degree
of autonomy.

For pastoral nomadism to be viable, the pastoralists had to be respon-

sive to their flocks’ particular short-term needs in terms of pasture and
water, and that responsiveness was paramount in making social and
political decisions as well. Such autonomy made pastoral nomads unre-
liable in terms of larger and persisting social and political organizations,
and pastoral nomadic leaders who overcame the reluctance to form
larger groups did so because they possessed extraordinary political and
military ability, family or dynastic base, and, perhaps, charisma. There
have been dramatic historical instances when pastoral nomads have com-
bined to mount long-term campaigns of conquest and domination. The
emergence of the Achaemenians – and preceding them, the closely related
Medes or the Scythes – represent this process.

Ethnic Complexity

Ethnic complexity has also helped to define the history of the Iranian
plateau. Such complexity is seen in the economy, settlement patterns, and
movements of peoples to and across the plateau region. Language, as a
significant ethnic indicator, becomes even more important for historical
analysis and differentiation after writing emerged. By the eighth century

, the Iranian plateau and its adjacent environs included Semitic speak-

ers of Assyrian, Hebrew, and Aramaic; Dravidian peoples, for example
the Elamites; Indo-Europeans speakers of Scythian, Armenian, Persian,
and a number of dialects; and Turkic speakers toward and in Central
Asia. Religion, too, served as an important factor in ethnic and cultural

Persia: Place and Idea

complexity. Local deities, shamanism, and animism predominated in the
Iranian plateau and adjacent regions. However, proto-monotheism –
perhaps monotheism itself – was to be found in the teachings of the
ancient Persian prophet, Zoroaster (now accepted as having lived well
before the Achaemenians,

probably, c.1300–1000 bc), and among the

Hebrews. Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam would all
play important roles in Iran’s subsequent history.

Sources and Historiography

Unfortunately for historians, the ancient Zoroastrian tradition was an
oral one, and our knowledge of it is greatly limited; its earliest written
sources date only from the period of early Islamic history. However, we
know something of ancient Persia, its people, its culture, and even the
names of some the actors in its history, because some of the tradition,
especially dynastic politics, was transmitted through written sources. The
familiarity of the names of Cyrus the Great, Darius, Xerxes, and
Alexander the Great even constitute a part of western culture. Our
knowledge and understanding of the ancient world is based not only on
primary and secondary sources, but also upon historians’ use of those
sources, and their own conceptions and perceptions that they bring to
those sources from the culture within which they live. Reconstructing the
past involves us, then, in understanding the historiographical tradition.

Granting for the moment that Persian history begins with the

Achaemenians (c.550–331 bc), there are earlier references to what
becomes known as Persia in Assyrian sources. Then there are extant if
limited Achaemenian sources of various sorts, including monumental
inscriptions and administrative records, and finally a larger number of
Greek sources and biblical references. And, of course, there is the archae-
ological record. Achaemenian sources have only been available to us
since their rediscovery and transcription in the nineteenth century; con-
sequently, the far earlier and pervasive classical and biblical studies have
shaped our views of them. In the mid-nineteenth century, Rawlinson and
Grotefend independently deciphered the trilingual texts in Old Persian,
Median, and Babylonian of Darius’s monumental Bisitun inscription,
thus making it possible to read Achaemenian inscriptions there and
throughout the Middle East for the first time. The chancery records –
the Treasury and Fortification tablets – at Persepolis, however, were not
discovered until the archaeological excavations of the 1930s; moreover,
these cover only a very short period of time.

Persia: Place and Idea

Long before Rawlinson and Grotefend, however, a historical tradition

of looking at the Achaemenians through a Greek perspective had been
well established: Achaemenian history was seen as an extension of Greek
history at best or as a counterpoint or a debased version of it. Only
seldom was Achaemenian history seen in its own terms. Even in much
of twentieth-century scholarship, attitudes toward the Persians were not
unlike those of Herodotus in the fifth century bc who found them fas-
cinating, exotic, and “Oriental.” Given the number and detail of Greek
sources and the corresponding paucity of Achaemenian ones, Greek his-
tories are understandably seductive. The Greeks defined themselves
against the Achaemenians, and viewed them with both awe and conde-
scension. The Persians were clearly non-Greek, the Other, in every cate-
gory, especially politics, society, and art and architecture. This is history
written by rivals if not enemies. Moreover, that subsequent historians
well into the twentieth century adopted the Greek view of the Persians
is also understandable given political and cultural attitudes, the dearth
of Achaemenian sources, and the nature of their own classical education.

