Christianity (Part 2)

Khosrow II even had a favorite Christian wife called Shirin, and their love story was immortalized in the Persian romance of Khosrow Va Shirin by Nezami. In the second half of his reign, Khosrow was, however, incited against the Christians. He launched a new war with Byzantium, sacked Jerusalem, killed many people, and carried what was known as the True Cross to Ctesiphon as part of the war booty. 

This atrocity led the Roman Church to sponsor Emperor Heraclius’ military campaign against Iran, and the True Cross was eventually returned. It was in Khosrow II’s time that the first religious literature, advocating the principles of the Nestorian Church, was composed. During the 5th-6th centuries, the Nestorian Church spread its influence from Arabia and Mesopotamia to India and Central Asia. 

The Catholics of Ctesiphon became a powerful entity, and the extent of his jurisdiction rivaled that of the Byzantine patriarchs. Monasteries were also numerous, scattered in Mesopotamia, Armenia, and northwestern Iran. The Nestorian Church, however, never became the national Iranian Church, although Iranian Christians were never able to gain full ecclesiastical independence from Nestorianism.

Many differences arose between different confessions, particularly Chaldeans, Assyrians, and Armenians. This dissension eventually aided the downfall of Christianity in Iran and helped to bring about its almost total defeat after the Muslim conquest. Ctesiphon was destroyed during the Arab invasion, and the seat of the Catholics was moved in 762 to Baghdad.

After the advent of Islam in Iran, Christians, like Zoroastrians and Jews, had to pay Jizya. Dress codes were assigned to them, and most ended up in segregated neighborhoods. Christians were excluded from employment in government sectors, and most of them turned to fine arts and crafts, especially jewelry making. The coming of the Abbasid caliphs slightly improved the position of the religious minorities, and many Christians contributed to the great translation movement of the 9th century.

Christian viziers were also welcomed at the angel Gabriel Abbasid court. The position of Christians, however, depended on the will and the mood of the Muslim rulers, a situation revealed in the surviving Christian chronicles. The conquest of Jerusalem in 640 resulted in Muslim control of the Holy City and has caused never-ending feuds between Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The conquest also set off the famous Crusades, which lasted, with short intermissions, from 1095 to 1270. During this period, Christians were again viewed by the Muslims as traitors, and 3 their conditions essentially worsened.

The Turkish invasion of Iran was detrimental to the Christians. The Turks were fighting with Christian Byzantium, and suspected Christians in their territories of having affiliations with the enemy. However, there still were many Christian communities in all the major cities, notably Baghdad and Nishapur. The Christians in eastern Iran felt relatively secure, having enlisted the support of the Karakitai rulers.

When in 1258 the Mongols conquered Iran, the Christians breathed freely, but only for a short time. Partial to Christianity at the beginning, the Mongol rulers, when they were converted to Islam, tried to prove their zeal by persecuting the religious minorities. The history of Iranian Christians from Timur’s attack to the reign of Shah Abbas I Safavid is almost blank.

In 1603, Christian Armenian chiefs of Julfa in northwestern Iran appealed to Shah Abbas I for protection against the Ottoman Turks. Shah Abbas had his plans concerning the Armenian population of northwestern Iran. So he transferred the entire population of Julfa to the New Julfa of Isfahan, a district on the south bank of the Zayandeh-Rud River allocated to the Armenians. 

There they were granted protection and many special privileges. Many Armenians and Georgians were also forcibly removed to central Iran and scattered around the country. They were master craftsmen and artists, and their colonies usually prospered and became wealthy, though they were not given any political power. In the 17th century, the Iranian Nestorian Church was officially renounced. A great number of Nestorians reunited with Rome, and were called Chaldeans later, simply Catholics. They chose Orumiyeh (Urmia) in northwestern Iran as the center for their Catholics. The tenets of the Nestorian creed have, however, survived in the Assyrian Church.

The early 17th century is marked by the arrival of Christian missionaries in Iran. Most of these appeared at Shah Abbas’s court and soon made Isfahan a popular center of missionary work. One of the most distinguished of these missionaries was Father de Rhodes of Avignon, known as “The Saint”. Persecutions started again under the late Safavid shahs, particularly during the rule of Shah Sultan Hossein. Julfa was subjected to great suffering at the time of the Afghan invasion as well. 

The missionaries were forced to flee, and thousands of Christians were compelled either to migrate or to apostatize. The second stage of foreign missionary work in Iran began in the mid-19th century. Missionary schools and seminaries were established in the main Christian centers of the time Tabriz, Isfahan, Orumiyeh, and Salmas. To these schools and seminaries were soon added hospitals and orphanages, often maintained on governmental allowances.

By the late 19th century, most missions expanded to Tehran and established schools, churches, and hospitals in the capital. In 1811, Henry Martin completed in Shiraz his Persian translation of the New Testament. This was followed by Dr. Glen’s version of the Old Testament. The first successful Protestant missionary campaign was held during 1834-1871 when fifty-two American missionaries preached in both eastern and western Iran. By 1910, the American missionaries had founded 62 schools and 4 hospitals for both Christians and Muslims. Missionaries from Russia also managed to convert thousands of former Nestorians to the Russian Orthodox Church. 

Christians, along with other religious minorities in Iran, actively participated in the Constitutional movement. Their efforts led to the establishment of a National Consultative Majlis instead of an Islamic Majlis, which had been demanded by the Muslim clergy. The constitution of 1906 put an end to the segregation of religious minorities, but it was not until the Pahlavi period that the Christians were able to be freely integrated into the greater Iranian society.

 

After the Islamic Revolution, the new Constitution of 1979 guaranteed religious minorities the right to practice their religious rites. Today Iran’s indigenous Christians include Armenians and Assyrians, and there are also a small number of Roman, Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestant Iranians. The Armenians and Assyrians are recognized as official religious minorities. They are entitled to elect their representatives to the Majlis and to follow their religious laws in matters of marriage, divorce, and inheritance. However, Christians are required to observe in the streets and other public gatherings the laws relating to attire, prohibition of alcohol, and segregation by sex. Modern Iranian Christians have churches in many cities, including several large cathedrals. At present, four monasteries exist in Iran: two in Azerbaijan and two in Isfahan.

 

Nestorianism

Nestorianism is considered one of the major Christian heresies. Its bases were laid by Nestorius, born of Persian parents in the late 4th century in Germanicia (today Maras in Turkey). Nestorius studied in Antioch (now in Turkey), probably as the pupil of Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia. He became a monk at the nearby Monastery of St. Euprepius, and after being ordained a priest, acquired a great reputation for asceticism, orthodoxy, and eloquence. Owing to this reputation, Nestorius was chosen by the Eastern Roman Emperor Theodosius II as the Bishop of Constantinople in 428.

By the end of the same year, Nestorius’s Chaplain, Anastasius, delivered a sermon in which he objected to the title Theotokos (“God-Bearer”) as applied to Mary. Many were scandalized, for the term had long been in use. Nestorius, who at the beginning of his career was well-known for suppressing all heresies, suddenly supported Anastasius. He preached that the term Theotokos as applied to Mary compromised Christ’s full humanity. To many people, it seemed that Nestorius was denying the divinity of Christ. The debates led to the church council in Ephesus in 431, where Nestorius’s teaching was formally condemned, and he was exiled. He died in exile in Panopolis in Egypt about 451, but he left as his legacy The Book of Heraclides of Damascus, which became a defense of his teaching and a history of his life.

When Nestorianism was banned in Rome, its followers fled to Iran. There Nestorianism had long existed as the predominant Christian sect and still survives in the Assyrian Church. It is questionable whether Nestorius himself ever taught the heresy named after him. Indeed, he repudiated many of the views ascribed to him, and the attacks of his opponents were based on a misunderstanding. 

