Iranian Masculinities

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|Iranian Masculinities

The transition from Qajar rule in Iran (c. 1796–1925) to that of rule by the Pahlavi dynasty (1925–1979) set in motion a number of shifts in the political, social, and cultural realms. Focusing on masculinity in Iran, this book interweaves ideas and perceptions, laws, political movements, and men’s practices to spotlight the role men as gendered subjects played in Iranian history. It shows how men under the reign of Reza Shah dressed, acted, spoke, and thought differently from their late Qajar period counterparts. Furthermore, it highlights how the notion of being a “proper Iranian man” changed over these decades. Demonstrating how an emerging elite of Western-educated men constructed and promoted a new model of masculinity as part of their struggle for political, social, and cultural hegemony, Balslev shows how this new model reﬂects wider developments in Iranian society at the time, including the rise of Iranian nationalism and the country’s modernization process. sivan balslev is a lecturer in the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. After receiving her PhD from the University of Tel Aviv, she was a fellow at the Polonsky Academy for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. She has also translated two of Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad’s books from Persian to Hebrew.

Iranian Masculinities

Gender and Sexuality in Late Qajar and Early Pahlavi Iran

sivan balslev Hebrew University of Jerusalem University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, NY 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, VIC 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108470636 DOI: 10.1017/9781108556880 © Sivan Balslev 2019 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2019 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd. Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Balslev, Sivan, author. Title: Iranian masculinities : gender and sexuality in late Qajar and early Pahlavi Iran / Sivan Balslev. Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018043478 | ISBN 9781108470636 (hardback) | ISBN 9781108456333 (pbk.) Subjects: LCSH: Masculinity–Iran–History. | Men–Iran–Social conditions. | Sex role–Iran–History. | Iran–Social conditions. | Iran–Civilization–Western influences. Classification: LCC HQ1090.7.I7 B35 2019 | DDC 305.310955–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018043478 ISBN 978-1-108-47063-6 Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. For Yaron My Man

Contents

List of Figures page viii A Note on Transliteration x Acknowledgments xi Introduction: Changing Masculinities in a Changing Iran 1 1 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society: Javanmard, Luti, and Pahlavan 23 2 Western Knowledge and Education and the Emergence of a New Iranian Masculinity in the Late Nineteenth Century 54 3 Gendering the Nation: Patriotic Men and Endangered Women in the Constitutional Revolution Discourse 89 4 Farangimaabs and Fokolis: Masculinities and Westernization from the Constitutional Revolution to Reza Shah 122 5 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran: Regulating Male Sexuality to Maintain Male Hegemony 163 6 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah 205 7 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts”: Sport, Scouting, and Soldiering under Reza Shah 245 Conclusions 281 Bibliography 293 Index 314

vii Figures

1.1 Zurkhaneh athletes circa 1890 page 48 1.2 Zurkhaneh athletes 48 1.3 Zurkhaneh athletes, circa 1935–1950 49 2.1 Bastinado corporal punishment in a maktab circa 1890 78 2.2 Tarbiyat School weekly timetable, 1901 86 3.1 “We do not want!” 114 3.2 The deathbed of despotism 114 4.1 Amir Nezam Garusi 124 4.2 Qasem Khan, 1897 128 4.3 Mirza Ali Akbar Khan’s family, Tehran 129 4.4 Tehran Gaz Street, circa 1890 131 4.5 Group portrait 135 4.6 Fokolis on the street – cartoon from Kashkul 146 4.7 Members of the Qajar royal family 152 4.8 Qajar gentleman 154 4.9 Qasem Khan 155 4.10 Adolescent 155 4.11 Portrait of two men, 1902 160 5.1 Hadaco ad 171 5.2 Qorbanali Beg Jelodar with Hosein Ballah the dancer 182 5.3 Mirza Mohammad Ali Khan and his brother with Hosein Ballah the dancer 182 5.4 Colonel Naqikhan and Teymur the dancer next to Mirza Asadollah Khan Nazer and Abulqasem Khan Farasali 183 5.5 Ahmad Ali Khan Damad with two dancers 184 5.6 (a) European family vs. (b) Iranian family – a cartoon from Khalq 199 6.1 Hosein Qoli Khan 209 viii Figures ix

6.2 Teymur Mirza and his sons 209 6.3 Local Kurdish chiefs 210 6.4 Portrait of a merchant 211 6.5 Portrait of a butcher 212 6.6 Mojtahed Aqa 213 6.7 Family (?) portrait 215 6.8 Clerics 218 6.9 Dervish 218 6.10 Portrait of a Mohammad Khan As’ad 237 6.11 Portrait of a painter 237 6.12 Portrait of an Isfahani family wearing the Pahlavi hat 240 7.1 Mohammad Ali Khan Asad Bahador the cycling champion 258 7.2 Two seated youths 274 7.3 Portrait of four youths 274 7.4 Two young soldiers representing the ideal new male body 276 7.5 Soldier with portrait of Reza Shah 279 A Note on Transliteration

The transliteration has followed that of Iranian Studies Journal (http://iranianstudies.com/journal/transliteration), which forgoes diacritical marks. In this scheme, the words are transliterated so as to best reﬂect the pronunciation of the word in Persian. Therefore, the short vowels are transliterated as o, e, a, and the long vowels as u, i, a. The diphthongs are transliterated as ey and ow. The ezafeh is transliterated as –eor–ye.

x Acknowledgments

It is hard for me to believe it, but this book is the product of over a decade of research, writing, and editing. It is based on my PhD dissertation, written at the Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies in Tel Aviv University. My supervisors, David Menashri and Billie Melman guided me safely through the treacherous waters of writing. Billie is an academic and personal role model; in her profound and instant understanding, her ability to locate and point out both the strengths and weaknesses of every text sent to her, her wisdom and resolution to help me produce the best dissertation I could, and her kindness at times of crisis. David took me under his wing from the second year of my BA studies and was there to support, encourage, and offer his help whenever necessary. His door was always open to me, even when he juggled between three or four other more pressing commitments. I also wish to thank Ami Ayalon, Meir Litvak, and Israel Gershoni for their continuous support during the years I've spent at Tel Aviv University and afterward. My fellow graduate students were a source of intellectual stimulation, comfort, coffee, and laughs. Arnon, Ayelet, Idan, Jennifer, Maayan, Nimrod, Ran, Raz, and Anat – thank you all for keeping me sane during the last few months of writing. The Nathan Rotenstreich Fellowship of the Israeli Council for Higher Education, together with the Faculty of Humanities, the Zvi Yavetz School of Historical Studies and the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies made it possible for me to focus on my research by their generous support. The Keren Or Prize of the Feder Family was an additional great help. Thanks to this ﬁnancial support, I was able to conduct a month of research at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC, where the wonderful staff of the Middle Eastern and African Reading Room was of great assistance – offering advice, help, and chocolate. Without Sheila Moussaiey I would never have defeated the obstacles of nineteenth- century Persian. Sheila also provided some critical insights to my research, insights only a person who grew up in Iran

xi xii Acknowledgments could give. Amy Asher helped me prepare the manuscript for publication, making necessary cuts and suggestions in such an elegant way that I did not feel the urge to become overprotective of the text. The Polonsky Academy for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute has been my second home for the last three years, and its people became my close friends and colleagues. Without the academic and ﬁnancial freedom offered by the Polonsky Fellowship, this book undoubtedly would still be collecting dust on my ﬂashdrive. Being a Polonsky fellow was an immense privilege and pleasure and an important step in my scholarly career. I wish to thank the Polonsky family, Gabi Motzkin, Shai Lavi, and the entire Polonsky Academy staff for making this place a home I am very reluctant to leave. Janet Afary and Joanna de Groot were the readers of my dissertation and their comments and insights were invaluable, also for the work on the book. I also wish to thank the two anonymous readers of my manuscript for their time and meticulous suggestions. The editorial and production staff at Cambridge University Press was extremely professional and kind, I wish to thank Maria, Abigail, Tom, Joan, and Divya. My wonderful family never once asked me how I intend to make a living out of an esoteric topic such as masculinity in Iran. Their belief in me was unwavering and provided the solid ground from which I grew not only as a scholar but also as a person. My parents, Nachum and Shoshi, supported me in every possible way, though I'm sure they were at least as worried as I was regarding my future prospects. My brother and sister, Oren and Inbal, were happy to listen to my ranting and dilemmas as I moved along the research and to offer their invaluable thoughts and advice. My in-law family was always happy and proud of my achievements as only a true family can be. I love you all. During the writing of this book a new wonder entered my life – my son Daniel. I hope the things that I've learned while conducting this research on masculinity will enable me to help him become the boy and the man he would wish to be in the future. Last but of course not least is my one and only Yaron, the love of my life. Without him I would not have been who I am today. He is my rock, my home, my source of happiness, love and laugh. If it was not for him, I would probably have gone lost somewhere along the way here. This work is dedicated to him. Introduction |Changing Masculinities in a Changing Iran

Sometime in 1945, renowned author and playwright Sadeq Hedayat published one of his most popular works, the bitingly satirical play Haji Aqa (Mr. Haji). The protagonist is Haji Aqa Abu Turab, an elderly and old-fashioned wheeler-dealer who lives in Tehran during the last years of Reza Shah’s rule (1925–1941). Haji Aqa stands for all that is corrupt, immoral, and harmful in Iranian society. He is a “ﬁxer” who helps men of various social strata and origins to succeed in business or in politics in order to advance his own goals. He does not hesitate to cheat and lie, always preferring to swindle others than to be swindled himself. Haji is the son of a tobacco merchant who made a fortune from hoarding during the Tobacco Revolt of 1891–1892, proﬁteering from what is usually considered the inaugural event of the Iranian nationalist movement. Despite his wealth, Haji himself is stingy, especially when his family is concerned. He has several 'aqdi (permanently married) wives as well as two temporary ones and numerous children, all of whom he regards with equal distaste. His wives repay him by having affairs, which result in more children Haji pretends are his own. Haji’s appearance is unattractive: he has “stubby, hairy calves” and hands, “saucer eyes,” and he wears “grubby canvas shoes” and a threadbare camelhair cloak. His deteriorating physical condition is further manifest in his “swollen testicles,” the result of orchitis that makes him sterile. Haji has little regard for modern knowledge and education. Unedu- cated himself, he did send his son to study in Europe, but this turned out to be a waste of money as the son proved to be a good-for-nothing dandy, who nevertheless found himself a comfortable position as a driver in court. Haji Aqa sees the effects of modernization in Iran as nothing more than the spread of debauchery and indecency. Moreover, he pretends to be pious and religious while in fact he neglects the most basic duties of a Muslim. In short, in looks and beliefs, in morals and

1 2 Introduction family life, Haji Aqa is the absolute opposite of all that a “good” or “proper man” is supposed to be.1 Notwithstanding his glaring shortcomings, Haji is highly regarded by townspeople, bazaar merchants and even government ministers. Men who go on pilgrimage entrust to him the care of their property, their wives, and their children, even though he often proves to be unworthy of this trust. He claims that his word is so valuable in the bazaar that he can “pawn” a hair of his mustache and get 50 million tuman worth of goods for it. His acquaintances (but not members of his household) believe Haji to be a javanmard: a trustworthy and honest man to whom all may apply for help, an ideal man. Thus, Hedayat suggests that underneath the respectable and pious façade of Haji Aqa (and, implicitly, men like him) lie thoroughly rotten bodies and characters. The fact that Haji’s ailment is located in his testicles further stresses the infirmity of his masculinity. As Haji Aqa is a satire on Iranian society, Haji’s figure represents a masculinity that by the 1940s had become outmoded and engendered reproach and ridicule: that of the prominent bazaari, who clings to conservative views and lifestyles and pretends to be an exemplar of decency and respectability. For Hedayat, this is what Iranian men ought not to be. Yet in nineteenth-century Iran, when the protagonist was born, many of his characteristics were part of a widely acceptable notion of an appropriate masculinity. Age, a large family and a big household, business acumen and the ability to mediate and influence people’s careers and fortunes, religiosity and conservatism were all deemed essential to the construction of honorable masculinity. Even the ridiculed canvas shoes and camelhair cloak were worn by respectable men. How, then, did it transpire that by the 1940s these laudable qualities came to be denounced as a source of all that was evil in Iranian society? How did another ideal of masculinity that presented the opposite of Haji Aqa – a young, patriotic, educated, westernized, and monogamous man – emerge and develop since the late nineteenth century?

1 Sadeq Hedayat and Introduction by Lois Beck, Hāji Āghā: Portrait of an Iranian Conﬁdence Man, trans. G. M. Wickens (Austin, TX: Center for Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin, 1979); Minoo Moallem, Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister: Islamic Fundamentalism and the Politics of Patriarchy In Iran (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005), 71–72. Introduction 3

This book deals with the construction and development of a new model of masculinity that began to evolve in Iran in the late nineteenth century, and subsequently became hegemonic during Reza Shah Pahlavi’s reign. The book traces the ideals and images that formed the new hegemonic masculinity, its representations and the practices and experiences of Iranian men who embodied, articulated, imitated, or rejected it. Being considered a “real man” meant completely different things in late-nineteenth-century and mid-twentieth-century Iran. In Reza Shah’s period men lived, dressed, and behaved in a new fashion, and held new notions and beliefs regarding science and education, patriotism, love, marriage, sexuality, and their own bodies. These changes were not coincidental, as masculinity is not natural but historical and changing: they were contingent on speciﬁc sociocultural and political dynamics, and were culturally produced and actively promoted by individuals and groups, as well as through state indoctrin- ation and coercion. This book looks at the men advocating and embodying the new masculinity and at how the cluster of images, ideas, and practices associated with it served their material and ideological interests. It also looks at the men excluded from the new masculinity and how their different masculinities were portrayed and imagined. Tracing the formation and changes of hegemonic masculinity in Iran is important in and of itself. This book offers more, however. Investi- gating changing male ideals, representations, practices, and norms also allows us to reexamine some of the most important and widely researched processes in the history of modern Iran from a new gendered perspective, one that does not place women at its center. During the period studied here, Iran has experienced the rise of nationalism, the emergence of a new urban elite, and the related emergence and development of new forms of education. It has witnessed various projects of modernization from the establishment of a centralized government, state bureaucracy, and army, through the building of transportation and communication infrastructure, to the introduction and adoption of Western dress, leisure practices, and family models. Whereas many studies from recent years have considered the gender aspect of these processes, usually their focus has been on women, or on the impact modernization processes had on women’s lives. This book aims to complement these studies, by focusing on the masculine side of the gender equation. 4 Introduction

The extensive changes mentioned above had their origins in the early nineteenth century, but became prominent and accelerated during the last quarter of that century. Even earlier, political and military defeats by imperialist powers such as Russia (in the Russo-Persian wars of 1804–1813 and 1826–1827) and Great Britain (in 1856–1857), alongside technological and diplomatic developments, increasingly exposed Iranians to the changing world outside their country’s borders. Com- munications technologies were imported and a ﬁrst telegraph line connected Tehran to the Russian border in 1868. In 1872, a concession granted to the British Baron Julius de Reuter launched a period of concession hunting by the colonial Western powers. During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Iran experienced the growing spread of Persian-language newspapers as well as of photography.2 Humiliated by defeat and emboldened by the introduction of new technologies, reforms aiming to enhance Iran’s international status were suggested and debated, and sociocultural changes took hold mostly among educated, urban, elite Iranian men – the chief historical actors in this book. They were the ones most exposed to modern education and European ideas and practices. They were also the main advocates of modernizing reforms, many of which shaped and were affected by notions of masculinity and femininity. One such reform was the introduction of modern, Western-style education beginning in the mid-nineteenth century.3 Modern education and the press had an important role in introducing nationalism and patriotism to the Iranian public, and the turn of the twentieth century witnessed the emergence and growth of an Iranian nationalist

2 Peter Avery, “Printing, the Press and Literature,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7, ed. Peter Avery, Gavin R. G. Hambly, and Charles Melville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 815–869; Donna Stein, “Three Photographic Traditions in Nineteenth-Century Iran,” Muqarnas 6 (1989): 112–130. 3 For a discussion of modern education see David Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992); A. Reza Arasteh, Education and Social Awakening in Iran (Leiden: Brill, 1962); Monica M. Ringer, Education, Religion, and the Discourse of Cultural Reform in Qajar Iran (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2001); Afshin Marashi, Nationalizing Iran: Culture, Power, and the State, 1870–1940 (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2008); Soli Shahvar, The Forgotten Schools: The Baha’is and Modern Education in Iran, 1899–1934 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009); Mikiya Koyagi, “Creating Future Soldiers and Mothers: Gender and Physical Education in Modern Iran, 1921–1941” (MA Thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 2006). Introduction 5 movement that succeeded in mobilizing crowds in mass events such as the Tobacco Revolt and the Constitutional Revolution (1905–1911).4 Rising nationalism engendered a heated debate on the beneﬁts and dangers of westernization. Western objects, ideas, knowledge, and practices had been entering Iran at an accelerated pace since the late nineteenth century – and their adoption or rejection caused strife and enmity among different sections of Iranian society.5 This book critically applies the analytical tools of masculinity studies to a history of Iranian masculinities, and to their development and interrelations with the signiﬁcant processes of modernization outlined above.

4 On the Iranian nationalist movement see Mangol Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution: Shi’ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1909 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991); Vanessa Martin, Islam and Modernism: The Iranian Revolution of 1906 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1989); Ali M. Ansari, The Politics of Nationalism in Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012); Marashi, Nationalizing Iran. On the gendered aspects of Iranian nationalism see Janet Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906–1911: Grassroots Democracy, Social Democracy, and the Origins of Feminism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996); Afsaneh Najmabadi, The Story of the Daughters of Quchan: Gender and National Memory in Iranian History (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1998); Afsaneh Najmabadi, “The Erotic Vatan [Homeland] as Beloved and Mother: To Love, To Possess, and To Protect,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 39, no. 3 (1997): 442–467; Afsaneh Najmabadi, “Zanha-Yi Millat: Women or Wives of the Nation?,” Iranian Studies 26, no. 1 (1993): 51–71; Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation, 1804–1946 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, “From Patriotism to Matriotism: A Tropological Study of Iranian Nationalism, 1870–1909,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 2 (2002): 217–238; Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, “Refashioning Iran: Language and Culture During the Constitutional Revolution,” Iranian Studies 23, no. 1 (1990): 77–101. 5 Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Historiography (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2001); Ali Gheissari, Iranian Intellectuals in the 20th Century (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1998); Mehrzad Boroujerdi, “The Ambivalent Modernity of Iranian Intellectuals,” in Intellectual Trends in Twentieth-Century Iran: A Critical Survey, ed. Negin Nabavi (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2003): 11–23; Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, “Inventing Modernity, Borrowing Modernity (Tajaddod-e Ekhtera’i, Tamaddon-e ‘Ariyati va Enqelab-e Ruhani),” Iran-Nameh 20, no. 2–3 (2002): 195–235; Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996); Guity Nashat, The Origins of Modern Reform in Iran, 1870–1880 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1982); Farzin Vahdat, God and Juggernaut: Iran’s Intellectual Encounter with Modernity (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002). 6 Introduction

Modernization and westernization were taken a step forward during the reign of Reza Shah, who, together with a government and a bureaucracy manned by supporters of reform, wished to make Iran and Iranians the equals of westerners, and did not shy away from coercion in order to promote this aim.6 When Reza Shah was forced by the Allies to abdicate in 1941, a distinct change could be detected in Iranian notions and perceptions of masculinity. The model of masculinity, whose bearers now represented the country’s new professional, political, and cultural elite, reached a hegemonic position in state and society. The late 1930s was also the period when Western or Western- style education began to spread beyond the narrow ranks of elite groups. In the following decades, as more and more strata of society got access to higher, scientiﬁc education, new social groups with new resources of power began to take their place in the national arena. Furthermore, the spread of mass media technologies such as the radio (from the late 1930s) and television (from 1958) contributed to the dissemination of Western norms, ideas, and practices among wider audiences.7 Starting in the 1940s, new politics drew participants from hitherto uninvolved segments of Iranian society. All of these were to eventually contest the hegemony of elite men with Western education and some of the traits of masculinity that these men represented. Accordingly, the book ends in 1941 although, naturally, masculinities in Iran continued and still continue to evolve and change.

6 Touraj Atabaki and Erik J. Zurcher, eds., Men of Order: Authoritarian Modernization under Ataturk and Reza Shah (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004); Stephanie Cronin, Soldiers, Shahs and Subalterns in Iran: Opposition, Protest and Revolt, 1921–1941 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Houchang E. Chehabi, “Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes: Dress Codes and Nation-Building under Reza Shah,” Iranian Studies 26, no. 3–4 (1993): 209–233; Stephanie Cronin, ed., The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921–1941 (London: Routledge, 2003); Bianca Devos and Christoph Werner, eds., Culture and Cultural Politics under Reza Shah (London: Routledge, 2014); Touraj Atabaki, ed., The State and the Subaltern: Modernization, Society and the State in Turkey and Iran (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007); Stephanie Cronin, Tribal Politics in Iran: Rural Conﬂict and the New State, 1921–1941 (London: Routledge, 2007); Ali M. Ansari, Modern Iran Since 1921: The Pahlavis and After (London: Pearson Education, 2003). 7 Peter J. Chelkowski, “Popular Entertainment, Media and Social Change in Twentieth Century Iran,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 7, ed. Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly, and Charles Melville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 808–810. Gender and Masculinity in the Middle East 7

Gender and Masculinity in the Middle East

From the 1990s and to a greater extent since the early 2000s, historians began to explore masculinities in Western and non-Western societies.8 Scholars of Middle Eastern history called for greater inclusion of masculinity studies in scholarship on gender in the Middle East, but it seems that little has been done so far and most research on gender history in the Middle East still focuses on women and femininity.9 In recent years, there has been a trickle of articles and doctoral disserta- tions on various aspects of the history of Middle Eastern masculinities,

8 George L. Mosse, The Image of Man: The Creation of Modern Masculinity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998); Michael S. Kimmel, Manhood in America: A Cultural History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Kam Louie and Morris Low, eds., Asian Masculinities: The Meaning and Practice of Manhood in China and Japan (London: Routledge Curzon, 2003); Christopher E. Forth, Masculinity in the Modern West: Gender, Civilization and the Body (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); John Tosh, A Man’s Place: Masculinity and the Middle-Class Home in Victorian England (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007); Robert A. Nye, Masculinity and Male Codes of Honor in Modern France (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998); Barbara Evans Clements, Rebecca Friedman, and Dan Healey, eds., Russian Masculinities in History and Culture (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002); Kam Louie, Theorising Chinese Masculinity: Society and Gender in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The “Manly Englishman” and the “Effeminate Bengali” in the Late Nineteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995); Victor M. Macías- González and Anne Rubenstein, eds., Masculinity and Sexuality in Modern Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2012); Lahoucine Ouzgane and Robert Morrell, eds., African Masculinities: Men in Africa from the Late Nineteenth Century to the Present (New York: Palgrave Macmillan and University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2005). 9 Deniz Kandiyoti, ‘The Paradoxes of Masculinity: Some Thoughts on Segregated Societies,” in Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies, ed. Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper (London: Routledge, 1994), 196–212; Joanna de Groot, “Gender, Discourse and Ideology in Iranian Studies: Toward a New Scholarship,” in Gendering the Middle East: Alternative Perspectives, ed. Deniz Kandiyoti (London: I. B. Tauris, 1996), 45; Deniz Kandiyoti, ed., Gendering the Middle East: Emerging Perspectives (London: I. B. Tauris, 1995); Beth Baron, Egypt as a Woman: Nationalism, Gender, and Politics (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005); Lila Abu Lughod, ed., Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998); Fatma Müge Göçek and Shiva Balaghi, Reconstructing Gender in the Middle East: Tradition, Identity, and Power (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994); Margaret L. Meriwether and Judith Tucker, eds., A Social History of Women and Gender in the Modern Middle East (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999). 8 Introduction but the ﬁeld is still in its infancy.10 A notable exception is Wilson Chacko Jacob’s study of masculinity in Egypt.11 Two multidisciplinary edited volumes on Middle Eastern and Islamic masculinities preceded his work, but were mostly not informed by masculinity studies or theory, and did not offer a coherent body of knowledge.12 One ﬁeld of study that did attract the attention of numerous historians is the history of male homosexuality in the Middle East, on which several books were published.13 The historiography of sexuality in the Middle East and in Iran has focused mostly on marriage and the family, but considerably less on male heterosexual sexuality or on women’s sexuality.14 Studies of Middle Eastern masculinities in disciplines outside

10 Samuel Dolbee, “Mandatory Bodybuilding: Nationalism, Masculinity, Class and Physical Activity in 1930s Syria” (MA Thesis, Georgetown University, 2010); Stacy Fahrenthold, “Sound Minds in Sound Bodies: Transnational Philanthropy and Patriotic Masculinity in Al-Nadi Al-Homsi and Syrian Brazil, 1920–32,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 46, no. 2 (2014): 259–283; Wilson Chacko Jacob, “Overcoming ‘Simply Being’: Straight Sex, Masculinity and Physical Culture in Modern Egypt,” Gender & History 22, no. 3 (2010): 658–676; Joseph Massad, “Conceiving the Masculine: Gender and Palestinian Nationalism,” The Middle East Journal 49, no. 3 (1995): 467–483; Hanan Kholoussy, “Monitoring and Medicalising Male Sexuality in Semi- Colonial Egypt,” Gender & History 22, no. 3 (2010): 677–691. 11 Wilson Chacko Jacob, Working Out Egypt: Effendi Masculinity and Subject Formation in Colonial Modernity, 1870–1940 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press Books, 2011). 12 Mai Ghoussoub and Emma Sinclair-Webb, eds., Imagined Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Modern Middle East (London: Saqi Books, 2000); Lahoucine Ouzgane, ed., Islamic Masculinities (London: Zed Books, 2006). 13 Stephen O. Murray and Will Roscoe, eds., Islamic Homosexualities: Culture, History, and Literature (New York: New York University Press, 1997); Afsaneh Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieties of Iranian Modernity (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005); Joseph Massad, Desiring Arabs (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2007); Khaled El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality in the Arab- Islamic World, 1500–1800 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2009); Joseph A. Boone, The Homoerotics of Orientalism (New York: Colombia University Press, 2014). See also a dissertation by Wendy Noel DeSouza: “Scholarly Mysticism and Mystical Scholars: European and Iranian Intellectuals at the Dawn of Modern Sexuality and Gender” (University of California Los Angeles, 2010). 14 Janet Afary, Sexual Politics in Modern Iran (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); Willem M. Floor, A Social History of Sexual Relations in Iran (Washington, DC: Mage, 2008); Kathryn Babayan and Afsaneh Najmabadi, eds., Islamicate Sexualities: Translations across Temporal Geographies of Desire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 2008); Gender and Masculinity in the Middle East 9 history such as sociology, anthropology, and literature explored contemporary societies, with somewhat greater focus on their practices, images, and ideals of masculinity.15 Historical studies on Iran suffer from a similar imbalance. Many important studies on modern Iranian women have examined women’s changing status in the political, legal, social, and cultural spheres.16 Women’s roles in the country’s political upheavals have been brought to the fore and their importance in national and political symbolism scrutinized, as well as their struggle for legal rights and better positions in the public and private labor markets.17 Camron Amin has described

Dror Ze’evi, Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500–1900 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006). 15 Marcia C. Inhorn, The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2012); Samira Aghacy, Masculine Identity in the Fiction of the Arab East since 1967 (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2009); Hossein Adibi, “Sociology of Masculinity in the Middle East,” paper presented in Social Change in the 21st Century Conference, Carseldine Campus, Brisbane, October 27, 2006; Andrea Cornwall and Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper, eds., Dislocating Masculinity: Comparative Ethnographies (London: Routledge, 1994); Nurhayat Kizilkan, “Spaces of Masculinities: Bachelor Rooms in Suleymaniye” (MA thesis, Middle East Technical University in Ankara, 2009); Hoda El Sadd, “Imaging the ‘New Man’ Gender and Nation in Arab Literary Narratives in the Early Twentieth Century,” Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies 3, no. 2 (2007): 31–55; Asifa Siraj, “‘Men Are Hard ... Women Are Soft’: Muslim Men and the Construction of Masculine Identity,” in Masculinities in a Global Era, ed. Joseph Gelfer, vol. 4, International and Cultural Psychology (New York: Springer New York, 2014), 101–116. 16 A large portion of the study of gender in Iran concerns the periods of Mohammad Reza Shah, the Islamic Revolution and postrevolutionary Iran. See Haideh Moghissi, Populism and Feminism in Iran: Women’s Struggle in a Male- Defined Revolutionary Movement (London: Macmillan & Co., 1996); Azar Tabari and Nahid Yeganeh, eds., In the Shadow of Islam: The Women’s Movement in Iran (London: Zed Press, 1982); Guity Nashat, ed., Women and Revolution in Iran (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1983); Mahnaz Afkhami and Erica Friedl, eds., In the Eye of the Storm: Women in Post-Revolutionary Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994); Tara Povey and Elaheh Rostami-Povey, eds., Women, Power and Politics in 21st Century Iran (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012); Hammed Shahidian, Women in Iran: Gender Politics in the Islamic Republic (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002). 17 Eliz Sanasarian, The Women’s Rights Movement in Iran: Mutiny, Appeasement, and Repression from 1900 to Khomeini (New York: Praeger, 1982); Parvin Paidar, Women and the Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Hamideh Sedghi, Women and Politics in Iran: Veiling, Unveiling, and Reveiling (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 10 Introduction the construction of a modern Iranian woman by individuals and the state between the mid-nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, showing how Iranian women were imagined and their status reformed.18 In a way, the present study attempts to do a similar thing for the modern Iranian man: looking at how this figure was imagined and reformed, by whom and for whom. My research has gained tremendously from the research of the scholars who had introduced masculinity to the historical research of gender in Iran. These are first and foremost Afsaneh Najmabadi in her studies of Qajar sexuality, Joanna de Groot in her consideration of masculinity and nationalism, and Minoo Moallem, who is to the best of my knowledge the first Iranian scholar to have referred to the concept of hegemonic masculinity.19

Hegemonic Masculinity and Its Critiques

Sociologist Raewyn Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity has been a useful analytical tool in this study, and one of the most inﬂuen- tial concepts in masculinity studies. According to Connell, hegemonic masculinity consists of the practices, traits, and behaviors that turn a male human being into a “real man.” These change signiﬁcantly in

2007); Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution; Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, Conceiving Citizens: Women and the Politics of Motherhood in Iran (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Lois Beck and Guity Nashat, eds., Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004); Sarah Ansari and Vanessa Martin, eds., Women, Religion and Culture in Iran (New York: Routledge, 2002). 18 Camron Michael Amin, The Making of the Modern Iranian Woman: Gender, State Policy, and Popular Culture, 1865–1946 (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2002). 19 Najmabadi, “The Erotic Vatan”; Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches; Joanna de Groot, “‘Brothers of the Iranian Race’: Manhood, Nationhood and Modernity in Iran 1870–1914,” in Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History, ed. Stefan Dudink, Karen Hagemann, and John Tosh (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 137–156; Moallem, Between Warrior Brother. See also Mehri Honarbin-Holliday, “Emerging Forms of Masculinity in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” in Cultural Revolution in Iran: Contemporary Popular Culture in the Islamic Republic (London: I. B. Tauris, 2013), 59–77; Shahin Gerami, “Mullahs, Martyrs, and Men: Conceptualizing Masculinity in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Men and Masculinities 5, no. 3 (January 1, 2003): 257–274; Faegheh Shirazi, “Manly Matters in Iran: From Beards to Turbans,” in Critical Encounters: Essays on Persian Literature and Culture in Honor of Peter J. Chelkowski (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2007), 145–166. Hegemonic Masculinity and Its Critiques 11 time and from place to place and are shaped by systems of social power relations. Hegemonic masculinity legitimizes patriarchy as well as the domination of certain groups of men over others. Usefully for historians, Connell has emphasized that hegemonic masculinity is not mono- lithic or stable but heterogeneous and complex and is situated in power relations vis-à-vis both femininity and alternative models of masculinity. Neither hegemonic nor other masculinities constitute fixed character types but are “configurations of gender practice” contingent on the relationships in which they exist.20 In every society and period several models of masculinity can be found – hegemonic, marginal, complicit, and subordinate. Whereas subordinate masculinity is the antithesis of hegemonic masculinity, and men who embody it are subjugated in many respects, complicit masculinity characterizes men who do not embody the entire range of characteristics of hegemonic masculinity, but still profit from the way it subjugates women and subordinates groups of men. Therefore, these men do not challenge the existing order. When Connell refers to “marginal masculinity,” a term she admits is not ideal, she is concerned with power relations found alongside the gender order that intersect with it, such as class or race.21 For our purposes here, hegemonic masculinity offers two essential insights. First, that masculinity is a cultural and dynamic construct, and that what is considered manly is constantly debated and contested. Second, that constructs of masculinity are inseparable from power relations: sociocultural and political hegemonies influence and are influenced by hegemonic notions of gender. Tracing down changing concepts of manliness has helped me not only better understand gender identities, but also gain a new perspective on power relations between an emerging elite and other social groups in Iranian society, between Iranian men and women, between the regime and its subjects, and between Iran and the West. The prominence of the concept of hegemonic masculinity in masculinity studies has naturally engendered criticism, some of which I employ here. John Tosh has challenged Connell’s claim that hegemonic masculinity’s main goal is to legitimize patriarchy and argued

20 R.W. Connell, Masculinities (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995; 2nd ed. 2005), 77. 21 Connell gives the example of gay men as a form of subordinate masculinity in contemporary Western society, and of black or working-class men as marginal masculinities. Ibid.,77–81. 12 Introduction that other power relations could be equally significant for the formation of hegemonic masculinity.22 As my research progressed, I discovered that hegemonic masculinity in late-nineteenth-century Iran had much to do with the making and maintenance of a hegemonic position for a new elite that emerged during this period. This does not exclude hegemonic masculinity’s role as a justification of patriarchy. I do believe, though, that the latter role was less crucial, perhaps because patriarchy was still well entrenched and hardly contested in Iranian society. A second helpful and relevant criticism of Connell concerns the nature of relations between hegemonic masculinity and other masculinities. Demetrakis Demetriou has claimed that these are not composed solely of exclusion, rejection, and contestation. Hegemonic masculinity, he has demonstrated, may borrow and adopt different components from other masculinities that can benefit its hegemonic position.23 In the Iranian case, as this book shows, the new hegemonic masculinity adapted certain components of earlier notions about masculine ideals that it wished to replace. Thus, both continuity and change are evident in the development of Iranian hegemonic masculinity.

The Western-Educated Elite

As already noted, this book attempts to figure out who were the men that benefitted most or were excluded from the new Iranian hegemonic masculinity. This new masculinity, I argue, was advocated and dissem- inated by a very specific group: the Western-educated elite. These men came from wealthy families, whether aristocratic or mercantile, lived in urban centers, were educated in modern schools in Iran or overseas, and often spent long stretches of time in Europe. It was a very small group, a fraction of Iran’s population: in 1941, despite the expansion of the school system, out of a population of over 12.8 million, there were 355,500 students (including 210,000 primary school pupils,

22 John Tosh, “Hegemonic Masculinity and the History of Gender,” in Masculinities in Politics and War (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 41–56. 23 Demetrakis Z. Demetriou, “Connell’s Concept of Hegemonic Masculinity: A Critique,” Theory and Society 30 (2001): 337‒361. The Western-Educated Elite 13 approximately 28 percent of them girls) and 105,000 school graduates (including 65,000 primary schools graduates) in the country. In sum, less than 3 percent of the population had any modern education.24 The group of men I focus on was even smaller, as they were already grown men in 1941. Yet the influence of these men was disproportionally great. The privileged position of the families most of them came from greatly enhanced their influence. They promoted and controlled modern education, the printed media, and new literary forms and genres such as the short story and drama, which represented their innovative ideas on gender. They held positions of power in the state bureaucracy, in government, and in parliament. The ideal of masculinity they represented and promoted became the benchmark against which other men measured their own masculinity and filtered down to other, though not all, socioeconomic groups. These men aroused admiration and suspi- cion, and sometimes fury. They were imitated and quite frequently opposed – but could not be ignored. They also produced most of the primary source materials on which this study is based – newspaper articles, works of fiction, autobiographies, and government reports – and were the subjects and often the producers of photography. All those sources proved invaluable for revealing and interpreting the beliefs, biases, and ideologies of such men. This group of Iranians has been studied extensively by virtue of its vast influence on historical processes in late Qajar and early Pahlavi Iran. It is variously referred to as the new/modern middle class, the educated class, the intelligentsia, the bourgeoisie, or the professional- bureaucratic intelligentsia.25 Most scholars acknowledge that an

24 Menashri, Education, 110, 191; Ervand Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); “Women’s Education in the Pahlavi Period and After,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline .org/articles/education-xxvi-womens-education-in-the-pahlavi-period-and-after. 25 Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran; Cyrus Schayegh, Who Is Knowledgeable Is Strong: Science, Class, and the Formation of Modern Iranian Society, 1900–1950 (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2009); Azadeh Kian-Thiébaut, Secularization of Iran: A Doomed Failure? The New Middle Class and the Making of Modern Iran (Paris: Peeters, 1998); Menashri, Education; Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution; Hooshang Amirahmadi, The Political Economy of Iran under the Qajars: Society, Politics, Economics and Foreign Relations, 1796–1926 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2012); Ashkan Rezvani-Naraghi, “Middle Class Urbanism: The Socio-Spatial Transformation of Tehran, 1921–41,” Iranian Studies 51, no. 1 (2018): 97–126; James A. Bill, The Politics 14 Introduction

Iranian modern middle class became prominent during the reign of Mohammad Reza Shah (1941–1979), but locate its origins in earlier decades. I choose not to use the term “middle class” as it may give the problematic impression that the group referred to was relatively large and consisted of members with middle income and influence, and that many of its members originated from poorer strata and entered the middle class as a result of upward mobility. However, during the period discussed here, the men usually described as middle class were in fact the sons of elite families, who possessed considerable political, socioeconomic, and cultural capital.26 They may therefore be characterized more accurately as an emerging elite. This elite challenged the old elites from which it heralded, but also preserved some of their privileges and biases. Despite these similarities, however, the book also shows how their Western or Western-style education distinguished them from the elites they came from, and influenced their ideologies and beliefs, as well as their lifestyle and everyday practices, together with much of their criticism on Iran’s situation. Stressing their elite origins and status is significant for the analysis of power relations because it brings to the fore their vested interests in certain reforms and in promoting certain aspects of masculinity.27

of Iran: Groups, Classes and Modernization (Columbus, OH: Charles E. Merrill Publishing, 1972). Bill uses the terms “the professional-bureaucratic intelligentsia,”“the professional middle class,” and “the new middle class” interchangeably. 26 I am indebted to Sheila Moussaiey for her useful insights on this matter. 27 Numerous scholars have shown the immense influence elite groups have on politics, economics, gender, and culture. See for example John Higley and Michael G. Burton, Elite Foundations of Liberal Democracy (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006); Elena Semenova, Michael Edinger, and Heinrich Best, eds., Parliamentary Elites in Central and Eastern Europe: Recruitment and Representation (New York: Routledge, 2013); Christopher Williams, Researching Power, Elites and Leadership (London: SAGE Publications, 2012); Isabelle Werenfels, Managing Instability in Algeria: Elites and Political Change since 1995 (New York: Routledge, 2007); Mino Vianello and Gwen Moore, eds., Women and Men in Political and Business Elites: A Comparative Study in the Industrialized World, vol. 1 (London: SAGE Publications, 2004); Francie Ostrower, Trustees of Culture: Power, Wealth, and Status on Elite Arts Boards (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2004); Richard Lachmann, Capitalists in Spite of Themselves: Elite Conflict and Economic Transitions in Early Modern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002); Volker Perthes, ed., Arab Elites: Negotiating the Politics of Change (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004); Ellen Lust-Okar, Structuring Conflict in the Arab World: Sources and Methodology 15

Sources and Methodology

The book draws mostly on sources that constituted the cultural production of the Iranian Western-educated elite. When read critically and from a gendered perspective, these sources inform us on the writers or photographers’ notions about aspects of masculinity. Unlike discussions about women’s status and ideals and practices of femininity in Iranian society, which were explicit and formed part of the debate on the “woman’s question,” ideals and practices of masculinity were usually not discussed explicitly. Similar to masculinity, social and occasionally political power relations are often insinuated rather than clearly stated, and I attempt to expose both themes by a nuanced reading of the sources. The most significant corpus of sources I used includes numerous articles taken from almost thirty different newspapers and journals printed between 1877 and 1941. The newspapers, whether published in Iran or abroad, were read in Iran and had much influence.28 These newspapers provide a rich and varied source of knowledge as they contain a variety of genres, from editorials through scientific or pseu- doscientific articles to satirical columns, poems, and cartoons. These were written by professional journalists as well as by readers who sent letters to the editors, and present the ideals and ideologies of their reformist writers on subjects such as education, nationalism, sport, westernization, and marriage. Despite the fact that newspapers usually did not achieve high circulations, the number of people exposed to the views expressed in them was probably much higher than the number of printed copies, as these were read aloud and passed along different audiences.29 The autocratic nature of the Qajar regime in Iran meant that many of the newspapers were printed abroad and smuggled into the country in order to avoid censorship and sanctions on their oppositional views. Some of the most influential newspapers such as Akhtar (1876), Qanun (1890), and Habl ol-Matin (1893) were printed in Istanbul, London, and Calcutta respectively. During Reza Shah’s reign, and

Incumbents, Opponents, and Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005); William Zartman, ed., Elites in the Middle East (New York: Praeger, 1980). 28 Avery, “Printing, the Press and Literature.” 29 Ibid., 829. 16 Introduction especially from the 1930s, newspapers in Iran were similarly subject to the regime’s censorship or practiced self-censorship. The most important Iranian daily of the period, Ettela’at (1926), had a semiofficial status and was vehemently supportive of Reza Shah and the reforms promoted by his government. Other than straightforward censorship or self-censorship, the enthusiasm Iranian newspapers showed for the reforms of Reza Shah’s government derived in part from genuine support of the ideas on which they were based and partly from the fact that the reforms sometimes served the interests of their elite writers. It cannot be taken to represent the views of wide audiences but those of a narrow elite, whose goals were served by such writings. A second body of sources includes literary works, mostly short stories and plays, which appeared from the early 1920s and represent the beginning of these two genres in Iran. Literary works had much influence both in the literary field and on public discourse, introducing to it parables and symbolic characters. The novelty of the emerging genres is apparent in both their form and public usage and the new ideas they transmitted. For example, short stories like Seyyed Moham- mad Ali Jamalzadeh’s ridiculed illiteracy and misuse of public participation in politics by social climbers; popular plays by Hasan Moqaddam and Mirzadeh ‘Eshqi denounced superficial westernization and the tragic results of young Don Juans’ profligacy and immoral behavior. Such writers helped popularize the figures of the corrupt Mullah, the westernized dandy, and the sly and illiterate politician. Authors were elite men, most of whom spent long periods in Europe and were influenced by Western literary trends. Again, such works present the ideals and worldviews of a limited group of writers, who often held a highly critical view of Iranian society. The parodic depiction of Iranian society found in their writings allows us to examine the construction of subordinate models of masculinity and the designation of certain groups of men to these subordinate models. A third corpus of literary production consists of memoirs and autobiographies, alongside several interviews taken from the Iranian Oral History Project at the Harvard University Center for Middle Eastern Studies. These were usually written by men of political eminence, who wished to emphasize and commemorate their contribution to the country’s affairs by publishing their memoirs. These are of course problematic sources in many respects. First, they were written in retrospect, from a highly subjective point of view, and with a strong Sources and Methodology 17 personal bias. The faults of memory and the desire to present oneself in a positive light distort events. In addition, details about the authors’ private life are relatively few and far between. Most writers focus on their political or professional activity and training, leaving little room for the description of marriage, family life, emotional dilemmas, and personal/intimate relationships. However, it is possible to glean from these texts information on practices of masculinity related to dress, appearance, or sport. Other aspects relevant to this study may be found in the description of the authors’ education, in both Iran and Europe, and their perspectives and views regarding westernization, which often accompanied such an education. Thus, autobiographical writings are important for what they omit as well as for what they include. These omissions may suggest how men thought of themselves, which parts of their lives they deemed worthy of publishing, and what image of themselves as men they wished to present to their readers. The book also draws on a large corpus of visual materials, mainly photography. Photographs, like autobiographies or newspapers, are analyzed critically and attention is paid to artistic conventions that affected their manner of production. Photography was of course considered a modern genre, documenting both public and private experiences.30 No less than the artifacts themselves, the very production of a photograph manifested and, at the same time, promoted modern pastimes, forms of domesticity, and respectability. Many of the photographs used and analyzed in this study are taken from the photo album of Ali Khan Vali Qajar found at Harvard University. Ali Khan Vali was a Qajar aristocrat who learned how to operate a camera when he accompanied his father to St. Petersburg as a child. The album includes some 1,500 photographs, most of them taken at the time of his governorship in Azerbaijan between 1879 and 1896.

30 Reza Sheikh, “National Identity and Photographs of the Constitutional Revolution,” in Iran’s Constitutional Revolution: Popular Politics, Cultural Transformations and Transnational Connections, ed. Houchang E. Chehabi and Vanessa Martin (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010), 249–275; Ali Behdad, Camera Orientalis: Reﬂections on Photography of the Middle East (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2016); Ali Behdad, “The Power-Ful Art of Qajar Photography: Orientalism and (Self )orientalizing in Nineteenth Century Iran,” Iranian Studies 34, no. 1–4 (January 2001): 141–151; Negar Mottahedeh, Representing the Unpresentable: Historical Images of National Reform from the Qajars to the Islamic Republic of Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2008). 18 Introduction

Another collection studied and used here is the Antoin Sevruguin Collection at the Freer Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute. Antoin Sevruguin was the son of a Russian diplomat posted in Iran, and spent most of his childhood in Georgia. He operated a successful photography studio in Tehran from the late nineteenth century until his death in 1933. The collection includes some 900 photographs, ranging from landscapes and archeological sites to studio portraits and photographs of Iranian “types” (dervishes, beggars, artisans, etc.). Another source of photographs is Parisa Damandan’s book on portrait photography in Isfahan between the 1920s and 1950s. Damandan salvaged over 20,000 negatives from photography studios in her hometown, and published some 200 of these in her book. As Carmen Perez Gonzalez has shown, the style of Iranian portrait photography was inﬂuenced by European and particularly Victorian portrait photography (since most photographers learned the skill either in Europe or from European photographers) as well as by the visual tradition of Persian paintings and miniatures.31 Analyzed carefully, the collections of photographic materials have enabled me to learn not only about male practices of dress and appearance, but also about how the photographed subjects wished to present their bodies, families, and occupations.

Book Structure

The book is structured chronologically and thematically to trace the ways in which different notions about manliness and male practices became prominent and were incorporated into the evolving new Iran- ian hegemonic masculinity. Each chapter covers a speciﬁc theme and period. As cultural processes are hard to pinpoint in time, these chronological and thematic boundaries tend to merge and dissolve into each other. The order of the chapters further suggests a move from notions and ideologies about manhood and men that are concerned with humanity or mankind as a whole, through their association with the national Iranian community, to the individual Iranian, and from the abstract “man” to the concrete and physical Iranian male body.

31 Carmen Perez Gonzalez, Local Portraiture: Through the Lens of the 19th Century Iranian Photographers (Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2013). Book Structure 19

The first chapter provides the backdrop against which a new model of masculinity was constructed. It presents the notions and ideals of manhood that had been persistent and acceptable before the emergence of the new hegemonic masculinity. At the center of the chapter is the notion of javanmardi or chivalry, and it follows its decline and the narrowing of its social meanings. The javanmard held a position of power in his immediate community – a charitable and hospitable local magnate and a mediator between his community and the regime. He could also be a luti – the neighborhood ruffian who defended the weak, the neighborhood, and the city, and trained in the zurkhaneh (traditional gym). These two figures of masculine authority were to be gradually replaced by a new masculinity. Chapter 2 considers the significance of Western knowledge and education for the formation of new forms of masculinity. It first examines the growing importance attached to knowledge, science, and education in the discourse of Iranian reformists during the late nineteenth century, to demonstrate how Western knowledge became a prerequisite of honor and humanity. It then shows that, in practice, this knowledge was reserved for elite men, excluding women and non-elite men, and implying that the latter were unmanly, less than human even. The chapter demonstrates the manner in which educational institutions transformed Iranian practices and perceptions of the male body, with particular focus on new forms of discipline, including school uniform, the reorganization of the classroom, and the valorization of timeliness and precision. The third chapter moves from masculinity as defined in general and ostensibly universal terms to its national rendition. It examines the Iranian nationalist movement and the manner in which elite Western- educated men appropriated patriotism that became another prerequisite for being a “real man.” The discourse of patriotism, constitutionalism, and nationalism at turn-of-the-twentieth-century Iran was replete with terms laden with gendered meanings. Traditionally masculine traits such as zealotry (gheyrat) were attributed to men who actively supported the Constitutional Revolution, thus showing patriotism. Furthermore, the possibility of the rape of Iranian women and the Iranian motherland by foreigners threatened Iranian men’s masculinity. Once Iranian men failed to protect their wives, sisters, and mothers, or their motherland against foreign encroachment, they lost their masculine honor. The chapter analyzes the changing uses of the 20 Introduction metaphor of the nation as a family, from that of a national patriarchal family led by the father-Shah to the image of the nation as an ailing mother, suggesting that the political goals of constitutionalists as well as family structures in Iran necessitated this change. Lastly, Chapter 3 shows how some Qajar aristocrats were described as corrupt and accused of selling the motherland and how Iranians outside the elites who became involved in politics were ridiculed as social climbers faking patriotism. Conversely, Western-educated elite men presented themselves as genuine patriots, worthy of political leadership and of true manliness. Elite men similarly appropriated the notion of “proper” westernization, which is the subject of the fourth chapter. This chapter moves from the nationalist discourse on masculinity to the distinctly urban phenomenon of westernized men. “Proper” westernization was believed to be acquired only by deep understanding of Western culture that derived from modern education and acquaintance with Europe. The chapter examines changing attitudes toward the westernized man in the first two decades of the twentieth century. During the last years of the nineteenth century, conservative segments in the court and the religious establishment criticized westernizers (farangimaabha) for what they considered un-Islamic behavior. Westernized men themselves regarded the farangimaab as bringing progress and prosperity to the country. At the turn of the century, reformist writers adopted a negative approach to westernizers, but directed it away from themselves toward non-elite men, whom they dubbed fokolis – fake men who merely imitated superficial markers of Western culture such as dress and mannerisms without acquiring the real sources of Western power. The fokoli represented multiple threats to the emerging hegemonic masculinity: he threatened the nationalist project, social distinctions, and public morals, as well as the modernization of Iranian society. Thus, westernized men of the elite managed to deflect accusations of mimicry by projecting them onto non-elite men and constructing their masculinity as an antithesis of their own hegemonic masculinity. The influence of Western notions and ideologies was also evident in the changing perceptions of marriage, family life, and male sexuality discussed in Chapter 5, thus moving from urban spaces to the private and narrower settings of the household. During the interwar years, the discourse on sexuality became increasingly oriented toward Book Structure 21 reproduction. As Iranian reformists hailed monogamy as the only healthy and moral way to lead a family life, male sexuality was increasingly regulated. Formerly acceptable objects of male desire such as the adolescent boy (amrad), the child bride, or the prostitute were delegitimized, leaving only the lawful single wife. Men who clung to the old sexual norms were decried as immoral, old-fashioned, and harmful to the nation. While wives became the sole legitimate object of male desire and their lot in married life improved, men still held financial power and control over them, a fact accentuated in texts discussing women’s supposed spending habits. Chapter 6 focuses on the relation between the everyday individual practices of men and governmental attempts to reform Iranian society, thus demonstrating the intersection of the personal with the social and the state. The chapter surveys Reza Shah’s sartorial reforms and their impact on the construction of sociopolitical power relations. It presents the different meanings clothes held for men in late-nineteenth century Iran and their significance as visible markers of social distinctions. The chapter then discusses the arguments brought forth in the press in favor of the 1927 Dress Law, which dictated that all Iranian men wear Western suits and the Pahlavi hat. European attire was described as preferable from a national, hygienic, and aesthetic point of view and its wearers as superior to other men. Not all men accepted the dress reform and the struggle around it reveals the dynamics of power relations between Reza Shah’s government and Iranian citizens of different groups. It demonstrates not only the coercion the regime employed in enforcing the law, but also the buttressing of the cultural hegemony of westernized elite men, who, from their positions as government functionaries, advocated dress practices associated with their own model of masculinity. The book comes to a close in considering the individual male body. The last chapter continues the discussion of the new masculine body and appearance by focusing on the promotion of sports and scouting in Iran under Reza Shah as well as by reviewing conscription as instrumental for rebuilding the Iranian masculine body. The reformation and transformation of the physical body became a central concern during Reza Shah’s regime. Sport, much like westernized dress, was promoted on national, medical, and aesthetic grounds. Similarly to education, sport and scouting were accessible mostly to young men of the elite, who became familiar with them at school and in social clubs. These, in 22 Introduction turn, were strongly linked to the military. Strong male bodies and the discipline instilled by sports and scouting were perceived as assisting in the creation of better soldiers, and military service was seen as contributing to the creation of an athletic male body. Yet despite Reza Shah’s militarism, a general conscription law, massive investment in the army, and the symbolic power of military service as embodying such traits of hegemonic masculinity as patriotism and athleticism, soldiers did not become the new emblems of hegemonic masculinity. In the conclusions, I briefly return to the zurkhaneh, discussed in the first chapter. In the last years of Reza Shah’s reign, the zurkhaneh became once again a space of hegemonic masculinity, but one thoroughly different from that of the lutis of the nineteenth century. The zurkhaneh, like other sites and practices of Iranian masculinity, was reformed by government officials and reformers educated in the West. The religious aspects of zurkhaneh training and its association with neighborhood toughs and other conservative social groups were marginalized. The exercises and the place itself were placed under expert medical and hygienic supervision and their link to Iran’s ancient past was emphasized. Thus, the modern zurkhaneh athlete was no longer a rebellious but pious luti: he became a patriotic, educated, and well- shaped youth, the image of the new masculine ideal. The book interweaves ideas and perceptions, laws, political movements, and men’s practices, and brings to the fore of Iranian history Iranian men qua men. Regarding masculinity as an important component of historical processes also suggests that men’s pursuits and practices such as shaving and dressing, working out and posing in front of the camera can and should occupy a more central place than usually allotted to them in historical studies. This book seeks to demonstrate that topics such as male sexuality and the intimacy of family lives are inseparable from great ideals and movements such as nationalism or the belief in progress. The male actors of Iranian history also deserve a history of their masculinity. 1 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in |Qajar Society Javanmard, Luti, and Pahlavan

Hierarchy and Social Stratiﬁcation in Nineteenth-Century Iran

The Iranian 1958 film The Generous Roughneck (Lat-e Javanmard) was the first of a number of films that featured tough-guys (luti)ofthe late Qajar period and made up a nostalgic subgenre described by Hamid Naficy as the Dash Mashti genre. The generous and chivalrous luti, a man of humble origins who defends the weak and the honor of women in his community, became a staple figure in Iranian cinema between the late 1950s and the early 1970s.1 The most acclaimed filmic luti-javanmard was Dash Akol, the protagonist of the eponymous 1971 film based on a short story by Sadeq Hedayat, which will be discussed in detail below. The male characters in the Dash Mashti films embodied a specific and deeply rooted concept of ideal Iranian masculinity: javanmardi. This chapter discusses the changing meanings of javanmardi at the turn of the twentieth century and relates them to the various social groups associated with the term. Javanmardi has a long history in Iranian culture. From the Middle Ages to modern times, it connoted a code of proper manly behavior based on traits such as defending the weak, generosity, and trustworthiness. This code was subject to changes throughout its long history: specific traits were added or removed, different social groups were associated with it, and its centrality came to be challenged by other, modern ideals. In the nineteenth century, social hierarchies and inequalities, as well as power relations between the Qajar regime and its subjects, affected perceptions of javanmardi. Men who acquired reputations as javanmardan were sometimes respected and wealthy members of a local community who could mediate between the government and its subjects; in other cases, they were poor strongmen who

1 Hamid Naﬁcy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 2: The Industrializing Years, 1941–1978 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 261–262.

23 24 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society would resist state authority when it was perceived as unjust and cruel. The fact that these two groups of men, whose socioeconomic backgrounds differed to such an extent, could both be considered as carriers of javanmardi raises a question regarding its role as the hegemonic masculinity of this period. According to Raewyn Connell’s theory, traits of hegemonic masculinity are formed and reformed in order to preserve the hegemony of certain groups of men over women and other men.2 It seems, however, that javanmardi was not limited to members of specific social groups. In this chapter I suggest that rather than excluding various groups of men from power, javanmardi preserved existing hegemonies by legitimizing the power and privileges of economically or physically powerful men. The fact that such powerful men negotiated with or contested government authority for their communities may have helped prevent more radical forms of protest against government injustices that were deemed legitimate in the political culture of nineteenth-century Iran.3 The nonexclusionary character of javanmardi may have derived from the hierarchical structure and characteristics of Qajar society and the limited possibilities for upward mobility it offered, making it possible for powerful men to preserve their power without necessarily excluding others from the benefits of hegemonic masculinity. Nineteenth- century Iranian society was hierarchical, layered, and densely strati- fied. One’s position in this hierarchy was determined by occupation, family background, geography, ethnic and religious divisions, age, and gender. Social mobility was very limited and possible mostly only in the upper echelons. Though positions, as well as occupations, were usually inherited rather than acquired, men of the elite were able to improve their status by marriage, a government job, or amassing a fortune. At the same time, they were more vulnerable than others to downward mobility as a result of confiscation of their property or loss of grace with the ruler. Since the political system was largely based on patronage, a patron’s loss of grace could also affect his clients.4

2 Connell, Masculinities,77–79. 3 Vanessa Martin, “State, Power and Long-Term Trends in the Iranian Constitution of 1906 and Its Supplement of 1907,” Middle Eastern Studies 47, no. 3 (May 2011): 461–476. 4 Willem Floor, Guilds, Merchants, and Ulama in Nineteenth-Century Iran (Washington, DC: Mage, 2009), 3–6. Hierarchy and Social Stratiﬁcation 25

Hierarchies were preserved by an etiquette manifested in a language replete with honorary terms and elaborate rules.5 Persian contains four forms of address: familiar, polite, deferential, and royal. The use of each indicates the interlocutors’ relative social status and level of intimacy.6 Rigid manners and courtesies dominated daily exchanges of all kinds and were observed by all layers of society.7 Determining the relative size of the different social groups that made up Qajar society is not an easy task. Statistics on Iranian society before the twentieth century are usually based on estimates, since no national census was held before the reign of Reza Shah. Estimates of Iran’s population in 1850 vary drastically between four and ten million and those for the turn of the century are approximately twelve million. Roughly 20 percent of the population was urban, 25–30 percent nomadic, and the rest rural.8 Society was divided into a vast majority of poor peasants, wage earners, and tribesmen, and a small elite.9 Ahmad Ashraf divides urban society in premodern Iran into three vertical hierarchies. The first was the patrimonial administrative hierarchy that included princes of the Shah’s close family, ministers, tribal chiefs, court functionaries and low-ranking clerks, army officers, governors, and province ministers. Within this group, princes, courtiers, titleholders, and senior officials were often referred to as “notables” (a’yan va ashraf).10 The patrimonial nature of the Qajar

5 Ahmad Ashraf, “The Roots of Emerging Dual Class Structure in Iran,” Iranian Studies 14, no. 1 (1981): 14. 6 Michael C. Hillmann, “Language and Social Distinctions in Iran,” in Modern Iran: Dialectics of Continuity and Change, ed. Michael E. Bonine and Nikkie Keddie (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1981), 327–340. 7 Ervand Abrahamian, Iran between Two Revolutions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 34. 8 Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 6; Ervand Abrahamian, “The Causes of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10, no. 3 (1979): 387–388; Gad G. Gilbar, “The Persian Economy in the Mid-19th Century,” Die Welt Des Islams 19, no. 1 (1979): 177–211. 9 Shireen Mahdavi, “Social Mobility in Qajar Iran: Haj Muhammad Hassan Amin Al-Zarb,” Middle Eastern Studies 26, no. 4 (1990): 582. According to James Bill, the Iranian “ruling class” never amounted to more than one or two hundred families. Bill, The Politics of Iran,9. 10 Shireen Mahdavi, For God, Mammon and Country: A Nineteenth Century Persian Merchant Haj Muhammad Hassan Amin Al Zarb (1834–1898) (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999), 2. 26 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society regime meant that many of these positions were granted to members of the extended dynasty.11 The second, religious hierarchy included independent and dependent ulama. The former were ranked according to their knowledge in Islamic law and theology and their communal esteem, and were financed by religious taxes and donations as well as by endowments (vaqf). Senior ulama had private estates and commercial investments. They patronized their own network of seminary students and followers, providing them with stipends, rents, and family allowances. Religious leaders had to maintain a lifestyle similar to that of other grandees, which included a large retinue and court, and even private armies.12 Dependent ulama were employed in positions such as Imam of Friday Prayer, judges in districts and urban centers, and custodians of holy shrines. Ulama who were affiliated to the royal court or to wealthy landlords enjoyed high socioeconomic status and participated in national and municipal politics, amassing fortunes and influence. Other ulama relied on the bazaar and midlevel landowners for financial support and led a more modest and pious lifestyle. Finally, the religious hierarchy also included the less influential preachers, reciters of sacred verses and students in religious schools. These lower-ranking akhunds lived off religious endowments and contributions and rendered various religious and semire- ligious services (teaching in maktabs, writing letters) to the local population.13 The third, bazaari hierarchy included merchants, bankers, brokers, master artisans, shopkeepers, and guild members, as well as laborers, apprentices, peddlers, and even beggars.14 Wholesale merchants (tojjar) and wholesale dealers (bonakdar) were considered highly respectable and included among the city’s notables.15 Iranian cities were divided into neighborhoods or quarters, each headed by a

11 Said Amir Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 25–26. 12 Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution,14–15. 13 Ahmad Ashraf and Ali Banuazizi, “Classes in the Qajar Period,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/class-system-v. 14 Ashraf, “The Roots of Emerging Dual Class Structure in Iran”; Ashraf and Banuazizi, “Classes in the Qajar Period.” 15 Floor, Guilds, Merchants, and Ulama, 24. Hierarchy and Social Stratification 27 kadkhoda (headman) who represented the neighborhood in dealings with the government and other neighborhoods, collected taxes, and settled local disputes.16 The trade and crafts guilds were similarly headed by a kadkhoda or an elder (rish sefid). As may be seen, vertically, all three hierarchies were densely layered. Horizontal social mobility between the three hierarchies was possible and was not restricted by law and social norms. Outside these hierarchies stretched the mass of poor and uneducated Iranians.17 Social inequality was mitigated by similarities in diet, clothing, and housing that cut across society. Members of different social strata also lived in the same neighborhoods, interacting almost daily and participating jointly in religious rituals.18 In such communities where rich and poor were in constant contact, wealthy men who proved to be just, generous, and hospitable could gain the appreciation of the poor. Con- versely, a poor man who showed leadership, courage, and the willingness to resort to violence in defense of his community could gain the admiration of his neighbors and be taken into consideration by the wealthy as well as state representatives. These two types of javanmardan are discussed in this chapter. The chapter opens by tracing the origins and meaning of the term javanmardi from the ninth century to the 1930s. In particular, it addresses changes in the meanings and importance of this ideal of masculinity in newspaper articles from the 1900s onward and relates them to sociopolitical processes. The second part of the chapter discusses the lutis or neighborhood ruffians and how their community role both drew on and legitimized socially deviant conduct and practices. This argument is illustrated through two emblems of javanmardi: a historical (Sattar Khan) and a fictional one (Dash Akol). The chapter then turns to the homosocial male space of the zurkhaneh or the traditional gym, which was the site of an alternative masculine hierarchy that symbolizes the duality embodied in both javanmardi and luti culture.

16 Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 28. 17 Nikkie Keddie similarly points to the vertical division of Qajar society before the twentieth century. See Nikkie Keddie, “Class Structure and Political Power in Iran and Since 1796,” Iranian Studies 11, no. 1/4 (1978): 305–330. 18 Ashraf and Banuazizi, “Classes in the Qajar Period”; Mahdavi, For God, Mammon and Country. 28 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society

Javanmardi: The History of a Masculine Ideal

Before the turn of the twentieth century, the concept of javanmardi, which draws on Islamic chivalrous tradition, was linked to a culturally and socially prominent ideal of masculinity (mardanegi).19 Javamnard literally means “young man” and javanmardi is the translation of the Arabic futuwwa (Persian: fotovvat), also derived from “young man” (fata). The ideal of javanmardi includes traits such as courage, defense of the weak, generosity, endurance, decency, self-sacrifice, trustworthiness, modesty, and humility. The meaning of javanmardi changed through its long history, and while some of its key components remained, others were added or removed.20 In the dictionary of Ali Akbar Dehkhoda (1879–1956), fotovvat, morovvat, javanmardi and mardanegi are presented as synonymous. The fotovvat code of behavior includes generosity, independence, bravery, and foresight. According to Dehkhoda, among pre-Islamic Arab tribes, bravery and hospitality were of the highest importance, while among the Persians, magnanimity (azadmardi), courage, generosity, and trustworthiness ranked higher. Fotovvat could be a personal as well as a communal trait and Dehkhoda associates it with two groups: Sufis and ‘Ayyar (see below).21 The origin of javanmardi/fotovvat in Iran is not entirely clear. It is variously described as deriving from Islam in general, from Shiite Islam, from Sufi Islam, and from pre-Islamic society.22 Fotovvat is close in meaning to the pre-Islamic concept of morovvat (Arabic: muruwwa), which originated in the tribal societies of the Arabian Peninsula. Muruwwa encapsulated the traits deemed necessary in such societies: tribal solidarity and loyalty, defense of family ties (of which

19 Philippe Rochard, “The Identities of the Iranian Zūrkhānah,” Iranian Studies 35, no. 4 (2002): 318. 20 Fariba Adelkhah, Being Modern in Iran (London: Hurst, 1999), 34. 21 “Fotovvat,” https://dictionary.abadis.ir/?lntype=dehkhoda,fatofa,moeen, amid&word=%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%AA; Morovvat: https:// dictionary.abadis.ir/?lntype=dehkhoda,fatofa,moeen,amid&word=%D9%85% D8%B1%D9%88%D8%AA; Javanmardi: https://dictionary.abadis.ir/?lntype= dehkhoda,fatofa,moeen,amid&word=%20%D8%AC%D9%88%D8%A7% D9%86%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%AF%DB%8C Lloyd V. J. Ridgeon, Morals and Mysticism in Persian Sufism: A History of Sufi-Futuwwat in Iran (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2010), 6–7. 22 Adelkhah, Being Modern in Iran, 33; Mohsen Zakeri, “Javanmardi,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/javanmardi. Javanmardi: The History of a Masculine Ideal 29 blood revenge was an important aspect), courage, generosity, and hospitality.23 After the Arab invasion of Sassanid Iran, the concept of morovvat was adopted and adapted by groups of young men of different ethnic, professional, and social backgrounds, who led a hedonistic lifestyle that included drinking, dancing, and enjoying the company of women and young male adolescents. Some traits such as tribal loyalty were abandoned, but others such as generosity were preserved.24 In the course of Iranian history, fotovvat was linked to specific social groups. From the ninth to the eleventh century, it was associated with groups of bandits and vagabonds called ‘Ayyar, which sometimes waged war on heterodox Islamic groups.25 Their members were seen by local and national rulers as troublemakers causing unrest, but were simultaneously idealized by certain Sufi groups as good Muslims possessing javanmardi. Dehkhoda claims that despite the fact that the ‘Ayyar were highwaymen, they acted according to javanmardi, protected their neighborhoods and did not rob their inhabitants, did not lie, and did not commit treason.26 The traits of javanmardi, which by the eleventh century included not only generosity but also religiosity, humility, and avoidance of doing harm, were subsequently incorporated as ethical principles by Sufi groups.27 In the following centuries, urban brotherhoods were influenced by fotovvat values. Information about these brotherhoods is scant, but it has been suggested that they offered a way of life close to Sufism for working men who could not become full-fledged Sufi practitioners.28 These brotherhoods are described as groups of mostly single young men of the lower strata of society who followed a communal lifestyle and had strong group solidarity and sense of personal and collective honor. These characteristics made them suspected of loose sexual morals, including homoerotic practices, and earned them the epithet lutis (from levat = sodomy).29 Another explanation for the word’s

23 Ridgeon, Morals and Mysticism,6–7. 24 Ibid., 10. 25 Zakeri, “Javanmardi.” 26 “Fotovvat,” in Loghatnameh-ye Dehkhoda. 27 Ridgeon, Morals and Mysticism,11–22; Zakeri, “Javanmardi.” 28 Lloyd Ridgeon, Jawanmardi: A Sufi Code of Honor (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2011), 5–6. 29 Willem M. Floor, “The Political Role of Lutis in Iran,” in Modern Iran: Dialectics of Continuity and Change, ed. Nikkie Keddie and Michael Bonine (New York: State University of New York Press, 1981), 87. 30 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society etymology associates it with gypsies (luliyan).30 Sa’id Nafisi argues that the reputation of homoeroticism is due to the fact urban brotherhood members trained and initiated adolescent boys in their way of life.31 During the eleventh century, these brotherhoods began adopting mystical Islamic ideologies, a move that contributed to their positive reputation. Between the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the brotherhoods became more institutionalized and were linked to the guilds.32 During Safavid times, between the sixteenth and early eighteenth centuries, the state closed down urban brotherhoods’ centers, and they dispersed, somewhat losing their Sufi character.33 By the nineteenth century, javanmardi still denoted a proper way of conduct for men and was widely idealized by men of different backgrounds and social standing.34 Men of higher social status, whether bazaaris, clerics, or senior artisans, were described as possessing javanmardi if their community could rely on them in different matters. In his autobiography, Qasem Ghani (1899–1953) describes the powerful status of the ‘Arabshah family of Sadat (descendants of the prophet) in his native city of Sabzavar before Reza Shah’s reign:

Another of the characteristics of the Sadat that was the reason for their inﬂuence ... was ... javanmardi and fotovvat, meaning that an ‘Arabshahi Seyyed was known for being true to his promise, for keeping his word, for his bravery, forbearance, generosity, [and] defense of the weak with his life – in short, all the traits of javanmardi were gathered in them and under the law of tradition and habits they could not set foot outside of javanmardi.35 Psychologist and social scientist Reza Arasteh provides a similar description of the javanmard, whom he regards as synonymous with

30 Willem M. Floor, “Luti,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/ articles/luti. 31 Sa’id Nafisi, Sarchashmeh-ye Tasavvof dar Iran (The Origins of Sufism in Iran) (Tehran: Ketabforushi-ye Forughi, 1988), 133. 32 William L. Hanaway, “Ayyar,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ayyar. 33 Nafisi, Sarchashmeh-ye Tasavvof, 132–133; Gholam Ensafpur, Tarikh va Farhang-e Zurkhaneh va Guruha-ye Ejtema’i-ye Zurkhanehrow (The History and Culture of the Zurkhaneh and the Social Groups of Zurkhaneh Practitioners) (Tehran: Vezarat-e Farhang va Honar, Markaz-e Mardomshenasi-ye Iran, 1974), 166. 34 Floor, “The Political Role of Lutis,” 88. 35 Qasem Ghani, Yad Dashtha-ye Doktor Qasem Ghani (The Memoirs of Dr. Qasem Ghani) (Tehran: Entesharat-e Zavar, 1998), vol. 1, 29. Javanmardi: The History of a Masculine Ideal 31 the luti (though he concedes that the status of javanmard was desirable for and accessible to men of all classes). Arasteh argues that the javanmard fulfilled his promises, spoke the truth and had virtues like perseverance, valor, and purity. He championed the weak and opposed cruelty, and shunned prejudice, hypocrisy, and envy. In business, he settled for modest profits, behaved with humility and sincerity, and spoke gently. The javanmard was trustworthy and generous and made a special effort to help his relatives and friends. If he belonged to the urban elite, he was expected to demonstrate such qualities as generosity, hospitality, gratitude, chastity, forthright behavior and thought, honor, and integrity.36 Despite the far-reaching changes Iranian society underwent during the late nineteenth century, the ideal of javanmardi was not abandoned. The term was used persistently, but its meaning gradually changed. An article dated December 24, 1900 in the newspaper Habl ol-Matin (The Firm Cord) demonstrates how the traditional meaning of javanmardi was preserved in a modernizing environment. Titled “The Chivalry of Khorasanis,” it discusses the establishment of the Hemmat School in Mashhad. The chivalry (javanmardi) of the wealthy men of Khorasan is described as manifest in establishing a modern school. On the one hand, it conforms to the traditional model of charity: ten of the fifty students were admitted without tuition fees. On the other hand, the school is referred to as “a human producing factory” (karkhaneh-ye adam sazi; see Chapter 2 for more on the modernist school-as-factory metaphor), with the javanmard thus portrayed as contributing to the community by establishing a modern institute that was as necessary to the country as an industrial project.37 By the turn of the twentieth century, javanmardi acquired a new trait: patriotism. At first, patriotism and javanmardi appeared side by side as two venerated but separate traits. In a description of one Mirza Abd ol-Rahim Monzavi, a writer in Habl ol-Matin notes that Monzavi is endowed with true humility (darvishi) and javanmardi. His generosity and ascetic nature are apparent in his charitable acts: he turned his house into a home for the poor and hosted foreigners and locals at his table. Monzavi’s Islamic zeal (gheyrat-e eslamiyyat) and patriotism

36 A. Reza Arasteh, Man and Society in Iran (Leiden: Brill, 1964), 26. 37 “Javanmardi-ye Khorasaniyan” (The Chivalry of the Khorasanis), in Habl ol- Matin, December 24, 1900. 32 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society

(vatan parasti) led him to teach poor children and buy them necessities for school. According to this account, acts of charity are proof of javanmardi as well as patriotism.38 Another man who earned the praise of the nationalist press was Sa’d ol-Molk, who pledged his salary to the nationalist cause. In a 1907 text titled “Fotovvat and Patriotism,” the writer thanks Sa’d ol-Molk for his equally strong “javanmardi and patriotism.”39 Here and elsewhere, generosity as a central component of javanmardi is linked to patriotism when it is directed at the imagined national community instead of at one’s immediate community. In a later newspaper article, javanmardi is used to tell a story of bravery, self-sacrifice, and patriotism. “The Javanmardan of Dashte- stan,” published in Setareh-ye Iran (Star of Iran) in 1918, takes the readers back to the beginning of the Anglo-Persian War of 1856 and relates the story of the (failed) defense of Bushehr against the British invaders by men from the town of Dashtestan.40 In this story, the men of Dashtestan are first patriots, then javanmardan. Here, the nature of the link between javanmardi and patriotism changes: being willing to act for the nationalist cause is what makes these men javanmardan, not merely their courage and self-sacrifice. Patriotism coopts javanmardi and is its cause, and not vice versa. Support of the Constitutional Revolution affiliated to patriotism was similarly presented as proof of javanmardi. The “bravery, zeal and javanmardi” of a certain ‘Azizollah Mirza, aka Aqa ‘Aziz, were widely known “in the capital and other districts of Iran.” His reputation was based on his resistance to despotism, his generosity to the poor, and his integrity, which was manifest in his rejection of the benefits attached to collaboration with the despotic government. The traditional traits of javanmardi are merged in the text with support for constitutionalism.41 Another javanmard of the constitutional movement was Rah- matollah Khan of the artillery forces. He served under Prince Salar ol- Dowleh, and during a fight against the people of Hamadan, the prince ordered his artillery to open fire at the protestors. Rahmatollah Khan,

38 “Maktub” (A Letter), in Habl ol-Matin, January 7, 1901. 39 “Fotovvat va Mellat Parasti” (Generosity and Patriotism), in Neda-ye Vatan, December 2, 1907. 40 “Javanmardan-e Dashtestan” (The Javanmards of Dashtestan), in Setareh-ye Iran, January 1, 1918. 41 “Haq Shenasi” (Gratitude), in Sur-e Israfil, December 4, 1907. Javanmardi: The History of a Masculine Ideal 33 who did not wish to harm his compatriots, displayed javanmardi by shooting in the air and at the ground, “and wasted the ammunition of the honorable prince.” For this act of defiance he was executed but, so claims the author, should earn the eternal adoration of the Iranian nation.42 In this story, the ideal of javanmardi is appropriated in favor of a specific political cause, with support for constitutionalism again conforming to javanmardi. During the reign of Reza Shah, javanmardi was still used by the press. One reader wrote to the Tehrani daily Shafaq-e Sorkh (Red Twilight) in 1927 that the country was in great need of a cement factory and asked whether there was not one javanmard in the country willing to help it (and enrich himself ) by building such a factory without government funding.43 As in the abovementioned article about the establishment of a modern school early in the century, generosity is linked to patriotism and progress. In the late 1930s, an entirely different interpretation of javanmardi emerges. In an article titled “A Portion of Morovvat” (Fasli az Morovvat) the writer claims that the proper javanmard is one who treats his wife fairly (see Chapter 5). Here, javanmardi acquires an additional meaning that relates it to the private sphere of marital relations rather than public affairs and the imagined national community.44 This demonstrates the flexibility of the term that allowed for different interpretations. Since in the 1930s javanmardi still connoted a form of “proper” masculinity, despite having lost many of its previous connotations, it remained a useful tool for promoting desirable male behaviors. A telling example of the term’s changing meaning is the Iranian Boy Scouts Law of 1935, where javanmardi appears to have a very limited meaning and connotes either thrift or generosity. Article 9 of the law states that the scout “is not a squanderer and a wastrel but thrifty [sarf ju]andjavanmard.” This is adapted from the ninth article of Robert Baden-Powell’s Scout Law of 1908, according to which a scout should be thrifty so as not to “make himself a burden to others; or that he may have money to give away to others when they need it.”45 The other

42 “Zendeh Javid” (Forever Alive), in Sur-e Israfil, June 27, 1907. 43 “Yek Javanmard” (One Javanmard), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, January 27, 1927. 44 H. ‘A. Rashed, “Fasli az Morovvat” (A Portion of Morovvat), in Ettela’at, September 27, 1938. 45 Robert Baden-Powell, Scouting for Boys (London: Horace Cox, 1908), front cover. 34 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society articles of the Scouts Law include many of the original traits of javanmardi: loyalty, defense of the weak, solidarity, truthfulness, and purity of character, but rather than being contained within javanmardi, the moral code of Scoutsmanship now coopts javanmardi as one of its many traits.46 These examples suggest a narrowing of the uses and meaning of javanmardi, from a multifaceted set of traits that together make up an ideal of masculinity to a specific trait that may be easily incorporated in a modern ideal of masculinity that includes patriotism and better treatment of women. As the quoted articles demonstrate, javanmardi was thus often associated with high social standing and respectfulness, while at the same time mitigating the injustices and inequalities of a highly hierarchical society through charitable acts. This represents only half of the picture, however. Javanmardi was also strongly related to far less respectable members of Qajar society and to a different but nonetheless admired model of masculinity embodied in ruffians, bandits and highwaymen, as well as unemployed and unmarried youngsters practicing their physical prowess in the streets of their neighborhood. These lutis are the focus of the next section.