The Greek-dominated perception of ancient Middle Eastern history is

still common and is reinforced by romantic notions of the unchanging,
timeless nature of Oriental or, in our case, Persian history. For example,
descriptions by Herodotus have been seen as applicable for all periods
of Achaemenian and Persian history with the assumption that little or
nothing had changed. Or no discrimination was made between the sixth
and third centuries bc; nineteenth-century nomads were likened to bib-
lical “forebears.” Third century bc autocracy and despotism explained
seventeenth-century politics. In addition, Greek sources were accepted as
primary and contemporary when many were more often secondary, at
best, and well after the fact. Not until the 1960s, when a new genera-
tion of archaeologists began excavating in both Iran and Central Asia,
and with the emergence of a comparable new generation of historians,
were accepted Greek-dominated views of the ancient Persians challenged.

So in the 1970s and 1980s attitudes toward Persian/Iranian history of

whatever period, ancient to modern, began to change among specialists.
A new cohort of Achaemenian specialists, for example, have had a major
impact in the reassessment of that history either through new evidence
or through the new questions they raised. Especially important was the
formation of study groups such as the Achaemenid History Workshops.
Certain fields of Iranian studies, in addition to archaeology and history,
have experienced a renaissance. One notable area has been the develop-
ment of Zoroastrian studies. Iranian scholars, also, are now playing a
role in this process. In art and architectural history, too, there have been

Persia: Place and Idea

recent attempts to understand the Achaemenians on their own terms.
There has been a similar transformation in Safavid studies with signifi-
cant new scholarship and publication across disciplines.

Romanticism and idealization of the western cultural tradition, espe-

cially regarding the roots of democracy, which have been seen as spring-
ing solely from Greek origins, has been slower to change. Use of the past
can also be seen in Iranian nationalism, in which nineteenth-century
Iranian intellectuals and then the Pahlavis (1926–1979) glorified Iran’s
pre-Islamic era at the expense of the more recent Islamic past to legiti-
mize their rule. But Pahlavi rulership affected how both Iranian and
western scholars have looked at the ancient past, and the study of king-
ship, because it has now been linked with the Pahlavis, has itself become
something of anathema. Far earlier, from Darius (522–486 bc) and then
during the time of the Greek historians, rulership was inextricably bound
up with Persia and what is was to be Persian. Central for the Greeks in
defining Persian “Otherness” was Achaemenian autocracy and deca-
dence. In the same way modern westerners continue to define their idea
of Persia in terms of themselves against both the Pahlavis and the Islamic
Republic.

Another aspect of our idea of Iran and its historiography has been to

view the past through another lens of very recent history and to project
on the past assumptions derived from “the state.” The state was not
established until the Pahlavis centralized rule in the 1920s, when Iran’s
political culture was radically transformed. In addition, the very use of
dynastic names such as the Achaemenian or Sasanian or Safavid
(1501–1722) or Qajar (1796–1926) implies a unity, control, or even cen-
tralization that was not to be found before the twentieth century. The
category “state” is freely adopted from common usage, when in fact the
pre-twentieth-century empires represent at best loose confederations
with central government institutions. The common use of “state,” know-
ingly or not, relies on Weber’s definition: “a human community that (suc-
cessfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force
within a given territory.”

No Iranian government until the Pahlavis had

a monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force, and key institutions
associated with the Weberian state including a bureaucracy and a mili-
tary were not the sole prerogative of Iranian governments. And to deal
with an additional Weberian factor, that of “a given territory,” while
there were notions of sovereignty over territory and regions, there were
no delineated boundaries of Iran until 1914. Furthermore, the power of
government hardly extended beyond capitals and cities in frontier
regions, or beyond fortified trading centers along the great trade routes.

Persia: Place and Idea

Political Culture: Overview

Iran’s historic political culture was shaped by its geography, society, and
historical interaction with Mesopotamian culture to the west and Central
Asian culture to the east. The interaction of agriculture, pastoralism, and
urban centers of government and trade persisted until the Pahlavis in the
twentieth century; change took place within that framework. Charac-
terizing Iran’s political culture over some 2,500 years of history necessi-
tates both lumping and the development of broad generalizations. From
Cyrus the Great (c.558–530 bc) until the Pahlavis (ad 1926–1979),
Iran’s political culture was hierarchically conceptualized within a
Zoroastrian and then in an Islamic context: sovereignty, all authority,
belonged to God, who selected the ruler, who then reigned on his behalf
as vicegerent. Critical ideas included: one God, one universe, one ruler,
and one law that included acceptance of alternative religious traditions
so long as primacy was granted to the ruler and the dominant socio-
political group. The ruler was attended and supported by specific insti-
tutions, symbols, and a favored core group of the population with whom
he identified. Administration of the population as a whole was based on
recognition of autonomy – tribal, regional, ethnic (and Iran’s population
was multi-ethnic and represented a rich complexity of peoples) – within
an essentially religious framework; consequently, there was also tension
between toleration and inclusiveness versus exclusiveness and intoler-
ance, regardless of historical period, whether in Zoroastrianism or Islam,
or for that matter Pahlavi nationalism during the mid-twentieth century
when the political culture was dramatically transformed.

