Iranian Intellectuals Research Articles

Traumatisme postrévolutionnaire et romans autobiographiques : La deuxième génération d’exilées iraniennes en France

The Islamic revolution of 1979 and its developments have been the major reasons for the mass migration of Iranian intellectuals to the West and the main topic of the Iranian diaspora’s literary texts. However, since the turn of the twenty-first century, especially in France, a new generation of Iranian women novelists has created a shift in traditional post-revolutionary memoir writing by focusing on more individual themes such as childhood, the body, and trauma. In this article, the author explores the various ways in which two of these novelists, Negar Djavadi and Chahdortt Djavann, have represented levels of trauma in their auto-fictional narratives of the Islamic revolution. In this regard, starting from a conceptual representation of trauma as reliving the historical past by protagonists, it is shown how both psychological and cultural definitions of the trauma are depicted in these novels. The article suggests that this multidirectional approach allows the authors to overcome the alienation caused by the Islamic revolution's contradictory nature in a postcolonial era.

Meysam Badamchi, Post-Islamist Political Theory: Iranian Intellectuals and Political Liberalism in Dialogue

Meysam Badamchi, <i>Post-Islamist Political Theory: Iranian Intellectuals and Political Liberalism in Dialogue</i>

Iranian Intellectuals, the National Heritage and the History of Iranian Architecture in the Period between the Constitution and the end of Reza Shah’s Reign; A Story of Conflict and Evolution

روشنفکران ایرانیِ دوران مشروطه و رضاشاه، با گرایشی که به برخی از مبانی دوران جدید جهان داشتند، تلاش می­کردند تا آن­ها را در جامعۀ ایرانی نهادینه کنند. ازجمله این تلاش­ها، تدوینِ دو مفهومِ «میراث ملّی معماری» و «تاریخ معماری ایران» بود. این دو مفهوم که خود قوام­یافته از مفاهیم دیگری نظیر «زمان، گذشته، تاریخ، و آثار گذشته» بودند، در اندیشۀ روشنفکران مؤلفه­هایی را سامان دادند که هم از منظر بررسی مبانی این مفاهیم و تاریخشان، و هم از منظر وجوه تقابلی و تکاملی حایز ارزش و ازریابی هستند. در این مقاله تلاش می­شود با روشی تفسیری­­ـ تاریخی در مقابلۀ اسناد و اقوال از طریق بررسی اسناد دست اول همچون متون روشنفکران آن دوران و استدلال منطقی از درون آثاری که متفکران متأخر در شرح آن­ها نوشته­اند، به هدف پژوهش یعنی پاسخ­گویی به پرسش­های تحقیق پرداخته شود. در این پژوهش، با بررسی دو مفهومِ فوق نزد روشنفکران ایرانی، تلاش می­شود تا وجوه تکاملی و تقابلیِ این دو مفهوم مورد نظر ایشان بازیابی شود. به نظر می­رسد که، مفاهیمِ نوی همچون ایدۀ پیشرفت (ترقی) پیونددهندۀ این دو مفهوم بوده­اند و از سوی دیگر، وجود مرزهایی میانِ مفهوم میراث ملّی معماری ایران و مفهوم تاریخ معماری ایران نشان­دهندۀ نوعی تقابل میان این دو است که بیشتر ناظر بر جایگاه مفهومِ میراث ملّی معماری در مفهوم­سازی­هایی با اهدافی مشخص نظیر تلقین حس شیفتگی و عظمت و بزرگی ایران گذشته به ایرانیان دورۀ مشروطه و رضاشاه است و جایگاهِ مفهومِ تاریخ معماری در روش­شناسی برخورد با تاریخ، که از ­نظری علمی است و در این مقاله بر ضرورت نکته­سنجی و دقت­ و توجه به جزئیات برای درکِ تاریخ به شکل دقیقِ آن تأکید می­شود.

Obstacles of Constitutional Intellectuals in Forming the Public Sphere as a Prelude to Iranian Democracy

This study tries to examine the role of intellectuals of the constitutional era in the formation of the public sphere and to answer the question of why Iranian intellectuals have not been able to turn a critical dialogue culture as a prelude to democracy in Iran into a public phenomenon. ? Findings of this study Using analytical, descriptive method and using library collection, it has been concluded that the authoritarian nature of government in Iran, the power of the powerful to dominate their votes, dominance and addressing the subordinates and appearances instead of the principle and foundation by intellectuals. This historical (constitutional) period prevented the culture of dialogue from becoming a critical prelude to democracy in Iran.