Lutis: Bullies or Robin Hoods?

During Qajar times, javanmardi was strongly associated with the lutis – urban brotherhoods of non-elite men who were sometimes designated “social bandits”: strongmen who protected the weak in their neighborhood, or were used as hired muscle for the powerful, or both at the same time.47 Dehkhoda deﬁnes the lutisordash mashtis as a group of

46 “Ta’sis-e Pish’ahangi dar Isfahan” (The Establishment of Boy Scouts in Isfahan), in Bakhtar, August 1, 1935. 47 Floor, “The Political Role of Lutis,” 88–89; Floor, “Luti.” Similar groups existed in other Middle Eastern countries at the time. For Egypt, see for example Wilson Chacko Jacob, “Eventful Transformations: Al-Futuwwa between History and the Everyday,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 49, no. 3 (June 29, 2007): 689–712; for Syria, Philip S. Khoury, Syria and the French Mandate: The Politics of Arab Nationalism, 1920–1945 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989); for Ottoman Bosnia, Ines Aščeric-Todd, “The Noble Traders: The Islamic Tradition of ‘Spiritual Chivalry’ (Futuwwa) in Bosnian Trade-Guilds (16th‒19th Centuries),” The Muslim World 97 (2007): 159–173. Lutis: Bullies or Robin Hoods? 35 javanmardan who had their own etiquette and jargon.48 They were headed by recognized leaders called lutibashi and were associated with specific city quarters.49 These groups were characterized by a strong esprit de corps and were loyal first to other group members, then to the quarter, and only then to the city.50 Another group called lutis that was not perceived as embodying javanmardi was the guild of jugglers, street performers, and acrobats.51 Lutis were easily identified by their typical dress, forms of speech, and entertainment.52 Abdollah Mostofi (1875–1951) describes them as “The Local Characters of Tehran,” and enumerates their character traits, all fitting the definitions of javanmardi at the time:

The local characters, sincere and simple as they were, did not constitute any defined class of society. They did not have written by-laws or formal induction into the group. They had to prove themselves individually in order to be accepted by their peers. Some of the requirements were making your own living; respect for elders; love of younger people; helping the weak, the poor, the honest, and the innocent; protecting the neighborhood, the area, the city, and the country; self-sacrifice; frankness; courage; truth; defending what is right; lack of interest in material things; and intolerance of violation. A local character was known as luti,ordash. He was not to be submissive to a “penti,” a nonmember ... and leave a disputed matter unanswered. A luti was not to stretch out a begging hand ... Any of the neighborhood kids who qualified in a few of the above traits would be included without any formality. There were seven essential objects or links to complete the picture of a local figure: a chain from Yazd, a brass bowl from Kerman, a silk handkerchief from Kashan, a knife from Isfahan, a cherry or jujube wood

48 Luti: https://dictionary.abadis.ir/?lntype=dehkhoda,fatofa,moeen,amid&word= %D9%84%D9%88%D8%B7%DB%8C. 49 Vanessa Martin, The Qajar Pact: Bargaining, Protest and the State in Nineteenth-Century Persia (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005), 117–119. 50 Willem M. Floor, “The Lutis: A Social Phenomenon in Qajar Persia,” Die Welt Des Islams 13, no. 1 (1971): 103–120. 51 Floor, “The Political Role of Lutis,” 86. 52 Reza Arasteh, “The Character, Organization and Social Role of the Lutis (Javanmardan) in the Traditional Iranian Society of the Nineteenth Century,” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 4, no. 1 (1961): 48–49; see also Fotovvat: https://dictionary.abadis.ir/?lntype=dehkhoda,fatofa, moeen,amid&word=%D9%81%D8%AA%D9%88%D8%AA;; Asghar Fathi, “The Role of the ‘Rebels’ in the Constitutional Movement in Iran,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 10, no. 1 (1979): 55–66. 36 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society pipe, a twisted shawl and a pair of thin-sole sandals [giveh]. The first four were of prime importance and imperative, and the last three ranked second.53 A short piece published in 1919 in the satirical newspaper Gol-e Zard (The Yellow Rose) similarly enumerates the characteristic objects possessed by the lutisof“olden days”: a silk shawl, a bowl from Kerman, a chain from Yazd, a brass shoehorn, a silver-headed pipe, an expensive silver-threaded skirt from Khorasan, a double-ended watch chain, a knife from Qazvin, a felt cloth from Garus, a broad- sword from Lezg, and thin-soled sandals from Isfahan. The last two items on the list are somewhat different and include a waistband full of money and zeal (gheyrat), suggesting the luti’s fine character.54 Lutis were to avoid the “impure” and demeaning work of spinners, barbers, sewer cleaners, porters, or well diggers and earn their living selling fruits, rice pudding, and drinks, or making and selling kites and toys.55 Javanmardi retained its positive meaning despite its affiliation with groups such as the lutis and ‘Ayyar. In the figure of the luti, highway robbery, social unrest, and general unruliness including drinking, brawling, and sexual misconduct existed alongside generosity, courage, and truthfulness.56 Individually, lutis could be considered either good or bad, depending on their personal level of javanmardi (and on the person describing them).57 In the Dehkhoda dictionary the defin- ition of luti accommodates both the luti as a pederast, juggler, drinker, and gambler and the “godly luti” (luti-ye allahi), the generous javanmard who tells the truth and shows morovvat. Lutigari, the conduct of the luti, is synonymous with javanmardi and generosity.58

53 Abdollah Mostofi, The Administrative and Social History of the Qajar Period: The Story of My Life; Translated from the Persian by His Daughter Nayer Mostofi Glenn (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda Publishers, 1997), 172–175. 54 “Zang-e Tafrih” (Recess Bell), in Gol-e Zard, 1919. 55 Mostofi, The Administrative and Social History of the Qajar Period, vol. 1, 172; Abrahamian, Iran Between Two Revolutions, 23. 56 Fathi, “The Role of the ‘Rebels’”;Naficy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 2, 266–267. 57 Houchang E. Chehabi, “Sport and Politics in Iran: The Legend of Gholamreza Takhti,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 12, no. 3 (1995): 50; Floor, “Luti.” 58 Lutigari: https://dictionary.abadis.ir/?LnType=dehkhoda,fatofa,moeen,amid& Word=%D9%84%D9%88%D8%B7%DB%8C+%DA%AF%D8%B1%DB %8C. Lutis: Bullies or Robin Hoods? 37

The good luti, embodying and performing javanmardi, was therefore a carrier of hegemonic masculinity. As long as lutis did not break the moral code of javanmardi, their misconduct was forgiven. Some examples of deviant but condonable luti behavior may be found in Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh’s (1895–1997) novel Isfahan Is Half the World, published in 1955, that provides a nostalgic view of late-Qajar Iran. Jamalzadeh dedi- cates a chapter titled “Chivalry and Manliness” to the narrator’s visit to a traditional gym (zurkhaneh; see the next section), where some lutis exercise. Four types of lutis are personified in the figures of four athletes. The first, the captain and director of Isfahan’s athletes, was the respected Fathollah the Standard-Bearer. His age, skill, and seniority made him a community leader and his story demonstrates this leadership. When the price of bread soared because of hoarding, Prince Zell ol-Sultan, the governor of Isfahan in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, visited the city. Fathollah caught the prince’s horse by its bridle, and urged the prince to act on the matter. If not, he suggested, Fathollah would call him to justice on the Day of Resurrection. A second athlete met at the gym, Haj Ma’sum Juzani, followed a certain preacher. When some fanatical clerics wished to get rid of this preacher, and planned to drag him down from his pulpit, Haj Ma’sum found out and packed the mosque with his supporters, who attacked the conspirators with swords and daggers. A third athlete, Nayeb-Mehrab, resigned his position as outrider in the service of the deputy governor after defending an innocent ribbon-seller wrongly accused of cheating. When the ribbon-seller was tied to a pole to be bastinadoed, Nayeb-Mehrab sprang to his defense and untied him, swearing that he would allow no further abuse of innocent men by government officials. The fourth character, the only one specifically called luti, was Yadollah Zorab the Lasso-Thrower. This man had been an ordinary thief until he had a dream in which Purya- ye Vali, the Sufi saint of zurkhaneh athletes, was revealed to him and made him promise to rob only the wealthy and divide the spoils among the poor, which he proceeded to do.59 The four characters

59 Muhammad Ali Jamalzadeh, Isfahan Is Half the World: Memories of a Persian Boyhood, trans. W. L. Heston (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 182–188. 38 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society demonstrate the javanmardi of non-elite men by employing violence or breaking the law in defense of their community.60 Whereas the popular and literary images of lutis were quite positive, they were disparaged as agents of chaos and unrest, usually by members of the government who attempted to delegitimize protests and stigmatize demonstrators as thugs.61 This duality is personified by Constitutional Revolution hero Sattar Khan (1868–1914).62 In his home city of Tabriz, the constitutionalist as well as royalist forces relied heavily on lutis. Their belligerence, well-defined inner divisions, and recognized leaders made them the most readily available source of fighting power for both sides.63 Sattar Khan was one of the luti leaders in Tabriz.64 An illiterate horse dealer of humble birth, he clashed with the law in the period before the Constitutional Revolution and even served several prison terms for manslaughter and highway robbery. He was then recruited to the gendarmerie and fought against Turkmen robbers around Mash- had. When his services were no longer required, he returned to Tabriz and to highway robbery, and later made a pilgrimage to the holy Shiite cities of Iraq. During that time (1894–1895), he met Ayatollah Mirza Hasan Shirazi, who backed him in an action against the Sunni custodians working in the Shiite sacred site of Samarra. Sattar Khan then returned once more to Tabriz and to his crimes. In 1901–1902, he went on pilgrimage to Iraq again, did penance at the shrine in Najaf, and never again had run-ins with the law. At the beginning of the Constitutional Revolution, Sattar Khan joined the constitutionalist police force as well as the constitutionalist society Anjoman-e Haqiqat, and became a leading figure during the 1908–1909 siege of Tabriz.65 Sattar Khan showed his courage when the antirevolutionary forces demanded that the citizens of Tabriz

60 Fathi, “The Role of the ‘Rebels.’” 61 Joanna de Groot, Religion, Culture and Politics in Iran: From the Qajars to Khomeini (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 170. 62 Adelkhah, Being Modern in Iran,34 63 Fathi, “The Role of the ‘Rebels.’” 64 Floor, “Luti”; Ahmad Kasravi also includes Sattar Khan in his list of Tabrizi lutis: Ahmad Kasravi, Ta’rikh-e Mashruteh-ye Iran (The History of Iran’s Constitutional Movement) (Tehran: Entesharat-e Amir Kabir, 1965), 491. 65 Anja Pistor-Hatam, “Iran’s Constitutional Revolution as Lieu(x) de Memoire: Sattar Khan,” in Iran’s Constitutional Revolution: Popular Politics, Cultural Transformations and Transnational Connections, ed. Houchang Chehabi and Venessa Martin (London: I. B. Tauris, 2010), 36–37. Lutis: Bullies or Robin Hoods? 39 surrender and raise white flags. As the story goes, he rode in the streets of the city, removing all white flags from the houses and winning the hearts of hundreds of new followers. His integrity was demonstrated when he rejected the Russian consul’s offer of a handsome reward should he surrender. Later, he became the popular commander of the revolutionary forces in Tabriz, earning the nickname “National Com- mander” (Sardar-e Melli). He made sure his forces did not loot the local population and kept order in the city, thus demonstrating his care for the weak. His modesty was apparent in his relations with the ordinary troops and in his own household.66 In Sattar Khan, the convergence of integrity and criminality, religiosity and unruliness, is a telling example of the practices and qualities of luti. In his figure, the transitional phase between acting within the local community and fighting for the national cause is evident.67 Sattar Khan used his position as javanmard within the community of Tabriz to act for a national cause, making himself a javanmard of country- wide fame. Once he attained national recognition, though, he was effectively coopted and marginalized by accepting the appointment as governor of Ardabil, where he did not perform well, retired after two months, and lost his reputation. From Ardabil, he moved to Tehran where he eventually died in relative anonymity.68 Sattar Khan was a popular hero, but did not receive unequivocal praise. In his Persian Revolution of 1905–1909, published only a year after the events, E. G. Browne (1862–1926) includes a letter from a “well-placed” acquaintance who disagrees with Browne’s own admiring description of Sattar Khan. While not denying the luti’s courage and leadership skills, Browne’s correspondent writes that he is “an illiterate, ignorant Qara-daghi horse-dealer, who has no more idea of what a Constitution means than Rahim Khan [an anticonstitutionalist Azerbaijani brigand].” This was a common accusation made against

66 Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 214–215. 67 Mansour Bonakdarian, “A World Born through the Chamber of a Revolver: Revolutionary Violence, Culture, and Modernity in Iran, 1906–1911,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 25, no. 2 (2005): 321, fn.12. 68 Anja Pistor-Hatam, “Sattar Khan,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sattar-khan-one-of-the-most-popular-heroes- from-tabriz-who-defended-the-town-during-the-lesser-autocracy-in-1908-09. 40 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society non-elite constitutionalists (see Chapter 3). Sattar Khan’s success, according to this letter, spoiled him – he began to rob innocent citizens, ﬁlled his house with war spoils and took to heavy drinking. His irresponsible behavior eventually earned him the fury of the constitutionalists who “longed for his removal.”69 Fictional lutis became no less prominent than historical ﬁgures. One example is Dash Akol, the protagonist of Sadeq Hedayat’s eponymous short story published in 1932 in the collection Three Drops of Blood70 and inspired by two Shirazi lutis from the turn of the twentieth century,71 Dash Akol is well known and well liked in his hometown:

Everybody in Shiraz liked Dash Akol, because, although he challenged any man at the corner of Sare Dozak, he didn’t bother women and children. On the contrary, he was kind to people, and if some miserable fellow bothered a woman or threatened someone, he wouldn’t be able to get away from Dash Akol in one piece. Dash Akol was usually seen to help people ... and if he was in the mood he would even carry people’s loads home for them ... His father was one of the great landlords of Fars province. When he died all his property went to his son. But Dash Akol took life easy and spent money recklessly ... and he generously gave all his possessions to the poor and empty-handed. At the beginning of the story, Dash Akol is informed that a man called Haji Samad has died and designated him the executor of his will and guardian of his family. Despite his reluctance to take on the new responsibility and compromise his all-important freedom, Dash Akol fulﬁls his obligation. His diligence is motivated not only by his integrity, but also by his love for Haji’s daughter Marjan. For several years, Dash Akol takes care of the family, neglecting his old friends and habits. He “completely gave up prowling around at night and daring others to ﬁght. He lost interest in his friends, and he lost his old enthusiasm ...People no longer put stock in Dash Akol and no longer held him in awe.” Since he no longer demonstrates his physical

69 Edward Granville Browne, The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909 (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1966), 441–442. 70 All quotes are from “Dash Akol,” in Sadegh Hedayat, Three Drops of Blood, ed. Nushin Arbabzadah, trans. Deborah Miller Mostaghel (Richmond: Oneworld Classics, 2008). 71 Naficy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 2, 278. Lutis: Bullies or Robin Hoods? 41 strength in fighting, his image as a luti suffers, and the people of the neighborhood ridicule him. On the day that Marjan marries another, Dash drowns his sorrow in drink. While staggering in the street he meets his old rival, bad luti Kaka Rostam, and the two fight. At first, it seems that Dash is winning, as in their previous duels, but eventually Kaka Rostam manages to grab his sword and stab him. On his deathbed, Haji’s son comes to see Dash, who then wills Marjan to have his pet parrot, to which he has confided his pains; the parrot then repeats these to Marjan. In this story, some elements of Dash Akol’s javanmardi clash, as is sometimes the case in hegemonic masculinity, with other requirements of manliness. His integrity toward Marjan prevents him from marrying and raising a family. His diligence in taking care of Haji Samad’s family means that he no longer demonstrates physical prowess, and perhaps this loss of fitness is what causes him to lose his life. The story of Dash Akol, later adapted into a successful film released in 1971, represents the resilience of the figure of the luti as javanmard. Dash Akol combines the positive and negative aspects of the luti and eventually meets his death having lost his belligerence. While his figure retains the positive qualities of a javanmard – generosity, integrity, and commitment – the loss of his freedom and physical prowess cost him both his manly reputation and his love. The local renditions of the historical events on which the story is based are quite different, though. As related to the filmmaker Mas’ud Kimiai and actor Bahman Mofid by Shirazi elders, there was indeed a chief luti in Shiraz called Dash Akol in the late nineteenth century. When a notable patriarch in the city wished to go on pilgrimage, he asked Dash Akol to take care of his family in his absence. Dash Akol’s boy lover had an affair with the notable’s daughter and Dash Akol took the blame because he wished to protect him and, as historian Hamid Naficy suggests, conceal his own homosexuality. Since he had allegedly violated the javanmardi code, Dash Akol was sentenced to be killed by Kaka Rostam, the next in line to be chief luti. Kaka Rostam himself was the son of two black slaves at the house of the same notable. As a child, he witnessed his parents being thrown into the courtyard to freeze to death in the winter cold after his father had refused to let the master sleep with his mother. He ran away and was raised by Dash Akol. As a luti, Kaka Rostam robbed wealthy passersby of their satin shirts, which he gave to the poor. Kaka Rostam was 42 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society respected and loved in Shiraz and his funeral caused massive traffic jams.72 In this version as well, the positive and negative aspects of luti lifestyle intermix. The well-respected and self-sacrificing Dash Akol was also a pederast, while Kaka Rostam was a bandit whose crimes were justified by a traumatic childhood. As in the historical account of Sattar Khan, the fictional figure of Dash Akol demonstrates how a luti-javanmard’s willingness to use physical force was not only considered legitimate but indispensable. Sattar Khan’s former life as a criminal provided him with skills in fighting and leadership. His willingness to act against the law and the establishment were in line with support of revolutionary action. For Dash Akol, the abandonment of street brawls, as he became more “settled,” marked his demise in the community, which had previously given him his acclaimed status. Whereas javanmardi helped the rich by making their economic privilege legitimate, for the luti righteous use of force was a way to legitimize disrespect for social norms and even lawlessness.

The House of Strength (zurkhaneh) and Its Champions (pahlavan): Body, Soul, and an Alternative Hierarchy

One of the institutions most identiﬁed with aspiring javanmardan is the zurkhaneh (literally “house of strength”), a traditional gym for men that existed in almost every town and large village in Iran and played a central role in the luti lifestyle.73 The historical origins of the zurkhaneh in Iran go as far back as the seventeenth century at least, with some claiming that it existed as early as the ninth century.74 Men entered the zurkhaneh through a low door, which forced them to bend and demonstrate their respect for the place. After donning special leather pants or a simple loincloth, they entered an octagonal pit (gowd) under a large dome where the training took place. An instructor (morshed) standing on a raised platform greeted each athlete with salutations and a drumbeat according to his status: novice (nocheh), senior athlete (pish kesvat), or champion (pahlavan, see

72 Ibid., 278–279. 73 Zakeri, “Javanmardi.” 74 Birgit Krawietz, “Martial Arts Iranian Style: Zurkhaneh Heavy Athletics and Wrestling Contested,” in Sport Across Asia: Politics, Cultures, and Identities, ed. Katrin Bromber, Birgit Krawietz, and Joseph Maguire (New York: Routledge, 2013), 144–166. The House of Strength and Its Champions 43 below). Within the pit, the most senior stood beside the instructor while junior members were positioned farthest from him. The instructor set the order and pace of the training session by selecting the athletes who would perform the exercises and kept the pace by drumming and reciting.75 Training included both individual exercises such as weight lifting of various sorts, spinning (reminiscent of the Sufi practice of spinning dervishes), and wrestling. Members performed in public competitions and shows whose profits were donated to charity. The involvement of zurkhaneh members in communal affairs and their reputation as javanmardan meant that people turned to them for help in various matters.76 In particular, they took active part in neighborhood religious ceremonies. One of the most important were the Shiite Moharram processions, commemorating the Battle of Karbala in the Hijri month of Moharram in 680 AD, where Hosein son of Ali and his family were defeated and massacred by what would become the Sunna faction of Islam. Beyond exhibiting the neighborhood’s piety, these were markers of affiliation of the zurkhaneh athletes to their local communities and commitment to their reputation. Processions from different neighborhoods visited each other’s territory, and the encounters could be amicable or violent.77 Often, they were a pretext for turning preexisting inter-neighborhood conflicts into violent clashes.78 A notable component of the procession was the carrying of a ceremo- nial standard (‘alamat) – a heavy construction reminiscent of the military standards of the Prophet’s family at the battle of Karbala. Carrying the standard, which could weigh several hundred pounds, was a show of piety as well as physical strength.79 The strict hierarchy of the institution had little to do with socioeconomic status and was determined according to the seniority and

75 Ja’far Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim (Old Tehran) (Tehran: Entesharat-e Mu’in, 1956), vol. 1, 165–168. 76 Ibid., vol. 1, 169–170. 77 Kamran Aghaie, “Religious Rituals, Social Identities and Political Relationships in Tehran Under Qajar Rule, 1850s–1920s,” in Religion and Society in Qajar Iran, ed. Robert Gleave (New York: Routledge, 2005), 390; A. Reza Arasteh, “The Social Role of the Zurkhana (House of Strength) in Iranian Urban Communities during the Nineteenth Century,” Der Islam 37 (1961): 256–259. 78 Kamran Scot Aghaie, The Martyrs of Karbala: Shi’i Symbols and Rituals in Modern Iran (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2004), 37. 79 Ibid. 44 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society skill of the individual member, as well as his javanmardi.80 According to javanmardi, a good zurkhaneh athlete had to be pure of heart, pious, respectful, and chaste, and abstain from alcohol and opium. This skill- and seniority-based hierarchy undermined the social hierarchy prevailing outside the zurkhaneh, making it possible for a man of humble origins to outrank an aristocrat. The athletes took off their ordinary clothes before joining the training session, thus eliminating visual markers of social distinction.81 The practice of exercising in seminudity was significant in another respect: as men’s attire was usually multilayered and loose, this was one of the few occasions on which male bodies were exposed and exhibited. Other such occasions were bathing in the hamam or marching in the Moharram processions, where the body took centre stage as an object of grooming or self- flagellation. In the zurkhaneh, the sense of the corporeality was intensified by the physical exercise, particularly in wrestling exercises where bare bodies came into close contact. Men of diverse social groups trained in the zurkhaneh. An analysis of 182 nineteenth-century pahlavans shows that they came from all walks of life: craftsmen and bazaar workers, government and military personnel, clerics, aristocrats, farmers, and camel drivers.82 Historian Gholamreza Ensafpur argues that the traditional social structure of the zurkhaneh changed significantly during the late Qajar period, and attributes the deterioration of the institution to this change. According to Ensafpur, the zurkhaneh was traditionally provided for by groups of artisans and businessmen, while most active members belonged to the lower echelons of society – day laborers, peasants, peddlers, and the unemployed.83 Ensafpur considers the Safavid period as the heyday of the zurkhaneh, and maintains that Sattar Khan represents the last of the javanmardan. During the late Qajar period, he argues, the zurkhaneh was taken over by groups of different social origins, including wrestlers, athletes, lutis, ruffians, street performers, people of high- income professions (but not artisans), and seyyeds. These new groups set new goals and training was no longer meant to perfect character

80 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 168; Arasteh, “The Social Role of the Zurkhana”; Floor, “The Political Role of Lutis,” 88; Rochard, “The Identities of the Iranian Zūrkhānah,” 317–318. 81 Ridgeon, Morals and Mysticism, 170–172. 82 Arasteh, Man and Society in Iran,32–33. 83 Ensafpur, Tarikh va Farhang-e Zurkhaneh, 153–155. The House of Strength and Its Champions 45 and morals, but to achieve fame or profit, to pursue criminal activity and earn protection money.84 The zurkhaneh was often a meeting place for groups of lutis, and certain groups were linked to specific zurkhanehs. Mostofi writes in his memoirs that

To be a good athlete was the ideal of every one of them [the lutis]. To participate in the national ancient art of “The House of Power” was abso- lutely a goal to be achieved by any junior member. To become a senior member and attain the position of a teacher, or recite the poetry of Ferdowsi, the epic poet, to the rhythm of the hard exercises was an honor ...One had to pass numerous tests as a luti before [being] allowed to sit behind the drum and recite, leading the team.85 A zurkhaneh champion was called pahlavan – also meaning hero, courageous man, and wrestler. Some historical and mythological figures were represented as pahlavans epitomizing javanmardi.Stor- ies of their chivalry were told both during training sessions at the zurkhaneh and in coffee houses and other luti meeting places.86 Among them were Ali, the Prophet’s nephew, whose supporters founded Shia; Rostam, hero of the Persian Shahnameh epos who was also called Jahan-Pahlavan or World Champion;87 and thirteenth-century wrestler Purya-ye Vali (d. 1322), a Sufi saint who came to epitomize the fine qualities that can be acquired through wrestling. An oft-quoted quatrain attributed to the latter illustrates how javanmardi’s gendered values were embedded in the ethics of zurkhaneh wrestlers:

If you can dominate your own self, you’re a man If you don’t ﬁnd fault with others, you’re a man It is not manly to kick one who’s down If you take the hand of the one who is down, you’re a man88

The manly pahlavan was not supposed to seriously injure his oppon- ent or take advantage of him when he was injured. For him, winning was not as important as winning fairly. Famous pahlavans were objects of community admiration and pride, but not all pahlavans

84 Ibid., 161–163. 85 Mostoﬁ, Administrative and Social History, 172–175. 86 Martin, The Qajar Pact, 124. 87 Rochard, “The Identities of the Iranian Zūrkhānah,” 331. 88 Ibid., 333. 46 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society were necessarily positive ﬁgures. Ensafpur writes of a pahlavan named Akbar Khorasani whose main goal was to achieve fame. He abandoned the moral codes of wrestlers, injuring his competitors and taking advantage of their injuries, and in some cases even arranging their injury or death outside the ring.89 Historian Ja’far Shahri (1914–1994) similarly tells of a pahlavan from Khorasan (perhaps the same man) who used to sexually abuse the novices in his zurkhaneh. Shahri claims that the acts of this pahlavan and others of his sort caused the zurkhaneh’s decline: “A place that earlier on was the place of the pure, the believers, the javanmardan and the respectable became a place of adolescent boys [amrad pesaran], of catamites [maf’ul sefatan], of gigolos [mozallafan], a center for philan- derers who only acted to satisfy their worldly desires.”90 Conse- quently, respectable athletes detached themselves from the zurkhaneh and families prevented their sons from entering it. Shahri then goes on to relate a story meant to discourage young men from joining the zurkhaneh. Once, a young man was encouraged by his friends to go to a zurkhaneh. When he entered the pit naked, he found a needle and threw it outside the pit. Two weeks later, he found a bodkin in its place and imagined that due to the special virtue of the zurkhaneh the needle turned into a bodkin. He took the bodkin home with him, but later when he looked for it, he discovered that it actually remained thin as a needle, and only its eye became as large as a bodkin’s. The sexual allusion here is clear: the young athlete’s body was not strengthened, but his anus was widened.91 Another reference to homoerotic tendencies among zurkhaneh athletes may be found in an explicit poem quoted by Jamalzadeh in his chapter on the zurkhaneh. Supposedly recited by a morshed, the poem describes the novice athlete as a hyacinth, a cypress and a narcissus – all common tropes of homoerotic poetry. The speaker in the poem must be a man, as he notices the novice’s bare chest during the training session, where women were not allowed.92 Accusations of sodomy among athletes of the zurkhaneh were made partly because professional wrestlers did not marry, due to the belief that sexual intercourse with women would sap their strength.93 For

89 Ensafpur, Tarikh va Farhang-e Zurkhaneh, 167–168. 90 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 183. 91 Ibid., vol. 1, 183–184. 92 Jamalzadeh, Isfahan Is Half the World. 176–188. 93 Floor, “The Lutis,” 114; Afary, Sexual Politics,90–91. The House of Strength and Its Champions 47 this reason, preadolescent boys who did not grow facial hair were traditionally banned from training.94 The issue can be looked at from a different angle as well. Since sexual relations between a grown man and an adolescent boy were acceptable in Iranian society until the turn of the twentieth century (see Chapter 5), the fact that senior athletes sodomized young novices is not necessarily evidence of loose morals or lack of masculinity. On the contrary, the reputation and manliness of the active partner in such sexual relations were not harmed. One might even suggest that since professional athletes did not have sex with women, the fact that they did have sex with boys could even have attested to their virility and to their higher status within the zurkhaneh hierarchy. Despite the fact that, as mentioned above, the zurkhaneh was one of the only spaces in which men exposed their bodies, physical training at the zurkhaneh aimed to achieve moral goals and hone skills rather than to shape an ideal masculine body. Furthermore, grown men of different ages exercised together, and it is not suggested that the young body held any advantage over the old. Indeed, photographs of zurkhaneh athletes show a variety of body types. Figure 1.1 shows a full-bodied wrestler alongside an older and more athletic companion. Figure 1.2, on the other hand, shows skinny athletes. Figures 1.2 and 1.3a show the athletes wrestling, weightlifting, or preparing themselves for such exercises in the zurkhaneh or in the open air, while in Figures 1.1 and 1.3b, the athlete’s posing is visibly out of context, in a studio or at home. The photographs in Figures 1.3a and b, taken about four decades after those in Figures 1.1 and 1.2, show a more modern model of masculine athletic beauty (see Chapter 7). The young men are muscular and well proportioned. They have abandoned the custom of shaving their heads and sport ﬁne manes and well-trimmed mustaches, though they still wear the traditional zurkhaneh attire seen in Fig- ures 1.1 and 1.2. The two adolescents in the background of Figure 1.4 are used as “props” to accentuate the athlete’s body. Seemingly taller and somewhat older, he stands to the fore. While his naked torso and staged pose accentuate his triangular torso, the suits worn by the other

94 Rochard, “The Identities of the Iranian Zūrkhānah,” 319; Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 168. 48 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society

Figure 1.1 Zurkhaneh athletes circa 1890 (Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973–1985, FSA A.4 2.12.GN.26.06)

Figure 1.2 Zurkhaneh athletes (Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973–1985, FSA A.4 2.12.GN.44.07) The House of Strength and Its Champions 49

Figure 1.3a and b Zurkhaneh athletes, circa 1935–1950 (Parisa Damandan, Portrait Photographs from Isfahan: Faces in Transition, 1920–1950 (London: Saqi; The Hague: Prince Claus Fund Library, 2004). Photographed by Gho- lamhosein Derakhshan (a) and Abdolqasem Jala (b), 160, 163) 50 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society two blur their waistlines and make their shoulders seem narrower. Changed perceptions of manly physical beauty are attested to by the fact that zurkhaneh athletes of more recent periods began emphasizing movement exercises that favored a lean body at the expense of those that emphasized static force and allowed for a big belly, formerly a sign of wealth and good health.95 In Jamalzadeh’s Isfahan Is Half the World, several body images are apparent. When the narrator first arrives at the zurkhaneh, his description of the athletes is in line with the athletic body image adopted in Iran during the 1930s: “All stood in a circle around the pit with the thick, heavily knotted arms, broad, shield-like chests, toned bellied, swelling flanks, bulging oval muscles, narrow waists, taut thighs, solid frames, and hollow cheeks without flesh, which are the signs of a gymnast.”96 However, when he refers to three specific athletes, all demonstrating supreme prowess and skill, Jamalzadeh describes their physique in different terms. The captain, the aforementioned Fathollah, is “older and heftier” than his colleagues, but still manages to move nimbly, despite his “heavy body and ponderous bulk.” Another athlete’s chest “stuck out so far in front that it’s no exaggeration to say an ordinary man could dangle down from it. So much coarse, rough, black and yellow hair had grown on his back and chest and arms and thighs that you’d say pieces of goat hide had been sewn to his body.” A third was “skinny as a rail. He had no surplus flesh or muscle” and was described as more handsome than the rest.97 All body types described in Jamalzadeh’s chapter are viewed with awe and admiration for their strength if not their beauty. The zurkhaneh opened for its participants a homosocial space of alternative hierarchy where ordinary social divisions were ignored and a form of in-house upward mobility was allowed that was otherwise uncommon. Other than that, the luti members of the zurkhaneh, whose social power relied on physical force, gained the opportunity to exercise their power legitimately. Not only was wrestling in the arena a legitimate outlet for violence, but outside it, those lutis who achieved javanmard reputation could act violently without reproach, as long as their violence was directed outside the community or in street brawls among themselves.

95 Rochard, “The Identities of the Iranian Zūrkhānah,” 319. 96 Jamalzadeh, Isfahan Is Half the World, 176. 97 Ibid., 177–186. The House of Strength and Its Champions 51

During the reign of Naser ol-Din Shah, and thanks to his support, zurkhaneh training gained in popularity. Many aristocrats established their own zurkhanehs and participated in training and competitions. Ensafpur describes this development as another cause of the institute’s decline. The dependency of pahlavans on the grace of aristocrats and the abandonment of the zurkhaneh by the artisans of earlier times in favor of men of higher social standing brought about a change of ethics. Instead of defending the community against unjust rulers, the pahlavans were now sponsored, employed, and used by them. Having been social bandits they became hired muscle.98 During the time of the Constitutional Revolution, the popularity of the zurkhaneh declined for several other reasons as well. Intellectuals of that period wished to distance themselves from an institution that was part of the culture of the Naseri period. Moreover, zurkhanehs were meeting places for social groups that the members of the new Western-educated elite severely criticized and from which they attempted to dissociate and differentiate themselves.99 The accusations brought against the zurkhaneh at that time were of two kinds: scientific/medical claims and moral accusations. Firstly, zurkhanehs were represented as unhygienic since they were usually underground buildings, lacking sunlight and proper ventilation.100 Secondly, they were identified with same-sex physical relationships that were becoming unacceptable.101 In later years, during the reign of Reza Shah, the zurkhaneh was once again promoted by the regime and regained its past status, this time as the abode of Iran’s “ancient sport” (see Chapter 7 and Conclusions). The delegitimation of the zurkhaneh may also be related to the changing concept of javanmardi, as discussed above. As the meaning of javanmardi was narrowed and associated with patriotism, and as the javanmard’saffiliation to the immediate community was replaced by affiliation to the national (imagined) community, the zurkhaneh – the space where javanmardi was shaped and practiced– lost its positive connotations and its importance as a site of hegemonic masculinity.

98 Ensafpur, Tarikh va Farhang-e Zurkhaneh, 168–169. 99 Ridgeon, Morals and Mysticism, 178–179. 100 Schayegh, Who Is Knowledgeable Is Strong,45–46. 101 Ridgeon, Morals and Mysticism, 188. 52 Ideals and Practices of Masculinity in Qajar Society

Conclusions: The Changing Social Role of Chivalry

If we consider javanmardi to be the hegemonic masculinity of Qajar society of the nineteenth century, we must ask what power relations it drew on and perpetuated. Connell claims that hegemonic masculinity excludes from power women as well as certain groups of men. How- ever, javanmardi was supposedly available to any man who possessed character traits such as generosity, courage, and honesty, regardless of his social status, race, or sexuality. Javanmardi was also assigned to two very different social groups: notables and lutis. In such a case, which were the groups of men excluded from hegemony? In answering this question I suggest that in the case of javanmardi, existing power relations were upheld not so much by exclusion as by legitimation. I believe that javanmardi had the effect of bolstering both power relations and the legitimacy of economic or physical power. If hegemony depends not only on power but also on the perceived legitimacy of power by the powerless, the fact that the javanmard had a reputation of using his power in favor of the community provided such legitimation. The community benefited from the javanmard’s charity and willingness to confront government representatives on behalf of the powerless. The wealthy javanmard’s fortune was justified since he was perceived as both honest in his business practices and generous. Con- versely and complementarily, the bandit’s violence and other nonnor- mative behaviors were justified by his righteousness and defense of the weak and of his community. Furthermore, in a way, the charitable acts of the wealthy javanmard and Robin Hood-type robberies of the luti had a similar effect: by allocating a small portion of the rich’s wealth, they maintained and legitimized the existing unequal division of economic power. In a society where social mobility was unusual and rigid power relations rarely challenged, hegemonic masculinity had more to do with providing legitimacy to the existing hierarchy than with actively excluding different groups and individuals from power. In its Qajari unadulterated version, javanmardi was a model of hegemonic masculinity relevant to small communities whose members were in direct contact with each other. A man’s reputation as just and generous depended on how he interacted with other community members. Javanmardi was more than an image of masculinity – it involved practices of charity and piety and for the luti also practices of appearance and ritualized force. According to Naficy, the power of Conclusions 53 the luti was meant for and depended on its public display. Whether at the zurkhaneh, the coffee house or the Moharram procession, lutishad to impress and intimidate the crowd with performative masculinity.102 Furthermore, javanmardi may have been born out of the power dynamic between an arbitrary though less centralist government and local communities attempting to lead a life unmolested by the government, rather than the dynamic between various groups of men within urban society. In the discussion on the javanmard, his split into a respectable notable and a luti allowed this ideal to accommodate opposition to the regime: first, in his social bandit position, which surfaced particularly during periods of political and economic instability that burdened the urban population,103 and second, as a respected member of society who could mediate between the government and members of the community.104 As modern nationalism was developed in Iran by and for a new Western-educated elite (see Chapter 3), the meaning of javanmardi began to change. Patriotism became central: the patriot was not concerned only with his position among members of his immediate community but also with his place among members of the newly imagined national community. As the nation was becoming more politically involved and powerful, the javanmard’s traditional role as mediator between the community and the government was marginalized.105 Iranian society developed new means of dealing with the state, whether via the parliamentary system introduced during the Constitutional Revolution or through the bureaucratic mechanisms developed under Reza Shah. Rather than an ideal of masculinity encompassing various character traits and practices, javanmardi came to be interpreted as a single character trait, part of an emerging new model of masculinity. Discussed in the following chapters, this model was embodied and promoted by members of a new elite on their path to hegemony. These men, who competed with the old elites for the power legitimized by javanmardi sought to marginalize while simultaneously coopting it, in its reduced version, into their own ideal of masculinity.

102 Naﬁcy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 2, 268–269. 103 Martin, The Qajar Pact, 115–117. 104 Floor, “The Political Role of Lutis,” 84–87. 105 Krawietz, “Martial Arts Iranian Style,” 147–148. 2 Western Knowledge and Education |and the Emergence of a New Iranian Masculinity in the Late Nineteenth Century

In the years preceding the Constitutional Revolution, a new masculine ideal was debated in Iran. Shaped by an emerging elite, this ideal differed from earlier ones, first and foremost in a new emphasis on Western knowledge and education. Clearly, education in Western countries was extremely diverse, however, Iranian reformists rarely discussed this diversity. They often interpreted knowledge and education in the West (Farang) or Europe as a monolith – pragmatic, empirical, and nationalist – and set it against the existing religious education in Iran. Their vision for the future of local education incorporated disciplines that had never been taught in their modern form including history, geography, science, mathematics, geometry, and foreign languages and using modern teaching methods. The new subjects were taught in new elementary, secondary, and higher education institutes, usually by teachers themselves educated in Western or Western-style institutions. Most significantly for the purpose of this chapter, modern education was gendered. The vast majority of students were male, and the importance of the new knowledge was formulated in the gendered language of honor. New schools’ influence on the masculinity of male students extended well beyond the appropriation of new facts and forms of knowledge. It included new practices of discipline and inculcated new forms of bodily comportment and dress and new uses of time that were important to the formation of a new educated manhood in Iran. Western education was crucial to the construction of a new, elite masculinity, and heralded a broader change in Iranian hegemonic masculinity. This emerging masculinity was first appropriated and embodied by the sons of elite families, who had been acquiring European education since the early nineteenth century. Such education was the most important factor differentiating these men from other social groups, and perpetuated the control of elite men

54 Modern Knowledge in Late-Nineteenth-Century Reformist Discourse 55 over both women and non-elite men who did not have access to this type of education.1 Accordingly, the developments described in this chapter concern almost exclusively men, and more accurately, elite men.

Modern Knowledge in Late-Nineteenth-Century Reformist Discourse The last decades of the nineteenth century witnessed intensified interactions between Iran and the Western powers. Military losses during the first half of the century brought about imposed trade agreements, capitulations, and a period of “concession hunting” that began with the 1872 Reuter concession. From the early nineteenth century, reformist politicians tried to overcome Iran’s political and military weakness. Their earliest reforms involved the armed forces, but later on it became apparent that true reforms required more profound changes and that importing advanced military technologies was not enough. In 1906 the Tabrizi weekly Omid (Hope) asked what Iran needed most, and replied: “One person will say railroads, the second will say factories, the third will say unity, the fourth – commerce and agriculture, but it is none of the above. I say it is knowledge [‘elm], knowledge, knowledge.”2 The idea that modern knowledge and education were vital to progress and liberty in Iran became widespread among intellectuals around the second half of the nineteenth century.3 The dissemination of modern knowledge via the foundation of Western-style schools throughout the country was considered critical for strengthening Iran. An 1899 article summarizes the necessary measures to defend Iran, the first being “the opening of national schools, so that a school ... will be opened in every city, village and town.”4 A similar approach

1 When women were subsequently allowed into modern schools, models of Iranian femininity were similarly inﬂuenced, but this change exceeds the scope of this book. 2 “Shekayat az Vaz’” (Complaints on the Situation), in Omid, November 8, 1906. 3 Menashri, Education, 28.; Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, “Hallmarks of Humanism: Hygiene and Love of Homeland in Qajar Iran,” The American Historical Review 105, no. 4 (October 2000): 1171–1203. 4 “Hob al-Vatan min al-Iman” (Love of the Homeland is of the Faith), in Sorayya, March 18, 1899. 56 Western Knowledge and Education had been voiced in 1879 by Iran’s General Consul in Istanbul, Haji Mirza Najafqoli Khan:

Today, the nations of the West have reached such a stage in their advance- ments that they can rightfully look at us with contempt. Since they have grown in the science of daily life and civilization, the sciences, techniques and industries have reached the highest level. We are left completely devoid of science and craftsmanship. There is no talk of [the fact] that without knowledge neither religion nor the world can flourish ...... the survival of religion and the future of the nation ... are impossible unless we advance and defend our nation with science, knowledge and awareness ... We see the flood of European domination coming our way, and it can only be prevented by science, skill, culture, consensus, and unity ... We must revive our nation and homeland’s past reputation with action, with our initiative and our manly zeal for our religion, nation and homeland.5 A similar argument found its way to Iranian literature. In Zayn ol-’Abedin Maraghe’i’s novel The Travel Diary of Ebrahim Beg, serialized in Cairo between 1895 and 1902, a fictional trader of Iranian origin raised in Egypt criticizes the various ills of Iranian society. Modern knowledge and education are central to this criticism, advocated by a character known by the title “the honorable presence”– probably based on reformist statesman Mirza Ali Khan Amin ol-Dowleh (1844–1904). The character in the novel reflects:

The chief reason for the endurance of that unpleasant situation is the lack of learning. So far, no matter how much I yell ... it gets nowhere and goes unheard. These blind people do not see that the reason for every kind of dignity and pride for the people of the West is their learning and knowledge, and the reason for the meanness and lowliness of Easterners is their lack of learning and ignorance.6 As these texts show, reformists regarded the advance of science and education in Europe as a key engine of European progress, and often exaggerated to make their point. For example, an author in Akhtar (The Star) writes that

5 “Surat-e Khatabeh” (Contents of a Speech), in Akhtar, December 10, 1879 (emphasis added). 6 Zayn al-’Abidin Maraghe’i, The Travel Diary of Ebrahim Beg, trans. James D. Clark (Costa Mesa, CA: Mazda, 2006), 121–122. Modern Knowledge in Late-Nineteenth-Century Reformist Discourse 57

In Europe, very few people are illiterate. Their porters and grocers are literate and versed in mathematics and are aware of worldly affairs. It is even said of the citizens of Switzerland that ... if perchance they find someone who is illiterate among them, they strip him of national rights and exile him from the country.7 Modern knowledge was thus seen as a panacea for the country’s ills.8 Another author in Akhtar even believed that a ten-year intensive effort would be enough to establish schools for boys and girls throughout the country, and that following this effort and the spread of “books of morality,” the political situation and the country’s laws would be swiftly rectified.9 In another article, the government’s strength is presented as dependent on the nation’s education. The author concludes that “if the government of Iran wants education to become general ... there is no other way than to open two thousand well-organized schools.”10 Such promoters of a nationwide education did not always take into account the practical difficulties involved in establishing a modern national education system or the objections of different groups to it. Whereas the introduction of modern education is hailed as the optimal solution, the ignorance of the vast majority of Iranians is pilloried as the ultimate cause of the country’s backwardness. Mah- mud Khan ‘Alamir Ehtesham ol-Saltaneh (1863–1936) – a governor, diplomat, and speaker of the Majles (the Iranian Parliament) during the later Qajar period and a member of the Anjoman-e Ma’aref,a group of Qajar notables who promoted modern education in Iran – writes in his memoirs:

I have reached this conclusion that the ﬁrst among the reasons of this nation’s misery is general ignorance and illiteracy. If these people are humiliated by government servants and do not draw breath, and authorize a governor, an ofﬁcial or a representative of the government who bought their

7 “Maziyyat-e ‘Elm va Ta’lim-e Farzandan” (The Benefits of Knowledge and the Teaching of Children), in Akhtar, April 18, 1877. This newspaper was published in Istanbul during the last quarter of the nineteenth century and included among its contributors important intellectuals such as Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani (1854–1896). 8 Menashri, Education,39. 9 “Entezam” (Order), in Akhtar, October 8, 1879. 10 “Taraqqi-ye Dowlat” (The Government’s Progress), in Habl ol-Matin, December 17, 1900. 58 Western Knowledge and Education robe of office with a few golden coins to kill ...and no one raises his voice, this is due to their general illiteracy and unawareness of worldly affairs.11 Reformist writers considered the acquisition of Western knowledge to be crucial not only for the nation, but for each and every (male) citizen who wished to better himself as a person. One of the epithets that writers such as Malkom Khan (1834–1908, see below) and Mirza Nosratollah Beheshti Malek ol-Motekallemin (1861–1908) bestowed on modern schools is “human producing factories.”12 The metaphor suggests that a person who enters the school is no more than raw material to be processed into a full-fledged human being (adam – in itself a gendered term). It betrays both the writers’ optimism and a mechanical approach to education in which an easily acquired technology results in the desired “end product,” an educated man possessing of “true” humanity. As illustrated by the following excerpts, humanity or humanism (ensaniyyat, adamiyyat), as well as honor (sharaf, sharafat), are to be achieved by the pursuit of knowledge.13

The ﬁrst condition of humanity is science and knowledge ... In truth, the ignorant cannot be called human ...Science is what points to the honor and respectability of the human status ... knowledge is what separates human- kind from the rest of the living beings and inanimate objects.14 The condition for man’s dignity [sharafat] and honor [gerami] is knowledge. An ignorant person has neither dignity nor honor.15 Men differ from the rest of the animals not in senses and movements, but only in the honor of science [sharafat-e ‘elm] ...and science is the source of all manner of advantages and honor.16

11 Ehtesham ol-Saltaneh, Khaterat-e Ehtesham Ol-Saltaneh (The Memoirs of Ehtesham Ol-Saltaneh) (Tehran: Entesharat-e Zavar, 1987), 315. 12 Shahvar, The Forgotten Schools, 14; “Maktub dar Taraqqi-ye Madraseh-ye Qodsiyyeh” (A Letter Regarding the Progress of the Qodsiyyeh School), in Habl ol-Matin, October 29, 1900; “Javanmardi-ye Khorasaniyyan” (The Chivalry of the Khorasanis), in Habl ol-Matin, December 24, 1900, see also Menashri, Education, 37; Vahdat, God and Juggernaut, 35; Afsaneh Najmabadi, “Crafting an Educated Housewife in Iran,” in Remaking Women: Feminism and Modernity in the Middle East, ed. Lila Abu Lughod (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 95–96. 13 Kashani-Sabet, “Hallmarks of Humanism,” 1175. 14 “‘Elm va Adab – Azadi va Nikbakhti” (Knowledge and Manners – Freedom and Happiness), in Akhtar, March 14, 1877. 15 “Nabahat – Gerami Budan” (Nobility – Being Respected), in Akhtar, April 11, 1877. 16 “Maziyyat-e ‘Elm va Ta’lim-e Farzandan,” in Akhtar, April 18, 1877. Modern Knowledge in Late-Nineteenth-Century Reformist Discourse 59

Knowledge is what bestows the trait of honor on men ...an ignorant man is the lowliest creature. Indeed, lack of knowledge is men’s shame, a usurp- ation of the divine creation ...We will perfect ourselves as well as the sons of our species whose ignorance shames us ...the more their science, knowledge and culture increase, the more our pride and human status will increase.17 Texts such as these demonstrate not only the importance attributed to knowledge, but also the construction of a dichotomous social distinction between those men who possess the new knowledge and those, including virtually all women and most men, who do not. The uneducated are deemed passively unaware of the country’s needs, whereas the educated – self-designated as “enlightened” (monavvar ol-fekr, rowshanfekr) – are differentiated from both the masses and traditional thinkers, active and knowledgeable in worldly affairs.18 Moreover, the uneducated are constructed as devoid of honor and barely human, while the educated elite is tasked with leading the “masses” to a better future. The use of different terms for honor in these texts points to the gendered nature of this social distinction. Honor in Iranian culture is intrinsically related to masculinity, and the use of the term here implies the need to masculinize the uneducated by those Iranians whose education made them honorable and thus manly. Women could and were not expected to possess the kind of honor associated with men and so modern education and the honor it bestowed were not as crucial for them as for men. The link between knowledge, humanity, and masculinity is also indicated in the writings of leading intellectual Mirza Malkom Khan, one of the most prominent promoters of modern education in Iran. In his newspaper Qanun (The Law), published in London between 1890 and 1898, Malkom Khan called for a constitutional regime based on the rule of law, the promotion of modern education, transportation, and communication systems, and resistance to autocracy and foreign interference in Iranian affairs. The cornerstone of his argument is the concept of adamiyyat, which can be translated as “humanism,” “humanity,” or “humanness.” Educated in France and deeply inﬂu- enced by this experience, Malkom Khan considered modern Western knowledge a prerequisite to humanity without which man would not

17 “Sharafat-e Maqam-e Ensani” (The Honor of the Human Status), in Akhtar, March 31, 1877. 18 De Groot, Religion, Culture and Politics, 118. 60 Western Knowledge and Education be able transcend his bestiality.19 He writes: “A man [adam] must seek knowledge. He who does not seek knowledge is like a blind man that does not seek vision.”20 Referring to the responsibilities of those possessing adamiyyat, he notes: “We say that we must seek knowledge everywhere with all our strength and enthusiasm and with the guidance of knowledge’s light to abstain from all forms of evil and as far as we can to become the instruments of good.”21 As will be discussed in the following chapter, the man in possession of adamiyyat is also a manly patriot. Despite the proliferation of such writings in the period under study, the advancement of modern subjects and teaching methods did not go unchallenged by the religious establishment, which had held exclusive responsibility for education in Iran. The clash of ideas and interests between it and the reformists generated a polemical discourse. Trad- itional Iranian education, which emphasized religious teachings and usually included basic literacy skills, the memorizing of the Quran, Arabic grammar, and classical Persian poetry, was taught by religious practitioners privately to the wealthy or in the maktab and madrasah. The new schools not only taught subjects such as science and foreign languages which were unrelated to religious ﬁelds of knowledge, but attempted to replace or coopt the old system and deny its practitioners of their livelihood. Supporters of modern education often castigated the old system, its curriculum, practices, and the teachers in the maktab, mostly low-ranking clergymen. Conversely, members of the religious establishment blamed the new schools for propagating forbidden innovations (bed’at) that could lead to heresy. This is how a supporter of modern education described the situation: “Unawareness on the one hand combined with evil intentions and self-praise on the other have reached such a state, that achieving science and knowledge ... has become an unlawful innovation. And the opening of schools and the education of Muslim children is [considered] forbidden and contrary to Islamic law.”22 To deﬂect religious accusations against modern education, its supporters adopted a strategy of differentiating between two kinds of knowledge: religious and secular. This allowed them to stress the

19 Menashri, Education,29–30. 20 Qanun, no. 9. 21 Qanun, no. 16. 22 “Maqaleh-ye Makhsuseh” (A Special Article), in Habl ol-Matin, January 7, 1901. Modern Knowledge in Late-Nineteenth-Century Reformist Discourse 61 inadequacy of religious knowledge in addressing Iran’s ills in the modern age without wholly rejecting it. Modern knowledge did not rule out religious knowledge (even if reformists did reject religious approaches to education), but served a different purpose. Therefore, the two could and should coexist.23 The main goal of modern knowledge was to enable Iran to deal with the technological and political challenges of modernity. An article in Omid details the ﬁelds of knowledge necessary for such advancement of the nation: “The sciences and techniques that beneﬁt man and bear fruit for the nation are numbered and limited: new schools, engineering, agriculture, political rights, commerce, war, mechanics, physics, chemistry, calculus and mathematics ...so long as men are not taught these sciences in school, they will have no advantage or virtue.”24 In the serialized column Beza’at-e Mozajat (Some Capital) published in Habl ol-Matin in the form of a dialogue between two friends, a reformist and a conservative, the former tells his friend that the population of Iran is ignorant and savage. The latter replies by referring to the students in religious seminaries all around the country and its many poets. The reformist then retorts:

You ... consider yourself wise and civilized, and still you consider science and education to be limited to the study of grammar and to religious schools, and the arts and crafts of the perfection of Iranians to be the reciting of poems. If you are like this, what is to be expected of the cloth merchant or grocer? ...Today even the savages of Africa and the animals of America all recognize the value of science. They know that science is divided into two sections: otherworldly and worldly. In here, the meaning of the worldly sciences is geography, philosophy, natural sciences, industry, agriculture, commerce, mineralogy, physics, engineering, shipping, rail laying, chemistry, alchemy etc. etc. ... It is the cure for [our] daily ills, these sciences ... bring the dead back to life ...your seminary students to higher levels.25 The conservative replies to this that it is wrong for a Muslim to resemble the inﬁdels, to learn foreign languages and acquire European sciences. Muslims should think of the next world and not be involved in subjects that could lead to heresy.

23 Ringer, Education, 219–220. 24 “Talb ol-’Elm Farizeh ‘ala Kol Moslem va Moslemeh” (The Search for Knowledge Is the Duty of Every Male and Female Muslim), Part 4, in Omid, December 1, 1906. 25 “Beza’at-e Mozajat” (Some Capital), in Habl ol-Matin, October 29, 1900. 62 Western Knowledge and Education

The idea that religious knowledge should coexist with modern knowledge, rather than be wholly rejected, is manifest in the fact that schools modeled on Western education systems continued to devote time to subjects that were traditionally taught at the maktab, such as Arabic grammar, Quran and the edicts of Islam, alongside geography, foreign languages, the natural sciences, etc., as demonstrated in the Tarbiyat School timetable discussed in the third section of this chapter. However, the fact that religious knowledge was placed on a par with Western science did rob it of its previous privileged status. Religious arguments were often used to ward off the ulama’s criticism of modern education. The promoters of modern education used Islamic edicts to support their cause. Proverbs such as “Seeking knowledge is the duty of every male and female believer” or “Seek knowledge even if it were in China”26 are cited to demonstrate Islam’s support of education. In another Beza’at-e Mozajat column, the reformist counters the claim that Western education is by deﬁnition antireligious:

What hadith prevents you from studying foreign languages and learning industry? When has the Prophet ordered that since you became Muslim you have to be humiliated and degraded in this world? And remain lazy and idle and with no skill or job? If the result of being a Muslim is that we must be humiliated in this world by foreigners and be dependent on them and send vast amounts of our gold and gems in return for European fabrics and goods, then surely no reasonable person would have become a Muslim.27 In similar vein, the following columns explain how modern knowledge must be attained to provide for daily necessities and defend the lands of Islam by using and manufacturing modern weaponry.28 The coexistence discourse was far from universal, however, with many writers using the distinction between new and old forms of knowledge to discredit the existing religious education and its practitioners. European knowledge, it was argued, differed from religious

26 “‘Elm va Adab – Azadi va Nik Bakhti,” in Akhtar, March 14, 1877; “Maziyyat- e ‘Elm va Ta’lim-e Farzandan,” in Akhtar, April 18, 1877; “Beza’at-e Mozajat,” in Habl ol-Matin, November 12, 1900; “Talb ol-’Elm Farizeh ‘ala Kol Moslem va Moslemeh,” in Omid, November 8, 1906. 27 “Beza’at-e Mozajat,” Part 2, in Habl ol-Matin, November 5, 1900. 28 “Beza’at-e Mozajat,” Parts 3 and 4, in Habl ol-Matin, November 12, 1900, November 19, 1900. Modern Knowledge in Late-Nineteenth-Century Reformist Discourse 63 knowledge in that it was empirical and practical and therefore relevant to the problems plaguing Iranian society. The new knowledge was constructed as “useful,” as opposed to the “useless” and even harmful old knowledge.29 For example, one article justiﬁed the opening of a new school in Isfahan by a local individual due to “The condition of the children of his dear homeland who, due to the incivility and disorder of the maktabs were brought up ignorant, ill-mannered and rude.”30 This approach was part of a wider debate that took place during the late nineteenth century regarding the nature and character of Iran. Modernist thinkers such as Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani and Mirza Fath Ali Akhundzadeh aspired to disconnect Iranian national identity from its Arab-Islamic elements and base it on the country’s pre-Islamic past. This past was presented as a more civilized, and to a degree, a more “modern” era than Iran’s history after its Arab occupation. Theirs and others’ writings presented Arabs and Islam as the source of Iran’s decline into its current abysmal state.31 Representing traditional knowledge as harmful and “superstitious” meant that its bearers were themselves useless and irrelevant to Iran’s progress, if not actively undermining it. The depreciation of such knowledge and its construction as a form of ignorance turned former male and female producers and distributors of knowledge in the form of religious edicts, traditional medicine, folklore, spells, and fortune- telling into the enemies of progress. As Cyrus Schayegh shows, in this manner, the knowledge hierarchy helped construct a social one. In this hierarchy, scientiﬁc knowledge, which depended on modern education, became the cultural capital of educated elite men, a capital that differentiated them from other social groups.32 Disapproval of the maktab system often took issue with teachers’ alleged ignorance. Indeed, the ignorant mullah became a prevalent trope in reformist texts. The Travel Diary of Ebrahim Beg describes

29 Ringer, Education, 241–243; Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 186–187. 30 “Maktub – Gham va Shadi Toam” (A Letter – Simultaneous Sadness and Happiness), in Habl ol-Matin, December 24, 1900 (emphasis added). 31 Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, “Historiography and Crafting Iranian National Identity,” in Iran in the 20th Century: Historiography and Political Culture, ed. Touraj Atabaki (London: I. B. Tauris, 2009), 11–12. 32 Schayegh, Who Is Knowledgeable Is Strong, 33; Cyrus Schayegh, “The Social Relevance of Knowledge: Science and the Formation of Modern Iran, 1910s–40s,” Middle Eastern Studies 43, no. 6 (November 2007): 942. 64 Western Knowledge and Education a teacher met during a visit to a maktab in a wordy dialogue worth quoting at some length:

More than a hundred innocent children were gathered there ...Their teacher was an old man with a turban ... The teacher didn’t hear our greeting because of the uproar of the children ... I said, “My goodness you have a lot of students.”“Yes,” he said, “there are several others too who didn’t come today.”“What are the children studying?” I asked. “Some the alpha- bet, some grammar, and some the holy Koran,” he said. “The older ones ... are studying The Rose Garden, The Orchard, Hafez, and everything.”“Sir,” I said, “what place does Hafez have in studies?” He said, “What do you mean? That Hafez of Shiraz has no place in studies?” I said, “Clearly the Divan of Hafez consists of poems on Sufism whose meaning few readers can understand. What benefit can the children gather from reading it? It is apparently filled with talk of wine, ease of living, the beloved, and lovemaking.” ... I saw that he was very much a mullah. “Yes,” I said, “but you must also teach the children geography and geometry.” “Which one is geometry?” he asked ... “I teach the children how to calculate money. I know geometry myself, but I don’t teach the children.” I said, “Do you know addition and subtraction, which are the first level in mathematics? Write something so I can see.” “What should I write?” he said. I said, “Write one thousand two hundred and thirty-four.” He wrote it like this: 1000200304. “Sir,” I said, “these numbers are more than a billion.”33 This dialogue brings to the fore some themes that regularly appear in critical writing on traditional schooling, particularly the inadequacy of the teachers, their materials, and methods. The knowledge embodied in the texts taught at the maktab (such as the poetry of Hafez and other Sufi poets that often contained homo/erotic themes) was occasionally presented as morally and sexually corrupting. This is emphasized in another text on the advantages of modern education:

After the child had finished reading the Quran, he [the mullah] starts to serve him with “Oh, Cupbearer, hurry and bring the wine goblet and pass it around” [the opening verse of Hafez’s poetry] and afterwards Nush Afarin or Layla and Majnun [classic love stories]. The children in Iran do not even reach adolescence when, as if artificially, the fire of lust is kindled in them,

33 Maraghe’i, The Travel Diary of Ebrahim Beg,53–55. Modern Knowledge in Late-Nineteenth-Century Reformist Discourse 65 and their nature goes out to false legends and love poems ... This much insinuation is enough for those keeping watch over the homeland. Beyond that we cannot write, and a nod is as good as a wink. The author then relates how a friend of his had written a textbook for Indian schoolchildren and submitted it to the approval of the British official in charge of education. In the textbook he included a morality tale about Mullah Naser ol-Din, but since the story contained “sensitive” subjects, the official did not consider it appropriate. The author then wonders what Europeans would think about the popularity of Hakim Qa’ani’s Parishan – a collection of pornographic stories from the nineteenth century – among Iranian children. Such a situation would have been unimaginable in Europe.34 The “nod” to the readers, suggesting that schoolboys became sexually active at an early age, might refer to the practice of boy-loving which was still common in Iran during these years (see Chapter 5). Classic Iranian texts were thus seen as corrupting Iran’s youth and causing national humiliation when encountered by westerners, who then castigated Iranian morals and education in their writings. More than anything else, they held the country’s progress at bay: “The books printed in Iran are full of bawdy jokes and silly legends, which are contrary to progress and education, destroy the foundation of religion and state, and uproot civilization and humanity.”35 The figure of the ignorant mullah infusing the minds of young Iranians with harmful texts dovetailed with stereotypes of other distributors of “harmful” knowledge – women. Iran’s future Minister of Education, Isa Sadiq (1894–1978) describes in his autobiography an old woman who used to work for his father and tell him and his sister bedtime stories about fairies, demons, monsters, ghosts, and their interference with people’s lives. Sadiq admits that the stories had instilled in him great fear and that “until the time when I learned the natural sciences in Dar ol-Fonun [see below] I was extremely nervous and uncomfortable and distraught and afraid of imaginary beings.”36 In this memoir, modern masculine knowledge defeats old feminine

34 “Entezam” (Order), in Akhtar, October 8, 1879. 35 “Kaghaz-e Digar az Tehran beh Edareh-ye Karami-ye Akhtar” (Another Letter from Tehran to the Respectable Editorial Staff of Akhtar), in Akhtar, January 28, 1880. 36 Isa Sadiq, Yadegar-e Omr: Khaterat az Sargozasht (A Life’s Memoir: Memories from a Biography) (Tehran: Dehkhoda, 1973), vol. 1, 9. 66 Western Knowledge and Education knowledge. The story suggests a narrative of passage from a feminized boyhood characterized by fear and superstition to a manhood characterized by scientiﬁc knowledge and the overcoming of fear. Lumping together previously revered forms of knowledge and ree- valuating them as forms of ignorance placed mullahs, traditional healers, and women in similar categories. This, of course, reﬂected on the image of men who had been formerly honored for possessing such knowledge. The aging mullah lost his authority and respect to a new type of man with a new type of knowledge. Thus, honorable manhood required possessing modern knowledge. Underlying these arguments was a distinction between the emerging educated elite and the uneducated; education became an instrument of social distinction between types of men and between them and women.

Reproducing Social and Gender Hierarchies through Education Modern education was far from accessible to the vast majority of Iranians. In 1911, for example, out of a population of approximately 280,000 in Tehran, only 10,000 (less than 4 percent) had primary education, and only 20 percent of them were girls; only about 300 higher education students were registered in the entire city.37 We can only assume that before 1911 in the urban centers, and afterwards in rural and peripheral areas, the numbers were even lower and that most students belonged to elite families. The first Iranians to receive Western education were youths born to wealthy families and sent to Europe during the early decades of the nineteenth century. The earliest state-sponsored groups of Iranian students were sent abroad between 1811 and 1815 (seven students), 1845–1847 (eight), and 1848–1849 (about fifty). The fields of study were determined by the state with emphasis on military and administrative applicability. Additionally, wealthy families sent their sons to Europe at their own expense, a trend that intensified during the second half of the century. The first institution to provide European-style education in Iran was Dar ol-Fonun – The Polytechnic College – inaugurated in 1851. Its

37 Ahmad Ashraf, “General Survey of Modern Education,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/education-vii-general-survey-of-modern- education. Reproducing Social and Gender Hierarchies through Education 67 goal was to teach the sons of the elite European technologies and sciences, in order to prepare them for employment in the military and state service. The graduates of Dar ol-Fonun and European establish- ments were among the most fervent promoters of modern education and were relatively influential thanks to their high social standing and positions in the bureaucracy. For nearly fifty years, Dar ol-Fonun was the only institution of modern higher education in Iran, until the establishment in 1899 of the School of Political Science (Madraseh-ye ‘Olum-e Siyasi). Modern public secondary schools were established in Iran only during the 1870s. Public primary schools were established only after 1890.38 Similar to many other societies, turn-of-the-century Iranian society employed modern education as an important tool for the reproduction of social hierarchies. Children of the lower strata did not inherit cultural capital, to use Pierre Bourdieu’s term, and had limited access to modern education and the cultural capital it bestowed.39 Hence, their lack of such capital was perpetuated. As Cyrus Schayegh has shown, knowledge acquired through modern education constituted part of the cultural capital of a new urban class composed of medical doctors, engineers, architects, teachers, and lawyers who used this knowledge to distinguish themselves from other social groups.40 The introduction of modern education in Iran demonstrates how economic capital translates into cultural capital. Economic capital allowed wealthy families to provide their sons with a prolonged term of education in Western or Western-style Iranian institutions, whereas in poor families children worked to support their family from a very young age. Modern education meant cultural capital: the students of modern schools acquired new tastes in fashion, furniture, hygiene, and discipline. They were equipped with skills for decoding and using objects such as foreign books and scientific instruments and at the same time, they acquired new status: their skills were officially acknowledged in titles and diplomas. In 1900, for example, eleven students of the Tarbiyat Elementary School in ‘Eshq Abad were bestowed the traditional title Mirza (learned one), by state officials

38 Menashri, Education,46–60. 39 Pierre Bourdieu, “The Forms of Capital,” in Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education, ed. John G. Richardson, trans. Richard Nice (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1986), 241–258. 40 Schayegh, “The Social Relevance of Knowledge,” 942–944. 68 Western Knowledge and Education on account of their high grades.41 Many of the students sent abroad or educated at the Dar ol-Fonun rose high in the state bureaucracy.42 In later years, modern higher education became a condition for employment in the state bureaucracy. A 1911 law decreed that only graduates of modern schools who achieved the necessary grades could be employed in the state service.43 Thus cultural capital became once more economic capital. Additionally, it helped attain political influence. Out of 177 ministers during the late Qajar period for whom information is available, 64 percent had modern education. In the first and second Majles, of the members for whom information is available, 54 and 50 percent, respectively, had a modern education.44 While modern education provided more and more graduates with cultural capital, religious education was increasingly seen as denying them that same capital. An article from as early as 1879 refers to the importance of children’s education to morals and manners. The author states that in the old education system, schools taught unsuitable texts and children were handed to the care of a tutor (lala) and were educated in an environment that did not provide them with manners befitting their social status. The fact that children did not spend much time with their fathers meant that their male role models were men of lower social standing, who embodied an inappropriate model of masculine behavior, which differed from that of their wealthy fathers or the teachers in modern schools.

