The Dialectic of Poetry and Power in Iran 3

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The Dialectic of Poetry and Power in Iran Jumada1 2015 February

Fatemeh Shams PhD Candidate, Wadham College, University of Oxford he Dialectic of Poetry and Power Tin Iran

Fatemeh Shams PhD Candidate, Wadham College, University of Oxford No. 3 FEBRUARY 2015

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King Faisal Center Dirasat (the dialectic of poetry and power in Iran). / King Faisal Center, - Riyadh, 2015 40p; 24cm

ISBN: 978-603-8032-57-2

1- Iran - F0reign relations I-Title 338.2728 dc 1436/4400

L.D. no. 1436/4400 ISBN: 978-603-8032-57-2 Table of Contents

1. The Rise and Demise of Persian Court Poetry: From 5 Emergence to the Constitutional Period

2. From the Rise of Constitutional Poetry and Free 10 Verse to Pro-revolutionary Poetry (1905–1979)

3. The Rise of State Poetry after the Islamic Revolu- 15 tion (1979–present) 3.1. State Poetry in Ayatollah Khomeini’s Era

Conclusion 35 About the author 38

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Abstract

The present study tackles the question of the relationship between poetry and power in Iran in three periods, with a specific focus on the third one. The first period stretches from the rise of Persian court poetry in the medieval period to its demise in the wake of the constitutional movement (1905–11). The second reaches from the rise of constitutional and modern poetry to the emergence of prorevolutionary poetry at the outset of the 1979 revolution, and the third features the emergence of state-sponsored poetry in postrevolution Iran, which has reached its climax since the inauguration of poetry nights attended by the current leader of the Islamic Republic in 2000. Through these three episodes, and bringing the poetic precedents of each period into discussion, I argue that the emergence of state-sponsored poetry during the postrevolutionary period has to be understood and ana- lyzed in light of its poetic precedents and the ongoing dialogue of poetry and power in Iran. 1. The Rise and Demise of Persian Court Poetry: From Emer- gence to the Constitutional Period

As scholars of medieval Persian literature have often noted, court poetry in Persia “dates from pre-Islamic times, when the poet-minstrel enjoyed an important and influential position at the court of the Iranian emperors.”1 Perhaps the earliest account of the engagement of Persian kings with poetry goes back to the court of the Parthian period and to the Achaemenids, a time in which Persian epics and oral poetry were important sources of knowledge and education for the Persian kings and a significant way of communicating and maintaining the ethics and morality of the aristocratic elite.2 The history of Persian court poetry before the ninth century cannot be properly chronicled mainly because of major gaps in the documentation of earlier periods.3 Prior to the fall of the Sassanian Empire and following the Arab conquest (644-51) there was no clear distinction between the positions of the poet and the minstrel in the court. With their musical and verbal skills, poets generally played the role of the minstrel, whose main duty was to entertain the king

1- For more on the history of Persian court literature, see J. S. Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987, p. 3; M. J. Cook, “The Rise of the Achaemenids and Establishment of Their Empire,” in R. Nelson Fre, ed., Cambridge History of Iran, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985, p. 200, 291. 2- J. T. P. de Bruijn, “Courts and Courtiers: x. Court Poetry,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, available online at www.iranicaonline.org; M. W. Thackston, A Millennium of Classical Persian Poetry from the Tenth to Twentieth Century, Bethesda, MD: Iranbooks, 1994. 3- As stated in Encyclopaedia Iranica, the main primary sources for medieval Persian court poetry include chapters 35 (on Sha’iri) and 36 (on khunyāgarī) in the Andarznamih (q.v.) of Kaykavus b. Iskandar (pp. 189–97) and the second essay in Nizami ʿAruzi’s Chahar maqalih.

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during his leisure time. The information regarding the role of poet minstrels in this period has been obtained primarily through epic books such as the Shahnamih (“The book of kings”) of Firdawsi. Even sources such as these seem to be limited to the poet’s imagination of pre-Islamic courtly life. From the mid-eleventh century onward, the status of the poet (shaʿir) began to separate gradually from that of the court minstrel. Compared to minstrels, poets enjoyed a far higher social standing in the court. Works such as the Qabusnamih of Kaykavus b. Iskandar explained that poets had to educate themselves, to improve their writing abilities and to learn courtly behavior, while minstrels were not necessarily educated or capable of writing. While poets were often present in the court and would sometimes even enter the inner circle of the king’s trust, the minstrel was not allowed to be present in the court except on especial occasions.4 Works such as Tarikh-i Bayhaqi and the Chahar maqalih of Nizami ʿAruzi state that the court poets of the medieval period functioned not only as boon compan- ions but also as a source of counsel and moral guidance in the court. They were expected to be simultaneously masters of language and of morals.5 Court poets were also meant to ensure the fame of the king and his salvation in the afterlife. Rudaki’s role for Amir Nasr Samani,6

4- Kaykavus, ʿUnsur al-Maʿali, Qabusnamih, ed. G .Yusufi, Tehran: ʿIlmi-Farhangi, 1973, pp. 196–97. 5- For more, see A. Bayhaqi, Tarikh-i Bayhaqi, ed. A. Fayyaz, Mashhad: Firdawsi Univer- sity Press, 2003; N. ʿAruzi Samarqandi, Chahar maqalih, ed. M. Qazvini, Tehran: Jāmi, 1995. 6- For example, the story of the famous poem “Bū-yi jū-yi Mūliyān” (“The fragrant scent of Mūliyān”), written by Rudaki (858–ca. 941), highlights the significant effect of the poet as a truthful character to inspire the patron and to influence courtly administrative affairs. Rudaki initially wrote this poem to convince the patron of his time to move back to Bokhara after a long tedious stay in Badgheys in Khorasan. A considerable amount of such verse can be traced in the history of Persian court poetry, which proves the substantial role of the poet as an essential component of the power establishment during the medieval period. For more examples of Persian medieval panegyrics, see E. G. Browne, A Literary History of Persia From Ferdowsi to Sa’di, London: Taylor & Francis, 1906; Meisami, Medieval Persian Court Poetry. ʿUnsuri’s and Farrukhi’s influential positions for their Ghaznavid patrons, and Anvari’s and Muʿizzi’s positions in the court of Seljuq kings bear witness to the enduring relationship of poets with patronage. The mutual interest in poetry was an important factor in sustaining this relationship. A number of patrons, including Amir Nasr Samani, Sultan Sanjar of the Seljuqs, Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, and Fathali Shah of the Qajar dynasty, paid special attention to poetry. Moreover, most of the Timurid princes “wrote poetry themselves and exercised critical judgment on the poets of their courts.”7 Poets were extolled even more when Mahmud of Ghazna established the post of poet laureate (malik al-shuʿarā), which brought with it authority and prestige both in society and in the court. The power of patronage played a significant role in providing fi- nancial support to poets. A large proportion of the most glorified Per- sian verse perhaps would not even have come into existence had the courtiers not offered support to the poets. Court poets who were in the service of patrons were frequently rewarded with a variety of gifts including cash, clothing, and robes of honor.8 Treating poets with gold, silver, and clothing, however, was not always the case. The bitter story of Firdawsi and the discounting of his world-famous Shahnamih by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna, as chronicled by Nizami ʿAruzi, and that of Masʿud Saʿd Salman’s prolonged custody, which is narrated in his prison poems (Habsiyat), are but two of numerous examples of such ill-treatment.9 After the fall of the Sassanid Empire and following the Muslim con-

