Illicit Acts and Sacred Space: Everyday Crime in the Shrine City of Mashhad, 1913-1914

Vejdani, Farzin

doi:10.1163/18747167-12341263

Cited by 3 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 17 publications

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“…Farzin Vejdani has successfully demonstrated how a micro-historical focus on crime in the Iranian context can map out the connection between social relations, space and daily practices, not just within a city but also its vicinity. 31 In adopting a similar focus on crime 'from below' , I aim to show how a micro-history of banditry in Fars can offer a bottom-up perspective of crime in Iran more generally, complementing recent informative studies on the views of Iranian authorities and intellectuals. 32 Trade, tribes and banditry on the Bushehr-Shiraz Road Because of its proximity to the Persian Gulf, Fars had long been one of Iran's main trade regions.…”

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A State of ‘Tribal Lawlessness’? Rural and Urban Crime in Fars Province (c. 1910–15)

Biglari¹

2019

Crime, Poverty and Survival in the Middle East and North Africa

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As has now been well established, Iran's modernizing elites in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw overcoming the country's supposed 'tribal problem' as crucial for national salvation. 2 Central to the 'myth of the saviour' built around the person of Reza Shah was his ability to suppress the tribes after a period of so-called 'disintegration ' between 1911 and 1921, following the Constitutional Revolution. 3 This was unquestionably partly due to the power possessed by the large tribal confederations that had the potential to undermine central authority. But it was also because on a more local level these pastoral nomadic groups seemed to represent the absence of authority, especially by virtue of their association with banditry on the country's main trade routes. 4 By their very nature, tribes were seen as a 'dangerous class' on the margins of society, culturally imbued with criminality. 5 Indeed, such perceptions shared many similarities with the concept of a 'criminal tribe' existing elsewhere, which assumed tribespeople were habitually or even hereditarily inclined to a life of crime. 6 Such a view has been reproduced in historiography, meaning banditry in modern Iran has often been explained away with culturally essentialist references to a supposedly traditional tribal culture of raiding, leaving little or no room for other contributing factors. For example, Mansoureh Ettehadieh, in her study of criminality in the late Qajar period, asserts:We see that most of the robbery and looting was done by tribes, which was probably as much a way of life as due to economic circumstances. The worst affected areas were not necessarily those suffering most from economic regression. 7 Granted, there had been a long-established culture of raiding amongst the tribes in Iran, as there had been across most of the Middle East and North Africa. Yet there are several problems with solely relying on this fact in explanations of banditry.

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confidence: 99%

A State of ‘Tribal Lawlessness’? Rural and Urban Crime in Fars Province (c. 1910–15)

Biglari¹

2019

Crime, Poverty and Survival in the Middle East and North Africa

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Unearthing Rabiʿa's Grave: Placemaking, Shrines, and Contested Traditions in Balkh, Afghanistan

Homayun

2023

Int. J. Middle East Stud.

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Rabiʿa Balkhi was a princess and poet who, according to medieval accounts, flourished in 10th-century Balkh. She gained wide popularity in 20th-century Afghanistan, where she has been the subject of books, poems, and movies. This article recounts the story of her grave's discovery in the center of Balkh's town park in the 1960s, the emergence of a shrine around it, and its integration with Balkh's landscape of antiquity. Drawing on parallels from across the Muslim world, I argue that Rabiʿa's shrine emerged through a dialogue between state officials and local forms of placemaking. But although initially motivated by nationalist sentiment, the Afghan state lost its ability to define Rabiʿa's life on nationalist terms. As Afghanistan fragmented through war, her shrine survived as a space where her life was constantly reinterpreted and where disputed visions over the nation's past and future played out.

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Urban Violence and Space: Lutis, Seminarians, and Sayyids in Late Qajar Iran

Vejdani¹

2018

Journal of Social History

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Illicit Acts and Sacred Space: Everyday Crime in the Shrine City of Mashhad, 1913-1914

Cited by 3 publications

References 17 publications

A State of ‘Tribal Lawlessness’? Rural and Urban Crime in Fars Province (c. 1910–15)

A State of ‘Tribal Lawlessness’? Rural and Urban Crime in Fars Province (c. 1910–15)

Unearthing Rabiʿa's Grave: Placemaking, Shrines, and Contested Traditions in Balkh, Afghanistan

Urban Violence and Space: Lutis, Seminarians, and Sayyids in Late Qajar Iran

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