It is known to all that the national schools in all the cities of Iran teach nothing but Hafez, Golestan, Leyla and Majnun, Farhad and Shirin, Nush Afarin, and the like. The basis of children’s education, which is the most important of national endeavors, is very much behind. In Iran, the senior and respectable appoint a tutor and a mullah to educate their children. That illiterate and ignorant tutor, who himself knows nothing of education and

41 “Madraseh-ye Tarbiyat dar ‘Eshq Abad” (The Tarbiyat School in ‘Eshq Abad), in Habl ol-Matin, December 3, 1900. Note that this examplifies the aforementioned coexistence approach, that modern education is consistent with Islamic values. 42 To name a few: Mirza Hosein Khan Moshir ol-Dowleh, educated in Paris, became Prime Minister under Naser ol-Din Shah in 1871; Dar ol-Fonun graduate Mohammad Hasan Khan E’temad ol-Saltaneh became a member of the government consultative council in 1882 and later Minister of Press and Publications; and Malkom Khan, educated in Paris, became Iran’s Minister to London. 43 Menashri, Education, 78. 44 Ibid., 274–277. Reproducing Social and Gender Hierarchies through Education 69 manners [adab] – how can he educate the child? ...The children, until their coming of age, do not enjoy the presence of their father and the company of well-mannered, educated and intelligent people. They spend their days with the servant, the groom and the rascals and this bad setting dictates the children’s manners.45 During the late nineteenth century, modern education became an asset, ensuring a position in the state administration as well as social prestige. However, since most young men who received modern education came from elite families, high posts were usually secured for them regardless of their education.46 Importantly, this suggests that elite families’ desire to educate their sons in the Western style was not motivated by purely material or nationalist considerations, but drew on the social prestige assured by this sort of education. This is still evident decades later in the memoirs of post-Islamic Revolution Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan (1907–1995). Bazargan writes sarcastically on the social prestige endowed by university education, which in Iran is similar to the prestige acquired by the adoption of westernized attire, symbolized in this text by the wearing of a tie. According to Bazargan, people in Iran invest in a university education for preferential treatment in government ministries, but also better marriage opportunities: marriages were based on families’ social compatibility, and this was embodied increasingly in educational status.47 Higher education could also impinge on elite men’s lifestyle. Abdol- lah Mostofi was the son of a Qajar aristocratic family. He joined the first class of the School of Political Science in 1899 when he was twenty-three. As he wrote in his autobiography, the need to abandon his social activities for his studies was perceived as a need to “forget being a grown man.”48 In those times, a man of the elite was expected to take part in social gatherings and parties, events he had no time for as a student. Whereas higher education became increasingly common in the Iran- ian aristocracy, a different approach to education emerged in other social groups. Men of merchant families were not wholly receptive of

45 “Entezam,” in Akhtar, October 8, 1879. 46 Menashri, Education, 51. 47 Mehdi Bazargan, Khaterat-e Bazargan: Shast Sal-e Khedmat va Moqavemat. Goftegu ba Sarhang Gholamreza Najati (Memories of Bazargan: Sixty Years of Service and Struggle. A Conversation with Colonel Gholamreza Najati) (Tehran: Rasa, 1998), 57. 48 Mostofi, Administrative and Social History, 391. 70 Western Knowledge and Education the idea of modern education. Isa Sadiq’s father, a merchant who had lost a large portion of his fortune during the Constitutional Revolu- tion, objected to his son’s higher education under the pretext that he needed his help in the family business. Sadiq saw his studies as a way of overcoming his father’s financial difficulties, and insisted on continuing in this route. Only the intervention of Sadiq’s uncle convinced the father to allow his son to acquire secondary education, and two prominent merchants had to be brought in to convince him to permit his son to leave Iran in 1911, after winning a scholarship.49 The reluctance to send a son to study abroad stemmed not just from the financial burden, but also from fear that exposure to European culture would bring him to apostasy.50 Many sons of merchant families were themselves ambivalent about higher education. Bazargan recalls that even though his family was relatively prosperous, he was the only son who, in the 1920s, went on to postsecondary education. His brothers helped in the family business, and Bazargan admits that he felt ashamed that he could do so only during summer vacations. Later on, when he knew enough to help keep the books, he finally felt that he was contributing his proper share.51 Both Bazargan’s and Sadiq’s education allowed them to pursue a career in the state administration, leaving the merchant class to join the ranks of the new elite. Modern education mostly remained a privilege of the elite, whether aristocratic or merchant. Despite numerous calls to establish a public school system and the 1911 Primary Education Law, no such system was formed before the reign of Reza Shah.52 Consequently, until the 1930s, access to modern education was mostly limited to the sons (and some daughters) of the reform-minded aristocratic elites; many conservative families remained unwilling to provide their children with modern education.53 Institutions of higher education, as well as delegations of Iranian students to foreign countries, were formed with the goal of training cadres for the state apparatus. These institutions made little effort to enroll students of poorer background. Even primary schools that were

49 Sadiq, Yadegar-e Omr, vol. 1, 30–38. 50 Bazargan, Khaterat-e Bazargan, 147; Sadiq, Yadegar-e Omr, vol. 1, 38. 51 Bazargan, Khaterat-e Bazargan, 25. 52 Ashraf, “General Survey of Modern Education”; Menashri, Education,63–64. 53 Kian-Thiébaut, Secularization of Iran, 47. Reproducing Social and Gender Hierarchies through Education 71 sometimes established with the avowed goal of providing education to the poor, or that exempted poor students from tuition fees as an act of charity, did little to change the overall situation.54 The ‘Elmiyeh School (founded in 1898) was divided into two departments: a basic-studies department and an advanced/scientific department. The former included the last two years of primary education and taught reading, writing, and some Arabic and admitted sons of poorer families. The latter included the first three years of middle school, taught mathematics, sciences, and foreign languages, and was dominated by the sons of elite families. Four years after its establishment, it was decided to abolish the primary department and to turn the entire school into a middle school. The Sharaf School (notice, again, the link between education and honor), established in 1898 with the declared goal of providing education to the poor, was closed down five years later, after a committee discovered that it actually taught wealthy students.55 Similarly, the regulations of the Loqmaniyeh School in Tabriz, founded in 1889 with the explicit purpose of admitting poor students, stated that only after the school “reach[ed] maturity” and raised enough funds, would money be dedicated to cover the tuition of poor students.56 As a final example, in the Dabesten-e Danesh School (est. 1898), special classrooms were built for poor students, where crafts such as weaving, carpentry, and shoemaking were taught.57 The need for vocational education for non-elite boys to train them as artisans and workers who would serve the nation is expressed in a 1903 article from the Tehrani scientific newspaper Nowruz (New Year). The author suggests that different social groups be trained according to their social roles and their supposedly inherent skills:

The way to reform, education, progress and civilization passes through these children of the poor and weak. Indeed the sons of one aristocrat or another, even if they study for a hundred years, and travel abroad, will not manufacture paper for us, and will not [improve] our welding, carpentry, agriculture

54 “Javanmardi-ye Khorasaniyan” (The Chivalry of the Khorasanis), in Habl ol-Matin, December 24, 1900. 55 Ringer, Education, 163–164. 56 Loqmaniyeh School regulations, quoted in Homa Nategh, Karnameh-ye Farhangi-ye Farangi Dar Iran 1837–1921 (A Report of Western Culture in Iran, 1837–1921) (Tehran: Mo’asseseh-ye Farhangi-y Honari-ye Entesharati-ye Mo’aser Pazuhan, 2001), 290. 57 Ringer, Education, 167. 72 Western Knowledge and Education and farming. The poor and orphan children must complete us ...the sons of aristocrats will not work in baking and cooking, those are works for knowledgeable poor and orphan children ... One should expect knowledge of military command ...and ...rules of government and politics of the sons of rulers and kings. [One should expect] the sons of the high ofﬁcials and the rich to be knowledgeable in international laws and all that is related to politics and government, know languages ... and of the sons of clerics to be skilled in law.58 Clearly, schools for poor children provided them with basic literacy skills (such as those taught in the maktab) or vocational skills that lacked the prestige of science. Children of poor families who studied in one of the new schools were taught in separate classes, which did not equip them with much more than these basic skills. The regulations of the Tarbiyat School, published in Habl ol-Matin in 1901, provide a different example, clarifying the problematic attitude of the promoters of modern education to the education of the poor. One of the school’s regulations concerns the pupils’ lunch and another concerns school uniform:

One of the most important arrangements for keeping time, maintaining order and promoting learning is that all the pupils’ parents be asked to see to the children’s lunch and nutrition in such a manner that every child will bring with him sufﬁcient lunch for one person, or ... send it to school by a servant ...before noon, so that all the students, rich and poor, will eat lunch at school, in a special dining room, and will not have to return home and be troubled and waste time. In addition, since equality and uniformity in the pupils’ clothes in every school are things of reason and importance ...children’s clothes will match a design and cut agreed on and chosen by all the founders of the Tarbiyat school, and that will be sewn for them in uniform color and manner. So that during schooldays clothes will be equal and identical for all ...The design ... will be made of relatively low-cost Iranian fabric, appropriate, simple and digniﬁed.59 As the regulations clearly demonstrate, while the school is aware of the need for uniformity and equality among pupils of different backgrounds, very few poor families employed servants, or might have sent

58 “Ta’lim-e Atfal” (The Teaching of Children), in Nowruz, June 14, 1903. 59 “Nezamnameh-ye Madraseh-ye Tarbiyat” (The Regulations of the Tarbiyat School), in Habl ol-Matin, March 5, 1901. Reproducing Social and Gender Hierarchies through Education 73 their children to school with a lunch too big for one child, or could afford to sew a special school uniform (even one of “relatively low- cost” fabric). Reading between the lines suggests that despite the school’s attempts to portray itself as intended for both rich and the poor, in reality its pupils came from the upper strata of society. Modern knowledge and education reproduced not only social but also gender gaps. Even when a demand for public education was raised, initially it hardly ever included a demand for the education of women. Only a few intellectuals such as Akhundzadeh and Kermani discussed women’s education as early as the mid-nineteenth century.60 In fact, modern schools were even more gender-segregated than the maktabs, in which very young girls could sometimes attend alongside boys, and where women occasionally served as teachers.61 When early promoters of modern education wrote about the importance of education for every human being, this human being had but one gender. Texts in late-nineteenth-century newspapers were mostly written by men, for a readership that was overwhelmingly male. “Person” and “man” were used synonymously and when writers wished to refer to women as well, they did so explicitly. For example, an article in Kermani’s Akhtar on the necessary steps for the advancement of Iran, states that “the ﬁrst step needed for us is the establishment of schools for boys and girls [zukur va anas].”62 By and large, Iranian reformists initially had only men in mind. Modern education aimed at training cadres for the state bureaucracy, a completely male province.63 Later on, an argument regarding the need for a literate population in a constitutional regime was brought forward.64 But then again, in late-nineteenth-century Iran only a very tiny minority even considered women’s participation in the political system (they were only franchised in 1963), so it is safe to assume that the call for “universal” literacy as a requirement for the success of a constitutional regime in fact referred to men alone. Women in general and conservative women in particular were often perceived as iconic of the total opposite of modern science and

60 Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman, 145. 61 Jalil Dustḵāh and Eqbal Yaḡma’ī, “Education: The Traditional Elementary School,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1997, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ education-iii. 62 “Akhtar,” in Akhtar, October 8, 1879. 63 Ringer, Education, 182. 64 Menashri, Education, 77; Ringer, Education, 222–223. 74 Western Knowledge and Education knowledge, as demonstrated in Isa Sadiq’s memory mentioned earlier. They were described as superstitious and reactionary, and therefore as a burden on their husbands and country.65 The following text – published in the pro-constitutionalist biweekly Tamaddon (Civilization), as part of a serialized column titled “Hekayat Hamam Jenyian” (Stor- ies of the Bathhouse Genies) that discusses modernization and its opponents in the form of a dialogue between a progressive father and his son – is emblematic of the disparaging approach toward women. The dialogue hints at the manner in which modern knowledge, epitomized in practices of hygiene, was perceived by uneducated women as a form of superﬁcial westernization, and inﬂuenced family relations. When the father and son attempt to introduce new objects and practices to the household, their womenfolk deem it inappropriate and a transgression of their domestic domain. Furthermore, the text suggests women’s association of modern knowledge with elite pretensions. The boy tells his father:

One day in the presence of my mother, I told my auntie, why don’t you ﬁx your toilets like ours, so that they are clean and odorless? My auntie sarcastically said: your highness, you are wealthy. Poor and miserable, we cannot ascend to your level. But my mother slapped me and said: nosey child! What’s it to you? That father of yours who became westernized [farangimaab shodeh] now wants to do all the things that the Europeans do. That idiot father of yours has ﬁnished me. Now he’s saying my clothes are not clean! Or that the yard is not swept! Or the table and dishes are not properly clean! Or why haven’t you swept the toilets right? Why are the room and the carpets not cleaned and swept every day? Then she turned to my auntie and said: Dear sister, that is not the end of it, I swear this man ... will kill me: have you ever heard of a man who criticizes his maid or servant or wife asking why the toilets were not swept? My auntie said: Sister dear, this goes beyond that! God have mercy. Those unbelievers, those Western wannabes [farangi baziha] brought us to such a degree of destruction that now even our toilets have to become westernized [farangimaabi bashad].... for two thousand years your forefathers have eaten lunch in these very same dirty dishes and went into these same toilets of ours, and then what?66

65 Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman, 20, 23, 48–49; Gheissari, Iranian Intellectuals,33–34. 66 “Baqiyeh-ye Hekayat Hamam Jenyan” (Story of the Bathhouse Genies – Continued), in Tamaddon, April 4, 1908. Reproducing Social and Gender Hierarchies through Education 75

Another example from the same column concerns a particular group of women who drew much fire from the supporters of modern education and science – midwives.67 Traditional healers and midwives that possessed knowledge that had to be discredited if possessors of modern scientific knowledge such as medical doctors were to take their place. Here the father tells his son about the difficult birth of his brother, describing the danger posed to women’s health by midwives’ superstitions and incompetence. The prospective mother suffers labor pains for four days without giving birth, and the midwife declares that she is not in labor at all, but is suffering from gas and constipation. The midwife does so after treating her by oiling her stomach with the fat of a red goat, burning a female mule’s dropping with the sanitary napkin of a virgin girl, hedge-mustard and similar traditional medication – to no avail. However, privately the midwife tells the maid to prepare a coffin and shrouds for the woman, since according to her experience with women in such a condition, there’s no use calling a doctor, and time will be better spent in burning incense. The story goes on to describe how the father called a German midwife who, after several hours of treatment, told him to send for a European doctor. Two were called in, and together with the father and the German midwife, they operated on the mother and saved both her and the baby. One particular aspect of this story that deserves notice is the humiliation that Iranian men had to suffer by exposing their wives to treatment by foreign men, due to the lack of trained Iranian doctors.68 Whereas some women in the Qajar court were taught foreign languages such as Ottoman Turkish and French, wrote poetry and prose, and were also taught fine arts such as painting and calligraphy, the vast majority of Iranian women could not access modern education, let alone escape proscribed gender roles as agents of ignorance and superstition.69 The first Muslim school for girls was established in Tehran in 1903, thirty years after the first public high school for boys.70 A first public school for girls was established only in 1910, at

67 Kashani-Sabet, Conceiving Citizens, 39. 68 “Hekayat Hamam Jenyan” (Story of the Bathhouse Genies), in Tamaddon, May 3, 1908. 69 Afsaneh Najmabadi, “Women’s Education in the Qajar Period,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1997, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/education-xxv-womens- education-in-the-qajar-period. 70 Ibid. 76 Western Knowledge and Education the end of the Constitutional Revolution period. Earlier, during the nineteenth century, schools for girls were established by Christian missions or communities of religious minorities.71 Higher education for women was not even discussed by the government until 1934.72 Much like the poor, even when girls did receive modern education, its contents were different, preventing them from acquiring the cultural capital associated with modern knowledge. The subjects taught to girls included home economics, child rearing, hygiene, fine arts, and cooking.73 As in the case of poor boys, this perpetuated women’s subjugated status, as well as the gendered division of the public and the domestic spheres. Men were to be educated in the new sciences for a career in politics or industry, while women were to be educated, if at all, to become better housewives.74 The arguments for the education of women were also different from those for the education of men. Women were to be educated to fulfill their roles as the mothers and educators of the next generation, and as proper wives of men with Western education, so that they would not be forced to share their lives with completely ignorant partners.75 Women were encouraged to seek education because, it was suggested, men whose wives were educated would be more faithful and their interest in their wives would last longer and not depend solely on their youth.76 Thus, education for girls was supposed to provide them with gender-specific cultural capital deemed suitable for elite women. Des- pite the fact that certain improvement in women’s status occurred

71 Ringer, Education, 238. 72 Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman, 155. 73 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 198; Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman, 146. 74 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 194. Introducing science and ideals of efficiancy and proper management to the realm of housewifery was a process which took place in Western countries as well during the early twentieth century and continued, mostly for women of lower classes, during the interwar years. See for example Joanna Bourke, Husbandry to Housewifery: Women, Economic Change, and Housework in Ireland, 1890–1914 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993); Mary Nolan, “‘Housework Made Easy’: The Taylorized Housewife in Weimar Germany’s Rationalized Economy,” Feminist Studies 16 (1990): 3; Seth Koven and Sonya Michel, eds., Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of Welfare States (New York: Routledge, 1993); Mary Louise Roberts, Civilization without Sexes: Reconstructing Gender in Postwar France, 1917–1927 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994). 75 Ringer, Education, 240; Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 184–189. 76 Najmabadi, “Crafting an Educated Housewife,” 110. Designing a Modern Habitus 77 when they took upon themselves the role of managers of the household and educators of their children, roles that used to be fulfilled by fathers, this improvement still left them in an inferior position.77 Only by using arguments that did not challenge women’s inferior status could women claim their right to education. To conclude, inclusion of modern knowledge and education as a vital component of a new model of masculinity in Iran suggests that this new requirement, like others, assisted in the attainment and preservation of a privileged position held by men of a newly emerging elite. Since women, as well as men of lower strata, were denied the possibility to achieve modern knowledge and education, the inclusion of modern education in constructs of hegemonic masculinity gave elite men an advantage. The promotion of modern education, in the name of the greater good and of national interest, as well as that of a proper masculinity, benefited one social group more than others.

Designing a Modern Habitus Modern schools taught their students new subjects and exposed them to Western material culture. The difference between old and new schools was apparent in the school’s material environment, which now accommodated furniture such as chairs and desks arranged in grid form, in well-lit classrooms divided according to the students’ age group or the subjects taught. In the new schools, the very concept of time changed, as school days were divided into hourly classes. Further- more, as suggested by Michel Foucault and discussed by Darius Rejali in the Iranian context, schools were a form of disciplinary technology or matrix that employed various measures to create individuals who would better suit society’s needs. In the new schools in Iran, such measures included the enclosure of pupils in an assigned and secluded space; disciplinary regimes that moved away from physical punishment to “educational” disciplining; surveillance of students and monitoring both their academic achievements and their movement in space and time; as well as school uniform and drilling.78 All these measures

77 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 183–195. 78 Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison, trans. Alan Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1977); Darius M. Rejali, Torture and Modernity: Self, Society, and State in Modern Iran (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), 37–40. 78 Western Knowledge and Education

Figure 2.1 Bastinado corporal punishment in a maktab circa 1890 (Antoin Sevruguin, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution [NAA INV 04049700 OPPS NEG 79–4814]) contributed to the creation of a new habitus – forms of social behavior inculcated in Iranian boys that included bodily posture, attitudes, and tastes, and while pretending to be “natural” were in fact naturalized. The new habitus became part of students’ identities, thus shaping both gender and social identifications by providing the bodily state of cultural capital.79 A significant change in modern schools which had immense influence on the pupils’ experiences of schooling was the curbing of the corporal punishment common in the maktab. In the staged photo shown in Figure 2.1 the bastinado is presented as a typical scene in the maktab. The children, wearing traditional Iranian clothes and barefoot, are seated on the floor and on mats, looking away from the scene or at the camera. The maktab itself seems more like an open porch than a classroom, letting in the outside world – some men and women, and even a horse.

79 The term “habitus” is used in Bourdieu’s sense; see Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977); Ringer, Education, 163, 165, 172. Designing a Modern Habitus 79

Instead, the new schools adopted methods of positive reinforcement, as well as “corrective” punishment that included detention or attending on Friday to complete assignments. The student’s body changed from a site of punishment and a surface to be literally marked to a site of discipline. Still, discipline was strict, with punishments including standing with the head bowed in front of the class, standing by the door when the other students went on their break and confess- ing to them the shame of neglecting one’s studies, attending an extra class, reducing lunch to bread and water, shining other students’ shoes, carrying a shaming sign, etc.80 Teachers were advised to use a repertoire of public shaming and forms of engendering the pupils’ own sense of shame in order to inculcate discipline in them. When these measures did not achieve the desired correction in a student’s behavior, corporal punishment was also practiced.81 Monitoring students’ achievements by grading was a progressive disciplinary method introduced by modern schools. Students’ grades were recorded daily and frequent tests were held to punish slackers and reward top students.82 The rejection of bodily punishment was an important principle in the new schools. In Loqmaniyeh and Hemmat, ﬂogging and cursing students were expressly forbidden. In the Tarbiyat regulations, the ﬁrst sentences in the section regarding student punishments read:

The deputy principal [nazem] and the teachers must completely abstain from physical punishment or insults to the students. They must not, under any circumstance, physically harm, curse or insult and every time they witness inappropriate or unseemly behavior by a student, they must report it to the principal. The principal ...is also prohibited from using all kinds of physical punishments, flogging or insulting.83 The schools took care to assign specific punishments to specific violations. The rationale of this new form of disciplining was that

80 Quoted in Nategh, Karnameh-ye Farhangi-ye Farangi, 288–289. 81 Rejali, Torture and Modernity, 40. 82 Quoted in Nategh, Karnameh-ye Farhangi-ye Farangi, 285–288; “Qava’ednameh-ye Madraseh-ye Hemmat” (The Rules of the Hemmat School), in Habl ol-Matin, December 24, 1900; “Nezamnameh-ye Madraseh-ye Tarbiyat,” Part 3, in Habl ol-Matin, March 11, 1901. 83 “Nezamnameh-ye Madraseh-ye Tarbiyat,” Part 2, in Habl ol-Matin, March 5, 1901; “Qava’ednameh-ye Madraseh-ye Hemmat,” in Habl ol-Matin, December 24, 1900. 80 Western Knowledge and Education when punishment was not arbitrary but “reasonable,” it could be perceived as just by the students. In the Tarbiyat regulations, punishments are divided according to two types of misbehavior: neglect of schoolwork; and mischievousness, disobedience, and immorality.84 The future significance of the difference between the forms of discipline practiced in modern as opposed to traditional schools is apparent in autobiographies of men who experienced both. A recurring theme in these autobiographies is the atmosphere of fear and violence that dominated the maktabs and its absence from modern schools. The negative experience of the arbitrary violence of the maktab teacher conflates in these memoirs with criticism of the subjects taught and methods employed, which included parroting texts. Dr. Qasem Ghani, a politician and intellectual, describes the mullah who taught him in his house as synonymous with “calamity, catastrophe and disaster.” This mullah had a chain with which to flog his pupils. Out of fear, Ghani always learned his lessons well and was never beaten, but he writes that his studies were of no use to him since he only memorized them parrotlike. Reflecting on the physical conditions in the maktabs, Ghani observes that the rooms were humid, dark dungeons, dirty and muddy, covered with dirty felt mats. The children were not allowed to smile or laugh, and as a result of their oppression at school, behaved wildly and recklessly outside its walls. When Ghani entered the Tarbiyat School later on, his experience was totally different. His teachers had a sense of duty and loved science, and were respected by all.85 In historian Ahmad Kasravi’s (1890–1946) depiction of the teacher in his maktab, violence, ignorance and decrepitude are conflated:

He taught only the reading of the Quran. He himself had no literacy other than that and knew only a little Persian, and since his teeth had fallen out, his speech was hardly understandable. His handwriting was also illegible to all but him. The only thing he knew well and that was considered his art was caning the children’s palms and feet.86 Politician Abasqoli Golsha’iyan (1902–1990) recalls an incident when the maktab teacher heated a stove poker over the ﬁre then placed

84 “Nezamnameh-ye Madraseh-ye Tarbiyat,” Part 2, in Habl ol-Matin, March 5, 1901. 85 Ghani, Yad Dashtha,54–55, 70. 86 Ahmad Kasravi, Zendegi-ye Man az Kudaki ta Si Salegi (My Life from Childhood to the Age of Thirty) (Bethesda, MD: Ibex Publishers, 2009), 16. Designing a Modern Habitus 81 it near the earlobe of the student until it blistered. Golsha’iyan states that his vicarious trauma was such that years later he would shiver uncontrollably when seeing the teacher on the street or in the mosque.87 Regarding this sort of violent childhood experience, it is perhaps not surprising that many men who had a taste of both traditional and modern education felt a deep aversion toward the traditional system and became enthusiastic supporters of the new system of education. Their memories may have been tainted by reformist conventions that juxtaposed and judged traditional and modern education. In the reformist discourse, as shown earlier in this chapter, the uneducated and cruel maktab teacher as well as the unhygienic conditions in the maktab were common tropes; however it is quite possible that the atmosphere of fear they recalled as prevalent in the maktab was the result of genuine experiences. Apart from the extreme aversion to traditional education expressed by these reformists, another consequence of the abandonment of physical punishment by modern schools was an increased sense of bodily autonomy. In the maktab, the child’s body was under the teacher’s arbitrary control. When different disciplinary measures were at hand, the children had greater autonomy that played a part in the move to adulthood and manhood: elite men, unlike children and non-elite men, had control over their own and others’ bodies. Becoming a grown man and a patriarch meant having sexual access to women and servants as well as having the privilege of physically castigating them and the household’s children. The patriarch himself, on the other hand, remained physically, and sexually, autonomous. Thus, in a way, the move from the old system of education to the new one was reminiscent of the move from boyhood to manhood. In addition to corrective punishments and constant supervision of students’ achievements, other methods of discipline targeted students’ bodies, especially the incorporation of military drills in the schools’ daily routine.88 In the Fatemeh School in Qom, the children exited

87 Abasqoli Golsha’iyan, Khaterat-e Man ya Majmu’eh-ye Gozashteh’ha va Andisheh’ha (My Memoirs, or a Collection of Events and Thoughts) (Tehran: Entesharat Einstein, 1998), 31–33. 88 Rejali, Torture and Modernity,38–39. 82 Western Knowledge and Education after their end-of-year exam in a “military procession.”89 This is how Habl ol-Matin’s correspondent describes children leaving Qodsiyeh School in 1900:

After the exam they took the children out from the rooms to the schoolyard. The teacher ordered them and deployed them in military drills ... I asked [the principal] whether the parents of the turbaned children knew that they were taking part in this sort of drill. He said: “most days ... their parents arrive specially to watch.” After the drilling and the military march, the children left the school in full step and well-mannered and went to their homes accompanied by the school servant.90 School uniform also constituted a form of bodily discipline. The students of Dar ol-Fonun wore distinctive uniforms according to their branches of study.91 Modern elementary schools similarly adopted Western-style uniform. A woman reader of Habl ol-Matin describes a reception for Mozaffar ol-Din Shah: “On the one side stood all the children of the new schools, in ﬁle and with uniforms, each group with speciﬁc clothing and style, standing in a straight line with the utmost courtesy.”92 Isa Sadiq describes a similar event, when as a pupil in the Adab School he participated in a reception for Mozaffar ol-Din Shah in 1900. The students wore uniforms that included a sardari (an adaptation of a Western overcoat), trousers, and a hat.93 The uniforms of modern schools promoted not only uniformity (such as between wealthy and poor students mentioned earlier), but also westernization, since traditional garments were replaced by European trousers and jackets, and traditional headgear with a Qajar hat. Another aspect of how new schools disciplined students’ bodies was their approach to hygiene. Hygiene (hefz ol-sehheh) was a symbol of progress and westernization and included a wide variety of practices related to both the body and its environment. In Qajar Iran, the hygiene discourse emphasized social issues of health, cleanliness, and

89 “Madraseh-ye Fatemeh dar Qom” (The Fatemeh School in Qom), in Habl ol-Matin, February 25, 1901. 90 “Maktub dar Taraqqi-ye Madraseh-ye Qodsiyeh” (A Letter Regarding the Progress of the Qodsiyeh School), in Habl ol-Matin, October 29, 1900. 91 Ibid., 36. 92 “Maktub Rikhteh-ye Qalam-e Yeki az ‘Avarat-e Iran, Qabel-e Tavajjoh-e Vazir- e Darbar-e A’zam” (A Letter from the Pen of an Iranian Woman to the Attention of the Court Minister), in Habl ol-Matin, February 18, 1901. 93 Sadiq, Yadegar-e Omr, vol. 1, 9. Designing a Modern Habitus 83 the elimination of disease through the discipline of the human body.94 The new schools took it upon themselves to also educate the public in personal hygiene and health. For example, Loqmaniyeh declared that it would not admit students with contagious diseases unless they were treated and cured by a doctor, and Hemmat did not admit such students at all. Hygiene was also included in the subjects taught at the school. The boys’ need for movement and open air was considered as well. There were two recesses every day, during which the students were to rest in the courtyard in “complete civility and calmness.” Also, twice a week they were to have an outing or daytrip.95 The maktabs, on the other hand, were often described as unhygienic, suffering from poor material conditions, lack of ventilation, and ﬁlth, as in Ghani’s description above. Historian Ja’far Shahri describes the maktabs as containing a “straw or felt carpet, or a tattered rug, and a low table and hassock for the teacher and several cherry or jujube rods ... next to the table and a bastinado at the side of the room.”96 Shahri mentions both traditional furniture (rugs, hassocks, carpets) and their decrepit conditions (old, tattered) to signify lack of hygiene. Combined with the instruments of physical punishment, the image indeed conveys backwardness if not sheer abusiveness. Much like the descriptions of the teachers cited earlier, the maktabs are physically old, unclean and threatening. The modern school differed from the maktab not only in its layout and furnishing, but also in the organization and ordering of its space. A modern school building was divided into classrooms to ensure suitable physical conditions for simultaneously teaching several homogenous age groups of students.97 The classrooms were arranged around a central courtyard designed for drilling.98 Modern classrooms also differed from the home schooling environment. In aristocratic households, teaching often took place in one of the house’s spare rooms; the modern school was a designated public space, enclosed

94 Kashani-Sabet, “Hallmarks of Humanism,” 1182. 95 Quoted in Nategh, Karnameh-ye Farhangi-ye Farangi, 287–288; “Qava’ednameh-ye Madraseh-ye Hemmat,” in Habl ol-Matin, December 24, 1900. 96 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 185–187. 97 Avner Wishnitzer, “Teaching Time: Schools, Schedules, and the Ottoman Pursuit of Progress,” New Perspectives on Turkey 43, no. 5 (2010): 7–8. 98 Rejali, Torture and Modernity, 39. 84 Western Knowledge and Education and separated from the domestic space. To return to the “human producing factory” metaphor discussed earlier, the new methods of teaching and learning shared the modern factory’s emphasis on efficiency, order, division of labor, and mass production. All were deemed desirable not only for Iranian industry, but also for the Iranian education system. Ordered and rational learning is also apparent in the pupils’ seating and conduct in the classroom. In the maktab, pupils of all ages sat in a single room, each reading a different text, and the subject and form of the classes were decided according to the teacher’s preference. Classes in the new schools were organized by age and according to a program with specific times set for each subject and activity. The division of time into equal and interchangeable units was yet another aspect of the discipline practiced in the new schools.99 The year, the week and the day were measured and divided in a different manner than in the past. For example, in 1901 the Tarbiyat School published its schedule in the form of a table (Figure 2.2). The table contained the field of study for each of the three years of attendance, what was taught on each day of the week, and a division of each day into two sessions – morning and noon. It is clear from the table that the week itself was divided in two, when subjects taught on Saturday, Sunday and Monday were repeated again on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Not only the content of this plan, but the form in which it was presented, symbolizes the new concept of organizing school time.100 Punctuality was now required of teachers as well as students. In the regulations of both Loqmaniyeh and Tarbiyat, the first duty of the teachers is to be present in the classroom at the set time and remain in class throughout the lesson.101 Students’ punctuality was monitored daily. In Tarbiyat, each student was given a notebook in which his parents were to write the time of his departure from home, and his times of arrival at and departure from school were noted as well. This way, both parents and school staff could know that the student

99 Ibid., 36. 100 “Nezamnameh-ye Madraseh-ye Tarbiyat,” Part 2, in Habl ol-Matin, February 25, 1901, see also Nategh, Karnameh-ye Farhangi-ye Farangi, 287. 101 Quoted in Nategh, Karnameh-ye Farhangi-ye Farangi, 285, “Nezamnameh-ye Madraseh-ye Tarbiyat,” Part 2, in Habl ol-Matin, March 5, 1901. Second Level Second Class Third Level Third Class Fourth Level Fourth Class Days of the Week Morning Noon Morning Noon Morning Noon

Saturday Persian Basic Arabic Advanced Arabic Quran Reading, Translation and Introduction to Grammar, Grammar, Grammar Advanced Understanding Geometry, First Manners and Quran Dictation, of Common Level Algebra Morals, Reading Common Arabic Books, and Comparison Penmanship Composition Persian [moqabeleh] Shorthand [Siyaq] and Penmanship Sunday Reading Various Foreign Basic World History, Introduction to Full Course Full Course of Persian Scripts Language Advanced History World [yekdoreh]of World of Iran, Basic Geography, World History, Geography, Natural Science Advanced Advanced Cartography [Mavalid-e Geography of Natural Science Tholath] Iran, Drawing Maps of Iran Monday Basic History of Geography Introduction to Foreign Language Arithmetic of the Foreign Languages Iran, of Iran Arithmetic Last Ratios and Translation Advanced [tanasobat] and and Foundations Percentages, Understanding and Minutiae Introduction to of their of the Faith Physics and Common Books Chemistry (cont.)

Second Level Second Class Third Level Third Class Fourth Level Fourth Class Days of the Week Morning Noon Morning Noon Morning Noon

Tuesday Persian Basic Arabic Advanced Course in Quran Reading, Translation and Introduction to Grammar, Grammar, Arabic Grammar Advanced Understanding Geometry, First Manners and Quran Dictation, of Common Level Algebra Morals Reading Common Arabic Books, and Comparison Composition Persian Shorthand and Penmanship Wednesday Reading Various Foreign Basic World History, Introduction to Full Course of Full Course of Persian Scripts Language Advanced History World World History, World of Iran, Basic Geography, Advanced Geography, Natural Science Advanced Natural Science Cartography Geography of Iran, Drawing Maps of Iran Thursday Basic History of Geography Introduction to Foreign Language Arithmetic of the Foreign Languages Iran, of Iran Arithmetic Last Ratios and and Translation Advanced Percentages, and Foundations Introduction to Understanding and Minutiae Physics and of their of the Faith Chemistry Common Books Friday Vacation

Figure 2.2 Tarbiyat School weekly timetable, 1901 Conclusions 87 was not idling in the streets on his way to and from school.102 This method of surveillance, combined with the ﬁxed times of classes, aimed to create a new experience of time among the students. Not only did they know when they were supposed to be where, their teachers and parents had that information as well. Thus an attempt was made to inculcate in Iranian youth traits such as punctuality, order, and efﬁ- ciency – traits that modern reformers admired. The extent to which such new notions of time and order impressed themselves on the pupils can be gleaned from Ghani’s depiction of Tarbiyat:

Of course, the form of teaching there could not be compared with that of Sabzavar [his hometown]. There was class, there were order and organization – everything was new to me. I entered a new life and witnessed order and organization, hours and minutes were counted. Classes would begin at four hours before noon and the bell rang exactly on the hour. The students knew what is to be done in every class they had each day ...This very organization was a great lesson for me, who until that time was uneducated and was not raised to order and to keeping time and hours.103 The habitus created by the new schools in Iran was visibly more modern than the one experienced in religious schools. The male children of wealthy families who graduated from these schools were better versed in modern Western practices, ways of thought, and the use of measured time. The new schools wished to further spread this habitus to the students’ families. Thus, for example, the parents and relatives of the students at the Hemmat School were requested to be gentle with the children, and to avoid using obscenities and inappropriate speech, so that they would not harm the child’s studies.104 These altered daily practices and manners and growing familiarity with Western modernity were to characterize the emerging Western-educated elite and shape a new model of masculinity that was gradually becoming hegemonic in Iranian society.

Conclusions The beginnings of modern education for Iranian boys offer a complex look at issues of power, gender, and social standing in the late

102 “Nezamnameh-ye Madraseh-ye Tarbiyat,” Part 2, in Habl ol-Matin, March 5, 1901. 103 Ghani, Yad Dashtha, 70. 104 “Qava’ednameh-ye Madraseh-ye Hemmat,” in Habl ol-Matin, December 24, 1900. 88 Western Knowledge and Education nineteenth century. Reformist writings seem to suggest that the demand for a modern education originated in a desire to provide modern schooling to all children of the nation, in order to improve Iran’s position in the international arena, overcome its technological and political backwardness, and turn it into an enlightened, powerful, and progressive country. But as demonstrated, their ideas about education were extended almost exclusively to the male children of elite families, thus reproducing the unequal division of cultural capital between rich and poor, men and women. Ironically, the construction of education and knowledge as vital for the achievement of honor and humanity represented women and the poor who could not afford them as less honorable (meaning less manly), and less human. Furthermore, traditional and religious knowledge, as well as its possessors, were represented by reformist writers as useless, ridiculous and feminine. Maktab teachers and superstitious old women, private tutors and midwives became symbols of this old and harmful knowledge. The feminization of one type of knowledge entailed the mascu- linization of the other. Thus, boys of wealthy families who came to possess modern scientiﬁc knowledge were also the carriers of a new masculine trait. The knowledge gained in the new schools was accompanied by a new masculine habitus. The clothes a student wore, the material objects he used, his perception of time and of discipline, all contributed to the making of a young man who was different in many respects from men of older generations, or from boys who remained in the old system. The acquisition of modern education would continue to be an important component of Iranian hegemonic masculinity for decades to come. Discussions on the importance of modern and higher education for Iran would recur in the discourse on reform and politics, buttressing the status of education as a main building block of a strong society. In the following decades, modern education – which remained inaccessible for most Iranians even after the massive growth of the education system during Reza Shah’s reign – retained its central role of differentiating an emerging elite masculinity. 3 Gendering the Nation |Patriotic Men and Endangered Women in the Constitutional Revolution Discourse

On December 12, 1905, Tehran’s provincial governor ordered the caning of two sugar merchants accused of deliberately inflating prices. Performed against the backdrop of economic crisis, inflation, and growing Western intervention, the sentence triggered large-scale demonstrations. The protestors were led by two clerics, Seyyed Abdollah Behbahani and Seyyed Mohammad Tabatabai. The demonstrations were followed by a closure of the bazaar and a sit-in (bast)1 of some 2,000 men, most of them of the lesser clergy, in the shrine of Shah Abd ol-Azim. The bast was sponsored by bazaar merchants who hoped to change the customs policy led by the Belgian Customs Director Joseph Naus, as well as by reformist members of the elite. When demands to oust Naus and the governor were turned down, the protestors called for the establishment of a “House of Justice” (Edalat Khaneh), to which the government conceded by January 10, 1906.2 The protest and ensuing negotiations are regarded as the opening shot of the Constitutional Revolution. The Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911 was led by three main social groups: liberal clerics, bazaar merchants, and reformist bureaucrats and intellectuals. The latter, who numbered fewer than 3,000 men of mostly elite background, were often educated in Western or Western-style institutions and played a significant role in formulating and disseminating the revolutionary initiatives. They introduced ideas such as a constitution (mashruteh), an elected parliament (Majles),

1 Bast is a traditional form of political protest in Iran that included the closing of the bazaar and sit-ins, or seeking sanctuary (bast) in a religious or political center. Stephen C. Poulson, Social Movements in Twentieth-Century Iran: Culture, Ideology and Mobilizing Frameworks (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2006), 57–58. 2 Vanessa Martin, “Constitutional Revolution: Events,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/constitutional-revolution-ii.

89 90 Gendering the Nation and ‒ more abstractly but no less importantly – patriotism (vatan- parasti).3 Notwithstanding the considerable impact of these ideas, the main mobilizers of popular action during the revolution remained reform-minded clerics who could amass large crowds of religious seminary students, as well as bazaar merchants and other traders. This chapter focuses on the intersections of masculinity and nationalism in Iran at the turn of the twentieth century, and investigates the nationalist discourse promoted by reformist writers, mainly in the press. It follows the tactics of Iranian constitutionalists and shows how they applied concepts of “proper” masculinity to speak for the Iranian nation, mobilize Iranian men to the revolutionary cause, and threaten them with loss of manly honor should they shirk their patriotic duty. Imagining the Iranian nation as a female entity, usually a mother, also contributed to the transfer of political power from the monarch to Majles representatives. The chapter further traces ways in which the nationalist discourse informed the construction of hegemonic and other masculinities. It then moves to show how elite men aimed to monopolize both patriotism and honorable masculinity it bestowed to strengthen their political and cultural position in Iranian society. Thus, nationalist discourse contributed to the consolidation of a new masculinity, as well as to political struggles between different groups of men.

Emasculation and Feminization in Iranian Nationalist Discourse In the discourse of the Constitutional Revolution, familial and gendered metaphors of the nation had two inseparable components: an encouragement and a threat – an incentive to nationalist activity and a penalty for inactivity. Whereas the incentive or positive evocation of family love and duty has been amply studied and discussed by scholars such as Mohamad Tavakoli Targhi, Afsaneh Najmabadi, and Joanna de Groot, the penalty has been relatively neglected.4 However, Iranian nationalist discourse clearly drew on and emphasized masculine anxieties. Supporters of the Constitutional Revolution capitalized on the perception that protecting female members of the family manifested a

3 Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran,36–41. 4 Tavakoli-Targhi, “From Patriotism to Matriotism”; Najmabadi, Story of the Daughters of Quchan; de Groot, “Brothers of the Iranian Race.” Emasculation and Feminization in Iranian Nationalist Discourse 91 specific kind of male honor (namus) whose loss equaled loss of manliness. While it is true that women were also invested in namus,inthe discourse discussed in this chapter, men were the ones who were threatened with losing it. The perception of manliness as precarious and in constant need of defense and affirmation is common to many human societies, and is used to mobilize men into action for the benefit of society.5 In our case, the threat of the loss of manhood and honor – possibly more powerful than filial or brotherly love – dominated Iranian nationalist texts in the lead-up to and during the Constitutional Revolution. A modern nationalist discourse began to form in Iran during the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Words such as “Iran,”“nation” (mellat), and “homeland” (vatan) changed their meanings and took on new ones, and the perception of Iran as a national entity in need of protection against hostile external forces took shape.6 This perception developed mainly against the backdrop of earlier military defeats in the Russo-Persian Wars of 1804–1813 and 1826–1827 and the Anglo- Persian War of 1856–1857, that resulted in loss of territories in the Caucasus and Afghanistan. The economic imperialism of the Western powers, combined with Iran’s political and military weakness, brought about excessive sales of concessions for Iran’s natural resources to foreigners and accelerated its decline in the world economy.7 Iran’s weakness vis-à-vis the West was perceived by Iranian nationalists as their own personal weakness and was couched in gendered terms.8 Repeated references to Iran’s humiliation by foreigners and its loss of honor touched on masculine pride, so that the country’s political humiliation was represented as a threat to Iranian masculinity. Calls for political action were thus reconfigured as the only deliverance

5 David D. Gilmore, Manhood in the Making: Cultural Concepts of Masculinity (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990). 6 De Groot, “Brothers of the Iranian Race,” 141–142; Tavakoli-Targhi, “From Patriotism to Matriotism,” 220–223. 7 Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran,36–39. 8 Joanna de Groot, “The Dialectics of Gender: Women, Men and Political Discourses in Iran c.1890–1930,” Gender & History 5, no. 2 (June 1993): 261–262; de Groot, Religion, Culture and Politics, 152; Mana Kia, “Moral Refinement and Manhood in Persian,” in Civilizing Emotions: Concepts in Nineteenth Century Asia and Europe, ed. Margarit Pernau and Helge Jordheim (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 151–157. 92 Gendering the Nation from loss of manliness.9 Such a gendered sense of humiliation is apparent in a letter written by “A Zealot” to Habl ol-Matin: for the sake of spreading the commerce of North and South [the people of Fars] have destroyed their namus and lost their nationalism ...Where is your zeal [gheyrat], that you do not hoist in pride the flag of the National Bank? And the German bank flies the flag of Iranian lack of zeal in the world? Shame on the patriotism of Iranians! ...Don’t be blind, be men, courageous and zealous, do not let the neighboring countries achieve their goals!10 Several terms used by the Zealot to connote masculinity are repeated in almost every nationalist text. The most common is gheyrat. Gheyrat may be translated as “zeal,”“enthusiasm,”“honor,”“jealousy,” and “manliness,” and contains all these connotations. Accordingly, patriotic men (vatan-dust, vatan-parast, vatan-khwah) acting for the national cause are often referred to as “zealots” (ba-gheyrat, ghayur, or, like the writer of the letter À gheyrat-mand), while those who renege on their national duty are referred to as non-zealots (bi- gheyrat), a term that also connotes unmanliness, lack of honor and cowardice. In a letter to Tamaddon, the writer elaborates on the personal and national meanings of gheyrat:

According to the linguistic meaning, gheyrat means avoidance and distancing from that which damages man’s reputation and namus ... Gheyrat is the trait whose lack is called shamelessness and lack of honor [bi-’ari va bi namus]. Essentially, a man of gheyrat must recognize evils and that which damages reputation and honor and refrain from them in every possible way. Clearly, a man with gheyrat has another duty on top of these, which is the protection of the honor of society and the conditions of its good name, which are also called national gheyrat and patriotism. It is said: “Love of the Homeland is of the Faith.” In this situation, a man of gheyrat has to consider the perfection of his honor and that of his homeland and compatriots among his obligations, hopes and goals.11 The triangle of patriotism-gheyrat-namus binds nationalist activity to honorable masculinity. Patriotism thus becomes much more than an

9 See for example “Beza’at-e Mozajat,” in Habl ol-Matin, November 19, 1900; and Sadiq, Yadegar-e Omr, vol. 1, 48. 10 “Layeheh-ye Yeki az Gheyratmandan” (Essay by a Zealot), in Habl ol-Matin, November 4, 1907. 11 “Layeheh-ye Anjoman-e Kheyriyyeh-ye Mohamadiyyeh” (Essay by the Mohamadiyyeh Charitable Society), in Tamaddon, August 18, 1907. Emasculation and Feminization in Iranian Nationalist Discourse 93 ideology. It is a character trait as inseparable from masculinity as honor, as personal as it is political. Another recurring pair of contrasting terms is ba-hamiyyat, meaning passionate, dedicated, and manly, and its opposite, bi-hamiyyat. The usage of ba-hemmat (and its opposite bi-hemmat), meaning ambitious, motivated, and driven, is also common. Similarly common is the accusation against unpatriotic men of negligence and disregard (gheflat), similar in meaning to bi- hamiyyati. Negligence often appears next to images of sleep, thus connoting passivity and laziness. Yet another pejorative term attached to unpatriotic men is namard. Composed of the negation affix and the Persian word for “man,” it means not just “unmanly” but also “coward” and “shameless” and is synonymous with bi-gheyrat and bi-hamiyyat.12 Much like vatan or mellat, terms such as gheyrat, hemmat,orhamiyyat changed their meaning and became politically charged. While some nationalist texts are self-accusatory, more often their authors attack men who do not seem sufficiently active for the nationalist cause. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century newspapers often went beyond implicit references to Iranian unmanliness connoted by such terms as bi-gheyrat, bi-hamiyyat,ornamard by referring explicitly to emasculation and feminization. The manhood of Iranian men was cast in doubt and they were compared to women. In a piece published in the constitutionalist newspaper Mosavvat (Equality) in 1909, constitutional activists in Azerbaijan do not shy away from referring to castration: “Have men and men’s testicles been destroyed in these lands? Have all men died and been replaced by nonmen?” The author goes on to note that the men who did not take part in the national struggle have chosen a life more worthy of contempt than the life of women.13 In a letter to the Azeri biweekly Taraqqi (Progress), the writer laments the lack of patriotic action among Iran- ians and notes that “It’s a pity that some of those appearing to be men [mard namayan] did not find zeal [in them].”14 This rhetoric constituted a direct threat and challenge to Iranian men that could be met only by acting for the nationalist-revolutionary cause.

12 Namard: https://dictionary.abadis.ir/?lntype=dehkhoda,fatofa,moeen,amid& word=%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%B1%D8%AF. 13 Quoted in de Groot, “Brothers of the Iranian Race,” 149. 14 “Ta’ammol va Deqqat” (Pondering and Precision), in Taraqqi, April 30, 1907. 94 Gendering the Nation

The emasculation motif was not limited to discussions of military or political affairs but was also attached to issues such as the national economy. Reminiscent of the Zealot who lamented Iranians’ lack of support of the national bank as lack of gheyrat, a letter to Neda-ye Vatan (Call of the Homeland), titled “Who is the man who is less than a woman?,” replies that such are wealthy men who deposit their money in foreign banks rather than in the National Bank “that safe- guards the kingdom’s religion and namus.”15 Indeed, support of the attempt by the ﬁrst Majles to establish an Iranian bank to compete with the British and Russian banks operating in the country was considered a national duty. Implicitly, these texts also entrench women’s lower status. If unpatriotic men are less than women, then clearly patriotic men are superior to them. Islam itself is considered masculine and there are numerous references in the press to the Muslim community as “Islam’s Testicles” (Beyzeh-ye Eslam, metaphorically “the essence/core of Islam”),16 in need of protection (Hefz-e beyzeh-ye Eslam).17 The national community was thus imagined in graphic physical terms as residing in the most masculine part of the male body of Islam, and its essence as the essence of virility. This metaphor emphasizes the “gender difference” between the homeland and the nation. Whereas the geographical homeland was usually imagined as a woman (see below), the national community (a brotherhood, as will be further discussed) was an explicitly male entity, possessing organs in need of protection.18 The reformist discourse that preceded the Constitutional Revolution similarly equated lack of involvement in national affairs with the absence of masculine characteristics such as courage, integrity, and honor.19 Early politicized references to emasculation may be found in Malkom Khan’s Qanun. For Malkom Khan, the failure of Iranians to change their government and society, and the consequent weakness,

15 “Cheh Mardi Bud Kez Zani Kam Bud” (Which Man Is Less than a Woman), in Neda-ye Vatan, March 9, 1904. 16 Beyzeh: https://dictionary.abadis.ir/?lntype=dehkhoda,fatofa,moeen,amid& word=%D8%A8%DB%8C%D8%B6%D9%87%20. 17 “Maktub,” in Akhtar, March 30, 1881; “Beza’at-e Mozajat,” in Habl ol-Matin, November 19, 1900; “Asar-e Khameh-ye Yeki az Arbab-e Danesh,” in Habl ol-Matin, August 5, 1907; “Layeheh-ye Yeki az Iranian-e Ghayur” (Essay from a Zealous Iranian), in Habl ol-Matin, April 13, 1908. 18 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 119–122. 19 Tavakoli-Targhi, “From Patriotism to Matriotism,” 230. Emasculation and Feminization in Iranian Nationalist Discourse 95 were both the cause and effect of lack of manliness, the very quality necessary to change the situation.20 One oft-quoted Qanun article argues as follows: “Now, that many Iranian men have become women, it is the place of women to teach their husbands a lesson in masculinity.”21 In yet another issue, a letter supposedly sent by an Iranian woman observes: “Do not despair of Iranian women. We have not yet become so unmanly [namard nashodeh-im] that, like the husbands and youngsters of our time, we consider the value of life to be limited to the practice of shamelessness [bi-’ari].”22 The image of patriotic women is used in such texts not so much for the celebration of these women as for the humiliation of unpatriotic men. Unlike the unpatriotic men attacked in Qanun, opponents of the current political system are depicted as manly. In a letter supposedly from a prince, the writer praises the publishers of Qanun for their zeal and courage in criticizing the Qajar dynasty, admitting that “none of us has the courage to clearly say the truth on this matter. You have defeated us in this game of masculinity.”23 The writers in Qanun present themselves as the upholders of proper masculinity, which they characterize as adamiyyat: progressive, knowledgeable, educated, and brave. This is contrasted with the group of sycophantic Iranian ofﬁcials whom they dub Scavengers (lashkhurha).24 The Scavengers’ unwillingness to criticize the heads of the state in the name of supporting the government provokes the scorn of the writers in Qanun.25 In one scathing piece, the Scavengers are denied both their masculinity and their humanity:

Some of the scavenging lion-men of Tehran, as soon as they have heard these words [of adamiyyat], have escaped under the chadors of their wives and said: “Save us! Do not speak these words in front of us and do not come near us!” Dear Scavengers, do not get all worked up for no reason. We have nothing to do with you. We speak to humans.26 Comparing unpatriotic men to women, and even declaring these men inferior to women, are common tropes in nationalist journalistic writing. A later example is a 1908 article in Neda-ye Vatan addressing “the honorable and respectable people of Azerbaijan.” In the letter, the

20 De Groot, Religion, Culture and Politics, 152, 180. 21 In Qanun, no. 7. 22 In Qanun, no. 15. 23 In Qanun, no. 14. 24 In Qanun, no. 4, May 20, 1890. 25 In Qanun, no. 23. 26 In Qanun, no. 20. 96 Gendering the Nation writer criticizes the Azerbaijanis by saying: “Why have we been found to be so inert and womanly due to sitting in the house? ... Wake up from your negligent slumber, make an effort so that you would not have to wear women’s clothes.”27 Men’s crossdressing as a sign of emasculation and punishment for lack of patriotic zeal are similarly evoked in another Neda-ya Vatan article by a “learned man of Shiraz,” who concludes: “Alas, you Iranian men who call yourselves zealots and patriots, you should don women’s clothes!”28 This metaphor recurs quite often in the discourse of the Constitutional Revolution.29 Mozaffar ol-Din Shah himself, as well as his father Naser ol-Din Shah, were referred to as “scarf wearers,” alluding to femininity and humiliation, because donning women’s headscarves was an acceptable humiliating punishment for men.30 The foil of the degraded and feminized man is the heroic woman. Nationalist newspapers repeatedly bring forth examples of brave (read manly) women whose model courage serves to scold men who shun action. The text lamenting the disappearance of men and men’s testicles from Iran, cited above, follows a description of a Georgian woman who volunteered to ﬁght for the Constitutional Revolution. Women’sactions shame Iranian men who let them ﬁght for the country as “in Islam this was always the special duty of men.”31 Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi has argued that the attribution of “masculine” traits to women and the nationalization of these traits severed the tie between biological sex and masculinity.32 This detachment had a twofold impact: on the one hand, women were allowed to participate in the nationalist movement and earn a place of honor beside men (though not their political rights). On the other hand, when masculine traits were not exclusive to men, male biological sex was no longer a guarantee of manliness. In this manner, men were required to prove their possession of the traits that made a male a man and the threat to their masculinity increased.

27 “Qabel-e Tavajjoh-e Ahali-ye ba Sharaf va Namus-e Azarbijan” (For the Attention of the Respectable and Honorable Citizens of Azerbaijan”), in Neda- ye Vatan, March 16, 1908. 28 “Daneshmandi az Shiraz Negashteh” (A Learned Man of Shiraz Writes), in Neda-ye Vatan, January 14, 1908. 29 De Groot, “Brothers of the Iranian Race,” 146; “Maktub-e Yeki Daneshmandan-e Shiraz” (A Letter from One of the Learned of Shiraz), in Neda- ye Vatan, January 14, 1908. 30 Quoted in de Groot, “Brothers of the Iranian Race,” 146. 31 Tavakoli-Targhi, “From Patriotism to Matriotism,” 229–231. 32 Ibid., 232. Emasculation and Feminization in Iranian Nationalist Discourse 97

The theme and metaphor of emasculation served not only to enlist men to the nationalist movement, but also to castigate Iran’s rulers. Afsaneh Najmabadi mentions a satirical street song ridiculing Mozaf- far ol-Din Shah’s inability to defend the state, he is dubbed “Sister Mozaffar.”33 An author in Habl ol-Matin criticizes an unspecified historian for “considering every usurper an Anushirvan [Sassanid King Khosrow I], every idiot a Bismarck, every drug addict a Khwaja Nezam ol-Molk [a famous eleventh-century vizier], and every effeminate man [zan manesh] a Kai Khosrow [a legendary king appearing in the Shahnameh].”34 Nor was the Shah alone chastised: as shown by Najmabadi, government officials and Majles members were dubbed “bearded women” or “bearded children.”35 The comparison of unmanly men to children is also apparent in an article in Habl ol-Matin where the author claims that “since the day the Iranian nation has removed men of action from work and instead gave jobs and status to adolescent boys [amrad], the value of service has become unknown ... But today, since the foundations of despotism are replaced with constitutionalism ... no one is given a post due to love and flirtations.”36 In contrast, constitutionalist reformers are described as “the young sons of the kingdom [who] have reached maturity,” thus turning from boys to men.37 The excerpt from Habl ol-Matin also insinuates that influential men who kept adolescent male concubines promoted them to positions of power. For example, Malijak, Naser ol-Din Shah’s boy protégé was made brigadier in 1887, at the age of eight. He was later promoted to general and put in charge of a cavalry regiment. His younger brother was similarly commissioned as brigadier.38 In early-twentieth-century

33 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 212. 34 “Oruj-e Mellat” (The Nation’s Ascent), in Habl ol-Matin, February 18, 1901. 35 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 218. 36 “Asar-e Khameh-ye Yeki az Arbab-e Danesh” (The Works of a Knowledgeable Man), in Habl ol-Matin, August 5, 1907. 37 “Maqaleh-ye Yeki az Daneshmandan Qabel-e Tavajjoh-e Vezarat-e Maliyeh” (An Article by a Learned Man, for the Attention of the Ministry of Finance), in Neda-ye Vatan, November 10, 1907. Lynn Hunt makes a similar claim in her book on the French Revolution – presenting political involvement as a move from subjects/children to men/citizens. Lynn Avery Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1992), 18. 38 Said Amir Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), 25. 98 Gendering the Nation

Iran, erotic relationships between grown men and adolescent boys were becoming less acceptable and were increasingly seen as a perver- sion. Such an accusation, made with no reference to a speciﬁc person, could project onto all men in positions of power, implying that they reached these positions through sexual liaisons with other men. In similar vein, anti-Qajar discourse sometimes represented Mozaffar ol- Din Shah as a lover of boys and anal intercourse, suggested that homosexual acts took place at court between grown men, or alluded to the past of some politicians as boy-lovers of other men.39 The use of gendered terms in the nationalist press aimed to mobilize men for the nation and the Constitutional Revolution. This language used two interrelated tactics. On the one hand, male readers were called on to reappropriate masculine traits such as zeal, initiative, and honor and become “real men” by taking political action, thus adding patriotism to the characteristics of the new hegemonic masculinity. On the other hand, men deemed unpatriotic were castigated as unmanly.

Real and Imagined Women in Danger: A Question of Manly Honor Imagining the homeland as a woman is not unique to Iranian nationalism and several studies have examined the symbolic ﬁgure of the nation as a woman in both European and non-European contexts.40 I argue that similar to the evocation of masculine nationalist traits discussed above, imagining the nation as a woman drew on one of the most important elements of Iranian (and Middle Eastern) masculinity: manly honor deriving from control of women’s sexual behavior, which constitutes namus.41 Imagining Iran as a mother and Iranian

39 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 212; Afary, Sexual Politics in Modern Iran, 140. 40 George L. Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality: Respectability and Abnormal Sexuality in Modern Europe (New York: H. Fertig, 1985), 91–98; Marina Warner, Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000); Maurice Agulhon, Marianne into Battle: Republican Imagery and Symbolism in France, 1789–1880 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Baron, Egypt as a Woman, 78. 41 de Groot, “Brothers of the Iranian Race,” 140; de Groot, Religion, Culture and Politics in Iran, 152. For more on namus see Diane E. King, “The Personal Is Patrilineal: Namus as Sovereignty,” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Real and Imagined Women in Danger 99 women as the sisters and wives of all Iranian men meant that a threat to the sexual integrity of these “women” entailed possible loss of the namus of all Iranian men. An article in Neda-ye Vatan describes the relationship between the motherland and the citizens as follows:

The rights of the homeland as regards the people are similar to the rights of the mother as regards children. Just as defending the mother’s rights is the children’s duty, so must the people of the country defend the honor and chastity of their dear homeland with their last strength and last drop of blood, holding nothing back.42 Whether imagined as a mother or, less frequently, as a lover, the homeland’s integrity and honor were in mortal danger. It was represented as a dying mother, abandoned by her negligent sons and menaced by foreign intruders, who would be saved only by a national awakening, reforms, and modernization.43 Depicting the homeland as an ailing old mother was aimed to evoke feelings of ﬁlial love and duty. It was also a reminder to every man aspiring to become a javanmard that one of the most important characteristics of javanmardi (as discussed in Chapter 1) was to protect the weak – for example old women. The threat to the homeland-imagined-as-a-woman was concretely territorial, and was keenly felt by Iranians after having lost territories to foreign nations and suffered the consequent economic encroach- ments in the form of trade agreements and concessions. Such physical invasions of the homeland were represented as a rape of the mother/ land. Imagining Iran as a mother violated by foreigners was meant to shame men into protecting her.44 This is how one author in Neda-ye Vatan applies this recurring metaphor: suppose ...some people have entered your house and ripped your mother’s veil of chastity ...no matter how lazy and un-zealous [her son] might be, as

Power 15, no. 3 (2008): 317–342; Irene Schneider, “The Concept of Honor and its Reﬂection in the Iranian Penal Code,” Journal of Persianate Studies 5, no. 1 (January 2012): 43–57. 42 “Maqaleh-ye Yeki az Daneshmandan” (An Article from a Learned Man), Part 1, in Neda-ye Vatan, November 10, 1907. 43 Najmabadi, “The Erotic Vatan,” 461; Tavakoli-Targhi, “From Patriotism to Matriotism,” 226–227. 44 Najmabadi, “The Erotic Vatan,” 445; Kashani-Sabet, Frontier Fictions, 135. For more on the relation between sovereignty and namus, see King, “The Personal Is Patrilineal.” On the image of the rape of the Palestinian mother/land see Massad, “Conceiving the Masculine.” 100 Gendering the Nation soon as he hears these things, by virtue of natural ﬁlial love ...will rise up to his full size for [her] protection. By natural law he will be ready to defend with his life the violated maternal honor. What lack of honor and lack of dignity! Every day the people of Iran see with open eyes and hear with open ears that their dear homeland, meaning their maternal honor, is in danger, but do not rise in its defense.45 Even worse than failure to defend the mother/land is her active prostitution by some of her sons who offer her to foreigners, in whole or in part, for money. Indeed, one writer asks how Iranians can go on living while some of the nation’s “wayward sons” place her “skirt of purity [daman-e ‘esmatat] in the hands of foreigners.”46 Another describes in Neda-ye Vatan a dream he had (a common literary genre at that time) in which he met a beautiful yet depressed and dejected angel. When he asked for her name, she answered:

I am Iran and I am the Iranians’ namus. For a long time now I have hoped for a cure to my pain, and waited for a relief of my suffering; for years I have yelled and seen no justice; for centuries I have cried and no one listened ... Upon my death these wayward children have sold ... my wealth ... and grandeur to foreigners for a few dirhams.47 Whereas the unpatriotic son is described as the cause of his mother’s deterioration, the patriot is assigned the role of saving and rejuvenating the mother/land. Another article in Habl ol-Matin depicts the homeland as an old woman who dyes her white hair with the sacriﬁcial blood of her patriot son.48 In the nationalist discourse, not only Iranian mothers but also women in general are metaphorically mobilized to symbolize the threats hovering over Iran. The Iranian nation is perceived as a brotherhood, and Iranian women as the sisters of Iranian men; thus, their (real or imagined) violation is as detrimental to male honor as the rape of actual sisters. As Najmabadi has shown, visions of the rape of Iranian women by foreign invaders became part and parcel of the

45 “Maktub-e Shahri – Khedmat beh Vatan” (A Letter from a City-Dweller – Service of the Homeland), in Neda-ye Vatan, February 6, 1908. 46 “Ya Marg ba Sharaf Ya Zendegi ba Eftekhar” (Either Death with Honor or Life with Pride), in Sur-e Israﬁl, November 27, 1907. 47 “Tanbih Ya Tamaskhor” (Chastisement or Mockery), in Neda-ye Vatan, February 9, 1907. 48 “Mohakemeh” (The Trial), in Habl ol-Matin, November 25, 1907. Real and Imagined Women in Danger 101 nationalist-revolutionary stock.49 Two historical events from the early twentieth century – the sale of daughters to foreigners by their parents and the kidnapping and enslavement of women and children by Turk- men tribes in the eastern border city of Quchan – became entwined and were woven into a single nationalist narrative.50 The story was discussed in the Majles as well as in the press and the women involved were referred to as symbolic sisters and daughters. A Majles member, Dabir ol-Molk, asked: “The Turkmens kidnapped these women ... they are also our sisters ... Why have we become so un-zealous?”51 Another story of a foreign invasion, this time from Iran’s western border, was seen as threatening not only the masculine honor of parliament members and ministers, but that of the Shah himself and the entire Iranian nation. The Haj Emam Jom’eh said as much in a subsequent Majles meeting:

What causes much puzzlement is that our ministers and leaders ... do not ever consider anything but the building of parks and the amassing of fortune. As if their Islamic zeal and sense of nationalism has been completely lost. Honorable ministers of Iran, glorious leaders, princes of Iran! Is not the land of Urmia [a city near the Turkish border] Iranian land? Is not Urmia considered the paradise of Iran? Are not the people of Urmia your brothers and sisters? Or are you not Iranians? Are not the children whose heads were cut off native Iranians? Are not the women whose stomachs were torn your sisters? What happened to your national zeal and initiative? ...I respectfully address the Padishah of Iran ... Are you satisﬁed that the women of Urmia have become the prisoners of Kurds and are held by foreigners? Are not the subjects [akin to] the Shah’s family [ayal]? Are they not the Shah’s honor?52 As Najmabadi shows, women’s sexual honor became national honor and its loss was a loss of honor for the men who did not come to their rescue.53 The fathers of the injured women lost their masculine honor because they could not defend “their” women; the Shah and other powerful men failed in being both the cause of the fathers’ pitiful

49 Beth Baron points out a similar use of real or imagined rape of Egyptian women in the discourse of the Egyptian nationalist movement. Beth Baron, “The Construction of National Honour in Egypt,” Gender & History 5, no. 2 (June 1993): 246–247. 50 Najmabadi, Story of the Daughters of Quchan,46–48. 51 Majles Minutes, First session, meeting 75, p. 153. 52 Majles Minutes, First session, meeting 148, p. 280. 53 De Groot, “Brothers of the Iranian Race,” 149. 102 Gendering the Nation situation and for not retrieving the women abducted and sold. Both the weak male subjects and unjust rulers were thus emasculated.54 The selling of Iranian girls to foreign men was further compared to the selling of the homeland (vatan forushi), or parts of it, to foreign powers, a comparison that may be attributed to the increased selling of concessions for Iran’s resources.55 Even when women are not speciﬁcally mentioned in the text, the term namus connotes the link between men’s duty to defend their country and their duty to defend the chastity of a woman under their guardianship. The notion of Iran as a female ﬁgure became so deeply rooted that Iran’s independence was considered as equivalent to its honor. Traditional masculine traits and ideals were therefore used by constitutionalist writers to mobilize men in support of the Constitu- tional movement. Iranian men were called, in the name of namus and javanmardi, to heal, protect and revive their mother/land and the women of the nation. Failing to do so would result in the loss of honor entailing with it the loss of their masculinity.

Rewriting the Family Metaphor: The Patricide of the Crowned Father Imagining the nation as a family in which men and women play set roles is common to many nationalist movements, the Iranian included.56 The personiﬁcation of Iran as a woman, which was meant to arouse national feelings and action, also had the potential of changing the scheme of political power. Tavakoli-Targhi points to a change in the image of the homeland from a male entity to a feminine body, what he named “matriotism.” Until the late nineteenth century, love of homeland and identiﬁcation with the Shah went hand in hand, and the Shah was represented as the father of the nation, heading it as a patriarch. The father metaphor implied that the subjects owed loyalty

54 Moallem, Between Warrior Brother and Veiled Sister, 55. 55 Najmabadi, Story of the Daughters of Quchan,50–51; “Maktub-e Yeki az Daneshmandan” (A Letter from a Learned Man), in Neda-ye Vatan, January 29, 1907. 56 Joane Nagel, “Nation,” in Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, ed. Michael S. Kimmel, Jeff Hearn, and R. W. Connell (London: Sage, 2005), 404; Hunt, The Family Romance; see also her reference to the American Revolution, in The Family Romance,71–73. Rewriting the Family Metaphor 103 to the Shah while he was obliged to protect them, implications still found in turn-of-the-century journalistic texts that couple patriotism (vatan-dusti) with love/adoration of the Shah (Shah-parasti). The image of the Shah as father survives in later texts, but the metaphor of the homeland as a mother becomes far more common.57 Tavakoli- Targhi claims that the change was the result of the animosity toward the Shah in nationalist circles. Instead of the loyalty and obedience required by a father, the feelings the new metaphor evoked were compassion and protectiveness of an ailing mother. The accusation that the motherland’s illness was caused by the Shah and the ruling elite challenged state authority, thus authorizing the people to take political control.58 The view of the nation as a family accommodated the ideal of fraternity (evident from the common use of the term “brothers” when addressing readers or listeners), which called for a more diffused distribution of political power among equal (male) members of the nation. This ideal was central to many nationalist and revolutionary movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, since it represented a challenge to patriarchal political authority, offered equality of membership and did not derive its power from tradition.59 I argue that the characteristics of actual Iranian families in the late nineteenth century made the discarding of the Shah as a father metaphor crucial to Iranian nationalist discourse. The Constitutional Revolution aimed at turning Iran from an absolutist to a constitutional monarchy, in which male citizens would participate in the political arena via an elected parliament and the Shah’s power would be much reduced. As long as the men of the Iranian nationalist movement imagined their nation as a patriarchal family, they could not advocate the transfer of political power from the Shah to the national fraternity. As Lynn Hunt showed in her study of

57 An article dated 1908 criticizes the Shah for being unaware of the pitiful state of his subjects, “who are like his children”: “Layeheh-ye Yeki az Daneshmandan,” in Habl ol-Matin, January 20, 1908. See also Tavakoli-Targhi, “From Patriotism to Matriotism,” 220–223; “Hamiyyat,” in Habl ol-Matin, November 12, 1900; “Hob al-Vatan min al-Iman,” in Sorayya, March 18, 1899. 58 Tavakoli-Targhi, “From Patriotism to Matriotism,” 225–226. 59 John Horne, “Masculinity in Politics and War in the Age of Nation-States and World Wars, 1850–1950,” in Masculinities in Politics and War: Gendering Modern History, ed. Stephan Dudink, Karen Hageman, and John Tosh (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004), 25–26. 104 Gendering the Nation revolutionary France, the revolutionists had to strip the king of his status as the father of the nation and alter the status of actual family fathers in order to abolish the absolute monarchy, execute the king and establish a republic. Furthermore, once the Republic was constructed as female, it could no longer be identiﬁed with the king, who, by law, was always a man.60 Less radical measures were taken in Iran. The monarchy was not abolished, the Shah was not executed, and the patriarchal structure of the family was not changed, but even the considerably lesser changes that did occur – such as the establishment of a parliament and a constitution – required a change in the gendered and familial political imaginary.61 The change included marginalizing the image of the Shah as a kind father (pedar-e mehraban)ora crowned father (pedar-e taj-dar). In turn-of-the-century Iranian society, patriarchy was the most widely accepted model of family relations. Fathers were not simply the leaders of their families. The father was the head of the household and not just of the nuclear family; households were organized patri- lineally and authority was vested in the oldest male until his death. In the extended family model, the father’s word was law, and he had total power over all other family members, young and old. Family law in Iran was based on the Shari’a, and allowed men polygamy, temporary marriage,62 unilateral divorce, and the custody of children over two or seven years old (boys and girls, respectively).63 The patriarchal family order as such was not challenged in the reformist discourse. On the contrary, reformist writers made it clear

60 Hunt, The Family Romance, ch. 2, 3. 61 Dipesh Chakrabarti points to a similar phenomenon in colonial Bengal. See Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 217–218. 62 Temporary marriage (mot’a) is a Shi’ite institution that allows a marriage contract for a limited period, between one hour and ninety-nine years. It is often considered a form of legalized prostitution, although children born as a result of such unions are considered legitimate. Shahla Haeri, “Mot’a,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/mota. 63 Michael C. Hillmann, Iranian Culture: A Pesianist View (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1990), 36–37; de Groot, Religion, Culture and Politics, 18; Shireen Mahdavi, “The Qajar Period Household,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/qajars-period-household; Arasteh, Man and Society in Iran, 140; Jeanette Wakin, “Family Law – In Islam,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/family- law#ii. Rewriting the Family Metaphor 105 that the new political order would not change men’s family status. For example, an 1879 article titled “Order” (entezam) concludes: “And when the profiteers say ...that the meaning of order is that a man will no longer have authority over his wife and child ... They can answer that: not at all. The meaning of order is that it releases us from the grip of your treachery and oppression and bastinado.”64 Sources describing the inner workings of Iranian families and the experiences and changing status of men, women, and children in these families are rare. However, Iranian autobiographies suggest that the relationships between fathers and sons in patriarchal households were distinctly hierarchal and often based on reverence and intimidation rather than affection and intimacy. Taking into account the fact that these text were written in retrospect, and that later attitudes regarding family, fatherhood, and patriarchy might have influenced authors’ memories and writing about their fathers, we might still look to them for some notion of fathers’ positions in the family. Memoirs of childhood in urban elite families describe sons’ fear and detachment from their fathers. In these writings, the father is often seen as tyrannical. In many cases the tyrant is old enough to be his children’s grandfather, since even when polygamy was not very common, men often remarried after the death of a first wife. For example, Mehdi Bazargan writes that “according to the despotic culture and habits of that time,” his father “was irritable and strict, his wife and children were afraid of him and respected him.”65 Ehtesham ol-Saltaneh writes that he does not remember his father ever kissing him or his brothers;66 and Abdol Hosein Mas’ud Ansari writes that until adolescence, his brothers and he were distanced from their father.67 Somewhat later, Manoochehr Farmanfarmaian writes:

My father, Prince Abdol Hossein Mirza Farman Farma, was ﬁfty-eight when I was born. As the husband of eight wives and, by the time he died at the age of eighty-one, the father of thirty-six children, he ran his harem with an iron hand ... his wives and children bowed whenever he appeared ... By the time I got to know him he was white-haired and plagued with gout ...But it

64 “Entezam,” in Akhtar, October 8, 1879. 65 Bazargan, Khaterat-e Bazargan, 18. 66 Ehtesham ol-Saltaneh, Khaterat-e Ehtesham ol-Saltaneh, 46. 67 Abd ol-Hosein Mas’ud Ansari, Zendegi-ye Man va Negahi beh Tarikh-e Mo’aser-e Iran va Jehan (My Life and a Look at the Contemporary History of Iran and the World) (Tehran: Ibn Sina, 1972), 12. 106 Gendering the Nation was his eyes that stopped everyone cold. They were piercing, steel-blue eyes that never smiled.68 In such a patriarchal society, the national-familial metaphor of the Shah as father preserved the notion that political power was to remain with him, leaving the “children,” or the patriotic fraternity, virtually powerless. The matriotic metaphor implied that power could be divided among the sons of the mother/land, since mothers usually held much less authority in Iranian households, and when a father died, power and responsibility were transferred to his sons. The nation was therefore a fatherless fraternity, owing love and protection to the geographical entity of the motherland rather than obedience and deference to the person of the Shah. In the less common metaphor of the homeland as a beloved, gender hierarchy was even clearer. Whereas the mother/land had claims over her children-subjects and their loyalty and defense was hers by right, the vatan as the beloved was nothing more than a passive object of male adoration and love, with no authority or claim.69 These power dynamics may also explain the difference between the female figure of the homeland in Iran and Europe. While in Europe symbolic figures such as Marianne, Germania, and Britannia were usually imagined as majestic monarchs, seated on thrones and clad in armor, or as fighters and goddesses, Iran was imagined as old, weak, and in need of protection. Thus it did not evoke the power relations of monarch and subjects and gave more power to the citizens.70 Fashioning the country along democratic and republican ideals necessitated the removal of the metaphoric father from the national family, turning the Shah from the acting head of state to a symbolic figure and the sons from obedient subjects to heads of the households. This transformation was facilitated around the turn of the century by the character of the last Qajar rulers, and the manner in which their terms ended. Naser ol-Din Shah was a powerful monarch, but in his later years he became a recluse and turned to the comforts of his harem. His successor, Mozaffar ol-Din Shah, was sickly and weak and did not survive long as king (the feeling of contempt aimed at

68 Manuchehr Farmanfarmaian and Roxane Farmanfarmaian, Blood and Oil: Inside the Shah’s Iran (New York: Modern Library, 1999), 32. 69 Najmabadi, “The Erotic Vatan,” 462. 70 Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality,91–98; Agulhon, Marianne into Battle. Rewriting the Family Metaphor 107 these two Shahs and their emasculation in public discourse were discussed earlier). The next Qajar Shah, Mohammad Ali Shah, was despotic and much disliked, and his attempts to abolish the achievements of the Constitutional Revolution ended in his ousting in a popular revolt. His son, Ahmad Shah, the last of the Qajar dynasty, succeeded him when he was twelve, and actual rule was in the hands of a regent – Azad ol-Molk.71 All four monarchs were unfit to serve as the nation’s symbolic fathers, making it all the easier for the “sons of the nation” to take their place. All four were also the victims of a real or metaphorical patricide: Naser ol-Din Shah was murdered by a radical; Mozaffar ol-Din Shah was forced to relinquish his absolutist power and establish a constitution and an elected parliament just before his death; Mohammad Ali Shah was ousted in favor of his son; and Ahmad Shah was deposed following Reza Khan’s coup d’état. The crowned father reappeared in nationalist discourse during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlavi, who was repeatedly referred to as the nation’s father.72 There may be two explanations for the acceptance of the new father figure, with his hypermasculine image. One is the willingness of the political elite to cede some of its power and freedom in return for a strong reformist monarch who brought order and stability to the country after years of chaos, and acted to implement the reforms promoted by nationalist thinkers. In addition to his modernizing reforms, Reza Shah also served this elite’s interests by creating a state bureaucracy that employed many of the engineers, doctors, and educators who belonged to it. The other explanation has to do with the gradual change in family structure, which began among urban elite families, when nuclear families became more common and large households less so. The new structure was based on companionate marriage, and the father was not as overpowering as in traditional households (see Chapter 5). Women were more involved in the children’s upbring- ing and education. Furthermore, more boys remained in school for longer terms and received formal education, instead of being apprenticed by their fathers in the family business. Finally, different male authority figures gradually entered children’s lives – teachers,

71 Nikkie Keddie and Mehrdad Amanat, “Iran under the Later Qajars, 1848–1922,” in The Cambridge History of Iran, Vol. 7: From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic, ed. Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly, and Charles Melville (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 198–206. 72 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 128. 108 Gendering the Nation scoutmasters, and subsequently military commanders and employers – thus weakening the fathers’ authority. Under such conditions, imagining Reza Shah as the nation’s father might not imply unconditional and exclusive obedience of his subjects/sons, and allow (in principle if not in reality) for more political autonomy and authority on their side.

