This article investigates the artistic milieu of the Qajar dynasty through a critical analysis of the distinctive and sophisticated style of Mahmud Khan Malek al-Shuʿarā (1813–93), contextualizing his work alongside that of his contemporaries, with particular emphasis on Kamal al-Mulk (1859–1940), the most renowned painter of the period. Through close analysis of selected paintings, this study reveals the layered complexity of Mahmud Khan’s visual language and underscores the broader interplay between Qajar art and European artistic traditions. Although this inquiry does not seek to provide a reading of modern Iranian art, it contends that Mahmud Khan’s oeuvre warrants serious critical attention—especially within non–Persian language scholarship—as a pivotal yet overlooked juncture in Iranian art history and a missed opportunity for articulating a meaningful continuum between Iran’s classical aesthetic heritage and its modern visual expression.

Despite the long-standing proximity between Ottoman and Iranian reformists, the Young Turk policy toward Iran was notably reserved. The numerous tensions between Istanbul and Tehran during the constitutional period are often attributed to Young Turk pragmatism. Conversely, this study emphasizes the cultural factors in Irano-Ottoman relations and their influence on the Ottoman perception of Iran following the Ottoman Revolution of 1908. Drawing on the reports written by Hüseyin Hasib Efendi, Ottoman ambassador in Iran from 1909 to 1913, it argues that the multilayered nature of Ottoman modernity and the anxieties of the late Ottoman bureaucratic elite were crucial in shaping the Porte’s policy toward Iran. The article introduces the concept of entangled Orientalism to describe the process of Ottoman discursive adaptation to the West-dominated international order. Additionally, it aims to reassess the role of the Russian menace in the Ottoman understanding of regional politics.

This article analyzes the political ecology of modern Iran as envisioned in the report of Arthur Hills Gleadowe-Newcomen’s 1904–-05 Commercial Mission to South-Eastern Persia and a covert Persian counter-narrative penned by its military attaché, Mirza Riza Muhandis. The commercial ambitions of the British Empire in Qajar Iran involved a transformation of Iran’s environment. The critiques of these programs outlined in the travelogue of Mirza Riza Muhandis concern whom these interventions by science and engineering should serve. This case study highlights tensions over development and inequality at a critical moment in Iran’s history, just months before the beginnings of the 1906 Constitutional Revolution.

The Shast-Sheshi festival is held annually in the village of Siān, beginning on the sixty-sixth day after Nowruz. This timing matches the ancient Khordadgan festival, celebrated on the sixth day of the month of Khordad, dedicated to the Zoroastrian goddess Khordad. The central rite of Shast-Sheshi was immersion in the now-dry Shāh Chashme spring. Other rites include visits to nearby sacred sites linked to Khordad, the female guardian of water. The festival, drawing thousands from nearby settlements, lasts ten days and features a seasonal fair. Although centered at a Shia shrine complex, it remains a largely secular event. Jarquyeh uniquely preserves this ancient Iranian tradition and shows how forgotten myth can resurface in an unexpected place and time.

This paper examines Sadeq Hedayat's The Blind Owl through the lens of récit, focusing on the non-linear structure and elusive nature of the narrative. By analyzing the fluidity of time, space, and identity, the study argues that the seeming narrative flaws – including the instability of characters and shifting perspectives – are deliberate artistic strategies. Central to this reading is the concept of barzakh, the in-between state, which frames the narrator's ongoing struggle to navigate the boundaries between life and death, reality and imagination. The narrator's inability to fully express himself through art reflects this tension, as each attempt to articulate his vision reveals the inadequacy of language and the inherent impossibility of fully capturing the essence of life in art. The récit form reinforces this theme by immersing the reader in an unfinished, ever-shifting narrative, where meaning remains just beyond reach. This study highlights the importance of reading The Blind Owl as a récit to better understand its existential exploration and critique of the artist's role in grappling with the unknown.