1.
Tehran
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Tehran is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. It is ranked 29th in the world by the population of its metropolitan area, in the Classical era, part of the present-day city of Tehran was occupied by a Median city that in the Avesta occurs as Rhaga. It was destroyed by the Mongols in the early 13th century, the capital has been moved several times throughout the history, and Tehran is the 32nd national capital of Iran. The city was the seat of the Qajars and Pahlavis, the two last imperial dynasties of Iran. It is home to historical collections, such as the royal complexes of Golestan, Sadabad. Large scale demolition and rebuilding began in the 1920s, and Tehran has been a destination for the migrations from all over Iran since the 20th century. Tabiat Bridge, which was completed in 2014, is considered the third symbol of the city. There have been plans to relocate Irans capital from Tehran to another area, due mainly to air pollution, to date, no definitive plans have been approved. A2016 survey of 230 cities by consultant Mercer ranked Tehran 203rd for quality of living, according to the Global Destinations Cities Index in 2016, Tehran is among the top ten fastest growing destinations. The origin of the name Tehran is uncertain, the settlement of Tehran dates back over 7,000 years. The present-day city of Tehran was a suburb of an important Median city that was known as Rhaga in Old Persian, in the Avestas Videvdat, Rhaga is mentioned as the twelfth sacred place created by the Ohrmazd. In Old Persian inscriptions, Rhaga appears as a province and it was a major area for the Iranian tribes of Medes and Achaemenids. From Rhaga, Darius the Great sent reinforcements to his father Hystaspes, in some Middle Persian texts, Rhaga is given as the birthplace of Zoroaster, although modern historians generally place the birth of Zoroaster in Khorasan. Derived into Modern Persian as Rey, it now as a city located towards the southern end of the modern-day city of Tehran. Mount Damavand, the highest peak of Iran, which is located near Tehran, is an important location in Ferdowsis Shahname, the long Iranian epic poem that is based on the ancient epics of Iran. It appears in the epics as the birthplace of Manuchehr, the residence of Keyumars, the place where Freydun binds the dragon fiend Aži Dahāka, during the Sassanid era, in 641, Yazdgerd III issued his last appeal to the nation from Rey, before fleeing to Khorasan. Rey was dominated by the Parthian Mihran family, and Siyavakhsh—the son of Mihran the son of Bahram Chobin—who resisted the Muslim Invasion, because of this resistance, when the Arabs captured Rey, they ordered the town to be destroyed and ordered Farrukhzad to rebuild the town anew. In the 9th century, Tehran was a well known village, but less known than the city of Rey, the medieval writer Najm od Din Razi declared the population of Rey about 500,000 before the Mongol Invasion
2.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
3.
Women's rights movement in Iran
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The Iranian womens movement is based on the Iranian womens social movement for womens rights. This movement first emerged some time after the Iranian Constitutional Revolution in 1910, the movement lasted until 1933 in which the last women’s association was dissolved by the Reza Shah Pahlavi’s government. It heightened again after the Iranian Revolution, in 1969 women even began to drive cars and the first women to ever drive a car in Iran was Eileen Zayer from the United States. Following the 1979 Revolution, several laws were established such as the introduction of mandatory veiling, Womens rights since the Islamic Revolution have varied. In November 2016, about 6% of Iranian parliament members were women, the womens rights movement in Iran continues to attempt influencing reforms, particularly with the One Million Signatures Campaign to End Discrimination Against Women. The Iranian Constitutional Revolution took place between 1905 and 1911, the early cores of consciousness of womens rights which led to establishment of societies and magazines started shortly after. The low status of women and secret operation of many of their organizations, Womens writing in that era, mainly through newspapers and periodicals are one of the most valuable sources of information on the movement. Most important of these periodicals are listed below, additionally, Iranian women were aware of womens conditions and educational opportunities elsewhere and were inspired by them. Women activists determined that education was key, the argument they put forward was that giving women education was best for Iran, in that the mothers would raise better sons for their country. At the beginning of the century, foreign missionaries founded the first school for girls, haji-Mirza Hassan Roshdieh and Bibi Khanoom Astarabadi later also founded schools for girls, but both were quickly closed. Eventually, in 1918, after years of private and unregulated schools, the government provided funds to establish ten primary schools for girls and a teacher training college. From 1914 to 1925, the womens publications expanded beyond discussions of education onto subjects such as marriage, economic empowerment. The Jamiat e nesvan e vatan-khah was born around 1918, it published Nosvan Vatankhah, in 1922, Mohtaram Eskandari created the patriotic womens organization. She was arrested and her house was burned, Zandokht Shirazi, another women activist, organized the Womens Revolutionary Association. During this early phase of the movement, the women who became involved were in general daughters, sisters. In general too, they were from educated middle-class families, the low status of women and secret operation of many of their organizations and societies have somewhat limited the amount of data on the subject. Womens writing in that era, mainly through newspapers and periodicals are one of the most valuable sources of information on the movement, shekoofeh was edited by a woman, Mariam Mozayen-ol Sadat. Its primary goal was the education of women against superstition and acquainting them with world literature, zaban-e Zanan, was one of the more hardcore publications, founded and edited by Sediqeh Dowlatabadi in 1919 in Isfahan
4.
