Chapter 32

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Chapter 32

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• Publié par: ifydesut
• Nombre de lectures: 49
• Langue: Français
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

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C h a p t e r 3 2 Iran

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A Mousavi supporter donned green, the color of Mousavi’s campaign, at a 2009 election rally. The rigged election brought massive protests, especially by young Iranians.

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T HE I MPACT OF THE P AST The trouble with being a crossroads is that your country becomes a target for conquest. I European-speaking invaders took over Persia about the fift B e. C laidand .ury ectntn hef siroeht sab  subsequent Persian culture. Their most famous kings: Cyrus and Darius in B t. C h.e sixth century The invasions never ceased, though: the Greeks under Alexander in the third and fourth centu B . C the Arab Islamic conquest in the sevent., A h. D  ,T.ntceu hrtkrsi in ibeselevthe nec htne,yruty r Mongols in the thirteenth century, and many others. The repeated pattern was one of conqu the founding of a new dynasty, and its falling apart as quarrelsome heirs broke it into p kingdoms. This fragmentation set up the country for easy conquest again.

Iran Why Iran Matters The study of Iran helps us understand the seething resentment of a Middle East caught betwe Islam and modernization. Although Iran differs from its Arab neighbors in language (Persian) a religion (the Shia branch of Islam), they share the pruodbdleo msf nil oea w-art ginizilabstdeh lt ditional political arrangements. There was no way the Middle East could have moved smoothly from monarc Q h U t E o STIONS TO C ONSIDER democracy. Can it now? Iran, having gone throu major revolution in 1979, could experience anothe  1. What ha rigged 2009 elections revealed how much Iranian to Iran’s  s d  g e e v o el g o r p ap m h e y nt c ? ontributed rule by clerics. Even Iran’s clerical establishment  2 How does Iran differ from Arab . split. Is Iran’s Islamic Republic, one of the world  countries? theocracies, a stable and durable answer to the pr  3. What is am   odernizin?rant modernizing Muslim lands? If not, what is?  Why do they fail? g ty 4. What factors brought Iran’s M rI fi nana sira u och4 0,0 aobev d plateau around a saera lniar erev lea smeSo. eless  Ievolutioslamic R oy dluow woH.5 ?n ’sanIrn aiplexu  ev ?ucite exudlaoreis mWho  some get sufficient rain only for sparse sheep p powerful? this part of the world, irrigation made civilizatio ?noiec sngriatizarul itnoinazya b sa wl6.Dooderes m ble, and whatever disrupted waterworks had de 7. How would you explain the consequences. Persia’s location made it an i power struggle in Iran? trade route between East and West, one of the l r?otheach doe srotnuedm n si emA acirdna arI 8.w Hoveha tween the Middle East and Asia. Persia thus be 9. Why is the Persian Gulf region crossroads of civilizations and one of the earlie strategic? great civilizations.

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Western Penetration It is too simple to say Western cultural, economic, and colonial penetration brought down great Persian empire. Safavid Persia was attacked from several directions, mostly by neigh Muslim powers: the Ottoman Turks from the west, Uzbeks from the north, and Afghans from

536 Chapter 32 Iran IslamReligion founded by  tfo - m sof roonnwn, kIraicfifo saw ti( airsPes  arytois hlaylr nemade Muhammad. t ciceizativil  tnaicnengfi dam he taty  odsan haht snoiltrap ,t  in 1935), resemnoylre aei h trsano selbihC  .anhtoB s,erel fouf idtsehtni l“ ot n ShiaMinority branch of Islam. nations.” When Iran awoke, it was far behind the West,sleep of SunniMainstream Islam. which, like China, Iran views as an adversary. If and how Iran will move into modernity is one of our major questions. Although it does not look or sound like it,FPaerrss)is a iian ( member of the broad Indo-European family of languages; the neighboring Arabic and Turki not. Today, Farsi is the mother tongue of about half of Iranians. Another fifth speak Persian-re languages (such as Kurdish). A quarter speak a Turkic language, and some areas speak Ara other tongues. The non-Farsi speakers occupy the Iranian periphery and have at times bee content with rule by Persians. In Iranian politics today, to be descended from one of the Persian minorities is sometimes held against politicians.

The Arab Conquest Allah’s prophet Muhammad died in Arabia in 632, but his new faith spreIasdl   alimke wildfire. means “submission” (to God’s will), and this was to be hastened by the sword. Islam arrived Iran by military conquest. The remnant of the Sassanid Empire, already exhausted by centu warfare with Byzantium, was easily beaten by the Arabs at Qadisiya in 637 and within centuries Persia was mostly Muslim. Adherents of the old religion, Zoroastrianism, fled to I where today they are a small, prosperous minority known as Parsis (see page 454). The Arab conquest was a major break with the past. In contrast to the sharp social strat tion of Persian tradition, Islam taught that all Muslims were, at least in a spiritual sense, e Persia adopted the Arabic script, and many Arab words enriched Persian. Persian culture fl the other way, too, as the Arabs copied Persian architecture and civil administration. For six turies, Persia was swallowed up by the Arab empires, but in 1055 the Seljuk Turks invaded Central Asia and conquered most of the Middle East. As usual, their rule soon fell apart into small states, easy prey for Genghis Khan, the Mongol “World Conqueror” whose horde thun in from the east in 1219. One of his descendants who ruled Persia embraced Islam at the that century. This is part of a pattern Iranians are proud of: “We may be conquered,” they sa the conqueror ends up adopting our superior culture and becomes one of us.” The coming of the Safavid dynasty in 1501 boosted development of a distinctly Iranian i tity. The Safavids practiced a minority version of IsSlhaiab xoo  ns(ee) and depage 539-d leal cm creed it Persia’s state religion. Most of their subjects sSwuitncnhi tom ro fedslIa dna masaihS er this day. Neighboring Sunni powers immediately attacked Safavid Persia, but this enabled th regime to consolidate its control and develop an Islam with Persian characteristics.

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