Iranian Courts Research Articles

Playing the fool: jesters of the Safavid and Zand courts

AbstractThis article looks at the history of jesters affiliated with the Iranian court during the Safavid and Zand periods. I present several case studies of jesters (dalqak), featuring Kal ʿEnāyat and Dalāleh Qezī from the Safavid period and Lūṭī Ṣāleḥ from the Zand period. From various primary resources including memoirs, European travelogues, and court-associated chronicles, I relate several accounts associated with these personalities and describe their unique relationship with the ruling shāh of their time. Through various staged and spontaneous performances involving irony, subterfuge, and satire, jesters – as embodied “mirrors for princes” – demonstrate the inherent precarity of the shāh's rule and the need to be accountable to his subjects. In comparing the Safavid jester to others across time and place, the performative simulation of transcending the status quo's gender, class, political, and moralistic boundaries will be shown to help preserve them.

Buying modernization. Western NGOs and gender politics in Pahlavi Iran

ABSTRACT This article discusses the entanglement of an international women’s NGO, the International Council of Women (ICW), the Pahlavi state and Iranian female elite activists. Beginning in the late 1960s, the Iranian court started financially supporting this western NGO and subsequently its discourse regarding ‘modern women’. By doing so, the Shah strengthened his own image as a modern ruler. The ICW was financially unstable and accepted money from the autocratic regime without any reluctance. The discourse the Shah invested in, ICW’s discourse, was adopted by Iranian elite activists, whose activities were supported and controlled by the state. This study shows that this three-sided collaboration enforced a notion of modernity that failed to take class inequalities into consideration, thereby ignoring subaltern women.

The enforcement of jurisdiction agreements in Iran

Parties to a contract may designate the court or courts of a particular country to decide their disputes which have arisen or may arise from a particular legal relationship. Many countries give party autonomy its binding effect in selecting the competent court and enforcing jurisdiction agreements. There is complete silence in Iranian law regarding the enforcement of jurisdiction agreements. The current study examines the enforcement of jurisdiction agreements under Iranian law. This study investigates whether parties in international disputes can agree to confer jurisdiction to Iranian non-competent courts and whether they can agree to exclude the jurisdiction of competent Iranian courts in favour of foreign courts. The study contends that parties can agree to grant jurisdiction to Iran's non-competent courts unless the excluded foreign court has exclusive jurisdiction to hear the dispute. On the other hand, parties may agree to exclude the jurisdiction of the competent Iranian courts in favour of foreign courts unless the Iranian courts assert exclusive jurisdiction over the dispute.

