Article 29 The 90-year Evolution of Japan’s Academic Interest in Iran Keiko Sakurai Professor, Faculty of International Research and Education, Waseda University Director, Organization for Islamic Area Studies, Waseda University I. Introduction War II broke out. Despite Iran’s declared neutrality, Britain and the Soviet Union jointly invaded Iran in 1929 1941 marked the beginning of official diplomatic , believing Rez‥ā Shāh to have closer ties to the relations between Japan and Iran. The countries signed Axis powers, particularly Germany. Iran remained a “Japan-Persia Temporary Trade Agreement” that under Anglo-Soviet control until 1946. year, and Japan opened a diplomatic office in Tehran Under the Anglo-Soviet Occupation, Iran broke that August. A Persian diplomatic office was later off relations with Japan in April 1942, and in 1945 opened in Tokyo in July 1930. Diplomatic contacts declared war against the Axis powers, including Japan. between two countries, however, actually started as After the San Francisco Peace Treaty came into effect early as 1878, when Japan’s special envoy to Russia in 1952, diplomatic ties between the countries were Takeaki Enomoto met with Persian monarch Nās4 er al- reestablished in November 1953 and have continued 2 Dīn Shāh in Saint Petersburg. Two years later, Japan uninterrupted since then. sent its first official delegation to Tehran, headed by Iran’s oil boom in 1973 accelerated economic 1 Masaharu Yoshida. Yoshida was granted an audience interactions with Japan. Nonetheless, personal contact with Nās4 er al-Dīn Shāh in 1880, and brought an between Japanese and Iranian citizens was mostly official communiqué back to Japan from the Persian limited to diplomacy and business interactions, with Empire. Although both countries were interested in the exception of a sudden influx of Iranian laborers to advancing diplomatic relations, the Russo-Japanese Japan in the early 1990s. War (1904-1905) and Iran’s transition from the Nearly a century of official relations has seen Qajar dynasty to the Pahlavi in 1925 prevented the significant growth in Japan’s academic interest in establishment of official relations until1929 . Iran. This interest is recorded in great detail in the In 1932, the countries signed a “Treaty of “Bibliographic Database of Islamic and Middle Amity and Commerce between Japan and Persia” in East Studies in Japan 1868-2015” (hereinafter, “the Tehran. A few years later, Rez‥ā Shāh Pahlavī asked database”), which is maintained at the Documentation the international community to refer to his country Center for Islamic Area Studies, a division of the 3 as “Iran” (meaning “land of the Aryans”) rather Toyo Bunko, Japan’s largest Asian studies library. The than “Persia”, the term commonly used by Western database is a catalog of published books and research countries. Japan agreed and began using “Iran” on 19 papers. This includes academic volumes, peer-reviewed March 1935. In 1938, another treaty, a “Japan-Iran and non-peer reviewed papers, trend analyses, essays, Treaty of Amity” was signed. Although both countries commentaries, and translations appearing in books 4 desired further trade, especially in railway and aircraft and journals. This excludes, however, newspaper and technologies, diplomatic relations ceased when World magazine articles, and short explanations found in 30 Journal of Islamic Area Studies Vol.11 dictionaries. interface. The Japanese interface was used for this Academic interest doesn’t always reflect the paper. diplomatic and economic relations between countries. The search interface for the database is divided Japan’s interest in Persian history, literature, and into 9 input fields for specifying search criteria: culture developed quite independently from diplomatic 6 text box fields (KEYWORD, DOCUMENT and economic ties between Japan and Iran, although TITLE, AUTHOR, YEAR OF PUBLICATION, nothing unfolded in a vacuum. PUBLISHER, and ISBN/ISSN) and 3 check box This paper explores the extent and nature of fields (SUBJECT matter, GEOGRAPHIC REGION correlations between Japan’s academic interest in Iran discussed, and publication LANGUAGE). The and changes in Japan-Iran diplomatic and economic SUBJECT check box field is further divided into 13 relations since official ties were established, by seeking categories, detailed below. answers to three questions: (1) How have the number The check box fields for the subject categories of Iran/Persia-related documents in the database and provide the user with anywhere from 1 to 15 the topics covered therein changed in correlation to individually selectable check boxes with which to Iran-Japan diplomatic and economic relations? (2) filter their search. Returned results can be sorted Which factors appear to have affected the changing alphabetically by author or chronologically by