Pseudo-Patriots and the Western-Educated Elite During the Constitutional Revolution, nationalist, constitutional, and democratic ideas were not yet widespread. They took root among speciﬁc social groups: urban, Western-educated merchants, intellectuals, entrepreneurs, and bureaucrats. These elite groups made administrative, legal, commercial, and educational reforms a central theme in their nationalist discourse. At the same time, implementing these reforms would help secure their political power. The press and modern education cemented a coalition that supported a secular agenda focused on political reforms and patriotism. Alongside liberal clerics and bazaar merchants, Western-educated intellectuals, diplomats, and graduates of higher education institutions played an important role in introducing constitutional notions and mediating between the government and the constitutionalists.73 Reformist bureaucrats such as Amin ol-Dowleh, Moshir ol-Dowleh and his sons, and Mohtashem ol- Saltaneh, who were deeply involved in the drafting of Iran’s ﬁrst constitution, were more interested in limiting the Shah’s powers than in public participation in politics. They regarded the Iranian public as politically undeveloped and unsophisticated, and therefore unable to take advantage of a constitutionalist government.74 They also regarded men like themselves as the most worthy of participating in the new political scheme. Thus, although many constitutionalists were sympathetic of the poor and although the constitution introduced a radical change in the perceptions of the masses’ political rights, an elitist sentiment was prevalent among the constitutionalists.75

73 De Groot, Religion, Culture and Politics, 150, 156; Abbas Amanat, “The Constitutional Revolution: Intellectual Background,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/constitutional-revolution-i. 74 Janet Afary, “Civil Liberties and the Making of Iran’s First Constitution,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 25, no. 2 (2005): 464–465. 75 Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution,81–88. Pseudo-Patriots and the Western-Educated Elite 109

The transfer of political power and legitimacy from the Shah to the fraternal community of the nationalist movement entailed the exclusion of some social groups from power and legitimacy. Much like other revolutionary movements that adopted and used the notion of fraternity, Iranian constitutionalists excluded women, as well as certain groups of men, from full citizenship.76 The new imagined national community defined not only who was entitled to take part in the projects of nation building and citizenship, but also who was not.77 The crowds that participated in the Constitutional Revolution were not regarded by politicians as full-fledged participants and were not allowed to vote in the first and second Majles elections. They were deemed incapable of understanding the true meaning of the events in which they participated. Their demands for higher standards of living and freedom from the oppression of government representatives were channeled to political activism.78 This process took place despite the fact that the majority of Iranians who took an active part in the events of the revolution did not belong to the reformist elite. Men like Sattar Khan and his fellow lutis (see Chapter 1) led the armed resistance to Mohammad Ali Shah’s coup. Low-level clerics and bazaar merchants went on strike, demonstrated, and participated in basts. Women joined the bast in the British Lega- tion, demonstrated, and organized secret societies in Tehran, Isfahan, and other cities.79 Whereas some studies have pointed at ways in which the Iranian nationalist movement excluded women from political participation after the Constitutional Revolution and referred to the use of the fraternal metaphor as a tool for incorporating different ethnic and religious groups in the nation, the exclusion of certain groups of men from politics and citizenship has not been extensively studied.80 Alongside the zealous patriot, texts from the early twentieth century presented his foil – the pseudo-patriot. The pseudo-patriot was

76 Horne, “Masculinity in Politics and War,” 23. On the use of biological and medical discourse to prevent women’s participation in the political arena during the postrevolutionary period see Hunt, The Family Romance, 156–159. On the social contract as inherently patriarchal and reproductive of women’s subjection, see Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988). 77 De Groot, “The Dialectics of Gender,” 258. 78 Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution, 266. 79 Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 178–184. 80 Najmabadi, “The Erotic Vatan,” 459. 110 Gendering the Nation involved in politics for personal gain, thus harming the cause of the nationalist movement. As patriotism was now a required component of masculinity, the pseudo-patriot was implicitly emasculated. There are two distinct types of pseudo-patriots. The first is the aristocratic official, the Scavenger or “seller of the homeland” (vatan-forush) – corrupt, cruel, and inefficient. The second is the poor and ignorant social climber, who gets involved in politics to improve his social and financial status. These two figures are associated with specific social groups, thus implicitly endowing the patriot with a social distinction and an affiliation to the educated elite. One author in Tamaddon, for example, claims that “ninety-nine percent of the Iranian people know nothing about the meaning of constitutionalism and the benefits of liberty.” He then turns his criticism toward the members of parliament who “do not know what they were elected for by the people ... they act as they please and judge as they want for themselves and their relatives.” Next, he turns to the “Treacherous ministers, who do not know that they ... are of this nation ... and that their treachery harms not just one or two or a thousand people, but all the people alike ... It is therefore the duty of the writers ... to call these people to task.”81 Three distinct groups of Iranians are marked out here: the ignorant masses, the corrupt politicians, and the intellectuals, whose duty is to correct the ways of both other groups. The corrupt politicians are blamed for encouraging Western involvement in Iran, whether by selling concessions or inviting foreigners to act as high-level advisors.82 These officials are accused of neglecting their duty as the defenders of Iranian subjects. One author in Habl ol- Matin, for example, discusses the incident mentioned earlier in this chapter, in which the inhabitants of Urmia were murdered and pillaged by foreign troops. When senior government officials heard of these incidents,

The balls of the kingdom’s grandees did not break sweat, as though Iran were not their homeland and these miserable men and deﬁled women of the villages of Urmia were not their brothers and sisters in religion and nationality ... It is as though there is not one drop of good blood left in

81 “Ma’ayeb-e Kar Natayej-e Bi ‘Elmi Ast” (Harmful Acts Are the Result of Lack of Knowledge), in Tamaddon, April 3, 1907. 82 Quoted in Najmabadi, “The Erotic Vatan,” 462. Pseudo-Patriots and the Western-Educated Elite 111 their veins ...their sense of patriotism is dead and their power to act is gone; if the world were to melt, they would go to sleep ...Honor is gone, dignity is gone, namus is gone, the nation is trampled.83 Here, the inaction of the grandees attests not only to their lack of patriotism and solidarity, but also, explicitly, to their lack of masculinity. Lack of patriotic zeal in Qajar ofﬁcials and aristocrats manifests itself in corruption and the plundering of poor citizens. In The Travel Diary of Ebrahim Beg, the reformist character laments the existence of “at least two hundred possessors of great titles” whose sole ambition is to reach high positions, and who would not hesitate to take and give bribes for that purpose. He professes that those men are the sons and grandsons of traitors, who earned their positions due to their treason, and that they consider Iranian subjects as their property.84 Corruption is thus immanent in the aristocracy ‒ practically a hereditary trait. Another writer in Tamaddon notes the aristocracy’s deep-rooted and incurable (almost biological) corruption, rejecting even the possibility of their future redemption and reinclusion in Iran’s new political system:

Those people, who from their early life until now were arbitrary and had absolute rule and did as they pleased, destroying the houses of subjects and building their own parks, emptying the people’s wallets and filling their own coffers ... destroying the kingdom and ruining the nation ... it is obvious that this situation has become second nature in their blood and temperament and is sealed upon their heart. Obviously, while they still have life in their body and power in their limbs, they will never acquiesce to the constitutionalism of Iran, and will do all they can to destroy and disrupt the affairs of the Majles. Even if they swear and take a thousand oaths, they are not to be believed.85 The castigation of both the corrupt aristocracy and the ignorant masses by self-designated true patriots is apparent in the author’s reference to subjects who honor corrupt aristocrats as “sheep,” “walking dead,” and “spiritless” people who habitually bribe and flatter officials, whereas “today there is no more need to flatter any non-man.” While corrupt ministers and the rich are to blame for abusing the country and its people, the subjects themselves are partly

83 “Layeheh-ye Yeki az Daneshmandan,” in Habl ol-Matin, January 20, 1908. 84 Maraghe’i, The Travel Diary of Ebrahim Beg, 118–119. 85 “Gheyratmandi Minegarad,” in Tamaddon, June 16, 1907. 112 Gendering the Nation to blame for their own passivity and defeatism. The shepherds needed to enlighten those “sheep” include only men who are already enlightened themselves. The Qajar aristocracy, which held much of the socioeconomic and political power in Iran, posed a daunting challenge to educated nationalists. They were also threatened from below. Ironically, the very principle of public participation in politics, which granted the emerging elite some of its power, held the possibility of losing that very power to the lower strata. Therefore, some elite constitutionalists sought to limit the Shah’s power and to position themselves as leaders of the parliamentary system, but rejected notions of republicanism as unbefitting contemporary Iranian society.86 Such republican notions were promoted by the more radical factions of the Majles and by members of various revolutionary societies (anjomans), as well as by Caucasian revolutionaries influenced by the 1905 Revolution in Russia.87 Elite constitutionalists had succeeded in appropriating some of the power traditionally held by the Qajar court, but could just as well lose this newly acquired power. If the masses of poor Iranians were to participate in the political process in truly democratic fashion, nothing could guarantee that they would vote for the “right” candidates. Public participation therefore had to be curtailed. Hence the narrative of the self-serving and ignorant poor pseudo-patriot. If the old elites were deemed unworthy of political leadership because of their inherent corruption and reactionary values, the lower strata were denied political participation due to their assumed ignorance and passivity, as well as their opportunism. The most telling rendition of the poor and ignorant pseudo-patriot is that of Mullah Naser ol-Din, in the satirical serialized column The Conversations of Mullah Naser ol-Din with Sheikh Bohlul in Neda-ye Vatan. In the first part of the column in question, Naser ol-Din laments the peaceful times that followed the first success of the Constitutional Revolution. This probably refers to the July 1906 sit-in at the British Legation in Tehran. Organized and supported by bazaar merchants,

86 Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution, 264–265. A similar process is described by Chakrabarty regarding India. Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe,9–10. 87 The Iranian social-democratic group Ferqeh-ye Ejtema’iyun-e ‘Ammiyun, founded and active in Russian Azerbaijan, included universal (male?) suffrage in its program already in 1906. See Cosroe Chaqueri, The Russo-Caucasian Origins of the Iranian Left: Social Democracy in Modern Iran (Richmond: Curzon, 2001), 123. Pseudo-Patriots and the Western-Educated Elite 113

14,000 people took part in the bast, encamped in some 500 tents erected by the different guilds. The sitters were joined by students of Dar ol-Fonun who took the opportunity to preach their ideology to the protestors. It was the sit-in’s organizing committee that demanded the establishment of a national elected assembly.88 However, what Naser ol-Din relates to his friend the Sheikh concerns more mundane matters:

In the praised days at the embassy there was a free banquet going on ...Iwish that there won’t be quiet for another thousand years ...To hell with my country,inthedaysoftheembassyIwascomfortable,Ihadriceforlunch, rice for supper, free tea for the afternoon. Now that people have dispersed, Ican’t even get bread and yoghurt. Really, I wish there was always rice and that Ayn ol-Dowleh will be prime minister so that my belly will be full ... Sometimes I would walk from the tent of the cloth dealers to the tent of the seminary students, immediately white tea and a hookah were prepared. From there I went to the tent of the rozeh khwanha, there was a sherbet of Seville orange with ice, and for fun I would sometimes go to the tent of the middle- men where there was a sherbet with a syrup of quince and lemon.89 In the second part of the column, the Mullah asks the Sheikh to explain to him some of the new constitutionalist catchphrases, such as constitution (mashruteh), parliament (parlaman), law (qanun), liberty (azadi), and rights (hoquq), to help him gain access to free meals in the houses of the well-off, and be included in their conversation.90 Again, Naser ol-Din’s ignorance and his abuse of political action are brought to the fore, giving the impression that the affairs of the state are better left to those who truly understand them. The two types of pseudo-patriots are graphically represented in cartoons from the satirical newspaper Kashkul (Dervish’sBowl).InFigure 3.1,an audience dressed mostly in traditional attire is shouting, “We do not want!” At the bottom of the cartoon, the man dressed in Western garments asks a traditionally dressed man: “What is it that you do not want?” and the latter replies: “Wait a minute, I’ll go and ask my friends, I myself do not know.” The former then asks, “So why are you shouting?” In Figure 3.2, captioned “The deathbed of despotism,” the dying man, representing despotism, declares his imminent death. He is

88 Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran,43–44. 89 “Mozakerat Mollah Naser ol-Din ba Sheikh Bohlul,” in Neda-ye Vatan, December 27, 1906. 90 “Mozakerat Mollah Naser ol-Din ba Sheikh Bohlul,” Part 2, in Neda-ye Vatan, January 3, 1907. 114 Gendering the Nation

Figure 3.1 “We do not want!” (Kashkul, April 13, 1907)

Figure 3.2 The deathbed of despotism (Kashkul, August 10, 1907) Pseudo-Patriots and the Western-Educated Elite 115 surrounded by men of different social groups, discernible by their different dress. A clergyman states that there is no cause for alarm since he and other clergymen have declared the supporters of the constitution infidels, that the constitution has no future, and that eventually they themselves will be the leaders. The other figures express concern about their money or their lives, aware of the damage that they have caused the people. The cartoon singles out the internal enemies of the constitutional regime – those with vested interests in the old regime – suggesting that the former elites should be precluded from political leadership. Revealingly, these columns and cartoons were not written in hind- sight, but during the revolution itself, between 1906 and 1907. Mullah Naser ol-Din ruminates about the sit-in merely four months after its dispersal. Perhaps indicative of the ongoing controversy faced by the revolutionaries, however, this representation of a poor pseudo-patriot was still mobilized for their purposes years later. A famous literary piece centered on the figure of the simpleton-turned-politician is “The Political Figure” (Rajol-e Siyasi), a short story written by Seyyed Mohammad Jamalzadeh in 1918 and published in 1921 in his anthology Once Upon a Time. In this story, Sheikh Ja’far, a poor carder, observes how his formerly poor neighbor who has become a politician now makes a fortune. Goaded by his wife’s complaints, he decides to become a politician as well. When the opportunity arises, and a call is sounded to close the bazaar and gather around the parliament, the aspiring politician seizes it:

I couldn’t board up my shop fast enough to get out into the bazaar ...Before the present uproar, I had noticed what people would say at such times ... I shouted so much that you’d have to have been there to believe it. I was yelling, “Oh Iranians! O self-respecting Iranians! The nation is lost, how long will you stand for it? Union! Solidarity! Brotherhood! ...Either we die, become martyrs, and leave behind our good names, or survive and rid ourselves of this disgrace and shame! To arms, for pride! To arms, for Honor!”91 Sheikh Ja’far manages to gather around him a large crowd and, in a scene reminiscent of the cartoon discussed above, leads it to the

91 “The Political Figure,” in Muhammad Ali Jamalzadeh, Once Upon a Time (Yeki Bud Yeki Nabud), trans. Heshmat Moayyad and Paul Sparchman (New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1985), 46–47. 116 Gendering the Nation parliament building. He is then welcomed to the building, where he is promised that measures will be taken to satisfy the nation’s demands, despite the fact that he himself has not presented any. The next day, the newspapers are filled with Ja’far’s praise. His only regret is that neither he nor his wife can truly understand the meaning of the praise. Later on, the Sheikh is elected to parliament, but after a few months, he realizes that life would be more comfortable for him in a rural province, and finds himself a position there, where he can truly enjoy life. The argument for the exclusion of non-elite Iranians from the nationalist project was further justified by the repeated appeal to the need to educate them to patriotism, and cure them of their ignorance. Many reformers believed the establishment of a constitutionalist regime in Iran had to be preceded by education, because most Iranians were still unaware of the meaning of a constitution.92 As shown earlier, the emphasis placed on education in the reformist discourse marked two distinct groups: the educated and the uneducated. Before the uneducated could gain full citizenship, they had to obtain appropriate knowledge and the traits of patriotism. This claim rendered them, at least temporarily, unfit for political participation.93 Texts used by nationalist writers to attack the corruption and cruelty of certain Qajar officials carried an implicit message regarding their social inferiors as well. Descriptions of cases in which poor Iranian subjects were unable to defend the female members of their families cast doubt on their masculine honor. Their assumed inability to uphold their namus was designed not only to shock and mobilize their fellow men into action, but also to construct the difference between poor men incapable of defending their honor and elite patriotic men, those who may be trusted to read the articles and respond to their call for action. The latter are constructed in the image of the javanmard, whose role it is to defend the weak. To further drive this point home, the poor and the weak were cast in the feminized role of the damsel in distress, much like the women of the nation and the motherland itself.94 The story of

92 Martin, “State, Power and Long-Term Trends”; “Maktub Yeki az Daneshmandan,” in Neda-ye Vatan, November 10, 1907. 93 A similar notion regarding India’s readiness for universal suffrage was voiced by the British. See Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe,9–10. 94 Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet relates an article that discusses the need for a volunteer army. Its author suggests that future volunteers pay for their own uniforms and ammunition and expect nothing of the state. Thus, volunteering denotes social status. Put differently, the poor are excluded from patriotic zeal and action. Kashani-Sabet, Frontier Fictions, 130–131. Pseudo-Patriots and the Western-Educated Elite 117 the daughters of Quchan, as Najmabadi and Minoo Moallem point out, is not just about the helplessness of women and children, but about the unmanliness of the men who were supposed to protect them (and those who support the corrupt regime).95 The emasculation of these men is contrasted with the masculinity of the Iranian patriots who come to the aid of these poor men and act on their behalf, whether against the authorities or against Turkmen tribes. Thus, when summoning their readers to action, the writers imply that there are men in Iran such as themselves who are able to redeem the situation, men who can defend not only their own namus, but also that of their compatriots. The rhetorical exclusion of non-elite men from politics mirrored their actual exclusion in the electoral provisions of the first Iranian constitution. The first electoral law of 1906 divided the electorate into six estates (tabaqat): princes and members of the Qajar family, the clergy, notables, merchants, landowners and peasants, and guild members. Merchants and guild members were required to have a recognized place of business whereas landowners and peasants were required to own properties worth 1,000 tumans (approx. ₤200).96 To illustrate the economic meaning of the property qualifications, in 1892 the annual income of a warehouse or a workshop worker was 24 tumans, an inspector earned 60 tumans and a secretary 150.97 In 1907, a skilled mason or factory worker earned 3.5 krans a day, or approximately 100 tumans a year, and unskilled workers earned less than half.98 This meant that in Tehran, which at the time of the first elections had a population of about 250,000, there were no more than a few hundred voters in each estate. This situation hardly concerned the likes of author and journalist Nazem ol-Islam Kermani, who believed that only a few people in Tehran or the provinces understood the meaning of assembly, deputy, or elections.99

95 Najmabadi, Daughters of Quchan, 46; Moallem, Between Warrior Brother, 55. 96 Browne, The Persian Revolution of 1905–1909, 353–357. Property qualiﬁcation existed also in the Belgian constitution of 1831, which was one of the sources that informed the Iranian constitutionalists. Afary, “Civil Liberties,” 348. 97 Homa Nategh, Bazarganan Dar Dad-o Setad-e Bank-e Shahi va Rezhi-ye Tanbaku (Les Commercants La Banque Imperiale et La Regie Des Tabacs) (Paris: Khavaran, 1992), 111. 98 Amirahmadi, The Political Economy of Iran under the Qajars, 74. 99 Martin, Islam and Modernism, 102; Martin, “Constitutional Revolution: Events.” 118 Gendering the Nation

Representatives had to read and write Persian, a qualification that further excluded the vast majority of men, as the literacy rate was about 5 percent.100 The result, as Vanessa Martin noted, was a “government by a primary, assisted by a secondary, elite.”101 A Georgian activist who participated in the revolution even described its conclusion as the cooptation of revolutionary ideas by men of the elite, who thus succeeded in maintaining their privileged status.102 On the one hand, this exclusion of the lower strata served the interests of both the old and new elites. On the other, the mere idea that a small farmer or craftsman would be allowed to vote represented a radical shift in the political culture of the time. The existing structure of power made it impossible to exclude the old elites from politics. It is also worth noting that the new elite had its origins in these old elites and was very much connected to them. The first Majles convened in October 1906 included 156 representatives, of whom more than twenty had studied abroad, including the assembly’s first and second presidents.103 More than sixty were bazaaris – guild elders and merchants (including a relatively large number of non-elite representatives of smaller guilds); twenty-five were clerics; and some fifty were landlords, senior officials, and local notables.104 Some of the representatives were not considered “well-informed” enough by the constitutionalist reformers, and Mokhber ol-Saltaneh and other members of his family held meetings at their homes to teach those uninformed Majles members “lessons on constitutionalism.”105 The first cabinet, elected by the Majles in August 1907, was controlled by titled aristocrats.106 In the second electoral law of July 1, 1909, the estate system was revoked. Property qualifications were lowered so that voters had to

100 Martin, The Qajar Pact, 97; Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran,2. 101 Martin, “State, Power and Long-Term Trends.” 102 Moritz Deutschmann, “Cultures of Statehood, Cultures of Revolution: Caucasian Revolutionaries in the Iranian Constitutional Movement, 1906–1911,” Ab Imperio 2 (2013): 179. 103 Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 69. 104 Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 46. 105 Bayat, Iran’s First Revolution, 146. 106 These included Moshir ol-Dowleh, Head of the Cabinet and Minister of Interior; Foreign Minister Sa’d ol-Dowleh; French-educated Finance Minister Qavam ol-Dowleh; War Minister Mostowfi ol-Mamalek; Minister of Commerce Majd ol-Molk; Minister of Education Nayer ol-Molk; and French- educated Minister of Public Works Mohandes ol-Mamalek. Conclusions 119 own property worth at least 250 tumans, pay 10 tumans in taxes, or receive an annual income of 50 tumans. The property qualifications were completely cancelled only in the third electoral law of November 21, 1911, as support for the Democratic Party in the Majles increased.107 Despite the lowering of property qualifications before the second elections, and possibly because of the abolition of the estates system, the second Majles had a much larger proportion of members from elite circles: more than 80 percent of its members came from the nobility and from landowning, clerical, and government officials’ families.108 Thebiasoftheelectorallawsinfavor of the elites is demonstrated in a Majles discussion held on March 8, 1910, on the elections in Kerman-Baluchistan. These provincial elections were reported to have included (probably as possible candidates) only a group of aristocrats, merchants, and clerics, in violation of regulations. The provincial governor sent a telegram claiming that since in the entire counties of Bam and Narmashir there were not even ten literate men, it was impossible to hold the elections according to the regulations. This, apparently, was not an isolated case, and representative Haji Seyyed Nasrullah asked that regulations be drawn for such circumstances. Whereas some representatives accepted the governor’s claims, Hasan Taqizadeh of the Democratic Party argued that among the 200,000 inhabitants of Baluchistan there certainly were enough men who could read and write in Persian. Taqizadeh blamed the governor for not spreading the word about the elections among the Baluch, as he was not interested in having their representative in the Majles.109

Conclusions The Western-educated elite, with the exception of the social democrats, tried to exclude both the old elites and the majority of Iranian men, and all Iranian women, from its newly acquired political power. To do so,

107 Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 325; Arjomand, “Constitutional Revolution: The Constitution.” 108 Universal suffrage was sometimes exploited by landlords who would force their peasants to vote according to their wishes Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 262–263. 109 Majles Minutes, 2nd Session, 62nd meeting, pp. 2–3. 120 Gendering the Nation its writers depicted both the aristocracy and the poor as unpatriotic and as potentially abusing the right to participate in politics. By casting the aristocracy as corrupt and cruel and the masses as ignorant and self-serving, these constitutionalists positioned themselves as the only segment of society worthy of political leadership. Since patriotism was constructed as an essential part of an emerging hegemonic masculinity, stripping certain groups of men of their patriotism meant excluding them not only from political power but also from the realm of hegemonic masculinity. This did not mean, however, that the old elites were actually excluded from leadership and political power. As shown above, both the first and second Majles numbered many members of the clergy, the landed aristocracy, and wealthy bazaar merchants alongside members of the emerging Western-educated elite and some non-elite representatives. The Constitutional Revolution was but one of the first steps of men of this elite toward political hegemony. Thus, social positioning and nationalism converged in the power relations constructing the hegemonic masculinity of the Constitutional Revolu- tion period. Iranian nationalist writers used various tropes of masculinity to mobilize those they deemed worthy of inclusion in the new political system. The nationalist press associated patriotism with the familiar masculine traits of zeal, honor, and ambition and endowed them with new meaning. “Real men” were now expected to act for the cause of the nationalist movement. All the rest were considered nonmen, women, or even worse than women, and were disparaged for their inability to protect the nation – imagined as a violated mother – against the foreign invaders. This metaphor also facilitated the transition of political power from the monarch-patriarch to the leaders of the nationalist movement, imagined as a brotherhood. The cooptation of patriotism and nationalist zeal into hegemonic masculinity also assisted in preserving women’s inferior status. Female patriotism was defined in a different fashion from male patriotism. While men were called on to shed blood, take bast, and participate in elections as voters or representatives, women’s patriotism was mostly limited to the passive support of men. In the nationalist discourse, women appeared mostly as symbols, objects to be defended in order to safeguard male honor. When incidents of women’s fighting or protests are reported in the press, it is usually to shame men whose lack of action forced women to act in a manly fashion. Zeal, initiative, Conclusions 121 and honor paired with patriotism were explicitly male traits and were not expected of women, whose patriotism could be perceived as inherently lacking, which made it easier to deny them equal political rights. Like Western education and knowledge, the changes in perceptions and discourses of hegemonic masculinity served certain men’s hegemony over both women and other groups of men. 4 Farangimaabs and Fokolis |Masculinities and Westernization from the Constitutional Revolution to Reza Shah

At the turn of the twentieth century, men who displayed westernized appearance were becoming increasingly visible in the urban landscape of Iran. Though still a tiny minority, growing numbers of elite youth were exposed to and adopted some aspects of a Western lifestyle through travel abroad, modern education, and commercial exchanges. Many Western-educated men gained political power after the Consti- tutional Revolution as Majles representatives, ministers, and diplomats and contributed extensively to the press, drama, and literature. The political and cultural clout of such men conflated with their distinct style and social conduct. The growing visibility and power of this elite – and the new model of masculinity it introduced to Iran – made westernized men the focal point of a heated debate. The debate around westernization alternated between recognition of the positive value of reforms inspired by the West and fear of losing Iran’s authenticity as a result of blind imitation of Western culture. Importantly, praise of westernization and apprehension about it were both articulated in gendered terms. At the center of this debate often stood a new model of subordinate masculinity: the superficially westernized man, known as farangimaab or fokoli. This figure was contrasted with the “properly” westernized man – usually a member of the elite educated in the West who succeeded in appropriating the benefi- cial aspects of Western culture without losing his Iranian identity. The manhood of the superficially westernized man was depicted as a threat to Iran’s national and social characteristics, as well as to respectable sexuality. The fact that the fokoli often looked very much like the appropriately westernized man made his categorization and marking crucial for hegemonic men who wished to dissociate themselves from him. Both types of men were visible in Iranian cities, which themselves were acquiring a more Western appearance. They were described strolling in the boulevards at leisure, riding trams, gazing at the new display windows and lurking by gas lanterns.

122 The Westernization of Urban Space and Its Dwellers 123

Positions in the debate around westernized men may not be described as simply pro- or anti-Western, however. Conventionally, participants in the discussion attempted to find a middle ground between overall westernization and the preservation of traditional values. In a manner similar to that described by Partha Chatterjee, some aspects of Western culture and life were deemed worthy of adoption (such as ideologies, political structures, science, technology, and other aspects of the “outer domain” seen by reformists as the source of Western power), whereas certain elements of the Iranian “inner domain” (most notably Persian and Shiite Islam) were to be preserved and defended against Western influence.1 This chapter follows the complexities of this discussion between the closing years of the nineteenth century and the third decade of the twentieth. It demonstrates how the image and practices of westernized men changed under the influence of historical developments such as Iran’s changing status vis-à-vis the Western powers, the intensified penetration of Western products and technologies into Iran’s urban environment and the growing sociocultural hegemony of westernized elite men. It further illustrates how daily practices of Europeanized dress and behavior became the emblems of “proper” or “improper” westernization and of hegemonic and subordinate masculinity, respectively, and how moral judgments attached to these practices depended not only on their extent, but also, and even more, on the status of those practicing them.

The Westernization of Urban Space and Its Dwellers Modernizing reforms in nineteenth-century Iran included, among others, the construction of communications networks such as the telegraph, urban development (paved streets, new architecture, new neighborhoods), reorganization of the military and postal service and building new schools. But changes expanded beyond infrastructure to touch on aspects of everyday life such as dress, food, and hygiene. Some of the earliest modernizing reforms were initiated as a result of Iran’s military defeats during the ﬁrst half of the nineteenth century. For example, adoption of Western apparel in the army began as early

1 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993). 124 Farangimaabs and Fokolis

Figure 4.1 Amir Nezam Garusi (Photo album by Ali Khan Vali Qajar, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University) as 1807, when the French Military Mission introduced jackets in Western style in the Iranian units it trained, making military men the ﬁrst to wear Western clothes in Iran. By 1879, some military units were dressed in full European uniforms, after the Austrian fashion.2 In Figure 4.1, we see ofﬁcer, diplomat and politician Amir Nezam Garusi (1820–1900) wearing an overcoat and epaulet. Under the military coat he wears a bowtie, trousers, and shoes, all in Western style. To counter the relaxed impression conveyed by the rocking chair, he takes an upright position, holding his silver-headed walking stick, another emblem of modern fashion, for extra stability. His headgear, however, is the conspicuous Qajar cone-shaped hat and the carpet at his feet is similarly Persian.

2 Stephanie Cronin, “Army: Qajar Period,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 2011, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/army-vii-qajar. In the Ottoman Empire as well, soldiers were the ﬁrst to wear European-style garments. See John Norton, “Faith and Fashion in Turkey,” in Languages of Dress in the Middle East, ed. Nancy Lindisfarn-Tapper and Bruce Ingham (Richmond: Curzon, 1997), 152–153. The Westernization of Urban Space and Its Dwellers 125

In 1873, government reforms decreed Western-style dress, including the sardari and Qajar hat, as required for government officials.3 The reforms were introduced by Prime Minister Mirza Hosein Khan Moshir ol-Dowleh (1828–1881) before Naser ol-Din Shah’s first visit to Europe in 1873, and it has been suggested that they were implemented to make the Iranian retinue’s dress less conspicuous to Euro- pean eyes.4 By 1893, the frock coat became common, but the tight- fitting European style was deemed indecorous, and the Persian version was therefore based on Turkish models with pleats at the waist and wider sleeves.5 Writing in the late nineteenth century, American missionary Samuel G. Wilson observes that Iranian officials have replaced their robes with coats and trousers, similar to those worn in Europe, albeit with a “greater fullness” in the skirt of the coat.6 Another Western observer laments the spread of European fashion among Iranians, disdainfully commenting on “this gathering of Young Per- sians all clad in the long black frock-coats, out of fashion and badly cut, that detracted so painfully from their looks and gave them the appearance of coloured people – which they are not!”7 The changes in dress did not go unnoticed in the Iranian press, which compounded them with other changes in material culture that became quite apparent from as early as the 1880s. In a letter sent to Akhtar from Tabriz, the writer opines that “There are obvious changes in every aspect between Iran’s conditions thirty or forty years ago and its current conditions. Whether in food and dress, or in tastes, utensils, rugs, houses, buildings and gardens or in weapons and military issues.”8 Another reader, writing eighteen years later to Habl ol-Matin, comments that Western objects and products have become part of everyday “habits, refreshments, luxuries and tools of beautification

3 Patricia L. Baker, “Politics of Dress: The Dress Reform Laws of 1920/30s Iran,” in Languages of Dress in the Middle East, ed. Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper and Bruce Ingham (Richmond: Curzon, 1997), 179. Full details of the edited volume appear in fn. 2. 4 Nashat, The Origins of Modern Reform in Iran, 1870–1880, 155. 5 Layla S. Diba, “Clothing in the Safavid and Qajar Period,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/clothing-x. 6 Samuel Graham Wilson, Persian Life and Customs (New York: AMS Press, 1973), 183. 7 Eustache De Lorey and Douglas Sladen, The Moon of the Fourteenth Night: Being the Private Life of an Unmarried Diplomat in Persia during the Revolution (London: Hurst & Blackett, 1910), 117. 8 “Maktub az Tabriz” (A Letter from Tabriz), in Akhtar, January 14, 1880. 126 Farangimaabs and Fokolis and desire, for example Russian cigarettes, sugar, tea and French shoes, crystal dishes, haberdashery, European taffeta and fabric.”9 Already in 1890, British traveler Isabella Bird notices that in Tehran the bazaars are “piled” with foreign merchandise, almost to the exclusion of local goods, and that Iranians wear high-quality fabrics manufactured in Austria, Germany, England, and Russia.10 Bird notices similar trends in Isfahan, where: “It is the paradise of Manchester and Glasgow cottons: woolen goods come from Austria and Germany, glass from Austria, crockery from England, candles and kerosene represent Russia.”11 Iranian products were in a disadvantage, particularly compared to British and Russian imports protected against local tariffs. Acquiescence to the two powers’ economic pressure harmed local, traditional industry and became the subject of one of the griev- ances voiced by the Iranian nationalist movement.12 The extent to which foreign goods inﬁltrated the local markets and the antagonism they engendered among Iranian patriots may be gleaned from an opinion piece published in 1900 in Habl ol-Matin:

Now, despite this declaration of piety, all the clothes that you wear are from cotton and wool fabrics of the inﬁdels. And it is unclear whether they are of wool or cotton. And with this impure and inauspicious cloth that the devil hangs from each of its threads, you say your prayers ... Furthermore, misfortune is so [great] that even the shrouds of our dead have to be made out of these ill-boding fabrics. And every year we waste amounts of good and pure money on the cost of impure coffee and tea.13 Foreign dress is presented not only as unpatriotic, but also as a mark of religious inﬁdelity. Another author asks his readers how they will face God on Judgment Day: “What will you answer Him when in your shroud it is written ‘Abdallah Eliyahu Sassoon’ [probably meaning Abdallah/Albert and Elias Sassoon], or ‘Haql Shamul’ or ‘David Sas- soon’? This is proof and evidence of becoming Jewish and

9 “Raje’ beh Falsafeh-ye Eslam” (Regarding Islam’s Philosophy), in Habl ol- Matin, February 10, 1908. 10 Isabella Bird, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan (London: Virago Press, 1988/ 1891), 185–186. 11 Ibid., 267. 12 Russian and British goods were exempted from import duties as well as from inner tariffs, following the treaties of Golestan (1813), Turkmenchai (1828), and Paris (1857), all signed after Iranian military defeats. See Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran,36–37. 13 “Beza’at-e Mozajat” (Some Capital), in Habl ol-Matin, November 19, 1900. The Westernization of Urban Space and Its Dwellers 127

Christian.”14 The Sassoon family, of Jewish Baghdadi origins, established a firm in India and China, which imported fabrics from Britain to the Far East. The mention in these texts of shrouds made of impure fabric may refer to the Shiite belief that Jews and Christians are impure (najes) and their touch can defile cloth. The consumption of Western goods was intertwined with the adoption of everyday practices, such as the use of cutlery and Western chairs and tables. These were encouraged during the 1870s by reformers such as Moshir ol-Dowleh, who not only introduced chairs and tables at Cabinet meetings, but also held special sessions to guide Iranian grandees in using cutlery.15 The extent to which these novelties found their way into the houses of the Iranian elite is evident from European travel literature as well as contemporary photographs.16 The most prominent accessory is the chair. Whereas thrones and elaborate chairs of state had been known in Iran since antiquity, in traditional Iranian households people would sit either on carpets or on large pillows. Adopted by aristocrats only during the nineteenth century, chairs were often reserved for European guests, while their hosts preferred sitting on rugs and cushions. During the late nineteenth century chairs became more commonplace in elite households, but were still considered distinctly “Western.”17 Carmen Perez Gonzalez suggests that chairs were the emblems of Western norms and styles adopted by Iranian photographers. Their inclusion in studio portraits, much like studio props or the adoption of Victorian static and frontal poses, points to the influence of Western photographers. Iranian photographers made chairs their own by using them in ways that were different from their original purpose. For example, chairs were sometimes used as stands for flowerpots, or with the subject seated in a kneeling position.18 Ali Behdad adds that educated Iranian men used chairs and other markers of modernity

14 “Taqrir-e Jenab-e Haji Sheikh Mohsen Va’ez Iraqi Molaqqab beh ‘Alaa al- Mohadethin” (The Story of Mr. Haji Sheikh Mohsen Va’ez Iraqi aka ‘Alaa al- Mohadesin), in Habl ol-Matin, December 31, 1900. 15 Nashat, The Origins of Modern Reform, 156. 16 See for example Bird, Journeys in Persia, 104–105. Perez Gonzalez suggests that the introduction of chairs into Iranian portrait photography may have preceded their spread in actual households: Perez Gonzalez, Local Portraiture, 121. 17 Samuel R. Peterson, “Chairs and Change in Qajar Times,” in Continuity and Change in Modern Iran, ed. Michael E. Bonine and Nikkie Keddie (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1980), 383–390. 18 Perez Gonzalez, Local Portraiture, 182–184. 128 Farangimaabs and Fokolis

Figure 4.2 Qasem Khan, 1897 (Photo album by Ali Khan Vali Qajar, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University)

(Western suits, clocks, binoculars, cars) to self-fashion themselves in their portraits as modern, progressive, and enlightened. The photographic medium in and of itself was part of this self-fashioning, con- ferring their higher social status.19 The fact that chairs are emblematic of modern masculinity may also be deduced from their relative scarcity in photographs of men in religious roles such as mullahs and seminary students, which often represent them seated on the floor. In Figure 4.2 we see nineteen-year-old Qasem Khan (1878–1935) on his return from Paris. The son of Ali Khan Vali, who took the photograph, he was the first Iranian officer to graduate from Saint Cyr. The chair, desk, and book mark Qasem Khan as a member of the Western- educated elite. His dress, which includes an official robe, a high collar, a polka-dotted cravat, and a pocket-watch chain, intensifies this impression. In Figure 4.3, not only the men’s attire points to their westernized inclination, but also the chairs and side tables. Alongside the richness of Western objects, Persian artifacts symbolizing Iran’s traditional crafts and cultural heritage form part of the background of

19 Behdad, Camera Orientalis, 116. The Westernization of Urban Space and Its Dwellers 129

Figure 4.3 Mirza Ali Akbar Khan’s family, Tehran (Photo album by Ali Khan Vali Qajar, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University) many photographs. Other motifs such as plants and fruits are borrowed from traditional paintings and miniatures. The visibility of both Western and Iranian objects in ritualized photographs of Iranian men demonstrates the gradual and piecemeal adoption of such objects, practices, and appearance. This became an essential component of the new masculine model: Western-educated men not only appropriated modern knowledge and nationalism, they also changed their appearance in a manner that conveyed their education and ideologies. Apart from the spread of Western products, the urban environment absorbed forms of westernization, especially in Tehran. After Naser ol- Din Shah’s return from Europe, the old city’s walls were demolished and new ones were built, quadrupling the capital’s size. Several main avenues were paved in the style of European boulevards, with foot- paths and trees, creating a new urban layout. The new city center included venues and spaces for leisure and shopping, such as the Grand Hotel Salon, and modern shops with glass display windows and Euro- pean names, which encouraged strolling in the wide streets.20 Visiting the city in 1890, Bird commented unfavorably that the city resembled

20 Marashi, Nationalizing Iran,32–33. 130 Farangimaabs and Fokolis

“the slums of a new American city, with cafés and saloons, barbers’ shops, and European enormities such as gazogenes and effervescing waters in several windows.”21 A similar, though more favorable contemporary impression is given by Wilson, who commented on the “Broad avenues, well paved and bordered with shade-trees, new styles of houses ... phaetons and carriages, telegraph-poles and tramways, street gas-lamps and the electric light, restaurants, drug-stores, photograph galleries, and Frangi stores.”22 Lalehzar Street became a stage on which new objects for consumption were presented and an entirely new repertoire of urban practices and forms of behavior developed. The following description, taken from Ja’far Shahri’s history of Tehran, contains a highly detailed heterosocial scene in the new urban setting:

In the afternoon, groups of joyous people turned to this street, since other than looking at the tall and excellent buildings and chic and luxury shops that existed there, the most gay and jolly ladies and the handsomest and most attractive boys [pesaran] also headed there during these hours, and the most chicly dressed men and most à-la-mode lads were seen in this street. Long tailcoats, narrow collars and tight demi-saisons, with tight trousers and shirts with white starched collars that the strap of the cravat surrounding them was visible, with cardboard felt hats that the fokolis, the rich and the well-dressed men wore were seen in this street ... Also seen in this street were the clothes of the children of the wealthy, the aristocracy, and the hajis who slowly came out of their labadeh, sardari, qaba and moradbegi [types of traditional overcoats] and their leather and woolen hats and small turbans, and their open leather shoes and giveh, maleki and ajideh [traditional shoes]. Their jackets were short, tight around the waist of black British wool, their trousers were tight of white ﬂannel and they had bowler hats. Together with newly arrived shoes of varnished leather and bicolor suede, with gaiters worn above the foot. [They had] a pocket square and held a walking stick, wore a monocle and tied a cravat. The chain of their pocket watch hung like a crescent from the button of their vest pocket and they wore strong perfumes.23 Shahri describes a city at the height of a westernization process, with men taking advantage of the afternoon stroll to parade their wealth

21 Ali Akbar Dehkhoda's encyclopedic dictionary was published starting 1939. Bird, Journeys in Persia, 180. 22 Wilson, Persian Life and Customs, 149–150. 23 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 278–282. The Westernization of Urban Space and Its Dwellers 131

Figure 4.4 Tehran Gaz Street, circa 1890 (Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973–1985, FSA A.4 2.12.Up.06) and adherence to European fashion, which mark them off as radically different from other men, or indeed from how they themselves used to dress. Being considered an attractive, elegant and handsome young man now depended on donning European dress. Strolling was only one of several new forms of movement in Iranian urban space. Another form was riding in street cars. Figure 4.4, a photograph of Cheragh Gaz (Gas Lamp) Street by Antoin Sevruguin, shows this modern means of transportation in Tehran: the horse-drawn street car. Street cars were owned by Euro- pean companies and were often used by urban women, because they allowed both comfort and segregation. While the first street car in Sevruguin’s photograph is occupied by veiled women, the second car and the street are occupied entirely by men. The photograph was taken in front of the street’s namesake, the Gas Lamp Factory, one of Iran’s first modern factories. As shown, changes in everyday practices and in the urban landscape were sometimes prescribed by court and government officials such as Moshir ol-Dowleh or Naser ol-Din Shah. They were later supplemented by private initiatives of elite men who had either traveled to Europe or studied abroad. Whereas during the early nineteenth century students who donned Western clothes while in Europe abandoned them on 132 Farangimaabs and Fokolis their return to Iran, in the early twentieth century they were retained.24 Furthermore, by that time Western attire was common enough to earn its wearers a special epithet. And it is against the backdrop of the visible material changes and the practices discussed above that the appearance of a new model of a westernized Iranian masculinity was given a name.

Farangimaab Until the beginning of the twentieth century, the borrowing or adaptation of Western ideas and practices were hardly challenged by reformist writers. For example, in 1881 an aristocrat who held an official reception and seated his guests at a westernized dinner table in his westernized house was considered not only “progressive” (taraqqi khwah)and“civilized” (madaniyyat dust), but also a benefactor who blessed the country with “a thousand kinds of blessings.”25 Conservatives’ fears of imitating Western practices, often epitomized in the use of cutlery, were severely criticized. An article published in 1881 noted that “apeoplethatpro- nounces an infidel one who, out of cleanliness, eats rice with a spoon ... will never progress, and will remain in absolute ignorance forever.”26 The acquisition of Western knowledge and technology, even at the price of breaking religious prohibitions, was sometimes justified on national grounds: You say, what need is there for a Muslim to eat forbidden food and wear impure [clothes] abroad for eight years, because somebody wants to study the new sciences ...I say that if somebody for the duration of eight years has done these forbidden things that you say, and after returning he has freed a nation from [dependency on] a certain foreign discipline or craft, then what is wrong with that?27 Another strategy of dealing with criticism of westernization was to present the adopted Western practices or ideologies as having Iranian origins. Western dress and table manners, as well as political concepts and terms such as “republic” and “constitution,” were attributed to ancient Iran, whence they had supposedly travelled to Europe only to be forgotten by the Iranians themselves.28

24 Menashri, Education, 69. 25 “Kaghaz az Tehran” (A Letter from Tehran), in Akhtar, February 16, 1881. 26 “Varaqeh-ye Digar” (Another Article), in Akhtar, May 11, 1881. 27 “Beza’at-e Mozajat,” in Habl ol-Matin, November 19, 1900. 28 Tavakoli-Targhi, “Refashioning Iran,” 83–84; Marashi, Nationalizing Iran, 55; and Schayegh, “The Social Relevance of Knowledge,” 947. The Westernization of Urban Space and Its Dwellers 133

By the last decade of the nineteenth century, the foreign intervention had already caused serious upheavals in Iran, such as the Tobacco Revolt of 1891–1892 and other calls to boycott of foreign goods. But the West was not yet perceived as an imminent threat to Iranian identity. The word “Westernizer” or Farangimaab – literally, one who leans toward that which is Western – first appeared during the last few years of the century. During the early period of its usage, the term was not employed to describe a specific type of man, but was an adjective describing people who considered the West to be superior to Iran, and even objects and entities such as “westernized” science.29 At that time, the term was occasionally used in a positive and neutral tone as well. A positive rendition of a farangimaab is the “honorable presence” in The Travel Diary of Ebrahim Beg, described as “the essence of manliness and humanity; the original meaning of honor and patriotism.” His acquaintance with Western culture and habits is first evident from his insistence on seating his guest in a chair and not on the floor. More importantly, the “honorable presence” possesses a library of law books in several languages, and is working on a comparison of European and Islamic law, declaring some laws compatible with Islam, and others in need of change.30 Later, in the early twentieth century, westernized men gradually became conspicuous in Iranian cities. Modern education and travel to Europe which, as shown in Chapter 2, became the sine qua non of an emerging hegemonic masculinity, resulted not only in appropriation of Western knowledge and ideologies, but also in the adoption of Western appearance and manners. This westernized habitus is referred to in the Dehkhoda Dictionary’sdefinition of farangimaab as someone who not merely leans toward the West ideologically but as “a person who in his behavior and actions adopts westernerners’ ways, someone who lives like a European.”31 A good example of how travel abroad engendered such changes may be found in the autobiography of Isa Sadiq. When Sadiq was sent to

29 “Maktub Yeki az Motabahherin” (A Letter from an Erudite), in Habl ol-Matin, February 18, 1901. 30 Maraghe’i, The Travel Diary of Ebrahim Beg,92–99. 31 Farangimaab: https://dictionary.abadis.ir/?lntype=dehkhoda,fatofa,moeen, amid&word=%D9%81%D8%B1%D9%86%DA%AF%DB%8C%20% D9%85%D8%A2%D8%A8. 134 Farangimaabs and Fokolis study in Europe, his initiation began on his journey to the Iranian port of Anzali. The man in charge of the few youths about to leave for Europe taught them how to use a knife and a fork. The students changed from their traditional dress to European clothes, and donned jackets, waistcoats, detachable collars, and neckerchiefs, as well as Qajar hats. Later on, when already in Paris, Sadiq and his colleagues asked their supervisor to provide them with European hats, since their Iranian hats were the object of disrespectful attention.32 Mehdi Bazargan tells a similar story. When the winners of the competition for studies in Europe were assembled at the Ministry of Education in 1928, in the early years of Reza Shah’s reign, wearing uniformed dark-grey suits and the Pahlavi hats (see Chapter 6), they were taught how to tie a cravat, as out of a hundred students, only four or five had cravats at the time. When they were later invited to an official royal dinner, the food and tableware were ordered from Café London, and that was the first time the students had seen such food and cutlery.33 Having imported the foreign ways to Iran, men with Western education were easily distinguishable by their appearance. Bazargan describes the dress style of his brother and modern friends as follows:

Men such as these wore a jacket and trousers, a tie and perfume. Over the jacket they wore a thin black gown [‘aba] that was considered more or less the connecting line between the old ways and the modern. Chic people and distinguished men also held a thin cane called a walking stick [ta’limi]. The head cover was a cardboard hat with black felt; its cylinder was shaped to resemble a cone. [The hat] was also thought of as keeping the link with being Iranian and Muslim and not becoming a European.34 This description seems characteristic of a time of transition: Western male dress was already accepted in parts of society, but the need to keep the ties to former Iranian appearance was also strong. The combination of westernized and traditional dress and objects is apparent in photographs from the period. Since the hat was a man’s most important item, preserving its non-westernness had particular signiﬁ- cance. This typical hat – alongside the cane, trousers, detachable collar, and tie – is visible in Figures 4.2, 4.3,and4.5. Another recurring icon of modernity is the pocket watch chain and the clock (visible in

32 Sadiq, Yadegar-e Omr, vol. 1, 44–51. 33 Bazargan, Khaterat-e Bazargan, 149. 34 Ibid.,53–54. The Westernization of Urban Space and Its Dwellers 135

Figure 4.5 Group portrait (Photo album by Ali Khan Vali Qajar, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University)

Figure 4.5). Until 1927, the usage of temporal hours, which divided each day into twenty-four equal units that began at sunset, was still common.35 The watch, dividing the day irrespective of the sunset, was associated with European punctuality, which became more important with the introduction of modern factories and trains. Thus, men who wore watches displayed not only their wealth but also adherence to a modern perception of time, acquired in the modern schools. Next to such tokens of modernity, Figure 4.5 presents us with the lacquer pencil box held by the second man from the left – an early Qajar status symbol denoting education and formal position. As Behdad notes, the inclusion of Iranian objects such as carpets, Persian script, or, in this case, a pencil box, attests to the sitters’ attempt to fashion an indigenous Iranian form of modernity. However, the hierarchy of objects in the photograph (clock placed at the center, alongside crystal dishes with fruits, and a lace tablecloth whereas the pencil box is partially hidden at the back) can attest to the higher position of Western objects in the hierarchy of taste among Iranian elite families.36

35 Touraj Atabaki, “Time, Labor Discipline and Modernization,” in The State and the Subaltern: Modernization, Society and the State in Turkey and Iran, ed. Touraj Atabeki (London: I. B. Tauris, 2007), 6–15. 36 Behdad, Camera Orientalis, 123. 136 Farangimaabs and Fokolis

Another example of the combination of Western and Iranian appearance is Isa Sadiq’s references to shaving. When in France, Sadiq grew used to shaving once every two days. When he moved to Britain, he adopted the English habit of shaving every day.37 On his way back to Iran, he could not shave for several days due to the train’s movements. An Iranian merchant recommended that he keep his face unshaved since: “Your work is at the Ministry of Education, and in Iran, a teacher with beard is loved and respected more and has greater influence on the student.” Despite the discomfort of not shaving, and after receiving similar advice from ministry officials, Sadiq kept his beard and Iranian hat but continued to wear Western clothes.38 The high visibility of westernized men in the still mostly unmod- ernized Iranian society attracted negative attention. Reformist writers attempted to deflect this criticism by dubbing critics reactionary enemies of progress. The use of farangimaab in a negative connotation, to reject any kind of Western influence, was satirized in newspapers such as Habl ol-Matin. In the following dialogue, published in 1900, between a progressive and a conservative, the latter uses farangimaab derogatorily to support his resistance to modern education:

I don’t know geography, and for example don’t know the distance from here to Tehran and I don’t know on which spot on the globe Tehran is located. Dear Sir, now that I don’t know – what damage has it caused me? My dear man, a person should know his religious affairs well – there, there, tomorrow we fall and die, and will have to answer to the angels questioning the dead. For the life of you, I’m annoyed with those people whom I hear nowadays send their children to this school that was recently established in Bushher ... since they will all become westernized. I swear on your death, a person coming from one of the villages, it is best that he would know his praise of God and Quran verses well. Let go of this nonsense – to hell with all westernizers!39 In similar vein, another author supposedly quotes a conversation overheard between a religious seminary student and a pupil in a modern school. The former tells the latter that what he learns at the modern school is “westernized science.” The child answers that in his

37 Sadiq, Yadegar-e Omr, 110. 38 Ibid., 175–176. 39 “Beza’at-e Mozajat,” in Habl ol-Matin, November 5, 1900. The Westernization of Urban Space and Its Dwellers 137 school he learns not just geography, geometry, and the new sciences but also grammar and the translation of God’s words and other literary and religious sciences. He asks: “If these are westernized sciences then what are Muslim sciences?”40 The writers cited here all present the farangimaab’s critics not only as uneducated and ignorant, but also as bad Iranians and Muslims. In the ﬁrst example, the conservative does not know Iran’s most basic geography, a serious failing in the eyes of a nationalist. Moreover, he deems this type of knowledge unnecessary. In the second quote, the pupil at the modern school demonstrates his knowledge of Islamic sciences, in addition to Western science. In a move of reverse logic, the criticism against the farangimaab becomes an argument in his favor, and previously venerated religious knowledge is associated with ignorance and backwardness. The patriotism of the farangimaab and its lack among the ignorant and conservative pseudopatriots is similarly evident in The Conversa- tions of Mullah Naser ol-Din with Sheikh Bohlul mentioned in Chapter 3. When Mullah Naser ol-Din inquires about concepts such as “constitution,” he comments that “the westernizers have recently spread these few words among the people.”41 Here the westernizers promote Iran’s nationalist cause, of which the mullah is completely ignorant, and the farangimaabs are again portrayed as better Iranians. The hostile approach of conservatives who rejected Western notions and practices may be found in the serialized column “Hekayat Ham- mam Jennyian” discussed earlier in this book. For example, the aunt who has rejected the suggestion to install modern toilets in her house demonstrates her lack of national awareness and hypocrisy in regard to Western imports. The boy who has made that suggestion points out that when it comes to Western velvet, ﬂoral sashes, handkerchiefs, and the like, she has no problem spending large amounts of money on them.42 In another passage, religious faith and philosophy are yet again interwoven with daily practices and objects to project the critics’

40 “Maktub Yeki az Motabahherin,” in Habl ol-Matin, February 18, 1901. 41 “Baqiyyeh-ye Mozakerat Molla Naser ol-Din ba Sheikh Bohlul” (The Conversations of Mullah Naser ol-Din with Sheikh Bohlul – Continued), in Neda-ye Vatan, January 3, 1907. 42 “Hekayat Hammam Jenniyan,” in Tamaddon, April 4, 1908. 138 Farangimaabs and Fokolis image of the farangimaab. This is how the progressive father describes allegations made against reformist men:

Ay! So-and-so is a Sufi. Hay! So-and-so is a Sheikhi. Oh! So-and-so is a Babi. Hay! So-and-so is a fokoli. Ho! So-and-so is a farangimaab ...That one, his beliefs are corrupt. This one, his mustache is long. That one, his turban is small. This one, his cleric’s shoes became regular shoes [na’leynash orsi shodeh]. That one has strayed from the path of wise people. This one does not wear the clothes of clerics ...That one does not apply henna to his beard and mustache. This one does not dye his beard black. That one does not depilate. This one does not shave his head. That one befriends infidels. This one knows an infidel tongue. That one wears tight trousers. This one bought a pleated overcoat. Oy Oy! That one is so evil that he shaves his beard every day. That one is so cursed that, oh no, oh dear, he wears perfume on his face.43 Religious deviance is directly linked to the abandonment of accepted masculine practices such as the usage of henna, the dying of the beard, and depilation,44 and to the adoption of Western appearance (tight trousers, shaving) and Western knowledge. Outward appearance is not merely a matter of fashion, but is an arena on which cultural, political, and ideological battles take place, so much so that accusing someone of shaving his beard becomes tantamount to blaming him of heresy. This extreme approach is parodied in the unending chain of abuses peppered with traditional exclamation sounds, in a manner that conveys the opposite message. The turn-of-the-century appearance of the term farangimaab testifies to the growing prominence and visibility of westernized men, display- ing a new type of masculinity. Westernization became a source of friction between different groups of men and different segments of society. Whereas members of the westernized elite defended the process as a necessary step toward Iran’s modernization, members of the conservative religious and mercantile elites, as well as non-elite men

43 “Hekayat Hammam Jenniyan,” in Tamaddon, May 5, 1908. 44 Some Islamic traditions instruct Muslim men to remove pubic and underarm hair. Faegheh Shirazi, “Men’s Facial Hair in Islam: A Matter of Interpretation,” in Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion, ed. Geraldine Biddle-Perry and Sarah Cheang (Oxford: Berg, 2008), 111–122; Christian Bromberger, “Hair: From the West to the Middle East through the Mediterranean,” Journal of American Folklore 121, no. 482 (2008): 381; and Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim (Old Tehran), vol. 1, 496–497. The Westernization of Urban Space and Its Dwellers 139 and women, considered westernization a threat to tradition, if not outright heresy, and attacked it in the name of Islam. Westernized intellectuals’ response to this criticism was to ridicule it as the product of ignorance and fanaticism and their critics as unpatriotic and reactionary.

Westernization as a Threat to the Iranian Nationalist Project As the twentieth century progressed and the Iranian nationalist movement gained momentum, westernization, or more precisely excessive westernization became increasingly criticized by the reformist intellectuals themselves. Aping Western ways gradually came to be a symbol of Iran’s inferior status in the international arena and of Iranian men’s inability to reform this situation. Discussion of Iran’s international position was not limited to politics and the economy, and its increasing dependence on Western powers was comprehended and represented in gendered terms as the weakness of Iranian men and their failure to defend their homeland against foreign aggressors. The hierarchy of power among nations was projected onto a hierarchic notion of masculinity, topped by a Western hegemonic one. Thus, reformist thinkers increasingly proposed the adoption or rejection of Western notions and practices in order to thwart foreign threats to both their nation and their masculinity. They sought to isolate those elements that seemed to be the source of Western power and appropriate them, but to hold on to those Iranian characteristics that would contribute to reinforcing Iran’s authentic identity and international status. The farangimaab came to represent blind imitation of the West, emanating from Iranian weakness, which did not result in gaining Western power. He was depicted as undermining the nationalist project. As early as 1900, one writer in Habl ol-Matin considers farangimaabi (westernization) as one of the causes of Iran’s deterioration:

Up until this period, every nation that attacked Iran and came to control Iran has soon completely lost its particularity [jensiyyat] and nationality [mel- liyyat] and was Iranianized as a result of the encounter with our zealous fathers. And we the non-zealous have done our utmost to replace and erase our fathers’ deeds and to abandon their ways and to prefer the West ... Alas ... we have no capital left from that ancient people other than bragging and self-praise which are the lowliest traits, and when we want progress we look to the manners of the Europeans and consider urinating 140 Farangimaabs and Fokolis while standing up and eating with knife and fork the highest level of progress and count the lack of abstinence among the manners of civility [madaniyyat].45 The flipside of aping the West as ridiculed above was epitomized in the westernizing reforms in Meiji Japan. Japan’s power, attributed to the reforms carried out by its government, became world famous after its victory in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. Habl ol-Matin contrasted this “positive” westernization of Japan with the “negative” westernization of Egypt, India, and Iran, who only copied European manners and leisure habits together with “freedom from the chains of morals, nationalism and national traits.”46 Another Habl ol-Matin author warns against the tendency to see Europe as superior to Iran in matters such as law and government. People not truly familiar with Europe and not even fluent in a foreign language, he argues, believe that “unless Iran becomes France and the inhabitants of Iran become French – the progress of Iran and of Iranians will be impossible.”47 Still another author points to the disdain shown toward Islamic and Iranian practices and the enthusiastic adoption of cutlery by “agents of Euro- peanization.” Those westernizers believe themselves to possess knowledge and humanity, but in fact all they do is spend a few days partying in Europe, without becoming truly familiar with its culture.48 The previous association between Western knowledge and practices such as eating with a knife and a fork is disentangled in these last excerpts. Western mannerisms are no longer sufficient proof of proper westernization and men using cutlery are now required to prove their actual possession of Western knowledge. This disassociation may suggest that such practices have spread beyond members of the educated elite who therefore sought to sharpen the distinctions between themselves and those whom they considered as superficial westernizers. The continuous dilemma of westernization exemplifies the ambivalences and dualities of hegemonic masculinity. As Connell shows, the demands of hegemonic masculinity often contradict and undermine each other, thus placing hegemonic men themselves in a precarious

45 “Qabel-e Tavajjoh-e Omum-e Eslamiyan Khosus-e Iranian” (Attention All Muslims and Especially Iranians), in Habl ol-Matin, October 15, 1900. 46 “Raje’ beh Falsafeh-ye Eslam,” in Habl ol-Matin, February 10, 1908. 47 “‘Oruj-e Mellat,” in Habl ol-Matin, January 7, 1907. 48 “Layeheh-ye Yeki az Danayan” (A Plea from a Scholar), in Habl ol-Matin, November 18, 1907. The Westernization of Urban Space and Its Dwellers 141 position regarding their masculinity.49 Chapter 2 mentioned the conflict between higher education and the lifestyle expected of an elite Iranian man, and the issue of westernized appearance was even thorn- ier. Wearing a suit, leather shoes, or a pocket watch could equally mark one as possessing the cultural capital of modern education or as an empty mimic of the West, an uneducated, unpatriotic poseur. To clearly mark those boundaries, reformist writers adopted the negative use of the term farangimaab and injected it with new meanings. One that denoted vacuous imitation of superficial aspects of modernity coupled with rejection of Iranian and Islamic norms, considered to hold Iran back rather than advance it. A second meaning was lack of real knowledge of Western culture and the causes of its progress. By changing the meaning of farangimaab, Western-educated elite men reclaimed it as their own weapon. Since they viewed themselves as possessing true understanding of Western thought and values, they were able to deflect accusations of mimicry toward men who adopted Western appearance and manners without having been educated in the West. The dual approach to westernization, alternating between condon- ing and rejecting it, is also evident in attitudes to hygiene. As in other countries, cleanliness and hygiene were prominent issues in the discourse of modernization in Iran, and were often referred to in the debates on the farangimaab.50 From the positive perspective, the westernizer was seen to be promoting health in Iranian society through the hygienic use of cutlery and observance of personal hygiene. Con- versely, the farangimaab’s cleanliness was regarded as an exaggerated fastidiousness and an obsession with germs.51 Ironically, one of the

49 Connell, Masculinities, 63. 50 Kashani-Sabet, “Hallmarks of Humanism,” 1177, 1190; Dafna Hirsch, “‘We Are Here to Bring the West, Not Only to Ourselves’: Zionist Occidentalism and the Discourse of Hygiene in Mandate Palestine,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 41, no. 4 (October 26, 2009): 577; and Shin Dongwon, “Hygiene, Medicine, and Modernity in Korea, 1876–1910,” East Asian Science, Technology and Society: An International Journal 3, no. 1 (February 21, 2009): 5–26. 51 Hasan Moqaddam, “Ja’far Khan Az Farang Bargasheh (Ja’far Khan Has Returned from Europe),” in Hasan Moqaddam (Ali Nowruz) va Ja’far Khan Az Farang Bargashteh (Hasan Moqaddam (Ali Nowruz) and Ja’far Khan Has Returned from Europe), ed. Ismail Jamshidi (Tehran: Zarrin, 1994), 173. See also Mirzadeh ‘Eshqi, “Namayeshnameh-ye Qorbanali Kashi” (The Play of Qorbanali Kashi), in Kolliyat-e Mosavvar-e Mirzadeh ‘Eshqi (The Complete 142 Farangimaabs and Fokolis markers of farangimaab personal hygiene – perfume – became a symbol of stench.52 Another aspect of personal hygiene already referred to, urinating while standing up, was employed to attack westernizers. It was considered to be adopted uncritically by the farangimaabs.53 The author of an article on westernized men published in a literary magazine in 1919 notes that this practice was adopted by Naser ol-Din Shah’s courtiers who accompanied him on his travels to Europe, together with such practices as wearing a detachable collar, eating pork, and telling lies.54 The issue continued to bedevil Iranians well into the twentieth century. Mehdi Bazargan recalls an incident which “saddened him,” in which one of his colleagues, a certain Dr. Qarib, who accompanied him on a stroll in Paris – where Bazargan studied thermodynamics and engineering during the 1930s – pointed at one of the famous vespa- siennes (municipal public urinals) and said: “Do you see to what extent our religious teachings have become the cause of our backwardness and problems! If urinating while standing up was not prohibited by religious edict, we could also have enjoyed these comforts and our city would have become clean!”55 We can see, then, that the farangimaab was represented during the early twentieth century in two different ways. On the one hand, the term was construed favorably to denote the Iranian reformer met with reactionary resistance – the intellectual leading the ignorant masses to a better life.56 On the other, he came to stand for exaggerated deference to anything Western that, combined with superﬁcial understanding of Western culture, endangered Iranian authenticity and nationalism. Naturally, the Western-educated intellectuals of the era considered themselves the bearers of proper westernization, based on true knowledge of the West, and others as mimics.