The fact is that Nestorius repeatedly affirmed the perfect unity of the incarnate Christ. However, his followers (or so it was understood at that time) stressed the independence of the divine and human natures of Christ, and in effect, suggested that they were two persons loosely united. From the orthodox point of View, Nestorianism, therefore, denied the reality of the incarnation and represented Christ as a God-inspired man rather than as God-man.

 

Since the 5th century, all the principal branches of the Christian church have united in condemning Nestorianism and have affirmed that Christ is a single person, at once wholly human and wholly divine. Even the so-called Nestorian church is not Nestorian in the strict sense, though it venerates Nestorius and refuses to accept the title Theotokos.

 

Christianity (Part 1)

Christianity arrived in Iran during the Parthian period. The New Testament names Parthians, Medes, and Elamites among the people who” gathered in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles, and these started preaching the word of Jesus. Early Christian records mention that Apostle Thomas was assigned to evangelize Parthia. Legends first appearing in the 4th-century credit Simon the Zealot and St-Judas (Thaddaeus) with missionary work and martyrdom in Persia (noted in the apocryphal Passion of Simon and Jude). Traditionally, Apostle Bartholomew is also believed to have served as a missionary to Parthia and Armenia.

Aramaic sources mention that by the beginning of the 3rd century, Iranian Christians had some 350 churches, among them one of the world’s earliest churches, Qara-Kelisa (“Black Church”), which has survived to this day, though in a modified form. Parthian kings were liberal in their religious policies, and during their rule, Christianity became widespread throughout their realm. At a time when Christians were persecuted in Rome, many found refuge in Iran and were given protection by Iranian kings. The largest Christian community of this period was settled in Adiabene, a vassal state of the Parthian Empire in northern Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Despite the vigorous missionary activities of the early Christians, the majority of Iranians, however, remained Zoroastrians.

Under the early Sasanid kings, the Christian communities in Iran lived undisturbed by persecution. Kartir’s reference to two Christian sects indicates that by the second half of the 3rd century, Christianity had gained a firm footing in Mesopotamia, Adiabene, and Khuzestan the three main centers of Christianity. In the Sasanid Empire. Christianity, however, faced resentment starting from the time of Bahram II rule. Its main opponent was the Zoroastrian clergy, who treated Christianity as a constant and growing menace to the newly-revived Zoroastrian religion. One of the earliest Persian Christian martyrs was Bahram II Christian concubine Candida. Christian martyrdom, however, remained isolated instances.

Things changed for the worse in the 4th century, when systematic harassment of Christians began. When in 324, the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and proclaimed himself the spiritual head of all the Christians in the world (including, of course, the Christians of Iran), Iranian Christians found themselves torn between the two powers, the king of their country and the head of their faith. Pressured by the constant threat of Rome’s expansionist policy, the Sasanid rulers looked upon the Christians in their country as “fifth columnists” and often, with or without provocation, launched fierce persecutions against them. The earlier conversion of Armenia to Christianity made matters even worse.

However, despite persecution from the government and the resentment of the populace, whose national feeling always clung to the ancient Zoroastrian creed, Christianity kept steadily growing. One of the most notable Persian Christian theologians of this time was Aphrahat, who left as a legacy twenty-three treatises known under a common name: Demonstration.

Tensions significantly eased for Christians during the rule of Yazdgerd I. He allowed Christians to worship publicly and to build churches. In 410, under his patronage, the Christians of the Sasanid Empire even held a council in the city of Seleucia. Presided over by Mar Isaac, the Bishop of Ctesiphon, the council worked out rules for the local community and created an organized Christian hierarchy in Iran. Mar Isaac was appointed the first Catholicos (“Universal” Bishop) of all the Orient.

 Bishop Ma’rutha, an envoy of the Byzantine Emperor to the Persian court, may have been instrumental in reorganizing the Persian “’ Church and further proselytizing Iranians for Christianity. The last years of Yazdgerd’s reign were marred by a new wave of Armenian enameled 4 Of Christian Persecution. It was stirred up by the destruction of a Zoroastrian fire altar in Susa, instigated by the local Bishop Abdas. Abdas was executed, and many Christians were killed in a general slaughter. Many churches were also destroyed.

The persecution continued under Yazdgerd’s successor Bahrain V. The fratricidal strife between Christians and Zoroastrians went on with ever-increasing ferocity and bitterness. Many Christians fled to Roman territories, and when Bahram was refused their extradition, he launched a new war with Byzantium.

This war, however, was not successful for the Persians. Bahram had to seek peace, and one of the terms demanded by the Byzantine Emperor Theodosius II was that Iranian Christians be ensured freedom of worship. Shortly after the end of the war, the Christians of the Sasanid Empire Synod which formally proclaimed the autonomy of the Persian Church. By this act, the Iranian Christian Church freed itself of suspicions regarding foreign ties, and the Christians in Iran found comparative peace. This was a period of enthusiastic literary activities, which led to the formation of extensive Christian Syriac literature in Iran. (Syriac was the liturgical language of the Persian Church.)

The religious hatred and fanaticism on the part of both Zoroastrians and Christians were, however, of too long a standing to die out completely. Religious persecutions resumed straight away under Yazdgerd II. He tried to reconvert Christian Armenians to Zoroastrianism, an attempt drowned in much blood. In 486, under the influence of Barsumas, the Metropolitan of Nisibis (modern Nusaybin in southeastern Turkey), the Persian Church acknowledged Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia, the chief Nestorian theological authority, as guardian of the right faith. This position was later reaffirmed under the patriarch Babai (497-502), and since that time the church has been Nestorian.

The Persian Church’s intellectual center then became the new school in Nisibis. Its first rector was Narses, later known as Rabban the Great, a prolific writer and a great orator who helped to provide the Nestorian Church with firm theological foundations. The fame of this seminary was so great that it reportedly served as a model for the renowned Gassiodorus’s monastery in Vivarium, established in 540. The later Sasanid rulers, such as Khosrow I, Hormoz IV, and Khosrow II supported Christians and granted them freedom of worship.

Judaism in Iran

Iranian Jews are among the oldest religious minorities in the country. The earliest mention of the Jews in Iran comes from the Assyrian annals, which testify to the Jews’ deportation from Israel to Media in 727 B.C. under the Assyrian king Tiglath _ Pileser III, and later in 721 B.C. under Sargon II. The chronicles indicate that 27,290 Jews were forced to settle in Ecbatana (Hamadan) and Susa. These settlers are referred to as one of the “Ten Lost Tribes of Israel” in biblical records.

The following wave of Jewish immigrants arrived in Iran around 580 B.C., fleeing from the persecution of the Assyrian king Nebuchadnezzar II. Most of them settled on the site of modern Isfahan, in a district that became known as Yahudiyeh (The Jewish City).

The conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great and the release of Jews, who had been held captive there since the Babylonian conquest of Judah and the destruction of Jerusalem, also brought many Jews to Iran. Although the Jews were permitted to return home, only some 40,000 of them made their way back, many others remained in Babylon or spread throughout the Achaemenid Empire, where they maintained their religious identity and independence. Cyrus is greatly praised in the Book of Isaiah as the instrument of God’s salvation.

 

The Book of Esther tells us of the fate of the Jewish Diaspora under Xerxes. Esther, the adopted daughter of Mordecai, became the favorite concubine of the Persian King of Kings. In the Biblical account (there is no historical evidence of the fact), Xerxes was urged by one of his courtiers to order the total eradication of the country’s Jewish population. However, Esther intervened with the King, and as a result, the Jews were allowed to defend themselves so that all were saved. The mausoleum of Esther and Mordecai in Hamadan remains one of the most sacred Jewish pilgrimage sites.