Continuity and Change in the Perception of Iranian Elites toward the Korean Crisis in Donald Trump’s Presidency

The escalation of conflicts on the Korean Peninsula during the first half of Trump`s presidency, also the new developments following the Trump – Kim summits in Singapore, Hanoi and the DMZ in one side and the U.S. unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on the other side have made the Iranian intellectuals to review the Korean crisis more thoroughly and reflect their attitudes about the future of issues in the peninsula and the U.S. options towards Pyongyang. Although, it seems most of the Iranian scholars believe the Korean crisis has no military solution and the only path for peace in the Peninsula would be serious and balanced negotiations with a special focus on the roots of the crisis, two trends of perception toward the crisis could be identified among the Iranian elites. The findings of the paper demonstrate that the U.S. behavior toward JCPOA, has raised further negative views about the future of any constructive negotiation on North Korean nuclear program among the Iranian intellectuals but their focus on U.S. use of hard power and harsh options have shifted to the implementation of American soft power and psychological war.

The Conceptualization of Guardianship in Iranian Intellectual History (1800–1989) Reading Ibn ͑Arabī's Theory of Wilāya in the Shī͑a World by Leila Chamankhah

The Conceptualization of Guardianship in Iranian Intellectual History (1800–1989) Reading Ibn ͑Arabī's Theory of Wilāya in the Shī͑a World by Leila Chamankhah

Cohnella sp. A01 laccase: thermostable, detergent resistant, anti-environmental and industrial pollutants enzyme

Laccase (EC 1.10.3.2; benzenediol; oxygen oxidoreductases) is a multi-copper oxidase that catalyzes the oxidation of phenols, polyphenols, aromatic amines, and different non-phenolic substrates with concomitant reduction of O2 to H2O. Enzymatic oxidation techniques have the potential of implementation in different areas of industrial fields. In this study, the Cohnella sp. A01 laccase gene was cloned into pET-26 (b+) vector and was transformed to E. coli BL21. Then it was purified using His tag affinity (Ni sepharose resin) chromatography. The estimated molecular weight was approximately 60 kDa using SDS-PAGE. The highest enzyme activity and best pH for 2,6-dimethoxyphenol (DMP) oxidation were recorded as 8 at 90 °C respectively. The calculated half-life and kinetic values including Km, Vmax, turn over number (kcat), and catalytic efficiency (kcat/Km) of the enzyme were 106 min at 90 °C and 686 μM, 10.69 U/ml, 20.3 S−, and 0.029 s−1 μM−1, respectively. The DMP was available as the substrate in all the calculations. Enzyme activity enhanced in the presence of Cu2+, NaCl, SDS, n-hexane, Triton X-100, tween 20, and tween 80, significantly. The binding residues were predicted and mapped upon the modeled tertiary structure of identified laccase. The remaining activity and structural properties of Cohnella sp. A01 laccase in extreme conditions such as high temperatures and presence of metals, detergents, and organic solvents suggest the potential of this enzyme in biotechnological and industrial applications. This process has been patented in Iranian Intellectual Property Centre under License No: 91325.

Ali Shariati and Cosmopolitan Localism

Abstract Leading twentieth-century Iranian public intellectual Ali Shariati has been described by some as a proponent of a project of nativism and cultural authenticity. This article offers an alternative reading of Shariati, one that highlights the germination of his thought in a process of constant oscillation between particular historical-sociopolitical attachments and a decidedly cosmopolitan intellectual horizon. This oscillation, it is argued, while born out of the core-periphery dynamics of commodity and knowledge production within a colonially constructed world order, nevertheless allows Shariati to transcend postcolonial anxieties and nativist traps even as he calls on his fellow Iranian and Muslim intellectuals to attend to resources within the local culture and to delink from Eurocentric and colonially globalized knowledge regimes. In order to place his thought within the broader framework of the emergence and evolution of anti- and decolonial thought, Saffari reads Shariati in dialogue with some of the leading twentieth- and twenty-first-century critics of colonial modernity: Muhammad Iqbal, Frantz Fanon, Enrique Dussel, and Walter D. Mignolo. Saffari argues that the oscillation between local attachments and cosmopolitan vistas in Shariati's work is best understood as a function of his cosmopolitan localism.