Illustrated Works of Mirzadeh ‘Eshqi), ed. Ali Akbar Moshir Salimi (Tehran: Mo'asseseh-ye Chap va Entesharat-e Amir Kabir, 1964), 243. 52 ‘Eshqi, “Namayeshnameh-ye Qorbanali Kashi,” 243, see also Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 283. 53 “Qabel-e Tavajjoh-e Omum-e Eslamiyan Khosus-e Iranian,” in Habl ol-Matin, October 15, 1900. 54 M.M.S., “Fokoli,” in Majalleh-ye Adabi, year 2, vol. 4, 1919, 6–14. 55 Bazargan, Khaterat-e Bazargan, 192–193. 56 De Groot, Religion, Culture and Politics, 118. Fokoli: The Westernized Dandy 143

Fokoli: The Westernized Dandy The early years of the twentieth century witnessed the rise of yet another term used to describe westernized men: fokoli. Derived from the French faux-col or detachable collar, fokol also came to denote “cravat” or “bowtie” in colloquial Persian. It differed from farangimaab in that it was used strictly negatively to describe a distinct type of excessively westernized men. As may be surmised from the term itself, it had much to do with outward appearance. Etymologically, whereas farangimaab describes a tendency, a way of thought and action, fokoli focuses on clothes and accessories. Fokoli may also have suggested falsehood (faux meaning “fake”). It connotes not only superficial aping of Western dress and manners, but also a certain masculine type: a fop, a dandy, or a gigolo.57 The fokoli was also a stock figure of the Ruhowzi, the traditional Iranian improvisatory comic theater played in private houses. In such plays he was either a dandy with a Western education, or a European with exaggerated manners.58 In time, fokoli and farangimaab became synonymous, with farangimaab losing its positive connotation.59 In European and American society of the mid-nineteenth to early twentieth centuries the detachable collar helped maintain an appearance of cleanliness which was associated with the upper classes: the pristine whiteness of the mass-produced collar and cuffs had suggested cleanliness usually attainable only by the wealthy. Thanks to the faux- col, working-class men could afford such an appearance without the costs of daily laundry. The high stiff collar dictated specific body postures because it prevented free movement of the head and the neck.60 Precisely these elements were ridiculed in the figure of the fokoli. He was described as a dandy obsessed with hygiene, his stiff

57 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 279, fn. 14. 58 Chelkowski, “Popular Entertainment, Media and Social Change in Twentieth Century Iran,” 778–779. A westernized dandy was also a stock type in the Greek puppet show, the Karaghiozis. See Linda Suny Myrsiades, “Oral Composition and the Karaghiozis Performance,” Theatre Research International 5, no. 2 (January 1980): 107–121. 59 Fokoli: https://dictionary.abadis.ir/?lntype=dehkhoda,fatofa,moeen,amid& word=%D9%81%DA%A9%D9%84%DB%8C. 60 Carole Turbin, “Fashioning the American Man: The Arrow Collar Man 1907–1931,” Gender & History 14, no. 3 (2002): 470–491. 144 Farangimaabs and Fokolis posture was ridiculed and he was seen as a pretentious man of poor background who imitated the dress and manners of wealthier men. In his dictionary, Dehkhoda adds a comment to the effect that fokoli was the name given to modernizers by the religious fanatics during Naser ol-Din Shah’s reign, which places the emergence of the term in the late nineteenth century. The use of fokoli as an antimodernist swearword is corroborated in a book adapted from the journal of French diplomat Edouard Valmont who resided in Iran during the Constitutional Revolution, where fokoli is the nickname given by royalists to constitutionalists.61 One possible explanation for the appearance of the new term may have to do with the shifting power relations between Iran and the West during the first years of the twentieth century. The Constitutional Revolution focused not only on freedom from Iranian despotism, but also on freedom from foreign control. The signing of the Anglo- Russian Entente in 1907 was one of the low points in the history of Iran’s relations with the other powers. The two powers agreed to divide the country between them into zones of interest, blatantly ignoring Iran’s sovereignty. These events exacerbated the animosity toward the West, manifested among other things in the rejection of those men who seemed to represent Iran’s inferiority. The fokoli garnered much attention during another period of Iranian weakness, the years preceding Reza Khan’s coup d’état in 1921. Sev- eral newspaper articles from this period are dedicated to the description and categorization of the fokoli and attest to the significance of this figure in public debate. The cultural production surrounding the fokoli can also be found in the publishing in 1921–1922 of two important literary pieces in which a fokoli/farangimaab is a main character: “Persian is Sugar,” a short story by Seyyed Mohammad Jamalzadeh, and Ja’far Khan Has Returned from Europe, a play by Hasan Moqaddam (1895–1925). First staged in March 1922 at the Grand Hotel Salon in Tehran, the latter was such a success that the phrase “Ja’far Khan has returned from Europe” became a household catchphrase used to describe Iranian youths who flaunted their Western clothes and French without any real knowledge of Europe.62 The excessively and superficially westernized Ja’far Khan and his

61 De Lorey and Sladen, The Moon of the Fourteenth Night, 118. 62 Moqaddam, “Ja’far Khan,” 158–160; Hamid Naficy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 1: The Artisanal Era, 1897–1941 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 284–285. Fokoli: The Westernized Dandy 145 superstitious and ignorant relatives demonstrate how men with West- ern education such as Moqaddam viewed two possible threats emanating from Iran’s grappling with modernization. On the one hand, rejection of modern knowledge doomed Iran to ignorance and backwardness. On the other, superficial aping of Western practices equally arrested the country’s development.63 In “Persian is Sugar,” the narrator is an Iranian returning from Europe after several years of absence. Corrupt Iranian bureaucracy leads to his arrest and he is thrown in jail together with three others: a farangimaab, a mullah, and a poor man. The latter, who represents the simple, authentic Iranian, turns first to the mullah, then to the farangimaab in his attempts to understand the reason for his arrest. The farangimaab’s long-winded reply is so full of French words that the simple Iranian cannot understand him. The mullah’s speech, similarly replete with Arabic terms, is equally undecipherable. After despairing of the two, the poor man addresses the narrator, who earns his gratitude simply by speaking understandable Persian. The story represents the three options available to the Iranian nation: Islam and tradition, superficial westernization, and informed westernization. The threat posed by the farangimaab and the mullah to Iranian nationalism is symbolized in their respective corruption of Persian.64 The emphasis on the farangimaab’s garbled use of Persian is central to the nationalist point of view which saw the Persian language as one of the most important assets and characteristics of the Iranian nation. This is the main focus of an article in Shura (The Council), dated 1914, in which a farangimaab is presented as a man who has lost proper command of his mother tongue, resorting to French instead. Not only that, he cannot properly read the Persian script on street signs, and loses his way. At the end of the article the author declares: “These are

63 Boroujerdi, “Ambivalent Modernity,” 11–12. The late 1910s and early 1920s also saw the publication of several short plays and poems by Mirzadeh ‘Eshqi, with references to the fokoli/farangimaab. See ‘Eshqi, “Namayeshnameh-ye Jamshid Nakam”; “Namayeshnameh-ye Halva ol-Foqara”; “Namayeshnameh- ye Qorbanali Kashi”; “Noheh-ye Jomhori,” in Ali Akbar Moshir Salimi, Kolliyat-e Mosavvar-e Mirzadeh ‘Eshqi. Westernized dandies were ridiculed in literature in the Ottoman Empire as well. See Nurdan Gurbilek, “Dandies and Originals: Authenticity, Belatedness, and the Turkish Novel,” The South Atlantic Quarterly 102, no. 2/3 (2003): 599–628. 64 Seyyed Muhammad Jamalzadeh, “Persian is Sugar,” in Muhammad Ali Jamalzadeh, Once Upon a Time (Yeki Bud Yeki Nabud), trans. Heshmat Moayyad and Paul Sparchman (New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 1985), 31–43. 146 Farangimaabs and Fokolis

Figure 4.6 Fokolis on the street – cartoon from Kashkul (January 4, 1908)

the morals, knowledge and understandings of Iranian intelligentsias that Iran currently takes pride in. And we expect that through these people the government’s ministries will be reformed.”65 The irony of this last sentence is that the author does not use the Persian term for “reformed” (eslah shodeh) but a foreign one (reformeh shodeh). Here again, criticism of westernization comes from those who have themselves adopted certain aspects of it. The speech and manners of the fokoli are lampooned in the cartoon from the satirical journal Kashkul shown in Figure 4.6. The men in the cartoon, all sporting westernized suits, high collars, and handlebar mustaches refrain from Persian pleasantries, favoring French ones instead. Starting on the left, where the two fokolis meet, the captions, in Persian script, read: - “Bonjour monsieur, comment vous portez-vous?” (Good morning, Sir. How do you do?) - “Je me porte bien, mon cher ami.” (I’m doing well, my dear friend.) Meeting again, the dialogue in the caption reads: - “Bonsoir, où allez-vous mes ami?” (Good evening! Where are you going, my friends?) - “Nous allons à la promenade.” (We are going for a stroll.)

65 “Taqrir-e Yek Nafar Irani – Farangimaab-Aab Zereshk” (The Story of an Iranian – Farangimaab – Barberry Juice,” in Shura, March 28, 1914. Fokoli: The Westernized Dandy 147

Articles from this period define the fokoli according to both visual and moral characteristics. A short piece in the journal Gol-e Zard from 1919 contrasts the fokoli with another Iranian masculine figure, the luti (discussed in Chapter 1) by listing objects and traits that characterize each. The list describing the fokoli includes the following sartorial details: cone-shaped hat, walking stick, pince-nez with chain, trousers with a folded hem, wristwatch, ring, glass prayer beads, white dervish bowl [kashkul-e sefid], and rimless hat. To these are added two others: an empty pocket (contrasted with the luti’s “waistband full of money”) and “...” [sic] contrasted with the luti’s zeal or gheyrat.66 This list conveys the great importance assigned to material culture in defining the fokoli, as only the last two items reveal anything about him beyond his outward appearance. A lengthy article in Majalleh-ye Adabi (The Literary Journal), also dated 1919, offers a highly detailed taxonomy of the fokoli, compris- ing no fewer than fourteen categories: old, new (divided into two subcategories), reasonable, unreasonable (three subcategories), religious (two subcategories), one who has been to Europe and one who has not, Tehrani, provincial, rural, son of a Haji, son of a tribal chief, seeker of a government/parliamentary job, and failed merchant. The author dates the appearance of the fokoli back to the reign of Naser ol-Din Shah, whose trips to Europe caused several of his entou- rage to become fokolis on their return to Iran. Those “old” fokolis have the author’s sympathy, since “most of the fokolis of that time were characterized by good morals and were devoid of unpleasant habits.”67 This type disappeared after Naser ol-Din Shah’s assassin- ation, however. The rest of the article, devoted to the numerous ways in which the fokolis corrupt Iranian society, will be discussed in greater detail below. The fokoli received much less attention during Reza Shah’s reign. One explanation for that may be the shift in power relations between Iran and the West. Reza Shah was a powerful monarch, who acted to improve Iran’s international status. He strengthened the army, suppressed provincial revolts, negotiated more favorable terms with the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, and initiated a series of reforms designed

66 “Zang-e Tafrih” (Recess Time), in Gol-e Zard, year 1, no. 19, 1919. 67 M.M.S., “Fokoli,” 6–14. 148 Farangimaabs and Fokolis to turn Iran into a strong modern power. Despite the fact that Iran was still far from being on equal terms with Western powers, it may be that Reza Shah’s contemporaries’ perception of a changed balance of power, which spread among educated Iranians, reduced animosity toward Western ideas and practices and therefore marginalized the fokoli’s symbolic role. Another explanation may be found in the Dress Law implemented by Reza Shah’s government in 1929 (see Chapter 6). This reform introduced a dress code for Iranian men, which included a Western- style suit and hat, and was enforced on all males who were not clerics authorized by the state. Since the most prominent visual characteristic of the fokoli was his attire, this reform blurred and possibly eliminated the distinction between wearers of Western and Persian dress. Instead of an imitation of the West from a standpoint of weakness, its emulation now came to represent a different power dynamic, between the state and its Shah on the one hand and the citizens on the other. Wearing a Western suit became part of being a law- abiding, disciplined (male) citizen. Since Iran becoming a law-abiding, disciplined nation was perceived by reform-minded Iranians as a source of national power, the fokoli, marked mainly by his dress, all but disappeared from Iranian public discourse on national might and masculinity. After Reza Shah’s abdication and the occupation of Iran by the Allies in 1941, and during the first years of Mohammad Reza Shah’s rule, the balance of power shifted once again. Iran was again under foreign occupation, and a powerful monarch was replaced by a younger and, for the time being, weaker one. For a while, the dress code was not enforced, and Iran’s weakness in the face of the great powers was apparent. During and after the war, many Iranians returned to the country from their studies abroad. The figure of the fokoli reappeared in cartoons68 as well as in fiction and cinema.69 The westernized man, and later on the westernized woman, would once more become emblems of weakness and corruption. For example, in his 1948 book Taskhir-e Tamaddon-e Farangi (The Conquest of West- ern Civilization), Seyyed Fakhroddin Shadman severely criticizes

68 In Tawﬁq, April 1941. 69 Naﬁcy, A Social History of Iranian Cinema, Volume 1, 277–308. Fokoli: The Westernized Dandy 149 pseudomodernizers with Western education, whom he considers to be Iran’s worst enemies, by referring to them as fokolis.70 With this renewed criticism came the use of a new term, gharbzadegi (“westox- ication” or “westitis”), coined by Tehran University professor Ahmad Fardid. The term was later popularized with the publication in 1962 of Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s eponymous book.

Poor and Pretentious: The Fokoli as a Threat to Social Distinctions Men’s proper westernization was dependent on their socioeconomic status. A well-known proverb describing the fokoli was “Haughty Pose and Empty Pocket” (poz-e ‘ali jib-e khali) and the fokoli’s poor ﬁnan- cial condition was a recurring theme in the discourse on westernization.71 In Ja’far Shahri’s Tehran-e Qadim, the author elaborates on his own deﬁnition of the fokoli:

Youths who have returned from Europe, or locals, who adopted for themselves the appearance of farangimaabi and became westernized [mostafrang]; like the gigolos of our days with a haughty pose and an empty pocket, they were described when pursuing women: “I’m in love; I have no money – give me your pitcher so I’ll bring you water!” Or in this song: “Haughty pose empty pocket / I sacriﬁce my head and life for you / If you want something costing a hundred dinar / I’ll buy it by installments for you”72

The lack of ﬁnancial means poses a challenge to the manliness of the fokoli, since he cannot properly fulﬁll the masculine roles of marrying and establishing a family.

70 Boroujerdi, Iranian Intellectuals and the West,56–57; and Abbas Milani, Lost Wisdom: Rethinking Modernity in Iran (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2003), 71–74. 71 See also Mirzadeh ‘Eshqi, “Namayeshnameh Qorbanali Kashi,” where the swindler beggar Qorbanali, having failed to receive money from a farangimaab, curses him and says: “his pose is haughty, his pocket is empty.” In Kolliyat-e Mosavvar Mirzadeh ‘Eshqi, 243. A similar image of a westernized dandy who has no money for his fancy dress appeared in Egypt in the late nineteenth century. See Wilson Chacko Jacob, “The Turban, the Tarbush, and the Top Hat Masculinity, Modernity, and National Identity in Interwar Egypt,” Al-Raida 21, no. 104–105 (2004): 26. 72 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 279, fn. 14. 150 Farangimaabs and Fokolis

This characterization is supported elsewhere. A popular song on the fokoli ridicules his attempt to appear wealthy despite his lack of ﬁnancial means:

My stockings are torn, and have a hundred patches. Who would see that inside my shoes, my sock is darned? I always walk the street unemployed, oh, oh; I eat bread as if it were rice My trousers and collar are mended; I iron them under the mattress. With this pose and this shape, I don’t have a dime in my pocket.73

The fokoli’s poverty suggests another reason for the preoccupation with this figure. Besides endangering the Iranian nationalist project by excessively imitating the West, the fokoli represented the danger of eliminating social distinctions. Despising him helped preserve the distinction of those members of the elite who had access to modern education. Since anyone could wear a collar or acquire some words in a foreign language, it became crucial for members of the new elite to make visible the advantages they derived from access to Western thought, manners, and practices, inculcated from childhood and enhanced by higher education and during long stays in Europe. The notion that not just anyone who dressed and acted like a westerner was a fokoli is apparent in “Persian is Sugar.”74 As you may recall, the narrator is himself a man educated in the West who returns to Iran after five years in Europe. But he has nothing in common with his farangimaab cellmate. The narrator’s enhanced form of westernization is first evident in that the poor Iranian fellow does not approach him earlier on, since he recognizes him as a “farangi” (European or foreigner). Unlike the farangimaab, the narrator has carried his westernization to perfection, assuming a “Western” rather than “westernized” appearance. Despite this appearance – or paradoxically, precisely because of it – he is the only character who can speak proper Persian, making him the only bearer of a “proper” Persian identity. Further distinctions between the farangimaab and the narrator include the reference to the latter’s Western dress simply as a “bowler hat,” as opposed to the former, who is described wearing “a

73 Gholamali Sha’bani, “Biqeh Fokoli Aas,” in Tasnifha-ye Jabali va Behram Sir (The Songs of Jabali and Behram Sir), n.d. 74 All quotes are taken from “Persian is Sugar,” in Jamalzadeh, Once Upon a Time. Fokoli: The Westernized Dandy 151 collar as tall as a samovar chimney and from the black smoke of some Caucasus diesel train as sooty [here the detachable collar becomes a symbol of dirtiness instead of its original function as connoting cleanliness]. Pinched by the collar, which propped up his neck like a pillory, he was immersed in a French novel.” The farangimaab’s westernized appearance is accentuated by his mustache, “which twined around the corners of his mouth like two whip scorpions,” and his watch, which “he would occasionally take out ...as if to see whether it was time for café au lait or not.” The narrator also possesses superior cultural capital: when the farangimaab quotes what he claims to be some lines from Alphonse de Lamartine, the narrator tells the readers that the quote in actually from Victor Hugo. To return to the most prominent fokoli of all, Ja’far Khan in Moqaddam’s play, it is obvious that his lack of cultural capital derives from the fact that his childhood home had not provided him with any knowledge of Western culture or of life. The criticism directed against Ja’far Khan’s mother and her servant, his cousin and intended wife Zinat, and his uncle for their superstitious and conservative ways is no less severe than the derision of Ja’far Khan himself. The author ridicules all of them equally. All his characters are ignorant and superstitious, and, in a way, both Ja’far Khan and the people surrounding him represent the same reprehensible type of Iranian, the only difference being the manner in which their ignorance and superstitions are expressed. Whereas Ja’far Khan’s ignorance is portrayed as blind belief in Western superiority – he claims that the Europeans have already invented artificial eyes, ears and noses, and are on the verge of inventing an artificial man – the ignorance of the other characters is expressed by their belief in superstitions, their fearful rejection of anything Western and their misconceptions about Europe – Ja’far Khan’smotherand cousin are convinced that Europeans eat bears and monkeys.75 The theme of social distinction appears repeatedly in Majalleh-ye Adabi’s taxonomy of fokoli types. According to it, one reason why Iranian men became fokolis was to be appointed to a government position. On noticing that “the fokolisconfiscated and seized all chairs, benches and desks [meaning all governmental positions],” fathers send their sons to be educated in Europe, seminary students abandon their mosques and turbans, and all become fokolis. One thing that almost all

75 Moqaddam, “Ja’far Khan,” 167–190. 152 Farangimaabs and Fokolis

Figure 4.7 Members of the Qajar royal family (Courtesy of Hamid Tavakoli) the types of fokoli share is their relatively low social standing – only one of the fourteen categories (the new fokoli) may possibly belong to the elite. The villager, the Haji’s son, and the failed merchant all use westernized appearance in a usually hopeless attempt to climb the rungs of the social ladder.76 The fokoli antagonizes the writers not merely because he imitates the West, but because he attempts to appear to be someone he is not: a “properly” westernized member of the elite. In fact, the westernization of elite men was not only legitimate, but was deemed central to an emerging hegemonic masculinity. Portraits from the period show how elite respectability was strongly associated with westernization. As may be expected from commissioned photographs, the impression is one of respectability and authority. The subjects in Figure 4.7 sit or stand

76 “Fokoli,” Majalleh-ye Adabi, year 2, vol. 4, 1919, 6–14. Fokoli: The Westernized Dandy 153 upright, appear stern and look directly at the camera. The impression of stability is accentuated by the careful symmetry of their postures, with the standing man’s bowtie creating the top of a pyramid. The background studio prop is also clearly Western inspired. The fokolis, then, may be seen not as imitating Western models of masculinity (to which they were far less exposed than men of the elite), but as emulating the emerging hegemonic masculinity of the early twentieth century in Iran. Since the hegemonic masculinity of the time included markers of westernization, they adopted those markers indirectly, from their adaptation to Iranian elite life. Hence the fokolis embodied second- hand, exaggerated imitation.77 This posed a double threat to hegemonic masculinity: not only was the fokoli attempting to appropriate elite masculinity as his own, his excesses cast Iranian hegemonic men’s own imitation of the West in a poor light – an unpleasant reminder of how elite men themselves appeared in the eyes of the westerners they wished to emulate. Since the boundary between the two was not clearly marked, hegemonic men constantly faced the danger of unwittingly becoming fokolis themselves. This may explain why the fokoli was so vehemently despised, and why such energy was invested in his categorization and representation as the opposite of the hegemonic man.

The Fokoli as an Object of Desire and a Sexual Threat In addition to the threats to the nation and to social distinctions, the fokoli was a source of sexual anxiety, and a double sexual threat at that. As Afsaneh Najmabadi has shown, the fokoli evoked in the Iranian imagination the marginalized ﬁgures of the amrad ‒ the male adolescent who was an object of desire for grown men – and the amrad-numa – the grown man who shaved his face in an effort to appear like an amrad. The fokoli, with his shaved face, uncut locks of hair, and tight, revealing clothes, threatened to bring them to the surface once again. Simultaneously, the fokoli manifested predatory

77 In the French context, Pierre Bourdieu refers to men who have similarly failed to acquire their cultural capital “bit by bit” and betray their unprivileged position in their very eagerness to prove their possession of such capital, making them appear clumsy and overzealous. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste, trans. Richard Nice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), 84; and Simon Stewart, Culture and the Middle Classes (Farnham: Ashgate, 2010), 76. 154 Farangimaabs and Fokolis

Figure 4.8 Qajar gentleman (Courtesy of Hamid Tavakoli) heterosexual sexuality. He was often depicted prowling the main streets and bazaars of the city, harassing or seducing women, thus threatening social morals. The farangimaab/fokoli, argues Najmabadi, became the signifier of three sexual figures despised by the advocates of Iranian modernity: the amrad, the amrad-numa, and the philanderer.78 The resilience of the image of the amrad may be seen in photographs of westernized adolescents or young men from the late nineteenth century. While the postures of adult men are usually upright and stiff and their gaze is directed at the camera and the viewer, photographs of adolescent boys tend to display more reclining postures, with gazes averted downward or beyond the viewer. I suggest that this difference in posture is related to the way young male bodies were perceived by adults. These youths strike what we would probably today call “feminine” poses. They recline against a side table (Figure 4.8) or chair, their legs are crossed (Figure 4.9), they touch their face (Figure 4.10), look down modestly (Figure 4.9), or flirt with the viewer. Their languid pose and detached gaze are typical of depictions of beautiful amradsin

78 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 139–142. Fokoli: The Westernized Dandy 155

Figure 4.9 Qasem Khan (Photo album by Ali Khan Vali Qajar, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University)

Figure 4.10 Adolescent (Photo album by Ali Khan Vali Qajar, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University) 156 Farangimaabs and Fokolis

Persian miniature paintings, a tradition that clearly inﬂuenced these photos.79 As Staci Gem Scheiwiller notes in her study of gender and sexual liminalities in Iranian photographs from this period, the amrad has not vanished from Iranian visual culture, but was modernized, now presented in a Western suit alongside tokens of modernity.80 Possibly, these young men were looked at differently than grown men, and they were not yet expected to pose in the same way. The photographs depict the fokoli as the ghost of the amrad. This is most apparent in Figure 4.8: the young man is standing diagonally, leaning against a side table. The line from his leather shoes and silver-headed walking stick to the table ends with his limp hand and white cuff. From that point, another diagonal line stretches in the opposite direction, to his high detachable collar and from it to his playfully asymmetrical hat from which emerges a lock of hair. The impression is one of ﬂirtation as opposed to the respectability portrayed in photographs of adult men. The traits which made the fokoli an object of desire were also the markers of his westernization – his clothes, accessories, and manners. And these are eroticized in the following popular songs, quoted by Ja’far Shahri:

Brimmed hat to his head, his plucked eyebrows Red bowtie to his neck, a hundred admirers on his track Tight trousers to his legs, exposing his “business” and “package” Thanks to his rouge, young and old are entangled with him, His oiled locks of hair, do not mistake his single thread His flirting narcissus eyes, old and young are intoxicated by him The kerchief in his pocket, is the sign of his trade His watch and chain increase his golden value To count his flirtations, there’s a pedometer in his pocket The tails of his jacket reveal his “mountains path” The walking stick befits him, it’s his fighting weapon For his suede shoes a thousand men follow him So much so that when evening comes a hundred walk in line behind him * Fokoli, your stench [meaning perfume] has killed me Your tight trousers have killed me

79 Boone, The Homoerotics of Orientalism, 317. 80 Staci Gem Scheiwiller, Liminalities of Gender and Sexualities in Nineteenth- Century Iranian Photography (New York: Routledge, 2017), 156, 160–162. Fokoli: The Westernized Dandy 157

Your flowing locks of hair have killed me Your sexy sister has killed me.81 These songs, brimming with sexual innuendo and direct references to the fokoli’s body, show the fokoli in the image of the amrad, rendering all those around him helpless in the face of his charms. But while in the first song the fokoli seems adored and his appealing traits are enumerated, the second song employs a negative tone. The fokoli’s perfume becomes a “stench,” and the reference to his sister implies lack of masculine honor (namus). In addition to the fact that the visual markers of westernization are common to the fokoli and amrad, the reaction he triggers is emblematic of the duality toward Europeans. In the first song, we find the combination of male adoration and a wish to subdue the fokoli by placing him in the position of the passive partner in a status-defined homosexual relationship.82 In the second, over- whelming attraction is mixed with derision. This duality is part and parcel of the discourse of modernization in Iran, as in many colonial and semicolonial societies. Both the fokoli’s implied threat as an object of desire for other men and his predatory sexuality feature prominently in the typological article discussed above. In the author’s mind, the most dangerous type of fokoli was the unreasonable (gheyr ma’qul) type. Members of that class are, unfortunately, more numerous than the other classes and we believe they are the source of the corruption of morals and fountainhead of baseness and vice. They are divided into three groups: The first group: evildoing youth devoid of honor who see their livelihood and subsistence in foppishness, and using a bowtie and hair locks they spread ugly actions ...The second group are people who were never the foundation of piety ... Every day after bathing they go to the barber and get a haircut and shave, put on fancy clothes and walk slowly in the streets until a woman passes there and they follow her. Eventually ... the lover achieves his desire! ... We believe that the damage of this element is no less than that of the first element since they rip the Iranian veil of chastity and remove the good and evil from deeds and words!! The third group are miserable and unfortunate youths that cannot achieve their bodily wishes ...Having no choice they go by night to Lalehzar Street on the pretext of recreation and from pawn shops they buy an old fokol ...

81 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 282–283. 82 Afary, Sexual Politics, 79. 158 Farangimaabs and Fokolis

The next evening we see that another person is added to the bystanders at the gate of the Grand Hotel. Yes, this gentleman with a tie and knotted handkerchief hangs the walking stick from his arm and like the second group follows women.83 The predatory sexuality of the fokoli is also blamed for the deteriorating state of the nation. In a cartoon dated 1911, the mother-nation rebukes her fokoli sons who “chase the women and children on Lalehzar Street like a bitch” rather than take nationalist action.84 The same conflation of sexual and national misconduct is evident in Mirzadeh ‘Eshqi’s well-known play “The Ideal of an Old Villager” (Idehaal-e Pir Mard-e Dehgani).85 In the play, a young fokoli seduces a country girl, impregnates, and then deserts her. As a result, she com- mits suicide. The girl’s father then tells his life story and links the fokoli’s immorality with a story of political and sexual corruption. The old man used to work in the Kerman province, when a new governor, a flashy youth, was appointed. That youth asked the old man to find him a woman for his indiscretions. When the latter refused, the governor replaced him a with corpse washer willing to provide him with access not only to his daughter, but also to his sister, wife, and brother. The two evildoing young men represent two aspects of the danger posed by the fokoli: deterioration of individual sexual morals and national political corruption. In later references to the fokoli as a sexual threat, his habit of harassing or seducing women on the street is mentioned more often than his role as an object of desire. Whereas previously the fokoli had been a threat to the heteronormalization of Iranian men, during Reza Shah’s time the few mentions of the fokoli tended to refer to the threat posed by his predatory sexuality to women’s chastity.86 Both these sexual threats embody a danger to the Iranian modernization project. Homoerotic acts, as well as the seclusion of women, were perceived as symbolic of Iran’s backwardness. The fokoli’s sexuality worked against both the amrad’s marginalization and the inclusion of women

83 “Fokoli,” Majalleh-ye Adabi, year 2, vol. 4, 1919, 6–14. 84 Kashani-Sabet, Frontier Fictions, 137. 85 “Idehaal-e Pir Mard-e Dehgani,” in Salimi (ed.), Kolliyat-e Mosavvar-e Mirzadeh ‘Eshqi, 174–193. 86 M. Khatat, “Nazari beh Akhlaq” (A Look at Morals), in Ettela’at, June 17, 1931; and A. Mikda, “Zan va Mard” (The Woman and the Man), in Ettela’at, July 12, 1931. Conclusions 159 in public spaces. Thus the fokoli not only blurred gender boundaries, but also compromised the modernization project as a whole. Another threat posed by the fokoli to the new Iranian sexual norms, foreshadowing a later obsession with the issues of late marriages and bachelorhood, may be found in Ja’far Khan’sstory. A recurring theme in the play is Ja’far Khan’s family’swishtomarry him off to his cousin Zinat against his will. Not only does he take issue with her appearance (mentioning his distaste for her painted mustache), he also declares his unwillingness to marry at all. Later on, he protests against the fact that his uncle and mother have arranged his marriage and says that if he marries at all, it would be to a foreign woman, and then only after ﬁve or six years of courtship.87 Late marriage, marriage to a foreigner, or bachelorhood threatened the new model of companionate marriage (see Chapter 5). While late marriage or bachelorhood were associated with immorality and com- promising the nation’s growth, marrying foreign women was considered an insult to the pride of Iranian women and a threat to the attempt to modernize them. The fokoli thus posed a multilayered sexual threat to the modernizing segments of Iranian society. He was all in one: a ﬂirtatious boy, a seductive Don Juan, a corrupt homosexual, and a corrupter of female chastity. Furthermore, he threatened the very fabric of society not only by corrupting social morals but also by impeding the modernizing project of female liberation and heteronormalization.

Conclusions The photograph shown in Figure 4.11, taken by Antoin Sevruguin, illustrates many of the themes discussed in the chapter. The two gentlemen are interpretable as representing the farangimaab and the more traditional masculine type. Starting at the same point in the lower part of the photograph, their feet almost touching, they gradually draw apart. Sevruguin positions them in a contrasting way: the westernized gentleman in a dark suit, leaning against a dark pedestal, the tips of his mustache pointing up; the second gentleman in a light-colored labadeh, leaning against a light-colored chair, the tips of his mustache

87 Moqaddam, “Ja’far Khan,” 172–189. 160 Farangimaabs and Fokolis

Figure 4.11 Portrait of two men, 1902 (Courtesy of Hamid Tavakoli)

pointing down. Other hints in the photograph, however, suggest that the two are not complete opposites. For example, both wear the Qajar hat, as well as trousers and shoes in Western style. Men wearing European clothes were becoming increasingly common in early-twentieth-century Iranian cities. This chapter discussed the rise and fall of the new type of Iranian masculinity they represented – the (overly) westernized man. During the first years of his appearance, reformist attitudes toward the farangimaab were twofold. Reformist writers supported the appropriation of Western education, hygiene, and forms of government, but were also aware of the criticism and discontent caused by their proposed reforms. To deflect this criticism, they satirized it and ascribed it to certain groups in Iranian society deemed conservative and reactionary. When both westernization and Iranian nationalist sentiment intensified during the years of the Constitutional Revolution, uncritical adoption of Western Conclusions 161 notions was castigated not only by conservatives, but also by many modernizers. The new criticism saw the farangimaab as someone who blindly borrows Western practices and disdains Iranian culture, without really understanding Western knowledge or acquiring Western power. The farangimaab became the enemy of Iran’s progress and an obstacle in its way to achieve equality with the Western powers. Anti-Western sentiments were expressed more virulently in the emergence of the term fokoli. The fokoli was a despicable figure of excess that symbolized all the negative aspects of the farangimaab. The exaggerated westernization practiced by the fokoli was used not only to criticize his damaging influence on the Iranian nationalist project, but also to sharpen the distinction between “right” and “wrong” forms of westernization. The “right” form involved the acquisition of supposed sources of Western power such as modern science and knowledge which became cultural capital during that period. This kind of westernization was the privilege of the Iranian elites, and thus the fokoli became a marker of social differentiation. Lack of both financial and cultural capital was one of the fokoli’s most important characteristics and allowed men of the Western-educated elite to continue looking and acting like westerners without being dubbed fokolis themselves. In addition to the national and social meanings of the term, the fokoli represented a sexual threat. First, his outward appearance was similar to that of the amrad and amrad-numa, acting as a constant reminder of past homoerotic norms, now marginalized as a sign of backwardness. Second, in his predatory behavior toward women in public spaces he was a symbol of Iranian male resistance to women’s participation in public life. Since this participation, symbolized by unveiling, was considered an important step in Iran’s modernization, the attempt to prevent it was seen as detrimental to modernization. Seen this way, there is no contradiction between the fokoli’s perception as both an object of male desire and as an active agent of predatory sexuality toward women: both traits conflicted with the modernization of Iranian sexual norms. Paradoxically, while the fokoli was despised for his excessive westernization, he was also criticized for its superficiality. On the one hand, he was described as doing all he could to appear like a European; on the other hand, his westernization was nothing more than a thin veneer, covering an unwesternized Iranian man. In fact, the hegemonic elite man, who had presumably gone through a process of informed 162 Farangimaabs and Fokolis westernization that protected him from losing his national identity, was the more westernized of the two, his westernization being both external and internal. The fact that such men succeeded in presenting themselves as better nationalists and patriots attests to their success in attaining sociocultural hegemony. During Reza Shah’s reign, the fokoli seems to have almost disappeared from public debate. This change can be explained by the perceived change in the power balance between Iran and the West, which may have reduced animosity toward westernizers. Reza Shah’s dress reform may have contributed to this process. In later decades, the fokolis reemerged in Iranian culture as characters in the dandy movie genre of the 1950s–1970s, in which male and female dandies came to represent excessive and counterhegemonic modernity, crossing the borders of gender, class, and nation, denying their true origins, and threatening Iranian gender and class identities.88 The next chapter continues to follow some of the themes discussed above. It addresses questions of male sexuality as part of the debate on marriage, love, and the family in interwar Iran. Looking into the perceived dangers of late bachelorhood and its causes, as seen by Iranian reformers, it continues to discuss superficial westernization – only now it is women who are accused of exaggerated consumption of western goods, causing men to avoid marriage for financial reasons. The amrad and other objects of male sexual desire are another focus of the next chapter, which discusses their marginalization in the context of the media debate on marriage reform.

88 Naﬁcy, A Social History, 277–297. 5 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran |Regulating Male Sexuality to Maintain Male Hegemony

The perverted and dangerous sexuality of the fokoli was not the only male sexuality that came under scrutiny during the early decades of the twentieth century. Male sexual practices hitherto tolerated and considered acceptable and even respectable were now attacked in the reformist press, as part of the public debate about marriage reform. Sexuality, desire, or cathexis, Connell claims, are important elements of the gender order, as much as patriarchy or production relations. Sexuality is therefore central to hegemonic and other masculinities, influencing both relation to women and power relations between different groups of men. It involves social, cultural, and political elements, despite the fact that it is often presented as “natural.”1 The new model of hegemonic masculinity required men to demonstrate their patriotism, education, and appropriate westernization by practicing a sexuality that was unequivocally heterosexual, reproductive, and bound to a monogamous and companionate marriage.2 Discussions about the proper model of marriage intensified in the Iranian press, including the women’s press, in the aftermath of the Constitutional period and particularly after the First World War.3 The marriage debate reached its peak during the late 1920s and early 1930s, before the ratification, by Reza Shah’s government, of the 1931 Marriage Law. Whereas in earlier periods, marriage had been a family issue, influenced by and in turn influencing the social status of the couple’s families, and had been based almost exclusively on parental choice, during these decades, marriages became a social and personal matter.4 Men were required to fulfill their social and national duty and mobilize their marriage to serve the general good.

1 Connell, Masculinities,74–75. 2 DeSouza, “Scholarly Mysticism,” 84–86. 3 Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman, 117–119. 4 Floor, A Social History of Sexual Relations in Iran, 33.

163 164 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran

The new model of companionate marriage advocated by reformist officials, as well as educated men and women, was expected to provide both husband and wife with a happier and better emotional life. Compared to the previously prevalent one, in this model somewhat greater emphasis was placed on the partners’ age and educational compatibility than on the status of their families, although the latter still remained a weighty consideration. Love and affection gained importance in the evaluation of a good marriage.5 However, the choice of spouse usually remained in the hands of the parents, and the requirement of previous acquaintance was introduced in the press only in the late 1920s. Furthermore, before women’s unveiling in 1936 and their subsequent gradual integration into the public sphere, unrelated elite men and women hardly ever had the opportunity to form an attachment based on former acquaintance.6 The new model of marriage was employed to bolster the hegemony of men possessing modern education. Whereas companionate marriage was identified with the new elite, older practices of marriage and sexuality were identified with men such as clerics and bazaaris. How- ever, marriage reformers had to acknowledge the fact that the lifestyle of the westernized elite entailed some dangers to companionate marriage. Young educated men postponed their marriage because they wished to complete their studies and retain the living standard they were used to. Even worse, some of the men who lived in Europe married European women, condemning Iranian women to spinsterhood. Commentators in the press admonished such practices, while relegating some of the blame to Iranian women. Whereas such criticism aimed to limit the spread of foreign marriages and bachelorhood among westernized men, blaming women helped deflect the criticism from such men. The prescribed changes in male sexuality aimed to drastically limit men’s choice of sexual partners and bring about a certain improvement in women’s status in companionate marriage. As the sole legitimate object of desire, a wife had considerably more power over her husband and occupied a higher place in the network of his attachments. Other reforms, such as the rejection of child marriage and the marginalization (albeit not outlawing) of polygamy and temporary marriage, also

5 Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman, 114–126. 6 Afary, Sexual Politics, 161–162. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 165 contributed to wives’ status. The reformers’ perception of women as managers of the household and the educators of small children, and the gradual widening of educational opportunities for them, also contributed to more equal marriages. Of all these proposed changes, however, setting a minimum age for marriage was the only one to be legally enforced, while other male privileges remained legal, albeit less acceptable.7 Husbands’ total ﬁnancial control over their wives also continued.8 These dynamics received much attention in discussions about Iranian women’s alleged proﬂigacy, and their pursuit of luxury was blamed on men’s tendency to avoid marriage or delay it to a very late age.

Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation: The Regulation of Male Desire

The Marriage Reform The view that a new model of marriage is a social necessity is expressed in a series of articles in the semiofﬁcial newspaper Ettela’at (Information) titled “Social Reforms” (Eslahat-e Ejtema’i).9 The author opines: “Thanks to the formation of a good family, a good society, a good clan and eventually a good nation, civilized and worthy of progress, are formed.” He further argues that: “The original purpose of life is to achieve happiness and serve mankind as well as closeness to another person who becomes a companion in personal life, and to take part in bringing healthy and good children to this world, to serve society and meet the natural obligation of parents.”10

7 Ziba Mir-Hosseini, “Family Law – In Modern Persia,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/family-law#iii. 8 Although Islamic law permits women to hold and inherit property and makes the bride’s price their financial guarantee in case of divorce or widowhood, women often had to forgo this privilege, either as proof of their love and confidence in their husbands or to be granted a divorce in the first place. Agostino Cilardo, “Inheritance – Islamic Period,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/inheritance-ii; Floor, A Social History, 61; Afary, Sexual Politics, 43; Sedghi, Women and Politics,28–29. 9 The same series of articles was published again only a month later, under the title “The Social Duty” (Vazifeh-ye Ejtema’i). 10 “Eslahat-e Ejtema’i” (Social Reforms), Part 5, in Ettela’at, October 8, 1928. 166 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran

Companionate marriage was deemed vital for society for several reasons. It helped increase and improve Iran’s population by producing healthy children; it prevented the spread of sexually transmitted diseases contracted through prostitution and a promiscuous lifestyle and, lastly, it created men who were happy, committed, healthy, and moral and thus better members of society. Together with celebrating the beneﬁts of marriage for society and the individual, many articles expressed concern with the presumed decline of marriage rates in Iran, which they attributed to young men’s reluctance to marry. This erosion of the institution of marriage was linked to a general decline in social morals that resulted in the spread of sexual promiscuity and venereal diseases.11 Iranian women supported the marriage reform as a step toward greater freedom and equality. As Camron Amin has shown, the women’s press advocated marriage reform since the modern or reformist man would presumably allow his wife to have a modern education and even to work, would not practice polygamy or divorce her for another, and would treat her well.12 The new model of marriage not only included guidelines for the couple’s health and compatibility, but also emphasized conjugal love. The importance of love (‘eshq) to social life is extensively discussed in a 1920 article by Dr. Aqa Khan Esma’il Zadeh in the progressive monthly magazine Farhang (Culture). Without love in the family, he writes:

There is no harmony and order in life, there is no cleanliness, there is no gentleness, there are no strong and comely youths, there is no learning and education, there is no culture, there are no great men and smart philosophers and eventually there is nothing but trouble. The man grows weary of the hearth, the woman is unhappy, and the children wander around wild.13 A similar argument is found in an article in the scientiﬁc journal Bahar (Spring), claiming that “If father and mother do not trust and love each other, they will not love their children with proper affection.” This lack of love is evident in a father who spends his earnings on follies and whims and in a mother who neglects her children’s

11 Kashani-Sabet, Conceiving Citizens, 53. 12 Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman, 126. 13 Dr. Aqa Khan Esma’il Zadeh, “‘Eshq ya Sa’adat-e Hey’at-e Ejtema’iyeh-ye Bashar” (Love or The Happiness of Human Social Life), in Farhang, 1920. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 167 material wellbeing and does not breastfeed them, thus causing them to grow weak in body and willpower.14 Conjugal love was imagined in terms quite different from Western notions of romance. The recommended sequence of events was marriage ﬁrst, and then love – not the other way around. A prolonged courtship period, infatuation, sexual attraction, and deep emotional involvement between man and wife were not an integral part of Iranian notions of companionate marriage. This is, for example, how Isa Sadiq describes what made him look for a wife:

For two years, I have been suffering from a kind of spiritual unease. Doctor Sa’id Malek diagnosed its cause as loneliness and lack of companionship and someone to talk to in the house. Following his recommendation, I decided to get married. And since the hejab was still in existence, and women and men did not socialize, inquiries were made by friends and relatives for a year, until ﬁnally Lady Badr ol-Saltaneh Haravi, daughter of Arshad Basir ol-Dowleh, met the desirable criteria ... From that time onward, I felt continuously settled and relaxed, and found strength of heart and peace of mind.15 Sadiq presents his decision to marry as the result of a mental and medical condition, diagnosed by a doctor. The choice of a wife is rational, social, and even collective, rather than emotional and personal. The choice is therapeutic and provides Sadiq with peace of mind and heart. Infatuation, lovesickness or divine bliss have no place in this description. In fact, romance is very rare in most autobiographies of Iranian men born in the late nineteenth century which I encountered. Despite the fact that they promoted far-reaching changes in the model of marriage, the new model was based more on a sense of duty – to one’s health and wellbeing, to family and to society. Indeed, in many such autobiographies, wives play a minor role. Typically, in several hundred pages of an autobiography that often include detailed descriptions of friends, coworkers, and even rivals, wives rarely receive more than a few sentences, devoid of descriptive details of their character, appearance, and occupation. Usually, more text is devoted to the wife’s family and ancestors. This may be the result of literary conventions, or of the authors’ own perception of privacy and of what will interest their readers. However, it may also be

14 “Nofus va Akhlaq-e Ejtema’iyeh” (Population and Social Ethics), in Bahar, May 1910. 15 Sadiq, Yadegar-e Omr, vol. 1, 299–302. 168 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran explained by the fact that despite calls for reforming marriage, free choice in marriage emerged only at the very end of the 1920s, and matches were still usually made by the parties’ families without necessarily including previous acquaintance and courtship.16 Revealingly, the few autobiographies that do contain detailed descriptions of wives and lovers are those of men such as Hasan Arfa or Manuchehr Riyahi, who have spent many years abroad and courted or married European women.17 The notion that marriage was more of a social duty than a romantic attachment found expression in numerous articles on Iranian demography. Iran’s allegedly small population was lamented by local modernizers since the late 1910s. At that time, it numbered little over 10 million (with a density of six per square kilometer), compared to Egypt’s over 11 million (eleven per square kilometer), and Turkey’s over 12 million (15.3).18 As Cyrus Schayegh notes, Iranian intellectuals shared the belief of their peers in other countries that a nation’s power depended on a large and healthy population.19 This preoccupation was inﬂuenced by Western demographic and eugenic concerns that emerged during the late nineteenth century and intensiﬁed in the interwar period.20 Iran’s relatively small population was considered as both

16 “Eslahat-e Ejtema’i,” Part 2, in Ettela’at, October 5, 1928. 17 Manuchehr Riyahi, Sorab-e Zendegi: Gusheh-ha-ye Maktumi az Tarikh-e Mo’aser: Zendeginameh-ye Manuchehr Riyahi (Mirage of Life: Hidden Corners of Modern History: The Biography of Manuchehr Riyahi) (Tehran: Entesharat-e Tehran, 1992), 212–239; Hassan Arfa, Under Five Shahs (London: John Murray, 1964), 159. 18 Daniel Hourcade, Bernard Balland, “Demography,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1994, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/demography; www.populstat.info/Africa/ egyptc.htm, www.populstat.info/Asia/turkeyc.htm (based on: A hundred-year (1890–1990) database for integrated environmental assessments, C. G. M. Klein Goldewijk and J. J. Battjes (1997)). 19 Cyrus Schayegh, “Hygiene, Eugenics, Genetics and the Perception of Demographic Crisis in Iran, 1910s–1940s,” Critique: Middle Eastern Studies 13, no. 3 (2004): 335–361. Another Middle Eastern example can be found in Omnia El Sharky, “Barren Land and Fecund Bodies: The Emergence of Population Discourse in Interwar Egypt,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 37, no. 3 (2005): 351–372. 20 Alison Bashford, “Nation, Empire, Globe: The Spaces of Population Debate in the Interwar Years,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 49, no. 1 (2007): 170–201; Michael S. Teitelbaum and Jay M. Winter, The Fear of Population Decline (Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 1985). Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 169 a cause and an effect of its weakness. For example, one writer arguing for “The Beneﬁts of Marriage” (Mahasen-e Ezdevaj) notes:

If we compare a piece of land in Europe with a piece of land of the same size in Iran, we will see that the number of inhabitants [in the former] is five times higher. Nevertheless, their leaders still think about increasing the population and take all kinds of measures to achieve this vital goal ... For how much longer must he [who believes Iran has no need to increase its population] be satisfied with the current situation of poverty, disaster and deterioration, and distance himself far from the world of civilization ...? ... for what reason this country of ours that is larger, our lands that are more fertile and our God-given underground resources that are greater ...despite all of the above benefits we are still lagging leagues and years behind the caravan of ... European progress? Is it not for the lack of men of action and the paucity of population?21 Schayegh offers a Foucauldian interpretation of the Iranian modernizers’ attitudes to the demographic problem, drawing on the concept of biopower, according to which the body, as the population’s reproducing agent, is social rather than just personal. Sex was thought of as either contributing to or inhibiting the birthrate, and had to be analyzed and actively directed toward procreation.22 Biopower in Iran related to both demography and eugenics: companionate marriage was encouraged in order to increase its population but also in order to produce healthier children.23 In fact, producing children was deemed so important that one writer in the monthly Forugh (Blaze) suggested that the government should force young people to marry, thus preventing a decline of the population and the spread of venereal diseases and immoral acts.24 The discourse on demography promoted by columnists, doctors, social reformers, and government officials demonstrates their wish to gain control over men and women’s bodies through medical advice, legal actions and moral denunciations.25

21 ‘A. A. Tabib Zadeh, “Mahasen-e Ezdevaj” (The Beneﬁts of Marriage), in Ettela’at, July 4, 1927. 22 Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: Volume I: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), 25–26. 23 Schayegh, Who Is Knowledgeable Is Strong, 110–111, 150–151. 24 Musa Sheikh Niya, “Ezdevaj-e Ejbari” (Compulsory Marriage), in Forugh, January 1928. 25 El Sharky, “Barren Land.” 170 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran

Lust, whether male and female, was referred to as both natural (tabi’i) and bestial (heyvani), thus as both legitimate and in need of taming. The importance of marriage as a form of sexual regulation and discipline is evident in the frequent use of the word “order” (entezam, nazm) when marriage is discussed. As early as the late nineteenth century, a Persian rendition of a French marital hygiene manual noted that bachelors jeopardize their health since their lifestyle involves irregular mealtimes, as well as fornication.26 One article on the benefits of marriage claimed that while natural attraction to women starts around the age of fifteen and expresses itself initially as lust, as the adolescent mind develops, the nature of attraction changes, with growing acknowledgment of the need for an organized life. From age twenty-two, the primal feelings of lust are transformed into elevated feelings such as the wish to start a family.27 Thus, marriage is presented as necessary for the process of replacing youthful lust with a mature, “orderly life.” A 1920 article by Dr. Esma’il Zadeh (which will be discussed further below) considers the importance of marriage contracted according to the “correct” and “necessary” rules. His advocacy is based on an “empirical” study of the dangers of bachelorhood. He presents a statistic that 85 percent of all known killers are unmarried, but argues that a bachelor’s criminal character often changes after marriage. Thus, “unmarried people are a danger to society.” The most important influence of marriage on men’s health is the ordering of their lives, and especially their sexual habits. Esma’il Zadeh candidly discusses the sexual benefits of married life. The regularization of sexual relations prevents men from masturbating, as well as from excess in sexual acts. It is better for a man, he argues, to have sex every night than to have sex four or five times a night once every two months. The benefitof marriage for female sexuality rests on the fact that married life assures the fulfillment of women’s sexual needs.28 Usually, however, only male sexuality is discussed in Iranian newspapers and magazines in the context of demography. The emphasis on regulating male sexuality to create a better society and nation may explain the relatively free and straightforward public discussion of sexual relations in this literature.

26 Quoted in Kashani-Sabet, Conceiving Citizens, 53. 27 ‘A. A. Tabib Zadeh, “Mahasen-e Ezdevaj,” Part 2, in Ettela’at, July 5, 1927. 28 Dr. Aqa Khan Esma’il Zadeh, “Osul-e Tahbib beyn Zowjeyn” (The Principles of Creating Love between Spouses), in Farhang, 1920. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 171

Figure 5.1 Hadaco ad (Nahid, February 13, 1926)

The great significance attached to healthy male sexuality is apparent in the numerous uncensored commercial ads for various medical cures for male sexual problems. For example, an ad in Nahid (Venus) publi- cizes a new drug for curing impotence (foqdan-e qoveh-ye baa’), nervous weakness (sosti-ye a’sab), premature ejaculation (sor’at-e enzal),balding (rizesh-e mu) and loin ache (dard-e kamar)(seeFigure 5.1). Virility or its lack are lumped together with other symptoms of loss of vitality, such as paleness or lack of appetite, but is obviously the most important. Another ad, in Shafaq-e Sorkh, promotes a drink named Sarkol, and suggests similar links between general weakness and lack of virility. The advertised concoction is supposed to benefit “people who constantly suffer and have no appetite, either due to lack of blood, nervous weakness or infliction of the brain, or due to too much work or disadvantageous circumstances ... especially regarding virility and 172 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran premature ejaculation.” Also in Shafaq-e Sorkh,adifferentadadvertises Spermin, invented by Dr. Freund and Dr. Redlich, as the “Unique Restorer of Strength.” The pills are supposed to restore virility, prevent fatigue due to overwork, and other illnesses that result in weak nerves. All three ads include some sort of headline in a Latin script designed to endow them with scientific credibility. Potency problems, the ads suggest, are medical problems just like any other, and are therefore to be treated by modern scientific medication. Two of the ads associate excessive work with damage to virility. The anxiety regarding the deterioration of the male body due to office work is also evident in the discussion of sports (see Chapter 7). Edu- cated men who usually held office jobs were deemed vulnerable to the dangers of modern work. The same positions that won them social status and attracted students of the new schools also threatened their manliness. Advertisers took advantage of this anxiety resulting from an inherent contradiction within hegemonic masculinity to promote their products to the educated audience of their newspaper. The great weight put on procreation in the debates on the regulation of male sexuality is similarly evident in discussions of sexually transmitted diseases that were quite prevalent in Iran during the early twentieth century and caused much alarm. According to some interwar estimates, 20–40percentofTehran’s entire population had syphilis, and an examination by the Pasteur Institute in Tehran in 1929 discovered a contam- ination rate of 43 percent.29 Syphilis was deemed a major cause for the birth of disabled children, since syphilitic mothers and wet nurses could transfer the disease to fetuses and infants. Willem Floor quotes a table printed in the Tehran Yearbook of 1931 regarding the damage from syphilis and gonorrhea. Regarding syphilis, four out of ten symptoms mentioned for the disease affect procreation: it kills the semen, causes half of the miscarriages and incomplete pregnancies, infects the fetus and leads to the birth of handicapped progeny. Regarding gonorrhea, five out of its ten symptoms concern procreation: it results in miscarriage, is the main cause of blindness in newborns, 50% of the women afflicted by it become barren, 50% of the afflicted men become infertile, and it is an important cause of population decrease.30 Venereal diseases thus hindered the manly duty of healthy procreation. Since disabled children who grow up to become disabled adults were seen as a national hazard, reformers suggested compulsory health

29 Floor, A Social History, 374, 384. 30 Ibid., 385. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 173 certificates for couples who wished to be married to prevent syphilitic parents from reproducing. These measures were legally mandated only in December 1938, although the Iranian Civil Code of 1928 had allowed parties to a marriage to demand a health certificate of the other party.31 Men were usually the ones blamed for introducing syphilis in their families, after contracting it from prostitutes or promiscuous women, a tendency also echoed in the 1938 law that did not require a health certificate from women.32 The new model of marriage was supposed help prevent venereal diseases, since companionate marriage, it was hoped, would prevent promiscuous behavior. The medical health certificates were meant as an additional safeguard. The discourse on sexuality and demography called for a change in those sexual practices of Iranian men that were inconsistent with the goals of increasing and improving Iran’s population. Child marriage, polygamy, promiscuity, homosexuality, and marrying foreign women were all condemned. Conversely, women were blamed for high infant mortality rates, since they did not have the knowledge to take proper care of their infants.33 It was for affectionate marriage to put an end to such vice and ignorance.34

Rejection of Child Marriage and Polygamy on Medical and Moral Grounds Child marriage in Iran was common for two main reasons. The ﬁrst was the cultural importance of the bride’s virginity. The risk of a young woman’s promiscuousness led parents to marry off their daughters at the ﬁrst signs of puberty, sometimes as early as age nine, the youngest allowed by the Shari’a.35 In poor families, girls were given in marriage

31 Kashani-Sabet, Conceiving Citizens, 68, 76–89; Ali Raza Naqvi, “The Family Laws of Iran (II),” Islamic Studies 7, no. 2 (1968): 149, 161. 32 Schayegh, Who Is Knowledgeable Is Strong, 141–142; Ali Asghar Hakim Niya, “Tazyid-e Nofus (The Multiplying of Population), in Ettela’at, February 20, 1935; Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi, “Expanding Agendas for the “New” Iranian Woman: Family Law, Work, and Unveiling,” in The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921–1941, ed. Stephanie Cronin (London: Routledge, 2003), 213–239. 33 Schayegh, Who Is Knowledgeable Is Strong, 122. 34 A similar discourse was also prevalent in Turkey during these years. See Deniz Kandiyoti, “Gendering the Modern: On Missing Dimensions in the Study of Turkish Modernity,” in Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey, ed. Sibel Bozdogan and Resat Kasaba (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), 113–132. 35 Floor, A Social History, 38. 174 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran for economic reasons as well. One fewer mouth to feed in the household was a serious consideration, and sometimes girls were also given as wives or temporary wives for a lump sum of money.36 A girl was deemed ready for the consummation of marriage as soon as she began menstruating and many girls gave birth at a very early age. An important change promoted by marriage reformers was raising the age of marriage. This change was presented as important for increasing Iran’s population, since giving birth prematurely was dangerous for both mother and child.37 Criticism of child marriages is voiced in Ali Akbar Dehkhoda’s satirical column “Charand Parand” (Idle Talk) published in Sur-e Israfil (The Trumpet of Seraph) and later in Shafaq-e Sorkh and Iran-e Konuni (Current Iran). In one article, the author snubs readers who ridicule his writings and lists the deficiencies of Iranian society, including child marriage: “Why do you laugh at me? Laugh at your daughters who become brides at the age of eight, meaning at the time they play with dolls. And at the age of nine, meaning six nights after giving birth, the [mythical monster] Aal comes and takes their darlings.”38 The wife’s biological immaturity was one of the main objections to child marriage. An article in Ettela’at claims that “most miscarriages, difficult births, mothers dying at childbirth, lack of milk and other problems of pregnancy and birth come as a result of not maintaining the marriage age for the girl.”39 In a review of the ideal conditions for marriage, Dr. Esma’il Zadeh argues that a woman’s reproductive and sexual organs reach maturity several years after adolescence, which in Iran is between eleven and fifteen years. A woman should therefore not marry until she reaches biological maturity, otherwise these organs will never mature, and the woman will not gain womanly charms and will remain childlike. Other than that, her children will be ugly and miserable.40 Clearly, raising the age of marriage, despite the fact that it potentially improved women’s lot, was justified by patriarchal arguments. Women had to be married at a later age so that they would be more

36 Ibid., 42; Paidar, Women and the Political Process, 45. 37 “Eslahat-e Ejtama’i,” Part 3, in Ettela’at, October 6, 1928. 38 Ali Akbar Dehkhoda, “Charand Parand,” in Iran-e Konuni, January 18, 1913. 39 “Vazifeh-ye Ejtema’i,” Part 1, in Ettela’at, November 26, 1928. 40 Dr. Aqa Khan Esma’il Zadeh, “Osul-e Tahbib beyn Zowjeyn,” in Farhang, 1920. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 175 attractive to their husbands and improve the next generations. The marginality of women’s rights per se is similarly apparent in the 1928 Civil Code and the 1931 Marriage Law, both of which overlook the most crucial male privileges in marriage – polygamy, easy divorce, and temporary marriage – and hesitate to abolish child marriages. Under the Civil Code, the minimum age of marriage was fifteen for girls and eighteen for boys, but the court could grant permission to marry girls over thirteen years of age.41 The original version of the Marriage Law had included a minimum age for marriage of sixteen for girls and eighteen for boys. This version was subsequently revised to include financial penalties and prison terms for those involved in marrying girls younger than thirteen years old, in addition to requiring medical approval of “physical aptitude.” Aptitude could refer to women’s ability to bear healthy children – the most important argument against child marriage. It could also refer to their physical ability to consummate the marriage: the law sets punishments for men who, due to consummating their marriage with underage girls, caused them physical harm or even death. The law was amended in 1937, when a minimum age of sixteen and eighteen for girls and boys, respectively, was added.42 Another aspect of the rejection of child marriage was a changing perception of male sexuality, which deemed pedophilia morally wrong. This approach was most bluntly introduced to Iranians via the Azeri satirical journal Mullah Naser ol-Din, published in Russian Caucasia and imported to Iran during the first years of the twentieth century. The journal featured cartoons ridiculing the marrying of very young girls to old men.43 This is echoed in Iranian newspapers from a later period. An author in Ettela’at considers the health issues of pregnancy and birth at an early age and notes that for the man, not maintaining a proper age of marriage has no visible physical damage. But on top of the moral damage of making a young girl the prey and concubine and tool for an old man’s debauchery, which is ugly and obscene logically and morally and furthermore results in physical and medical damage to the woman ... it is not clear whether for the man, other than

41 Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, s.v. “Family Law,” www.iranicaonline.org/ articles/family-law#iii; Naqvi, “The Family Laws of Iran (II),” 149. 42 Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman, 127–128, 132; Naqvi, “The Family Laws of Iran (II),” 158. 43 See in Afary, Sexual Politics, 136; Floor, A Social History,43–45. 176 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran the physical and bodily pleasure which is a beastly pleasure, there is also mental and scientific benefit and value.44 Note, though, that the mere sexual attraction to young girls was not presented as deviant or unnatural, only acting on this desire was deemed morally wrong. Moral rejection of relationships between old men and young girls is manifest in a short story by Jamalzadeh, titled “Mullah Qorban Ali’s Complaint,” published in 1921.45 In the story, a man of about fifty shares the circumstances leading to his imprisonment. Mullah Qorban Ali was an uneducated and illiterate reciter of prayers, who learned his trade from an older man, whose wife he married after the old man’s death. One day, the mullah was called to his neighbor’s house to recite prayers in honor of his daughter’s recu- peration from illness. Accidently, the mullah caught a glimpse of the daughter, who was about sixteen years old (rather older than many child brides), and became enamored with her. This led him to a state of madness, illness, and poverty, and eventually caused the death of his wife. When the neighbor’s daughter fell ill again and died, the mullah went to the mosque to recite the prayer for the dead. On seeing the girl’s body, he fell into ecstasy, kissed her lips, and completely lost track of what transpired between him and the cadaver, only to wake up in a prison cell. The narrative of the mullah’s moral deterioration – from marrying his boss’s wife, through voyeurism and pedophilia, to necrophilia – is a clear indictment of the male sexual practices against which marriage reformers fought. The mullah is a model of traditional subordinate masculinity: religious, illiterate, and immoral. His approach to modernization is apparent in his snide remarks regarding men who shave their beards “and make themselves womanlike” (at the end of the story he himself is forcibly shaved in prison, an acceptable act of punishment), or in his reference to the fact that the reciting of prayers is replaced by the reading of newspapers. In the detestable figure of the mullah, conservatism and male sexual corruption are intertwined. Alternating between medical-scientific arguments and moral considerations, condemnation of child marriage associated it with ignorance and conservatism. The modern man, searching for a wife who would

44 “Eslahat-e Ejtama’i,” Part 3, in Ettela’at, October 6, 1928. 45 Seyyed Mohammad Ali Jamalzadeh, “Dard-e Del-e Mola Qorbanali” (The Troubles of Mullah Qorbanali), in Jamalzadeh, Once Upon a Time,77–88. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 177 be his companion for life, was supposed to look for a young woman close to his age and not for a child bride whose ability to be an appropriate sexual or procreative partner was limited. Similarly, reformist writers associated polygamy with the conservatism of specific groups in society. Since it could be problematic to argue against polygamy that it harmed reproduction, arguments about its immorality were put to the fore. Polygamy was legal but not common in Iran. It depended mostly on a man’s financial ability to provide for several wives and numerous children, an ability limited to very few. Despite the fact that polygamous households could help increase the population, this was never suggested as a possible solution to Iran’s population problem, perhaps because at that period, monogamous marriage was the norm even among the wealthy. This in turn may have to do with the growing exposure of Iranian elites to Western familial norms and, possibly, with Iran’s economic difficulties at the turn of the century.46 Polygamy was identified with specific social groups: the aristocracy and Qajar court, where multiple wives and children were status symbols,47 and clergymen who followed this practice for religious reasons.48 Polygamy was disparaged by some of the most prominent intellectuals of the late nineteenth century. Reformers like Akhundzadeh and Kermani wrote against it and for the emancipation and equality of women. Parvin Paidar quotes Kermani as writing that: “Polyg- amy turns the pleasures between man and wife into discord and enmity, and drives families into poverty and distress. Polygamy promotes desperation and prostitution and spreads contagious diseases.” His words reflect well the different arguments used to discredit polygamy: its negative influence on the married couple’s happiness, its economic aspect, and its ruinous influence on society.49 Preventing promiscuity also justified the abolition of polygamy. In a polygamous marriage, one author suggests, the woman inevitably becomes jealous of the other wives and turns to affairs with other men.50

46 Afary, Sexual Politics,50–51; Paidar, Women and the Political Process, 44. 47 Afary, Sexual Politics, 34. 48 “Eslahat-e Ejtema’i,” Part 36, in Ettela’at, January 11, 1929. 49 Paidar, Women and the Political Process,46–47. 50 “Eslahat-e Ejtema’i,” Part 36, in Ettela’at, January 16, 1929. 178 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran

Later opponents of polygamy associated it with corruption and moral deficiency. Several satirical poems on the subject were published in Gol-e Zard. “A Man with Two Wives,” for example, is about the negative influence of polygamy on the husband. The poet notes that polygamy brings nothing but pain and suffering to the husband. His financial situation deteriorates and he loses his respectability and authority and even his physical strength, and dies quickly.51 Another such poem, titled “The Story of a Man with Four Wives,” is a mono- logue by one of the wives. She relates that despite the fact that her husband is already married to four women (the maximum allowed by Islam), he is looking for a new one, instructing the matchmaker to tell the prospective bride that he is a wealthy man with relatives in high places, and a bachelor. When relatives of the intended bride come to his house, the man’s wife tells them that not only is he surly, sloppy, and ugly, but he wishes to marry the woman only for her dowry. The following description of the husband evokes the figure of the pseudo- patriot (see Chapter 3): he has little actual fortune; he has an assort- ment of jobs as a storyteller, middleman, and grocer; and most recently, he has established a party and joined in the political game. His political actions, meant to compensate for his expenses, drag the country into chaos.52 Polygamy, then, corrupts not only the family and sexual morals, but also politics and the nation. A similar polygamous character is featured in one of Dehkhoda’s Charand Parand columns from 1908. This column tells the story of Haji Mullah Abbas, an illiterate mule driver who swindles his way to the status of a wealthy mullah and businessman. After becoming wealthy, he asks his acquaintances to find him a virgin girl both beautiful and rich. Such a girl, eleven years old, is found and he marries her. But he is not satisfied with her wealth or beauty. After only ten or twenty days, he secretly marries a temporary wife. A few months later, the insatiable mullah takes a second permanent wife and by the beginning of the following year, he takes a temporary wife, a former prostitute, and frequents prostitutes in the madrasah where he used to study. Not only that, he also spends the girl’s dowry and sells her property to

51 “Mard-e Do Zaneh” (A Man with Two Wives), in Gol-e Zard, March 4, 1924. 52 “Hekayat-e Mard-e Chehar Zaneh” (The Story of a Man with Four Wives), in Gol-e Zard, May 1922. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 179 cover his expenses.53 The column lumps together all the ills of traditional marriage ‒ child marriage, polygamy, temporary marriage, prostitution, promiscuity, and bankruptcy ‒ and uses stereotyping and exaggeration to vilify an outmoded and corrupt masculine type. The castigation of social groups that still practiced polygamy (and child marriage) marked them off as antisocial, and made a distinction between them and the monogamous elite endowed with moral superiority. As stated, the attack on polygamy did not reﬂect the prevalence of the actual practice. The vehemence of the attacks suggests that their main target was not the practice itself, but rather the social groups reformists associated with it. Ridiculing and vilifying polygamy and child marriage was in fact a way of ridiculing and vilifying the marital and sexual norms of men of other social groups. Thus, gender relations became one of the main arenas in which differences of class and status were articulated and expressed.54

Heteronormalizing Society and the Demise of the Male Adolescent Lover Until the end of the nineteenth century, erotic relationships between grown men and adolescent boys (amrad) were considered normative in Iran, as in many Islamic societies.55 Adolescent boys who had only the ﬁrst traces of mustache represented ideal beauty; so much so that during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century women used to draw thin mustaches above their lips (one of them was Zinat, the cousin and intended bride of Ja’far Khan the fokoli).56 Despite the religious edict prohibiting sodomy (levat), various sexual acts were not as strictly prohibited when occurring between a grownup and an

53 Ali Akbar Dehkhoda, “Charand Parand – Qandarun,” in Sur-e Israfil, May 6, 1908. 54 Deniz Kandiyoti speaks of a similar phenomenon in Turkey. Kandiyoti, “Gendering the Modern.” 55 Murray and Roscoe, Islamic Homosexualities; Khaled El-Rouayheb, “The Love of Boys in Arabic Poetry of the Early Ottoman Period, 1500–1800,” Middle Eastern Literatures 8, no. 1 (January 2005): 3–22; El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality. Homosexual acts were similarly prevalent among the Jewish populations of the Ottoman Empire, see Yaron Ben-Naeh, “Moshko the Jew and His Gay Friends: Same-Sex Sexual Relations in Ottoman Jewish Society,” Journal of Early Modern History 9, no. 1–2 (2005): 79–105. 56 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 232; Moqaddam, “Ja’far Khan,” 167. 180 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran adolescent, since boys whose facial hair had not grown were not considered to be full-fledged men. Sexual acts that did not include anal penetration were perceived by some Islamic jurists as less severe than sodomy.57 However, in Islam sex between two grown men was considered a crime and a sin. Adult men who wished to remain objects of male desire and showed that by shaving their facial hair (and were therefore called amrad-numa), were considered unmanly and perverse.58 While adult men’s desire to be anally penetrated was described in premodern Islamic sources as an illness, sodomy was not considered so. It was more of a vice similar to adultery or drinking and was not associated with a specific type of person.59 Another consideration was the man’s role in the sexual act. As long as he was the “active” (penetrating) partner, the act had no negative influence on his masculinity, regardless of the other party’s gender. However, once a grown man took the passive role, he lost his masculinity and with it his honor.60 Adolescent boy lovers could employ many different positions, from royal pages to coffeehouse waiters and hamam attendants. Among these, boy dancers were most coveted (though hardly respected) by grown men in Iran and other Islamic societies. They performed in troupes of musicians and dancers in social gatherings and their dances included flirtatious movements and looks as well as acrobatic feats. As the performing arts were considered highly disreputable, most dancers came from the lower strata of society, and sometimes from religious and ethnic minorities.61

57 Floor, A Social History, 287; Afary, Sexual Politics, 81; El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality, 26. 58 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches,16–17, 23. 59 El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality,45–46. 60 Floor, A Social History, 293–300; El-Rouayheb, Before Homosexuality,20–22. Similar distinctions existed in other cultures; in ancient Greece, for example, a man having “active” sexual intercourse with a youth was considered normative, but enjoying being penetrated by other men was deemed part of the characteristics of the kinaidos – a gender and sexually deviant ﬁgure. See David M. Halperin, “Forgetting Foucault: Acts, Identities, and the History of Sexuality,” Representations 63 (1998): 93–120. However, it should be noted that, as Joseph Boone has shown, this was the rule, and had its exception – such as relationships between two young men, or more versatility in the partners’ sexual positions. Boone, The Homoerotics of Orientalism,68–69. 61 Anthony Shay, “The Male Dancer in the Middle East and Central Asia,” Dance Research Journal 38, no. 1/2 (2006): 144–147; Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim (Old Tehran), vol. 2, 59–62. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 181

The photographs in Figures 5.2‒5.5 show how such boy dancers were integrated in elite men’s lifestyle. Taken in the late nineteenth century, they portray elite men dressed in Western style with dancers in typical clothes (Figures 5.2, 5.3, 5.4b, and 5.5), and in a westernized coat with the chain of the pocket watch visible (Figure 5.4a). The heads of the boys in Figures 5.4a and 5.5 are bare, which is highly uncommon in portraits of Iranian men. Figures 5.2 and 5.3 are of the same dancer, Hosein Ballah, one with Qorbanaly Beg Jelodar (Beg is a traditional honorary title) and the other with Mirza Mohammad Ali Khan, described as the agent (mobasher, a quasi-feudal steward) of Nazem ol-Dowleh’s villages. Figures 5.4a and 5.4b depict Colonel Naqi Khan with Teymur the dancer. All three men (and the other three photographed alongside them) deemed it appropriate to have their portraits taken together with dancing boys in a way that suggested intimacy. The photographer, Ali Khan Vali Qajar, explicitly comments on Figure 5.4a: Colonel Naqikhan and Teymur the dancer flirting, Mirza Asadollah and Abulqasem Khan looking on with envy (Sarhang Naqikhan ba Teymur Raqqas mo’asheqeh mikonad Mirza Asadollah va Abulqasem Khan aab dahan foru bordeh khamyazeh mikeshand). The relationships portrayed in these photos seem quite equal. In Figure 5.4a, the hand gestures of the man and boy suggest mutual “ownership”;inFigures 5.3, 5.4a,and5.5, the boy’s hand or arm on the man’s shoulders seems proprietary; and in Figure 5.4b, the man and boy affectionately hold hands. It is also interesting to note the direction of the gazes in the photos. Especially in Figures 5.4a and 5.4b, the grown man looks down, while the boy’s gaze is directed at the camera and the viewers. In Figure 5.3, the boy seems to flirt with the photographer, giving him a lopsided smile. These looks connote a certain power, that of a performer who is used to the influence his gaze gives him over the onlookers. These relationships between an older man and an adolescent were shaped by social standing and characterized by Janet Afary as “status- defined homosexuality.” The hierarchy in such couples was clearly defined: the older man was wealthier; he was the suitor courting the youth with gifts and promises of social mobility; and he was the active sexual partner.62 Since the relationships were based on status difference, the grown partner had to be affluent enough to court the boy with

62 Afary, Sexual Politics, 79. 182 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran

Figure 5.2 Qorbanali Beg Jelodar with Hosein Ballah the dancer (Photo album by Ali Khan Vali Qajar, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University)

Figure 5.3 Mirza Mohammad Ali Khan and his brother with Hosein Ballah the dancer (Photo album by Ali Khan Vali Qajar, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University) Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 183

Figures 5.4a and b Colonel Naqikhan and Teymur the dancer next to Mirza Asadollah Khan Nazer and Abulqasem Khan Farasali (Photo album by Ali Khan Vali Qajar, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University) 184 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran

Figure 5.5 Ahmad Ali Khan Damad with two dancers (Photo album by Ali Khan Vali Qajar, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University) presents. Furthermore, it was permissible for men of the elite to hire young boys, usually from poor families, as their servants and concubines, while for men of lower status this behavior was not acceptable.63 Dehkhoda sarcastically writes that the people of several areas in Iran became so “addicted” to the practice of giving their youngsters away as servants that “if for one year they will not give hundreds of virgin girls and thousands of adolescent boys for the harems and kitchens of the rulers – they will become ill.”64 Parents’ willingness to turn their sons into servant concubines of powerful men is understandable if we remember that favorite boy concubines (and subsequently their families) could beneﬁt from this position. The boys were courted with material goods, but could also be granted positions otherwise inaccessible to men of their social standing (see the example of Malijak in Chapter 3).65

63 Ibid., 104–107. 64 Ali Akbar Dehkhoda, “Charand Parand – Kalam ol-Moluk Moluk ol-Kalam” (Idle Talk – The Words of Kings the King of Words), in Sur-e Israﬁl, January 23, 1909. 65 “Asar-e Khameh-ye Yeki az Arbab-e Danesh,” in Habl al-Matin, August 5, 1907. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 185

The great expenditure of courting boys was an important part of the ritual. Indeed, according to a tract by the late-nineteenth-century female writer Bibi Khanom Astarabadi titled The Vices of Men, liber- tines and debauchers prided themselves on how much they spent on courting boys and prostitutes. When one of them tells how much he had spent on “Khavar, the mustachioed prostitute,” his friend answers: “I have spent more than you ...and I could not take pleasure at all. For six months, I was after the son of Ja’far-e Lokhti; I could not talk to him but with a thousand troubles. I was preparing the ground so that one night I might sleep with him. I just wanted to rip the curtain of his chastity, to bare his bum, to get my heart’s desire.”66 This type of courting was an elite privilege, while non-elite men who were enamored with young boys had to satisfy themselves with gazing at their objects of desire. In The Travel Diary of Ebrahim Beg, Mar- aghe’i describes such a scene:

There was a grocery in front of me. A very handsome young man of about seventeen or eighteen years of age was sitting in the shop. Customers were crowded around him like ﬂies ...It was clear that they were in pain ... I also saw a person who was sitting by the sock-seller with pen and paper in his hand. He kept looking at the face of the boy and writing something. I thought that man was a painter [and] asked the sock-seller ... “Uncle, what’s the name of this painter?” ... “Where’s the painter, son?” he said. “This man who is drawing the face of that young grocer,” I said. He laughed and said, “Dear boy, the man ... isn’t a portrait painter, but a poet. He’s writing a poem about that boy. These shameless poets ... Every hour one leaves and another one comes. Under the excuse of ogling this youth, the platform of my shop isn’t empty one minute.”67 Najmabadi considers companionate/romantic marriage as a part of the heteronormalization of Iranian society. Introducing desire and even love into a relationship traditionally perceived as little more than a reproductive contract would help “redirecting” men’s homoerotic inclinations toward a heterosexual relationship. From the end of the nineteenth century, deﬁnitions of lust and love underwent a process of heteronormalization concurrently with the changed perceptions of marriage. This heteronormalization was expressed in the rejection of

66 Hasan Javadi and Willem M. Floor, The Education of Women and the Vices of Men: Two Qajar Tracts (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2010), 103. 67 Maraghe’i, The Travel Diary of Ebrahim Beg, 190–191. 186 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran homoerotic and homosexual practices as perverse and unnatural. Whereas until the turn of the century, sexual acts between men and adolescent boys were condoned before and even after matrimony – as long as the husband fulﬁlled his marital duties to his wife – in later years such practices were marginalized.68 The delegitimizing of certain homoerotic practices was evident in the 1925 Penal Code, which prohibited sodomy among both males and females, but did not refer to homosexuality as such. The Persian term for homosexuality (ham jens bazi or ham jens gara) appeared only in the mid-twentieth century.69 Furthermore, whereas both male and female prostitution were outlawed, male prostitutes were more exposed to arrest.70 As a result of this process, homoerotic practices went underground. Sex between men persisted in the 1920s as part of the sex industry, and some places in Tehran were known to be pick-up places for male prostitutes.71 Afary claims that the phenomenon of boy concubines continued throughout the 1930s via the employment of boys as apprentices, servants, and orderlies. Movie theaters became meeting places not just for young heterosexual couples but also for grown men and adolescent boys.72 Writers who adopted a homophobic stance used it to protest against the seclusion of women in Iranian society. They argued that the homoerotic practices of Iranian men resulted from women’s unavailability. According to these intellectuals, if Iranian society was heterosocial like European society, this phenomenon would not have evolved.73 The claim that veiling was the cause of homosexual practices in Iran is most bluntly voiced in Iraj Mirza’s lengthy poem ‘Aref Nameh, published in 1921. The poem lewdly ridicules the homoerotic practices of the poet ‘Aref of Qazvin, a well-known pederast. The poet castigates the prevalence of pederasty in Iran and blames it on the veiling of women:

Until our tribe is tied up in the veil This very queerness is bound to prevail The draping of the girl with her throat divine Will make the little boy our concubine.

