Cover	1
	Iran Facing Others: Identity Boundaries in a Historical Perspective	4
	Contents	6
	Preface	10
	INTRODUCTION: Iranian Identity Boundaries: A Historical Overview	15
	National Identity as a Construct	17
	Legacy of an Ancient Past	18
	Contested Notions of Iran	24
	Shi'i Identity under the Safavids	27
	Emergence of National Identity under the Qajars	28
	Nationalist Identity in the Pahlavi Era	34
	Self and Other in the Islamic Republic	38
	Notes	41
	PART I: The Legacy of Cultural Exclusion and Contested Memories	48
	CHAPTER 1: Iran and Aniran: The Shaping of a Legend	49
	Notes	59
	CHAPTER 2: Redrawing the Boundaries of 'Ajam in Early Modern Persian Literary Histories	61
	Introduction: Iranian versus Persian Literary History	61
	Shifting Literary Views in Iran	64
	The Indian Conception of 'Ajam	67
	Conclusion	70
	Notes	71
	CHAPTER 3: Iranian History in Transition: Recasting the Symbolic Identity of Babak Khorramdin	75
	The Revolt of Babak	76
	Historiography of Babak’s Revolt and Iranian Transitional Identities	78
	Crafting Identity: A Political Project	84
	Conclusion	86
	Notes	87
	PART II: Empires and Encounters	89
	CHAPTER 4: Rebels and Renegades on Ottoman-Iranian Borderlands: Porous Frontiers and Hybrid Identities	90
	A Safavid Prince in Istanbul	91
	An Ottoman Prince in Qazvin	95
	Celali Rebels in Iran	98
	The Qizilbash in Ottoman Service	101
	Conclusion	104
	Notes	105
	CHAPTER 5: Facing a Rude and Barbarous Neighbor: Iranian Perceptions of Russia and the Russians from the Safavids to the Qajars	109
	Antecedents	110
	Changing Perceptions	113
	Russian Expansionism	115
	The Intensification of Contacts through Travel	120
	Political Issues	121
	Conclusion	125
	Notes	126
	CHAPTER 6: Through the Persian Eye: Anglophilia and Anglophobia in Modern Iranian History	135
	Facing a Friend or a Foe?	137
	Admiring the English Way	144
	Hope and Despair during the Constitutional Revolution and After	150
	Conclusion	156
	Notes	157
	CHAPTER 7: British Imperialism, Regionalism, and Nationalism in Iran, 1890–1919	161
	Imperialism	162
	Regionalism	166
	Nationalism	169
	Notes	173
	PART III: Nationalism and the Appropriation of the Past	179
	CHAPTER 8: The Academic Debate on Iranian Identity: Nation and Empire Entangled	181
	The Persian-National Paradigm of Iranian Identity	181
	Academic Challenges to the Persian- National Identity Paradigm	188
	The 2005–6 Iranica Definition of Iranian Identity: Synthesizing Irreconcilable Perspectives	191
	Epilogue: The Disentanglement of Imperial and National History	194
	Notes	195
	CHAPTER 9: Iran and Iraq: Intersocietal Linkages and Secular Nationalisms	201
	The Communities	202
	Cultural Affinities	210
	Iranian and Iraqi Nationalisms	212
	Arabs and Persian through the Ages	215
	Conclusion	218
	Notes	219
	PART IV: Self-Fashioning and Internal Othering	227
	CHAPTER 10: Identity among the Jews of Iran	229
	Espousing Another Identity	230
	Conversions: “Outwardly we are all Muslims	232
	Iranian Jews	233
	Equal Iranians?	234
	Identities	234
	In an Islamic State	240
	Migration	242
	Subidentities	244
	Notes	245
	CHAPTER 11: The Confessions of Dolgoruki: The Crisis of Identity and the Creation of a Master Narrative	253
	History: How The Confessions Emerged and Its Different Editions	254
	The Spectrum of Responses	255
	Key Elements of the Author’s Weltanschauung	257
	Hegemonic Sociopolitical Discourses of the Time	259
	The Literary and Sociohistorical Context of The Confessions of Dolgoruki	259
	The Confessions of Dolgoruki and the Formation of Iranian Identity	261
	Who Was the Creator of The Confessions? Some Notes on Weltanschauung and Intertextuality	263
	Discussion and Conclusion	265
	Notes	266
	CHAPTER 12: Iranian Nationalism and Zoroastrian Identity: Between Cyrus and Zoroaster	275
	Notes	284
	Contributors	287
	Index	291