Beginning with the Achaemenians, there was the concept of an empire

composed of regions and confederations with their independent bureau-
cracies and armies and identities within, of course, the encompassing
imperial bureaucracy and military structure. Moreover, the empire was
headed by a king, as were some of the regions or even confederations.
During the reign of Darius (522–486 bc), the paramount king becomes
the king of kings – not so much first among equals, but in the sense of
being a worthy addition to the ancient Near Eastern kingship tradition.
Before becoming kings, or king of kings, the Achaemenians were fed
eration leaders who built a confederation in their home region of
Pars/Fars, or Persis/Persia, where they were identified and identified them-
selves as kings. Certainly from the time of the Sasanians – and probably
earlier – until the twentieth century, Iran’s bureaucracy, although institu-
tionalized and in service to the ruler and his administration, appears to

Persia: Place and Idea

have been both public and private, central and regional. The ulema (legal
scholars) in the Islamic period, and the Zoroastrian clergy certainly in
the earlier Sasanian period and possibly even in the Achaemenian
period, performed bureaucratic functions and were independent of
the government, although they were often co-opted by and functioned
as an adjunct of it. The Afshars and Qajars in the eighteenth century,
and confederations such as the Bakhtiyari, which in the nineteenth
century were clearly not “states,” also had their “bureaucrats,” patron-
ized ulema, and governed territories. No government before Riza Shah’s
in the 1920s had a monopoly on the use of force; notables and federa-
tion leaders all had their own armies. Maintenance of order was largely
decentralized.

Government in Iran historically was extractive but inefficient, expect-

ing little from and performing few services for the population. Govern-
ment inefficiency in extracting surpluses related to, and reinforced, local
and regional autonomy. Government held power through force, but was
legitimized in a moral framework and accepted society as it was, includ-
ing the tension between the center and its component parts. And for more
recent historical periods – possibly earlier as well – there was widespread
cynicism for centralized government despite an idealized and moral
worldview that made it seem necessary.

Iranian government, again until well into the twentieth century, inter-

acted with a society whose economy was essentially based on agricul-
tural and pastoral production with local and regional trade that was
essentially self-sufficient and autonomous in production and distribution.
Government administrative policies beginning with the Achaemenians
recognized and institutionalized the essential federation or decentralized
system to reinforce local autonomy. One example would be the assign-
ment of land by the government to holders who performed military and
bureaucratic functions from the usufruct.

A primary purpose of government, and a critical role for its military,

was defense of frontiers and control of pastoral nomadic peoples. Migra-
tion of peoples, in itself, was another recurring feature of the Iranian
plateau’s history, which contributed to local or regional autonomy and
weak centers, and complicated concentration of power in a center. Con-
federations, or petty kingdoms, in the central Zagros in the eighth
century bc faced off against Assyria, and it was from this region that the
Medes and then the Achaemenians were to emerge. The eleventh-century

Saljuq and subsequent Turkic-Mongol invasions signaled the arrival

of a new people with flocks and culture. Turkic languages and culture
added to the mix of peoples that had pre-existed in Iran, and their

Persia: Place and Idea

appearance reinforced pre-existing social and political processes and
established policies and institutions. While sedentary agricultural society
dominated Iran even before the Achaemenians, Iran may well have had
a majority nomadic population. The Turkic-Mongol arrival resulted in
increased pastoralism, first, in terms of the numbers of pastoralists and
their animals at the expense of agriculture. Second, in response to that
impact Iran’s agricultural society, facing competition for land and water
from the newly arriving nomads, emphasized the pastoral component of
its economy and adapted it for the Zagros. For example, in Luristan,
part of ancient Elam, or in Fars itself at Anshan, there is archaeological
evidence to indicate increased pastoralism with the advent of new pas-
toral peoples.

