Our first Iranian stop was Tabriz, located where the doors of the Garden of Eden were, according to the Bible. The town is especially known for having been an important stop on the Silk Road. This famous trading road, that brought back the precious fabric from China, crossed Persia from east to west. We happily lost ourselves in its huge bazaar (‘the biggest bazaar made with bricks in the world’, we were told) where we stocked up with dates, halva and other oriental sweets. 
             The bazaar in Tabriz

When opening our ‘Lonely Planet’ during our numerous trips by bus and by train across the country, we discovered the ancient history of Iran, or rather the history of Persia: in 1936, the Shah of Persia (Reza Khan) officially renamed the country ‘Iran’, which means (as near as) ‘Aryans’ country’…probably to align themselves with the political climate at the time. Finally judged too close to Nazi Germany during the Second World War, the British forced him to leave power in order to install his son instead of him (under their control); the name ‘Iran’ stayed.

The history of Persia seemed to us to have a cyclical pattern. A local group or an invader would unify the country, make it a very powerful empire, then this empire would decline before collapsing and being divided up. Another group would then take advantage of the atmosphere of chaos to surface.

The more serious matters started as soon as 550 BC. The Gallic were not in Gaul yet, Rome was only a small city, and Cyrus II the Great founded the biggest empire having ever existed at the time: from Egypt to today’s Pakistan, to the edge of the Danube. Sumptuous parties were organised every year in the capital town Persepolis, where the vassals came to ‘offer’ their tribute to the Emperor. However, the Greek cities resisted and after the defeat of Marathon in 490 BC, the Empire declined progressively until Alexander the Great gave it the coup de grace in 331 BC.
              Darius I receiving homage from a vassal prince

The Seleucids (Greeks) and the Parthians (from the edges of the Aral Sea) founded their own empires, until the Persians took them over in 224 BC. The Sassanids created then the Second Persian Empire. They established Zoroastrism as the state religion. Founded by Zarathustra during the second millenium BC, the main doctrine of this monotheistic religion is the permanent fight between Good and Evil. Its followers were called ‘the worshippers of fire’ because of the holy fire that burnt permanently in their sanctuaries; there are today only a few tens of thousands of them in Iran.

The Empire reached its peak when the Arabs took advantage of a problem of succession in order to seize the whole of Persia in 637 BC without encountering any opposition. The population converted massively to Islam, adopting its minority movement: the Shiism. The meeting of the Persian and Islamic cultures produced a period of intense cultural and artistic development. Unfortunately, from the 9th to the 15th century, the invasions from the Turks Seljukides, Genghis Khan’s Mongols and then from the sanguinary Tamerlan destroyed numerous cities.

When visiting Esfahan, we discovered the splendour of the 3rd Persian Empire founded in 1502 by the Safanides (it is a kind of Persian renaissance). A renowned member of this dynasty, Abbas I the Great, moved the capital town to Ispahan. He undertook to rebuild the city and made it a gem nicknamed ‘the half of the world’ by the visitors filled with wonder (which we were also). The Persian art had then reached its peak. At the death of Abbas, the Afghans invaded the country in 1722.
               Square of the Imam, Esfahan

In the 19th century, the Shahs from the dynasty of Qajars attempted to revive the past splendour: they founded a new capital in the village of Tehran but its high running costs were catastrophic. When we passed Tehran, we visited the Palace of Golestan. It was built with the ambition to rank with the palaces of the European monarchs. It does not mean that the latter were impressed. The Russians annexed the Caucasus and took control of the north of Iran and the British installed themselves in the south.

After the First World War, the Gilan (region along the Caspian Sea) seceded to become a Soviet republic. The British put Reza Khan (a firm-handed officer) at the head of the government in order to restore the country to order and secure a grip on the oil resources of the country…until 1951. The Iranian Prime Minister, Dr Mossadegh, decided then to nationalise the oil industry. The CIA kept an eye open for trouble and in 1953, a coup d’état was organised by the American embassy to rectify the situation. From then on, the British had to share the profits with the Americans.
              The Palace of Golestan

Nowadays, the country is more famous for its original regime of ‘Islamic Republic’. In 1979, the opposition to the Shah had reached a climax: on one side, the Marxists and Liberals who were asking for more reforms; on the other side, the religious groups who wanted a return to tradition. The Shah succeeded in making everybody agree on one point: his necessary departure. The revolution made him flee on 16th January 1979. As soon as the 1st February 1979, the Ayatollah Khomeini (face of the opposition to the Shah) came back from the exile he had been condemned to by the Shah. At the age of 77, he took power, taking advantage of the more or less natural disappearance of the moderate leaders. The Islamic Republic of Iran was proclaimed and the Ayatollah Khomeini became its Supreme Guide. He established the strict application of the charia, the Islamic law, which marked the beginning of the permanent control of all the aspects of the private lives of the population.

In 1980, Saddam Hussein attempted to take advantage of the chaos following the revolution in order to monopolize the oil fields of the Khuzestan, in the southwest of Iran. Eight years of war followed and more than 500,000 deaths on each side for nothing…apart from the fact that the war solidified the new Iranian regime on a long-term basis.

The Ayatollah Khomeini died in 1989. The Ayatollah Khamenei succeeded him as Supreme Guide. In 1997, the Ayatollah Khatami was elected president. As a reformist, he promised the ‘change from inside’. Women could then show their hair, put make-up on…hopes for a relaxing of the regime were big. But the council of the Guardians of the Constitution (directed by the Supreme Guide) kept a watchful eye: it vetoed the reforms and disqualified the reformist deputies for the elections. The Conservatives came to power again and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005.

François
(Translation: Yolene Dabreteau)
(source : Lonely Planet)