The early Achaemenid policy of religious toleration continued under later rulers. According to the Old Testament, Artaxerxes I wrote to Ezra, a royal scribe in Susa, and then by the king’s will, the governor of Judah, an Achaemenid satrapy at that time, “I make a decree, that all they of the people of Israel, and his priests and Levites, in my realm, which is minded of their own free will to go up to Jerusalem, go with thee. And to carry the silver and gold, which the king and his counselors have freely offered the God of Israel, whose habitation is in Jerusalem.”

Correspondence left by Ezra and his successor Nehemiah indicates a strong Jewish community with its organs of self-administration, in whose affairs the Persians did not intervene. Like the other ethnic and religious minorities within the Achaemenid Empire, the Jews had to pay taxes, this was a fee that paid for their freedom to follow their regulations in all cultural, legal, and administrative matters. Many documents mention Jewish names engaged in a trade or as property owners.

 

Marriage contracts testify to mixed marriages in the Jewish community, to the extent that Ezra had to object to it and enforce the regimen of the Torah. There are no mentions of racial hatred, religious persecution, or feelings names on of the superiority of one people over another under the Achaemenians. Even when the Jews or other groups were mistreated, there is no evidence that such actions were based on race or religion.

After the collapse of the Achaemenid Empire, almost all of its former principalities passed under Seleucid control. At first, the Jews seem to have enjoyed some political autonomy and complete religious liberty, particularly under Antiochus III of the Syrian Seleucid dynasty.

The most important literary work of the early Hellenistic period, which according to tradition dates from the 3rd century B.C., is the Septuagint, a translation of the Pentateuch into Greek. (The translation of the whole Hebrew Bible was completed during the next two centuries.)

Under Antiochus IV, Jewish fortunes changed dramatically. In his effort to Hellenize the Jews of Palestine, Antiochus attempted to force them to abandon their religion and practice the common pagan worship of his realm. Increasingly sterner restrictions were imposed upon the Jews, and the city of Jerusalem was pillaged. This led to the revolt of the priest Mattathias and his five sons the so-called Maccabees. It has been conjectured that one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness, mirrors the fierceness of this struggle. In any case, the term “martyr” the person who bears witness to the faith through his suffering and death, dates from this episode. In his visions, Prophet Daniel, contemporary with the events, probably relates to the persecution of the Jews under Antiochus IV.

Prophet Daniel is buried in Susa, and his mausoleum is the second most important pilgrimage site of the Jewish community in Iran. The Parthians were relatively liberal toward the Jewish population. The only serious incident that happened between the Jews and the central administration during the Parthian period was the rebellion staged by two Jewish brigands, Asinaeus and Anilaeus, who set up a free state north of Ctesiphon. This state lasted fifteen years before it was overcome by the Parthians. The Jewish chronicles mention the Parthian period as one of the best in their history.

During this time, the Jews maintained close and positive contacts with the reigning dynasty. Their active participation in the silk trade may have been a special privilege granted by the royal house.

During the Parthian rule, the Jewish community of Iran again increased, particularly due to the influx of Jewish refugees fleeing from the Roman holocaust in Palestine in 135 A.D. The main centers of Jews in the Parthian Empire were Syria, Asia Minor, and Babylon. Little is known about the number of Jewish residents in the Sasanid Empire, but it must have been quite considerable, especially in Babylonia.

Although the Sasanid rule is characterized by its extreme and contradictory policies toward the religious minorities, Jews suffered less as compared with other creeds, because they did not meddle in politics as Christians, Manicheans, or Mazdakites did. In 470, however, many Jews were killed in the suppression of a massive revolt occasioned by the assumed arrival of a new Messiah on the 400th anniversary of the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Another large campaign against the Jewish community was launched after the suppression of a coup d’etat by Bahram Chubin, who had many Jewish supporters. In short, the persecution of the Jews under the Sasanians was more politically motivated rather than religiously so. The advent of Islam opened a page entirely new in the history of Iranian Jews.

 

Though Christianity and Judaism were accepted by Muslims as the only other true religions, the freedom of Christians and Jews was, however, substantially restricted, and their legal status lowered. Under the new law, the religious minorities (Zoroastrians have added to Christians and Jews shortly afterward) had to pay a religious poll tax called Jizya. In many cities, Jews had to live in closed quarters and wear distinguishing marks on their clothes to indicate that they were non-Muslims. This practice persisted in Iran till the end of the 19th century.

Muslim treatment of religious minorities varied following the attitudes of different governors. Because most Non-Muslims were forced out of the government institutions, these people went into trade and banking. There emerged a class of Jewish merchants who had money, but little political influence.

Evidence exists of the loans provided by Jewish bankers to the courts of the Buyids, the Ghaznavids, and the Seljuks. The Mongol dynasties acted with far more tolerance toward the religious minorities. Ghazan Khan even had a vizier, Rashid al – Dinp Fazlollah, who was a Jewish convert to Islam. He is known as the greatest minister of the Ilkhanid dynasty and is credited as the initiator of a major administrative and tax reform under the Ilkhanids. He is also the author of Jameal-Tavarikh (“Universal History”), the famous history of the Mongol rulers.

Among the worst times for Iranian Jews were the Safavid and Qajar periods. Jewish chronicles of the time are full of accounts of massacres, forced conversions to Islam, and general mistreatment. Reports from European travelers and miss wineries add further details to the story of the tragic situation of the Jews under the Safavids and early Qajars.

The situation of the Jewish community of Iran changed slightly during Naser al-Din Shah’s rule, mainly because of heavy pressure from Europeans and the International Jewish Alliance. In 1891, the first modern Jewish School was opened. As a result of active participation the Bahais, who were never recognized secured their right to have one delegate in the National Majles.

Although the constitution of 1907 put an end to the segregation of religious minorities, it was not until the time of Reza Shah that they were able to integrate themselves into the larger Iranian society. After the formation of the State of Israel in 1948, many Jews left Iran for Israel. This was the first wave of Jewish emigration in the 20th century.

The second wave followed the Islamic Revolution in 1979. The constitution of 1979 recognizes the Jews as an official religious minority and accords them the right to elect one representative to the Majles. The Jewish population of modern Iran is predominantly urban and is concentrated 1n Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz.

 

 

 

Mithra and Mithraism in Iran

 

Closely connected with Zoroastrianism, Mithraism was the worship of the ancient Indo-Iranian god of sun and light, Mehr (Mithra). Mithra was the most important deity of the ancient Iranian pantheon, second only to Ahuramazda. Part of the Avesta is dedicated to Mithra, who is depicted as the all observing god of heavenly light, the guardian of oaths, the protector of the righteous in this world, and above all, as the archenemy of the powers of evil and darkness.

 

Mithra and Anahita are the only gods that are specifically mentioned in the Achaemenid inscriptions along with Ahuramazda. When the Zoroastrian calendar was created, with numerous dedications to individual gods, Mithra received the month Mehr (September/ October), probably because he was believed to have a special link with the sun, which ripened the harvest. The autumn thanksgiving festival celebrated on the day called Mehr in the month of Mehr was called Mehregan.

 

Despite his connection with the sun, Mithra functioned preeminently in the ethical sphere. The word Mithra was a common noun that meant “covenant, contract, the treaty” and, as such, Mithra was the celestial deity who oversaw all solemn agreements that people made among themselves. Later on, Mithra was personified as a great judge assessing the deeds of men after death. He was also a war god, fighting on behalf of the good, and protecting the virtuous.

 

As a divinity of fidelity, mutual obligation, manliness, and bravery, Mithra was particularly revered by the military. The stress which the creed laid on good fellowship and brotherliness, and the secret bond amongst its members have suggested the idea that freemasonry among the Roman soldiers had its roots in Mithraism, and this secured the wide success of this religion in the West. Unlike its eastern branch, the western worship of Mithra, however, had few connections with Zoroastrianism, apart from its emphasis on the eternal struggle between Good and Evil.