68 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 162–163. 69 Floor, A Social History, 299. 70 Afary, Sexual Politics, 160. 71 Floor, A Social History, 350. 72 Afary, Sexual Politics, 159–165. 73 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches,57–58. In reality, of course, homosexuality existed in the West regardless of the degree of gender segregation. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 187

You see: A cute and cuddly little boy Who’s ready to become your fawning toy; Not seen: His sister naked without her wimple, So there’s no hope of doting on her dimple!74

Similar to veiling, homoerotic practices came to represent Iran’s backwardness compared to Western countries, and the unmodern state of Iranian society.75 For example, at the time of the Constitutional Revo- lution, religious teachers were accused in the Azeri newspaper Mullah Naser ol-Din of molesting young boys in the maktabs. The accusation was part of the campaign to encourage families to send their children to modern schools.76 Similar arguments could still be heard years later, in 1926, in an article by Ahmad Aminzadeh, founder of the Boy Scout Movement in Iran. Discussing the role of schools in educating for morals, Aminzadeh mentions that in the “old schools,” as well as in the Iranian schools of Istanbul, teachers were not allowed to talk privately to a student – supposedly because of their lax morals. The danger of teacher-student homoerotic relations is juxtaposed to pro- posals to institute coed classes. According to the article, anxieties regarding the moral issues of mixed education were proved to be baseless.77 Researchers such as Najmabadi, Joseph Massad, and Dror Ze’evi argue that the exposure of educated Middle Eastern men to European culture, Europeans’ abhorrence of homosexuality, and European criticism of their societies’ homoerotic practices was a main cause, from the eighteenth century onward, for the rejection of amrad loving in written sources.78 Najmabadi further argues that Iranian adoption of Euro- pean heteronormativity was induced by the experiences of Iranian men in Europe, who were deeply inﬂuenced by being surrounded by men and women alike in a heterosocial public sphere, as well as by being courted by European women. Accordingly, despite the fact that Iranian travelers and students in Europe viewed both European men and

74 Iraj Mirza, “Aref Nameh,” as translated in Paul Sprachman, Suppressed Persian: An Anthology of Forbidden Literature (Costa Mesa, CA: Bibliotheca Iranica, 1995), 82. 75 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 211. 76 Afary, Sexual Politics, 138. 77 Ahmad Amin Zadeh, “Namus va Vazifeh-ye Madares” (Honor and Schools’ Duty), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, August 16, 1926. 78 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 41; Zeʼevi, Producing Desire, 168–169; Massad, Desiring Arabs. 188 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran women as legitimate objects of desire, the attention they received from European women reeducated them in the heteronormative direction.79 While all of the factors considered here contributed much to the growing unacceptability of adult-adolescent same-sex love, such a profound cultural shift calls for an additional explanation, one that also draws on deeper, internal factors. Homosexual sex was not reproductive and was considered socially dangerous. Not only did it not result in the production of children, it also impinged on the sexual and emotional ties between man and wife.80 Furthermore, as companionate marriage and procreative male sexuality became a national duty, true patriots had to adjust. Wendy DeSouza shows that people like reformist Hasan Taqizadeh thought that homosexual acts were inconsistent with the work ethic that would help Iran become a strong country and confront Western imperialism.81 Thus, patriotic masculinity became interlinked with monogamy and heterosexuality through demographic, and even economic, concerns. As in other national projects, border marking was an important aspect of Iranian nationalism. Nationalists marked the demographic and geographic borders of the nation and the homeland as well as cultural and gender boundaries.82 Clearly defined gender boundaries could not accommodate liminal figures such as the amrad or amrad- numa who were therefore delegitimized.83 Furthermore, the project of border marking was possibly influenced by the accelerated modernization of Iranian society. Societies undergoing modernization experience drastic changes, creating a need to define clearer gender and other boundaries. Women’s place in society, their education, seclusion, relations with their husbands, and the possibility of their employment outside the household, were all issues central to the intellectual agenda of that period and considered part of the “woman’s question.”84 This

79 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 54. 80 DeSouza, “Scholarly Mysticism,” 84–86. 81 Ibid., 114. 82 For a fascinating analysis of gender and national boundaries, see King, “The Personal Is Patrilineal.” 83 George Mosse discusses a similar process in Europe, where the homosexual was constructed as one of the antitypes of modern masculinity, and homosexuality was vilified because of the threat it posed to modern gender boundaries. Mosse, The Image of Man,66–67. 84 For discussions of the place of modern women in Iranian society, see Najmabadi and Amin’s books as well as Paidar, Women and the Political Process, and Sedghi, Women and Politics in Iran. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 189 discussion can be seen as an attempt to clearly define the figure of the modern Iranian woman (and man), as well as an attempt to redraw the lines between public and personal. As part of the gendered project of boundary making, a binary, gendered, concept of the sexes, perceiving women and men as inherently different, was endorsed by modern Iranian intellectuals. The supposedly biological differences between men and women were discussed as part of the “woman’s question.” For example, an article titled “The Comparison of Woman and Man” (Moqayeseh-ye Zan va Mard) claims that since girls are “naturally” inclined toward chastity, they are more self-conscious. Girls are also more sensitive, and therefore more cowardly and easily moved to tears.85 Compared to boys, the author suggests, girls are more cunning and manipulative. However, their willpower is weaker than boys’. Finally, girls’ intelli- gence may develop quicker, but is more superficial than boys’.86 Other writers presented women’s relatively smaller brains as the cause of difference between their mental abilities and those of men.87 Women’s different biology was stressed even by supporters of women’s rights and equality. One female writer to Ettela’at wished to make it very clear that women who claimed that equality meant they could do whatever men could were wrong. Women’s bodies prevented them from certain acts and therefore their equality meant an equality of rights, mostly betterment of women’s lot in marriage.88 By naturalizing women’s roles, women’s biology served to justify and perpetuate their reproductive roles, as well as their social roles as mothers and wives. Naturalization served to preserve men’s privileges at a time of social changes.89 In Iran, as in Europe, a perception of sex that firmly tied it to gender and made clear-cut distinctions between men and women was conveniently rationalized by scientific or pseu- doscientific arguments. Social changes, such as the growth of modern

85 “Moqayeseh-ye Zan va Mard” (The Comparison of Woman and Man), Part 1, in Ettela’at, February 6, 1932. 86 “Moqayeseh-ye Zan va Mard,” Part 2, in Ettela’at, February 7, 1932. 87 “Khelqat-e Jesmani-ye Zan – Tafavvot ba Mard” (Woman’s Physical Constitution – The Difference from Man’s), in Ettela’at, January 4, 1932. 88 Azadi – A Student of the Teachers’ College, “Tasavi-ye Za va Mard” (The Equality of Woman and Man), in Ettela’at, August 16, 1931. 89 Schayegh, Who Is Knowledgeable Is Strong, 151–153; Thomas Walter Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990), 194–196. 190 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran nationalism and women’s changing status in society, made scientiﬁc- ally grounded stable binary perceptions of gender and sexuality more appealing to Iranian intellectuals.

The Dangers of Prolonged Bachelorhood and Foreign Wives Whereas polygamy and child marriage were considered the vices of conservative segments of Iranian society, the lifestyle of elite men with Western education posed other challenges to the marriage reforms they themselves were advocating. Prolonged bachelorhood and foreign marriages occasionally stemmed from the education and professions of these men and undermined the project of companionate marriage with Iranian women. Bachelorhood was widely discussed in newspapers during the 1920s. Discussions ranged from criticism of existing marriage practices, through recommendations for improving the situation, to a debate on the allegedly declining rate of marriage, mostly among young “modern” (motejadded)or“ostensibly modern” (motejadded-nama) elite men. The debate also served to air issues such as women’s education and seclusion, deteriorating social morals, and the dangers of westernization. Young men’s reluctance to marry and raise a family was attacked on several grounds. On the national level, delayed marriages prevented population growth.90 Men who are opposed to marriage, suggests Mas’ud Ostovani in Ettela’at, neglect their national duty. They believe that “man was created for having fun and needs to spend his time on this. Every few days he picks for himself a fairy-looking [girl] and after a few days makes her a tool for satisfying his lust, ignoring [the fact that] God has created them for a different purpose.”91 On sanitary grounds, bachelorhood was repudiated for causing the spread of venereal diseases, since men who did not marry frequented prostitutes.92 This is how Dr. Tabib Zadeh describes the “Health and Morality” beneﬁts of marriage: at a certain age men and women are necessary for each other, and usually, in case of [the latter’s] absence, a man contracts various diseases ... If this

90 ‘A. A. Tabib Zadeh, “Mahasen-e Ezdevaj,” in Ettela’at, July 4, 1927. 91 Mas’ud Ostovani, “Zendegi va Nezhad-e No” (Life and the New Race), in Ettela’at, August 18, 1932. 92 Dr. Yahya, “Maraz-e Suzak dar Tehran” (Gonorrhea in Tehran), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, October 25, 1926. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 191 natural lust is satisfied by legal means, they pass this part of life in a correct, healthy and reasonable manner. When the opposite happens, they become inflicted with various moral deficiencies, and contract venereal and other various diseases, which unfortunately have recently become common especially in this country ... it will not be long before the children and future generation without exception will be threatened ... Everyone is aware that this spread [of moral corruption] is the basis for the ruin of modesty and propriety ...obscenity is lost and most youths ...are not satisfied with this alone, and defile the chastity and propriety of their own sex against God’s word and natural laws and do other abominable acts to satisfy their lust.93 The rejection of married life was thus presented as a severe danger to Iranian society and as a main cause of moral decay (fasad-e akhlaq) which sometimes resulted in homosexuality, in venereal diseases, ster- ility, or the birth of unhealthy children.94 The well-established and long-accepted manly duty of raising a family is linked to the modern manly obligation of patriotism and fulfilling one’s duty to the Iranian nation. Since men’s bodily urges were deemed natural and unavoid- able, the only method of preventing inappropriate sexual liaisons was early companionate marriage.95 Marriage based on compatibility in character and beliefs and mutual affection would encourage men to marry and possibly prevent them from visiting prostitutes and having extramarital affairs. It would also prevent jealous women from abandoning their chastity to repay their unfaithful husbands. Another concern about “moral decay” hadtodowiththechangesinthe public sphere in Iran discussed in Chapter 4. Encounters between men and women now occurred not only in bazaars but also in the new public places such as boulevards and parks and on trams. Women’s growing presence in the public sphere and the beginning of unveiling gave rise to a change in public interactions between men and women and could produce a backlash in the form of sexual harassment. In “A Warning to Men and Youths,” published in the women’s magazine Shekufeh (Blossom), the writer describes this behavior as a despicable cause of reprimand by foreigners, as both un-Islamic and unmanly, and as detrimental to women’smorals:

93 ‘A. A. Tabib Zadeh, “Mahasen-e Ezdevaj,” Part 2, in Ettela’at, July 5, 1927. 94 Ibid.; Tabib Zadeh, “Mahasen-e Ezdevaj,” Part 3, July 16, 1927; Abas Sepahri Atar, “Badbakhti-ye Jame’eh” (Society’s Misfortune), in Ettela’at, January 15, 1930. 95 M. Mas’ud, “Zanashu’i dar Iran” (Marriage in Iran), in Ettela’at, October 1, 1929. 192 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran

Some of the men that should have been the protectors and guardians of women, and should prevent them from ugly and dishonorable acts are [instead] following what is forbidden and rejecting what is good. They ignore the fact that this ugly action and these evil morals place such a stain of shame on their masculine zeal [gheyrat-e mardanegi] ...Some ...[only stand in] ... the tram route and the streets and bazaars, acting in a shocking manner towards women with no shame at all. Instead of preventing it whenever a woman acts unchastely and contrary to modesty and the law of the Shari’a, they deliberately spoil women’s morals and surrender to improper and ugly acts.96 It seems that threatening men with the possible loss of female chastity (including that of their own wives and sisters) that also entailed the loss of namus was deemed an effective way to prevent street harassment. This piece is reminiscent of the ﬁgure of the predatory fokoli, chasing women in the modernized streets of the city. A “real” man, it suggests, should abstain from such behaviors, protecting women’s chastity as well as his own masculine honor. The writer does not completely exempt women from responsibility for promiscuity: some behave unchastely and it is men’s duty to prevent this. Accusing women of lax morals is evident also in later texts discussing harassment. In fact, in the following piece, the women themselves are the harassers. The writer, Mir Hasan Shabahnak, criticizes Ettela’at for talking about street harassment as perpetrated by men only, presenting women as constant victims.

Have they not seen how women pull men’s handkerchiefs from their pockets in the passageways? Have they not seen a woman follow chaste youngsters [javanan ba ‘effat] in the passageways and on the Tajrish bridge, with a lowered head, casting a thousand ﬂirtations to this or other youngster who fall in the trap of those scorns and jokes and circle around them for hours! ...Have they not seen a group of wandering women [zanha-ye velgard]in the public parks and passageways, who walk alongside old men, young men, married and unmarried youngsters, and ﬁnd their amusement in harassing lonely men who fall in the trap of their joking and teasing?97

96 “Ekhtar beh Mardan va Javanan” (A Warning to Men and Youths), Part 1, in Shekufeh, November 2, 1914; Part 3, December 16, 1914. 97 Mir Hasan Shabahnak, “Jens-e Latif – Jens-e Khashan!” (The Gentle Sex – The Rough Sex!), in Ettela’at, July 13, 1931. Producing Healthy Citizens for the Nation 193

Young educated men were blamed for subverting the marriage reform also by marrying European women. In February 1929, Ettela’at launched a debate on this subject.98 The debate drew on an earlier discussion commenced by Iranian travelers during the nineteenth century, who depicted European women as cultivated and educated, but promiscuous – the antithesis of Iranian women.99 Iranian women’s seclusion and lack of modern education were presented as reasons for the delay or rejection of marriage by Iranian men, or for their preference for foreign women.100 Thus, such marriages were mobilized to argue for the education of Iranian women and their increased integration in the public sphere. Another argument against foreign marriages manifests early signs of biological-racial ideology. One writer claims that the main argument brought forward by men who marry foreign women is this: “We wish to renew the Iranian progeny, since we have become degenerate [dejenereh shodehim] we create a strong, able-bodied Iranian with a proper character.”101 Most commentators, however, are strongly opposed to marrying foreign women and use nationalist, economic, and racist arguments: “if you have faith in national unity, in national pride, in the ease and comfort of your life, if you have faith in the survival of the race, and in the honor and economy of your family, if you have faith in the chastity of your sisters – do not tie yourself to any other than your own race.”102 Despite the fact that the debate focused on Iranian men who “married out,” in the Marriage Law of 1931, the article discussing marriage to foreigners made only the marriage of an Iranian woman to a foreign national subject to authorization by the state. Thus, the state took upon itself the role of women’s guardian, limiting the authority of women’s families in this matter.103 This gendered marriage policy demonstrates the government’s reluctance to limit men’s sexual options by law, a reluctance also apparent, as we have seen, in its

98 Camron Amin presents a similar discussion that took place in the expatriate newspaper Iranshahr during 1924. Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman, 119–122. 99 Tavakoli-Targhi, “Refashioning Iran,” 71. 100 “Baz Ham Y.Sh.” (Y.Sh. Again), in Ettela’at, October 24, 1929. 101 Moshfeq Kazemi, “Dar atraf-e Zanashu’i ba Khareji” (Regarding Marriage to a Foreigner), in Ettela’at, June 23, 1929. 102 “Baz Ham dar atraf-e Mard-e Irani – Zan-e Khareji” (Once Again Regarding the Iranian Man – Foreign Wife), in Ettela’at, February 19, 1929. 103 Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman, 128. 194 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran approach to polygamy, homosexuality, or temporary marriages. It may also betray an Islamic inﬂuence on secular law, since a Muslim man could marry a non-Muslim woman, but not vice versa.104 The arguments against marrying foreign women focus on the moral and sexual aspects of the relationships and courtship.105 Foreign women are referred to as morally corrupt, and are juxtaposed with modest and chaste Iranian women destined to a life of spinsterhood: “Daughters who are chaste and good housekeepers and are of the same race, language and thought as us, stay for years at their father and mother’s house. And the young men of their family and clan beg foreign women for marriage.”106 The discussion about morals has a social aspect as well. The men are described as members of the aristocracy (a’yanzadegan), and their preference for foreign women as a result of their debauched and corrupt lifestyle.107 Their exogamy, too, is related to the social conditions that has facilitated their marital choice: they have met their prospective European wives in mixed dances, cafés, and pensions, and eventually married their social inferiors:

If one examines closely the social problems and moral deﬁciencies of Iranian society, one will see that they spread ... from the upper classes ... from the wealthy and aristocratic gentlemen [aqayan-e a’yan va ashraf] and slowly become common among other classes ... They either enter into a steady relationship with an unknown fruit-seller in the dancing halls or public cafés and the lasciviousness of the two partners ends in a marriage, or they form a friendship with a housemaid in one of the pensions and bed-and-breakfasts, whose future and fate no one knows.108 As much as foreign marriages are criticized for their immorality, they are targeted for destabilizing class and status differences.109 It is plainly suggested that the foreign wives are working-class women. When Ja’far Khan the westernizer tells his family that he has no intention of getting married and that even if he did, it would be to a European woman, his uncle retorts: “You will not take an Iranian woman? Rest

104 Wakin, “Family Law – In Islam.” 105 Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman, 120–121. 106 “Mard-e Irani va Zan-e Khareji” (The Iranian Man and the Foreign Woman), in Ettela’at, February 14, 1929. 107 “Baz Ham dar atraf-e Mard-e Irani – Zan-e Khareji,” in Ettela’at, February 19, 1929. 108 “Dar atraf-e Zanashu’i ba Khareji,” in Ettela’at, February 18, 1929. 109 Amin, 121–122. Home Economics 195 assured, the Europeans will also not give you a woman. And if they will ... Her ladyship ‘Madam Ja’far Khan’ will most certainly be a cook, or a washerwoman, or a dancer.”110 Framing transnational marriage as a vice of an aristocratic Other served to divert criticism from men of the westernized elite. The corrupt aristocrat was a scapegoat, while they themselves often came from aristocratic families and lived in Europe for long periods, which sometimes led to their marrying foreign women. However, attitudes to marriage with foreigners may also be interpreted as a form of self- criticism, aimed at amending certain practices of men of this elite that could have risked its status. This attempt to differentiate the new elite from a corrupt aristocracy, or to acknowledge and eliminate the ﬂaws of the former, should be considered alongside other uses of the marriage reform. As seen earlier, reformist writers used the debate on marriage to ridicule men of other social groups. Like the pseudopatriot, the polygamous man, the man marrying a child bride, and the Iranian taking a foreign wife were cast as the antitype of the modern man and chastised for their immorality and lack of patriotism. Men of all social strata were required to forgo entrenched privileges: polygamy and temporary marriage were no longer condoned by reformers and modernizers. Formerly acceptable objects of desire were excluded from the repertoire of sexuality and sexual images and were to be replaced, symbolically and literally, by a single object of feelings and desires: the modern Iranian wife. Despite the delimitation and regulation of male desire, the acknowledged hierarchy between husband and wife was not overturned. The manner in which male control was preserved in the reformed model of marriage is the subject of the next section.

Home Economics: The Preservation of Male Hegemony

Love and Hierarchy As male sexual practices and privileges were increasingly criticized and modern men were called on to base their married life on mutual respect, affection, and sexual loyalty, women’s status within the family was expected to improve signiﬁcantly. The new Iranian man was

110 Moqaddam, “Ja’far Khan,” 188–189. 196 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran supposed to change not only his extramarital liaisons and behaviors, but also the way he treated his wife within the new companionate conjugal relations. The changing perception of women’s desirable status is manifest in a short piece published in Bahar, which describes a woman who asks a doctor why the woman was created from man’s rib. The doctor answers: “The woman was not created from man’s head, so that she would not rule him. She was not created from his foot so he would not harass her [aziyat nakonad]. She was created from his side so that she would be his equal! ...She was created from the closest place to the heart so that he would respect and love her.”111 However, this desired equality did not find its way to the reformed marriage of Iranians. As already noted, women’s biology was brought forward as an argument against equality, and most male privileges in marriage were not outlawed. While supposedly promoting a marriage of greater equality between husband and wife, reformist writers were doing so using arguments that perpetuated women’s inferior marital status. In 1920, the cultural-scientific journal Farhang published two articles by Dr. Esma’il Zadeh, already referred to in this chapter. The first discussed the nature of love112 and the second “The Principles of Creating Love between Spouses” (Osul-e Tahbib beyn Zowjeyn). Des- pite the fact that the article suggests a series of reforms in marriage and advocates a conjugal model that is more equal than traditional marriage, neither love nor reforms change the fundamental hierarchy in the marital pact. Esma’il Zadeh considers the right choice of a spouse necessary for a happy marriage. The first prerequisite is good health on both sides. The second is appropriate age (21–35 for men, 18–25 for women). Another requirement is mental compatibility. Esma’il Zadeh writes that the couple should be matched in their mental ability, tastes, social skills, and character, but since “two kings cannot reign in the same domain,” it is better that the wife be one degree lesser than the husband, so that he may give orders and she may obey. When he considers the correct behavior during the first week of marriage, Esma’il Zadeh mentions the husband’s duty to demonstrate his “control and manliness” to his wife, and do so in a gentle, courteous, and supportive manner, rather

111 “Chera Zan az Dandeh-ye Mard Khalq Shodeh?” (Why Was the Woman Created Out of Man’s Rib?), in Bahar, March 1911. 112 Dr. Aqa Khan Esma’il Zadeh, “‘Eshq ya Sa’adat-e Hey’at-e Ejtema’iyeh-ye Bashar” (Love or the Happiness of Human Social Life), in Farhang, 1920. Home Economics 197 than tyrannically, since “the woman enjoys manly pride, and gentle dominance from her husband makes her happy.” The husband must not be too shy in the marital chamber, since shyness could be mistaken for loftiness and offend the wife’s sense of femininity. Concerning the moment of consummation, Esma’il Zadeh recommends to the husband to ask for his wife’s favors with pleasant words, and not order her, despite the fact that sex is one of his rights. The wife must dissuade her husband from having sex more than once during the first night and week of marriage, since inordinate frequency has a bad influence on her “freshness” and “gentleness.” The article concludes with advice on married life in general. The husband is advised to be patient, pleasant, and gentlemanlike and to forgive his wife’s mistakes. It is better for him to rebuke his wife in gentle language and to explain to her the errors of her ways. On the other hand, wives are advised that no matter how rudely, aggressively, or badly a husband acts he still loves them more than men who flatter and charm them with the intention of seducing them. The husband must provide his wife with all possible comforts, but if she requires more than can be provided for, he must convince her to concede those requests. Furthermore, the husband must be aware of women’s feelings and not demand sex during menstruation. Men are also advised to use foreplay, fondling, and sweet-talk with wives since “the woman finds more pleasure in caressing and being fondled than the man finds in ... [sic].” Diversions and entertainments such as family trips and walks in parks are also recommended to avoid wives’ boredom and temptation to “dangerous” diversions. Finally, the author reminds his male readers that they must practice sexual monogamy, and that male infidelity is just as forbidden as female infidelity. Esma’il Zadeh bases his support of companionate marriage on a hierarchical notion of gender. The compatibility recommended between spouses is anchored in an inherent hierarchy in which the husband remains the unchallenged ruler. While seeking to offer women some defense against domestic abuse, he does not doubt a man’s right to demand sexual relations. He recognizes women’s sexual desires but his limits on sexual activity during the first week of marriage are mostly for the benefit of the husband, whose wife remains “fresh.” Husbands are advised to be kind to their wives, but it is their role and privilege to criticize and educate, while the wives are supposed to accept their husbands’ chastisements without complaint. The possibility that the 198 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran husband should err and the wife reproach him is not considered. Men’s infidelity is discouraged mostly because it may lead to women’s indiscretions. Allowing women outings with their husbands and families enhances their usually limited mobility, but with the intention to prevent their indulgence in improper diversions, infidelity, or flirting with strangers. By employing arguments that entrench the patriarchal order, the suggested reforms in fact reproduce men’s privileged status within the modernized conjugal pact.

Fighting over Money In addition to the reproduction of gender hierarchies in arguments like Dr. Esma’il Zadeh’s, property remained an important source of inequality between husband and wife. Elite Iranian women, unlike peasant or poor women, did not work outside the house. They also did not earn an income of their own. Their contribution to household economy was mainly the trousseau (jaheziyeh) provided by the bride’s family, which included quilts, bedding, and other household items.113 In wealthy households, daily chores were attended to by servants.114 Attempts by the regime to encourage women’s work outside the home started only during the 1930s, and the rate of gainfully employed Tehrani women remained very low – less than 7 percent, even during the 1950s.115 As the breadwinners, the men remained in charge of ﬁnancial affairs. This division of roles was anchored in Islamic laws of marriage. Supporting the wife was one of the husband’s marital duties according to the Shari’a and included not only the provision of food and clothing but also the wife’s right to her own lodging and, if possible, a servant. A woman was not supposed to support her household or herself, even if she was able to.116 Nevertheless, a woman forfeited her maintenance if she disobeyed her husband.117 This, of course, helped make wives’ ﬁnancial dependency a guarantee of their submissiveness. Many Iranian men perceived the upkeep of a family as a burden on the husband and a source of friction with the wife, who constantly demanded money for the house’s expenses. The grudge felt by men for being the sole providers is well illustrated in a pair of

113 Afary, Sexual Politics, 23. 114 Sedghi, Women and Politics, 33. 115 Arasteh, Man and Society in Iran, 131. 116 Afary, Sexual Politics,42–43. 117 Wakin, “Family Law – In Islam.” Home Economics 199

Figure 5.6 (a) European family vs. (b) Iranian family – a cartoon from Khalq (December 26, 1925)

1925 cartoons (Figure 5.6). The cartoon on top shows a European family, “where the wife also works.” The middle-class couple, with one baby only, is seated leisurely in a clean and tidy room, furnished in Western style. The wife sews and the man reads. The cartoon on the bottom shows a stressed out and traditionally dressed father who returns to his traditionally furnished house, carrying a pot of food and ﬂat breads for his womenfolk and children, who are waiting to be fed. According to the caption, this is a man who supports seven persons (not to mention the two cats).118

118 Amin also refers to this cartoon, as well as to a second one from Khalq, both comparing Iranian and European families, in his book, The Making of the Modern Iranian Woman,76–77. 200 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran

Men’s reluctance to shoulder the ﬁnancial burden of supporting a family and their desire to maintain their premarital standard of living is presented as one of the reasons for delayed marriage:

Unfortunately, ever since the scent of current progress reached poor Iranians’ nostrils, most of their youngsters reject marriage and even though their poor mother tells them: “My Darling, you have reached the age of thirty, do something about it,” He says: “My rooms are not yet furnished, my salary has not reached 250 tuman per month, my car is not ready, I need to have a park and in addition to all that, I have to hurry and continue my studies.”119 As with the discussions of marrying foreigners, here too “progress” and elements of a westernized elite lifestyle are explicitly associated with the postponement of marriage. This state of affairs is similarly voiced by the reluctant man himself in Abdollah Mostoﬁ’s autobiography:

Once my brother Fatholla was married, I had no excuse to delay the matter. My mother reminded me of this duty every day. But I was so tied up in my work, and also certain financial difficulties kept me from giving my consent ... My disposition would not allow me to take a wife below my social status or marry for money. I had lived in Europe and liked certain luxuries. The idea of not knowing my wife closely did not bother me ... I delayed getting married as long as I could, but I was in my middle thirties and would soon be a confirmed bachelor and no one would have me.120 Eventually, Mostofi succumbed to his mother’s badgering and married. After describing his engagement and wedding, he turns to his young readers and advises them: think of matrimony as a social duty and continuation of life. Wealth and beauty are secondary ...Having fun, spending time with friends in cafés late at night free of responsibility for a wife and family and total independence are very attractive. But sharing one single hour with your wife and children and listening to them is something that God had not even promised in paradise.121 The demands a Western lifestyle made on the elite ran counter to the national duty of matrimony and childrearing. Young men of the elite expected to complete their education and find a job in the government bureaucracy in order to achieve the high standard of living they were

119 Abbas Sepahri Atar, “Badbakhti-ye Jame’eh,” in Ettela’at, January 15, 1930. 120 Mostofi, Administrative and Social History, 645. 121 Ibid., 649. Home Economics 201 used to. They were advised to combine their education and work with married life, and to abandon luxuries and leisure activities. Another way of resolving the inherent contradiction between West- ernized men’s lifestyle and the patriotic demand to marry early was to delegate some of the blame for late marriage to women. Women were scolded for wastefulness and were required to be frugal. If women’s demands were not so exaggerated, it was suggested, the financial implications of marriage would not have been so daunting for men. Women’s financial demands and their manipulation of their husbands were popular themes in satire, at least as early as the late nineteenth century. In the misogynistic tract The Education of Women,an anonymous author writes: “I have seen ladies ... who forced their poor husbands to buy all sorts of dresses and accessories, and they never wear them. The dresses and the jewelry stay in the closet or are worn only when they go to parties.”122 In Charand Parand Dehkhoda describes a wife who tells her husband she must buy some cloth to make him new underclothes, since the ones he is wearing are threadbare. When the husband complies, after commenting that he bought new underclothes only recently, the wife takes his old undergarments and sells them to the ragman, then immediately buys herself some plum juice with the proceeds.123 In response to the accusations made in The Education of Women, Bibi Khanom Astarabadi writes in her Vices of Men that men spend their money on gambling and drinking, while refusing their wives money for household expenses. She also accuses men of squandering the capital wives bring to the marriage.124 Another woman representing the female side of this debate is Taj ol-Saltaneh. In her memoirs, she links arranged marriages to profligacy. Since husbands and wives do not love each other, husbands spend money on their lovers or on drinking and socializing outside the house, while their wives fill their lonely days with extravagant parties and hire numerous handmaids and servants.125 Financial disputes are presented as a cause for the spread of divorce, bachelorhood, and mixed marriages. Once a young woman is married, one article claims, she becomes westernized and sends the servant out each day to bring her a foreign catalogue, from which she selects all

122 Quoted in Javadi and Floor, The Education of Women,34–35. 123 Ali Akbar Dehkhoda, “Charand Parand,” in Iran-e Konuni, January 18, 1913. 124 Javadi and Floor, The Education of Women,91–95, 112. 125 Afary, Sexual Politics, 133. 202 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran sorts of luxury items.126 Such items may include “a set of clothes of the latest fashion daily, a new pair of shoes every week, made of the best materials in the world, the best stockings, never seen before in Iran.”127 In a series of articles titled “Man’s Complaint” (Shekveh-ye Mard), the writer complains that Iranian women are “acquainted only with ease and laziness and are not even willing to put on their own gloves by themselves.”128 Another reader, Mohsen Rafat from Tehran, claims that unlike the wasteful and lazy nature of Iranian women, “Foreign women are very frugal.” He therefore prefers to marry one.129 Accusations such as these justified men’s financial control over their wives and their right to decide which expenditures were legitimate and which demonstrated women’s wasteful nature and were therefore to be refused on the spot. Women’s wastefulness is also explicitly linked to their shallow imitation of the West. Their westernization is not based on true acquaintance with Western thought or on advanced education, but solely on the consumption of Western goods and luxury items.130 Westernized women thus occupy a symbolic place similar to that of the fokoli. Like him, their sartorial excesses accentuate the “correct” form of westernization exemplified in men educated in the West. If late bachelorhood or marrying foreign women were weaknesses of this elite, women were equally to blame for it. Once again, the internal tensions characterizing the model of hegemonic masculinity were addressed by diverting criticism toward nonmembers of the group, thus reinforcing its hegemony.

Conclusions One striking feature of the family photographs from the late nineteenth century compiled in Ali Khan Vali Qajar’s album is the absence of women. They often include a father and children (both boys and young girls), several male relatives and their children, and sometimes the family’s servants as well. When women are photographed, it is usually

126 Asadollah Khavaryan, “Chera Ezdevaj dar Iran Kam Mishavad?” (Why Is Marriage Declining in Iran?), in Ettela’at, July 3, 1928. 127 “Chera Ezdevaj dar Iran Kam Mishavad,” in Ettela’at, July 3, 1928. 128 “Shekveh-ye Mard,” in Ettela’at, October 13, 1929. 129 “Ezdevaj beh Khareji” (Marriage to a Foreigner), in Ettela’at, March 10, 1929. 130 Similar accusation were brought against Christian women in the Ottoman Empire, see Haris Exertzouglou, “The Cultural Uses of Consumption: Negotiating Class, Gender, and Nation in the Ottoman Urban Centers during the 19th Century,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 35 (2003): 77–101. Conclusions 203 on their own. Precious few photos, two out of more than 1,500 in the album, show a husband and wife as a couple, and only photographs of Armenian or European families include the mother of the family. This absence demonstrates the relatively small importance of the husband- wife relationship in representations of Qajar-era families. Behdad and Scheiwiller claim that this phenomenon is prevalent in Iranian family albums and in albums taken by court photographers from this period, and attribute it to notions of women’s chastity. They further add that in such photos, the father usually sits in the middle, surrounded by his children, as a show of power and virility. Such photographs buttressed and reafﬁrmed existing gender roles and the patriarchal nature of Iran- ian families.131 Of course, the absence of wives has a great deal to do with their virtue and with sexual segregation, but the fact that women are photographed on their own, and that there are no photographs of couples in which the wife is veiled, may suggest that chastity is not necessarily the main reason for women’s absence from family portraits. Family photographs from the 1920s onward are very different. Couples appear together in wedding photographs as well as in studio portraits, and women are also visible in family portraits, even though exclusively male family portraits are still very much in existence. The signiﬁcance of the visibility of the conjugal relationship as part of the photographed subjects’ self-fashioning was obviously greater than a few decades earlier. It had now become important to demonstrate not only man’s ability to procreate as a symbol of successful family life, but also his companionate relationship with his spouse. These photographs point to the change in women’s family status discussed above. Attempts to restrict male sexuality to a single object of desire and the changing attitude toward practices such as polygamy and child marriage promised women a more protected place within the family. This change of attitude is also articulated in an article published in Ettela’at in 1938, titled “A Portion of Chivalry” (Fasli az Morov- vat). The author uses the traditional traits of proper masculinity such as morovvat and javanmardi to criticize men for their extramarital affairs. Since it is only right for a man to care the most for those closest to him, he must show his wife and children his utmost javanmardi characteristics:

131 Behdad, Camera Orientalis, 116, 123, 146–147, Scheiwiller, Liminalities of Gender, 166–167. 204 Marriage Reform in Interwar Iran

A chivalrous man is one who spares no sacrifice for his wife’s comfort. This woman, who puts her loyal hand in yours and is your partner and companion in happiness and sorrow, to what extent does she deserve your love, affection and gratitude? Is it appropriate that you will have enjoyments that your loving wife will not share? ...Will you be pleased to sleep in another’s bed while this gentle, beautiful, loving and sensitive creature sits at home and waits for you? ... Is it not contrary to chivalry and javanmardi that your companion counts the minutes while waiting for you ...?132 This article associates proper masculinity with marital fidelity, and not just with that – but with a loving and caring attitude toward one’s wife, noting that javanmardi means not only providing one’s wife with a house and daily necessities but also showing love and attention. The change in the perception of marriage entailed a change in the perception of proper masculinity: the loyal and caring husband became the true javanmard. That being said, the companionate model of marriage promoted by reformers did not necessarily bring about the intended change in male sexuality. Despite the fact that homosexual acts were severely criticized, they continued to be practiced in Iran and were discussed and debated openly in the media. We may also assume that men did not stop visiting prostitutes or having extramarital affairs either, even though the change of attitude toward such practices is in itself significant. Moreover, men’s legal, marital, and financial privileges remained intact. The construction of companionate marriage and the regulation of male desire as patriotic duties involved issues of power and control. The regime’s involvement in matters such as reproduction, the regulation of sexuality, and sexual health deepened its intervention in citizens’ lives. The power invested in the regime supported the hegemonic status of high-ranking officials who were mostly elite men with West- ern education. This appropriation of power was supplemented by the depiction of men still practicing polygamy, boy-loving, or child marriage as ignorant, corrupt, and unpatriotic. Such accusations, as the previous chapters also demonstrate, were in fact accusations of unmanliness. The ambition of Reza Shah’s regime to control and shape the bodies of Iranian citizens is further discussed in the following chapters.

132 “Fasli az Morovvat”,inEttela’at, September 27, 1938. 6|Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah

In his autobiography, Iranian career soldier Morteza Zarbakht relates an anecdote from his military school days, sometime in 1934 or 1935:

During those years when I was at the military school, I once decided to go and visit the elementary school where I had studied for seven years. That day I saw that the school’s headmaster and all the teachers removed their turbans and wore a suit and became fokolis. Mr. Aqili who was my teacher and taught us in the preparatory class wore scouts uniform with short pants, meaning he became a scoutmaster!1 The teachers in Zarbakht’s elementary school did not undergo this radical sartorial transformation because of a sudden collective change of heart and taste. Indeed, we may assume that not all of them welcomed this change. By the mid-1930s, schoolteachers as well as all other male Iranians were required by law to abandon their turbans and traditional garments in favor of European hats and suits. The 1927 Dress Law was but one of numerous laws and reforms promoted by Reza Shah and his government to change the face of Iranian society. After the coup d’état which brought Reza Khan to power in 1921, and even more so after his coronation as Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1926, the new monarch’s government embarked on a campaign for the nationalization, standardization, westernization, and modernization of the country and its citizens. Indeed, Reza Shah is often referred to as Iran’s greatest reformer, who enforced modernization from above by means of education and coercion. The reform campaign included measures such as the paciﬁcation and forced settlement of

1 Morteza Zarbakht and Hamid Ahmadi, Gozar az Tufan: Do Nasl az Afsaran-e Sazman-e Nezami (A Path through Storm: Two Generations of Ofﬁcers in the Military) (Berlin: Anjoman-e Motala’at va Tahqiqat-e Tarikh-e Shafahi-ye Iran dar Berlin, 2001), 43.

205 206 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah tribal populations; reforming and nationalizing the justice and education systems by taking them out of the hands of the clergy and establishing a unified school curriculum; the expansion of the army, bureaucracy, and industry; improving women’s status and integrating them in society; investment in modern infrastructure; and the abolition of capitulations. Many of these reforms extended beyond the public sphere and sought to create a new type of citizen, whose loyalties and identifications would be tightly linked to a centralized state and the new dynasty, by suppressing old tribal, ethnic, and professional identities.2 This included disciplining Iranians’ bodies and appearance in order to make them proper citizens of the modern nation. The reforms sought to create a healthy, strong, beautiful, and westernized Iranian body that would loyally serve the country and the Shah. The reformed Iranians, whether students, workers, soldiers, or educated mothers and wives, were to stand on equal footing with Westerners. The concomitant need to eliminate fashion differences between Iranians and Europeans, as a measure leading toward the elimination of other differences, required that they abandon traditional garments. Further- more, as various garments visually marked ethnic, tribal, and religious identifications and loyalties, their abolishment was a necessary step toward national unification. As Iranian men were far more visible than women in public space, changing their appearance was of the utmost importance. The regime reformed women’s appearance almost a decade later, with the 1936 Unveiling Law. In addition to giving Iran a more modern appearance, women’s unveiling was presented as promoting their integration in the country’s education system and labor market. The abandonment of traditional garments and headgear and the adoption of Western clothes, as well as women’s unveiling, were debated and practiced in several Middle Eastern countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most notably in Turkey, Iran, and Egypt. Men’s (and women’s) dress testified not only to their ethnic, geographic, and religious identifications, but also to their political

2 Ansari, Modern Iran since 1921,40–74; Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 76–91; Cronin, The Making of Modern Iran; Floor, Guilds, Merchants, and Ulama, 145. Beards, Hats, and Hairdos 207 views. Specific headgear such as the Fez or the Qajar hat were intermit- tently symbols of national identity or of antinationalist conservatism and reaction. Forced or voluntary unveiling could be equally interpreted as an act of modernization and liberation or as heresy and promiscuity. Reza Shah’s Dress Law coincided with and was probably influenced by a similar law passed in Ataturk’s Turkey in 1925. According to Ataturk, the Fez was a symbol of Turkey’s backwardness and ignorance and had to be replaced if Turkey were to join the “civilized world.” In Turkey, as in Iran, these fashion changes represented secularization, or at least the weakening of the religious establishment, and modernization, inseparable from westernization in the eyes of both Ataturk and Reza Shah.3 In Egypt as well, Ataturk’s dress reforms engendered a heated debate.4 This chapter discusses the male dress reform, and its justifications and consequences for the construction of hegemonic masculinity. I begin by reviewing men’s appearance before the dress reform, and then turn to the 1927 Dress Law and its justifications. As shown in the last section, notwithstanding attempts to present the adoption of westernized attire as a patriotic and civic duty, opposition to the reform erupted in various forms, from violent demonstrations to evasion and negotiation.

Beards, Hats, and Hairdos: Practices of Sartorial Differentiation The ethnic, religious, and geographic divisions of Iranian society during the nineteenth century, as well as the social distinctions discussed in Chapter 1, were manifest in appearance and dress. Many ethnic minorities such as the Kurds, Baluch, and Turkmen had their own special attire. Geographic areas such as Khorasan or the Caspian area also had unique forms of dress. The social hierarchical orders of the aristocracy, the bazaaris, and the clergy were similarly differentiated and distinguished not only by their power and wealth but also by food, etiquette, and dress.5 Men’s attire and appearance made social divisions easily recognizable in everyday life and in public spaces. Dress, hair, and facial

3 Norton, “Faith and Fashion in Turkey,” 161–162. 4 Jacob, “The Turban, the Tarbush, and the Top Hat.” 5 Mahdavi, “Social Mobility in Qajar Iran,” 582; Floor, Guilds, Merchants, and Ulama,6. 208 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah hair styles were accepted visual markers of a man’s position in the social hierarchy, of his ethnicity, occupation, age, and religious status.6 Men’soutfits in turn-of-the century Iran included an ‘aba or outer garment, open in the front, sleeveless with large armholes, worn by men of all classes but especially by clerics and men of an Arab origin; qaba – ankle-length outer cloak opened down the front; arkhalaq – quilted, closefitting, buttoned waistcoat worn under a qaba; moradbegi – a kind of qaba with a closed and lapelled collar buttoned down to the navel; and sardari – a frock coat adapted from European dress, reaching to the knees and pleated at the back, worn by members of the court, the aristocracy and government officials. The lutis wore a special kind of sardari as well as special shoes called melki.7 Shalvar – full pants, usually of black twill, were common among all Iranian men. Trousers with a tighter fit were worn by urban men of the aristocracy and the administrative elites and were better suited to sitting on chairs, while very loose pants (sometimes called zirjameh)weremorecommonamongother classes and suited for sitting on cushions. Shal (shawl/sash) or kamar- band (cummerbund) was wrapped around the waists by clerics and bazaaris, as well as by the secretarial class and old-fashioned members of the government. Courtiers, military men and higher-ranking servants wore belts of black leather with a clasp of brass or precious stones. The shoes were usually givehs (slippers) open at the back. Shirts (pirahan) were usually made of cotton; men of the elite tended to wear shirts of white cotton while others wore blue cotton shirts.8 The photographs shown in Figures 6.1‒6.3, all taken by Armenian photographer Antoin Sevruguin, show clothes worn by elite men. Figure 6.1 of Hosein Qoli Khan Mokhber ol-Dowleh, Minister of Post and Telegraph from 1897 to 1913, shows the sumptuous robe and typical

6 See the numerous entries under “Clothing” in the Encyclopaedia Iranica: “Historical Lexicon of Persian Clothing,”“Concordance of Clothing Terms among the Ethnic Groups in Modern Persia,”“Clothing of the Baluch in Persia,” “Clothing of Khorasan,” etc.; see also Gillian M. Vogelsang-Eastwood and L. A. Ferydoun Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn, An Introduction to Qajar Era Dress (Rotterdam: Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn and Co’s Uitgeversmaatschappij, 2002). Since my focus is on social differences in the cities, tribal or ethnic divisions will receive less focus. I also do not elaborate on women’s clothes, but clearly these similarly differentiated between women of various positions and backgrounds. 7 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 280. 8 Ibid., 327–328; Vogelsang-Eastwood and Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn, Qajar Era Dress,22–27; Shireen Mahdavi, “Everyday Life in Late Qajar Iran,” Iranian Studies 45, no. 3 (May 2012): 367. Figure 6.1 Hosein Qoli Khan (Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973–1985, FSA A.4 2.12.GN.42.13)

Figure 6.2 Teymur Mirza and his sons (Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973–1985, FSA A.4.12.GN.58.01) 210 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah

Figure 6.3 Local Kurdish chiefs (Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973–1985, FSA A.4 2.12.GN.57.04) cone-shaped Qajar hat of Astrakhan wool. As befitting the highest stratum of Iranian society, court dress was luxurious and was made of silk, brocades, cashmere, or wool and included jewels. Moreover, dress was part of a system of honors and relations of dependence: honorary robes (khel’at) were given by the Shah as a sign of special favor.9 The photo in Figure 6.2, the earliest of the three, was taken sometime before 1874. It shows Teymur Mirza Hisam ol-Dowleh, who was chief of hunt and hunting birds specialist in Naser ol-Din Shah’s court, with his sons. The photograph shows the fine fabrics of men’s outer garments and the tall hats popular in court before Naser ol-Din Shah’s first visit to Europe. The sons all wear traditional Iranian coats, and Hisam ol-Dowleh himself is wearing a Western-style coat made of velvet or some similar material.10

9 Diba, Assef Ashraf, “The Politics of Gift Exchange in Early Qajar Iran, 1785–1834.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 58, no. 2 (2016): 569–570. “Clothing in the Safavid and Qajar Period.” The giving of robes of honor was an accepted practice in many countries. See Willem M. Floor, “Kel’at,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/kelat-gifts. For India under the Moguls, see Bernard S. Cohn, Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), 114–118. For the Ottoman Empire, see Selim Deringil, “Legitimacy Structures in the Ottoman State: The Reign of Abdulhamid II (1876–1909),” International Journal of Middle East Studies 23, no. 3 (1991): 345–359. 10 Nashat, The Origins of Modern Reform, 155. Beards, Hats, and Hairdos 211

Figure 6.4 Portrait of a merchant (Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973–1985, FSA A.4 2.12.Up.59)

Figure 6.3 demonstrates different phases of the transition from traditional to modern garments. While all the Kurdish chiefs depicted still wear their specialized headgear, and some still wear long ﬂoral shirts, the ﬁrst man on the left wears an adaptation of European fashion, with a pleated coat, and the third from the left wears a full European suit, albeit without a tie. In Figures 6.2 and 6.3, both traditional loose pants and Western-style tight trousers can be seen. Figures 6.4 and 6.5, also by Sevruguin, depict men of non-elite background, staged in the studio and street, respectively. The clothes are obviously made of much simpler fabrics and are less well kept than those of the aristocrats in Figures 6.1–6.3. The headgear is also different, with the common round felt hat and turban. Also visible in Figure 6.4 are the merchant’s traditional slippers and sash. Clergymen had their own headgear and apparel. Ahmad Kasravi relates that when he advanced in his studies to a point when his relatives considered him a mullah, they advised him to let his beard grow and wear a larger turban, white pants, and yellow or green shoes. When later on he rejected the clerical way of life, he refused to wear these clothes. He wore the heeled shoes and machine-made socks, as 212 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah

Figure 6.5 Portrait of a butcher (Stephen Arpee Collection of Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, 2011, FSA A2011.03 B.32) well as eyeglasses of a farangimaab.11 Figure 6.6, presenting late- nineteenth-century cleric Mojtahed Aqa, shows the typical turban and pointed upturned shoes (na’leyn) often worn by clerics, as well as the tasbih or the prayer beads. Families claiming to have descended from the Prophet’s family wore a black or green turban. Mojtahed Aqa, however, is seated on a chair, and not in traditional style on a Persian rug. Headgear was a matter of great signiﬁcance for Iranian men and varied greatly from one group to another. Social anthropologist Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper explains that among many Muslims, the face and head, and therefore hats and facial-hair styles, were considered focal points of the system of body symbolism. The head symbolized reason and will, while parts of the face were associated with masculine

11 Kasravi, Zendegi-ye Man,52–56. Beards, Hats, and Hairdos 213

Figure 6.6 Mojtahed Aqa (Photo album by Ali Khan Vali Qajar, Courtesy of Special Collections, Fine Arts Library, Harvard University) honor.12 Moreover, traditional masculine attire not only covered most of the body, but also obscured its shape and contour, as it was loose and multilayered and left only the face and hands uncovered. This may partly explain the minute attention paid to hats, haircuts, and facial hair. In his book on Old Tehran, Shahri even goes as far as describing the hat as the equivalent of the women’s chador, and adds that it was a sign of masculinity. Going out bareheaded was considered shameful and proof of ill manners and even insanity.13 Born in a Christian village in Azerbaijan in 1886, Youel Mirza voices a similar opinion in his autobiographical When I Was a Boy in Persia:

To a Persian, a hat is the most sacred article of his wearing apparel. There is nothing that will cause a boy to declare war on one of his playmates, or

12 Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper, “The Dress of the Shahsevan Tribespeople of Iranian Azerbaijan,” in Languages of Dress in the Middle East, ed. Nancy Lindisfarne-Tapper and Bruce Ingham (Richmond: Curzon, 1997), 69. See also Shirazi, “Manly Matters.” 13 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 454. 214 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah anybody else, for that matter, sooner than to have his hat knocked off his head. To submit to such an act would reflect upon his manliness to such an extent as positively to keep him awake at night until he had taken his vengeance. I distinctly remember running after my own father, with my little fist clenched, because he had knocked my hat off.14 Hats were made of different materials and had different shapes. Felt hats (kolah-e namadi) were the cheapest and varied in size and color – the taller ones being the more expensive. Laborers, peasants, and nomads usually wore felt caps of different colors. Fur hats (kolah-e pusti) were made of different furs including the more expensive Astra- khan wool. Skullcaps (‘araqchin) were worn either under a turban or as nightcaps. The Qajar hat (Kolah-e Qajari) was decreed by Naser ol-Din Shah as the official hat for courtiers and officials.15 It was made of cloth or sheepskin on a frame of cardboard.16 Figure 6.7 shows the variety of men’s headgear – from the hat and turban of dervishes to the oval felt hats and the cut-cone hat of a soldier, all in one studio portrait. A 1907 article claiming the necessity of military uniform demonstrates the importance of hats as markers of profession and religious standing: A seyyed wears a green turban and we say that he is a seyyed;anakhund [junior cleric] wears a white turban and we say that he is an akhund; the guild of servants [nokar] wear hats according to their level and we say that they are servants. Is it not our duty to recognize the difference in the guild of the army ...?17 Age, as well as advancement in religious studies, were similarly reflected in a man’s dress. When a boy reached a certain level in his studies, he was allowed to wear a turban, qaba and labadeh (a felt raincoat or long overcoat). Jalal Abdo (b. 1910) grew up at his maternal grandparents’ house, and at a certain age was to move and live with his father. On that day, members of his grandparents’ household gave him new clothes, which included a small turban, a qaba, and a labadeh. When he reached his father’s house, his father was displeased with the attire. He said that his son had not yet reached the level allowing

14 Youel B. Mirza, When I Was a Boy in Persia (Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Co., 1920), 64–65. 15 Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran,9. 16 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 1, 456–457; Vogelsang-Eastwood and Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn, Qajar Era Dress, 28. 17 Mohamad Ali, “Qabel-e Tavajjoh-e Vozara-ye Harbiyyeh va Omara-ye Askariyyeh” (To the Attention of the Ministers of War and the Chiefs of the Army), in Taraqqi, June 1907. Beards, Hats, and Hairdos 215

Figure 6.7 Family (?) portrait (Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973–1985, FSA A.4 2.12.GN.21.07) him to wear such clothes, and ordered the man who had escorted the child to go back to the grandparents’ house and bring the boy’s old clothes.18 Hasan A’zam Qodsi (b. 1890) writes in his memoirs that the day he received his turban was celebrated by his family. After that, writes Qodsi, people added the honorific “Aqa” to his name and some even added “Sheikh.”19 Thus, both clothes and titles marked the passage from childhood to respectable adulthood. In the age of fourteen, General Hasan Arfa tells us, “I was sent to a tailor and put into grown-up clothes for the first time, and suddenly, without any transition, I passed from childhood to adolescence.”20Abdollah Mostofi similarly writes that at the age of thirteen he did not “wear childish silk brocade clothes anymore; I wear

18 Jalal Abdo, Chehehl Sal dar Shaneh-ye Qaza’i, Siyasi, Diplomasi-ye Iran va Jahan: Khaterat-e Doktor Jalal Abdo (Forty Years at the Judicial, Political and Diplomatic Arenas of Iran and the World: The Memoirs of Dr. Jalal Abdo) (Tehran: Mo’asseseh-ye Khedmat-e Farhangi-ye Rasa, 1989), 47–48. 19 Hasan A’zam Qodsi, Khaterat-e Man Ya Tarikh Sad Sal (My Memoirs, or The Hisory of a Hundred Years) (Tehran: Entesharat-e Abu Rihan, 1980), 18. 20 Arfa, Under Five Shahs, 22. 216 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah the same style of clothing as the grown-ups.” Mostofi and his brothers also had the tops of their heads shaved according to their father’s wish, “which has made us very unhappy.”21 Ahmad Kasravi’s first childhood memory is of his first haircut. As a son of a family of seyyeds and mullahs, he had his head shaved at age five, an experience that he recalls as traumatic.22 The shaving of the head, as will be shown, was considered a mark of religiosity for Muslim men and marked out the boys as belonging to pious families. Unlike clothes, which differed in their fabrics more than in their cut and shape, men’s style of facial hair and haircut varied significantly. Shahri enumerates the various styles of haircuts and shaves common in Tehran during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While various forms of haircut, which included the shaving of all or specific areas of the scalp, were deemed traditional, modernizing men did not shave their scalp and combed and parted their hair in different styles. Dancing boys let their locks grow long, tucking them behind their ears, and went to the barber only to pluck their facial hair.23 Lutis and dervishes also had particular hairstyles.24 A shaved head was considered appropriate from a religious point of view. Kasravi writes that during his childhood in Azerbaijan all men shaved their heads. If someone left his head unshaved, the mullahs would brand him an adulterer (faseq) and would not accept his testimony in court. Shahri supports this testimony and writes that since the rules of ablution decreed that the believer’s scalp must touch his wet fingers, and this was deemed possible only by shaving the front of one’s head, men who did not shave their heads were considered unbelievers, and all dealings with them were forbidden.25 Another accepted form of haircut was shaving the front of the head while letting the back grow in locks, a style common among soldiers, courtiers, villagers, and lutis.26 According to Shahri, this was also popular among pederasts, while

21 Mostofi, Administrative and Social History, vol. 2, 266. 22 Kasravi, Zendegi-ye Man,14–15. 23 See also C. J. Wills, Persia as It Is: Being Sketches of Modern Persian Life and Character (London: Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, 1886), 131–132. 24 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 4, 120–122. 25 Ja’far Shahri, Tarikh-e Ejtema’i-ye Tehran Dar Qarn-e Sizdahom: Zendegi, Kasb va Kar (The Social History of Tehran in the 13th Century: Life, Business and Work) (Tehran: Mu’asaseh-ye Khadamat-e Farhangi-ye Rasa: Entesharat-e Esma’iliyan, 1988), vol. 3, 703. 26 Kasravi, Zendegi-ye Man,14–15. Beards, Hats, and Hairdos 217 womanizers and young lutis shaved the front of the head and pulled their hair up around their hats in a puffed hairdo.27 Figures 6.8–6.9 show the closely cropped heads of the young clerics under their turbans and the long and unkempt tresses of the dervish. The shaved pates of the zurkhaneh wrestlers are visible in Figures 1.1 and 1.2. Far more than mere fashion, beards were a matter of religious etiquette. As early as Sassanid times, facial hair became a symbol of integrity and masculinity. An accustomed form of punishment, later adopted by Muslims, was to shave the criminal’s face and parade him in public. The form, length and grooming of facial hair are discussed in Islamic religious texts and interpreted differently by different scholars of Islamic law.28 The beard was called Mahasen, meaning virtues, and fully shaving a man’s beard and mustache was tantamount to heresy. According to Shahri, preachers dedicated considerable portions of their sermons to prohibiting this habit. The barber who shaves another man’s beard and the man who allows someone to shave him were equally guilty and compared to a man who shaves his sister’s hair or his mother’s pubic hair.29 The length and shape of the beard were also a testimony to men’ssocial positions: senior clerics and their followers had relatively long beards, while merchants wore theirs shorter. Villagers had a ribbon-shaped beard while clerks shaved theirs to a finer ribbon.30 Ashavedfacewas the sign of the amrad-numa – the grown man who wished to look like an adolescent boy in order to remain an object of male sexual desire.31 Men would dye their hair and beard with henna (dyeing the beard orange) or henna mixed with indigo (used for dyeing in deep blue-black).32 Using henna as a dye for the hair and beard (and earlier on, fingernails) was considered pious and was grounded in Islamic tradition and hadith, which claimed that the Prophet Muhammad had a henna-dyed beard.33 Like the beard, the mustache was considered the sign of masculinity as the growth of full facial hair was the mark of passage from adolescence to manhood. It was customary to swear on one’smustache(acostume

27 Shahri, Tarikh-e Ejtema’i-ye Tehran, vol. 3, 703. 28 Shirazi, “Men’s Facial Hair,” 114. 29 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 2, 125–126. 30 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 4, 123. 31 Najmabadi, Women with Mustaches, 232. 32 Vogelsang-Eastwood and Barjesteh van Waalwijk van Doorn, Qajar Era Dress, 49. 33 Hushang Alam, “Henna,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline .org/articles/henna. 218 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah

Figure 6.8 Clerics (Damandan, Portrait Photographs from Isfahan, 182)

Figure 6.9 Dervish (Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973–1985, FSA A.4 2.12.GN.28.07) The 1927 Dress Law 219 practiced in Iran well into the 1920s34), and Shahri even notes that the mustache or beard could be “pawned” as a loan guarantee (see Haji Aqa’s claim in the Introduction to this book).35 Various social groups sported different mustache styles. Khans, governors, senior foot- men, senior lutis, robbers and outlaws wore their mustaches in the manner of two parts of a broom. Princes, senior members of the court and government and landowners would add to that style some facial hair on the sides of their chin. Lutis and senior zurkhaneh athletes wore a full and thick mustache, connecting with the hair of their cheeks and pulled toward the ears. Dervishes had full mustaches that sometimes even covered their lips and the corners of their mouth. Villagers, junior lutis, the sons of the aristocrats, merchants, and hajis, westernizers, government employees, and so forth also had their specificstyles.36 During the first decades of the twentieth century, long beards and mustaches became less popular, particularly in the cities. The association between facial hair and masculinity was not lost, however. In an article from 1928, discussing “Short and Long Hair” (mu-ye kutah va deraz) for men and women, the author points out that men’sfacialhairgrows because of hormones secreted from men’s testicles; if the testicles are removed, as is the case with eunuchs, there is no such growth.37 In sum, men’s dress and hair in nineteenth century Iran revealed much about them, from ethnicity, religiosity, place of origin, tribal belonging, to political power, occupation, and even sexual availability. Many of these identifications were abhorred by the political elite of Reza Shah’sreign, which aimed to change men’s loyalties and to project a modern image of Iran to outside observers. Accordingly, men’s appearance was one of the first targets of the government’sreforms.

The 1927 Dress Law: (Re)dressing Patriotism, Hygiene, and Beauty In May 1927, Iran’s Ministry of Justice published a dress code for its employees. The code was part of the ministry’s reforms, which aimed

34 Seyyed Saleh Saleh, “Mu-ye Kutah va Deraz” (Short and Long Hair), in Farhang, June 1928. 35 Shahri, Tarikh-e Ejtema’i-ye Tehran, vol. 3, 704–709, fn. 2; Shirazi, “Men’s Facial Hair.” 36 Shahri, Tehran-e Qadim, vol. 4, 124–125; Shahri, Tarikh-e Ejtema’i-ye Tehran, vol. 3, 714–715. 37 Seyyed Saleh Saleh, “Mu-ye Kutah va Deraz,” in Farhang, June 1928. 220 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah at replacing Shar’i, tribal, and guild courts by state courts. The new code helped visually differentiate the staff of the old and new courts. It was to be implemented within a month, and enforced by fines. During office hours, administrators, prosecutors, and judges (with the exception of Shar’i judges) were to wear a long black overcoat (labadeh), a cloak (shenel) cut according to an official design, and a specially designed woolen hat. Judges were to have tassels on their sleeves, according to their rank. Members of the appeals court, peripheral courts, and investigators were to wear a suit, a buttoned shirt with a standing collar made of black cloth according the ministry’s design, trousers, a black cloak, a cummerbund of the same fabric, the Pahlavi hat (which resembled the French kepi), and gloves. Members of the administrative staff were to wear a khaki suit with a folded collar and the Pahlavi hat. Members of the executive staff were to wear a grey suit with a jacket, a cummerbund of the same fabric, a shirt with a standing collar, and the Pahlavi hat. Servants were to dress in a similar fashion, but in darker colors.38 Both the clothes and the Pahlavi hat were to be made of locally manufactured fabrics.39 These regulations were the forerunners of a more extensive reform of Iranian men’s dress. On December 27 of that year, a Dress Law that applied to “All the male citizens of Iran, who are not required to wear special clothes due to their governmental employment” compelled them “when inside the Kingdom, to wear the uniform dress. All those in the service of the state, including in the judiciary and administration, must wear the special clothes of the judiciary or the administration. When not on duty, they must wear the uniform dress.” The law further listed those exempt: clergymen and religious authorities of all religions, who received government permission. The law was to be implemented by March 1929, with rural areas receiving an extension of another year if necessary. Offenders were to be fined and even jailed for several days. On January 23, 1929, the cabinet decreed that the uniform dress or Pahlavi dress would include the Pahlavi hat in a uniform shape and plain colors, a shirt or jacket with a stand-up or a turned-down collar, and trousers – long, short, or tight around the ankles. The tying of

38 “E’lan Vezarat-e Adliyyeh: Albaseh-ye Rasmi-ye Qozat va Mostakhdamin-e Adliyyeh” (An Announcement by the Ministry of Justice: The Official Dress of Judges and Ministry of Justice Employees), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, August 1927. 39 “Albaseh-ye Vatani” (The National Dress), in Ettela’at, August 20, 1927. The 1927 Dress Law 221 shawls was forbidden. Outer garments were to include overcoats, but other garments were allowed as well.40 The reason for the Dress Law, as declared by the Shah himself, was twofold: to bring about unity among the ethnically diverse Iranian population and to close the gap between Iranian men and their West- ern counterparts, showing both parties that Iranians were the equals of Westerners.41 The Dress Law served two of Reza Shah’s most important goals: nationalization through uniformity and modernization through westernization. As mentioned earlier, this was part of a series of reforms aiming at uniformity and nationalization, which included the unification of the education system and the establishment of Per- sian as the only language of teaching. These measures were deemed complementary by reformist politicians. In the Majles meeting discussing the Dress Law, member Esma’il Iraqi said that both the language and the dress reform contributed to the goal of unifying the country.42 Implementing the Dress Law necessitated both punitive and educational measures. The press was enlisted to educate readers and per- suade them of the benefits of the new dress. The daily Ettela’at played a significant role in the campaign. One of the two most important dailies of the period (the second being Iran), it was supported by the government and from 1934 was considered a semiofficial newspaper and promoted Reza Shah’s reforms.43 No item of dress required more justification than the Pahlavi hat. The burden of the new hat was most strongly felt among tribesmen, particularly as it coincided with other measures designed to weaken the

40 Taghiyr-e Lebas va Kashf-e Hejab beh Revayat-e Asnad (The Change of Dress and Unveiling According to the Sources) (Tehran: Markaz-e Barresi-ye Asnad-e Tarikhi-ye Vezarat-e Ettela’at, 1999), 10–20. 41 Baker, “Politics of Dress,” 180–181; Chehabi, “Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes.” More than 200 years earlier, in 1701, Peter the Great set a dress code for the inhabitants of Moscow, imposing westernized instead of the traditional Russian attire. The reasons for the Tsar’s code were very similar to Reza Shah’s. After a trip to Europe, he was determined to make Russia a part of it and regarded the wearing of European dress as a necessary first step. See Christine Ruane, “Subjects into Citizens: The Politics of Clothing in Imperial Russia,” in Fashioning the Body Politic: Dress, Gender, Citizenship, ed. Wendy Parkins (Oxford: Berg, 2002), 50. 42 Majles minutes, Seventh Session, Meeting 15, 2. 43 Abrahamian, A History of Modern Iran, 86. During Reza Shah’s autocratic rule the number of newspapers in Iran dropped, from 150 in 1925 to 50 in 1940. See Avery, “Printing, the Press and Literature,” 845; Nasserddin Parvin, “Ettela’at,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ettelaat. 222 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah tribes’ political and military power and replace their members’ loyalties with loyalty to the state and the Pahlavi dynasty.44 It is therefore hardly surprising that resistance to the new hat was most pronounced among them. Another group that resented the new headgear was the religious establishment. The turban was a marker of religious credentials and lineage descending from the Prophet. Additionally, the Pah- lavi hat was problematic in terms of Islamic etiquette, since it prevented proper prostration during prayer and imitated the appearance of non- Muslims. Opposition to the hat coincided with hostility to other reforms, and demonstrations against the hat reform, mandatory conscription, and census registration, led by clergymen, took place in provincial cities from Isfahan to Tabriz.45 Justification of the Pahlavi hat requirement was formulated in nationalist, economic, and medical terms. An article in Ettela’at titled “The Hat” (Kolah) that preceded the Dress Law combines all together. It opens by opining that the design of the cardboard hat (kolah-e moqava’i – probably reference to the Qajar hat), common among “us Iranians,” probably originated from a Turkmen tribal hat (kolah-e pa pakh) that changed in form and material over the years. The Pahlavi hat, however, is similar to “ancient Iranian hats.” The money leaving Iran to foreign factories which manufacture felt, cardboard, and Astrakhan wool, of which Qajar hats are made, are esti- mated by the author at no less than two million tuman a year – adding economic injury to national insult, whereas some of the Pahlavi hats are manufactured locally. The author recommends that both decision and hat makers assure they are all manufactured from Iranian materials. He goes on to suggest that Qajar hats have no medical benefits and are in fact harmful in Iran’s sun, unlike the Pahlavi hat that is better suited to the Iranian climate, since its visor prevents sunlight from direct contact with the wearer’s eyes. The article concludes with the hope that the dress codes for civil servants will encourage other Iran- ians to wear locally made clothes.46 The adoption and nationalization of Western attire, now termed “national” or “Pahlavi dress,” was advocated in this and similar articles by reinventing its origins and tracing them back to pre-Islamic

44 Majles minutes, Seventh Session, Meeting 15, 13. 45 Cronin, Soldiers, Shahs and Subalterns, 175–186. 46 “Kolah” (The Hat), in Ettela’at, August 21, 1927. The 1927 Dress Law 223

Iran, as well as by praising its local producers. Conversely, Qajar hats were detached from Iranian nationalism and history by attributing their origins to Turkmen tribes and presenting them as harmful to the national economy. This nationalization meant that the only dress appropriate for a patriotic Iranian, and thus for any “proper” Iranian, was the Western style decreed by the new law. Another nationalist argument suggested an analogy between dress and weapons (much like the comparison of Western science to a weapon – see Chapter 2). Contemporary Western dress, in common use throughout the world, had to be adopted to defend the Iranian nation, in the same manner that contemporary weapons were used to defend the homeland. The nation’s progress required that its members keep abreast of the latest innovations; refusal to adopt them even if they were “prepared and perfected by other nations” was nothing short of treason.47 Ettela’at promoted the dress reform by publishing articles on the code’s beneﬁts and reporting on ceremonies and events that celebrated the change across the country. One such report quotes the speech of a local representative. After glorifying the change that Iran underwent under Reza Shah and noting the pride Iranians may now take in their nationality, he turns to the dress reform:

Something that is among the necessary duties of the nation and which each and every one must comply with is the unity of dress and hats that is the mark of each nation’s nationality. Since we wish to be respectable in the eyes of civilized nations and not to be ridiculed and mocked, of course we have to comply with this most important national duty with all diligence and speed. And in this place we the nation must think and consider with what hat and dress will we be presented to the other nations, will it be the Qashqa’i form? Or the Bakhtiari form or the Tehrani form? ...Today, as our crowned father has speciﬁed for himself and his nation the best form of hat and dress, we must act with no waste of time to encourage our nationalist brothers and the entire Iranian nation to make dress and hat uniformed and to form the basis for the pride and honor of society.48 The Pahlavi hat encouraged loyalty to the Shah by binding the dynasty together with Iranian nationalism. According to the writer,

47 Monir ol-Din Nobakht, “Dar atraf Taghyir-e Kolah,” Part 2, (Regarding the Change of Hats), in Ettela’at, August 19, 1935. 48 “Jashn-e Ahali baraye Kolah-e Pahlavi” (A Local Celebration for the Pahlavi Hat), in Ettela’at, September 23, 1928. 224 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah the new regime’s achievements made Iran respectable in the eyes of the world, and the new hat fits this new respectability. The modernizing reforms of Reza Shah’s period, not least the abolition of capitulations, gave some Iranian intellectuals the feeling that their country succeeded in appropriating the tools of Western power and was no longer at a disadvantage compared to Western nations. They believed that Iran was soon to be, if it had not already become, equal to other nations. Traditional dress remained the only thing visibly separating Iranians from Westerners, an irrelevant symbol of its past backwardness. When justifying the need for the Dress Law, Majles member Mirza Reza Khan Afshar described the different attire typical of various areas of Iran and concluded that the Dress Law was necessary so that when “others” entered Iran, they would recognize Iranians in their uniform dress.49 The Shah himself made a similar argument when he said that, in the past, Westerners wearing European hats believed that it made them superior, therefore European hats had to be adopted since “We do not want those others to think that they are superior to us because of a minor difference in head covering.”50 Thus, attitudes to the imitation of Western dress during the late 1920s and the 1930s were quite different from those in earlier periods. Whereas before the reign of Reza Shah such imitation by non-elite men would have been criticized as empty mimicry, now imitation came to represent progress, power, and patriotism. In addition to nationalist arguments, change of dress was advocated on scientific and medical grounds. Such reasoning was voiced by elite men whose Western education allowed them to appropriate modern medical knowledge. An article in a series on customs and manners (Adab-e Mo’asherat) justifies European-style dress by noting that unlike ancient Iranian clothes, the ‘aba, qaba,andarkhalaq were all foreign imports that originated from the Arab or Turkmen invasions.51 Again, the male dress familiar to most Iranians as traditional is denationalized and associated with “tribes” or “Arabs.” This line of argument implicitly excludes tribal, Turkmen, and Arab populations

49 Majles Minutes, Seventh Session, Meeting 15, 6. 50 Quoted in Houchang E. Chehabi, “Dress Codes for Men in Turkey and Iran,” in Men of Order: Authoritarian Modernization under Atatürk and Reza Shah, ed. Touraj Atabaki and Erik J. Zurcher (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004), 228. 51 “Adab-e Mo’asherat” (Rules of Etiquette), in Ettela’at, December 29, 1928. The 1927 Dress Law 225 from the body of the Iranian nation. If they wish to belong, it is tacitly suggested that they part from their ethnic/tribal dress and, more importantly, identifications. The next article in the series further elaborates on the “unhealthy and harmful” dress of different areas and ethnic minorities, from the Arabs of Khuzestan to the Turkmen and Lurs, and from Khorasan to Baluchistan. The author approves only of the clothes of the northern provinces of Mazandaran, Gilan, and Azerbaijan as relatively healthy and harmless.52 The “ugliness of limbs and bad form” of Iranians is criticized and the author suggests that a change of dress may bring about the restitution of the male body itself. This new claim is apparent in discussions on health and aesthetics. Traditional clothes and their wearers were associated with ugliness and ill health, while the wearers of the “national dress” were supposedly healthy and conformed to a new standard of male beauty.53 Another Ettela’at article by A. Shirvani exemplifies the links between dress, health, and beauty. Shirvani quotes a “wise tailor” on the medical, aesthetic, and moral aspects of the new dress. Traditional, loose outer garments, the tailor opines, used to hide filth and vices. When the ‘aba is gone, the dress under it must be kept clean, from shirt to underclothes. Clean clothes help keep the wearer clean and therefore healthy in body and mind. And if the minds of Iranians are kept healthy, all their troubles and misfortunes will be overcome. Among the damage caused by traditional garments Shirvani lists the wrinkled faces of young men (due to wearing brimless hats that do not protect against the sun), stooped backs, hunched shoulders, narrow chests, and “nearly dead” feet. In reality, the physical deficiencies described above could be the natural result of old age or of a life of physical hardship and toil. Furthermore, there is no evidence to prove that men’s dress determined their degree of personal hygiene rather than such obvious factors as wealth, availability of running water or simple personal preference. Thus, the ugly body was constructed as both old and possibly as belonging to a specific social and occupational background. As will be shown in the next chapter, such bodies were