The Outside (Kharij) of Tradition in the Aftermath of the Revolution

AbstractAfter Iran's 1979 revolution, the energies that had animated the struggle for a modern Islamic government were partially redirected to the task of the renewal of the Islamic tradition. Paradigmatic of this effort is “the Cultural Revolution” that has sought to combat what Islamic activists perceive as the destructive effects of Western culture and to align the production of knowledge with the teachings of Shi'i Islam. The effort to produce modern Islamic knowledge, however, has paradoxically intensified the translation of European thought and invested it with the ethos of seminary education. Drawing on a long-term engagement with postrevolutionary Iranian intellectuals, including fieldwork in Tehran and Qom, this article offers a historical and anthropological exploration of the interrelated questions of tradition, transmission, and translation. It is ethnographically centered in a seminar in which seminarian-academics translate Carl Schmitt, among others, to make sense of, and intervene in, Islamic politics. It highlights how European concepts and forms of thought come to mediate the relation between seminarian-academics and the Islamic tradition, its forms of knowledge, and its modern politics and argues that the elision of the historical incommensurability of European discourses renders the enacted tradition foreign to itself.

Shoes and Modern Civilization Between Racism and Imperialism: The 1880 Yoshida Masaharu Mission of Meiji Japan to Qajar Iran as Global History

This paper discusses the nineteenth century Meiji Japanese self-reflection on modernity, civilization and identity that was compelled to negotiate between Racism and Imperialism. The Meiji vision of a global world was made up of a hierarchy of nations according to their level of enlightenment and civilization using the West as a benchmark. The study of Yoshida Masaharu’s travel account Kaikyō Tanken Perusha no Tabi (The Expedition to the Islamic World: The Journey to Persia) (Tokyo: Hakubunka, 1894) shows this attitude. Yoshida’s book is also quite valuable as the firsthand account of the Japanese interaction in 1880 with Persia of the Qajar dynasty in Iran as an entry into the Muslim world. Sent by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Japanese Mission was a small-scale version of the famous Iwakura Mission to learn about the West earlier between 1871-1873, as an investigation expedition to study the Muslim Middle East-Islamic affairs. The Japanese Mission of seven members including an Army officer representing the newly established Sanbō Honbu, the Japanese General Staff, and five businessmen, were headed by the envoy Yoshida Masaharu, a liberal Constitutionalist from Tosa domain whose views colored his interpretation of Qajar Iran and Shah Nasir al-Din’s reforms using Western know-how. The Yoshida Mission’s experience shows us some of the enduring perceptions as well as stereotyped images among the general Japanese public even today classifying Islam as an alien religion and the Middle Eastern world as a strange geography: exotic but alien, fascinating but also unfamiliar. Shoes and Modern Civilization Between Racism and Imperialism: The 1880 Yoshida Masaharu Mission of Meiji Japan to Qajar Iran as Global History Selçuk Esenbel Department of History, Boğaziçi University 13 This paper argues that the Yoshida travelogue actually reveals to us the complex cultural and political layers with which Yoshida saw Qajar Iran and provides an instructive journey into the mind of a nineteenth century Meiji Japanese elite who still carried their Edo cultural background as well as the more obvious Westernism of the new regime in order to decipher the global context of Iran. In turn, the Yoshida Mission’s impact on Iranian intellectuals and their subsequent 1906 Constitutional Revolution shows the global influences and connections between the history of two so-called Non-Western worlds in the process of adapting Western forms and ideas in their respective reformist agendas.