 

One of the central episodes of Mithraic mythology was the offering of the cosmic bull. Whereas in Iranian paganism the bull was believed to have been slain by Ahriman, Mithra’s followers maintained that Mithra was entitled to sacrifice the bull by god’s will. Although reluctant to obey the order, Mithra tacitly agreed, and the offering gave miraculous results from the bull’s seed and blood, plant life was generated, day and night began to alternate, and Time was created.

 

However, the evil spirits were also awakened, and the struggle between Good and Evil began. Mithra’s slaying of the bull may have represented the sacrificing of the animal instinct to find the path to the divine and was possibly the symbol for the condition of man’s life. When the bull was slain, Mithra returned to heaven, having promised to his followers to be a mediator between them and God.

 

He also promised to return and bring everlasting life to his supporters. Mithraism had a great influence on early Christianity, and many Mithraism ideas were incorporated into it. Thus, Mithraic followers believed that Mithra was born on December 21, the longest night of the year, after which the days become longer and light triumphs over darkness; very soon, however, because of some errors in counting the leap year, this date shifted to December 25.

Later this date was believed to be the date of Christ’s birth. Likewise, shepherds were the first people to find out about Mithra, and they brought him the gifts of gold and incense which, in the case of the Christ, are attributed to the Niagi. Because Mithra was associated with the sun, his followers marked Sunday as his day of worship and called it the Lord’s Day. Mithraic practices also included baptism in holy water, with a Simulated death and resurrection being part of the ceremony. After passing seven grades of initiation into the cult, the converts were “reborn” in Mithra. Another Mithraism custom was the partaking of a sacred meal of bread and wine, similar to one of the most sacred Christian rites. Confession and the forgiving of sins were all commonalities between Mithraism and Christianity.

 

The Mithraism worshipped in caverns, of which a large number has been found. Many of the Mithraic shrines were later converted into churches or mosques. The cavern always contained a well. Access to the cavern often consisted of a system of subterranean passages, which were used in the initiation ceremonies. Three times a day prayer was offered to the sun toward the east, south, and west, according to the hour.

 

At its zenith during the 3rd century A.D., having spread from India to Gaul and Britain, Mithraism was early Christianity’s most serious rival. Like Christianity, Mithraism had its sacraments. But the life of Mithra exercised a less far-reaching appeal than the life of Christ, and the Mithraism cult excluded women. The worship of Mithra seems to have collapsed quite suddenly when imperial favor ceased to be with Mithraism. It eventually vanished in the early 4th century A.D after the acceptance of Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire.

 

 

Mazdak and Mazdakism in Iran

 

As in the case of many other Prophets, our knowledge of Mazdak’s life is very limited. He may have been a Zoroastrian priest with Manichaean sympathies. He began his preaching about 488 A.D, and within the course of a few months, his followers from every stratum of society from King Qobad I downward could be counted sands.

 

Unfortunately, we have very scanty positive knowledge of Mazdak’s prophecies, the tenets of which are mentioned briefly and with unbounded vituperation by some Zoroastrian, Christian, and Islamic sources. According to Mazdakism, there exist two original principles, Good (Light) and Evil (Darkness). Light acts by free will and design. Darkness, blindly and by chance. By accident the two became mixed, producing the world. The god of Light, who is to be worshiped, is enthroned in paradise, having before him four powers perception, intelligence, memory, and joy. By moral conduct and ascetic life, man should seek to release the in the world.

 

Mazdak pointed out the value of self-restraint and renunciation of all sense pleasures. He asserted that the desire for pleasure and possessions constituted the universal causes of all hatred and strife. To reduce these causes and to encourage brotherly helpfulness, Mazdak favored the abolition of all social inequalities, chiefly of private property, and called believers to a sharing of possessions, primitive communism. We do not know how far Mazdak went. His detractors even accused him of advocating the sharing of wives, which is unlikely.

 

Although Mazdak was treacherously murdered around 530, and many of his adherents were killed in a great massacre, the roots of Mazdakism were not eradicated. The religion survived in secret into Islamic times when some of the early Islamic Iranian liberation movements cited Mazdak as their authority and got their inspiration from his teachings.

Zoroaster, Zoroastrian History and Ritual in Iran

We know nothing for certain about the life and time of Zarathushtra/Zoroaster. The best-educated guess regarding Zoroaster, based on linguistic evidence, dates his life as between 1500-1300 BC. Some have claimed Azerbaijan as his birthplace, but it seems to be more probable that he was born either in eastern Iran or in the steppes of Central Asia. In the Gathas and later Pahlavi works it is mentioned that he was thirty when the revelation came to him. “The Prophet seems to have gained his first convert only after ten years of indefatigable mission works which he was encouraged to continue by visions from heaven. 

 

Success came when Zoroaster converted Goshtasp, the legendary Iranian king. Following this, his word spread rapidly throughout Iran and its neighbors. Goshtasp may have found Zoroaster’s uniting theories better suited to the exercise of power than the more disconnected social structure of polytheism, and entrusted the Magi with the safekeeping of the new religion. Zoroaster first rejected, and then perhaps allowed in a modified form the drinking of a plant juice, a natural intoxicant. This had been an ancient practice of the haoma cult. He condemned the practice of animal sacrifice, and he elevated the importance of reverence for fire. 

 

Zoroaster was killed, reportedly by Tatar hordes, during the inauguration of a fire temple. His death, however, gave an impetus rather than a check to his doctrines. Zoroaster was an ethical prophet of the highest rank, stressing constantly the need to act righteously to speak the truth and abhor lying. His ideas are best expressed in the Gathas, which he composed, and of which sixteen have been preserved. The Gathas are inspired, passionate utterances, many addressed directly to God. Their poetic form is the most ancient in Iranian literary works.

 

From the establishment of the Median Empire until the advent of Islam, except for a relatively short lapse during the Seleucid period. The Zoroastrian religion was an inseparable part of the social and political life of the Iranians. Beginning with Darius I, the Achaemenid dynasty seems to be Zoroastrian. Darius and his successor, however, refused to create political difficulties by attempting to eradicate the old beliefs still dear to the heart of many nobles. Thus, the religion of Zoroaster was gradually contaminated with elements of the old, polytheistic worship. 

 

Zoroastrianism gained special importance during the Sasanid rule when it was raised to the rank of the official religion. The evolution of Zoroastrianism as an organized religion into something resembling its modern form can be regarded as having begun in this period. At this time, the entire” body of Zoroastrian doctrines, which had been handed down orally from generation to generation, were finally committed to writing.

 

In sharp contrast to the peoples of the Middle East, the Iranians did not make images of their deities, nor did they build temples to house them. Plain fire altars, however, existed at all the major sites, and are depicted on the reverse sides of Sasanid coins. The three main sacred fires, Azar Farnbagh, Azar Goshnasp, and Azar Barzinmehr were particularly venerated and were connected, respectively, with the priests, the king, and the warriors, and the farmers.

 

 

The Farnbagh fire temple was at first in Kharazrn, until in the 6th century BC, when according to tradition, Goshtasp, Zoroaster’s protector, transported it to Kabolestan. Then Khosrow I transported it to the ancient sanctuary of Karian. The Goshnasp fire, located in Shiz (in modern Khuzestan), was the ancient fire temple of the Magi but came to be a symbol of monarchic and religious unity. The Barzinmehr fire temple never ranked as high as the other two, because the farmers never possessed any status of authority such as the kings and the clergy did.

 

After the advent of Islam, the fortunes of Zoroastrianism drastically changed. The Muslims officially tolerated the Zoroastrian faith, though persecution was not unknown. The Zoroastrian religion has survived in India (chiefly concentrated in Mumbai) and in small enclaves in Iran (with the main center in Yazd), and it is still practiced in various places throughout the world. 

