Communitarian neighbourhoods and religious minorities in Iran: A comparative analysis, in: Iranian Studies, n° 40 (2007), 5, p. 593-603. (original) (raw)

Re-Ghettoization: Armenian Christian Neighborhoods in Multicultural Tehran

Iranian Studies, 2017

his paper incorporates a study of “re-ghettoization” among the Armenian Christians of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It focuses on how legal marginalization has led to the emergence of an entirely separate existence from the Muslim majority in Tehran among Armenians born after the revolution. By focusing on the spatial and social divisions of the hayashatner (Armenian neighborhoods) and the “social” ghetto of the Ararat Compound, this article addresses the question: what are the social implications for religious discrimination in the Muslim Middle East? This paper is based on three extensive blocks of fieldwork carried out in Iran from 2010 to 2015.

Iranian Jews and Religiosity Case of Religiosity among the Persian Jewish Minority in the Post-Revolutionary Period and the Strategy of the Islamic Regime -An Empirical Survey- Part II

Rahavard Quarterly English & Persian Journal of Iranian Studies, 2019

Among the religious minorities of Persia, Jews are one of the most ancient populations and have been living in the region for more than 27 centuries. This is a well-known fact, of which even the authorities of the present-day Islamic Republic seem to be proud, as the of-ficials emphasize the historicity of the Persian Jewry in national and international media broadcasts, while also referring to the government’s tolerance towards this minority amidst Islamic dominance. While Jewish communities in the African continent, namely in Morocco, Egypt, Algeria, Ethiopia, and Yemen, as well as in almost all Middle Eastern countries such as Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, have gradually declined and finally almost vanished, Persia is still the homeland of approximately 12,000 Jews . However, this number–in comparison to that prior to the Islamic Revolution–represents less than 1/10th of the Jewish population there in the 1970’s. Nevertheless, this statistic indicates the largest contemporary Oriental Jewry in the Middle East and North Africa with the exception of Turkey. Despite various turbulent waves of religious resettlement, sociopolitical-based pogroms, dis-crimination, and comparatively less significant periods of sporadic tolerance–created by some rather lenient rulers–these peoples are still living in urban cities in Iran, predominately in Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz, where almost all Persian Jews have been concentrated from various large and small towns and provinces throughout Iran. This internal immigration within the country from different provinces towards the above-mentioned Iranian metropolises was firstly a consequence of the First Gulf War (1980-1988), which caused the dramatic abandonment of Persian cities that were situated near to the war-endangered regions. Furthermore, this immigration was a result of Jews’ increasing marginalization immediately after the Islamic Revolution. This happened particularly in reli-giously inclined areas. This process unleashed panic and created insecurity for the gradually isolated Jewish communities, who had been left in relatively small provinces such as Kāshān, Yazd, Kermān, Boroujerd, Golpaygān.

Ethnic Enclosure in Multicultural Muslim Community Life: Case Study in Golestan Province, I.R. Iran

Jurnal Studi Sosial dan Politik, 2019

In this paper we focus on ethnicity and ethnic enclosure among Muslim ethnic groups in Golestan province of Iran. It also has referred to the aspects of interethnic interactions among and between the ethnic groups which consider themselves, and are regarded by others, as being culturally distinctive. We find that ethnic differences and similarities have made individuals ethnically consciousness. This in turn has implications for and influence ethnic enclosure. People in the cities were socially organized mostly along some aspects of ethnicity such as ethnic identities based on linguistic, religious sect (Shiite and Sunnite) or region of origin criteria. People grew strongly self-consciousness of their ethnic identity under these circumstances of contact with members of other groups. They develop standardized ways of behaving vis-à-vis each other, and orient themselves socially according to ‘ethnic map’. Ethnic groups model settlement pattern, marriages and perceptions along ethnic l...

Eliz Sanasarian. Religious Minorities in Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2006

Review of Eliz Sanasarian. Religious Minorities in Iran (Cambridge Middle East Studies, 13), xx, 228 pp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Vol. 69, No. 1, February 2006, pp. 151-153.

The Jewish Community in Contemporary Iran: A New Analytic Approach

Journal of World Sociopolitical Studies, 2019

This paper takes a broad and novel approach to analysing the Iranian Jewish community of Iran, both as a distinct group and as a constituent part of Iran's wider population sharing its national culture. The goal was to find a new way of addressing the topic, avoiding many ambiguities, and bringing all discourse back to its starting point: Iranian identity. If we identify Persian roots as the focus and the heart of our investigation, and we establish that a cultural study of the Iranian Jews cannot be separated from Iranian identity itself, we not only shift attention to a common denominator that links a variety of topics, but raise new questions, new issues, and new considerations. The aim was to identify an analytical tool through which we could interpret and relate various outlooks on Iranian identity: the analysis led us to consider religion as the source of a common sense of belonging, in contrast to most scholars whose work is predicated on the dichotomy of "secularism vs religion." Instead, the Iranian identity discourse that emerges from this paper finds connections and affinities across the common dividing lines represented by religion, ethnicity, and geography. Reinforcing an Iranian discourse through the Jewish experience can constitute a valid response to the deep crisis of the Iranian national question and the enhancement of national, economic, and religious alliances. This paper employs a qualitative approach to the framework of national identity, based on the idea of its progressive character and related to the concept of identity as socially constructed. The theoretical assumptions expressed throughout this paper have found their empirical explanation in fieldwork that the author conducted in Iran in 2019.

The emergence of government-imposed spatial segregation in Tehran

Archnet-IJAR: International Journal of Architectural Research, 2019

Purpose By analyzing urbanism products, development plans and the process of modernization in Iran, the purpose of this paper is to critically trace the effect of dictatorial control on urbanism and the emergence of government-imposed urban segregation. Design/methodology/approach The main body of this work is concentrated on studying the history of urbanism in Iran, of which collecting data and descriptions played a crucial role. To prevent the limitations associated with singular methods, the methodology of this research is based on methodological triangulation (Denzin, 2017). With the triangulation scheme, the data are gathered by combining different qualitative and quantitative methods such as library, archival and media research, online resources, non-participatory observation and photography. For the empirical part, the city of Tehran is selected as the case study. Moreover, individual non-structured interviews with the locals were conducted to gain more insights regarding the...