Negotiating the Relationship Human – Non-Human as a Question of Meaning in Twentieth Century Iranian Authenticity Discourse: The Role of Ǧalāl Āl-e Aḥmad’s Essay West Infection

Abstract The present article investigates the intellectual and discursive orientation of the culture-critical essay West Infection by the twentieth century Iranian writer Ǧalāl Āl-e Aḥmad (1923–1969). In doing so, it likewise discusses the question of why this particular text was to have so deep and lasting an effect in redirecting the sociocultural modernization debate among Iranian intellectuals from a mainly developmentalist discourse to one about the issues of authenticity and identity. While considering Āl-e Aḥmad’s essay as raising a question of meaning – more specifically the question of human being’s meaning in the face of dehumanization under the spell of technological ‘Westernization’ –, we critically examine, in the course of our study, former interpretive approaches that define Āl-e Aḥmad’s text as reflecting influence on the author of existentialist philosophy. At the same time, we also address scholarly discussions of West Infection that regard it as a manifestation of nativism or leftist anti-capitalism. Rather than trying, in our turn, to pin down what Āl-e Aḥmad has to say to any given ideological or philosophical doctrine, we attempt to understand the use by Āl-e Aḥmad, in his essay, of terms such as ‘authenticity’, ‘alienation’, ‘identity’ and ‘religion’ – some of which are highly evocative of existentialism and of nativism indeed – as constitutive of a discourse that – for all the arguable influence on it of modern ideologies and philosophies – deserves to be treated as a word in its own right in the debate about Iran’s sociocultural situation.

Interpretation and mutability: socio-legal texts of the Quran; three accounts from contemporary Iran

ABSTRACTSince the advent of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, radical changes have taken place in the views of many Iranian scholars regarding the nature of religious belief. In particular, the issue of the compatibility or incompatibility of Islam's socio-legal precepts and the challenges of time and space have become a crucial matter for numerous Iranian intellectuals. This paper discusses how three prominent Iranian intellectuals of the post-revolutionary era, namely Mostafa Malekian, Mohsen Kadivar and Hasan Yousefi-Eshkevari, have put forward arguments in favor of the contingent nature of the Quran's socio-legal passages. The paper argues that these scholars challenge the notion of the immutability of the Quran's socio-legal texts, claiming that they could be applied differently depending on the specific time and place. In this sense, the paper establishes the groundwork for showing how these scholars have re-examined traditional understandings of religion in light of the new challenges that are arising in the modern world.

Significant increase in cyanide degradation by Bacillus sp. M01 PTCC 1908 with response surface methodology optimization

Cyanide is used in many industries despite its toxicity. Cyanide biodegradation is affordable and eco-friendly. Sampling from cyanide-contaminated areas from the Muteh gold mine and isolation of 24 bacteria were performed successfully. The selected bacteria—‘Bacillus sp. M01’—showed maximum tolerance (15 mM) to cyanide and deposited in Persian Type Culture Collection by PTCC No.: 1908. In the primary experiments, effective factors were identified through the Plackett–Burman design. In order to attain the maximum degradation by Bacillus sp. M01 PTCC 1908, culture conditions were optimized by using response surface methodology. By optimizing the effective factor values and considering the interaction between them, the culture conditions were optimized. The degradation percentage was calculated using one-way ANOVA vs t test, and was found to have increased 2.35 times compared to pre-optimization. In all of the experiments, R2 was as high as 91%. The results of this study are strongly significant for cyanide biodegradation. This method enables the bacteria to degrade 86% of 10 mM cyanide in 48 h. This process has been patented in Iranian Intellectual Property Centre under Licence No: 90533.

Islam–science relation from the perspective of post-revolutionary Iranian religious intellectuals

Throughout Islamic history, various arguments have been raised by Muslim scholars concerning how the Quran and scientific knowledge are related to one another. This paper seeks to examine how contemporary Iranian religious intellectuals (rowshanfekrān-e-dīnī) have dealt with the question of the compatibility or incompatibility between Islam and science. In particular, the paper focuses on the writings of two of the most significant reformers of the post-revolutionary era, namely Abdolkarim Soroush and Muhammad Mujtahed Shabestari, concerning the relation between science and religion. The paper also examines the extent to which the ideas of these two thinkers about the relation between Islam and science reflect those of pre-modern and modern Muslim scholars. To do so, I first examine various pre-modern and modern discourses within the Islamic tradition about Islam–science relation as well as the scientific exegesis of the Quran, and then investigate the extent to which Soroush’s and Shabestari’s perspectives are related to such discourses. The central argument of the paper is that the theories proposed by Soroush and Shabestari significantly differ from the views of those modern and pre-modern Muslim scholars who attempt to argue in favour of the dichotomous view that Islam is either compatible or incompatible with scientific knowledge.