The truism that all governments of pre-twentieth-century Iran – save

for the Selucids – came to power from confederations of pastoral
nomads, even in those instances where dynasts were not themselves pas-
toral nomads, emphasizes the importance of pastoral nomads. Some
of these confederations were indigenous to Iran, the Achaemenians,
Sasanians, the Safavids, the Qajars to name only a few, and others moved
into Iran from Central Asia – the Saljuqs and the Ilkhans, for example.
The historical cycle of the overthrow of government by pastoral nomads
and the migration of pastoral nomadic peoples, including through con-
quest, is an essential pattern in Iranian history. Pastoral nomadism and
confederation building characterized Iran’s political culture until the mid-
twentieth century, when that political culture was permanently changed.

Iran’s political culture and history resulted in a characteristic ruler-

ship that survived even the seventh-century Arab destruction of
Sasanian Iran and subsequent gradual Islamization. On Iran’s other great
divide, Central Asia, its traditions of rulership reinforced the Iranian tra-
dition. There, too, the fragmented polity that so typified ancient Iranian
history existed. Central Asia, however, unlike Iran, was dominated by
far larger confederations of pastoral nomads. That political culture,
society and economy profoundly affected Iran when Central Asian
nomads, through conquest or emigration, reinforced existing regional
and local autonomy, both socially and politically, to shape Iran’s history
down to the twentieth century.

Rulership

Rulership expressed itself within Iran’s political culture through interac-
tions of the ruler, his government, and his institutions with constituent

Persia: Place and Idea

groups and within a framework of shared values, culture, and economy.
Here representation of the ruler to the ruled was a matter of legitimacy,
or multiple legitimacies,

or what Crossley refers to as simultaneous

rulership.

Most successful rulers of Iran have also sought to legitimize

their rule in relation to preceding rulers, and have seen themselves as the
rightful heir of a tradition of rulership even in the face of – or especially
because of – the discontinuity that has so characterized Iranian history.
Legitimacy is not just the representation of the ruler to the ruled, or the
interaction between them, but about the relation between the ruler and
tradition, his relation to history.

Iranian rulership represented a form of imperial expression in which

the ruler transcended the realm’s, or, more typically, the empire’s, parts
to create a historical reality and congruent images and symbols. More-
over, the ruler created, or could destroy, constituencies, which existed as
expressions of his rulership. Simultaneous rulership – or, in our instance,
Iranian rulership – describes multiple ruling personae within one politi-
cal individual, and functioned in the context of a hierarchical cosmol-
ogy and political culture: God (in both Zoroastrianism and Islam), the
ruler, and the ruled, and then the cosmos, the realm, and the region or
locality. Especially important, the simultaneous ruler mediated between
God (tengri in Central Asian contexts) and his subjects, and consequently
both dominated them and transcended particular cultures. Moreover, the
ruler ruled over an ethnically and geographically complex society.

On the one hand, “Iran” and its peoples are the product of its ruler-

ship; the ideological product of imperial centralization. On the other,
rulership is shaped by its interaction with the society and economy of
the ruled. Through rulership, the ruler represented and institutionalized
himself and his lineage and descent group, those closest to him. The ruler
headed but was, in addition, a member of a variety of constituencies (his-
torical identities – satrapies, for example, under the Achaemenians) that
might have only a loose connection with ethnographically verifiable
groups that ranged from his own family and lineage to the broadest cat-
egories under his dominion, and represented them in the full range of his
religious, political, administrative, military, and cultural capacities. These
groups existed as expressions of his rulership and were symbolized
through trilingual inscriptions – an essential marker for Crossley as a
representation of simultaneous rulership. Moreover, he mediated
between them in the present as well as in the future and in the past. In
particular, certain ideas and symbols are seen by the simultaneous ruler’s
subjects as embodying these universal, all-encompassing qualities that go
beyond one’s particular group. In one sense, simultaneous rulership

Persia: Place and Idea

allowed the ruler’s subjects to project on to him their worldviews, but
at the same time he transcended them. Yet simultaneous rulership is
more, and expressed itself in institutions of government and religion, in
values and culture, and concretely through patronage politically and cul-
turally in material representation. Too typically, dynastic history tends
to be both mechanistic and simplistic in assigning causation to the will
and consciousness of the ruler rather than the interplay of ideological,
political, economic, social, and cultural factors. Consequently, there is
an objective and historical reality to Iranian rulership, through which the
rulers operated within a political culture and yet responded to a complex
of dynamic relationships.

