History of Islam and Iran
Year:2018 | Volume:28 | Issue:39 (129)|Papers Count:7

The narrative sources of the Constitutional Revolution saw the crackdown on sugar business by the ruler of Tehran as an abusive and cruel act that was followed by a massive crisis of sugar culprits, and a riot of people was provided. Without prejudice to this premise, the present article seeks to answer the question why, despite the history of such government actions, we have not seen such a reaction by the Iranian community before? Was the behavior of ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla contrary to the previous tradition? Or at this time a change had happened in the understanding of the Iranian people about governance? which routinely caused the government to anger them? In essence, how much did ʿAlāʾal-Dawla’s actions violate the rules of the regime and to what extent have they been judged by the constitutional system? The article tries to focus on the event from the structural point of view by rejecting the voluntaristic approach of individuals. According to the writer, ʿAlāʾ al-Dawla, in this event, he did not resign from the limits of authority in the old systems, but his actions had a background in the disciplinary office and the court of justice in the organization of the city administration; therefore, the community's response to his actions would be to toward the ineffectiveness of structure of the state at this time, which his life was over.

Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi founded the Pahlavi Foundation in 1957. During the twenty years of activity (1957-1979), the Foundation was apparently a charitable organization that was investing in economics only for financing Shah’ s charitable purposes. But it was actually an economic organization that was investing extensively in various economic areas. Researches, so far, have introduced the reason for these investments the accumulation of wealth by the Shah through the Foundation's charity appearance. This research, using descriptive-analytical method and documentary and library resources, showed except for the reason mentioned above, Shah has intended to intervene, guide and reinforce the policy of economic and industrial development through the Foundation. The policy, which starts from the second half of the 1950s, was between Shah and Pahlavi economic policymakers which emphasized the rapid economic and industrial development. The present research has investigated how and why the Shah intervened in this policy through the Foundation; in this paper, this intervention is named the "economic function" of the Pahlavi Foundation. The main question of this article is this: except financial factor (accumulation of wealth), what factor explains the Pahlavi Foundation's extensive investments and activities in the economic fields? Based on the findings of this research, Shah has exploited the Pahlavi Foundation as a tool for the realization of ambitious programs, and strengthening and supports his government’ s economic policies in fields of banking, industry, maritime commerce, tourism and housing in the 1960s and 1970s.

Discourse, as a system of signs, generally constructs individual and social behaviors. In every order of discourse, a collection of rules and conventions is stipulated in order to construct discourse principles. In regard to their ideological purposes, social actors tend to import signs into their discourse framework. Simultaneously, language as a significant constructive component appears and begins to establish the intended meaning of social actors in a soft manner. Thus Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, at an international level, utilizes language facilities for representing political facts. According to sociopolitical events and governing atmosphere, he attempts to establish signs in his discourse framework. In a semiotic model of this discourse framework, axiomatic signs are set into the center while the others are around the central point. Accordingly, this research focuses mainly on how foregrounding and backgrounding function in foreign policy discourse of Shah. Then in this way, hegemonic and dominant signs have been specified. Moreover, according to dominant discourse features, five periods are determined as follows: first period: 1320-1324, second period: 1325-1332, third period: 1333-1344, fourth period: 1345-1352, and fifth period: 1353-1356; furthermore, a discourse framework is determined for each period. The results show that notorious incidents occurred at certain junctures not only stir "self" and "other" identities within the realm of otherization, but it will also lead to alteration of shah's framework as well as displacement of signs.

The era of Sultan Husayn Bayqara is recognized as the period of prosperity of public utility activities. While the onset of these activities dates back to the Timurid Empire (1370-1507), they were considerably expanded in Khorasan during the Bayqara administration and due to the approaches of his special minister, Amir Ali Shir Nava'i. This descriptive and analytical research was conducted to assess the scope and impact of public utility activities of Sultan and Nava’ i using historical contents of that time. According to the results, these measures were considerably taken by Sultan and his court, especially his minister, based on the policies of the Shah and his court. These issues involved most areas, including religion, education and welfare. In this respect, Sultan and his court members dedicated efforts to taking these measures in line with earning a high-level and political-social status sometimes based on pure intensions, dissatisfaction with general inequality, acquiring internal satisfaction, and in some cases, fame-seeking.

The conquest of Egypt by the Achaemenids and the establishment and continuity of their government over this ancient land have raised the attention of the historians of that period, and each of them has given an assessment and report of this great event, according to their data and political inclinations. The point is that what has been the Achaemenid approach to a large and diverse Egyptian legacy, and whether their presence has brought about a change in the administrative and economic structure of Egyptian society. Using archeological findings as well as new historical studies, this paper demonstrates the role of the Achaemenids in the evolution of the administrative and economic structure of Egypt and provides a more accurate account of the confrontation between these two ancient civilizations, which is not consistent with the reports of some ancient historians. Also, by reviewing and adapting the writings of these two groups, the Achaemenid approach to the Egyptian heritage, which in Greek sources is partly tarnished, evaluates with the analysis of new positive findings and some ambiguities about the performance of the Achaemenid rulers in Egypt, which In the centuries it has been foment for some reason, now becomes clear.

Arsacid dynasty was established in a tumultuous time. Seleucid Empire, as the successor of Alexander, had conquered a large part of Asia and Hellenism had spread into various aspects of life like politics, culture and art. It was under these circumstances that Arsacids with their robust tribal background tried their best to drive the Seleucids out of their motherland, Persia, and establish a new kingdom. Arsaces, the founder of dynasty, had a substantial and determining role. The newly founded kingdom needed political legitimacy and reputation, and given the difficult and tumultuous time Arsacids were living in, the principles and roots of king’ s legitimacy were still in the making. The present paper tries to study the complex, interwoven political legitimacy of the Arsacid dynasty. According to results, the most important principles in this period were the tribal and dynastic traditions, the reflection of which can be found in Arsaces’ character, in Persia’ s long-standing tradition— not least the kingship tradition of Achaeminds— and in Greek legitimating traditions or, more appropriately, Seleucid traditions.

The Seljuqs after entering Iran, were managed by the elites of Iran and changed their tribal identity to a powerful empire by creating a steady army and a bureaucratic structure. By reclamation a long-standing tradition of Iqta and the transfer of the border provincial government to the slave amirs, Niẓ ā m al-Mulk linked the two military and economic institutions in order to overcome the military costs, in addition to limiting the scope of the government and facilitating its administration. The power triangle of the Seljuq government was composed of the sultan, the minister and the Amir. Under the rule of the state, the Sultan always dominated the other two pillars, but during the period of decline, these were the Seljuq amirs who dominated the two other leaders. This article seeks to analyze the impact of the iqta on the weakening of the monarchy and the ministry, claiming that the government has weakened the rule of Sultan by reducing the scope of the Sultan's political domination by creating semi-independent and sometimes outlaw provinces and rivaling the princes of the monarchy, refuse to send tax revenues, non-response to the ministry by dismissal, installation and killing of them.