Ottomans and Iranians at Ctesiphon

Ottomans and Iranians at Ctesiphon Zeinab Azarbadegan (bio) KEYWORDS archaeology, Ottoman Iraq, photography, Qajar Iran On the first page of his 1921 book on the triumphs of the Ottoman army in Iraq during the First World War, Mehmed Emin [Yurdakul], a Turkish nationalist poet and politician who had been stationed in Mosul, connected two points in the history of Ctesiphon, an ancient ruin located in the southern deserts of Baghdad. 1 He made a direct connection between Ottoman history and early Islamic history, centering Ctesiphon as a site where Muslims had triumphed over two powerful "infidel" empires: that is, the Sasanians in 637, and the British in 1915. 2 The cover of his book also emphasized the many histories of this place, depicting Ctesiphon alongside the tomb of Selman-ı Pak (Fig. 1). Selman was the only Persian companion of the Prophet, who is remembered as participating in the conquest by inviting the local population to Islam. 3 His tomb is, in this sense, a constant reminder of the Islamic history of this site, even if one is unaware of how Ctesiphon has been remembered in Perso-Islamic historiography. In this article, I consider the meanings that the history of Ctesiphon evoked during the late nineteenth century, particularly between the Ottomans and Qajar Iran—both of whom had a shared understanding of the history of the place through the shared heritage of Perso-Islamic history. Though immensely important for the engagement of the Ottomans, the Qajars, and the local Iraqi population with the past of the region, Ctesiphon did not garner as much attention [End Page 377] Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. Cover of Selman-ı Pak Meydan Muharebesi – Ktesifon ve Zeyli by Mehmed Emin, published in Istanbul by Matbaa-yi Askeriye in 1921. [End Page 378] from Europeans. 4 This was because it was not a Biblical site, the main object of nineteenth-century European archaeology in Ottoman Iraq. 5 By moving away from how Europeans told histories of the place, I demonstrate the old and new ways that the Ottomans and Iranians engaged and contested ancient history and sites in service of their own imperial aims. Ctesiphon's initial importance in Islamic history lies in the fact that it was the site of the last battle between the Sasanians and the Muslims, in which the Sasanian Empire fell and the Muslims became triumphant over a vast and powerful state. But Ctesiphon looms much larger in Islamic history because it was deemed as a site of miracle by Muhammad. In Perso-Islamic historiography, the great Arch of Ctesiphon cracked on the occasion of the birth of the Prophet. 6 As described in the fourth Baghdad salname, published in 1883 in Baghdad by the provincial administrative elite of the province, the second miracle was that the building did not collapse and had withstood for the past "thirteen hundred years" despite the crack. 7 The crack, which was supposedly visible even in 1883, was a harbinger of the Muslim triumph achieved eighty years after its appearance. The Sasanians were an ancient Persian or Iranian Empire, but the Ottomans considered themselves as an inheritor of this Perso-Islamic past. This was clearly demonstrated in the Baghdad salnames , which contain tables of important events and dynasties as well as narrative histories putting the Ottomans into a clear and continuous line of kingship encompassing all the ancient Iranian empires, including those before the Sasanians. 8 The Ottomans emulated the empires before them and incorporated Sasanian history and its sites in such a way as to be both considered as inheritors of that heritage but also triumphant over it. 9 The narrative history presented in the fourth Baghdad salname, which included the history of Ctesiphon, was translated into Persian for the Qajar [End Page 379] court in Tehran. 10 This was part of the Iranian court's compilation of knowledge to produce a comprehensive geographical encyclopedia of the "Iranian lands" called Mira't al-Buldan (Mirror of the Lands), which included lands outside of the Qajar domains, such as Baghdad and Ctesiphon, within its scope. 11 The history of Ctesiphon was told in a separate entry on "iwan" or iwan-i kasra, and...

Forgiveness as a technology of the state

Forgiveness as a technology of the state

The Place of Interest in Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Family Law of Iran

According to the explicit provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 (CRC) and the Family Protection Act of 1391, the best interests of children are at the top of all affairs. But Using expediency means exercising taste or view without Assessment case in the laws and decisions will shake of expediency.The child interest in CRC has elements Including communication with parents, attention to comments and views, Identity, Health, safety, Education and in each case, must be examined to achieve the highest child benefits. Therefore, the examination of these elements is necessary even in the same subjects due to the difference in children's conditions in judicial process. In the present article, by descriptive analytical method , an attempt has been made to explain the elements of Interests in the CRC and its application to the laws of the Iranian family, to greatly reduce the ambiguities in it and to clarify its main place, Iran's laws have explicitly introduced the family court and judges as the competent authorities. But, while confirming, CRC take into account the specialisation in the children's affairs, the Adequate facilities and providing the expert opinion to the judges as necessary factors to achieve the best interests. Therefore, attention, recognize and prioritize the elements of interest mentioned in the Convention on the Rights of the Child will largely prevent the adoption of personal interpretations of decisions related to children in Iranian courts and will provide the highest levels of child protection and care.