 

The first, World Zoroastrian Congress was held in Tehran in 1960. The two major communities in Iran and India sought to reform and modernization, and some aspects of the ancient doctrines were revised and modernized. Under the Constitution of 1979, Zoroastrians in the Islamic Republic of Iran are recognized as an official religious minority and are permitted to elect one representative to the Majles (Parliament).

 

Zoroastrian Rituals

 

Throughout centuries, the Zoroastrian rites have been extended and given a definite order by the priestly class. They fall into two categories: those performed inside fire temples, and those performed anywhere. One of the most important rituals is the initiation ceremony (for 7-year-old in India and 10-year-olds in Iran) called Navjote. It is accompanied by a festive meal and the recitation of large parts of the Avesta.“Contrary to common presumptions, Zoroastrians do not worship the fire itself.

 

The fire is kept in Zoroastrian temples as a symbol of purity, eternal life, and the inner light that burns in each person. The sacred fire must be kept burning continually and has to be fed at least five times a day. Prayers are also recited five times a day. The founding of a new fire involves a very elaborate ceremony. There are also rites for purification and the regeneration of a fire.

 

Festivals, in which worship is an essential part, are characteristic aspects of Zoroastrianism, a faith that imposes upon man the pleasant duty of being happy. The principal festivals are the six seasonal festivals of Gahanbars and the celebrations in memory of the dead at the year’s end. Also, each day of the month, and each of the twelve months of the year is dedicated to a deity. The day that bears the name of the month is the great feast day of that particular deity. The New Year festival, Nowruz, is the most beautiful of Zoroastrian feasts.

 

The festival to Mithra, or Mehregan, was traditionally an autumn one, as significant as the spring feast of Nowruz. One of the most intriguing aspects of Zoroastrianism is its way of disposing of the dead, called Dakhma-Neshini.

 

 

According to the Zoroastrian beliefs, the evil spirit of putrefaction rushes upon the dead body within about three hours after death. After that time, the body cannot be touched by anybody except special corpse-bearers, who live apart from the rest of the society. These wash the body and dress it in special garments, with a wool cord tied around the waist, and place it on a marble stone. A Zoroastrian priest then intones prayers in the Avestan language (a sister language of Vedic Sanskrit), helping the soul to proceed on its way. (The soul is believed to wander near the body for the first three days, and is very susceptible to evil spirits at this time.) It is said that because of these strengthening invocations, Zoroastrian souls never return to the earth as ghosts. The members of the family then say their final goodbye to the departed. ‘The fire that has been burning beside the body is kept alive for three days after the corpse has been removed. 

 

The removal must be done during the daytime. Formerly, presuming that stone and iron” remain free from pollution, the corpse-bearers used to carry the corpse on a special iron bier and expose it naked in a stone tower, called Dakhmeh (“a tower of silence”), near which lived the vultures which performed the next part of the funerary rites. The vultures worked systematically to strip the flesh off the bones. The clean bones were then kept in an ossuary to preserve them from rain and animals.

 

Today this ceremony has been generally abandoned, and the body is buried in the earth. The soil where it is buried, however, remains polluted for fifty years and cannot be cultivated, which is considered a great sin, because cultivation is seen as the greatest worship of God.

 

Mourning ceremonies go on until the fourth day when the soul of the departed person is thought to reach the Chinvat Bridge that separates the spiritual world from the material. Either before crossing the bridge or after, the soul meets its Daena, which is an embodiment of the sum of its deeds during life, manifested as a beautiful damsel if a person has lived justly, or a hideous

hag if not. (Daena means “the spiritual twin and, according to Zoroastrian beliefs, is one of the five immortal parts in man, the other four being Ahu “life”, Baodah “knowledge”, Urvan “soul”, and Farvarti “protective spirit”.)

 

Finally, the soul is judged by Mithra and then passes either to heaven or to hell.

Pagan Beliefs

 

The Indo-Iranian people believed in many gods, some of them personifications of natural phenomena, and others symbolizing social, military, and economic functions, as well as abstract concepts and moral values. These gods wielded great power both over natural events and man’s destiny.

 

The Iranian pantheon is a direct descendant of the Indo-Iranian pantheon and consists basically of two groups of gods, one the Ahuras and the other the Daevas. These originally controlled the social matters and forces of nature, respectively, but then they were metamorphosed into two opposing groups of good and evil gods. This happened in both the Indian and Iranian societies, with the difference that the Ahuras in Iran became the good deities, while the Daevas sank to the rank of mere demons, a process that worked oppositely among the Indians. Gods were worshipped through sacrificial rituals and prayer to ensure their favor and gain their protection.

 

Unlike that of India, the mythology of Iran seems to have undergone a rapid change from polytheism to duality, or even an early version of monotheism, ending at last in a new religion, called Mazdaism (after the supreme god Ahuramazda/Ormozd) of Zoroastrianism (after its prophet Zoroaster).

 

Creation of the World

 

In Zoroastrianism, the Iranian pantheon is dominated by Ahuramazda (The Wise Lord), the creator of the world. In his omniscience, he recognized the existence of Angra Mainyu/Ahriman (The Hostile Spirit), the evil power, and Ahuramazda’s uncreated opponent, and foresaw his attack. Although Ahuramazda knew that the final victory would be his, he nevertheless prepared for the defense of his realm. In doing this, Ahuramazda first created the cosmos: the six Amesha Spentas (Beneficent Immortals/Archangels), demigods (former’ beneficent gods of the pagan Iranian pantheon), and the astral bodies all in a spiritual state.

 

The world remained in this state for 3,000 years. Ahriman, having risen from his abyss of total darkness, caught sight of the Light and the luminous nature of Ahuramazda’s world. He rushed to invade it, but opposed by Ahuramazda’s valor and fortitude, he had to retreat. There he “miscreated” many Daevas (Demons) and other demonic counterparts to each of Ahuramazda’s creations, including arch-fiends against each Amesha Spenta.

 

First Ahuramazda offered peace to Ahriman, but Ahriman refused it. In the words of the Gathas (Zoroaster’s hymns incorporated in the Avesta, the Holy Book of Zoroastrianism), this was the choice between (life and not life). Then Ahuramazda suggested 9,000 years as a limit for the duration of the battle, and Ahriman agreed to this covenant. At that moment, Ahuramazda revealed to his opponent the outcome of the battle, and having recited the most sacred Zoroastrian Ahuna Vairya prayer, he made Ahriman lie in a stupor for 3,000 years. During these years, Ahuramazda founded the universe in seven stages, in the following order: the sky, water, earth, plants, animals, man, and fire. The sky was conceived as a round, hard vault, which encircled the earth and was made of bright, precious stone (Rock crystal). 

 

Water filled the lower part of the Sphere of the sky and passed beneath the earth. The earth itself was created in three stages: ‘its hardcore, its soft crust of soil, and three the layer in between. Mountains grew from the earth like trees with “roots” underground, and the greatest of them was Hara (apparently Alborz in northern Iran). When the first rain fell, the earth broke into seven pieces (countries), with Xvaniratha in the center, equal in size to all the other countries put together. In Xvaniratha lay Airyanam Vaejah, the kingdom of the Aryans, the best of all places, and the seat of all major phenomena and world events.

 

Airyanam Vaejah is described as having a winter of ten months’ duration and a summer-only two months long. In the middle of Airyanam Vaejah stood a lofty mountain which was the dwelling of Mehr (Mithra) the ancient Indo-Iranian god of sun and light that had retained his importance in Zoroastrianism. (Although the religion of Zoroaster was a rebellion against the preexistent the polytheistic religion, some of the old deities from the mythological era were allowed readmission.) 