7- E. Yarshater, “Safavid Literature: Progress or Decline,” Iranian Studies, 7, 1974, p. 219. 8- Ibid. 9- For complete accounts of Masʿud Saʿd Salman’s and Firdowsi’s troubled lives see N. ʿAruzi Samarqandi, Chahar maqalih, ed. E. G. Browne, Hertford: Stephen Austin, 1899, pp. 95–109.

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quest, Islamic customs began to influence the Persian court and the poetry connected to it. The Islamic calendar was adopted and used in the court. Beside ancient pagan feasts such as the first day of spring (Nawrūz) and the Mihrigān feast in the autumn, Islamic feasts such as ʿĪd al-fitr were celebrated in the Persian court. Similarly, Arabic literary forms such as the qasida became a preoccupation of Persian court poets. In their panegyric qasidas and courtly lyrics (ghazal), poets began to praise the king as the shadow of God on earth. In the sixteenth century, with the rise of the autocratic Safavid dynasty and particularly under the reigns of Shah Ismaʿil and Shah Tahmasp, the panegyric qasida acquired a more religious tone. The famous episode in Alamara-yi ʿabbasi by Iskandar Bayg Munshi tells the story of Muhtasham Kashani, the Safavid court poet, and his renowned religious strophic poem, which was initially a panegyric ode in praise of Shah Tahmasp. After being reproached by the king for praising temporal rulers, Muhtasham wrote his seven-strophe poem in praise of Imam ʿAli; the poem has mistakenly come to be regarded as an elegy for Karbala.10 According to Karimi-Hakkak, from the sixteenth century onward court patronage no longer endorsed nonreligious court poetry. The Ottoman Empire, Central Asia, and particularly India became the main centers of Persian poetry. “This in turn gave rise to the particular poetic language associated with the Indian style,” which continued to influence the Persian poetic discourse through the eighteenth century.11 The final attempt to revive the court poetry tradition was made during the Qajar dynasty (1785–1925) by prominent Qajar court poets such as

10- P. Losensky, “Mohtasham Kāshāni,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica, available online at www.iranicaonline.org. 11- A. Karimi-Hakkak, Recasting Persian Poetry: Scenarios of Poetic Modernity in Iran, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1995, p. 28. Qaʾani. Under the “Return Movement” (Maktab-i Bāzgasht),12 Qajar court poets sought to revive the works of previous classical poets, which in their view had been overshadowed by the decadence caused by the impact of the bombastic lexicon of the Indian style on Persian language and poetry. This neoclassical tendency peaked during the reign of Fathali Shah and that of his successor Nasir al-Din Shah (whose rule lasted for almost 50 years). Through tażmīn (thematic imitation), istiqbāl (welcoming recep- tion) and taqlīd (imitation), Qajar court poets tried “to restore the millennium-long tradition of Persian poetry to what they perceived as its ‘original’ simplicity.”13 In practice, however, the Return Movement failed to offer anything new beyond what had already been offered by previous court poets such as Manuchihri, Anvari, and Khaqani. One of the main reasons for the cy- clical nature of poetry in this period, according to Shafiʿi Kadkani, was the detachment of Iranian society from any sociocultural interchange with other countries. This gap was filled in the second half of the Qajar reign, when the main figures of the Return Movement, such as Surush Isfahani, were harshly criticized in the works of the major advocates of cultural reform, Mirza Fathali Akhundzadih (1812–1878), Mirza Aqa Khan Kirmani (1854–1896), and Mirza Malkam Khan (1833–1908).14 With the rise of the constitutional movement, which was a drive to modernize Iranian society through sociopolitical reform, the role of poetry in the Iranian context was also revisited. Poetry was now seen not as a literary form dependent on the

12- The Return Movement began in the second half of the eighteenth century when Persian poets adopted the Khorasani and Iraqi styles of poetry instead of the Indian (Isfahani) style, which was prevailing in this period. This movement started in Isfahan and was primarily embraced by the pioneering poets of the “Mushtāq” literary circle, such as Sayyid Muham- mad Shuʿlih Isfahani, Mir Sayyid ʿAli Mushtaq Isfahani, and Mirza Muhammad Nasir Isfahani. Poets of the “Nishāt” literary circle, such as ʿAshiq Isfahani, Azar Bigdili, and Hatif Isfahani, also later joined this movement. 13- Karimi-Hakkak, Recasting Persian Poetry, p. 28. 14- For a detailed account, see ibid, pp. 23–59.

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courtly tradition but as a “socially significant discourse, either contributing to social progress or inhibiting it.”15 At the turn of the twentieth century, poetry began to come out of the shadow of the court and charted a new path toward the birth of what we now consider shiʿr-i naw (modern poetry).