Атрибуция тронных кресел царей Бориса Годунова и Михаила Романова в XIX—XXI веках: исторические и искусствоведческие аспекты

Древние тронные кресла отечественных монархов из собрания Музеев Московского Кремля были неоднократно опубликованы на протяжении XIX — XXI вв., но и сегодня нельзя считать работу по их атрибуции законченной. Примером тому — о два древнейших артефакта — тронные кресла царей Бориса Годунова и Михаила Романова: вопрос определения времени и места их создания остается неразрешенным. Ошибка исследователей заключается в том, что их внимание сосредоточено на ювелирном декоре предметов, не был применен метод описания и анализа художественных и технических приемов изготовления артефактов в целом, а также архивная документация изучена в недостаточной степени. По мнению автора, упомянутые предметы являются образцами персидской работы XV–XVI вв., в то время как прежде кресло царя Бориса Годунова датировалось 1603-1605 гг., а атрибуция принадлежавшего царю Михаилу Романову варьировалась между второй половиной XVI — первой третью XVII вв., причисляя изделие к московской или иранской работе. The article examines two ancient throne chairs of Russian monarchs from the collection of the Moscow Kremlin Museums: the chair of Tsar Boris Godunov, which is believed to have been received at the beginning of the 17th century as part of the ambassadorial gifts from Shah Abbas I, and the chair which researchers associate with the name of Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich. The aim of the article is a comprehensive study of these objects based not only on their external description, but also on the identification of their structure, parts hidden by metal and woven coatings. In addition, for the first time, the author considers the chairs as pieces of furniture art, trying to “embed” them into the line of the development of artistic styles. In the course of the research, the method of description and analysis of artistic and technical methods of making artifacts, methods of comparative analysis and interpretation of historical sources were applied. The materials of the study were archival documents, published sources and the results of research by Russian historians and museologists. Various historical evidence about the investigated artifacts and views on their dating, reflected in documents and research works, is analyzed. The author compiled descriptions of the throne chairs and made assumptions about the possibility of a later change in their appearance. The analysis of the form and decor made it possible to attribute the throne chair of Tsar Boris Godunov as an example of a Persian work of the 15th–16th centuries; the use of European heritage is clearly traced in the creation of its artistic image. The attribution of the chair of Tsar Mikhail Fyodorovich cannot be considered final, because today there are several versions of it (a sample of the work of the Moscow Kremlin Workshops of the 17th century, precious plates of Iranian production of, presumably, the 16th century were used in its decoration; Iran, Isfahan, second half of the 16th century (?); work of Iranian court masters of the first third of the 17th century). This throne chair presumably has a pair – the chair of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich: outwardly these objects are remarkably similar and look like a set, in which, with the general logic of shaping, only the manner of decoration is somewhat different. The visual analysis of the monument allows classifying it as a sample of Persian work, made under the influence of the Renaissance art, which spread from Italy to Europe in the 15th–16th centuries. The need to study these rarities with the use of modern technologies and research methods is emphasized.

Civil Liability of Martial Artists for Inflicted Injuries

Background and Aim: Sometimes, there is a lawsuit against the martial arts champion to claim bodily harm inflicted by them. This injury can be inflicted in the clubs against the training opponent, or in the streets, to attack or defend against an invader as well as in official matches. The main question is civil liability of warriors for harm done to another. Materials and Methods: This is a descriptive Study. Ethical Considerations: All ethical considerations as well as authenticity of the texts have been observed. Findings: In countries like the United States, there are many cases in the courts about Struggles leading to injury during sports. In Iranian courts, despite the consent of the participant in the competition or club exercises, this defense sometimes is not accepted and then coaches or warriors are liable to compensate. The present article examines the civil consequences of non – vital hand and foot blows in the streets or at the club during training with competition. It further suggests full insurance coverage of clubs and competitions. Conclusion: If an athlete inflict a harm to others during the game, if it is unintentional, it does not results in responsibility; but if he intentionally inflict harms to others, according to article 32 of the Civil Liability Act, he will be responsible for compensation .