 

The mountain where Mithra lived is often identified with Damavand, the highest Iranian peak, and in the national tradition, the scene of several mythical and legendary events. After the fourth stage of creation, which produced plants, animal life was created, originating in the primeval bull. The sixth stage of creation brought forth Gayomaratan/Kiumars, primeval man. Often considered the seventh creation, fire is also believed to have existed eternally. Having derived from the Endless Light, Ahuramazda’s abode, it is believed to anticipate the other creations. At this stage, Ahuramazda made the sun, the moon, and the stars, and assigned each creature the role it was to play during the battle. It was in the material world that the combat with the forces of evil was to take place.

 

While Ahriman lay prostrate, several of his demons tried to awake him, but only Jeh, the arch-whore, succeeded at the end of 3,000 years in rousing him from the spell. At noon, on the first day of the first month (day Ormozd of the month of Farvardin), Ahriman invaded Ahuramazda’s world, wreaking havoc in every direction. He killed the bull, but the bull’s seed resulted in the emergence of all the species of beneficent animals.

 

Kiumars also perished as a result of Ahriman’s onslaught but gave rise to a rhubarb plant that developed into Mashya and Mashyana, the first human couple. Ahriman also darkened the sky, spoiled the taste of water, let loose noxious creatures over the earth, withered plants, and mingled smoke with fire. After ninety days of ferocious fighting, the demons were thrown back into hell. They had had, nevertheless, time enough to corrupt the world, bringing it to its present “mixed state”.

 

The next stage of the world’s history also lasted three millennia. The first millennium saw the rise of the Pishdadian kings, the second was entirely taken up by the tyrannical rule of Zahak, and the third was largely given over to the reign of the Kianians and the Iranian-Turanian wars; the advent of Zoroaster heralded its close.

 

The final phase of the world’s history is likewise divided into three millennia, at the end of which future sons of Zoroaster will appear as Messiahs to ensure the defeat of the enemies. They are to be born of the Prophet’s seed, which is preserved in the Frazdan Lake (identified with Lake Hamun in Sistan). 

 

At the appointed time, destined maidens will bathe in the lake, receive the seed, and give birth to the successive Saviors. The last one, Astvat-Ereta (Justice Incarnate), also simply called Sosyant (The Savior), will appear at the end of the third millennium to bring about the renovation of everything in existence. Meantime heaven and hell exist, with an individual judgment to decide the fate of each soul at death.

 

Departed souls cross the Chinvat Bridge, and are questioned by divinities to see whether they are worthy of entering paradise, a sunlit place Where all imaginable delights are possible, or whether they have to fall off the bridge and end in the subterranean kingdom of hell. Sosyant will resurrect the dead, and every person will view his good or evil deeds. 

 

Zoroastrians do not call this the end of the world. They name it “renovation” because it is from this time that all goodwill succeed. The wicked will go through an ordeal by fire so that their sins will be burnt. Then Sosyant and his helpers will prepare the beverage of immortality, and each soul will drink of it and become immortal. Ahriman will retreat into his dark abyss, and the forces of evil will be either powerless or annihilated. Various myths about the creation of the world and the nature of the universe had existed in Iran since heathen antiquity. Zoroaster seems only to have traced the diverse phenomena to a single origin, thus making intelligible the chaotic world.

 

Zoroaster probably did not try to create a new religion, rather, he saw himself as a reformer, recreating an “original” religion. Zoroaster offered humans a purpose in life (defeating the forces of evil) and a reasoned explanation for their sorrow and hardship. He preached that all these were brought on people by the Hostile Spirit and that helping the forces of goodness and accepting the will of an all-powerful creator would eradicate the evil, and therefore, human suffering. Zoroaster’s investing of Ahuramazda with greater power than before, and his particular vision of the role played by man, gave the old beliefs new perspective and coloring.

 

Zoroastrian Doctrines

 

In Zoroastrianism, the universe is pictured as a battlefield of good and evil, Rta (rightness) and Druj- (wrongness). Like Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the Zoroastrian religion assigns to man an honorable place in the community of creatures, but it goes even beyond the other doctrines by making man a relatively free and active agent in the scheme of the universe. Every man is free to choose either Ahuramazda or Ahriman, but his fate depends on this choice. The followers of Ahuramazda earn immortality, while the followers of Ahriman are condemned by their consciences and are doomed to death. 

 

Divine attributes are found in every human being, who must work together with God to defeat evil and bring the world to perfection. This can be achieved by good thoughts, good words, and good deeds. Soil, fire, air, and water are not to be polluted belief that constitutes what is perhaps the first ecological convention of the world. Fire is particularly revered no-Zoroastrian, for example, ever smokes. The doctrines of the Savior and the resurrection of the dead seem to be later additions to the Zoroastrian teaching. These tenets deeply influenced the later religious developments in the area Judo-Christian and Islamic traditions.

 

After Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar defeated the last Zand ruler, he at the same year took Mashhad, which was at the time the residence of the last Afsharid king. In this way, he made himself master of the country and founder of the Qajar dynasty. Under his successors Fath Ali Shah, Mohammad Shah, and Naser al-Din Shah a degree of order and stability returned to the country. However, from the early 19th century on, the Qajars began to face pressure from two great world powers, Russia and Britain.

Britain’s interest in Iran arose from the need to protect trade routes to India, while Russia’s came from a desire to expand into Iranian territory from the north. In two disastrous wars with Russia, which ended with the Treaty of Golestan and the Treaty of Turkmenchay, Iran lost all its territories in the Caucasus north of the Aras River. Then, in the second half of the 19th century, Russia forced the Qajars to give up all claims to their territories in Central Asia. Meanwhile, Britain twice landed troops in Iran to prevent the Qajars from re-asserting a claim to Herat.

Under the Treaty of Paris, Iran ceded to Britain all the territories in present-day Afghanistan. The two great powers also controlled Iran’s internal affairs and trade. Naser al-Din Shah was the most capable of Qajar kings. Many of his reforms were carried out at the initiative of his efficient prime minister, Amir Kabir. Naser al-Din Shah was assassinated in 1896 by a religious fanatic. His son, Mozaffar al-Din Shah, amiable, but afflicted by poor health, is famous for granting to his subjects the first Constitution in the Middle East.

Upon Mozaffar al-Din Shah’s death, his son, Mohammad Ali Shah, ascended the throne of Persia. Displeased with the curtailment of his powers by the Majles (Parliament), he took the extreme step of bombing the Majles out of existence. As a result, many of the Iranian cities repudiated their allegiance to the Shah and rose in revolt. The Parliament was restored, and Mohammad Ali Was dethroned. In 1909 his son Ahmad was crowned. Meanwhile, Reza Khan staged a coup d’etat and took control of all the military forces. After the deposition of the last Qajar Shah, Reza Khan took the throne for himself and started to reign as Reza Shah Pahlavi, thus founding the last royal dynasty in Iran.

After this epoch and during the reign of Reza Shah, several reforms were instituted in an attempt to lay the basis of a modern state. Reza Shah initially enjoyed wide support, but some of his actions, such as taking away effective power from the Parliament, muzzling the press, and killing or exiling many of his former followers soon led to considerable dissatisfaction in the country. His sympathy for Hitler’s Germany in WWII occasioned an Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in favor of his son Mohammad Reza and was exiled to an island off the coast of ‘ Africa, where he died shortly afterward.

 

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi faced the difficult task of exercising his power over the large country. During his rule, his most important initiatives included land reform and a campaign against illiteracy. The country’s power structure was also radically changed as part of the program called the “White Revolution”.