2. From the Rise of Constitutional Poetry and Free Verse to Pro- revolutionary Poetry (1905–1979) The rise of the constitutional movement in the latter half of the nineteenth century16 introduced many social, economic, and political reforms that ultimately laid the foundation of the modern Iranian state. Constitu- tionalist intelligentsia believed that the millennium-old system of patronage had come to an end and cultural and political changes had to take place. Religious reforms and setting limits on the power of the king were the movement’s main objectives. The modernizers of the nineteenth century sought to erode and rethink Shiʿite religious authority and to replace it with one dominated by a centralized bureaucratic state. On the literary level, a shift toward replacing classical forms with modern poetry gradually commenced in the early decades of the twentieth century and peaked during the early 1950s. The poetry of the constitutional era as it emerged in the early decades of the twentieth century tended toward more politically charged themes and loosely organized forms. Although the political ghazals and patriotic qasidas written by the prominent constitutionalist poets conformed to the traditional formal and generic conventions of classical Persian poetry, they were put to the service of new thematic concerns. In contrast to the court poets, the constitutional poets forged close ties with the masses through lexical and linguistic amendments. Street language began to enter their

15- Ibid., p. 30. 16- H. Katouzian, “The Revolution for Law: A Chronographic Analysis of the Constitu- tional Revolution of Iran,” Middle Eastern Studies, 47, 2011, pp. 757–77. phraseology, making their works comprehensible for ordinary people. Un- like the personal moralism of earlier forms of court poetry, political themes such the motherland (vatan) and freedom (āzādi) highlighted the sociopolitical position and views of the poets of the constitutional period with regard to society and political power. As the bitter fates of Mirzadih ʿIshqi and Farrukhi Yazdi illustrate, this new radical tendency toward the broader society and away from the narrower embrace of patronage often exposed poets to explicit punitive sanction from the powers they now sought to cri- tique, with consequences that could extend to imprisonment or even death. It should be noted here that although constitutionalist poets agreed on the necessity of literary change following political revolution (in this case, the constitutional revolution), their disagreements on the preservation or re- jection of the classical literary heritage continued over decades. During the 1940s, a host of political and social transformations occurred, the most important of which was the fall Mirzadih ’Ishqi of Reza Shah and the beginning of the second Pahlavi era. This development coincided with the rise of Persian free verse. Awareness of European literature, beginning in the latter half of the nineteenth century after the reconnection of Iranian intellectuals with Europe and especially France, influenced the formation

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of modern Persian poetry. The French symbolist tradition became an important source of inspiration for Nima Yushij, who came to be known as the founder of Persian free verse (shiʿr-i āzād). Irregular usage of visible and auditory features such as metering and rhyme connoted freedom from predictable classical conventions. With its symbolic lexicon and free style, Nimaic poetry became a platform for introducing new themes to the Ira- nian cultural milieu. Like in the first Pahlavi reign, the state in the second Pahlavi era showed little attention to poetry and literature. However, at the outset of the second Pahlavi era, an attempt was made by the political establishment to reconcile the rebellious intellectuals with the aims and endeavors of the nation as embodied by its sovereign power. The monarchical state thus undertook to open up the political sphere in this manner as a short-term plan. In 1946, with collaboration of the Cultural Association of the Soviet Union, the government17 brought together a diverse group of intellectuals and other literary figures in the Iranian Writers Congress.18 Most of the attendees were members of the Party of the Masses (Ḥizb-i Tūdih), which served as the main shelter for independent literary intellectuals. The congress witnessed further steps toward the modernization and diversification of poetry. The political establishment, however, did not abide such toler- ance for very long. Following the 1953 coup against the democratically elected prime minister Mohammad Mosaddeq, a new phase of oppressive cultural and political policies were implemented.19 From the mid-1960s on, as part of a new wave of resistance against the post-coup state, poets of the traditional left such as Siyavash Kasraʾi and

17- Ghavam al-Saltanih, the then-prime minister of Iran, played a significant role in the formation of this gathering and was present in the congress. 18- On the first congress of Iranian writers, see M. Shams Langrudi, Tarikh-i tahlili-yi shiʿr-i naw, Tehran: Markaz, 1991, p. 302; A. Karimi-Hakkak, “Protest and Perish: A Histo- ry of the Writers Association of Iran,” Iranian Studies, 18(2/4), 1985, pp. 189–229. 19- Shams Langrudi, Tarikh-i tahlili-yi shiʿr-i naw, p. 303. Hushang Ibtihaj and more radical leftist poets such as Khusraw Gulsurkhi gave voice to politically critical verse. The poets of this period defined commitment (taʿahhud) as the poet’s distance from power and integration with “the people” (khalq).20 With the Siyahkal incident in 197121 a new generation of writers and poets came of age with a more radical and confronta- tional tone. This voice of revolutionary defiance in poetry peaked in 1974 following the execution of the prominent Marxist poet Khusraw Gulsur- khi and again reached high pitch in 1977 at the “Ten Nights of Poetry” held at the Goethe Institute in Tehran.22 For ten consecutive nights, the most renowned of Iran’s modernist poets voiced their protest against the monar- chy in their poetry. On the tenth night, the institute was raided by the police. This triggered a new wave of protests, in which poets were also deeply engaged. In 1978–79 and with the rise of revolutionary up- Khusraw Gulsurkhi

20- Parallel to this trend of “committed” poets and during the same period (the 1960s), poets such as Ahmadreza Ahmadi, the founder of the Mawj-i Naw (“New wave”) trend, began to write antipolitical, noncommitted, socially neutral poetry in protest at the increas- ing number of political poems written by leftist poets. 21- In the Siyahkal incident, leftist guerrillas attacked a gendarmerie post in Gilan. For more on this incident, see Shams Langrudi, Tarikh-i tahlili-yi shiʿr-i naw, vol. 4, pp. 14–19. 22- For a detailed account of the poetry nights at the Goethe Institute, see A. Karimi-Hak- kak, “Introduction: Iran’s Literature 1977–1997,” Iranian Studies, 30, 1997, pp. 193–213.

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heaval, a famous hemistich by Hafiz the prominent classical poet of the fourteenth century, was suddenly spread as a revolutionary motto and later made into a song: “Dīv chu bīrūn ravad, firishtih dar āyad” (“When the demon departs, the angel shall arrive”).23 The revolutionary insurgency was soon preoccupied with Persian verse, which was mostly manifested in revolutionary slogans that used classical forms. Verse of the constitutional period was recalled in the form of revolutionary songs: “Az khūn-i javānān-i vatan lālih damīdih” (“The tulip rises from the blood of the youth of the nation”). Poetry, once more, became a critical social medium to dialogue with power. Niʿmat Mirzazadih’s (b. 1939) famous panegyric qasida, in which he entirely imitated Anvari Abivardi to praise Ayatollah Khomeini upon the latter’s return to Iran, is an example of revisiting the past literary heritage on the eve of revolution:

(Anvari):

O gentle Zephyr! If o’er Samarqand Some dewy morning thou should’st chance to blow, Then waft this letter to our monarch’s hand, Wherein Khorasan tells her tale of woe.24