Approaching the Unidroit Principles with Antagonism: The Case of Iranian Courts

On 28 October 2015, Tehran’s Public Court, Branch 12,1 invoked the Unidroit Principles of International Commercial Contracts (PICC) to ‘supplement’ Iranian domestic laws.2 This was the first time that an Iranian court had cited the PICC. However, the Appellate Court approached this with antagonism and implied that invocation of the PICC constituted one of the grounds for appeal under Article 348 of the Iranian Civil Procedure Code.3 In the Appellate Court’s view, the reference to the PICC ran contrary to the Sharia principles and Iranian statutes. This note examines the Appellate Court’s decision. However, before turning to the Appellate Court’s decision, this note will provide a brief description of the Iranian judicial system. There are three levels of judiciary, and the authority to establish courts and determine their territorial jurisdiction and the number of branches has been vested in the head of Iranian judiciary.4 At the lowest level are public courts, also known as first instance courts or courts of general jurisdiction.5 The public courts have general jurisdiction to hear all civil and criminal disputes unless the issue falls within the jurisdiction of the special courts, such as revolutionary and clerical courts.6 Public courts are set up in districts, counties, and specific areas of large cities.

Arbitration Agreement in Insurance Law: The Case of Iran

After a brief review of insurance and arbitration in the Sharia and in Iranian laws, inspired in principle by western laws, the article examines the types of the arbitration clause in insurance contracts, the problem of validity of arbitration clause and the its effects between the parties and as regards the third parties, with some comparative views. Although Iranian laws have recognized arbitration clauses in insurance policies and Iranian courts usually uphold such clauses, the article makes a distinction between predispute and post-dispute arbitration clauses. As insurance disputes most often relate to the interests of third parties (third party beneficiary, third party victim, third party insured,…) and as Iranian courts are very reluctant to extent the effect of arbitration clause to third parties or to consider it as assigned to subrogees and transferees, a bilateral arbitration clause in an insurance policy, which in many cases drafted in an ambiguous way and imposed to policyholder by unilateral will of the insurer inserted in general conditions, usually circulates a claim between courts and arbitral tribunals and risks to negatively affects the resolution of disputes. On the contrary, a post-dispute multilateral arbitration agreement, protects well enough the interests of the contracting parties (policyholder and insurer) and non-contracting parties and must be encouraged.

The Visual Making of the Harem

In the nineteenth century, photography rapidly imposed itself as a new way of capturing real-time visions in many parts of the world. However, the photographs did not necessarily lead to a replacement or revaluation of entrenched perceptions of the temporal and spatial context in which these images were captured. This paper revisits the case of harem women photographed in the Iranian court in the nineteenth century, and the current representation of harem women in Turkey where this institution officially existed until 1926. As a group of graduate students in Turkey, our encounter with photographs of female residents of the Iranian court provoked this questioning. These women apparently did not conform to our immediate notions of the harem’s physiognomic conventions. In our complex relation with the Ottoman past, and partly because of lack of visual research, our visual codes about this institution seem to have been shaped by the long tradition of Orientalist codes and depictions.

An Investigation into the Certainty of Provisions Based on Confession and Experts’ Consensual Judgments and Perspectives in Legal Lawsuits in Iranian Courts

In legal disputes, in some cases which judges cannot issue verdict due to the specialty of the matter, an expert or more are assigned by court as requested by parties to issue verdict. Now this question arises is that can the verdict issued based on confession and experts’ perspectives be objected by parties? This study seeks an answer to this question by examining Civil Code and verdicts of Supreme Court as well as current literature.

False Testimony and Oath: Reopening a Legal Case in Iranian Courts

In Iranian legal laws, hearing a case ends by issuing the final judgment. However, the law has provided conditions where the individuals can apply for retrial so that their rights will be protected and losses will be prevented. This means that court will rehear a case for which it has issued a final judgment. Now, each of the parties to the claim who has applied for reopening must prove the conditions of reopening. One of the conditions is proving the falsehood in the claim. Yet, the question is ‘under which conditions the falsehood brings about the annulment of the judgment issued’. The present research aims to study the effects of falsehood cases in the possibility of applying for reopening and annulling the judgment issued.