Soon after the war, the Majles passed an act, introduced by Dr. Mohammad Mosaddeq, nationalizing Iranian oil, and the British oil company withdrew. This successful government, however, was brought down in a coup staged at an American British initiative. The end of Mohammad Reza Shah’s reign was marked by strong collisions between the country’s clerical and secular powers. The arrest of Ayatollah Khomeini touched off public rioting. The rebellions were suppressed by force, and Ayatollah Khomeini was exiled.

From exile, he coordinated an upsurge of opposition, demanding the Shah’s abdication. Fifteen days before Ayatollah Khomeini’s return to Iran, the Shah fled the country. The Regency and Supreme Army Councils, which were established to govern in the Shah’s absence, proved unable to function, and the government headed by the Prime Minister, Shapour Bakhtiyar, could not control the country. Crowds of more than 1,000,000 demonstrated in Tehran in support of Ayatollah Khomeini. The Islamic Revolution and the national referendum that followed it proclaimed the foundation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In the continuation of the previous blog, Karim Khan was also indignant about a frontier toll imposed on Iranian pilgrims to the Shiite shrines of Najaf and Karbala. Karim found the toll particularly irksome because, with the loss of Mashhad to the Afsharids, free access to the shrines of Iraq was more important to him than it had been to the Safavids or the Afsharids. Two factors favored the Zands. The weakness and disorganization of both Baghdad and Basra after the epidemic that devastated Iraq during 1772-1775, and the inability of the Ottoman government, chastened after its defeat by Russia in 1774, to render direct assistance to its nearly autonomous eastern province. In 1776 the Zand forces finally succeeded in conquering Basra, the Ottoman port at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. (This port had been diverting much of the trade with India away from Iranian ports.)

The Qajar rulers in the Caspian provinces, however, continued to be a nuisance for the Zands. Karim Khan attempted to reduce the problem through appeasement, by dividing the Qajars among themselves, and by taking hostages all without great success. On Mohammad Hasan Khan Qajar’s death, Karim Khan brought the Qajar prince Agha Mohammad Khan, then aged about eighteen, to Shiraz, where he treated him with exceptional kindness. Agha Mohammad Khan, however, nursed a hatred toward the world in general, undoubtedly because he had been castrated by Nader Shah Afshar’s successor Adel Shah Afshar in 1748.

His rage increased at the news of Zeki Khan’s unnecessarily cruel military pacification of the Qajar realms, and the massacre of his fellow tribesmen, who were in revolt. Agha Mohammad Khan was to wreak an act of grisly revenge on the Zands after Karim Khan’s death in 1779. In his almost insane fury, he would exhume Karim Khan‘s bones, bring them to Tehran, and throw them under the stairs of his Golestan Palace. There are more stories told of Karim Khan’s kindness, simplicity, generosity, and justice than about those of any other Iranian monarch. As the archetype of the good king with a genuine concern for his people, he overshadows both Khosrow the Just and Shah Abbas the Great.

Although these and other rulers surpass him in military glory and international prestige, the Zand Khan quietly retains even today an unparalleled place in his countrymen’s affections as a good man, who became a good monarch, and who remained such. As a Vakil (Regent), he retained his simple tastes in clothing and furniture and took advantage of his lofty position only to the extent of having a bath and a change of clothes once a month, an extravagance that is said to have shocked his fellow tribesmen. Mention is often made of his physical courage, and the history of his campaigns sufficiently illustrates that what he may yield to Nader Shah in military genius he more than recoups in the tenacity of purpose and resilience under apparent defeat.

That which above all else made his reign a success was his closeness to his subjects, with the resulting tolerance and magnanimity he showed to all classes.However, since the policies of whatever regime was sure to end with the death of the governor, so it was that Zand’s rule, which began in a wave of relative popularity and military expansion, ended with Karim Khan’s death. Soon his country relapsed into civil turmoil and economic stagnation.

No sooner had the Vakil breathed his last than his high-ranking kinsmen’s malice and folly, concealed during his reign, erupted unchecked to blast apart all that he had created. Karim Khan’s death was followed by internal dissensions and a vicious struggle for supremacy. Between 1779 and 1789 one after another of six Zand princes ruled briefly. First, Mohammad Ali Khan, Karim Khan’s second son, came to power. Afterward, Abul Fath Khan, his elder brother, removed him from the throne. Abulfath’s short rule was terminated by Sadiq Khan, brother of Karim Khan Zand, who has proclaimed shah in 1779. He was killed by Ali Murad Khan, who was himself replaced by Jafar Khan, son of Sadiq Khan. The last Zand ruler was the gallant Lotfali Khan, the only one of Karim Khan’s successors to have won admiration for his courage and integrity.

His rule, however, was also very short. Deserted by his army and betrayed by his former allies in the face of a determined Qajar assault, Lotfali Khan was forced to retreat to the eastern provinces. Although defeated again and again by the powerful Qajar opponents, he fought on undauntedly and made his final stand in Bam, where he was seized by the local governor and handed over to the Qajars. The revengeful and bloodthirsty Agha Mohammad Khan had his last Zand enemy blinded and cruelly tortured before taking him to Tehran for execution.

The end of Lotfali Khan is all the more poignant because, according to the chronicles, he possessed a remarkable personality, and might have become a great ruler with the potential for changing the entire course of subsequent Iranian history. Lotfali Khan’s indomitable courage and resilience had imparted a certain nobility to the death throes of the Zand dynasty. Despite this, the urban governors and headmen, the tribal chiefs and regional warlords, justifiably disillusioned with the Zands and not yet familiar with the Qajars, elected to turn a new page in Iran’s history. The Zand rule was thus supplanted by that of the Qajars.

The Zands were a minor pastoral people variously classified as Lurs and as Kurds. They first appear in recorded history during the anarchy consequent upon the Afghan invasion of 1720. At that time, the ‘Ottoman Turks were occupying Kermanshah but were constantly harassed by a local band led by Mahdi Khan Zand. Their patriotic guerrilla war declined into brigandage when Nader expelled the Turks, and in 1752, he sent a force to punish the Zands. Many were killed, while the tribal leaders and a considerable number of families were transported to northern Khorasan. There they remained in exile for some fifteen years, prey to Turkman raiders, while their Khans and fighting men were obliged to follow Nader in endless campaigns.

At the time of Nader’s murder, the Zands comprised some thirty or forty families, and under the leadership of Karim Khan, they decided to return home. Karim Khan himself decided to compete for power with the other tribal heads of western and central Iran. He and his followers managed to defeat the Bakhtiyari forces to take over Golpayegan, a strategic point on the road to Isfahan. Their next victory was won over the ruler of Hamadan, who finally surrendered the city to the Zands. Having formed, together with the leaders of two other clans, an alliance in which mutual trust came second to expediency, Karim Khan led his united forces to Isfahan. After a few days’ sieges, the city was taken.

The allies’ first action was to set up a Safavid puppet monarch to gain popular confidence. Two or three of the minor princes of this house still lived in Isfahan. They were the sons of a former court official, Mirza Mortaza, by a daughter of the last Safavid Shah, Sultan Hossein. The youngest of these (and probably the most tractable) was selected as the most suitable the throne. He was proclaimed Shah, under the name of Ismail III. One of the allies, Ali Mardan, assumed the title of Vakil al-Dowleh (“Regent of the State”), thus becoming the sovereign’s supreme executive. Another, Abulfath, was given the post of the civil governor of the capital.

Karim Khan, as commander of the army, was entrusted with the subjugation of the rest of the country. While Karim Khan was fighting in western Iran, Ali Mardan deposed and killed Abulfath, and replaced him with his uncle. Flouting an oath in which the triumvirate had sworn not to act without mutual consultation, Ali Mardan marched independently on Shiraz and subjected the province of Fars to systematic looting. These acts provoked general discontent.