Iranian Political Culture: Historical Bases of Rulership

On the historical level, notions of rulership had a basis in society and its
political culture. Centers of government were characteristically weak,
despite being powerful military machines for conquest, while regionally
based political and economic groups were accorded autonomy and a
defined place in the imperial structure. Indeed, imperial structures started
with tribes or tribal-like organization. The pre-modern Iranian economy
itself was based on agriculture, pastoralism, craft-production to a degree,
and trade. A shaping force in Iranian history has been the society and
economy that evolved on the Iranian plateau. Especially important, the
Achaemenians – indeed, the Medes and Scythians before them, as well
as subsequent Iranian dynasties – emerged as leaders of federations of
pastoralists, typically nomadic, and of agriculturists. Pastoral nomadism,
whether of the Central Asian steppe or of mountain type, is especially
well suited to simultaneous rulership, particularly in its confederation-
and empire-building forms.

Pastoralism, and especially pastoral nomadism, requires flexibility in

response to geographic and both macro- and micro-climatic changes in
competition for pastures and water. On the one hand, such flexibility has
resulted in corresponding fluid and ephemeral social and political orga-
nization. On the other, such fluidity and emphasis on small groups, typi-
cally nuclear or extended families owning their own flocks and pastures,
has meant that such groups are absent from historical sources – with
some exceptions – until relatively recent times and then mainly when
they are linked to dynastic leadership.

Without avoiding the charge of being anachronistic and extrapolat-

ing from one period to another and assuming a fixed meaning of “tribe,”

Persia: Place and Idea

it is useful to remember Albert Hourani’s elegant and uncomplicated defi-
nition for seventh-century Arabia: “The [nomadic peoples] were not con-
trolled by a stable power of coercion, but were led by chiefs belonging
to families around which there gathered more or less lasting groups of
supporters, expressing their cohesion and loyalty in the idiom of
common ancestry; such groups are usually called tribes.”

The problem of tribe for many Middle Eastern and Central Asian ana-

lysts starts with unexamined assumptions. All Iranian specialists use the
term “tribe,” but what is meant by “tribe”? For most, it means the polit-
ical organization of pastoral nomads. The use of the term is highly con-
textual and varied; yet many historians assume that it has a fixed meaning
and therefore assumed social form.

I suspect that most historians don’t

even think about it, but when historians do use “tribe,” they assume
several qualities of social organization that will be discussed below.

The single term “tribe” fits into itself a range of potential economic,

political, social, and cultural activities and organization, from small
family-centered herding units to empire. Historians commonly see tribes
negatively in terms of urban society and government, in other words
from the viewpoint of sources that themselves are usually anti-tribal.
Again, historians’ assumptions about the twentieth-century Iranian
nation-state – its need to control and centralize – affect interpretations
of pre-modern Iran. Economic roles are assumed and generally undocu-
mented save for those which involve conflict with settled society. What
is not articulated by historians is the notion that what sets tribes apart
is their autonomy – that they are difficult to control from the perspec-
tive of settled society, that tribes are unreliable and follow their own self-
interest. The principle of autonomy prevailed also within the tribe itself,
and it is this fact that made federation and then confederation building
so difficult.

Autonomy should not be confused with freedom or equality. What is

the basis for the idea that Iranian tribespeople upheld the values of equal-
ity or egalitarianism? While egalitarianism may be an Islamic ideal, its
expression was difficult.

(In Safavid studies, one encounters the genera-

lization that Sufis – Islamic mystics and their institutions – were egali-
tarian, but the basis for this claim is elusive, too.) While access to tribal
pastures, water, and migration routes was essential for all tribespeople,
pastoral nomadic society was far from egalitarian.

One can generalize

from historical sources that tribespeople’s worldviews were hierarchical,
that they were organized socially, economically, and politically hierar-
chically. Even though tribal groups may have enjoyed autonomy and
independence, they were interdependent within the tribe, federations, or

Persia: Place and Idea

confederations and within the larger contexts of agricultural, settled, and
urban society. Pastoral nomadic tribes’ autonomy relates to their
economy and associated social and political organizations.

Tribal autonomy was self-sustained, given that typically pastoral

nomads were mounted and armed. Of course, they entered the histori-
cal picture through raiding – also an aspect of their economy – and as
warriors, both defensive and offensive, for themselves or for government.
Hunting, itself a part of pastoral nomadic culture, reinforced that role
and self-image. Trade was also critical for the pastoral economy, proba-
bly more so in Central Asia, for both transport and exchange. It is impor-
tant to remember that pastoral nomads interacted with agriculturalists
around them, and shared many of the same skills in an overlapping of
pastoral and agricultural economies; however, husbandry was primary
for pastoralists, and secondary for agriculturalists. Agriculturalists prob-
ably did not play equally significant military roles. Certainly in western
Iran there was considerable movement between the two economies. In
eastern Iran and Central Asia, however, nomads and agriculturalists were
more clearly set apart. Pastoral nomadism expanded and waned; though
it appeared to have increased within the indigenous population with the
arrival of the Saljuqs and then the Mongols.