23- In the introduction to his article “Revolutionary Posturing: Iranian Writers and the Irani- an Revolution of 1979,” Karimi-Hakkak mentions this motto and its significance for understanding the revolutionary context of 1979. I borrowed the translation of Hafiz’s hemistich from his article “Introduction: Iran’s Literature 1977–1997.” 24- For the full English translation, see A. J. Arberry, ed., Persian Poems: An Anthology of Verse Translation, Tehran: Yassavoli, 2005, p. 101. For the Persian version, see Anvari Abivardi, Divan, ed. M. Mudarris Razavi, Tehran: Bungāh-i Tarjumih va Nashr-i Kitāb, 1968, p. 201. (Mirzazadih):

O the light wind of the dawn! If o’er Paris Some dewy morning thou should’st chance to blow, Then waft the letter of Iranian people to the leader.25

Anvari, who served as a court poet under the Seljuq reign, wrote the aforementioned qasida in the sixth century following the invasion of Kho- rasan by Oghuz Turks. He vividly recounted this event for Tamqaj-Khan Rukn al-Din Mahmud, his patron and the ruler of Samarqand. Eight hundred years later, Mirzazadih recalls Anvari’s qasida through a set of fixed lexical units and idioms such as the wind (bād) as the addressee and the letter (nāmih) as a message to be sent by the wind to a nobleman who in both cases serves as the most powerful figure of the poet’s time. It is not clear why a pro–free verse poet such as Mirzazadih would employ the most courtly form and theme after almost a century of literary modernism to address a Shiʿite cleric. What is clear, however, is the return of the panegyric qasida after a century of demise. Anvari and Mirzazadih were not destined to meet the same fate. An- vari’s panegyrics allowed him to enjoy the patronage of Sultan Sanjar’s two successors and to become known as a prominent classical Persian poet. Mirzazadih, however, flew into exile in 1981 following the extensive ex- pulsion of secular intellectuals during the cultural revolution (1980–83).26 Perversely, he settled in Paris, where Ayatollah Khomeini had resided before his return to Iran.

25- For the full poem, see N. Mirzazadih, “A Poem for Khomeini,” (1978), available online at http://iranglobal.info/node/19666. 26- On the extensive purge of the prerevolutionary generation of poets and authors, see Karimi-Hakkak, “Introduction: Iran’s Literature 1977–1997.”

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3. The Rise of State Poetry after the Islamic Revolution (1979–present) 3.1. State Poetry in Ayatollah Khomeini’s Era After almost a century in which clerical influence was subordinated to political power, the surviving forces of theocracy took over the 1979 revolutionary movement. In February 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini, a revolutionary and a Shiʿite cleric, returned to Iran to fulfill two goals: “the establishment of an Islamic theocracy and the complete eradication of Occidentalism, or Western cultural influences that according to him had ravaged Iran for nearly a century.”27 A nationwide “Islamization” campaign was implemented as the first step by the revolutionary state in 1980. The main aim of this campaign was to purify the realm of culture, including music, cinema, literature, and academia, of what was perceived by the militant revolutionaries as manifestations of Western secular culture. Following the cultural Islamization campaign, traditionalist poets such Hamid Sabzivari, the author of a number of famous revolutionary songs and mottos,28 considered the

Ni’mat Mirzazadih modernist movement in lit-

27- S. A. Arjomand, Turban for the Crown, New York: Oxford University Press, 1989, p. 138. 28- Sabzivari is the author of the famous revolutionary song “Khomeini ay imām” and one of the most influential mottos of the early revolutionary years: “We, your soldiers, Khomeini, obey your orders, Khomeini” (“Mā hamih sarbāz-i tūʿīm Khomeini, Gūsh bih farmān-i tūʿīm Khomeini”). erature as a sign of Gharbzadigi (“Westoxification”):

Writing poems with no meter or rhyme was not welcomed within our Muslim literary circle. It was common only among a small group of insignificant poets. I never saw any modern poem chanted in demonstrations against the shah.29

As part of the Islamization campaign, cultural organizations such as the Center for Islamic Art and Thought, known as Hawzih-yi Hunari (CIAT), and the Organization for Islamic Propaganda (OIP) as well as the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance (MICG) emerged to monitor the sphere of cultural production. They were also deemed responsible for training a new generation of revolutionary artists as rivals for the secular intellectuals of

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei & Muhammad Husayn Shahryar

29- Interview with Hamid Sabzivari, Kayhan Farhangi, 11, 1983, pp. 44–46.

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the prerevolutionary period. CIAT’s poetry section, as the main gathering point of prorevolutionary state poets, produced a large body of state poetry during the war. Jung-i Surih was the main state-owned literary journal in this period, and it gave voice to young, zealous revolutionary poets who had no record of publication. Among the various forms of art in the first decade of revolution, poetry enjoyed a distinguished position due both to restrictions on visual arts and music and to its association with the theocratic system. The importance of rhetorical and verbal skills for clerics gave poetry a double privilege compared to nonverbal forms of art. The third reason for the massive growth of poetry was Khomeini’s personal inclination toward mysticism. During his education at the Qom seminary, Khomeini had engaged with mysticism, poetry, and philosophy. Under the influence of the Indian and Iraqi styles, Khomeini penned lyrics that hardly suited his conservative ideological views. He employed idioms and metaphors of wine, drunkenness, and love in his lyrics, later to be published under the title of Badih-yi ʿIshq (“The wine made of love”).30

Your languid eye, O wine drinker, has enamored me The ringlets of your hair, O beloved, have entangled me All the wine drinkers have let slip their sobriety A cup from your life-giving hand has sobered me.31

As Hanaway, the prominent scholar of Persian literature, suggests, Khomeini “invoked a whole rhetorical tradition of casting mystical poetry in the diction of the courtly class, the very class of society that the mystical

30- R. Khomeini, Badih-yi ʿIshq: Ashʿar-i ʿArifanih-yi Imam Khomeini, Tehran: Muʾassisih- yi Tanẓīm va Nashr-i Āshār-i Imām Khomeini, 1989. 31- For the full poem in English, see W. Hanaway, “Five Mystical Ghazals by Ayatollah Khomeini,” Iranian Studies, 30, 1997, pp. 273–76. poet, a fortiori Ayatollah Khomeini, shuns and condemns.”32 During the 1980s and in the course of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) the use of classical forms in the Indian and Iraqi styles reached a high point among the emerging religious poets. The ghazal, the qasida, the masnawi, and the quatrain became the predominant forms that often appeared in state-owned literary journals and newspapers.33 Perhaps nothing illustrates the historical shift toward the medieval court poetry tradition more clearly than the outburst of panegyric lyrics dedicated to Ayatollah Khomeini shortly after 1979. In most of these poems, Khomeini is either portrayed as a religious figure, such as a sign of the divine, a descendant of the Prophet, the son of ʿAli, the light, or the beloved; or as a patriotic character who saves Iran as a Muslim nation. The following verses provide some examples:

The soil revives thanks to your warm and life-giving breath O Imam, the grand star, the sign of the divine in the sky.34

And:

You are beyond the flowers’ consciousness You are familiar with the heart-beatings O thee, the wonder, the free, the most free You are the meaning of never-ending greatness.35

These poems are directly comparable to the lyrics of courtly love.36 With-

32- Ibid., p. 277. 33- See, for example, H. Husayni, “Nigāhī bih shiʿr-i inqilāb,” Surih, 5, 1983, pp. 151–71. 34- A. Baratipur, “Āyat-i āsimānī,” Surih, 6, 1983, pp. 179–80. 35- A. Givian, “Imāmiyyih,” Surih, 6, 1983, pp. 196–97. 36- See, for example, F. Rakiʿi, “Gul-i āftāb,” Surih, 1, 1985, pp. 1115–16.