Trying to put an end to this extortion and near-anarchy, Karim Khan harangued his lieutenants on the perfidy of Ali Mardan and entered Isfahan at the head of his now more numerous army. Ali Mardan fled to Khuzestan, leaving a depleted and dispirited band of his followers, who were still marauding in the Bakhtiyari region west of Isfahan, to be caught by Karim Khan’s troops. The shah, whom Ali Mardan had taken with him, fled to the Zand ranks. A few of the captured rebel chiefs were executed, but the soldiery was treated with a generosity which was becoming typical of the Zand policy.

The year 1752 thus marks the beginning of Karim Khan’s rule as viceroy of the nominal king Ismail III. With the fall of Orumiyeh, the last fortress in western Iran to resist the Zands, Karim Khan became master of all Iran, except for the Afsharid state in Khorasan. The provinces of Astarabad, Mazandaran, and Gilan, however, never wholly submitted to Zand rule, but remained centers of Qajar power. Karim Khan’s position was strengthened after he put down a revolt staged by his half-brother Zeki, and took steps to remedy the latent disaffection of various tribal elements in the Zand confederation and on its fringes. In 1765, Karim Khan Zand came to Shiraz, which he proclaimed his capital.

He was not to leave it again for the remaining fourteen years of his reign. Karim Khan’s contribution to the architecture of Shiraz is worth special mention. Less for its artistic merit than as an example of planned urban renewal the first since Shah Abbas’s reconstruction of Isfahan. Most of Karim Khan’s construction is still standing despite successive earthquakes and the destructive malice of Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar who sacked the town in 1792? When Karim Khan settled in Shiraz, he changed his title to Vakil al-Roaya (“Representative of the People”). He refused to be addressed as “Shah”. Maintaining that the true shah was Ismail III, who was shut up in Abadeh with ample pension and provisions. Karim Khan insisted that he was merely Ismail’s deputy.

When Ismail III passed away in 1777, Karim Khan, who outlived him by eight years, neither installed a new phantom ruler nor proclaimed himself shah. Shortly after Karim Khan had settled in Shiraz, he took measures to secure his strategic right-wing, the large province of Larestan (305-315). Interested in the economic returns derived from fostering trade, he was also most actively occupied with affairs on the Persian Gulf. Having tamed the Sheikhs of the Gulf ports, the Zand leader then prepared to assault his last and most ambitious target, the Ottoman Empire. The major political cause of the war was Omar Pasha’s intervention in the rivalries over the frontier province of Baban (in present-day Iraq).

Generally considered one of the most brilliant ruling houses in Iranian history, the Safavids traced their origin from Sheikh Safi al-Din Ardebili, head of the Sufi order, who in turn claimed descent from the Seventh Shiite Imam, Musa al-Kazim. Such a lineage lent great weight to the Safavid’s bid for power and imparted to the dynasty a semi-sacred character which made the new rulers particularly acceptable to the Iranians. The Safavids came to power under Ismail I, who was enthroned in 1501 as the Shah of Azerbaijan.

By the next year, Ismail had already extended his realm from the borders of India, on the east, to the Ottoman Empire, on the west, and had become the ruler of what is more or less present-day Iran. The political organization of these lands and a certain internal consolidation were Ismail’s indisputable achievements. He also instituted the code of beliefs of the Shiite sect as the state religion, and use both persuasion and force to convert the large majority of Muslims in Iran to the sect. His motives were perhaps based more on religious conviction than on political expediency. Be that as it may, they guaranteed the future distinction of Iran from others.

Islamic countries, and established it as a non-Arabic state a thing in which Iranians take great pride. Much of Ismail’s reign was spent in his endless wars with the Ottomans and Uzbeks, who remained the perpetual enemies of the successive Safavid rulers as well. The Safavid Empire reached its climax under Shah Abbas II, better known in Iranian historical tradition as Shah Abbas the Great. This monarch began his reign by curtailing the influence of the Qizilbash (“Red Heads”), the Turkman tribesmen who virtually brought the Safavids to power, but whose leaders started to contend for the throne during Shah Abbas’s rule.

With the help of Sir Robert Shirley, an English adventurer at the Safavid court, Shah Abbas carried out a program of military reform. He established a permanent military force under medallion from the early command of Allahverdi Khan, who was later appointed to the very lucrative post of Governor-general of Fars. In addition, Shah Abbas strengthened the bureaucracy and further centralized the administration. Having successfully settled his internal problems, he undertook several successive campaigns, first against the Uzbeks and then against the Ottomans.

To promote commerce, he expelled the Portuguese, who had previously occupied Bahrain and the island of Hormoz of the Persian Gulf coast, in an attempt to dominate the Persian Gulf trade. He rebuilt and expanded a port that functions even today under the name of Bandar Abbas. Shah Abbas also ordered the development of trade routes, and 999 caravanserais were reportedly constructed throughout the country in his time. Many of these are still extant. During his reign, Iran regained its international position and became a center for business and trade in the Middle East. Shah Abbas was not only a great warrior and administrator, but he also fostered a renaissance of science and art. The period of his reign saw the golden age of Isfahan, the Iranian capital, one of the most beautiful cities in the world in its day.

 

The Shah’s energy and enthusiasm for the building were not confined to Isfahan. Among his most notable achievements were the extension of the famous Shrine of Imam Reza in Mashhad and the construction of the celebrated stone causeway along the swampy littoral of the Caspian Sea. Under his patronage, carpet-weaving became a major industry, and fine Persian rugs appeared in the homes of wealthy Europeans. In the illumination of manuscripts, bookbinding, and ceramics, the work of this period is outstanding. Concerning painting, it is the most notable in Persian history.

Suspicious of plots (and often with reason), Shah Abbas instituted the ill-advised policy of immuring infant princes in the harem, away from the inducements of intrigue and the world at large. As a result, his successors tended to be indecisive men, easily dominated by powerful religious dignitaries to whom the Safavids had accorded considerable influence. After Shah Abbas’s death, the Safavid dynasty lasted for about a century, but except for an interlude during the reign of Shah Abbas II, it was a period of decline.

The central power started to disintegrate, and finally the eastern frontiers were breached. A small body of Afghan tribesmen led by Mahmud, a former Safavid vassal in Afghanistan, won a series of easy victories before taking over most of the Safavid realm. The most outstanding achievement of the Safavids was the establishment of a strong and relatively enduring state in Iran after centuries of foreign rule, and a lengthy period of political fragmentation. Other Safavid feats include the preservation of Persian as the official language. The symbiosis of the Persian-speaking population with important non-Persian minorities, especially Turkish-speaking ones, and the new architectural layout of urban centers.

The importance of this dynasty is not confined to the national history of Iran itself rather, it was the Safavids who led Iran back onto the stage of world history as a leading player. After a disastrous but brief to be the greatest painter of the Safavid period. Afghan occupation, the country was united under the power of Tahmasp Qoli Khan, chief of the Afsharid tribe. Having expelled the Afghans in the name of surviving Safavid members, he soon de-throne the Safavids and was himself crowned as Nader Shah. He chose Mashhad as his capital. Nader’s ultimate goal was to restore the former glory of his country.

With this in mind, he drove the Ottomans from Georgia and Armenia, forced the Russians from the Iranian coast on the Caspian Sea, and restored Iranian sovereignty over Afghanistan. He also took his army on several campaigns into India, from which he brought back magnificent treasures. His Indian expedition was solved and the problem of how to sustain his empire financially. However, his morbid obsession with treasure distorted Nader’s brilliance and courage into meanness and capricious cruelty bordering on mental derangement. Finally, he was murdered by a group of his tribesmen, assisted by some of the Qajar chiefs. Almost immediately after Nader’s murder, the country fell into anarchy Afsharid, Qajar, Afghan, and Zand Chieftains struggled for supremacy, until finally Karim Khan Zand defeated his adversaries and emerged as the victor.