Again, historians assume too often that tribes constitute distinct ethnic

and lineage groups – some exceptions would be Crone, Lindner, and
Tapper.

Better to conceive of them as political constituencies that

idealize and justify their social and political organization and culture in
kinship and, often, descent terms. As with simultaneous rulers, tribal
leaders gave definition to tribes. As political constituencies the political
skills of leaders were paramount – probably more important than kinship
and lineage, although descent in the dominant lineage carried its own
authority – in forming larger and more complicated organizations and
coalitions.

Tribal leaders formed federations, some leaders of pastoral nomadic

federations built confederations. It is important to remember that a con-
federation is a weakly linked body whose members have a great deal of
autonomy, with some notable exceptions such as serving under Chingiz
Khan. Some confederations became governments and even empires,
which are distinguished by institutions of administration and dynastic
rulership. Dynastic names, however, obscure the fact that even when
these empires were formed and then persisted, they were not highly cen-
tralized. There were many centers of power within these empires and
even within their many regions. It should be noted, too, that autonomy
was not limited to tribally organized people; whole provinces could be

Persia: Place and Idea

autonomous under hereditary governors. Furthermore, there were sig-
nificant interactions and tensions within and between federations and
confederations and other constituencies, both urban and rural, that
resulted in autonomy at each level. Federation and confederation build-
ing that allowed for autonomy of groups and regions has characterized
Iran’s history down to the twentieth century, when a centralized nation-
state developed under the Pahlavis.

The federations/confederations were “descent” federations, because

central leadership was typically vested in a dominant family and its
descendants – the Achaemenian, Seleucid, Parthian, Sasanian, Saljuq,
Chingizid and Ilkhanid, Timurid, Safavid (even though their origins were
non-tribal), or Qajar families, for example – within which legitimacy was
based and from which authority was derived. Such families were seen as
having kin ties to the whole federation or confederation. These families
experienced intense competition for rule among those eligible for leader-
ship. The vague criteria for rulership included: membership of a particu-
lar family, in which all males were potentially eligible, and a process of
selection that involved some level of competition to determine the one
“best-suited” for leadership.

Historical Overview and the Dynamic of Rulership

Already at the beginning of the first millennium bc, when the first
Persians began to arrive on the Iranian plateau and move into the Zagros
from Central Asia, the population consisted of agriculturalists and pas-
toralists representing a variety of ethnic groups. At the end of the first
millennium ad this same complexity of peoples and economies was rein-
forced in both its agricultural and nomadic sectors by the arrival of a
Turkic population also from Central Asia. The first Persians probably
appeared as a gradual infiltration of mounted and armed pastoral
nomads.

The arrival of the Saljuqs in the eleventh century was more

abrupt; they first made their presence known militarily. Subsequently
large numbers of nomads with their flocks arrived. Lastly, the introduc-
tion of Saljuq administration and institutions had its effect on subsequent
Iranian history. The Saljuq impact was then compounded when Iran
became part of the Mongol empire of Chingiz Khan (d. 1227), and espe-
cially during the administration of Hulegu, his grandson (d. 1265),
and under his successors, the Ilkhans. Once more Iran was to be
affected by Central Asian government, especially military organization,
administration, and ideology.

Persia: Place and Idea

Another point that relates to Achaemenian and later periods, includ-

ing the Arab-Muslim invasions of the seventh century and the later
Turkic-Mongol ones, is the role of nomads as cultural transmitters.
Crossley has pointed out that Central Asian nomads were important
transmitters of culture, especially religion, across Asia:

The [Central Asian] steppe, however, remained a mix of religious affilia-
tions, in which it was not unique to find a single lineage group including
members professing Buddhism, Manichaenism, Islam, Christianity and
Judaism, any of which were likely to be crossed with the traditional
shamanism.

This plurality of religious practice among the Central Asian nomads

was partly related to the fact that ideas about rulership were not [my
emphasis] always associated with ideas about established religion. Since
very early times, Central Asian societies had been permeated by an ideal
of world rulership, in the ruler, or “khan,” [who] speaks to an ultimate
god, represented in Central Asia as Heaven, or the Sky. By his role as the
enunciator of Heaven this universal ruler transcends particular cultures,
and dominates them all. This is an extremely old idea in the region, and
may have originally derived from Iranian influences.