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out knowing the context of these poems, it is sometimes difficult to recog- nize to whom they have been dedicated. “Summary of All Goodness” by Qaysar Aminpur is an example:

Your smile is the summary of all goodness Smile! The rose’s grin is delightful Your forehead is a dawn’s breath A dawn that ends the night solstice There is uproar in the look in your eyes Like that of a dove-filled cloister From beyond the windows of your soul The rainbow of divine love is visible Your roar is as volatile as a storm’s And your calm as tranquil as a sea’s Speak to us without any distance Though your extent is far, far away from us.37

As Losensky, a leading scholar of Persian literature, also indicates, although occasional poetry as a genre that marks particular events (a genre that includes panegyrics for patrons and noblemen) “lost much of its literary prestige in the mid-twentieth century with Romantic and Modern- ist valuation of pure poetry, the new holidays and heroes of the Islamic Republic have given fresh purpose and status to commemorative verse.”38 One of the main reasons for the rise of occasional poetry after the revolution was a shift in the concept of commitment (taʿahhud) among state- sponsored poets. Unlike the prerevolutionary leftist poets, who defined commitment as the distance of the poet from political power, the pro-state

37- Q. Aminpur, Tanaffus-i subh, Tehran: Surūsh, 1987, p. 71. 38- E. P. Losensky, “Elegies for a Lost Leader: Six Poems on the Death of Khomeini,” Iranian Studies, 30, 1997, p. 277. poets celebrated commitment in their poetry by honoring Khomeini, revolutionary ideals, and religious values. These poets felt committed to and united with the new government because they saw it as a replacement of the wayward and arbitrary power of the monarchical system. For them, therefore, there was no necessity to distance themselves from the state. This change in the concept of commitment became most apparent during the Iran-Iraq War, and its main upshot was the creation of a literary genre called “literature of sacred defense” (adabiyyāt-i difāʿ-i muqaddas). Poetry became one of the main sources of ideological mobilization during the war. At the height of the military conflict in the mid-1980s, state-sponsored literary journals and daily newspapers were replete with eulogies, mystic epics, and classical love lyrics in praise of the martyrs of war; most of these were accompanied by metaphorical references to the story of ʿĀshūrāʾ and the third Shiʿite Imam.39 In a large body of these poems the battlefield was associated with the “House of the Present” (khānqāh), in which the warriors play the role of Sufi truth-seekers, whirling in their own blood or literally dying to be remembered in the final instance as martyrs on the path of love. Hasan Husayni’s famous masnawi, called “Let’s follow the path of Love,” is one of numerous examples of this kind:

Let’s follow the path of love Let’s recount the story of the lovers Those who have traveled in blood Those who have traveled in the danger zone Look at the khānqāh of martyrs of love Look at these truth-seeking men, singing the song of love Look how they whirl in madness

39- On martyrdom as a leading concept in postrevolutionary Persian poetry, see A. Seyed- Gohrab, “Martyrdom as Piety: Mysticism and National Identity in Iran-Iraq War Poetry,” Der Islam, 87, 2012, pp. 248–73.

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Look how they play the frame drum with their bloody hands.40

This Sufi phraseology was used even by Ayatollah Khomeini during the mobilization process. Seyed-Gohrab argues that “the frequently-cited phrase ‘mobilization is the school of love’ (basij madrasih-yi eshq ast) was an ingenious move by Ayatollah Khomeini to keep Iranian young men fighting the enemy.”41 During the 1980s, alongside the outpouring of classical verse and mystical lyrics in praise of war and martyrdom, state poets occasionally used free verse in order to reclaim their religious identity and to condemn the main adherents of this genre, namely, the secular modernist poets of the prerevolutionary period. A poem titled “Ḥizbullāh” by Hasan Husayni bears witness to this argument:

But I remember well The day that the “intellectual” In crowded cafes in town Far away from all blasts Would drink his pint While the Party of God (Ḥizbullāh) Would sacrifice their life To change the history of our nation.42

By the end of the war, the mass production of war poetry temporarily ceased. The official literary scene was overtaken by a wave of panegyrics upon the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989. Within a year of Khomei-

40- H. Husayni, “Mastavi-i ʿAshiqān,” in Hamsida ba halq-i Ismaʿil, Tehran: Sūrih-i Mihr, 1983, pp. 40–43. 41- Seyed-Gohrab, “Martyrdom as Piety,” p. 253. 42- H. Husayni, “Ḥizbullāh,” in Hamsida ba halq-i Ismaʿil, Tehran: Surūsh, 1983, p. 25. ni’s death, “a collection of nearly 300 elegies was published under the title Sugnameh-ye Imam (Book of Mourning for the Imam).”43 Among the wailing poems that mourned Khomeini’s death was a poem written by Niʿmat Mirzazadih thirty years after he wrote his panegyric qasida in praise of Khomeini. The critical tone of the later poem is particularly noteworthy with respect to the shifting relations of poets and power after the 1979 revolution:

Here lies a man who had a delayed birth Of more than a thousand years He was not a man of his time And the earthen jar of his heart Could not uphold the people’s love Nor did he have the patience to carry the burden of people’s trust On the shoulders of his mummified belief Nor did he have the blessed fate To be annihilated while in his greatest peak Like a star that burns the night with its zeal and disappears like an asteroid. His fate was of another kind He came with tears of joy And left behind a swamp.44

During his short period of leadership, which was mainly engaged with war, and in contrast to his successor, Khomeini did not manage to form close ties with poets, nor could he shape any literary circle. However, a

43- E. P. Losensky, “Elegies for a Lost Leader: Six Poems on the Death of Khomeini,” Iranian Studies, 30, 1997, p. 277. 44- Interview with Niʿmat Mirzazadih (2013), directed by Voice of America, available online at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWarn7IkTfM.