52 “Adab-e Mo’asherat,” in Ettela’at, December 30, 1928. 53 Ibid. The author further claims that the ancient Iranians wore very simple clothing: pants, a shirt, shoes, and cummerbund. 226 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah juxtaposed to those of men who dressed in the “national dress,” practiced sport and served in the army.54 Filthy and unhygienic bodies were not exclusively attributed to the poor or to tribesmen, but to the old elites as well. A letter by a female writer to Ettela’at echoes the tailor’s criticism of the unhygienic condition of traditional male garments, even among men of the highest social standing:

In the past, when you walked in the alleyway you would see thousands of stains on the clothes of highly placed men. And those who were distinguished of the first class would wash once every fifteen days or once every month. A thick beard was the sign of their high status and under their expensive and badly sewn clothes, they would wear a dirty undershirt and their hats were surrounded by a black halo of fat and sweat. The mark of the iron, that from the point of view of cleanliness, hygiene, and refinement is crucial for clothes, was not seen among the clothes of urban aristocrats.55 In the summer of 1934, Reza Shah traveled to Ataturk’s Turkey on his only state visit ever. The Shah was very impressed with Ataturk’s modernizing reforms and with the westernized appearance of Turkish men who wore fully brimmed hats. During his visit, he issued an order that all Iranians who worked outdoors had to wear full-brimmed hats to protect themselves from the sun. On July 8, 1935, the cabinet issued a decree making the full-brimmed hat obligatory, thus replacing the Pahlavi hat. Whereas the 1927 Dress Law aimed at making all Iranians look uniform and Western, the introduction of the brimmed hat focused mainly on the second objective. Unlike the Pahlavi hat whose epithet clearly denoted a national look, the new hat was designated “International Hat” (Kolah-e Beyn ol-Melali).56 Indeed, the Pahlavi hat had failed in making Iranians resemble Europeans. Its style was not common among European men at the time, and an oft-cited observation of the British ambassador to Iran claimed that it made Iranian men look like “railway porters.”57 In fact, comments on the incongruence between the etiquette and appearance dictated by the Pahlavi hat and Western etiquette were voiced as early

54 “Vahdat-e Lebas” (The Uniformity of Dress), in Ettela’at, December 29, 1928. 55 Maliheh Adibaf, “Lebas Nemayandeh-ye Aabru va Heysiyyat-e Shakhsi va Ejtema’i Ast” (Dress Is the Agent of Personal and Social Honor and Prestige), in Ettela’at, July 27, 1935. 56 Chehabi, “Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes,” 216. 57 Baker, “Politics of Dress,” 181; Ansari, Modern Iran since 1921, 48. The 1927 Dress Law 227 as 1928 by the then Iranian ambassador to Turkey, Mohammad Ali Forughi (later to become Iran’s Prime Minister). Forughi was uncomfortable with keeping his hat on indoors during diplomatic events, and wrote a secret letter to Court Minister Abdol Hosein Teymurtash, urging him to promote a replacement of the Pahlavi hat by European hats.58 The desire not to be mocked by Westerners was repeatedly presented as a reason for the dress reform. Personal humiliation experienced by Iranians in traditional garments (recall Isa Sadiq and his friends in Paris) became a national humiliation the new code was to rectify. The dress reforms, together with the overall change in Iran’s situation, now allowed Iranians to erase the shame of the West’s scornful gaze and join the other nations of the world as an equal.59 Writing in 1935, Mr. H. M. Zeli remembered that when the change of hats was introduced, he thought that “our hats will also be similar to those of the people of the world,” and had realized that in the past he had noticed foreigners wearing a European hat looking at him disdainfully. The Iranians’ new status soothed his painful memories.60 Not everyone was as enthusiastic, however. The decree was met with violent popular demonstrations in the holy city of Mashhad and elsewhere in Khorasan, protesting against it as well as the alleged intention to unveil women – an allegation that would prove true in 1936. The demonstrations were suppressed violently, ending with 500 dead and 800 arrested.61 Confusion about the hats and protest about them were further fueled because full-brimmed hats (chapeaux) were imported and relatively expensive, hence out of reach for many. Ettela’at clariﬁed that the decree did not mean that all male citizens had to wear a chapeau; it was permissible to choose any type of “international” hat, such as the kepi, the casket or the straw hat. These hats were cheaper than the chapeau and some were locally made.62 One beneﬁt

58 Chehabi, “Dress Codes for Men,” 221. 59 M. N., “Kolah az Nazar-e Diyanat” (The Hat from a Religious Perspective), in Ettela’at, July 18, 1935; Maliheh Adibaf, “Lebas Nemayandeh-ye Aabru va Heysiyyat-e Shakhsi va Ejtema’i Ast,” in Ettela’at, July 27, 1935. 60 H. M. Zeli, “Chand Satr dar Bab-e Kolah” (A Few Lines Regarding the Hat), in Ettela’at, July 17, 1935. 61 Baker, “Politics of Dress,” 183; Ali Akbar Sa’idi Sirjani, “Clothing – In the Pahlavi and Post-Pahlavi Periods,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www .iranicaonline.org/articles/clothing-xi. 62 “Kolah ...” (The Hat ...), in Ettela’at, June 29, 1935. 228 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah of the new decree, and the reason that it was “happily received,” was that it allowed men more freedom of choice compared to the strict headgear regime of the Pahlavi hat.63 Ettela’at considered abandoning the Pahlavi hat in favor of a full- brimmed European hat as early as November 1933. In the following article, Ebrahim Khwajeh Nuri, a well-known journalist who also worked for the Ministry of Post and Telegraph, presents the aesthetic aspects of the hat in an “interview” with a “painter.” This section vividly demonstrates the association between health and beauty, westernization and nationalism, and is worth quoting at some length. The following is the painter’s reply when asked about the Pahlavi hat, here called “single-visor hat” (kolah-e labeh dar – note how when the hat is criticized, its afﬁliation to the monarch disappears):

My opinion regarding the single-visor hat is that this form of hat, [when worn with] non-military clothes and especially a turned-down collar (such as a jacket and the like) is very far from aesthetic ...the only case where it does not violate the law of the harmony of forms [qanun-e tavaffoq-e ashkal] and does not offend the eye of the aesthete is [when worn alongside] an Arab [Nehru] collar buttoned all the way up, a leather belt and matching boots. Examine closely most of the passersby in the street and you will see the following shape: a narrow neck emerging out of a saggy collar with open buttons and the bottom partly askew. Above it – a yellow, thin, and sickly face. The passerby [who wears] this hat, which is characteristic of the attire and face of action and power, wears it ... sometimes [tilted] upwards, sometimes crookedly, and sometimes places it over his eyebrows. The arms coming from rounded shoulders hang limply and swing unsteadily hither and thither. The legs of the trousers are hanging wrinkled and shapeless and curl from under the jacket. Imagine this neck and face and this hat – you must admit that this hat does not ﬁt [men who are] not soldiers.64 The painter depicts the unsavory image of the “passersby” in the street as incongruous with the Pahlavi hat. The hat is associated with military appearance, as soldiers were the ﬁrst to wear it as part of their uniforms.65 It must be worn with uniform, or at least with uniform- styled clothes, which must be kept orderly and clean, and be worn by

63 “Tabdil-e Kolah” (The Change of Hat), in Ettela’at, July 1, 1935. 64 E. [Ebrahim?] Khajeh Nuri, “Mashhudat Goftani – Qaziyeh-ye Kolah” (It Is Evident – The Hat Issue), Part 2, in Ettela’at, November 4, 1933. 65 Stephanie Cronin, The Army and Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910–1926 (London: I. B. Tauris, 1997), 208. The 1927 Dress Law 229 healthy and upright men. The painter’s contempt of the masses is due both to their deformed bodies and to their failure to adopt Western dress practices. A distance separates the masculine model the Dress Law aspired to create from the actual appearance of Iranian men not educated in the manner in which these clothes are to be worn. Western attire can only denote power, order, and cleanliness when the men who don it button up their shirts properly, wear their hats at the right angle, and make sure their trousers are properly ironed (by educated housewives). The solution to this problem of aesthetics, the article suggests, could be either further uniformity in dress – forcing all Iranian men to wear militarized clothes – or further westernization of the hat. These solu- tions are rejected by the interviewer, who claims that the latter solution will offend national feelings. To this, the artist replies: “Do you really believe that if an Iranian wears a chapeau he will automatically leave the Iranian nationality and become a foreign citizen?” He then proceeds with an unabashed defense of westernization. Rather than dis- guising it in nationalistic terms, he insists that Iranians must borrow from the West as much as they can. Similar views were articulated by some Iranian intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s. The best known was Hasan Taqizadeh, who claimed that Iranians must become unconditionally “European, in spirit and body.”66 Despite the fact that intellectuals like Taqizadeh, Moshfeq Kazemi, and Hosein Kazemza- deh Iranshahr expressed such views, nationalist writers did not whole- heartedly endorse all-out westernization. Indeed, the interviewer comments that “I was not convinced, but ... could not deal with the tongue of this babbling artist.”67 Khwajeh Nuri employs a rhetorical tactic here – letting the readers know that he was “not convinced” but had no counterarguments. The interweaving of nationalism, health, and aesthetics in the discussion on the dress reform concerned the body and bodily practices of the hegemonic man and made hegemonic masculinity corporeal. The “real” man was now identiﬁable not only by his knowledge and nationalist views, but also by his clothes that rendered his body both

66 Tavakoli-Targhi, “Inventing Modernity, Borrowing Modernity.” 67 E. Khajeh Nuri, “Mashhudat Goftani – Qaziyeh-ye Kolah”, Part 2, in Ettela’at, November 4, 1933. 230 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah healthy and beautiful. As Majles member Ali Dashti opined, “If you will go now to Khuzestan, you will no longer see any Arab wearing a chaffiyeh and ‘eqal. They all wear a suit. They all became human/men [adam shodehand] ...I think that in Iran the form of the chaffiyeh and ‘eqal is not a human form [shekl-e adam nist].”68 Men who insisted on wearing traditional dress were not only unpatriotic but also unhealthy and deformed, almost inhuman. Unlike them, the habitus of men educated according to Western norms made them familiar with the practices dictated by the wearing of Western clothes. The manner in which they wore the suit and the hat demonstrated their cultural capital and strengthened their hegemonic status in Iranian society. The Dress Law is usually and rightly interpreted as part of Reza Shah’s project of Iran’s nationalization.69 Houchang Chehabi regards the dress codes in Iran and Turkey as a textbook example of top-down modernization and state building,70 while Patricia Baker and Said Amir Arjomand consider the Dress Law as part of the struggle between Reza Shah and the religious establishment.71 Though Chehabi acknowledges that these reforms aimed at creating a new society as well as a new man, neither he nor Baker and Arjomand refer to masculinity per se. I would argue that the stipulations of the Dress Law reveal how it supported the construction of a national image, which materialized in the body of a modern male citizen who abided by a new model of hegemonic masculinity. The new national image both based itself on this hegemonic masculinity and entrenched it, by making it an “official” model condoned by the state. The Dress Law did not create a neutral male appearance. The wearing of a European suit was associated with a specific group of men who wished to reconstruct their society in the image of their own masculinity. This masculinity, as Minoo Moallem noted, was urban, secular, and elitist, and formulated in contrast to previous models of masculinity.72 The three-piece suit adopted by Iranian reformers had long been a symbol of modern Western masculinity and had carried

68 Majles Minutes, Seventh Session, Meeting 15, 7. 69 Cronin, Soldiers, Shahs and Subalterns, 161. 70 Chehabi, “Dress Codes for Men”; Chehabi, “Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes.” 71 Baker, “Politics of Dress”; Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown, 82. 72 Moallem, Between Warrior Brother,71–72. Resistance, Reception, and Adjustment 231 political meanings from as early as the eighteenth century.73 In Europe, wearing a suit conveyed a sartorial message of respectability, rational- ity, seriousness, and discipline, and had much to do with a desire for conformity and fear of ridicule.74 These, together with modernity, progress, and westernization were among the traits that Iran’s new government tried to project in the 1920s and 1930s. The inculcation of hegemonic masculinity through the dress laws supported new social and political power relations.75 The regime’s ability to enforce the daily practices it deemed necessary strengthened the hierarchical relations between state and citizen. With Reza Shah’s rise to power, many elite men held positions of power in the state bureaucracy.76 The Dress Law brought to the fore their newly achieved political power as well as the cultural clout of their model of masculinity by constructing it as a role model.

Resistance, Reception, and Adjustment: State Power, Social Hegemony, and Western Dress As already noted, the Dress Law met with opposition from both the clergy and tribal chiefs.77 Smaller-scale resistance was also evident: in one revealing article, a man reminisces how, together with some young

73 David Kuchta, “The Making of the Self-Made Man: Class, Clothing, and English Masculinity, 1688–1832,” in The Sex of Things: Gender and Consumption in Historical Perspective, ed. Victoria de Grazia and Ellen Furlough (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996), 54–78; Michael Zakim, “Sartorial Ideologies: From Homespun to Ready-Made,” American Historical Review 106, no. 5 (2001): 1553–1586; Michael Zakim, Ready-Made Democracy: A History of Men’s Dress in the American Republic, 1760–1860 (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003). 74 Katrina Honeyman, “Following Suit: Men, Masculinity and Gendered Practices in the Clothing Trade in Leeds, England, 1890–1940,” Gender & History 14, no. 3 (2002): 428. As noted earlier, in Iran as well the desire for conformity with Western appearance and the attempt to avoid the ridicule of westerners were important elements of the dress reform: Chehabi, “Dress Codes for Men”; “Jashn-e Ahali baraye Kolah-e Pahlavi,” in Ettela’at, September 23, 1928. 75 Moallem, Between Warrior Brother, 65. 76 Cronin, Soldiers, Shahs and Subalterns, 162–163. For example, out of fifteen ministers in 1926–1927, mentioned by British official R. H. Clive in his report to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, ten were elite men educated in Western institutes. See Robert Michael Burrell and Robert L. Jarman, eds., Iran Political Diaries 1881–1965 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), vol. 7, 1927–1930, 74–86. 77 Baker, “Politics of Dress,” 182. 232 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah friends, he decided to wear a brimmed hat as early as 1925. They were constantly beaten in the streets and their persecution lasted until military men started wearing the Pahlavi hat. He insisted that donning the hat not merely improved his appearance, but also eliminated outdated notions by showing that a Muslim or Iranian identity did not depend on dress.78 These arguments simultaneously attach huge importance to the hat as a means to change thoughts and beliefs while at the same time regarding it as a neutral object, unconnected to religion and national identities. Violent resistance in the form of demonstrations or attacks on men wearing westernized clothes was one of several reactions to the Dress Law, alongside evasion, negotiation, and compromise. In a short story, Rasul Parvizi describes the early days of the dress reform in Shiraz. Schoolchildren continued to come to school in their traditional attire, despite repeated demands to change into a suit and a Pahlavi hat, until the deputy principal applied the scissors to their robes, turning them into short shirts. Meanwhile on the streets, a gang of ruffians, supported by the clergy, would beat up men who wore the Pahlavi hat, and tear their hats. One way of dealing with the situation was wearing a turban and a cloak over the suit, taking them off and putting on the Pahlavi hat when entering an office or a school.79 In rural areas, entire villages would sometimes use a single collective hat, worn when one of the villagers had to go to town.80 The situation was not much different in the corridors of power. A 1931 article complains that civil servants supposed to wear the “national dress” usually hung their jackets behind their desks, wearing them only when fearing inspection. Their departmental heads usually did the same.81 Indeed, the change was not simple even for some high- ranking government officials. Prime Minister Mehdiqoli Hedayat, a deeply religious man, had to be scolded by the Shah himself before conforming to the law.82

78 E. Khajeh Nuri, “Mashhudat Goftani – Qaziyeh-ye Kolah,” in Ettela’at, October 19, 1933. 79 Chehabi, “Staging the Emperor’s New Clothes,” 230–231. 80 Ansari, Modern Iran Since 1921, 48. 81 M. Khatat, “Malbus-e Vatani” (The National Dress), in Ettela’at, March 1, 1931. 82 Chehabi, “Dress Codes for Men,” 220. Resistance, Reception, and Adjustment 233

Other men attempted to negotiate with the government for permission to keep wearing traditional garments, a permission reserved for certain positions in the religious establishment. In a letter to the Prime Minister, notary Aqa Seyyed Ali Qomi asked to file a “recommendation” (towsiyeh, meaning request for special treatment) on his behalf to the Minister of Justice. Qomi asked to be allowed to wear “regular” (‘adi) clothes at his notary office, and clerical clothes that would “fit his position” when out of the office.83 His case demonstrates how the Dress Law helped create a new hierarchical relationship between the government and the religious establishment. Religious practitioners had to obtain government approval of their religious credentials, subjecting them to the new bureaucracy. An unintended result of the law was that it established a visible distinction for the small group of state-approved clerics, thus contributing to their consolidation as a distinct social and political group.84 As Arang Keshavarzian has shown, this benefitted the clerical elite, who controlled religious seminaries and the exams that separated “real” men of religion from “fake” ones – the akhunds, who were forced to abandon their turbans and cloaks.85 Subversion of the law persisted well into the late 1930s. In Heydar Radjavi’s autobiographical short story “Good Songs, Evil Songs,” he describes a cleric who recited lamentations of the martyrs (marsiyeh)in his neighborhood in Tabriz. Unlike younger marsiyeh khwans who would sing and weep in their street dress, this cleric, Amirza Hasan, hid his turban and robe in a bag carried by his mule, and donned them indoors, in the homes of the devout. Once, when he absentmindedly left his turban on, he was caught by a policeman in the street and given a warning.86 In another story, “My Father’s Wardrobe,” Radjavi’s aging father agrees to wear his single Western suit in cold weather only and covers it with a qaba. Since it resembled an old-fashioned

83 Mohammad Hosein Manzur ol-Ajdad, Siyasat va Lebas: Gozideh-ye Asnad-e Mottahed Ol-Shekl Shodan-e Albeseh, 1307–1318 (Politics and Dress: Selection of Documents on the Uniformed Dress, 1928–1939) (Tehran: Sazman-e Asnad- e Melli-ye Iran, 2001), 154–155. 84 Chehabi, “Dress Codes for Men,” 225. 85 Arang Keshavarzian, “Turban or Hat, Seminarian or Soldier: State Building and Clergy Building in Reza Shah’s Iran,” Journal of Church and State 45, no. 1 (2003): 81–112. 86 Heydar Radjavi, French Hats in Iran (Washington, DC: Mage Pubishers, 2011), 118. 234 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah

Western overcoat, he could not be accused of breaking the law.87 Revealingly, the father’s behavior is a source of embarrassment for Radjavi and his brothers: the way he dressed made him look centuries old to me. His traditional garments looked ridiculous, I thought to myself. All my friends’ fathers whom I met wore more regular clothes ... God, I prayed, why couldn’t I have one of those fathers who shaved their beards and wore a suit and tie? ... Agha’s appearance must have been an embarrassment to every member of my family who was alive when I was born ...My oldest brother Kazem ...an aspiring teacher in modern schools, must have felt it more than the other family members. When he graduated from the Teachers’ Training College in Tehran, and got his ﬁrst paycheck as a teacher, he observed the old tradition of spending it on substantial gifts for parents. His gift for Agha was a nicely tailored suit ...Frugal Agha couldn’t let the suit go to waste, but he made sure to wear it only on cold winter days, so he could conceal it under his nondescript, traditional overall, the qabaa, which made him look like images in my schoolbooks of twelfth-century scholars.88 Radjavi’s short stories demonstrate both the failures and the success of the Dress Law. On the one hand, young men became so accustomed to Western dress that traditional garments seemed ridiculous while suits looked “regular” to them – a perception also apparent in Seyyed Qomi’s letter to the authorities and in other similar documents.89 On the other hand, conservative men would ﬁnd ways to bypass the law, and after Reza Shah’s abdication in 1941, some of them returned to their old garments. Young men, however, kept wearing the modern garments even after the abdication.90 Minute differences in dress and conduct could help pinpoint a man’s position regarding modernization and tradition. Radjavi writes of a friend of his father who scolded Agha for allowing his son to remain in school until the eighth grade (“two grades too many”) and confesses that

The man had fooled me: he wore a modern suit; he even had a chapeau on his head. He looked so regular, so with it ... the scary and confusing experience taught me to reﬁne my criteria ...Had I observed the guest more carefully, I would have noted that he hadn’t taken his chapeau off indoors; a

87 Ibid.,48–50. 88 Ibid.,48–49. 89 Manzur ol-Ajdad, Siyasat va Lebas, 77, 155. 90 Radjavi, French Hats in Iran,29–30. Resistance, Reception, and Adjustment 235 sign that he was not a truly westernized man. He didn’t have a tie on and he wasn’t clean-shaven; two more signs of his adherence to strict versions of the Faith. On the other hand, he had chosen to seat himself in an armchair in our guest room, rather than insist, as the real traditionalists did, on sitting on the carpeted ﬂoor ... But, again, shouldn’t I have noticed that he had left his shoes outside, unlike the ultra-modern guests, who, to the utter disgust of my mother, would enter any room with their shoes on?91 Radjavi’s stories demonstrate how men who opposed the law and tried to hang on to traditional attire, which not so long ago had been considered the norm, were now dubbed old-fashioned and even reactionary. Men who in earlier periods were criticized as farangimaab or fokoli now became “regular” and “normal.” The fact that Western suits, far from common in Iran during the early twentieth century, were accepted as “regular” by the 1930s may demonstrate the dynamics of hegemonic masculinity. Westernized men became the model of an appropriate masculinity, and their appearance became “normal” and desired by wider segments of Iranian society, rather than ridiculed. Their status was supported by the state as well as in the media, art, and literature. The regime’s response to the various forms of resistance consolidated new power relations between it and the old elites. Policemen would tear turbans off respectable men’s heads, trample on them, and send the men on their way bareheaded. To recall Youel Mirza’s comment on the importance of the hat, tearing off men’s headdress was an act of emasculation. Performed by an authority ﬁgure, it was also a form of public humiliation.92 Inability to respond to this challenge impinged on the masculinity of men who had traditionally held positions of power, and conversely entrenched the power of government representatives. In fact, such actions had been taken before the dress reform to demonstrate the regime’s superiority over tribal populations. A 1925 report by a representative of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company in Khuzestan mentions how Iranian soldiers were harassing the Arab population of Mohammareh, tearing “kerchiefs” off men’s heads and forcing them to wear hats, and ridiculing them for not understanding Persian.93 Another such report mentions that on the day the Dress Law

91 Ibid.,51–52. 92 Shirazi, “Manly Matters.” 93 British Petroleum Archives, ARC96465, July 28, 1925. 236 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah entered into effect (March 21, 1929), policemen patrolled the streets of Abadan and Mohammareh, took off the hats of men who did not comply with the law, threw the Arab-style headgear over roofs and tore apart old-style kolahs. Furthermore, government representatives refused to investigate any complaints by men who did not wear the Pahlavi hat. Finally, many clergymen who did not receive government approval to continue wearing traditional garb were reportedly crossing the border to Iraq.94 The unveiling of women on February 1, 1936 had similar implications. In addition to an attempt to form a new Iranian female subject, unveiling had much to do with consolidating new power relations between the state and its male subjects. Traditionally the purview of Iranian women’s male guardians, the state now took it upon itself to control and determine both women’s appearance and their daily behavior by encouraging women to study and work outside their homes. Public stripping of chadors and face veils by government representatives divested men of their patriarchal responsibility and power over “their” women, thus further subjecting them to the state.95 Headed by the new “crowned father,” the state now claimed the role of patriarch.96 In addition to the coercive measures employed to enforce westernized dress, the Dress Law facilitated a more subtle assertion of the hegemony of westernized men. The change of dress – and of hats in particular – entailed a change in everyday practices, practices already adopted by these men. Their acquaintance with the new manners meant that such men did not have to go through the process of acquiring new social norms and were spared embarrassment. They knew how to dress and behave and could feel at ease in social gatherings and public events. Unlike them, men used to traditional attire and practices had to adjust to new clothes, which they often found indecorous and indecent, and relearn how to act in public. The difference between the two groups of men is well illustrated in the two portraits of painters from Isfahan, by photographer Mirza Mehdi Khan Chehreh-Nameh shown in Figures 6.10 and 6.11. Figure 6.10 shows Mohammad Khan As’ad, a student of the famous

94 British Petroleum Archives, ARC70029, March 1929. 95 Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman,81–82. 96 Moallem, Between Warrior Brother, 72. Resistance, Reception, and Adjustment 237

Figure 6.10 Portrait of a Mohammad Khan As’ad (Damandan, Portrait Photographs from Isfahan, 170)

Figure 6.11 Portrait of a painter (Damandan, Portrait Photographs from Isfahan, 170) 238 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah painter Kamal ol-Molk, in the Academy of Fine Arts in Tehran (est. 1911). As’ad poses in front of a portrait of a Qashqa’i tribal chief, painted in the European naturalistic style. His appearance is impec- cably Western, from the pointed tips of his mustache through the wavy hairdo to the tie and leather shoes. This young man’s westernization was carried to perfection already in 1915, the year in which the photograph was taken. Figure 6.11, however, offers quite a different image of westernization. While the anonymous painter does wear the Pahlavi hat, a jacket, and a tie, the impression is of a man in the midst of an acculturation process. He wears fabric shoes, his trousers are unevenly folded slightly too high above the ankles, and his ﬁngertips are blackened by ink or henna. Last, but not least, he holds a painting in traditional Iranian style. It is clear who of the two is better informed in Western ways, and who had trouble adjusting to the Dress Law. One of the most debated practices of dress concerned the etiquette of hat wearing. Traditionally, Iranian men covered their heads all day long, but the wearing of westernized hats entailed practices of removing one’s hat indoors and when greeting others.97 These practices were elaborated on in Ettela’at articles, as well as in ofﬁcial circulars for government employees. One writer attempted to justify the change by grounding it in Islamic tradition. He wrote that in Islam, it was customary to remove the hat during prayer as a sign of respect; hence, removing the hat out of respect was not a Western tradition but an Islamic one. The removal of the hat during prayer solved another issue related to the brimmed hat: it did not allow the forehead to touch the ground.98 Other articles rejected the notion that wearing a hat indoors was a national tradition, and had to be preserved in the name of patriotism. Gh. Moqaddam opines that the matter became a source of friction between “a group of modernizing gentlemen [aqayan-e motejaddedin] and several traditionalists [kohneh parastan].” While the latter believed it to be a national tradition, the former claimed that it was in fact not known when and how this became the habit of Iranians. Furthermore, modernizers believed that since this habit was “ugly and damaging” it should not be preserved and it was better to adopt the

97 Chehabi, “Dress Codes for Men,” 211. 98 N. Gardonya, “Az Marasem-e Ehteram ba Kolah” (On the Traditions of Respect with Hats), in Ettela’at, July 2, 1935. Resistance, Reception, and Adjustment 239 practices of “civilized nations.” The new practices of dress were also better suitable to the changing Iranians’ daily lives:

But if we say that for a long period Iranians used to sit on the floor and eat, or when entering a room, out of respect they would take off their shoes and only then enter the room, or attend meetings and visits wearing tall hats, a shawl, a cloak, and a turban, and now as a result of becoming familiar and having contact with highly developed nations have changed this way of living according to the demands of time, it cannot be said that they did not preserve their national traditions. There was a time when an Iranian could wear loose pants and sit on the floor and eat, but today it would be ridiculous to sit on the floor with ironed baize trousers, or remove one’s shoes when entering a class, a cinema, a coffeehouse, or on a visit.99 Additionally, writes Moqaddam, even those Iranians who oppose the practice of removing their hats indoors in fact remove it unconsciously during work or study for comfort. They do not avoid other European practices, and therefore should not do so regarding the hat. Thus progress, sartorial practices, and modern activities such as cinema- going, are linked together. The “traditionalists” are vilified as inhibiting Iran’s progress and are ridiculed for their devotion to habits considered harmful and old-fashioned. The change of hats and habits was attributed to the “enlightened” or “modernizers” and gained a positive connotation. Those resisting the change were described as “fanatics,” “ignorant,” and even “rabble.”100 Ettela’at emphasized that a “well- bred and educated person” removed his hat before entering a house, an office, or even indoor restaurants, cafés, and stores. The etiquette of acknowledging an acquaintance on the street was also discussed – the manner in which one merely touched the brim of the hat in response to men of lower status or raised the hat in other cases.101 Contemporary studio portraits can offer us a more nuanced understanding of the manner in which different Iranians combined, partly

99 Gh. Moqaddam, “Aya Kolah Bar Sar Dashtan jozv-e Rosum-e Melli Ast?” (Is Keeping a Hat on among the National Traditions?), in Ettela’at, November 8, 1932. 100 Fakham Behzadi, “Tabdil-e Kolah” (The Change of Hat), in Ettela’at, July 7, 1935; Mr. Shahrudi, “Taghyir-e Kolah” (The Change of Hat), in Ettela’at, August 11, 1935. 101 “Adab-e Kolah-e Tamam Labeh,” Part 1 (Etiquette of the Full Brimmed Hat), in Ettela’at, July 9, 1935; see also “Adab-e Kolah” (Hat Etiquette), in Ettela’at, June 27, 1935. 240 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah

Figure 6.12 Portrait of an Isfahani family wearing the Pahlavi hat (“Adab-e Kolah-e Tamam Labeh,” Part 1 [Etiquette of the Full Brimmed Hat], in Ettela’at, July 9, 1935, 112) adopted, and modified Western fashions. Men on whom westernization was forced from above found their own ways to adjust, without submitting themselves to a clear-cut abandonment of older practices. In figure 6.12, all men wear the Pahlavi hat indoors, as well as some adaptation of Western dress, illustrating the unsuitability of the Pah- lavi hat to westernized clothes, as discussed above. The loose and long coats of four of the sitters, together with the full beard of two and the general absence of ties, as well as the amulet and traditional shoes worn by the child on the left, seem incongruous with the identical Pahlavi hats, an impression unhampered by the meticulously ironed trousers and Western shoes. The variety of hats allowed in the 1935 decree made it necessary to elaborate on the different types and their uses. Two articles specify different types of hats – from the bowler and cylinder hats to Panama hats and the beret – the occasions for which they are appropriate, as well as who is to wear them. Children are to wear berets or pith helmets in summer. Men are advised to wear a black jacket, striped trousers, and bowler, boater, or Panama hat when invited to lunch or tea. Doctors, scientists, and other respectable men can dress this way on other occasions as well. Politicians, diplomats, first-rank teachers, Resistance, Reception, and Adjustment 241 and scientists are advised to wear a black frock coat and striped trousers with a bowler or top hat for meetings, exhibitions, conferences, and funerals. It is obvious, then, that the attempts to impose uniformity in dress did not fully abolish the visual markers of status in society. One system of sartorial differentiation, stressing ethnic origins, religious affiliation, or locality disappeared, lending a more homogenous look to Iranian society. However, the old system was replaced by a new one that emphasized occupation and profession and had a distinct temporal aspect. The repertoire was publicized and circulated in government publications, such as guidelines issued by the Ministry of Interior, that detailed various kinds of hats and specified their uses, urging government employees to purchase at least the tall black hat appropriate for most occasions.102 The ministry similarly circulated guidelines stipulating when and where to remove the hat.103 A similar guide was published by the mayor of Bandar Joz, warning men who still did not take the necessary steps to stop making inappropriate excuses and acquire international hats if they did not wish to be punished.104 Another source of information regarding the new clothes and etiquette for men was manuals dedicated specifically to such matters. One such manual, published in 1936 lists men’s (and, in further details, women’s) proper clothes for different seasons and social occasions – from everyday clothes to bathing suits, and clothes proper for condolence visits. It also discusses personal hygiene: stressing that men must leave their house clean-shaven and wearing clean and ironed clothes, and forbidding them wearing perfume or powder or getting a manicure. The manual further details the correct conduct of men in the street and during social gatherings, and specifically on the proper behavior toward women.105 The new etiquette caused some trouble to men who were not used to changing their outfit several times a day. Hasan Arfa relates how, on a tour to one of the provinces, the Shah was met by the provincial governor in a morning coat and a top hat. Since the governor joined in for the rest of the visit, he was changing from a morning coat to a lounge suit in his car when the cars were stopped on the way. He had to leave his car in his shirt and underpants and was

102 Taghyir-e Lebas, 65. 103 Baker, “Politics of Dress,” 184. 104 Taghyir-e Lebas,61–62. 105 Abdollah Ashraﬁ, Rahnameh-ye Mo'asherat (Rules of Etiquette) (Tehran: Mahmud Ramazani, 1936). The author wishes to thank Esha Momeni for sending her this manual. 242 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah immediately ﬁred by Reza Shah, only to be reinstated after the circumstances were explained.106

Conclusions The introduction and promotion of dress reform in Iran were accompanied by two parallel and sometimes contradictory narratives. On the one hand, dress was endowed with immense importance and certain items of clothing were elevated to markers of Iranian national identification. Western suits and hats were named “Pahlavi” or “National,” and were endowed with an imagined pre-Islamic Iranian history. A change of clothes was perceived as a necessary step toward a change in beliefs and worldviews, from traditionalist to modern, from superstitious to scientific.107 Furthermore, sartorial change was to herald a change in male bodies, from a bent, sickly, and filthy body to an upright, healthy, and clean one. At the same time, there was an effort to present the change of clothes as a matter that had no impact on authenticity and national identity. Hats and clothes, claimed some commentators, were not what made a man an Iranian or a European. To drive home this point it was argued that uniformity of dress and look did not eradicate national differences among Europeans. To reconcile these two contra- dicting arguments, it was further claimed that westernized clothes were to make Iranians more like Europeans in thought and daily practices, without affecting their national authenticity. The dress reforms of 1927 and 1935 also demonstrate the conflation of interests of the state and the modernizing hegemonic elite during Reza Shah’s period. The power of the state also preserved the position and hegemony of this elite and the model of masculinity it had long advocated. The manifestation of state power in the administrative and coercive measures taken to enforce the Dress Law buttressed the hegemony of this elite and its model of westernized masculinity. The strong presence of men with Western education in the state bureaucracy meant that they were among those who shared in the state’s power.108 They benefitted from the widening ranks of state

106 Arfa, Under Five Shahs, 244. 107 Ansari, Modern Iran Since 1921, 47. 108 This is illustrated in a list of 135 high-ranking officials (ministers, ambassadors, governors, department heads, etc.) compiled by the British in the Iran Political Diaries of 1938: only nine were of a manifestly non-elite background, while ninety-three came from elite families (I could not verify the family background Conclusions 243 administration, which provided many with jobs (in Tehran alone, government and army employees numbered more than 12,000 in 1932109), as well as from the promotion of a hegemonic masculinity modeled after their own. The new rules of dress and manners fairly succeeded in replacing the old systems of sartorial differentiation. They emphasized new hierarchies based on modern professions and pastimes. Old figures of authority such as the mullah and luti were replaced by doctors, scientists, and diplomats. Part of the power of these men derived from the fact that they had better control over the new sartorial and behavioral norms, and were thus presented by the press as more progressive. The dress reform entrenched the position of the elite as a standard against which other men were measured. They had already appropriated the embodied cultural capital gained from modern education and acquaintance with Western practices and norms. Thus, while the changes undoubtedly required men of other groups to spend more on clothing and caused them occasional embarrassment, those who benefitted from the reforms could slip more comfortably into the new masculine habit promoted by the regime. Men for whom the Dress Law was not a welcome change made various adaptations to Western dress to make it more suitable to the aesthetic norms they were used to. They subverted the law by wearing traditional but legal overcoats over their now illegal clothes. They also negotiated with government officials for exemptions. Sometimes, they were willing to sacrifice their lives demonstrating against the new clothes. The result of these various tactics of negotiation was sometimes a hybridized appearance. Thus, rather than creating a society of uniform appearance, new and subtler differences were created and new, different styles of male attire existed side by side. Finally, the new dress supported the construction of a new body image. The new masculine attire was less concealing than the traditional one. As it was more exposed to public scrutiny, the body

of the remaining thirty-three); and eighty-eight were educated in the West or had Western-style education. Burrell and Jarman, Iran Political Diaries 1881–1965, vol. 10. 109 Rezvani-Naraghi, “Middle Class Urbanism,” 100. 244 Male Dress Reforms under Reza Shah underneath the Western suit needed to be clean and ﬁt. Men of the Western-educated elite now determined not only how a proper man had to be educated, which political ideologies he had to support or how he needed to conduct his family or sex life, but also what he needed to look like. The new male body image – young, athletic, and muscular – will be further discussed in the next chapter. 7 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, |Strong Hearts” Sport, Scouting, and Soldiering under Reza Shah

At about the same time that Iranian men’s dress was reformed, their bodies were disciplined and a new male body image was promoted. The new image conformed to athletic aesthetics common in contemporary Western Europe. The new body was to be developed by physical exercise. Young and upright male, and, from 1936, female bodies in Western dress became symbols of Iran’s regeneration and modernization. Physical exercise and sport supported an additional and no less important goal of the Iranian regime: buttressing of loyalty to the Pahlavi monarchy. The importance of physical exercise (varzesh-e badani) for men’s strength and health was discussed in the Iranian press as early as the 1900s.1 From the 1920s, the notion of “healthy mind in a healthy body” recurred increasingly.2 Reza Shah’s government employed its growing authority and capabilities to promote athletic bodies. The new centralized education system played a signiﬁcant role: physical education became compulsory in state schools, and scouting was ﬁrst introduced and then made compulsory in them as well. The state also encouraged extracurricular competitive sporting activities. Even conscription and military service were presented as a means to achieving a healthy and athletic body. Thus, the state made use of its greater control over many aspects of daily life to reform the bodies of its citizens.

1 “Hefz ol-Sehheh” (Hygiene), Parts 1, 2, in Noruz, August 16, 1903, August 28, 1903. 2 Dr. A’. Towﬁq, “Tarbiyat-e Onsor-e Javan” (The Education of the Young Person), in Ganjineh-ye Ma’aref, March 22, 1923. Proper care of the body and its relation to the spirit are also rooted in Zoroastrian tradition, and are most visible in the rules concerning purity and impurity of the body. See Alan V. Williams, “The Body and the Boundaries of Zoroastrian Spirituality,” Religion 19 (1989): 227–239.

245 246 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts”

In this chapter, I analyze the discourse on the male body and the practice of physical activity in sports, the Boy Scout movement and the military between the late 1920s and late 1930s. I focus on the emergence of a new image of the male body defined by its youth and athleticism and on the nurturing of new “masculine” character traits. The promotion of sport, scouting and military service helped maintain existing social hierarchies and the power of the state and monarchy.3 As physical education and scouting were available mostly to sons of the educated elite or to men holding office jobs who had the necessary income and leisure to pursue them, it was mostly young elite men who could acquire the new body that embodied hegemonic masculinity. Furthermore, the great emphasis on discipline, loyalty and obedience as part and parcel of physical education, scouting and military service, was meant to guarantee that the new generation of educated Iranians would not rebel against the monarchy or the ruling elite. The introduction of Western sports into Iran can be traced back to Dar ol-Fonun established in 1851, where students were required to exercise. By 1899, it was suggested that young men should be taught “the science of war” (‘elm-e jang) for two hours each day, during two or three months of each year, to strengthen the body and improve immunity to disease, and to be better able to defend the country. The military arts suggested included not only target practice but also swimming and diving.4 After 1915, students at the Military School and the School of the Cossack Brigade, as well as the American College, started practicing gymnastics.5 The devastating repercussions of the First World War consolidated the perception that Iran and the Iranian body were in need of reform. During the war, Mir Mehdi Varzandeh (1880–1982), widely considered the father of modern sports in Iran, returned to the country after studying physical education in Istanbul and Brus- sels. He began teaching gymnastics and calisthenics in state schools in 1915, and thanks to his influence physical education became part

3 Aaron Jakes, “Extracurricular Nationalism: Youth Culture in the Age of Egypt’s Parliamentary Monarchy” (MPhil thesis, Oxford University, 2005). 4 “Alamu Awladakum al-Rimaya wa-as-Sabaha” (Teach Your Children Shooting and Swimming), in Hekmat, May 11, 1899. 5 Houchang E. Chehabi, “Mir Mehdi Varzandeh and the Introduction of Modern Physical Education in Iran,” in Culture and Cultural Politics under Reza Shah, ed. Bianca Devos and Christoph Werner (London: Routledge, 2014), 55–72. “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts” 247 of the school curriculum in 1919.6 An article from a pedagogical journal shows that by 1918 exercise was deemed necessary for children’shealth.7 In the immediate aftermath of the war, competitive team sports such as football and volleyball were introduced to Iran by westerners residing in the country and educated Iranians returning from Europe.8 After the 1921 coup that brought Reza Khan to power, the attention paid by the regime to physical education increased. It became a national duty because the strengthening of citizens’ bodies was considered inseparable from the strengthening of the nation. An Iranian sports teacher argued that compulsory physical education was an important national project because “a nation that has no health is unable to do a thing and must be excluded from the ranks of living nations.”9 The might of a country or a nation now depended not only on the size of its population and their health (as shown in Chapter 5), but also on their physical ﬁtness.10 During the 1920s, concerns about the health risks of the modern sedentary lifestyle grew in Iran and elsewhere. These concerns drew on perceptions of physical culture that were prominent in Western Europe, and were propelled by nationalist regeneration movements. Nationalism, as George Mosse and others have noted, employed a rhetoric that associated the physical weakness of men’s bodies with national political weakness. In national movements, strong and healthy bodies became sites of the nation.11 Concerns about the degen- eration of men’s bodies were quite common in late-nineteenth-century Europe and increased after the First World War, which destroyed and maimed young men’s bodies. In the interwar era, anxieties about the

6 H. E. Chehabi, “The Juggernaut of Globalization: Sport and Modernization in Iran,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 19, no. 2–3 (July 2002): 277; Chehabi, “Mir Mehdi Varzandeh,” 58. 7 “Hefz ol-Sehheh-ye Madares: Gozashteh – Hal – Atiyeh” (The Hygiene of Schools: Past – Present – Future), in Majalleh-ye Osul-e Ta’limat, 1918. 8 Chehabi, “The Juggernaut of Globalization,” 278. 9 Abu ol-Fazl Sadri, “Varzesh: Pishraft-e Varzesh dar Iran” (Sport: The Progress of Sport in Iran), in Ettela’at, October 29, 1927. 10 This perception was common in many other nations. See for example Andrew D. Morris, Marrow of the Nation: A History of Sport and Physical Culture in Republican China (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2004). 11 Mosse, The Image of Man,40–49. 248 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts” male physique were common to democratic, Fascist, Soviet, and other regimes.12 Sport came to be widely considered as a prevention and cure for the assumed deterioration of the nation.13 In addition to physical education in schools and the establishment of sports clubs, an Iranian Boy Scout movement was established in 1925 and gained government support and popularity from 1934. Like sport, scouting was meant to physically train and nurture self-reliance and discipline in young urban Iranians. Sport and scouting included military practices, such as drilling and wearing uniform and were sometimes considered preparation for life in Reza Shah’s modernized and enlarged army. Like sport and scouting, military service was seen as a means to shape robust male bodies and loyal men.

Exercise for the Homeland The impact of Western notions about sport is quite evident in early Iranian writings on physical education that link the healthy and strong body to character. In 1914, an article in Shura urged the Minister of Education to follow the example of American and British schools by including sports in the national curricula and presented the attention paid to sports in these countries as one of the reasons for their progress and power.14 “If a child, after completing his studies, is to become a

12 Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, “Building a British Superman: Physical Culture in Interwar Britain,” Journal of Contemporary History 41, no. 4 (2006): 595–610; Forth, Masculinity in the Modern West; Barbara J. Keys, Globalizing Sport: National Rivalry and International Community in the 1930s (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006). 13 Cyrus Schayegh, “Sport, Health, and the Iranian Middle Class in the 1920s and 1930s,” Iranian Studies 35, no. 4 (September 2002): 341–369; John Rosselli, “The Self-Image of Effeteness: Physical Education and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Bengal,” Past & Present, no. 86 (January 1980): 221–248; Mikiya Koyagi, “Moulding Future Soldiers and Mothers of the Iranian Nation: Gender and Physical Education under Reza Shah, 1921–41,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 26, no. 11 (September 2009): 1668–1696; Demet Lüküslü and Şakir DinçŞahin, “Shaping Bodies Shaping Minds: Selim Sırrı Tarcan and the Origins of Modern Physical Education in Turkey,” The International Journal of the History of Sport 30, no. 3 (2013): 195–209. 14 This opinion was voiced by various authors. See “Varzesh-e Badani” (Physical Exercise), in Dabestan, May 19, 1923; see also Dr. A’. Towfiq, “Tarbiyat-e Onsor-e Javan”,inGanjineh-ye Ma’aref, March 22, 1923. Exercise for the Homeland 249 full-fledged man ...the school must be able to strengthen and hone the [mental and physical] abilities of children.”15 Physical activity was supposed to strengthen the body and build character and was regarded as a cure for cowardice and defeatism.16 It was consistent with “integrity, courage, manliness, honesty, inno- cence, liberality and chivalrousness.”17 As Cyrus Schayegh has shown, physical training was considered one of the best means for developing willpower (eradeh), considered by Iranian psychologists and peda- gogues among the most important human traits, leading to self-control and self-reliance. The moral benefits of exercise were regarded as important in themselves, as well as for the creation of a better society. Willpower, for example, was deemed necessary for the eradication of social and moral ills such as drug use and sexual perversions.18 An article in Forugh considers sport helpful in creating active, hardwork- ing and loyal men:

A sportsman grows to be serious and active so that he never avoids fulﬁlling his given duties and helping others ...Another positive quality of sportsmen is their reliance on the strength of their personal initiative, which will remain a stable guide in the face of life’s hardships and will assist them in shoulder- ing problems with full prudence and poise.19 As a semiofﬁcial newspaper dedicated to promoting government reforms, Ettela’at entered the discussion, noting that even sports- related injuries should be looked on positively, because they toughened up boys:

Most athletes are injured ...To people who are injured it is told, “be a man, take no notice, it is nothing” ...[anyone] scared of such incidents is called a wimp [nazoknarenji] and coward ... These things are for the nurturing of the mind and the spirit of courage, bravery, and masculinity and that is the reason why the rougher and harder sport and games are, the better they are for producing zealous [ghayur –see discussion in Chapter Three] youths.20

15 “Tarbiyat va Riyazat-e Badani” (Education and Physical Exercise), in Shura, April 25, 1914. 16 Dr. A’. Towﬁq, “Tarbiyat-e Onsor-e Javan,” in Ganjineh-ye Ma’aref, March 22, 1923. 17 Quoted in Chehabi, “Mir Mehdi Varzandeh,” 60. 18 Schayegh, Who Is Knowledgeable Is Strong, 176–182. 19 “Varzesh” (Sport), in Forugh, March 1928. 20 “Dar Meydan-e Varzesh” (In the Sports Arena), in Ettela’at, March 6, 1939. 250 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts”

The growing esteem of sport among reformists in the new government resulted in the establishment of a school for sports teachers in 1925 and compulsory inclusion of sports in the national curriculum in 1927.21 Physical education was to be taught every day.22 In later years, writers recommended that the curriculum allow for at least one daily hour of physical education and that all teachers learn its principles, so that it could be taught even in the absence of a designated sports instructor. Each sports class was to begin with short military drills then move to games and exercises.23 During the late 1930s, sport was increasingly described as vital to the formation of better soldiers. Repeated references to the role of sport in Western military power supported that argument. The spirit of cooperation, fraternity and courage in group sports was similarly praised as contributing to military performance.24 Despite the fact that physical activity was recommended for girls as well as for boys, it is quite clear that young men were the main target of physical education. In the Majles debate on compulsory physical education, member Seyyed Reza Firuzabadi asked whether it would apply to girls. Members Hosein Dadgar and Mohammad Ali Bamdad responded that the physical education of women was necessary, despite the objections it raised. Dadgar claimed that as far as science and hygiene were concerned, there was no difference between men and women, and that women needed to become strong mothers. Girls’ schools incorporated physical education in the curriculum and it became compulsory in the 1930s.25

21 “Klup-e Zhimnastic” (The Gymnastics Club), in Khalq, December 19, 1925; Majles Minutes, Session 6, Meetings 103, 104. 22 “Varzesh-e Ejbari” (Compulsory Sport), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, April 1, 1927; Koyagi, “Creating Future Soldiers and Mothers,” 47–48. I have no evidence regarding the extent to which this was in fact implemented in Iranian schools at the time. 23 “Dastur-e Varzesh-e Dabestanha-ye Pesaran” (The Procedure of Sport for Boys’ Elementary Schools,”)inEttela’at, March 3, 1935. 24 “Parvaresh-e Afkar va Akhlaq beh Vasileh-ye Tarbiyat-e Badani” (The Nurture of Thought and Morals by Means of Physical Education), in Ettela’at, March 5, 1939; Koyagi, “Moulding Future Soldiers”; Rudolph P. Matthee, “Transforming Dangerous Nomads into Useful Artisans, Technicians, Agriculturists: Education in the Reza Shah Period,” Iranian Studies 26, no. 3 (1993): 327. 25 Majles Minutes, Session 6, Meeting 103, 16–17; “Varzesh-e Ejbari”,inShafaq-e Sorkh, April 1, 1927; Koyagi, “Moulding Future Soldiers”; Chehabi, “The Juggernaut of Globalization,” 280. On the debate regarding physical education Exercise for the Homeland 251

However, the male bias of the discourse on sport is evident from the statute establishing the National Society of Physical Education and Scouting in 1934. The statute states that the Society’s first goal is to encourage sport and physical activity in order to promote a spirit of “sportsmanship and chivalry [varzeshkari va javanmardi].”26 Javan- mardi, as shown in Chapter 1, is a distinctively masculine trait. The Society’s motto was the following couplet, probably by Ferdowsi: “Power makes a real man, weakness gives birth to crookedness and deficiency” (zeniru bovad mard ra rasti, zesosti kazhi zayed va kasti).27 Furthermore, one of its main responsibilities was reforming the zurkhaneh and revitalizing and spreading the “ancient sport” practiced in it.28 The zurkhaneh, the quintessential space of early Qajar masculinity, was nationalized and modernized according to the values of the new regime. As described in the first chapter of this book, the zurkhaneh’s decline was attributed to lack of scientific and medical principles, added to sexual misconduct.29 From the 1920s, there were calls to modernize it. This required placing zurkhanehs under the supervision of medical and sports specialists.30 The rehabilitation of the zurkhaneh included a reevaluation of both its physical and moral benefits. According to an author in Shafaq-e Sorkh, writing in 1927, zurkhaneh training is actually a better and more “natural” physical activity than modern sports such as football, and is also suitable for older men. Unlike football players, zurkhaneh athletes could exercise for forty or even fifty years with no damage to their bodies.31 Moreover, presenting zurkhaneh practice as the Iranian “ancient sport” lent it moral credibility. It became another symbol of ancient

for girls in Turkey, see Lüküslü and DinçŞahin, “Shaping Bodies Shaping Minds,” 202–203. 26 Mahmud Delfani, Asnad-e Sazeman-e Pishahangi-ye Iran Dar Doreh-ye Reza Shah (Documents of the Iranian Scout Association during Reza Shah’s Reign) (Tehran: Entesharat-e Sazeman-e Asnad va Ketabkhaneh-ye Meli-ye Jomhuri-ye Eslami-ye Iran, 2004), 61. 27 Ibid., 59. 28 Ibid., 61. 29 Schayegh, “Sport, Health, and the Iranian Middle Class,” 366–368. 30 “Eslahat-e Ejtema’i” (Social Reforms), Part 10, in Ettela’at, October 17, 1928; see also “Dar Zurkhaneh” (In the Zurkhaneh), in Ettela’at, August 8, 1938; “Jashn-e Varzesh dar Meydan-e Jalaliyeh” (Sport Celebration at Jalaliyeh Arena), in Ettela’at, May 25, 1935. 31 “Futbal Ya Varzesh’ha-ye Pahlavani” (Football or the Pahlavani Sport), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, August 1927. 252 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts”

Iranians’ prowess and active lifestyle. Furthermore, zurkhaneh training, like modern sports, was presented as a cure for debauchery, superficial westernization and idleness.32 If earlier on the lutis training in the zurkhaneh were perceived as sexually corrupt and socially deviant, this perception now became reversed. However, the new autocratic regime could not allow the resurfacing of bandits or local heroes defending the interests of the population against the government. Therefore, while rehabilitating the zurkhaneh, the government outlawed other luti practices such as the Moharram processions and regulated and changed the social character and functioning of traditional coffeehouses.33 Furthermore, in 1926, the government imposed a punishment of one to two days’ imprisonment or a fine of up to one tuman on people who “scuffle[galaviz shodeh], speak obscenities, make rude noises, or sing in the streets and alleyways”–all known luti practices.34 Together with education, sport was deemed crucial for the cultiva- tion of Iran’s future generations. The notion that sport and education complemented one another and that both were necessary for Iran was voiced in the Mashhadi monthly Dabestan (The Elementary School). One author refers to schools and gyms (varzesh khaneh) as two parts of the “human producing factory.”35 Another opines that:

The zurkhaneh and the school stand shoulder to shoulder and equally serve the nation ... A champion [pahlavan] who is not a scholar [‘alem] causes damage, and a [weak] scholar ...is of no use ...a healthy mind resides in a healthy body. And a healthy body characterizes either men who work and labor manually or men who keep their bodies healthy by means of sport and physical exercise.36 As Dabestan noted, sport was mostly recommended for schoolchildren and men in administrative jobs.37 One writer even suggests

32 “Varzesh-e Badani” (Physical Exercise), in Ettela’at, June 19, 1934. 33 Aghaie, The Martyrs of Karbala,50–52, Rezvani-Naraghi, “Middle Class Urbanism,” 104, 112. 34 “Fasl-e Sevom: Nesbat beh Akhlaq-e Omumi va ‘Effat-e Melli” (Part Three: Regarding Public Morals and National Chastity”), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, August 1, 1926. 35 “Varzesh-e Badani” (Physical Exercise), Part 2, in Dabestan, August 14, 1923. 36 “Ma’aref dar Dabestan” (Education in the Elementary School), in Dabestan, January 19, 1923. 37 Koyagi, “Moulding Future Soldiers,” 1672; Schayegh, “Sport, Health, and the Iranian Middle Class”; “Varzesh-e Badani”,inDabestan, May 19, 1923; Exercise for the Homeland 253 making sports compulsory for every government employee.38 This meant that sport was associated with a specific social group: educated youth in Iran’s expanding modern education system and men who were apprenticed for government work. In the 1920s and 1930s, this group still included only a small minority of Iran’s population.39 The true patriot, Dabestan further suggests, nurtures his body and mind through physical activity, thus serving the nation’s progress.40 Men holding office jobs and “enlightened people” should set an example for the rest of society in sport as much as in other necessary reforms. Sport was seen to promote a work ethics based on discipline and efficiency.41 An ad written and published by the “Youngsters of Iran Society” further underscores the relationship between sport and modern office work: “Every day, after you finish work, your nerves are tired, and the next day, you will not be as fit for work ... Sport is the greatest cure for this illness.”42 The logic behind the argument for sport is circular: office work necessitated sport, since inactivity and long hours behind a desk drained the body’s energy; a healthy body strengthened by exercise generated efficient office work; and so on. Once again, as shown in the ads for potency medication, anxiety about the deterioration of the male bodies of office workers demonstrates the contradictions inherent within the new Iranian hegemonic masculinity. The desired professions of modern men, stemming from their higher education, were also perilous for their desired male bodies. An Ettela’at article claimed that sport was similarly vital for the merchant. It utilized the argument for sport to disparage the ineffi- ciency of outdated practices of Iranian bazaaris, who usually did not form part of the westernized elite. Sport, it argues, is necessary for the health of the merchant and for his commerce, because it changes his outlook on business and encourages long-term planning. The Iranian merchant who works long hours, argues the writer, is far less efficient

“Varzesh-e Badani”, Part 2, in Dabestan, August 14, 1923, “Varzesh” (Sport), in Forugh, March 1928. For sport as necessary mostly for members of educated elites employed in administrative jobs in other countries, see Rosselli, “The Self- Image of Effeteness”; Dolbee, “Mandatory Bodybuilding,” 5–6. 38 Quoted in Chehabi, “Mir Mehdi Varzandeh,” 64. 39 Consider that in 1940–1941 the percentage of public school students in Iran’s entire population was only 2.41. Menashri, Education, 119–121. 40 “Varzesh-e Badani,” in Dabestan, May 19, 1923. 41 Schayegh, “Sport, Health, and the Iranian Middle Class,” 344–353. 42 “Javanan-e Irani” (Iranian Youngsters), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, May 6, 1926. 254 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts” and vigorous than an English or French merchant who combines work with games such as tennis and polo. Sport will also mend the Iranian merchant’sdeﬁcient “mental structures,” since “without sport and healthy mind and body, commerce falls into error and uselessness.”43 Schoolchildren and university students were another group for whom exercise was particularly recommended. A description of a football match between two school teams shows the prominence of sport in this particular sector. The match was reported to have been held in the friendly spirit and demonstrated the good morals “characteristic of the student class [tabaqeh-ye mohassel].”44 In late 1937, Ettela’at claimed that sport became widespread “among the country’s youngsters, and especially among the pupils and students.”45 As in other countries, sport was seen as a useful pastime and an appropriate form of leisure that prevented young men from engaging in wasteful, deviant, or criminal activities.46 Shafaq-e Sorkh thus lauded the spread of sport among students as a prophylactic:

[The] sports revolution is apparent in Iran and gives cause for hope from two perspectives. One is the strengthening of the constitution of the kingdom’s youngsters and the removal of the diseases of laziness and apathy ... The other is ...the creation of a sense of competitiveness ...acts of baseness and prostitution ...are prevented ...This game [volleyball] is the best principle for ... reforming our crooked skeleton.47 Unlike the educated youngsters who practiced sport in modern schools, the uneducated and the traditionally educated were represented as weak, deformed and unﬁt: their bodies distorted by traditional dress and the lack of exercise. In an article in the Tabrizi monthly Ganjineh-ye Ma’aref (A Collection of Insights), Mohammad Ali Mihan castigates the uneducated masses for resorting to traditional healers that exploit their ignorance. In fact, argues Mihan, men who feel weak or ill must ask themselves whether they have neglected their bodies. He recommends eating moderately, avoiding alcohol and

43 “Varzesh va Tejarat” (Sport and Commerce), in Ettela’at, October 22, 1930. 44 Jamshid Noruzi, “Nahzat-e Varzeshi dar Iran: Jashn-e Madraseh-ye Sanlu’i” (The Sports Movement in Iran: the Celebration of the St. Louis School), in Ettela’at, March 12, 1934. 45 “Tarbiyat-e Badani” (Physical Education), in Ettela’at, October 27, 1937. 46 Keys, Globalizing Sport,20–21. 47 Ali Sadeqi, “Jonbesh-e Varzeshi: Mosabeqeh’ha-ye Valeh Bul” (A Sport Movement: Volleyball Competitions), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, January 28, 1927. Exercise for the Homeland 255 opium, sleeping seven or eight hours a night, staying in the open air, and exercising.48 He urges his young educated readers:

You know well that the future happiness or misery and unhappiness of the kingdom depend on your activity or idleness ... if, like your fathers and grandfathers, you catch the diseases of lust or moral deterioration – that will be the time to cry over the state of this land! If you truly love your dear homeland ... come and, like the sensitive youngsters of other civilized countries, join hands in unity and fraternity and against deterioration and moral decay ...Form scientific and literary societies against alcohol, opium, weakness, idleness, and lack of zeal [bi-gheyrati]. And, finally, fight against the moral decay that found seat in our veins, and make physical and mental education, which is the only mean of rescue, your motto! Iran, our pure land, awaits to be saved by strong, willing, knowledgeable, and brave youngsters!49 While article writers depict young athletes as healthy and beyond moral reproach, physically inactive youths are described as debauched and immoral. One Abd ol-Masih Bidarpur writes to Ettela’at that the youngsters of Iran, and especially those who do not serve in the army, are very immature: “from their gait ... it is clear how languid and weak of constitution they are.” Bidarpur attributes this to lack of exercise and indulgence in life’s pleasures. In the following excerpt, he lumps together lack of interest in sport, venereal diseases, moral decay, superficial westernization, and patriotism:

Our youngsters ...must look upon the condition and lives of the youngsters in foreign countries, and understand that the mark of civility and humanity is not restricted to tying colorful cravats and [wearing fashionable] clothes ... Knowledge, courage, bravery, honor, and health are more vital. Compare our strongest youngsters to the weakest youngsters of foreign countries ... Most of them are infected with venereal diseases ... only with sport and athletic youngsters can we achieve progress and the ascent of our dear homeland. Strong spirits, strong arms, strong hearts are only [achieved] by sport and nothing else.50

48 Mohammad Ali Mihan, “Tarbiyat-e Badani: Varzesh” (Physical Education: Sport), in Ganjineh-ye Ma’aref, April 22, 1923. 49 Mohammad Ali Mihan, “Tarbiyat-e Badani: Varzesh,” Part 2, in Ganjineh-ye Ma’aref, June 23, 1923. 50 Abd ol-Masih Bidarpur, “Lozum-e Varzesh baraye Javanan” (The Necessity of Sport for the Youngsters), in Ettela’at, August 17, 1934. 256 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts”

Such comparisons between the practice of sports in Iran and the West indicate that it was associated by reformers with the proper form of westernization.51 Modernization now required not only specific knowledge, education, manners and forms of dress, but also the training of a specific male body. Elite men were once again called on to reform themselves in order to reform a society described as inefficient, immoral, and backward. One strategy of nationalizing sport was portraying the ancient Iranians as avid practitioners of different sport- ive activities such as horse riding, shooting with bow and arrow, and polo (chugan).52 Western sports as well as traditional and formerly vilified sports were endowed with a national aura, in a manner similar to inventing ancient Iranian origins for European dress. An important element of moral and patriotic conduct, sport was to inspire its practitioners and instill discipline, loyalty, order, and respect for authority.53 Varzandeh is quoted as saying that the aim of physical education “is neither to become a pahlavan, nor an acrobat nor a weight lifter ... The aim is to be healthy ... clear minded, brave, and disciplined ... love one’s king and one’s nation and thus become a complete human being.”54 The growing emphasis on loyalty and dutifulness had to do both with attempts by the Pahlavi dynasty to consolidate its power and with the elite’s need to preserve its privileges. The gradual expansion of the education system and the options of social mobility it offered to graduates posed a possible threat to the hegemony of elite men. On the one hand, large numbers of educated and able-bodied men in Iranian society was the avowed goal of Iranian reformers. On the

51 “Varzesh-e Badani,” in Ettela’at, June 19, 1934. 52 “Jashn-e Varzesh dar Meydan-e Jalaliyeh”,inEttela’at, May 25, 1935; “Tose’eh-ye Varzesh dar Madares: Jashn-e Klub-e Varzesh-e Mohaselin-e Madraseh-ye Motevaseteh-ye Servat” (The Expansion of Sport in Schools: The Celebration of the Sports Club of the Servat High School Students), in Ettela’at, February 3, 1934; “Varzesh dar Madares Tose’eh Miyabad” (Sport in Schools Is Expanding), in Ettela’at, February 26, 1934; “Dar Meydan-e Varzesh: Eftetah-e Mosabeqe’ha-ye Varzeshi” (In the Sports Arena: The Opening of Sport Competitions), in Ettela’at, January 5, 1935. A similar process took place in Bengal in the late nineteenth century, where traditional sports and myths of ancient heroes were invoked in order to redeem Bengali men from their supposed “effeteness”; see Rosselli, “The Self-Image of Effeteness.” 53 Kashani-Sabet, Frontier Fictions, 195. 54 Chehabi, “Mir Mehdi Varzandeh,” 58. Exercise for the Homeland 257 other hand, broader access to modern education and the cultural and social capital it bestowed threatened their privileged position. Even more disturbing, a large sector of politically minded and militarily trained youngsters could threaten the regime on which the elite depended for power and employment.55 Promoters of sport believed they could create young men who would be educated, healthy, and westernized, but nevertheless not challenge the Shah or the ruling elite. To cement the link between sport, discipline, and loyalty to the regime, sporting events were turned into public performances featuring official speeches that glorified the Shah. One celebration that took place in Tehran in 1934 was attended by high-ranking officials, including Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Forughi and Head of Parliament Hosein Dadgar, military representatives, and school and college dir- ectors. The program included parades, fencing, boxing, and wrestling, as well as a football match between the teams of the Teachers’ College and the American College. Deputy Minister of Education Ali Asghar Hekmat delivered a speech on sport in ancient Iran and its spread during the Shah’s reign.56 The participation of Ministry of Education officials and other high- ranking members of the administration in sporting (and scouting) events became routine. These events often included a parade, the singing of anthems and speeches devoted to the progress of sport in Iran, and praise of the Shah for his support of sports.57 Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was occasionally invited to these events in order to give prizes and medals, and was himself portrayed as the

55 This fear proved to be far from unfounded. During the 1930s, resistance to Reza Shah’s regime was voiced among Iranian students in both local and foreign campuses. Stephanie Cronin, “The Politics of Radicalism within the Iranian Army: The Jahansuz Group of 1939,” Iranian Studies 32, no. 1 (January 1999): 7–8. 56 “Jashn-e Aakharin-e Mosabeqeh-ye Futbal dar Meydan-e Varzesh-e Dolati” (The Latest Celebration of Football Match in the Governmental Sports Arena), in Ettela’at, May 12, 1934. 57 “Tose’eh-ye Varzesh dar Madares: Jashn-e Klub-e Varzesh-e Mohaselin-e Madraseh-ye Motevaseteh-ye Servat”,inEttela’at, February 3, 1934: “Varzesh dar Madares Tose’eh Miyabad”,inEttela’at, February 26, 1934; “Dar Meydan- e Varzesh: Eftetah-e Mosabeqe’ha-ye Varzeshi”,inEttela’at, January 5, 1935, Koyagi, “Creating Future Soldiers,” 53. 258 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts”

Figure 7.1 Mohammad Ali Khan Asad Bahador the cycling champion (“Qahraman-e Bisiklet” [The Bicycle Champion], in Ettela’at, August 14, 1933) model young Iranian:58 athletic (he was captain of the soccer and tennis teams in his Swiss school);59 patriotic yet westernized, educated, healthy, and moral.60 As the son of the “Crowned Father,” Moham- mad Reza showed his “brotherly feelings” toward the young athletes and champions to whom he awarded the prizes.61 The health, morality, and athleticism of the new masculine role model were literally and symbolically embodied in the young patriots. The 1920s and 1930s introduced a new male body image as quintessential to hegemonic masculinity. Whereas in previous decades, different male body types could be considered healthy and strong (see the descriptions of zurkhaneh athletes in Chapter 1), from the 1920s the athlete’s lean and muscular body became the only desirable model. One example is a 1933 photograph of cycling champion Mohammad Ali Khan Asad Bahador (Figure 7.1). Bahador is clean-shaven and

58 “Tarbiyat-e Badani”,inEttela’at, October 27, 1937. 59 Chehabi, “The Juggernaut of Globalization,” 279. 60 “Ta’mim-e Varzesh va Tarbiyat-e Badani” (The Spread of Sport and Physical Education), in Ettela’at, September 10, 1938. 61 “Nahzat-e Varzeshi” (The Sport Movement), Ettela’at, May 24, 1936. Exercise for the Homeland 259 muscular and sports the national flag on his chest. His affiliation to the westernized elite is evident in his biography. He was the son of Iran’s former ambassador to Poland, where he won several cycling competitions and excelled in an international tournament in Denmark. Not many photographs were printed in Ettela’at at the time, and the athlete is clearly an object of national admiration and pride. Photographs of athletes in the Iranian press had an important role in disseminating the image of the new masculine body. This is how one writer describes his impression of five photographs of a sporting event:

Youngsters in sports clothing walked in a procession, feet uniformly raised up and pounding the ground, arms go back and forth regularly, heads held high, broad shoulders, moving face forward ... Their stature erect, chests broad, biceps bulging, foreheads wide – these are the youngsters of Khor- asan, sons of families whose courage made the ancient land of Iran proud.62 The celebration of the reformed male body in public meant that sporting events were spectacles where adult males could continue the practice of watching and admiring male adolescents.63 The context of the male gaze was thoroughly de-eroticized and sanitized, but the detailed media descriptions of young athletes’ beautiful bodies betray traces of homoerotic desire. Writing about Mir Mehdi Varzandeh, this point is brieﬂy acknowledged by Mehdi Bazargan. He notes that one of the difﬁculties facing Varzandeh was the fact that sport was not valued in Iran and was regarded as “children’s play [bacheh bazi – also “pederasty”] and dancing.”64 While bacheh bazi could simply mean pederasty, dancing may have alluded to the dancing boys who were often idolized as legitimate objects of male sexual desire (see Chapter 5). Unlike the wrestling and bodybuilding exercises of the zurkhaneh, conservative Iranians considered the movements and exercises of Swedish calisthenics taught by Varzandeh dishonorable.65 The differences between watching the sports matches between adolescent boys and gazing at dancing boys may help explain the legitimacy of sports in Iran. Sporting events were public mass events that had nothing of the intimacy of the private male encounters. The objects of

62 “Varzesh!” (Sport!), in Ettela’at, November 3, 1934. For a similar description see also “Varzesh,” in Ettela’at, February 19, 1935. 63 Dolbee, “Mandatory Bodybuilding,” 21. 64 Bazargan, Khaterat-e Bazargan,74–75. 65 Chehabi, “Mir Mehdi Varzandeh,” 57. 260 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts” gaze were numerous and formed part of school groups or teams. Moreover, the uniformity in dress and movement made the individual boy less conspicuous. Finally, the exercising boys were symbols of renewal, nationalism, and patriotism. As Mosse has shown, the beautiful male body that became a national symbol had a signiﬁcant role in sublimating homoerotic desire into patriotism, thus averting the danger homosexuality posed to bourgeois respectability.66 Addition- ally, while the amrad was slender and his body soft, the young athletes were broad of chest and shoulder, muscular and strong. Whereas his movements were seductive and coquettish, the athlete’s were powerful, uniform, and rapid. However, adult men could still view adolescents and admire their bodies and movements, even if the erotic aspect was lacking or metamorphosed. Texts written during the 1930s attest to the successful introduction of sport and the new body image into Iranian daily culture. In an article concerning sports clubs, the author declares that the importance of sport became “so clear” that there was no need to explain it.67 He adds that societies for physical education were established all over the country and included not just schoolchildren and teachers, but also other men, which he attributes to the acknowledgment that “everybody needs prominent muscles, strong arms, straight and strong legs, a wide chest, broad shoulders, straight hips and a ruddy face, a happy countenance that bespeaks health and wholesomeness of body and disposition.”68 Nevertheless, and as shown previously, students of modern schools were still the main targets of sport in Iran. Molded to ﬁt the regime’s need for strong but obedient citizens, these youths were taught discipline, loyalty, and manliness also by a newly introduced institution: the Boy Scouts.