year of amount of documents on Iran and their subject publication, with ascending or descending options for matter? (3) What are the notable characteristics of both. Japanese academic publications on Iran? To answer Every document in the database is classified into these questions, I analyzed the results produced by exactly one SUBJECT, GEOGRAPHIC REGION, searching the database by all the various categories and and LANGUAGE each, in other words, one check box sub-categories for all the documents on Iran/Persia in from each check box field. So, for example, searching by the date range 1929 to 2015. A number of important GEOGRAPHIC REGION with both the ENTIRE analyses of Japanese studies on Iran have previously MIDDLE EAST and EGYPT/SUDAN check boxes been published by scholars including Hisae Nakanishi selected will produce documents dealing with Egypt/ 5 6 7 (1987) , Nobuaki Kondo (2002) , Morio Fujii (2002) , Sudan, and documents dealing with the entire Middle 8 and Kenji Kuroda (2017). This work differentiates East, with no overlap between them. itself from those studies by correlating the fluctuating The GEOGRAPHIC REGION section offers amount and subject matter of Japanese publications on 15 separate check boxes for the main geographic Iran/Persia with the actual diplomatic and economic area of study of a document: including ENTIRE relations between Iran and Japan in the corresponding MIDDLE EAST, ARAB WORLD, MAGHREB/ time frames. ANDALUS, EGYPT/SUDAN, SYRIA/JORDAN/ LEBANON, IRAQ, ARABIAN PENINSULA, IRAN/PERSIA, AFGHANISTAN, TURKEY/ II. About the Database CYPRUS, BALKANS, PALESTINE/ISRAEL, THE GULF WAR (REGION), CAUCASUS/ The database is an online catalog of Japanese TATARS, and WEST TURKISTAN. Searching by research documents published from 1868 until now. IRAN/PERSIA produces about 10 percent of all the Although it provides both Japanese and English documents in the database. language versions of the search interface, the The LANGUAGE section offers 15 separate Japanese interface is more comprehensively indexed check boxes for the language in which a document was and produces more search results than the English written. More than 95 percent of the documents in the The 90-year Evolution of Japan’s Academic Interest in Iran ｜ Sakurai 31 Figure 1. Number of Documents on IRAN/PERSIA by Year of Publication 1929-2003 Source: Bibliographical Database of Islamic and Middle East Studies in Japan 1868-2015 日本における中東・イスラーム研究文献DB http://search.tbias.jp/ 32 Journal of Islamic Area Studies Vol.11 Figure 2. Number of Documents on IRAN/PERSIA by Year of Publication 2004-2015 Source: Bibliographical Database of Islamic and Middle East Studies in Japan 1868-2015. 日本における中東・イスラーム研究文献DB http://search.tbias.jp/ database are in JAPANESE, but you can also search RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY, REFERENCE for documents in ENGLISH, GERMAN, FRENCH, & GENERAL (7% each); ARTS & CULTURE RUSSIAN, ARABIC, PERSIAN, TURKISH, (4%); LITERATURE (3%); GEOGRAPHY, LAW, ITALIAN, UZBEK, CHAGATAI TURKISH, LINGUISTICS (2% each); and SCIENCE & KOREAN, GEORGIAN, INDONESIAN, and TECHNOLOGY (1%). AZERBAIJANI. Narrowing the 1929 to 2015 search from The SUBJECT section is divided into 13 all documents to those dealing with IRAN/ categories for the subject matter a document PERSIA produced POLITICS (19%); HISTORY covers. These are REFERENCE & GENERAL, (incl. Archeology) (16%); ECONOMICS RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY, GEOGRAPHY, (11%); SOCIOLOGY & ANTHROPOLOGY, HISTORY (incl. Archeology), LAW, POLITICS, INTERACTIONS WITH JAPAN, LITERATURE, ECONOMICS, SOCIOLOGY & ANTHROPOLOGY, ARTS & CULTURE (9% each); REFERENCE & LINGUISTICS, LITERATURE, ARTS & GENERAL, RELIGION & PHILOSOPHY (4% CULTURE, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY, and each); GEOGRAPHY, LINGUISTICS (3% each); INTERACTIONS WITH JAPAN. Most of these LAW, and SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY (1% categories offer multiple sub-category check boxes for each). further refining searches. The exceptions are categories Although this database is the most comprehensive offering just one check box each, namely the general catalog of documents on Islam and the Middle East category itself. by the scholars based in Japan, it has a shortcoming As this database is continuously updated, the that should be noted. Until it closed in March 2003, search results sometimes change, typically increasing. the database was maintained by the Toyo Bunko’s The numbers of documents used for this paper are UNESCO East Asia Cultural Research Center. Since based on searches conducted from June to August then, the database has been continuously updated, 2018, and should thereafter be considered approximate. but the reduced funding has limited human resource 9 Of the total of over 53,000 documents published capacity