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well-known anecdote about his giving his robe of honor to a cleric-poet, ʿAbdullah Husayni, upon the latter’s recitation of a poem in praise of martyrs testifies to Khomeini’s penchant for poetry – especially if it served the needs of the niẓām and raisons d’état. After Khomeini’s death and Ali Khamenei’s assumption of the leadership, state poets were elevated to the status of a new religious elite, whose official meetings with the leader of the Islamic Republic marked a new phase in the relationship of poetry and power in Iran.

3.2. Poetry and the State in Ayatollah Khamenei’s Era If we were to choose between drama, the visual arts, and poetry, I think that we should choose poetry. If we promote poetry, we will be able to provide the grounds for the development of other forms of art. Poetry cannot be compared to other forms of art. At least our country, our society, and our history are such that poetry has to be taken seriously. We have a history of mastering poetry behind us. Our ancient poetic heritage is a precious treasure, whereas we do not hold the same position in other forms of art. The Europeans and the Greeks are masters of drama. We don’t have such a longstanding tradition in drama. We are behind in prose and storytelling skills as well. The novel, for instance, is a product of the Western tradition of story-writing. But poetry is not the same. In terms of its roots and our skills, we enjoy the highest ranking in poetry among all nations.45 On June 4, 1989, after the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, the Assembly of Experts elected Ali Khamenei (b. 1939) as the leader of the Islamic Republic. Since the beginning of the revolution Khamenei was known among religious and secular revolutionaries for his engagement with world literature and poetry. As a fan of Victor Hugo and Romain Gary, he would in his public lectures admonish the attendant youth to discover

45- A. Khamenei, “Bayānāt dar dīdār bā shāʿirān” (Tehran, 2010), http://farsi.khamenei.ir/ speech-content?id=20753. Ayatollah Khamenei during poetry reading with Hamid Sabzivari world literature and to familiarize themselves with literary masterpieces of all times. However, he personally chose the path of poetry and, like his pre- decessor, wrote short lyrics in the Indian and Iraqi styles. Khamenei’s interest in poetry dates back to his youth in Mashhad, where alongside his religious education in the seminary he also tried not to miss out on poetry circles:

We had a period prior to the Islamic revolution when the poets of Mashhad were the most accomplished across the country. I knew them all very well. They were the best poets both in qasida and in ghazal. I recall three poetry sessions in Mashhad. One of them was that of Mr. Nigarandih, which used to be held in his home. He was a tenant and once in a while he would change his house, but the sessions continued. I was based in Qom, but every time I went to Mashhad I would certainly attend those sessions. When I returned from Qom, there was another association with ten to fifteen members. . . .

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Mr. Shafiʿi Kadkani, Mirzazadih, Qahriman, and Qudsi were trained in these sessions. . . . There was also another literary association held by Mr. Qahriman that I used to attend in those years.46

Khamenei’s friendship with prominent modernist poets of the prerevolutionary period, such as Mahdi Akhavan Salis, Niʿmat Mirzazadih, Shafiʿi Kadkani, and the secular intellectual circles of Mashhad during the 1950s, shaped his literary formation prior to the revolution. It was through these circles that Khamenei developed his understanding of the social significance of poetry and its relationship to power. Most of these circles held critical views about the political establishment, and their members later joined the revolutionary movement in 1979. After the revolution, as a member of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, Khamenei took an active role in the Islamization campaign of the 1980s. His ties with secular intellectuals weakened, and instead he joined poetry sessions held by CIAT, the main gathering place of religious poets. During his presidency, he began to hold occasional meetings with a number of poets. Among the invitees was Mahdi Akhavan Salis, who refused to attend these meetings because of his critical stance toward the new government. His famous statement “We are not with power but against it” in response to Khamenei’s invitation caused Akhavan much trouble in the final decade of his life. However, the liveli- hood of those poets who proved their loyalty to Khamenei was guaranteed: ʿAli Muʿallim, ʿAli Musavi Garmarudi, Mushfiq Kashani, Mihrdad Avista, Hamid Sabzivari, and Aliriza Qazvih are but a few of the loyalist poets of the state. Khamenei’s occasional meetings with poets during his presidency took a more formal shape from the late 1990s onward and began to be held on

46- Ibid. a regular basis at his office. After a century of turbulence between poets and the ruling powers, Khamenei’s official meetings with state poets gave way to the regeneration of quasi-court poetry. The meetings were recorded and edited by a professional film crew to be broadcast on TV. It is worth noting that other groups of artists have never been subjected to this level of attention and praise by the leader. Through an ethnographic account of these poetry nights one would be able to find links between these events and their poetic precedents. Because of their nationwide scale, the bureaucratic process of selecting suitable poets and the organization of poetry nights have been under the control of the CIAT poetry office since 2003.47 According to the head of the poetry office at CIAT, the nomination process is based on the results of state-organized annual poetry festivals, lists of recent publications in the field of poetry, and tracking the record of existing literary circles. Young, prizewinning male and female poets who have been constantly active in poetry associations are also likely to be chosen to present their works at these poetry nights.48 Poets from three regions, namely, Khuzestan (where the Arabic dialect is spoken), Khorasan (home to the Mashhadi dialect), and Azerbaijan (for its Azeri dialect) are usually included in the guest list to meet the expectations raised by the diverse background of the leader.49 The final list of guests has to be approved by the leader’s office. The state poets in the postrevolutionary period are not fully attached to the leader’s office, nor do they work as poets in his office to receive in- come. The former tradition of rewarding poets with gold coins has changed over time and is no longer practiced in postrevolution Iran. However, although the leader of the Islamic Republic does not go as far as the Timurid

47- Interview with Mr. Davudi, member of CIAT (2012). 48- Interview with Mr. Zamani, member of CIAT (2012). 49- Originally hailing from Khameneh, in the Azeri part of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei was born and raised in Mashhad.