Political and Social Applications of European Physicians in Nasseri Period of Qajar Court

The penetration of European and foreigners' to the Iranian court which had started from Safavid continued also in the following periods. After the Russo- Iranian war and the reforms of Abbas Mirza, the presence of Europeans in Iran increased and various people in different duties like education, military tasks, economy and medicine were recruited. Among the Europeans who were in Iran, the physicians had the special status. From Mohammad Shah Qajar era, court physician were selected from Europeans. The penetration of European physicians increased in Nasser al-Din's long reign. In this period, the shah's private physician had the best position and usually was consulted by shah and courtiers. By increasing the European physicians' social and political influence in Nasseri court, European countries tried to select the shah's private physician from their nationals. So, the European physicians' applications exceeded their professional and scientific duties became a political issue, and were on the agenda of European ministers and plenipotentiary ministers of England and France. Through the present article, the political and social applications of European physicians and their role in the political relationship of Iran with the European first grade powers in Nasseri period was studied.

Jurisdiction of Iranian Courts to Deal with Civil Lawsuits against Foreign States

The principle of immunity of state and their property from foreign state courts is a natural consequence of the adoption of the principle of equal sovereignty of states in the International law and the international community. The principle, except with the consent of a state and outside the exceptions generally accepted in international practice, prevents domestic courts to exercise jurisdiction over a foreign state or their property. However, some countries contrary to the exceptions have taken some steps to violate the principle of state immunity through legislative and judicial measures. In this regard, the Iranian government has been the subject of numerous lawsuits in Federal courts of the United States through which it has been sentenced in absentia to pay more than $ 12 billion. "Thelaw of Jurisdiction of the Justice of the Islamic Republic of Iran to Deal with Civil Lawsuits against Foreign States" is countermeasures to deal with the government violated the immunity of the Iranian government or its officials. Regardless of the many conceptual objections on this law, the act is in place to respond to a political rival with strong political incentives and without approaching to the foundations and the concepts of immunity of the state and adopting a clear stance against it. Thus, despite the adoption of this countermeasure, unfortunately, the Iranian government lacks a coherent formulated policy on the subject of the state immunity and in particular on how to deal with the governments violated its immunity.

Arbitration of investment disputes under Iranian investment treaties

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the remedies available under Iranian investment treaties for settlement of investment disputes. This includes the obligation of the Iranian Government to provide foreign investors access to international arbitration. The sensitivity of the controversial Iranian nuclear program and the imposition of economic and financial sanctions on Iran will lead to the termination of many contracts between companies from Europe and the West and Iran, therefore, a viable solution must exist to address the rights and remedies of foreign investors. This article aims to provide an insight into Iranian treaties.Design/methodology/approachThe main method was a survey of different treaties signed by Iran.FindingsThe discussion revealed that there are currently more than 50 treaties signed and ratified by Iran which provide arbitration as a dispute resolution forum. There are many treaties between the member countries of the European Union which make it important for the research. Iranian treaties guarantee international law remedies to foreign companies with investment in Iran by allowing them to seek redress in an international forum.Practical implicationsIran has not signed the ICS1D Convention, meaning that the arbitration proceedings will be subject to ad hoc arbitration rules of UNCITRAL. Furthermore, ICSID rules on enforcement of the award do not apply. Therefore, the winning party must go through the Iranian courts to enforce its awards.Originality/valueThe value of the paper is to government organization, international institutions and multinational companies with substantial economic interest in Iranian energy and natural resources. For the first time, the topic has been covered in a research paper. There are no articles in Iranian bilateral investment treaties (BITs) addressing dispute resolution through arbitration. This is the first piece of work that actually conducted a thorough analysis of Iranian BITs.

Iranian Judicial System (Court's Structure)

In an Iranian court the judge acts as prosecutor, jury, and arbiter; the system is a form of the inquisitorial system. However, according to Article 168 of Iran's constitution, in certain cases involving the media a jury is allowed to be the arbiter. The judge holds absolute power. In practice, judges may be overwhelmed by cases, and not have the time to excogitate about each case. All judges are certified in Islamic law, and most, but not all, are members of the ruling clergy. I'm going to explain courts structure in this article.