Escaping from Orientalized Orientals: Studying &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;Occidentosis&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt; as a Methodological Polemic for Regaining Eastern Identity &amp;lt;i&amp;gt;versus&amp;lt;/i&amp;gt; West

Although Iranian society has not been directly colonized by Western countries over the past centuries, the colonizing strategies of some of these countries have been successful during various historical periods. Furthermore, Iranian intellectuals have taken diverse orientations towards the Western ideology. Nonetheless, debates on Western influences on Iranian culture and the orientations that could be taken towards them reached their climax during the Constitutional Revolution of Iran in the 19^th century and continued to the Pahlavi Dynasty. It is said that Jalal Ale-Ahmad was among those intellectuals who were deeply influenced by the issue of Western influence on Iranian society. As a translator of some Western literary works, Ale- Ahmad could not have a nativist orientation towards Western influences. Nonetheless, he did not accept that Iranian culture could be influenced entirely by the Western culture. In his <i>Occidentosis</i>, Ale-Ahmad, besides explaining the term Westoxication attempts to introduce the problem of Orientalism in Iran. The current study aims to shed light on Ale-Ahmad’s personal views and orientation towards Westoxification. This paper will cover the problems of being oriented, in Ale-Ahmad’s view and also address his proposed solutions for Westoxification. Likewise, the issue of the Orientaized Orientals, as understood, by Ale-Ahmad will be put under consideration.

Rent and Rent-seeking in Iran

Financial abuse of power and making decisions that would guarantee the achievement of personal goals have attracted the attention of many Iranian intellectuals in recent years. Evidently, these problems indicate a kind of corruption which is in turn caused by discrimination. A clear example of discrimination in the economic literature is rent seeking; a sinister phenomenon through which windfall wealth is gained. Nowadays, in Iran, the negative meaning of rent usually comes to mind. Unfortunately, it must be stated that political, administrative and financial corruption as well as different types of rent seeking especially economic and political rent have turned into one of the most important problems in the society. Presence of entire governments and politics of rentierism ihas intensifiednsified those problems. Rent seeking, weakens the motivation to work and be productive and causes productive powers to go astray and do wrong. In a society of rent-seekers, sources of wealth, education and power become exclusive and discrimination and corruption, bribery, and consideration of family relationships rather than the rules, unlawful appointments and dismissals, etc. spread all over the society.

Ahmad Kasravi and “Pick-Axe Politics”: Neckties and Literature as Western Tools of Cultural Imperialism

Cultural authenticity has occupied the minds of Iranian intellectuals from the nineteenth century onwards, and Ahmad Kasravi (d. 1946) was among the greatest supporters of an Iran whose independence included not just territorial integrity but the freedom to choose elements of its heritage that were compatible with a modern nation-state. Kasravi attempted to identify those elements of Iranian culture that he believed were based on reason, and rejected much of the heritage that did not conform to his rigorous standards. As an example of how he tried to purify twentieth-century Iran, this article investigates how he identified aspects of Western culture and assesses his response to the “pick-axe politics” of the imperialist powers.

The World of Image in Islamic Philosophy: Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Shahrazuri, and Beyond