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princes did “to reward a poet with the equivalent of his weight in gold or silver,”50 state-sponsored poetry festivals are now the agents responsible for treating poets with gold coins. Between 2004 and 2013, for instance, 18,000 gold coins were given to young poets at state-run festivals.51 As in the Muslim Persian courts, under the current regime the Islamic calendar is an important basis for timing: it is used as an alternative timeta- ble for scheduling poetry nights.52 The set date for the annual poetry night is the fifteenth day of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting among Muslims. In the same manner as wine has been replaced with tea during the sessions, the jesters, jugglers, and clowns who always accompanied court poets in the medieval period to entertain the king are no longer employed. In- stead of clowns with their comic gestures and jugglers with their wondrous deeds, satirical poets are responsible for entertaining the leader and making him laugh. Satirical poems recited in these sessions often critically address current sociopolitical issues.53 The extent to which satirists are allowed to criticize the status quo in front of the leader is not clear-cut. Sometimes a work of satire deemed too transgressive has been the subject of direct critical comments from Khamenei.54 There have been cases of self-censored satirists who erased parts of their poems for recitation in the ceremony and

50- E. Yarshater, “Safavid Literature: Progress or Decline,” Iranian Studies, 7, 1974, p. 219. 51- “Chand sikkih bahār āzādī dar dawlat-i nuhum va dahum bih barguzīdigān-i javāyiz-i adabī ihdā shud?,” Fars News, 2013, available online at http://www.farsnews.com/new- stext.php?nn=13920307000357. 52- The primary calendar used in Iran is not the Islamic lunar calendar but the solar hijri calendar, which is based on solar transits through the zodiac. Its principles were initially borrowed from Hindu calendars, with some characteristics of the Chinese-Uighur calendar mixed in later. 53- The number of satirists at these sessions in the past ten years has not exceeded two or three, and it has included Saʿid Biyabanaki, Abulfazl Zaruyi Nasrabad, and Nasir Fayz. 54- For the critical encounter of Khamenei with one of the satirists in his office, see “Shiʿrkhānī-yi dar ḥużūr rahbar” (2005), Avini Foundation, available online at https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=U0wDk9BnI8k. later published the full, uncensored versions on their websites.55 These poetry nights are also subtly gendered. While during the medieval period almost all court poets were male and females appeared mostly in the roles of minstrels and dancers, in the postrevolutionary period a limited number of female poets have always been present at poetry nights with the leader in spite of strict gender segregation policies. Wearing the conservative Islamic garment chādor as prescribed by the female dress code for any formal meeting with the leader, the female poets recite their poems usually after the performances of a number of male poets. Depend- ing on their total number, which usually does not exceed 10–15, three to five female poets perform in each session. The number of male poets is often three times higher than that of female poets. As in the medieval court tradition, the contemporary poetry nights also have a master of ceremonies who leads the session. During the last decade, the master of ceremonies has been one of the leading figures of the revolutionary school.56 He is normally a poet who has aspired to ingratiate himself with the political establishment from the beginning of his literary career and has continued this association throughout his working life. The MC normally begins the night with Quran recitation and by greeting the leader and the guests and then moves on to poetry recitation. With a selection of old and new poems, the master of ceremonies contributes to the session much like a courtier (nadīm) did in the courtly milieu. By virtue of his command over poetry, the master of ceremonies is able to present himself as both a poet and a laureate. Examination of a large corpus of poems that have been presented in front of the leader between 2003 and 2013 shows that in terms of form qasidas, masnawis, ghazals, and quatrains enjoy a marked preponderance

55- For example, compare the version of Saʿid Biyabanaki’s poem “Shukr-i īzād fanāvari dārīm” in the following link: http://www.sangcheeen.blogfa.com/post/111. 56- Aliriza Qazvih and Saʿid Baqiri have served as the master of ceremonies in many of the annual poetry nights in the past decade.

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Women attend poetry meeting organized by the Supreme Leader’s office

compared to modern poems. In this set of one hundred poems, only two poems were written in the modern style and two others in a folk style. Such an apparent imbalance of forms is rooted in the leader’s personal interest in classical forms, specifically the ghazal. In terms of content, these poems can be arranged into four main groups: (1) religious verse, (2) poems dealing with regional and domestic sociopolitical issues, (3) poems on the Iran-Iraq War, and (4) poems expressing personal longings regarding such topics as love, solitude, and ethics. The reemergence of religious verse in the form of elegies for Shiʿite Imams (shiʿr-i āyīnī) and later the development of poetry of wailing (nawhih-khānī) under the Islamic Republic can be compared to the Safavid tradition of elegies and religious verse discussed earlier.57 In the postrevolutionary period, religious verse arose during the war in order to sanctify the war and martyrdom by drawing connections between Karbala and the

57- A few years after the inauguration of annual poetry nights, the birthday of the Prophet’s daughter, Fatima, in the lunar calendar was set as the date for the night of religious verse by the leader of the Islamic Republic. battlefield. After the war, under the leadership of Khamenei, the birthday of Prophet Muhammad’s daughter according to the Islamic calendar was selected as the night of religious verse. The main purpose of religious verse is to offer new insights to Shiʿism and to link the stories of Karbala and the Shiʿite Imams with the political ideology of the Shiʿite autocratic state. With the rise of an industry of nawhih (religious, rhythmic elegies for Shiʿite Imams) in the course of the war and its continuation in the postwar period, religious verse has acquired an even more important status and received further attention and investment over the past decade. The second leading theme of state poems is domestic and regional issues. State poets have used poetry to air political views on sociopolitical issues occurring in the country and in the region at large as a way to conform to state ideology. Controversial domestic issues such as the 2009 post-election turmoil or regional ones such as Palestine, Lebanon, or Afghanistan lie at the heart of this genre. In his ceremonial lecture at the annual poetry night of 2013, Khamenei emphasized the use of poetry as a tool to raise important sociopolitical issues:

Our poets are also responsible for what currently takes place in their surroundings. The Islamic Revolu- tion’s encounter with international domination (sulṭih- yi bayn al-milalī) and our resistance to their imposition of policies against our country that has been under their control for two hundred years or more is an important matter. These concerns should be manifested in the works of our poets. Today Islamic awakening is a significant issue for us. The Palestine crisis is also a critical topic that has to be versified by poets.58

58- Khamenei, “Bayānāt dar dīdār bā shāʿirān” (2010).