Persian Constitutional Revolution
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The Persian Constitutional Revolution or Iranian Constitutional Revolution, also known as the Constitutional Revolution of Iran, took place between 1905 and 1911. The revolution led to the establishment of a parliament in Persia during the Qajar Dynasty, the Revolution opened the way for cataclysmic change in Persia, heralding the modern era. It saw a period of unprecedented debate in a burgeoning press, the revolution created new opportunities and opened up seemingly boundless possibilities for Persia’s future. Many different groups fought to shape the course of the Revolution, the monarch Mozaffar ad-Din Shah signed the constitution in 1906, but he died shortly after and was replaced by Mohammad Ali Shah. The latter abolished the constitution and bombarded the parliament with Russian and this led to another pro-constitutional movement. The constitutionalist forces marched to Tehran, forced Muhammad Ali Shahs abdication in favor of his young son Ahmad Shah Qajar and the re-established the constitution in 1909. In 1921 Persian Coup refers to major events in Iran in 1921. On December 12,1925, Irans parliament amended Irans constitution of 1906–1907 to replace the Qajar dynasty with the Pahlavi dynasty as the sovereigns of Iran. The movement did not end with the Revolution being put down in 1911 by the Russians, with the first provision signed by Muzzafir al-Din just days before his death, Iran saw legislative reform vital to their goal of independence from British and Russian imperialism. The three main groups of the coalition seeking a constitution were the merchants, ulama. These groups shared the goal of ending corruption and stopping the dominance of foreign powers. Revolutionaries argued that role of the shah was once again being used to keep the Shah, Qajar, and they argued that whilst Irans oil industry was sold to the British, tax advantages on import/export and manufactured textiles destroyed Irans economy formerly supported by bazaar merchants. Muzzafir al-Din accumulated a fortune in foreign debt while selling off assets to repay the interest and this rift founded Irans constitutional revolt. The fundamental law gave the legislature a final approval over all loans, concession. While Iran did gain a constitution, the goal of Iranian independence was not achieved by the revolts, weakness and extravagance continued during the brief reign of Mozaffar ad-Din Shah. He often relied on his chancellor to manage his decentralized state and his dire financial situation caused him to sign many concessions to foreign powers, on an expanding list of trade items ranging from weapons to tobacco. He had also taken out several loans from Russia and Britain to pay for his extravagant lifestyle. In 1900 the Shah financed a royal tour of Europe by borrowing 22 million rubles from Russia, Iranian customs receipts served as collateral
5.
Women in Iran
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Women in Iran discusses the history, contribution, aspects, and roles of women in Iran. Women have always played fundamental, crucial, and representative roles in the history of Iran. Of the seals discovered in graves there, 90% were in the possession of women, the early Achaemenid-era Persepolis fortification and treasury tablets refers to women in three different terms, mutu, irti and duksis. The first refers to women, the second to unmarried members of the royal family. Such differentiated terminology shows the significance of marital status and of a relationship to the king. The tablets also reveal that women of the royal household traveled extensively, the queen and her ladies-in-waiting are known to have played polo against the emperor and his courtiers. The only limits on the extent of the authority exercised by the mother were set by the monarch himself. In the tablets, non-royals and the workers are mentioned by their rank in the specific work group or workshops they were employed. The rations they received are based on skill and the level of responsibility they assumed in the workplace, the professions are divided by gender and listed according to the amount of ration. Records indicate that some professions were undertaken by both sexes while others were restricted to male or female workers. There are male and female supervisors at the workshops as evident by the higher rations they have received with little difference in the amount of rations between the two sexes. There are also occasions where women listed in the category as men received less rations. Female managers have different titles presumably reflecting their level of skill, the highest-ranking female workers in the texts are called arashshara. They appear repeatedly in the texts, were employed at different locations and managed large groups of women, children and they usually receive high rations of wine and grains exceeding all the other workers in the unit including the males. Pregnant women also received higher rations than others, Women with new-born children also received extra rations for a period of one month. A few experts say that it was Cyrus the Great who twelve centuries before Islam, according to their theory, the veil passed from the Achaemenids to the Hellenistic Seleucids. They, in turn, handed it to the Byzantines, from whom the Arab conquerors inherited it as hijab, the Sassanid princess Purandokht, daughter of Khosrau II, ruled the Persian empire for almost two years before resigning. Also, during the Sassanian dynasty many of the Iranian soldiers who were captured by Romans were women who were fighting along with the men, Persian women are depicted in many masterpieces of Persian miniatures
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