Crossley continues that these ideas were merged with Islamic ones
through the Saljuqs – and later through the Ottomans and Nadir Shah.
“This ideal was also extremely important in the rise of the Mongols. It
entitled them to appeal to any and all religious systems to legitimate their
rule. It permitted them to patronize and gain the favor of any religious
establishment. And it demonstrated the ability of the Great Khan to
claim superiority over all religious leaders.”

It is possible that the role of nomads as religious transmitters devel-

oped long before the Achaemenians with the ideas and teaching of
Zoroaster. Leaving aside for now whether or not the Achaemenians were
Zoroastrian, or how Zoroastrian they were, the ideas of Zoroaster –
especially ones of a dominant, all-encompassing deity, a cosmic, dualis-
tic struggle between good and evil, and highly developed ethics – stand
as one of the critical legacies of the Achaemenian period. The role of
nomads as religious transmitters also emphasizes their taken-for-granted
importance in Iranian history.

The role and titles of federation leaders, often themselves pastoral

nomads, suggest a variety of parallels between ancient, medieval, and early
modern Iran. The Safavids, in particular, revive usage of earlier Iranian
titles – again going back to the Achaemenians – of self-affirming/self-
authenticating emperorship: king, king of kings/shahanshah by the

Persia: Place and Idea

Achaemenians and Sasanians; padishah by Ghazan Khan Ilkhan; and
shah/shahanshah again by the Safavids, Qajars, and Pahlavis. Interest-
ingly, whereas khan, a sufficient title for Chingiz, and subsequently
khaqan for his Mongol successors, implied universal or cosmic rule, khan
certainly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is used for those who
exercise power, such as sultan, in the Saljuq era, although in the twenti-
eth century khan was used as a general male honorific. Khaqan and shah
then imply universal power. In addition, cosmic notions of universal ruler-
ship in Iran not only incorporated indigenous notions, but Islamic ones
as well: khaqan/khan, padishah (protecting lord, emperor)/shahanshah
(king of kings), and Zill Allah (shadow of God), among others. It should
be noted, too, that self-affirming and self-authenticating titles were used
not only by imperial leaders but also by federation leaders.

The dichotomy between title and function, an ideal and reality, and

religious/cultural values and power is generally regarded as part of
Saljuq/Central Asian/Mongol legacy, which it was. However, Turkic-
Mongol practice reinforced the already existing parallel practice in the
political culture of Iran and continued well into the twentieth century.
An aspect of the idea of rulership, especially its legitimation, was the
shaping of identity and the interaction between the ruler and the ruled,
between elite culture and popular culture, and between inclusiveness –
especially in periods such as the Achaemenian one and then Central
Asian – and the more exclusive claims that occurred periodically
in Sasanian and Islamic Iran. The Achaemenians, probably, and the
Sasanians supported an official Zoroastrianism, and periodically tried to
suppress heterodox movements. The Buyids – the first “Iranian” gov-
ernment after the 641 Sasanian collapse – were themselves Shi‘i Muslims,
while Iran for the most part was Sunni, and then the Saljuqs and Ghazan
Ilkhan became Sunni Muslims. Other rulers sought religious change:
Oljeitu, Shi‘a; Shah Isma‘il and the Safavids, Shi‘a, and it is under Safavid
rule Iran became Shi‘i; Nadir Shah espoused a more inclusive Islam; Riza
Shah advanced nationalism as a new ideology; and even Khomeini’s
Islamic primacy fits into this pattern. Perhaps the most important point
was this interaction between inclusiveness and exclusiveness, not only in
terms of rulership and religion, legitimacy, and identity, but the recipro-
cal interaction between the center of power and the larger society itself,
with weak centers and regional autonomy. There were limits placed on
authority and power by the hierarchical nature of society – both in terms
of worldview and in practice. For authority to be upheld and for power
to function, a general consensus of groups had to be recognized – this
was essential for Iran’s political culture.

Persia: Place and Idea

The Arab-Muslim conquest of the mid-seventh century introduced a

new element to Iran’s political culture, the idea of egalitarianism. Inter-
estingly, there is an element of egalitarianism within pastoral nomadism
in terms of access to pastures and water and in political organization. In
the end, however, pastoral nomadism embodies a hierarchical structure
and worldview. Islamic egalitarianism was not to be realized in Iran.
Importantly in the mid-eighth century, with the ‘Abbasid victory over the
Umayyads, the Sasanian imperial tradition was re-established with the
‘Abbasid caliphate centered in Baghdad.