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Commemoration of the Iran-Iraq War has been the third and in fact the most prominent theme in state-sponsored poetry over the past two decades. By creating a poetic genre called the “poetry of sacred defense,” the Islamic Republic has managed to sustain its sacralization of war as a pivotal ele- ment in overcoming the state legitimacy crisis precipitated by the end of the war and the death of Ayatollah Khomeini. Written in classical forms such as masnawi and ghazal and with an epic, patriotic tone, the poetry of sacred defense embodies constant interconnections with state ideology. Khame- nei’s continuing emphasis on the perpetuation of war poetry has given this theme a significant role in an ongoing, nationwide cultural crusade:

I have raised this concern on other occasions; the eight years of war are a crucial concern for us and have to be addressed in poetry. Moreover, for the formation of an Islamic society and the crusade for the establishment of our national authority we must always place emphasis upon them; a crusade to reform the people’s lifestyle should be pursued in poetry.59

Individual longings constitute the fourth thematic category of works presented at annual poetry nights. Solitude, loves, and existential doubt are among the common themes found in the poems of this category. In contrast to the court patrons, who appreciated personal, erotic, intimate, and existential themes in poetry, Khamenei has stressed that this genre has to observe certain ethical limits to remain virtuous:

When you write poems about personal feelings and emotions, you have to mind certain limits. You must

59- A. Khamenei, “Bayānāt dar dīdar bā shāʿirān” (Tehran, 2013), http://farsi.khamenei.ir/ speech-content?id=23231. be modest in expressing your emotions. Be aware that poems like those written by Furugh Farrukhzad were never welcomed in the intellectual circles of his time. I was familiar with those kinds of people. The ones who would spend hours in cafes and taverns and would drink alcohol excessively. Their bodies used to be taken home while unconcious. . . . Even people of that kind did not welcome the naked and bold poems of Farrukhzad. . . . My point is that the young generation of Iranian female poets should not cross the limits of modesty when it comes to expressing their feelings. One should always mind moral boundaries while writing poetry.60

Effusive emotions and erotic desires, Khamenei maintains, should never replace wisdom and ethics in poetry:

Another theme in poetry of all times is the poet’s personal longings and emotions. In each historical period, poets have written about their personal feelings. . . . There is nothing wrong with writing about your inner feelings. We have to consider two aspects in poetry: personal emotions and poetic wisdom (hikmat-i shāʿirānih). Look at Saʿdi, for example, who has rightfully tackled both aspects in his work.61

In its most recent move concerning the formulation of essential themes in state poetry, Khamenei’s official website has published a chart that sum-

60- Ibid. 61- Ibid.

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marizes Khamenei’s current views on poetry and the responsibilities of poets (Figure 1).

Figure 1: Original infograph in Persian is available at http://farsi.khamenei.ir/ roadmap-content?id=23311. Conclusions Much of my efforts in this article have been directed at delineating the constantly evolving dialectic between the seat of power and poetry as a socially significant form of art in the Persian psyche over the course of Ira- nian history. My focus on the shifting models of dialogue and engagement between poetry and power in the three historical periods in question ought to be seen as a recognition of the fact that both sides undergo transformations in the course of time, and therefore each period requires a new mod- eling. Over time, as happened in the cases of court poetry, constitutional and modern poetry, and now postrevolutionary state poetry, sociocultural transformations and change in political structures may give rise to new models of the relationship between poetry and power in Iran. As society moves forward, a new analytical model of poetry and power may emerge. While I have tried to highlight glimpses of one such model, the dialogue between poetry and power must be perceived as ongoing. I hope to have made it clear, however, that the role of religion as an ideology in the structure of patronage was greatly eroded and marginalized in terms of its influence during the Pahlavi era, and its strong return after the 1979 revolution has had a direct impact on the thematic and structural features of poetry as well as on the proximity of poets to the seat of power. Therefore, I think Khamenei’s unique and decisive role in advancing the institutionalization of poetry should be studied in light of a prolonged tradition of court poetry. In this regard, the ceremonial nature of Khamenei’s publicly espoused relationship with poetry, as well as his general adherence to classical and mystical forms, demonstrates the intense nostalgia at the heart of the religious revolutionary project, insofar as it explicitly and implicitly, con- sciously and unconsciously alludes to modes of societal organization and expressions of leadership that presumably existed within Iranian culture and belonged to the premodern context. An important question, however,

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is whether such proclaimed parts of the premodern context ever did exist in reality or whether they are simply what Eric Hobsbawm and Terrence Ranger call “invented traditions.” The nostalgia utilized by Khamenei is not powerful merely in a religious sense. It has a broad appeal across the full range of idealized and utopian thinking. The focus on the primacy of the leader as the instigator and facilitator of profound social changes and in that context the notion of the leader as the ender of injustice and the bringer of peace have been powerful popular myths propagated within other, supposedly secular, revolutions (the examples of Stalin and Mao are particularly pertinent here), and they were no less influential in the Iranian revolutionary situation. The endorsement of certain forms of poetry and the spectacle of poetry as utilized by Khamenei are in this sense attempts to secure legitimacy through appeals to notions that proved so powerful even for modernist and secular poets in the revolutionary situation, as demon- strated above. All this seems to confirm the point that Khamenei and the Iranian revolution, including its Islamists, ought to be regarded in certain respects as “modernists” or as part and parcel of “modernity.” As Khamenei has stated, memory and nostalgia are intensely important components of the poetical construct of the modern religious Iranian state: “The Islamic Republic will be remembered and understood in history through poetry.” Whether or not this will be the case is still open to judgment. Certainly the above diagram published on Khamenei’s website demonstrates the paradoxes inherent in what we might term the “nostalgia state”: in attempting to conform to the modern sensibilities of technocracy with regard to something as mystic and ineffable as poetry, Khamenei un- dermines the very sensibilities he is attempting to inculcate. 37 3

The Author

Fatemeh Shams A native of Khorasan, Iran, Fatemeh Shams is a literary scholar, poet, and translator based at the University of Oxford, United King- dom. She is currently a doctoral candidate in the field of Persian literature. Her expertise includes post-revolutionary Iranian politics, culture, and literature and the complex relationship of the present and the past in works of post-revolutionary official literature. 39 3

King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (KFCRIS)

Founded in 1983 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, the mission of King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies is to be a beacon for humanity as envisioned by the late King Faisal bin Abdulaziz. The Center aims to accomplish this through conducting research and studies that stimu- late cultural and scientific activities for the service of mankind, enrich cultural and intellectual life in Saudi Arabia, and facilitate collaboration with the East and the West. The Center’s activities include lectures, seminars, conferences and roundtable discussions. It houses the King Faisal Library, collections of rare manuscripts, an Islamic art museum and the King Faisal Museum. It also administers a robust Visiting Fellow Program. Since the Center’s focus is scholarly research, the Research Department was restructured in 2013 to carry out in-depth analysis in contemporary political thought, Saudi studies, regional studies, Arabic language studies and modernity studies. The Center has also been collaborating with various research centers around the world within its scope of research. The Chairman of the KFCRIS Board is HRH Prince Turki Al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz, and the Secretary General is Prof. Yahya bin Junaid.

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