Rudi Matthee. « Negotiating across cultures: the Dutch Van Leene Mission to the Iranian court of Shah Sulaymān, 1689-1692 ». Eurasian Studies, III/1, 2004, pp. 35-63.

Another contribution by Rudi Matthee to the subject of Safavid-European encounters, and one which confirms the importance of diplomatic history for the study of mutual perceptions.The Author considers the relationship between Safavid Persia and the European powers (and their India Companies) as a form of “controlled relationship” (following the definition provided by Urs Bitterli) rather than of “contained conflict” (in the words of Sanjay Subrahmanyam). The mission of the VOC envoy Johan Van...

Karbala Drag Kings and Queens

Taziyeh historians claim that the introduction of veils into the passion play was meant to cover the fact that only men and children took part in the representa- tion of the Karbala tragedy. Women did not participate as actors—or, rather, role-carriers—on the public stage. To depict female characters such as the daugh- ter of the Prophet, Fatemeh, mortal men donned the veil. This minor twist has had major consequences for the ancient traditions of painting in Qajar Iran (- ). Samuel Peterson writes: During the last half of the fifteenth century and until the Qajar period, the veil was an exclusive attribute of holy personages and was not used to cover the faces of women. However, once it became in taziyeh produc- tions a standard part of the costume of women—a sign of their modesty (...) it becomes in Karbela paintings a standard feature of Alid women. No longer used so consistently as the sacred symbol it formerly had been, in Qajar religious painting the veil is ascribed somewhat arbitrarily to holy figures; thus the faces of the Shiih Imams appear veiled and unveiled. (:) On the stage, the tone of the voice and the presence of the veil indicate the gen- der of the character in the taziyeh performances. Young men with soft voices por- trayed female characters; young girls performed certain minor female roles until the age of nine—the age of maturity. One of the early Qajar performers of women's roles, Haji Mulla Hussein from Peek Zarand-Saveh, played female characters so well that each year he had to leave his farm for the months of Muharram and Safar in order to perform at the Takiyeh Dowlat (Royal Takiyeh). In the late Qajar period, Mulla Farjullah Sangani, Haji Mulla Hussein, and Gholi Khan Shahi were three of the most famous female role- carriers and were specifically hired to play the role of Imam Ali's daughter, Zinat (Beizai () :-). With the introduction of the gramophone to the Iranian court under the rule of Muzzaffar al-Din Shah, Gholi Khan Shahi's be- came one of the most recorded voices of the period (Rejai :). According to Bahram Beizai, the female role-carrier would wear a long black shirt which was sometimes decorated with flowers and which reached down to the back of the leg. A second black piece of fabric would cover the head, the arms, and the hands. A third would cover the face, so that only a sliver of the eyes and

Rustam‐i dastan

Rustam's Origins are Certainly Complex, Multilayered, and it Would seem only partly Iranian. His legend itself indicates this; his mother is a foreigner living in Kabul and descended from Zahhak, so that both Sudabah and Isfandiyar are able to refer to him as demon-born, (dīv-zād). Mehrdad Bahar has concluded that much of his legend is Saka, or Scythian, and that it also has strong parallels and probable connections with that of Indra, the Vedic god of war. His integration into Iranian national history as its defender and savior betrays some strains: he is Iran's greatest champion but he enjoys very uneasy relations with some of Iran's kings (notably Kavus and Gushtasp), his sons Suhrab and Faramarz each launch independent attacks against the Iranian court, and his own last battle is against the crown prince of Iran whom he kills. Half foreigner, with a partially demonic ancestry, a man who kills the nation's heir apparent and whose sons declare war on two different Iranian royal families—these are troubling attributes for an ethnic hero, and point to some ambiguity in the evolution of his legend.