Reviewed by: The World of Image in Islamic Philosophy: Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Shahrazuri, and Beyond Oliver Leaman The World of Image in Islamic Philosophy: Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, Shahrazuri, and Beyond. Reprint edition. S.I., 2018. Edinburgh University Press, 256 pp., £ 24.99. ISBN: 978-1-4744-4123-0 (pbk). This is in every way an excellent book, in a series that looks very interesting. Van Lit is basically following an idea in the Hikmat al-ishraqby Suhrawardi where the latter mentions what he calls suspended images and develops an entirely novel ontology and epistemology. This was taken up with alacrity by a succession of later thinkers and becomes an intriguing and highly creative response to how to account for punishment and reward in the next life without straying too far from the literal understanding of scripture. Van Lit does a very thorough job discussing how a variety of thinkers worked with this idea, which as he says, originally came—like so much in Islamic philosophy—from Ibn Sina. Shahrazuri is the real creator of the idea of a world of images, and Corbin is quite rightly ticked off for not having entirely grasped that it is not there precisely in that form in Suhrawardi, but I thought this was a bit of an easy point. Suhrawardi does not use the precise expression but the idea is there in his work and Corbin is the person who really put it on the map. Moreover, Corbin tackled bravely with the philosophical implications of the concept of the world of images while van Lit seems to prefer a more historical approach to how images developed in Islamic philosophy. Both approaches are important, of course, and Corbin is often flawed, but these are the flaws of someone who identified a whole new subject of study, something which should never be forgotten. In Shiʿi thought the notion of the world of images played a role in explaining the barzakh, and although it was modified by Mulla Sadra, it came to play a significant role for centuries in the school of Isfahan. There is nothing especially Shiʿa about the idea, of course, but it has such interesting epistemological implications that lead many Iranian intellectuals to use it. Often they had little idea of its origins in Suhrawardi, and it is only really now that we can see the fairly complete history of the idea. One of the achievements of the book is to lay out clearly for the first time the way in which an intellectual tradition over many centuries developed a concept and ran with it, often in very [End Page 504]different directions and with varying purposes. To my mind the most interesting part of the book is the very clear discussion of the precise differences on the issue between Mulla Sadra on the one hand, and Suhrawardi and Shahrazuri on the other. This is a fine piece of analysis and really gets to grips with the different ways of applying the notion in a variety of contexts. Van Lit also quite rightly criticizes some of the major commentators for their lack of subtlety in responding to what was actually argued at the time. This was a very successful blend of history and philosophy. On the other hand, it would have been interesting to have spent a bit more time looking at how the idea of imagination—which really lies at the core of the discussion—can be extended and understood in such a variety of ways. For Mulla Sadra the imagination is immaterial, while Suhrawardi insists on a physical aspect. For the former, the suspended images appear in the immaterial and there is no need for spiritual bodies to contain them. Imagination is that sort of an epistemological concept: it has its feet both in the world of experience and in the world of ideas. It really is a concept linked with the barzakhbetween these different ways of approaching knowledge, and Mulla Sadra refers to the barzakh al-mithali, reinforcing the idea of the role of imagination as an intermediary. In philosophy often the most interesting ideas are those that represent something in the middle, and imagination is clearly...

Soviet Civilization through a Persian Lens: Iranian Intellectuals, Cultural Diplomacy and Socialist Modernity 1941–55

During the Second World War and its immediate aftermath the Soviet All-Union Society for Cultural Ties Abroad (VOKS) engaged in an aggressive campaign of cultural outreach in Iran to promote socialist modernity amongst Iranian leftists. Iran represented VOKS’ first serious expansion outside Europe and one which the Soviet Union was uniquely poised to exploit. VOKS tapped into the Soviet Union's orientalist scholarly establishment inherited from the Russian Empire to advance the argument that not only were Iran and the Soviet Union geographically contiguous, they were both inheritors of the same Persianate cultural legacy—ironically a legacy that the Soviet Union had actively displaced in favor of Turkic national SSRs. Meanwhile, Iranian leftists were not passive receivers of Soviet propaganda. They exploited VOKS resources to found the Iranian Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR and establish regional branches throughout the country. In particular, Iranian intellectuals fixated on Soviet Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan as evidence of the abundant possibilities for a specifically Persianate articulation of socialist modernity. This article uses both Russian archival sources and Persian-language periodicals and interview transcripts to explore this unique confluence of Soviet and Iranian ambitions.

The Revolution's Forgotten Sons and Daughters: The Jewish Community in Tehran during the 1979 Revolution

The 1979 revolution in Iran was one of the most popular revolutions of the twentieth century. It was supported by all the classes of Iranian society, and crossed social strata, positions, and religious affiliations. A lot is known about the participation of different parts, such as students, urban professionals, religious leaders, bazaaris, and leftists, yet little is known about the participation of Jews in the revolutionary movements. This article sheds light on a little-known event in the life of the Jewish Iranian community and seeks to tell the story of different segments of the Jewish community during the tremulous years of the “Islamic Revolution.” This article examines two main arenas in which the Jews facilitated the revolution—the Society of Jewish Iranian Intellectuals, and the Sapir Charity Hospital in Tehran—and seeks to draw attention to the minorities' contribution to the most important national revolution in Iran.