Scouting in Iran: For God, Shah, and Country The Boy Scout movement founded in Britain in 1908 by Robert Baden- Powell, spread quickly to the Middle East. During the ﬁrst decades of the century, youth movements became common and widely popular in

66 Mosse, Nationalism and Sexuality,79–80. 67 See also “Varzesh!” (Sport!), in Ettela’at, November 3, 1934. 68 “Anjoman’ha-ye Tarbiyat-e Badani” (Societies for Physical Education), in Ettela’at, August 28, 1934. Scouting in Iran: For God, Shah, and Country 261 many regions of the world and under various regimes.69 The first Middle-Eastern troops of Scouts were founded as early as 1912. In Iran, an early mention of scouting may be found in the memoirs of Dr. Samuel Jordan, head of the American College, who wrote that in 1912 the school organized a scouting camp and initiated sports like hiking and mountaineering.70 In Lebanon under the Ottoman Empire, two Indian brothers founded the Ottoman Scouts in the same year.71 Also in 1912, a first scouting group was established in Palestine, at the St. George Missionary School in Jerusalem.72 In 1914, Egyptian Prince Umar Tusun established a scouting group in Alexandria.73 These troops were few in number at first, established mostly in Western or westernized schools. The Iranian Boy Scout movement was officially launched on December 3, 1925, thanks to the joint efforts of Mir Mehdi Varzandeh and Ahmad Aminzadeh, a graduate of the teachers’ college in Istanbul who became the movement’s first leader. In March 1926, a circular ordered the establishment of scouting troops in schools and in February 1928, the Iranian Boy Scout Movement was admitted to the World Organization of the Scout Movement.74 The inaugural ceremony of the movement was held in Tehran in March 1926 and was attended by Ministry of Education officials, teachers, and students. The scouts marched with flags to the sound of a band, were sworn in and saluted, formed human pyramids and played “musical chairs,” demonstrated first-aid procedures and the use of semaphore flags, climbed up and down a building using ropes, and concluded the event by hoisting the Iranian flag and singing the national anthem. The crowd was reported to be enthusiastic since “in the future, children will be nurtured to have the strength to face all of life’s hardships and demands. As a result, they will possess self-reliance

69 Tammy M. Proctor, “On My Honour: Guides and Scouts in Interwar Britain,” Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 92, no. 2 (2002): 90. 70 Quoted in Chehabi, “Mir Mehdi Varzandeh,” 58. 71 Jennifer M. Dueck, “A Muslim Jamboree: Scouting and Youth Culture in Lebanon under the French Mandate,” French Historical Studies 30, no. 3 (2007): 489. 72 Arnon Degani, “They Were Prepared: The Palestinian Arab Scout Movement 1920–1948,” British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 41, no. 2 (April 3, 2014): 203. 73 Jakes, “Extracurricular Nationalism,” 47. 74 Delfani, Asnad-e Sazeman-e Pishahangi-ye Iran, 30. 262 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts” and natural pride, and it is only thanks to these traits that a nation will show itself to progress.”75 A similar event took place in Dar ol-Fonun a few months later, attended by senior politicians, department heads, teachers, and notables.76 By 1927, there were scouting troops in Tehran, Hamadan, and Kermanshah and teachers were trained in these cities to become scoutmasters.77 However, the movement did not take off until the mid- 1930s. Ali Asghar Hekmat, Iran’s future Minister of Education and a scouting fan, attributed this delay to the resistance of “reactionary and conservative elements” (see more on that below). The organization also suffered from lack of proper funds, infrastructure, and manpower. Things took a turn for the better with Hekmat’s appointment as Deputy Minister of Education in late 1933 and as Minister of Educa- tion shortly thereafter.78 In 1934, Hekmat founded the National Society of Physical Educa- tion and Scouting and, later that year, American Thomas R. Gibson was appointed as its head. The Society was championed by Crown Prince Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who at the time was completing his studies in Switzerland. In 1936, on returning to Iran, Mohammad Reza became honorary president of the Scout Movement, which further boosted it.79 The prince’s position as head scout framed him as a leader of the young generation of Iranians, a leader to whom they owed allegiance. In Egypt as well, Crown Prince Faruq was appointed Chief Scout in 1933. While in Egypt loyalty to the royal family played a role in the triangular power relationship between the government, the palace, and the British, in Iran loyalty to the monarchy was employed to consolidate allegiance to the increasingly autocratic rule of the Pahlavi dynasty. Another important difference between scouting in Iran and in other Middle Eastern settings concerns the movement’s role in colonial contexts. In Egypt (nominally independent since 1921) or in Syria and

75 “Tolu’-e Pishahangi dar Iran” (The Rise of Scouting in Iran), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, March 16, 1926. 76 “Jashn-e Rasmi-ye Pishahangan” (The Scouts’ Ofﬁcial Celebration), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, July 5, 1926. 77 Ahmad Daneshvar, “Pishahangi-ye Velayat” (Scouting in the Province), in Ettela’at, September 3, 1927. 78 Delfani, Asnad-e Sazeman-e Pishahangi-ye Iran,30–33. 79 Koyagi, “Moulding Future Soldiers”; Chehabi, “The Juggernaut of Globalization,” 279. Scouting in Iran: For God, Shah, and Country 263

Lebanon, and Palestine (under French and British mandates respectively), the militaristic and nationalist character of the Boy Scouts was often accompanied by strong anticolonial sentiment.80 In Iran, which was not subjected to direct colonial rule, nationalism was contained within the state as in instrument of the ruling dynasty. According to historian Mahmud Delfani, the main aims of scouting in Iran during the second decade of Reza Shah’s rule were to encourage and enforce uniformity, national unity, patriotism, policing, and self- policing, in addition to training youth for military service. The Shah called scouting the best education for the happiness of the young generation,81 and government support for scouting intensified during the mid-1930s, so much so that by 1938 it became compulsory for schoolchildren. Without participation in the Boy Scout Movement, boys could not take the final elementary school exams . Compulsory participation meant that by 1940 the movement boasted 37,843 members.82 As Aaron Jakes has demonstrated, scouting resolved two tensions about youth: the supposed physical deterioration of the male body and fear of youth’s unruliness. Scouting emphasized physical activity and the learning of different skills and inculcated obedience and discipline.83 Like sport, scouting was promoted as building boys’ character and bodies, thus as contributing to the formation of proper men. A Ministry of Education document declares that the Boy Scout Move- ment is an organization whose aim is to educate students and train them in “worthy virtues and habits of manliness and chivalry [mardanegi va fotovvat] such as honor, truth telling, kindness, sacrifice, frugality, courage, and their likes.”84 Again, like sport, scouting was primarily for boys and young men, despite the fact that a Girl Guide Movement was also established in Iran in 1935 and was made compulsory for secondary-school girls in 1939.85 In addition to inculcating loyalty and respect for family and political hierarchies, scouting sought to redeem the deteriorated state of Iranian manhood. An article on scouting in Mazandaran opines that “All of

80 Degani, “They Were Prepared,” 203. 81 Matthee, “Transforming Dangerous Nomads,” 326. 82 Delfani, Asnad-e Sazeman-e Pishahangi-ye Iran,35–41. 83 Jakes, “Extracurricular Nationalism,” 6, 75. 84 Delfani, Asnad-e Sazeman-e Pishahangi-ye Iran,6. 85 Ibid., 59. Koyagi, “Moulding Future Soldiers.” 264 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts” our misfortunes are the result of moral corruption and lack of manly traits [foqdan-e sefat-e mardanegi], courage, truthfulness, purity and patriotism.”86 The result of a “life of scouting” will be the creation of real men: pious, of good character, and “family men” (mard-e zende- gani).87 The loss of manly traits is described in a Forugh article that laments the disappearance of Iranian heroes of old:

Look, what is the connection between them and us? Today we are so soft and selﬁsh. We become dizzy from driving in a car, and are scared of drowning ... and so overcautious that we do not take an empty gun in our hand since, heaven forbid, Satan might have loaded it. Can we, who still do not encourage our children to enter the Boy Scouts ... establish a more comprehensive [connection] between us and those ancient Iranian heroes and nomads? ... This youngster whose sensitive heart was shattered by the wine glass, and sitting idle in opium joints and gambling made his strong body languid and lifeless – how can he climb mountaintops or cross deep valleys like the other youngsters of the world? He is eager for a life of scouting.88 Like sport, ancient Iranians were often described as embodying the manly virtues of scouting, and it was promoted as a part of the nationalist project of reviving Iran’s pre-Islamic glory.89 Making “real men” out of schoolboys was a stated aim of the Boy Scout Movement. An article on the origins of the movement in Iran notes that: “Its noblest cause is to create a man possessing of good moral qualities, of a healthy and strong body and of perseverance. Whom one can call a man in the fullest sense of the word.”90 In similar vein, Gibson said that the goal of the scout movement in Iran was to nurture the future men of Iran, possessing a strong body, a lively spirit, and a pure character. Those future men would fulﬁll the hopes and dreams of their country and serve it with their self-reliance and healthy bodies, their sense of duty and loyalty.91

86 ‘A. A. Sepahran, “Pishahangi-ye Mazandaran” (Scouting in Mazandaran), in Ettela’at, May 21, 1928. 87 “Pishahangi Baqi Ast” (Scouting Is Immortal), in Ettela’at, September 26, 1927. 88 Mohammad Sadeq Hoseini, “Ehteyaj-e Ma” (Our Need), in Forugh, May 1928. 89 “Pishahangi-ye Markaz” (Scouting in the Center), in Ettela’at, June 20, 1928; “Eslahat-e Ejtama’i”, Part 11, October 19, 1928. 90 Mr. Hosam Zadeh, “Tarbiyat-e Pishahangi dar Iran” (Scouting Education in Iran), in Bakhtar, March 1, 1934. 91 “Jonbesh-e Pishahangi” (The Scout Movement), in Ettela’at, February 6, 1935. Scouting in Iran: For God, Shah, and Country 265

This loyalty is evident in the Iranian Scout Promise, adapted from Baden-Powell’s original, which included a promise to “fulfill my duties to God, to the Shah and to the Homeland” and to obey the Scout Law. The third article in the Iranian Scout Law was Loyalty (ikhlas): “A scout must be devout and loyal to the Shah and submit to the laws of the kingdom”; Baden-Powell’s second article read: “A Scout is loyal to the King, and to his officers, and to his country, and to his employers.” The Iranian article limited the objects of the scout’s loyalty to the Shah and the laws of the kingdom. The sixth article in the Iranian Law is obedience (eta’at): “A scout must obey and comply with his guardians/parents, his leaders and his teachers”; Baden-Powell’s seventh article read: “A scout obeys orders of his patrol-leader or scoutmaster without question.”92 While the original article is about obedience to superiors in the movement, the Iranian article stresses obedience more generally. Whereas the Iranian article stresses family and political obedience, Baden-Powell’s text refers only to the movement. Scouting’s most basic laws, then, promoted the loyalty and obedience craved by the Pahlavi regime. Scouting also encouraged physical activity. The emphasis on outdoor activity and self-reliance was quite foreign to the lifestyle of boys of the Iranian elite. When scouting was first introduced in Iran, many schools did not teach their students any crafts.93 Manuchehr Riyahi writes in his autobiography that during his studies at the Servat School in the late 1920s the school did not pay attention to physical education or to the teaching of skills such as carpentry, mechanics, plumbing, cooking, nursing, etc. Physical labor was despised in the home and school.94 This approach was reversed in the Boy Scouts. Ettela’at reports that “the hands of the students of Mazandaran are not used to merely flipping through the pages of books or leaning on benches. Scouting got them used to action and work.”95 Scouting activities included not only first aid, military drills, and knots, but also simple cooking, sewing, and mat weaving, hardly common pursuits for elite men.96 Furthermore, domestic chores and crafts now became a prescription for masculinity:

92 Hosein Sami’i, “Manesh-e Pishahangi” (The Scouting Character), in Ettela’at, March 11, 1935. 93 Delfani, Asnad-e Sazeman-e Pishahangi-ye Iran, 11. 94 Riyahi, Sorab-e Zendegi, 62. 95 ‘A. A. Sepahran, “Pishahangi-ye Mazandaran,” in Ettela’at, May 21, 1928. 96 Delfani, Asnad-e Sazeman-e Pishahangi-ye Iran,6–7. 266 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts”

Today’s world is a world of work and effort, strength and sport and ﬁnally a world of craft and expertise. People who spend their childhood in houses under their mothers’ chador or in the bosoms of maids cannot live in today’s world. Today’s world is a world that nurtures men and loves heroes [donya- ye mard parvar va pahlavan dust]. Today’s youngsters, whether boys or girls, must become men and heroes in life’s arena ... A youngster entering scouting camp life manages his work with complete willingness and enthusiasm. He launders, sweeps, washes his dishes ...I will not forget that in camp we had to mend our own pants, prepare the group’s banner ourselves, ﬁx the badges and signs to the shoulders of our clothes ... many of the gentlemen did not even know how to hold a needle.97 The activities praised here are traditionally women’s and servants’ chores. This change of approach demonstrates the complex relationship between the set of notions and practices that made up the emerging hegemonic masculinity and ideas about other, socially and politically marginalized, masculinities and femininity. Much like the appropriation of components of the traditional masculinity of the zurkhaneh (notice how the author coopts the term pahlavan), here too traits hitherto considered effeminate or inappropriate are not excluded but absorbed. As with the zurkhaneh, the association of male physical exercise with homosexuality also plagued the scouting movement and delayed its adoption, and scoutmasters were occasionally suspected of improper conduct. One writer acknowledges the possibility of such “slander” and “rumors,” which are the result of the spread of “moral decay,” and recommends that teachers selected as scoutmasters be subjected to meticulous screening and that scouting troops be constantly supervised.98 Ahmad Aminzadeh, head of the Iranian Boy Scouts, similarly commented that “In many places in Iran a child’s arrival to school during the evening [for various extracurricular activities] is still considered obscene and as causing the corruption of

97 Fariborz Rostam Nasimi, “Pishahangi” (Scouting), in Ettela’at, October 26, 1936. 98 Mr. Hosam Zadeh, “Tarbiyat-e Pishahangi dar Iran” (Scouting Education in Iran), Part 2, in Bakhtar, April 1, 1934. In the Boy Scout regulations it is indeed stressed that scouting teachers must be recommended by the school’s headmaster, and approved by both the Scouting Department and the Ministry of Education. Delfani, Asnad-e Sazeman-e Pishahangi-ye Iran, 15. Scouting in Iran: For God, Shah, and Country 267 morals! Similarly, students’ wearing of shorts is considered shameful in some Iranian cities!”99 Closely related to physical exercise, the importance of scouting for the manufacture of better future soldiers was often mentioned.100 One author discussing the “Benefits of Scouting” explains how scouting prepares youth for military service: by distancing them from their families during excursions and camps, by educating them to protect themselves outdoors, and by training them to obey orders.101 Another article from the Isfahani journal Bakhtar (The West), whose moto – God, Shah, Homeland (Khoda, Shah, Vatan) À resembled the moto from the Iranian Scout Law, argues that the Boy Scout will become a valuable member of society whose wish and goal is to sacrifice his life for Shah and Homeland.102 Elsewhere, a “military school cadet” waxes lyrical about military life: “When we take a gun in hand and when we, wearing scout uniform, fasten to our back the straps of the backpack and when we drill, we feel that this weapon placed in our hands is a symbol of the defense of land and country, the symbol of the struggle against passions.”103 While in Britain the Boy Scouts’ militaristic character was criticized, especially after the First World War, and the movement’spacifism and internationalism were emphasized instead, in Iran these militaristic aspects were praised, at least in the mainstream media.104 Many

99 Ahmad Amin Zadeh, “Namus va Vazifeh-ye Madares,” in Shafaq-e Sorkh, August 16, 1926. 100 Seyfpur Fatemi, “Jashn va Amaliyat-e Pishahangan-e Pishahangad dar Manzariyeh” (The Celebration and Activities of the Boy Scouts in Manzariyeh), in Ettela’at, August 27, 1935. 101 Ne’matollah Viktori, “Fava’ed-e Pishahangi” (The Beneﬁts of Scouting), in Ettela’at, April 16, 1935. 102 “Ta’sis-e Pishahangi dar Isfahan” (The Establishment of Scouting in Isfahan), in Bakhtar, August 1, 1935. 103 Ali Hashemi Ha’eri, “Mashq-e Sarbazi” (Military Drill), in Ettela’at, February 20, 1938. 104 On the historiographical debate on militarism and the Boy Scouts see John Springhall, “Baden-Powell and the Scout Movement before 1920: Citizen Training or Soldiers of the Future?,” The English Historical Review 102, no. 405 (1987): 934–942; Sam Pryke, “The Popularity of Nationalism in the Early British Boy Scout Movement,” Social History 23, no. 3 (1998): 309–324; Allen Warren, “Sir Robert Baden-Powell, the Scout Movement and Citizen Training in Great Britain, 1900–1920,” The English Historical Review 101, no. 399 (1986): 376–398. On the signiﬁcance of the disciplined young body in youth movements in interwar Britain, see Melanie Tebbut, Being Boys: Youth, 268 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts” reformist writers appreciated scouts’ resemblance to soldiers. One even writes that when arriving at the headquarters of the Boy Scout Move- ment in the dim light of the afternoon, one could easily mistake the young scouts for soldiers.105 Elsewhere, however, an author commends the scouts’ internal sense of obedience, which does not result from harsh discipline as in the military but from the civilizing process that makes the rebellious young souls quiet and obedient.106 This comment is similar to observations by Baden-Powell himself, who believed that self-discipline was not to be achieved by collective disciplining, and that true discipline came from within and not from without.107 In Iran, such internalized discipline was important for the preservation of existing hierarchies. Scouting prepared youth for army life by distancing them from their parents, training them in various skills and teaching them obedience. However, as will be shown in the next section, elite youth could evade military service quite easily, and even if they did not, educated young men served only half the duration of other conscripts. Scouting therefore also aspired to create disciplined citizens out of young men who often did not serve in the army.

Military Service as Physical Education Nowhere is the association between the new male body and national loyalty clearer than in the discussion about military service. Universal conscription was one of Reza Shah’s ﬁrst reforms, even before his coronation. As a military man, he regarded the rebuilding and strengthening of the Iranian army as a matter of the utmost importance. He relied on it in his rise to power and used it in order to eliminate opposition to his rule.108 Already in 1922, Reza Shah ordered the establishment of a military academy that enjoyed a very good reputation, and sent sixty students

Leisure and Identity in the Inter-War Years (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2012), ch. 3. 105 “Namayesh-e Pishahangi” (Scouting Performance), in Ettela’at, February 15, 1930. 106 Mr. Hosam Zadeh, “Tarbiyat-e Pishahangi dar Iran”, Part 2, in Bakhtar, April 1, 1934. 107 Pryke, “The Popularity of Nationalism,” 323. 108 Cronin, The Army and Creation of the Pahlavi State, 182. Military Service as Physical Education 269 to French military schools.109 In 1924, two-years’ active duty by all male Iranians aged twenty-one was made mandatory, excluding clerics and religious seminary students, followed by a reserve service of twenty-three years. Holders of diplomas from institutions of higher education were exempt.110 Later on, the law was changed, and graduates with secondary education and above were exempt from one year.111 The military service of college graduates and men who held a doctorate included one month of basic training, six months in the officer academy, and five months of military service as second lieutenant.112 The conscription law was met with widespread resistance and was therefore not diligently enforced. During the late 1920s, protests against it took place in Shiraz, Isfahan, Tabriz, and the tribal areas of the south. They were led by clerics fearing the secularizing effects of conscription and by tribal leaders. Resistance gave rise to corruption: census officials were bribed to exempt men from service and focused on enlisting the weakest and poorest members of society. The government ignored – and to some degree even encouraged – this state of affairs in order to defuse resistance to the law.113 While in service, rank-and-file soldiers were treated and paid poorly, and were subject to harsh discipline and inadequate housing, clothing, and food. Their condition was in stark contrast to the preferential treatment of career officers, who often came from elite families with military backgrounds and had acquired military higher education in Iran or abroad. Seniority was no guarantee of employment security, however, as Reza Shah was increasingly suspicious of generals who became too rich or powerful, often dismissing and reinstating them at will. Additionally, until 1936 there were no standardized promotion procedures in the army, and Reza Shah tended to promote mediocre but loyal officers.114

109 Matthee, “Transforming Dangerous Nomads,” 315–330. 110 Majles Minutes, Session 5, Meeting 177, 6. 111 Majles Minutes, Session 8, Meeting 45, 5; Matthee, “Transforming Dangerous Nomads,” 316. 112 Bazargan, Khaterat-e Bazargan, 225. 113 Stephanie Cronin, “Conscription and Popular Resistance in Iran, 1925–1941,” International Review of Social History 43 (1998): 451. 114 Stephanie Cronin, “Riza Shah and the Paradoxes of Military Modernization in Iran, 1921–1941,” in The Making of Modern Iran: State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921–1941, ed. Stephanie Cronin (London: Routledge, 2003), 47; 270 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts”

Autobiographies of elite men reveal that military service was hardly considered a significant phase in their lives and it was never invoked nostalgically or patriotically. For Mohammad Ali Modjtahedi, graduate of a European university, military service was something he wished to complete as soon as possible, so that he could “go on with his life.”115 Mehdi Bazargan similarly considers his service in the mid- 1930s a waste of time, with the exception of basic training, which helped toughen up young recruits recently returned from studies abroad. According to Bazargan, the students of the military school (dabirestan-e nezam) were usually young men who flunked high school and the second-year students would torment the new recruits, mostly those who were highly educated or of elite families. Additionally, cursing, taking bribes, and gambling were prevalent among the soldiers.116 According to military school graduate Morteza Zarbakht, fellow students came from two very different social groups. The first was elite students from families of high-ranking officers who wanted their sons to carry on the family tradition. These students studied in boarding school conditions. Most students, however, came from poorer families who wanted their sons to continue their education but could not afford the tuition in other high schools. These were day students and their academic level was lower. The hierarchy of the two groups was strongly felt in the military school, as poor students could not afford to buy school necessities such as books or cooked lunches and were dubbed ‘adami (lacking).117 With the notable exception of Reza Shah himself, soldierly life and a military career did not become masculine goals to be achieved. The lack of enthusiasm for the military had to do with the army’s notoriety for corruption, its mistreatment of civilians and recruits, and its close association with Reza Shah’s growing autocracy.118 The rank and file did not belong to the educated elite and most members of this elite did

Steven R. Ward, Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces (Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2009), 149. 115 Mohammad-Ali Modjtahedi. Interview recorded by Habib Ladjevardi, May 2, 3, and 4, 1988, Medford, MA, Iranian Oral History Collection, Harvard University, 5. 116 Bazargan, Khaterat-e Bazargan, 226–228; see also Abdo, Chehehl Sal,80–81. 117 Zarbakht and Ahmadi, Gozar Az Tufan,31–35. 118 Ward, Immortal, 145–147. Military Service as Physical Education 271 not embrace military notions of masculinity. Put differently, hegemonic masculinity was not dependent on military service. Ahmad Zirakzadeh, a Majles deputy and a leader of the National Front, relates in his memories his unsuccessful attempt to evade military service. In 1925, Zirakzadeh joined the War Ministry in order to be included in the group of students sent to Europe by the ministry. He studied engineering at the École Polytechnique and was then required to continue his studies in one of France’s military academies. He chose a French navy school, as Iran had no navy yet and he believed this would exempt him from military service. Unfortunately, by the time Zirakzadeh graduated in 1935 Iran’s navy was established, and he was sent to Khoramshahr for five years that he describes as very difficult. He seized the first chance to be discharged and moved to the Roads Ministry.119 Reading through Ettela’at, the articles supporting conscription did not present readers with stories or photographs of heroic soldiers. Compared to the highly emotive and gendered language of the Consti- tutional Revolution era that was meant to mobilize men to revolutionary action, newspapers in the 1920s and 1930s did not invoke the masculine traits of gheyrat or hamiyyat. They hardly referred to military service as a defense of namus and almost never used feminine metaphors of Iran as a mother in danger. It seems the Iranian army did not establish a sense of ideological commitment among soldiers. In his autobiography, Dr. Jalal Abdo, Iran’s future Minister of Foreign Affairs who was recruited in the early 1930s, wonders why, despite Reza Shah’s great investment and personal involvement in the army, it offered no resistance when the Allied Forces invaded Iran in 1941. Abdo suggests that it was never a “people’s army” (artesh-e mardomi) and lacked an ideology. Moreover, the blind obedience preached in the army destroyed the officers’ sense of initiative, and commanders were more interested in lining their pockets than in serving their country.120 Men were encouraged to join the army, or to enlist their sons, but if they chose not to their masculinity was not denigrated. General Fathollah Minbashian even recounts that his father, himself a frustrated military man, was far from enthusiastic

119 Ahmad Zirakzadeh. Interview recorded by Zia Sedghi, March 19, April 10, and 11, 1986, Arlington, VA, Iranian Oral History Collection, Harvard University, 45–47. 120 Abdo, Chehehl Sal, 86. 272 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts” when his son expressed his wish to enter military school. The father hoped his son would become an engineer or a doctor, a career that would be “constructive.” He further expressed his reluctance, saying that despite the fact that his son had musical, athletic, and dramatic talents, he did not want him to become a musician, an athlete, or an actor, comparing military service with those less-than-honorable trades. Eventually, however, he did help his son enter military school and become a career officer.121 Rather than rebuking the masculinity of men who did not enlist, commentators in the press stressed the importance of a strong army for Iran’s national glory (by evoking examples of Western countries and citing examples from ancient Iran), or the personal advantages of military service for soldiers’ bodies and happiness. The Iranian regime employed military service in order to shape an Iranian soldier-citizen.122 Uniformity and discipline were cultivated outside the barracks by dressing athletes and scouts in uniforms and drilling them in a military style. Physical education in schools was to benefit from the knowledge and experience soldiers gained in sports such as horseracing and polo.123 In 1935, the ministries of defense and education collaborated to promote sport. Civilian school and college teams were to compete with military schools and colleges, and young men of all institutions were to participate jointly in various scientific conferences. This cooperation was designed to induce bravery (salah- shuri) and militarism in Iranian youth.124 In 1936, a two-hour weekly program of compulsory military education (aamuzesh-e nezami) was included in the national curriculum. In addition to military exercises, the program cultivated loyalty to the Shah, patriotism, moral virtue, and courage. It was later abandoned due to lack of funding.125

121 Fathollah Minbashian. Interview recorded by Habib Ladjevardi, December 1, 1981, Cagne Sur Mer, France, Iranian Oral History Collection, Harvard University, 3. 122 Koyagi, “Creating Future Soldiers,” 44–45 Koyagi, “Moulding Future Soldiers.” For the claim that military service creates stronger male bodies see also “Nezam-e Ejbari Bad Ast” (Military Service Is Bad), in Shafaq-e Sorkh, November 11, 1926. 123 Delfani, Asnad-e Sazeman-e Pishahangi-ye Iran, 61. 124 “Jashn-e Varzesh dar Meydan-e Jalaliyeh”,inEttela’at, May 25, 1935. 125 Delfani, Asnad-e Sazeman-e Pishahangi-ye Iran,39–42. Military Service as Physical Education 273

Military education was seen by reformists as similar in its goals to sport and scouting. It was to help nurture patriotism, physical fitness, and obedience:126 We want our children to be brave and truthful. We want a sense of obedience toward their seniors to be nurtured in their nature, such as was the habit and manner of our forefathers. We want them always to be orderly and punctual in their lives. We want them always to be healthy and robust. We want them always and in every situation to hold themselves upright and to confront life’s hardship and troubles like men ...What better method of education is there to guarantee these hopes and wishes than military education?127 In numerous Ettela’at articles on the benefits of conscription, military service is presented not as an end in itself, but as a means for the physical and moral education of Iranians.128 Abdollah Mostofi opines in his memoirs that for the sons of wealthy families the army “was a place for physical fitness and maturity away from the attention and spoiling of parents.”129 Furthermore, military service, like scouting and sport, was perceived as helping young men deal with future difficulties in life, making them better and more productive citizens.130 However, and as suggested above, while military service or education clearly contributed to the achievement of some of the traits of hegemonic masculinity, they were not the only way to obtain them. Young men could embody hegemonic masculinity in full without serving. The photographs shown in Figures 7.2 and 7.3 demonstrate how militaristic and civilian manhood existed side by side, with neither occupying a privileged position. Figure 7.2 shows two youths in a staged picnic scene, their Pahlavi hats resting by their feet. One wears military uniform and the other a Western suit. The ribbon on the latter’s neck could be a prize for some achievement. The relationship between the two seems intimate, companionate, and equal. This is also true for the young men in Figure 7.3. Two seated soldiers flank a youth in a Western suit and tie,

126 Koyagi, “Creating Future Soldiers,” 55–56. 127 Ali Hashemi Ha’eri, “Tarbiyat-e Sarbazi” (Military Education), in Ettela’at, December 16, 1937. 128 “Ejra-ye Nezam-e Ejbari” (The Implementation of Conscription), in Ettela’at, November 8, 1926; “Nezam-e Ejbari” (Conscription), in Ettela’at, October 9, 1926; “Qanun-e Tazeh-ye Khedmat-e Nezam-e Omumi” (The New Law of General Conscription), in Ettela’at, June 20, 1938. 129 Mostoﬁ, Administrative and Social History, 1161. 130 Parviz Ameri, “Aarezu va Andisheh” (Hope and Thought), in Ettela’at,July21, 1937; Ali Hashemi Ha’eri, “Tarbiyat-e Sarbazi”,inEttela’at, December 16, 1937. Figure 7.2 Two seated youths (Damandan, Portrait Photographs from Isfahan, 148)

Figure 7.3 Portrait of four youths (Damandan, Portrait Photographs from Isfahan, 145) Military Service as Physical Education 275 who seems to be in the middle of pointing something out to them on a map or newspaper. The younger boy in the back does not seem to show any particular reverence toward the soldiers. In both photographs, it does not appear that servicemen enjoy a privileged status. Unlike the equal relationships suggested in the photographs, many propagandist articles in Ettela’at exalt the appearance and respect gained by soldiers. The combined effect of military training and appearance, one author suggests, makes soldiers admired by their societies everywhere in the world.

In the streets, people look at [the new Iranian recruit] with respect. Among his family members, he feels a new sense of pride and dignity. He sees with his own eyes his young brother mimicking him with his childish nature, stomping his feet and raising his small right hand in salute. His mother welcomes him with a smile and his father cannot help but smile for having such a strong son in this sacred dress. Military uniform is not only manly, but in itself guarantees patriotism: “It is impossible for a youngster to adorn his body with military uniform without stirring in himself the spirit of bravery and nationalist pride.”131 Military uniforms, like Western clothes, have the power to change a man’s feelings and body and the way his peers look at him. Ali Hashemi Ha’eri, an Ettela’at reporter who often wrote on military issues, relates a memory (real or fabricated) of his younger brother who studied in a military school and later became an ofﬁcer:

His tall stature, well-shaped and strong limbs and muscular arms, the three stars on his shoulders that always glistered, the black boots and shiny white spurs and his long sword all materialized in front of my eyes. Then I would hope from the bottom of my heart that I would also a be soldier ...in these clothes he became more handsome, he looked taller to me, his head more erect, his eyes brighter and his forehead adorned with pride.132 The recurring description of the new male body formed by military service and accentuated by military uniform conforms to the idealization of the masculine physique in articles on sport. Soldiers’ bodies, like athletes’ bodies, were cast as models of the beautiful and strong male body (Figure 7.4). Furthermore, Fereydun Azarnur suggests that tall and robust youths from cities like Tabriz, Kermanshah, Isfahan, and Shiraz

131 “Sarbazan-e Vazifeh” (The Conscripts), in Ettela’at,March30,1933. 132 A. H. H. (Ali Hashemi Ha’eri), “Sarbazi” (Military Service), in Ettela’at, April 20, 1938. 276 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts”

Figure 7.4 Two young soldiers representing the ideal new male body (Myron Bement Smith Collection: Antoin Sevruguin Photographs. Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery Archives. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Gift of Katherine Dennis Smith, 1973–1985, FSA A.4 2.12.GN.58.04) where military schools were established were strongly encouraged and even forced to join these schools.133 Military service offered recruits the possibility of reforming their own weak and malformed constitutions by drilling, early rising, and activity in the fresh air.134 It did not, however, have any visible advantage over sport or scouting in this respect. In Hashemi Ha’eri’s article titled “Sport and Beauty,” both military service and sport contribute to reforming young Iranians’ bodies:

The bent statures, narrow shoulders ... sunken chests, pale complexions, thin calves and weak hands of the youngsters were reformed ﬁrst by the sacred military service and second by sports and physical education, which spread and became prevalent within a few years.135 An almost identical description of young Iranian men who did not beneﬁt from conscription is found in another column by Hashemi

133 Quoted in: Zarbakht and Ahmadi, Gozar Az Tufan, 35, fn. 1. 134 Ali Hashemi Ha’eri, “Sarbazi,” in Ettela’at, October 4, 1937; Parviz Ameri, “Aarezu va Andisheh”,inEttela’at, July 21, 1937. 135 ‘A. Hashem Ha’eri, “Varzesh va Ziba’i” (Sport and Beauty), in Ettela’at, November 18, 1937. Conclusions 277

Ha’eri, describing the excited gathering of youngsters in front of the recruitment lists printed on billboards. Hashemi Ha’eri takes this as an opportunity to compare “the harmonious stature and limbs, the wide chests and straight shoulders, the smooth foreheads and the red cheeks of today’s youth and the youngsters of ten to fifteen years ago, their bent stature, sunken chests ... wrinkled foreheads, dull eyes, sallow and pale cheeks.” Iranian youths also enjoy better health than their elders, who did not serve in the army and “are not yet fifty years of age and spend our nights moaning of backache and stomachache, of sore feet and headaches. What we had as youngsters was not life.” Turning from body to character, he commends the deference military service inculcates in the young. Discharged recruits return to their homes with great respect for their seniors. They bow their head respectfully when their father’s name is mentioned and take off their hat and bow their head whenever the Shah’s name is spoken.136 If Iranian youngsters were to be militarily trained and looked on with admiration because of their military service, obedience and respect for their elders would be crucial for maintaining social and political hierarchies.137 In sum, the army’s reputation for corruption and maltreatment of rank-and-file soldiers and of civilians, in addition to the unequal enforcement of conscription, meant that the regime had to launch a propaganda campaign. Military service was presented as a continuation of physical education or of scouting. It supported the creation of beautiful and obedient male citizens and reformed their bodies, earning them the respect and admiration of society. The press attempted to portray military service as an enjoyable, healthy exercise. However, as shown in the memoirs of elite men, military service was not widely perceived as a prerequisite for acquiring the desired body and character of the new patriotic man. Evasion of military service by young men of the elite did not necessarily risk their masculine credentials or hegemonic position, as they could achieve manliness by other means.

Conclusions Sport and physical education, scouting and military service under Reza Shah were instrumental in disciplining the male body and mind. Physical exercise practiced in schools, in the Boy Scout Movement, and in the

136 “Khedmat-e Sarbazi” (Military Service), in Ettela’at, August 20, 1935. 137 “Sarbazgiri” (Recruitment), in Ettela’at, October 8, 1935. 278 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts” military aimed at creating male bodies that conformed to specificaesthetic requirements: broad shoulders and chests, bulging arm and leg muscles, straight backs and ruddy faces. These male bodies were clad in uniform and trained to move in unison with others in gymnastic exercises and military drills. Sport and scouting were deemed the most appropriate forms of leisure, thus extending their disciplining influence outside the reach of official institutions. Keeping children and youth engaged in them was meant to prevent them from wasting their time in harmful activities. The disciplining gaze of the scoutmaster, sports teacher, or military commander was added to that of teachers, parents, and other members of the extended family or the immediate community. Furthermore, sport was seen as having a disciplining influence on other areas of social life such as office work or commerce. The new man came to literally embody the notion of “healthy mind in a healthy body” in that values such as courage, camaraderie, and patriotism were attached to the new body. By practicing sport, the Iranian (elite) man was to become a model citizen, ready to serve country and Shah loyally and obediently. The reforms of the 1920–1930s made the male body a site of discipline. Dressed in Western style or uniform and shaped by physical activity, it was deemed essential to the making of a modern citizen body. On a more subtle level, the reform of the body entailed reproduction and reinforcement of social power relations, loyalty to the royal family, and the hegemony of Western-educated men. Members of this elite were the main beneficiaries of sport in Iran: they were employed in administrative jobs, which allowed the leisure and available income for the practice of sport. Their sons, educated in government schools, practiced physical education and scouting. They did not need military service to strengthen and reform their bodies, and, in fact, usually did not serve in the army. Even when they did, this was only for one year, and they did not recall this period as crucial in the formation of their manhood. From the mid-1930s onwards, the bodies of other citizens were to be reformed as well. Sports’ clubs were established in several provincial cities. Physical education was introduced in girls’ schools and a Girl Guide Movement was established in 1935. Combined with the unveiling of women in 1936, this aimed at westernizing women’s appearance and integrating them in the education system and work- force. Despite the fact that the ideal masculine body envisioned in the 1930s was that of an adolescent boy or young man, older men and Conclusions 279

Figure 7.5 Soldier with portrait of Reza Shah (Damandan, Portrait Photographs from Isfahan, 157. Taken by Mirza Mehdi Khan Chehreh-Nameh) women were also advised to practice certain types of physical activity (ﬁshing, gardening, walking) in order to protect their health as well as the shape and elegance of their bodies.138 Thus, in the latter years of Reza Shah’s reign, men and women who had no possibility of enjoying the privileges granted by hegemonic masculinity due to their gender, social status, or age, were nonetheless exposed to the demands it posed to their bodies. Westernized in body and mind and loyal to the Shah, the new man was to replace and erase older types of masculinity. In the portrait shown in Figure 7.5, both loyalty and erasure are evident. The soldier is photographed alongside a painted portrait of Reza Shah, making the Shah an essential part of his own self-representation. This image of the new Iranian man is imperfect, though. Under the stool bearing the

138 “Behtarin Varzesh’ha dar Sen-e Kohulat” (The Best Sports for Old Age), in Ettela’at, May 31, 1936; “Javani” (Youth), in Ettela’at, March 30, 1938. 280 “Strong Spirits, Strong Arms, Strong Hearts”

Shah’s picture, two legs are apparent, clad in traditional shoes and pants. On the left side of the pictureframe, a portion of a hand eerily appears. At a second glance, it is obvious that the photographer Mirza Mehdi Khan Chehreh-Nameh erased the upper body of the man holding the picture, but was incapable of erasing the hand and legs without making the manipulation too visible. Apparently, the ghost of masculinities past could not be so easily exorcised. |Conclusions

In many ways, the fall and rise of the zurkhaneh is emblematic of the changes in concepts and practices of Iranian masculinity discussed in this book. Its vindication began in the 1920s and gained real momentum in the mid-1930s. Having been castigated as an unhygienic and sexually immoral site in previous decades, it now came to be regarded as the abode of Iranian patriotism and morality and, relatedly, healthy and manly physical activity. The zurkhaneh, a prominent symbol of early Qajar hegemonic masculinity, or javanmardi, once again came to occupy a place of honor in Iranian culture and society. Yet the reinstatement of zurkhaneh training as a legitimate pastime necessitated its adaptation and even subjection to the notions that made up the new hegemonic masculinity defined and performed by Western- educated elite men.1 The reformed zurkhaneh became the subject of medical and scientific supervision and was associated with the advantages of modern sport. At the same time, it functioned as a symbol of ancient Iranian traditions.2 However, it had to be detached from its previous affiliation to traditional knowledge and conduct and comply with newly accepted notions of health and hygiene. The knowledge and values of the former zurkhaneh leaders, the instructor (morshed) and champion (pahlavan), were to be subjected to the expertise of sports and health professionals educated in the West, and the project of reforming the institute was taken over by the Ministry of Education. The modernizing and nationalizing of the zurkhaneh is also apparent in its new representation as the locus of an “ancient” Iranian sport.3 Training in the zurkhaneh thus became an act of patriotism, as it resurrected an ancient practice, presumably lost in the recent past.

1 Chehabi, “Mir Mehdi Varzandeh,” 57. 2 Koyagi, “Creating Future Soldiers,” 62–66. 3 “Dar Zurkhaneh”,inEttela’at, November 8, 1938.

281 282 Conclusions

While the secular-nationalist aspect of the zurkhaneh was emphasized, other aspects that connoted different identifications had to be eliminated. Reciting Ferdowsi’s poetry during training sessions was lauded as manifesting a patriotic spirit, but Shiite recitations or the zurkhaneh’s Sufi background were all but ignored. The social communal role of zurkhaneh athletes, whether considered lutisorjavanmards, was similarly ignored. To become a legitimate modern venue, the zurkhaneh had to be stripped of almost all ideological overtones unrelated to nationalism and promoted mostly as an authentic and indigenous sports arena. Due to its local and ancient origins, however, it could not be presented as embodying “proper” westernization, but its rejection by superficial westernizers was criticized. “Properly” westernized youngsters would practice either Western or national sports, unlike decadent superficial westernizers who rejected both. Exercise in the zurkhaneh was placed on a par with sports such as football, tennis, and baseball and was incorporated in public events and celebrations that cemented support for the Pahlavi regime.4 Refuting earlier accusations of debauchery, the image of the modern zurkhaneh athletes also complied with the new norms of male heterosexual respectability, and it was suggested that sport was an antidote to sexual excess. The changing image of the zurkhaneh and its athletes between the late nineteenth century and the 1930s bears witness to many of the changes in Iranian hegemonic masculinity. The javanmard of the nineteenth century, often a luti whose main frame of reference was his neighborhood, who adhered to Sufi and Shiite ideologies, became a modern athlete, practicing “ancient” sports according to modern and westernized rules and under medical supervision. He was a patriot loyal to the monarch, not a ruffian of dubious reliability. The pahlavan’s physique also changed: the full belly was abandoned in favor of a lean athletic body, the shaved pate and full beard replaced by a Western hairstyle. Thus, images, ideals, and practices of the new hegemonic masculinity infiltrated the abode of early Qajar masculinity, changing it according to the new rules. Simultaneously, the relegitimi- zation of the zurkhaneh exemplifies how hegemonic masculinity appropriates traits of subordinate masculinity.

4 Houchang E. Chehabi, “Zur-Kana,” Encyclopaedia Iranica, 1996, www.iranicaonline.org/articles/zur-kana. Conclusions 283

As argued in the Introduction, Iranian masculinities – hegemonic and other – were dynamic and changed constantly. Being an ideal man in the late 1930s was very different from being such a man in the 1870s. The hegemonic man of Reza Shah’s period was an altogether different type from the javanmard of the Naseri period in appearance and education, in sexuality and political and social beliefs. Following Raewyn Connell’s perception of masculinity as a “configuration of gender practices,”5 my study was not limited to the investigation of images, ideals, perceptions, and constructs of masculinity, but also included practices of masculinity and men’s own interpretations of their identities as Iranian, as members of an elite, as patriots, and as moderns. In studying the ideas and practices of masculinity, I not only followed the development of a new hegemonic masculinity, but also historicized this development and related it to various processes in the formative decades studied here. The history of Iranian masculinities is also a gendered history of Iranian nationalism, of modernity, of westernization at a time of Western economic and political interventions, and of the changing urban public spaces. Looking at these issues from a male-gendered perspective exposed not only their influence on perceptions and images of masculinity and men’s experiences but equally the manner in which notions of the masculine or the feminine shaped nationalism, modernity, and other major constructs. At the same time, the book exposed the sociopolitical power relations at the basis of changing masculinities. The desired image of modern Iranian men as envisioned by modernizing reformers was determined by their own elite experiences, biases, and privileges. The new men that the country needed, according to them, were unsurprisingly modeled after their own masculinity. This is not to say, of course, that all elements of earlier masculinities became extinct. On the contrary, some aspects of older models of masculinity were coopted, guaranteeing their survival for decades. To make their masculinity hegemonic, elite men made use of their privileged position in different areas of life. Their cultural hegemony was used to promote images of hegemonic or subordinate masculinity in the press, in literature, and in drama. Their political hegemony, most significantly during Reza Shah’s reign, served to promote the Dress Law and compulsory physical education. Hegemonic masculinity, therefore, was created by

5 Connell, Masculinities, 44. 284 Conclusions the actions and words of hegemonic men.6 Even so, the new model of masculinity was not devoid of ambivalences and anxieties. Modern higher education could result in late bachelorhood or marriage to a foreigner, new professions were seen as possibly detrimental to the male physique, the adoption of Western items of dress or language could lead to accusations of mimicry. The promoters of modern Iran- ian masculinity employed different tactics to face these dangers, but the fragility of hegemonic masculinity remained an inherent part of it. The rise to power of this emerging elite and the evolving hegemony of their model of masculinity was the main theme that underpinned all the chapters of this book. Clearly this rise to power involved attempts to exclude other groups. The subjugation of women and the perpetu- ation of patriarchy in Iran were easily supported by the new hegemonic masculinity. Until the 1930s, women had very little access to the modern education exalted by Iranian reformers. Women had but a minor role in the Iranian nationalist movement and were not granted the right to vote or be elected, making their patriotism undervalued. They were presented as superficial westernizers squandering their husbands’ money, and it was far more complicated for them to build up the athletic body admired during the 1930s. Men of lower social standing were similarly excluded. They hardly benefited from modern education, their patriotism and westernization were castigated as superficial and disingenuous, and their appearance was mocked and forcibly altered. Men of the old elites whether aristocrats, landowners, or wealthy merchants, were more difficult to exclude. They held considerable political and socioeconomic power. Moreover, the new Western- educated elite heralded from the old elites, which may help explain its more ambivalent approach toward them. Thus, whereas the education, marriage practices, apparel, and physique of men of the old elites were rejected, their exclusion from political and social power was not simple to achieve. To follow the emergence of the new elite, I first introduced an early ideal of masculinity – javanmardi – that characterized two social groups in late-nineteenth-century urban centers: respectable and wealthy community leaders and the less respectable lutis. The

6 Jeff Hearn, “From Hegemonic Masculinity to the Hegemony of Men,” Feminist Theory 5, no. 1 (April 1, 2004): 49–72. Conclusions 285 hegemony of these two groups, as well as the model of masculinity they represented, was contested by elite men whose Western education guaranteed them senior government positions. In their writings, these men narrowed down the wide sociocultural meanings of javanmardi, and coopted what was left of it into a new model of patriotic and educated masculinity. Non-elite men were excluded from this model primarily by their lack of access to modern education, a lack shared by the vast majority of Iranians. Some of these educated men attempted to monopolize the political achievements of the Constitutional Revolution, and the power that came with it, by portraying men of the aristocracy and lower social standing as pseudopatriots involved in politics solely for personal gain. Elite men had a disproportionate presence in the first and second parliaments and cabinets. By drafting the constitution and electoral laws, and despite sympathetic approaches of the Social Democrats toward the poorer segments of Iranian society, men of the old and new elites effectively barred most Iranian men and all women from political participation in the first and second elections via property qualifications for voters and Persian literacy qualifications for representatives. Striving for a cultural as well as a political hegemony, westernized men presented their way of life and their model of westernization as more patriotic and moral than that of other groups, whereas the westernization of non-elite men was deemed harmful and superficial. They also presented their marital and sexual conduct as superior and healthy, and that of men of the old elites as corrupt and immoral. The book examined how, as the Iranian state changed from a weak dynastic regime to an unstable constitutional monarchy and then to a centralized modern autocratic monarchy, so did the relationship between it and the educated elite. During the reign of Reza Shah, Western-educated elite men held considerable power. The power the state had over its citizens became the power of elite state officials. They used this power to buttress their hegemonic masculinity, while simultaneously working to consolidate the power of the state and dynasty. The support the new elite provided the regime had several origins. First was the desire to see a stable government after the tumultuous 1910s. Second was the hope that a strong and reform-minded monarch would promote the changes they deemed necessary. And third, these men had vested interests in the government, which provided them with 286 Conclusions jobs and influence. The Dress Law of 1927 is an example of such an overlap of interests. The law not only presented elite masculinity as the embodiment of official state ideals and national manliness, but har- nessed the state’s power to coerce Iranian men into wearing westernized dress. The law served Reza Shah’s goals of unification and modernization, helping eradicate visual markers of tribal, ethnic, and religious affiliations, and buttressed the new power relations between state and citizens. This power was further consolidated by the attempt to inculcate in young Iranians loyalty to the Pahlavi dynasty and obedience to their seniors. This was done by the promotion of sport, scouting, and military service, all of which were thought to nurture such desirable character traits. The Western-educated elite was in many respects the connecting link between the old aristocratic and mercantile elites of the Qajar era and the future modern middle class, which would come to centre stage in Iranian politics during the reign of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1941–1979). Modernizing reformers were often elitist; however, they also desired to transform their society. They believed Iran to be backward, decadent, and weak, and wanted to make it progressive, modern, and strong. Doing so involved more than laws and technologies: creating a modern Iran meant creating modern Iranians. These men and women had bodies, pursued everyday practices and sub- scribed to ideologies and ideals. The large-scale reforms orchestrated by the hegemonic elite sought to transform all these. The themes of modernity and the nation run through most of the chapters of this book and are inseparable from gender. Modernization, often seen as synonymous with westernization, emanated first and foremost from modern education. In the new schools, boys were taught new subjects and ideologies, which influenced their ways of thought and action. The knowledge imported from Europe was accompanied by the acquisition of new daily practices. Students in the modern schools and even more so students sent to Europe, adopted and adapted European dress, objects, manners, and even languages that together constructed a new habitus. Influenced by these novel experiences, they castigated the conditions in their homeland and attempted to reform them according to Western models. These elite attitudes roused the fury of conservative Iranians. West- ernization, in itself far from being homogeneous, encountered various forms of resistance – from religious denouncement to physical violence. Conclusions 287

The debate on westernization was encapsulated in the figure of the superficial westernizer – the fokoli or farangimaab. This man was ridiculed for uncritically adopting religiously prohibited foreign notions and practices. Westernized elite men responded to this challenge by depicting the critics of the farangimaab as reactionary and unpatriotic. Whether it was the ignorant religious seminary student who failed to recognize the need to know Iran’s geography, or the superstitious woman who complained that even her toilets had to become westernized, criticism against the farangimaab was deflected by vilifying those who voiced it. As the westernized practices of elite men began spreading to wider segments of urban society, they needed a way to make differences between their westernization and that of their non-elite emulators perfectly clear. Thus, writers created a distinction between “proper” and superficial and harmful westernization by reclaiming the pejorative farangimaab or fokoli as a weapon and turning it against men of lower social groups. The fact that the more substantial westernization of elite men was also constructed as more patriotic attests to the level of cultural hegemony they achieved. This proper westernization was endorsed by the state during Reza Shah’s reign. The westernized appearance of elite men became the role model the regime advocated. The dress reform, however, did not bring about a homogenous appearance for all Iranian males. Clerics were exempt, and many Iranians objected to the new attire, did not know how to wear it, or could not afford it. This resulted in a pastiche of Western, westernized, and local garments that often betrayed Iranian men’s ambivalence toward the government’s westernization project. Nationalism is another central theme underlying many of the changes in Iranian notions about masculinity. From the inception of the nationalist movement, Iranian nationalists made use of gendered metaphors and images. During the Constitutional Revolution, nationalist action was perceived as masculine and masculinity as nationalist and patriotic. The gendered discourse of constitutionalists utilized components of traditional masculinity such as gheyrat and namus to mobilize men into action. In the process, it also charged them with new meanings. Rather than connoting men’s responsibility for the sexual purity of women in their immediate family, namus came to designate the national honor of all Iranian men – dependent on the chastity of all Iranian women and of the mother/land. This meant that the masculine honor of all Iranian men was contingent on nationalist 288 Conclusions action and Iranians were thus obliged to protect the homeland or else be threatened with emasculation. This patriotic obligation touched on the most intimate aspects of men’s lives – their sexuality and family life. The perceived need for Iran to have a larger and healthier population involved a change in men’s objects of sexual desire, their approach to sexual hygiene as well as their marital practices. Regulated male desire was presented as patriotic. Men who did not court adolescent boys or prostitutes, men who were monogamous and satisfied their sexual needs with their ‘aqdi wife, were deemed free of venereal diseases and ready to sire healthy children for the nation. These children were to be raised by educated mothers protected from polygamy, child marriage, and divorce. The marriage reform, which advocated a more equal relationship between husband and wife, was to benefit society as a whole (but, in fact, benefited men more than women, and did little to abolish entrenched patriarchal privileges). Conversely, Western-educated men were scolded for their tendency to marry late and choose foreign wives, practices seen to run against the national interest. Thus, male sexuality and choice of partner were regulated in the name of patriotism. Following the nationalization of male sexuality, the male body itself was nationalized. Young and athletic bodies became symbols of Iran’s rejuvenation, and Iranians were required to reform their bodies according to new aesthetic principles. This reform was to be achieved by the practice of sport, scouting, and military service. These practices were also considered conducive of new desirable character traits such as loyalty and discipline and were literally embodied in the physiques of youths. The new generations of Iranian men, unlike their predeces- sors of the Constitutional Revolution era, were to associate national zeal with obedience and uniformity, not with revolutionary action. Not all Iranian men adopted the new gender norms, however. Even in 1941, many were hardly exposed to the changing norms. In a country where literacy rates were still very low, where communication and transportation infrastructures left many areas virtually discon- nected from urban centers, where various ethnic minorities did not necessarily even speak the same language as the educated elite, many men continued to live their lives as before.7 Government reforms did

7 De Groot, Religion, Culture and Politics, 48. Conclusions 289 target the rural areas where 80 percent of Iranians lived, but physical and cultural distances were still too far to be overcome. Furthermore, a crucial aspect of masculinity remained fundamen- tally unchanged among all groups and in all areas: the subjugation of women. As Camron Amin has shown, “male guardianship” remained unchallenged at least until the 1940s, and À some would say – until today.8 Notwithstanding certain legal rights granted to women and calls to reform marriage and family life, patriarchy retained its position as a significant organizing principle of Iranian society. This, of course, dovetails perfectly with Connell’s view of hegemonic masculinity as a guarantee of the legitimizing of patriarchy under changing circumstances. The model of hegemonic masculinity discussed in this book continued to affect Iranian society in the following decades. Even after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, modern education and knowledge were far from rejected and remained integral elements of Iranian masculinity. Western-style scientific education remained of utmost importance for young men (and women) aspiring to social mobility. Despite the three-year closure of universities after the revolution, literacy and higher education continued to spread in the Islamic Republic and the subjects introduced by educational reformers of the late nineteenth century were still taught, alongside religious teachings. Iranian students went on studying in Western universities to the point where only recently the country even admitted that it was suffering from a “brain drain” in which students preferred not to return to Iran. The proposed solution for the problem, rather than the rejection of studies abroad, was to strengthen higher education and academic institutes within the country. Patriotism and nationalism similarly still play an important part in the Iranian scheme of identifications. According to a survey taken in 2000–2001, despite the fact that the regime worked to strengthen the influence of religious identification, a third of Iranians still defined themselves first and foremost as Iranian patriots and not as Shiite Muslims. In Egypt, for example, only one-tenth considered themselves Egyptian nationalists first. The rejection of Western interference in the country’s affairs is voiced in nationalistic terms, stressing sovereignty, independence, national pride, and resistance to cultural and political

8 Amin, Making of the Modern Iranian Woman. 290 Conclusions imperialism. However, only 55 percent of Iranians considered Western cultural invasion a serious problem, compared to 64 percent of Egyptians.9 The extent to which Western objects and practices became part of a hegemonic Iranian masculinity is attested to by the fact that after Reza Shah’s forced abdication in 1941 and the abandonment of the dress laws, most men did not return to their old garments. While some elements of Western appearance such as ties and a fully shaved face were rejected by supporters of the Islamic regime, traditional Iranian garments such as the turban or qaba are usually worn today by members of the clerical establishment only. In postrevolutionary Iran, resistance to the Islamist regime is marked by wearing the three-piece suit, a clean-shaven face, or by other Western fashions.10 As Alec Balasescu writes, different classes of contemporary Iranian society adopt and adapt Western appearance in different ways, according to their class and political orientation, and it is far from being the mon- opoly of the “Western classes.”11 As far as male sexuality and marriage are concerned, postrevolutionary Iran is heteronormative and heterosexist. Homosexuality is punishable by death and condemned homosexuals are often also accused of pedophilia, meaning that boy-loving is now considered worse than homosexual acts between two adults. Despite the fact that the Islamic regime legalized and encouraged early marriage, the aver- age age of marriage for women increased to about twenty-three in 2014, with child marriage being uncommon.12 Polygamy is legal but far from widely practiced, and monogamous, companionate marriage is considered the norm. Despite women’s suffrage, and growing access to higher education and the job market, their continued subjugation is supported by the government’s approval of male marital privileges such as polygamy, repudiation, temporary marriage, and child marriage – encapsulated by what Janet Afary refers to as the “Islamist state’s sexual economy.” 13

9 Mansoor Moaddel and Taqhi Azadarmaki, “The Worldviews of Islamic Publics: The Cases of Egypt, Iran, and Jordan,” Comparative Sociology 1, no. 3 (December 1, 2002): 299–319. 10 Gerami, “Mullahs, Martyrs, and Men.” 11 Alec H. Balasescu, “Faces and Bodies: Gendered Modernity and Fashion Photography in Tehran,” Gender & History 17 (2005): 744–745. 12 www.iran-daily.com/News/3008.html 13 Afary, Sexual Politics, 323–359. Conclusions 291

Continuity is evident also when it comes to the male body itself. The image of male beauty as adopted and advocated in the 1930s is still widely accepted. Young, athletic, lean and smooth male bodies are the ideals one finds in commercial ads and as popular heroes. In postrevolutionary Iran, the male (and female) body is still a site of political action, of repression and opposition. While the significance of the battle surrounding women’s hijab is widely discussed, men’s bodies have gained far less attention. But men use their body to express their rejection of the curtailment of personal and political freedom. Young men in Iran today use facial and bodily grooming – piercing, eyebrow plucking, plastic surgery, etc. – to mark their independence and freedom.14 We can see, then, that in many ways, and despite the regime change, Iranian men today still abide by some of the rules of hegemonic masculinity set by Western-educated men of the elite at the turn of the twentieth century. The history of masculinities in Iran offers a vast field of exploration, and this book could only touch on some of the issues involved. While I chose to focus on hegemonic masculinity and its formation, other constructs of masculinity are equally intriguing to explore. It will be fascinating to try to follow changes in masculine models and men’s practices far from the center among tribal populations, ethnic minorities, and peasants. Significant insights could similarly be drawn from examining religious responses to the emergence of the new masculine image. Finally, further investigation of javanmardi and of lutisand their institutes such as the zurkhaneh could shed light on the little- studied masculinity of the lower echelons of Iranian society. The history of masculinity in Iran and the Middle East more broadly remains an underdeveloped field of research. My own exploration has covered the formative period between the 1870s and 1930s, but other eras remain to be studied. The challenges posed to hegemonic masculinity from the 1940s onward, the periods of Mohammad Reza Shah’s reign, the Islamic Revolution, and its aftermath deserve similar scholarly interest, since rapid urbanization, the continued spread of education, and the growing popularity of mass media must have had immense influence on Iranians’ gender ideals, images, and practices. The Shah’s projects of modernization, the increasing power of the army, changing economics, and the growth of a resistance movement

14 Honarbin-Holliday, “Emerging Forms of Masculinity.” 292 Conclusions were no less important for the formations of new models of masculinity. It would be thought-provoking to examine the influence of revolutionary ideology on hegemonic masculinity, and even more to examine how changing power relations within Iranian society influenced perceptions of masculinity.15 Studies of Iranian masculinities during the premodern and early modern eras may prove just as fascinating. Despite the relative scarcity of sources, a male-gendered reading of orthodox and Sufi texts and of classical poetry, combined with careful examination of visual materials, may yield rewarding insights on both masculinities and the history of Iran. Finally, men of other Middle Eastern societies are yet to be written about as gendered subjects. From North Africa to the Fertile Crescent, the history of masculinities is open to exploration. It is my hope that this modest contribution will engender enough curiosity to propel gender historians and other historians of the Middle East to “man up” and regard the men of this area and their historically changing manhood as topics worthy of research.

15 Gerami, “Mullahs, Martyrs and Men.” Bibliography

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‘aba, 208 Bahar (newspaper), 166, 196 ‘Abdo, Jalal, 214, 271 Baker, Patricia, 230 adamiyyat, 58–59, 95 Balasescu, Alec, 290 Afary, Janet, 181, 186, 290 Bamdad, Mohammad Ali, 250 Afshar, Mirza Reza Khan, 224 bast, 89, 109, 113, 120 Ahmad Shah Qajar, 107 bastinado, 37, 78, 83, 105 Akhtar (newspaper), 15, 56, 73, 125 Bazargan, Mehdi, 69–70, 105, 134, Akhundzadeh, Mirza Fath Ali, 63, 177 142, 259, 270 Al-e Ahmad, Jalal, 149 beard, 97, 136, 138, 176, 211, 217, American College, 246, 257, 261 219, 226, 234, 240, 282 Amin, Camron Michael, 9, 166, 289 beardless boys. See amrad Amin ol-Dowleh, Mirza Ali Khan, 56, Behbahani, Seyyed Abdollah, 89 108 Behdad, Ali, 127, 135, 203 Aminzadeh, Ahmad, 187, 261, 266 biopower, 169 amrad, 21, 46, 97, 153, 156–158, Bird, Isabella, 126, 129 161–162, 179, 188, 260 body image, 47, 225, 242–243, amrad-numa, 153, 161, 180, 188, 258–260, 275, 277–278, 282, 217 291 Anglo-Persian War, 4, 32, 91 Boone, Joseph, 180 Anglo-Russian Entente, 144 Bourdieu, Pierre, 67 Anjoman-e Ma’aref, 57 bowtie, 124, 143, 153, 156–157 Ansari, Abdol Hosein Mas’ud, 105 boy dancers, 180–181, 259 Arasteh, Reza, 30 Boy Scouts, 33, 187, 205, 260–268 Arfa, Hasan, 168, 215, 241 boy-loving, 65, 98, 179–190, 259, 266, Arjomand, Said Amir, 230 288, 290 Ashraf, Ahmad, 25 Browne, Edward Granville, 39 Astarabadi, Bibi Khanom, 185, 201 Ataturk, Mustafa Kemal, 207, 226 chador, 95, 213, 236, 266 ‘Ayn ol-Dowleh, Abd ol-Majid, 113 chair, 77, 124, 127, 133, 154, 159, 208, ‘Ayyar, 28–29, 36 212, 235 ‘Azad ol-Molk, 107 chapeau. See hat, brimmed A’zam Qodsi, Hasan, 215 Chatterjee, Partha, 123 Azarnur, Fereydun, 275 Chehabi, Houchang, 230 Chehreh-Nameh, Mirza Mehdi Khan, bachelorhood, 159, 162, 164, 170, 190, 236, 279 200–201 child marriage, 165, 173–177, 179, Baden-Powell, Robert, 33, 260, 265, 288, 290 268 Civil Code, 173, 175 Bahador, Mohammad Ali Khan Asad, coat, 124–125, 130, 138, 181, 208, 258 210–211, 221, 240–241, 243

314 Index 315 companionate marriage, 107, 159, Ettela’at (newspaper), 16, 165, 163–173, 185, 188, 190–191, 174–175, 189–190, 192, 203, 196–197, 203–204, 290 221–223, 225–227, 238–239, 249, complicit masculinity, 11 253–255, 259, 265, 271, 273, 275 Connell, Raewyn, 10, 24, 52, 140, 163, 283, 289 farangimaab, 20, 74, 122, 132–142, conscription, 268, 271 145, 150, 160–161, 212, 235, 287 Constitutional Revolution, 5, 19, 32, Fardid, Ahmad, 149 38, 89–121, 160, 285, 287–288 Farhang (newspaper), 166, 196 cravat, 128, 130, 134, 143, 255 Farman Farma, Abdol Hossein Mirza, cultural capital, 67, 78, 141, 151, 161, 105 230, 243, 257 Farmanfarmaian, Manoochehr, 105 cutlery, 127, 132, 134, 140–141 Faruq, King of Egypt, 262 fatherhood, 68, 103–108 Dabestan (newspaper), 252 Ferdowsi, Abulqasem, 45, 251, 282 Dabir ol-Molk, Mohammad Hosein First World War, 163, 246–247, 267 Bader, 101 Firuzabadi, Seyyed Reza, 250 Dadgar, Hosein, 250, 257 fokoli, 20, 122, 130, 138, 143–159, Damandan, Parisa, 18 161, 192, 202, 205, 235, 287 dandy, 1, 16, 143, 145, 149, 162 foreign women, 193–195, 202 Dar ol-Fonun, 65–66, 68, 82, 113, 246, Forugh (newspaper), 169, 249, 264 262 Forughi, Mohammad Ali, 227, 257 Dash Akol, 23, 40–42 fotovvat. See Javanmardi dash mashti. See luti Foucault, Michel, 77 Dashti, Ali, 230 fraternity, 100, 103, 106, 109, 250 de Groot, Joanna, 10, 90 Dehkhoda, Ali Akbar, 28–29, 34, 36, Ganjineh-ye Ma’aref (newspaper), 254 133, 144, 174, 184 Garusi, Amir Nezam, 124 “Charand Parand,” 174, 178, 201 Ghani, Qasem, 30, 80, 87 Delfani, Mahmud, 263 gharbzadegi, 149 Demetriou, Demetrakis, 12 gheyrat, 19, 31, 36, 92, 101, 147, 192, demography, 25, 168–170, 173, 177, 249, 255, 271, 287 190, 288 Gibson, Thomas R., 262, 264 DeSouza, Wendy, 188 Girl Guides, 263, 278 detachable collar, 134, 142–143, 146, giveh, 36, 130, 208 151, 156–157 Gol-e Zard (newspaper), 147, 178 discipline in schools, 77–83 Golsha’iyan, Abasqoli, 80 divorce, 104, 166, 175, 201, 288, 290 habitus, 78, 87, 133, 230, 286 Dress Law, 21, 148, 205, 207, Habl ol-Matin (newspaper), 15, 61–62, 219–238, 243, 283, 286 72, 82, 97, 100, 110, 125–126, drilling, 77, 81, 83, 248, 250, 265, 267, 136, 139 272, 276, 278 Ha’eri, Ali Hashemi, 275 Hafez, 64, 68 Ehtesham ol-Saltaneh, Mahmud Khan haircut, 153, 157, 216, 238 ‘Alamir, 57, 105 Haji Aqa, 1–2 Ensafpur, Gholamreza, 44, 46, 51 Hashemi Ha’eri, Ali, 276 ‘Eshqi, Mirzadeh, 16, 158 hat, 130, 213, 230, 238–240, 277 Esma’il Zadeh, Aqa Khan, 166, 170, bowler, 130, 150, 240 174, 196–197 brimmed, 156, 226, 232, 238 316 Index hat (cont.) Kazemi, Moshfeq, 229 felt, 211, 214 Kazemzadeh Iranshahr, Hosein, 229 international, 241, See hat, brimmed Kermani, Mirza Aqa Khan, 63, 177 Pahlavi, 134, 148, 220–223, 226, Keshavarzian, Arang, 233 228, 232, 236, 238, 240, 273 Khan, Rahmatollah, 32 Qajar, 82, 124, 134, 136, 147, 160, Khorasani, Akbar, 46 207, 210, 214, 222 Khwajeh Nuri, Ebrahim, 228–229 top, 241 Kimiai, Mas’ud, 41 health certiﬁcate, 173 Hedayat, Mehdiqoli, 118, 232 labadeh, 130, 159, 214, 220 Hedayat, Sadeq, 1–2, 23, 40 levat, 29, See Sodomy Hekmat, Ali Asghar, 257, 262 Lindisfarne-Tapper, Nancy, 212 henna, 138, 217, 238 love (in marriage), 164, 166–167, 185, heteronormalization, 158–159, 185, 187 196, 201, 204 heterosexuality, 8, 154, 163, 185, 188, love (of homeland), 90–92, 99–100, 282 102, 106, 255–256 heterosociality, 186–187 luti, 19, 22, 29, 31, 34–42, 44–45, 50, Hisam ol-Dowleh, Teymur Mirza, 210 109, 147, 208, 216, 219, 243, 252, homosexuality, 8, 41, 46, 159, 181, 282, 284 186–188, 191, 194, 204, 260, 266, 290 madrasah, 60, 178 honor, 19, 29, 31, 58–59, 88, 90–92, Majalleh-ye Adabi (newspaper), 147, 111, 133, 180, 213, 223, 263, 151 287 Majles, 68, 89–90, 101, 112, 118–120, human producing factory, 31, 58, 84, 230, 250, 271 252 maktab, 60, 63, 73, 78, 80–81, 83–84, Hunt, Lynn, 97, 103 187 hygiene, 67, 74, 76, 82–83, 141, 143, Malek ol Motekallemin, Mirza 170, 225, 250, 281, 288 Nosratollah Beheshti, 58 Malijak, 97, 184 Iran-e Konuni (newspaper), 174 Malkom Khan, Mirza, 58–59, 94 Iraqi, Esma’il, 221 Maraghe’i, Zayn ol-‘Abedin, 56, 185 Islamic Revolution, 289 marginal masculinity, 11 marriage crisis, 166, 190 Jacob, Wilson Chacko, 8 Marriage Law, 163, 175, 193 Ja’far Khan Has Returned from Europe Martin, Vanessa, 118 (play), 144, 151, 159, 179, 194 Massad, Joseph, 187 Jakes, Aaron, 263 middle class, 14, 286 Jamalzadeh, Seyyed Mohammad Ali, Minbashian, Fathollah, 271 16, 37, 46, 50, 115, 144, 176 Mirza, Iraj, 186 javanmard, 2, 19, 23–42, 50, 53, 99, Mirza, Youel, 213, 235 116, 204, 282–283 Moallem, Minoo, 117, 230 javanmardi, 19, 23–38, 44, 51, 99, 102, Modjtahedi, Mohammad Ali, 270 204, 251, 281, 284 Moﬁd, Bahman, 41 Jordan, Samuel, 261 Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar, 107, 109 Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, 14, 257, Kaka Rostam, 41 262, 286 Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh, 116 Moharram, 43–44, 53, 252 Kashkul (newspaper), 113, 146 Mohtashem ol-Saltaneh, Hasan Kasravi, Ahmad, 80, 211, 216 Esfandiari, 108 Index 317

Mokhber ol-Dowleh, Hosein Qoli pedophilia, 175–176, 290 Khan, 208 Perez Gonzalez, Carmen, 18, 127 Monzavi, Mirza Abd ol-Rahim, perfume, 130, 134, 138, 142, 156 31 photography, 17–18, 127, 156, 181, Moqaddam, Hasan, 16, 144, 202, 236, 259, 279 151 polygamy, 104–105, 164, 166, 175, moradbegi, 130, 208 177–179, 190, 194–195, 203, 288, morovvat. See javanmardi 290 Mosavvat (newspaper), 93 prostitution, 100, 166, 173, 177, 179, Moshir ol-Dowleh, Mirza Hosein 185–186, 190, 254, 288 Khan, 108, 125, 127, 131 pseudopatriot, 109–116, 137, 178, Mosse, George, 188, 247, 260 285 Mostofi, Abdollah, 35, 45, 69, 200, Purya-ye Vali, 37, 45 215, 273 Moussaiey, Sheila, 14 Qa’ani, Hakim, 65 Mozaffar ol-Din Shah Qajar, 96–98, qaba, 130, 208, 214, 224, 233, 106–107 290 Mullah Naser ol-Din, 65, 112–113, Qajar, Ali Khan Vali, 17, 128, 181, 115, 137 202 Mullah Naser ol-Din (newspaper), 175, Qanun (newspaper), 15, 59, 94–95 187 mustache, 2, 47, 138, 146, 151, 159, Radjavi, Heydar, 233–235 179, 217, 219, 238 Rejali, Darius, 77 Reuter concession, 4 Naficy, Hamid, 23, 41 Reza Shah Pahlavi, 6, 22, 107, 205, Nafisi, Sa’id, 30 221, 224, 226, 230, 232, 241, 256, Nahid (newspaper), 171 263, 268–271, 279, 286 Najafqoli Khan, Haji Mirza, 56 Riyahi, Manuchehr, 168, 265 Najmabadi, Afsaneh, 10, 90, 97, rowshanfekr, 59 100–101, 117, 153, 185, 187 Russo-Japanese War, 140 namus, 91–92, 98, 100–102, 111, Russo-Persian War, 4, 91 116–117, 157, 192, 271, 287 Naser ol-Din Shah Qajar, 51, 96–97, Sadiq, Isa, 65, 70, 82, 133, 136, 167, 106–107, 125, 129, 131 227 Nasrullah, Haji Seyyed, 119 Salar ol-Dowleh, 32 National Front, 271 sardari, 82, 125, 130, 208 National Society of Physical Education Sassoon family, 127 and Scouting, 251, 262 Sattar Khan, 38–40, 109 Naus, Joseph, 89 Schayegh, Cyrus, 63, 67, 168–169, Neda-ye Vatan (newspaper), 94–95, 99, 249 112 Scheiwiller, Staci Gem, 156, 203 Nowruz (newspaper), 71 School of Political Science, 67, 69 Second World War, 6, 148, 271 Omid (newspaper), 55, 61 Sevruguin, Antoin, 18, 131, 159, 208, opium, 44, 255, 264 211 sexual harassment, 191–192 pahlavan, 42, 44–45, 51, 252, 256, Shadman, Seyyed Fakhroddin, 148 266, 281–282 Shafaq-e Sorkh (newspaper), 33, 171, Paidar, Parvin, 177 174, 251, 254 Parvizi, Rasul, 232 Shahnameh, 45, 97 318 Index

Shahri, Ja’far, 46, 83, 130, 149, 156, trousers, 42, 82, 124–125, 130, 134, 213, 216–217 138, 147, 150, 156, 160, 208, 211, Shari’a, 60, 104, 173, 192, 198, 220, 228, 238–240, 280 217 turban, 130, 138, 205, 211, 214–215, shaving, 136, 138, 157, 176, 216–217, 222, 232–233, 235, 239, 290 234–235, 290 Tusun, Umar, 261 Shekufeh (newspaper), 191 Shirazi, Ayatollah Mirza Hasan, 38 uniform, 72, 77, 82, 123, 214, 228, shoes, 1–2, 124, 126, 130, 138, 141, 248, 267, 272–273, 275, 278 156, 160, 202, 208, 211, 235, unveiling, 164, 186, 191, 206, 227, 238–240, 280 236, 278 Shura (newspaper), 145, 248 urban brotherhoods, 29–30, 34 sodomy, 29, 46, 179, 186 urinating, 139, 142 street car, 131 subordinate masculinity, 11, 16, Valmont, Edouard, 144 122–123, 176, 195, 282–283 Varzandeh, Mir Mehdi, 246, 256, 259, suﬁsm, 28–29, 37, 43, 45, 64, 282 261 suit, 21, 141, 148, 156, 205, 211, 220, veiling, 186 230, 232–234, 241–242, 244, 273, venerael diseases, 166, 169, 172–173, 290 190–191, 255 Sur-e Israﬁl (newspaper), 174 gonorrhea, 172 syphilis, 172–173 Tabatabai, Seyyed Mohammad, 89 Taj ol-Saltaneh, 201 walking stick, 124, 130, 134, 147, 156, Tamaddon (newspaper), 74, 110–111 158 Taqizadeh, Hasan, 119, 188, 229 watch, 128, 130, 134, 141, 147, 151, Taraqqi (newspaper), 93 156, 181 Tavakoli Targhi, Mohamad, 90, 96, Wilson, Samuel G., 125, 130 102 Woman’s question, 15 temporary marriage, 104, 164, 175, Women’s education, 55, 57, 66, 73–77, 179, 195, 290 166, 193, 250 Teymurtash, Abdol Hosein, 227 tie, 69, 134, 158, 234–235, 238, 240, Zarbakht, Morteza, 205, 270 273, 290 Ze’evi, Dror, 187 Tobacco Revolt, 1, 5, 133 Zell ol-Sultan, 37 Tosh, John, 11 Zirakzadeh, Ahmad, 271 Travel Diary of Ebrahim Beg, 56, 63, zurkhaneh, 19, 37, 42–51, 217, 111, 133, 185 251–252, 266, 281–282