Islam and then at the time of the Safavids its Imami (or Twelver)

Shi‘i form came to be identified inexorably with Iran and its rulership.
However, the earlier, pre-Islamic and pre-Safavid patterns of government,
the relationship of the ruler to the ruled, titles, a weak center in face of
the autonomous regions and groups of Iran, and the hierarchical nature
of society, continued. Even the reigns of Safavid rulers, regarded as cen-
tralizers, make the point of continuity. Shah ‘Abbas, despite his attempts
to centralize power, ruled very much in the mold of his Iranian and
Central Asian predecessors. This can be seen in his commercial and
patronage interests; in administration and ulema/Sufi roles; in the nature
of society including its multi-ethnic composition and identities; in the
agricultural and pastoral economy, and the autonomy of its units; and
in military decentralization. One significant change that confronted the
Safavids, and would prove to be beyond their control, was the emergence
of an expanding west, particular its military and economic power.

Iranian responses to the western impact profoundly changed Iran’s

political culture and historical patterns. The experiment in constitution-
alism and liberalism failed in the first two decades of the twentieth
century from the lack of a broad social basis, from ulema and monar-
chical opposition, from the failure to develop institutional support, and
from continued European imperial interference. In the second and third
decades of the twentieth century the Qajar dynasty was ousted, and the
newly elected and then crowned shah, Riza Pahlavi, ruled as autocrat
but carried out that liberal agenda save for the development of liberal
political institutions. He centralized his rule at the expense of the his-
toric autonomy of regions, tribes, and groups; he established the nation-
state and a nationalism based on Iran’s pre-Islamic past; he modernized
the military, economy, and administration; and he westernized and secu-
larized education, law, and culture. These changes have not been reversed
and continued to evolve at the end of the last century. Iranians now look
at themselves and their relationship to government in quite different
ways.

Persia: Place and Idea

The Pahlavi state became centralized under a bureaucracy and a stand-

ing army, and a new active role for the state involved it directly in the
economic, political, legal, social, and cultural life of the people. The
autonomy of groups and regions was subordinated to the center; their
leaders acquiesced or were co-opted or executed. Centralization of gov-
ernment and modern technology gave Riza Shah the means to rule as an
autocrat and, as it continued, would cut his son, Muhammad Riza Shah,
off from that reciprocal relationship with the population. His rule ended
in the 1978–9 revolution. Although Riza Shah appropriated the tradi-
tional titles and symbols of rule, especially the pre-Islamic ones, he also
utilized western ideas and technologies. His ideology of nationalism
focused on Iran’s pre-Islamic and imperial past and a western, urban,
industrial, and secular future, with Iran restored as a west Asian power.

As a critical component of its centralization and westernization poli-

cies, Pahlavi Iran demanded a single identity and did not tolerate
competing ones and loyalties; the new identity was to be Irano-Persian-
Pahlavi. Existing inclusive notions of identity gave way to an exclusive
one. Layers of identity did persist, however, and were tolerated if they
were subsumed under the Pahlavi ones. All groups making up Iran were
expected to adapt to the dominant identity. Finally, the Pahlavis’ radical
notions of society and its representation were to persist even after the
Islamic Revolution.

The revolution of 1978–9 and the formation of the Islamic Republic

changed the ideology and symbols of the state but not its form. The
Islamic Republic replaced the Pahlavi national-civic-religious identity
with an Islamic one, but Iranian identity reasserted itself at the begin-
ning of the Iran–Iraq war. Aspects of westernization, especially cultural
and legal ones, have been superceded within the governing ideology in
favor of Islam; the direct link between government and religion was re-
established. Until it faced challenges from the Kurds, Turkmen, Baluch,
and then the Qashqa’i and Arabs – all of whom were attempting to
reassert autonomy – it appeared that the Islamic Republic might toler-
ate groups or regions and be more inclusive rather than exclusive in orga-
nizing society. However, a single-minded autocracy was established, and
identity has been made even more exclusive, especially through carefully
monitored public morality and behavior, controlled education, and gov-
ernment subsidies.

Significantly, however, in 1979 a constitution with liberal political

institutions was adopted, although control was vested in the hands of
selected ulema. The Islamic Republic rejected not only those who are
secularized or westernized but also those whom the ulema regard as only

Persia: Place and Idea