Persian Pleasures and Harsh Realities
By Samira Mohyeddin What the historian says will, however careful he may be to use purely descriptive language, sooner or later convey his attitude. Detachment is itself a moral position. The use of neutral language (‘Himmler caused many persons...

Not Your Mullah's Iran: An Interview with Azadeh Moaveni
It’s a window onto a debate and a world where Islam is being dealt with in an intellectually honest way, and onto a society where the Islamic experiment did not go very well.

Counterfeit Cleric: Religion and Crime in Modern-Day Iran
Jaded and increasingly apathetic toward the Islamic Republic, many Iranians nowadays often find amusement sneakily mocking clerics on the streets of Tehran. Behind closed doors, Iranians have ridiculed mullahs and their triteness. With the release of The Lizard (Marmoulak), the subject is no longer private, breaking the long-established taboo of making fun of the Iranian religious authorities in public.

In Spite of Restrictions: The Women of Iran
Persheng Sadegh-Vaziri’s film "Women Like Us" provides an insight into the lives of ordinary Iranian women.

Writing and Dancing
Like any other art, calligraphy is not just about mastering a technique, it requires soul: you have to ‘feel’ the words as you write them. You must aspire to reach the truth in the streaming movement of lines that transcend the physical world and arrive at tawheed, Divine Unity. Becoming One with the Word. Your rivers of ink must find their way to the Ocean. A form of worship; a spiritual dance of the qalaam. In pursuit of understanding truth through beauty.

Chador and Toothpaste with Imam Reza
Twelve hundred years ago, Ma’moon finally gave up trying to manipulate his way into legitimized authority and murdered Imam Reza by forcing him to eat poisoned grapes. Once Reza died, his corpse was brought from Marv to Mashhad and he was buried right here. His many followers attended his funeral. Oppressors and fascists take note: killing the leader of the opposition does not annihilate the opposition itself.

Felt Up in Tehran: Sexual Harassment, Modesty and the Politics of Color
This is that nightmare I keep having where something horrible is happening and I need to scream to draw attention to myself but I’ve lost my voice. This is me, awake, being violated. And Gagging.

Books and Everything But: Tehran's Book Fair Alternates as City's "Meat Market"
The building dedicated to books in foreign languages has booths from American and European publishing houses. The range of books being offered is very obviously filtered. I only pick up a copy of Post-Kant Critical Theory and head out to discover other chapters of this story.

Looking For Fati
I sent the driver to a couple of notorious places and he came back and said that there are a few teenage girls there, but none whose name is Fati. Who knows, maybe she has changed her name, maybe they have taken her to another town. The prostitution rings I hear are very well organized. They send girls even across the Persian Gulf to Bahrain, Dubai and so on. The situation here for the young orphan girls is very very desperate.

Help Needed Urgently for Iran Earthquake Victims
By Karim Esmailzadeh Dear Brothers and Sisters in Humanity, The 100,000+ people affected by the recent calamities in Iran are in our prayers. Those who can afford more or would like to take it a step further, this is...

Reconstructing Interpretations of Islam From The Grassroots: Human Rights and The Case of Iran
In the case of Iran, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are beginning to take the lead in formulating an Islamic response to the government’s religious justification of human rights abuses.

The Responsibilities of the Muslim Intellectual in the 21st Century: An Interview with Abdolkarim Soroush
Muslim intellectuals still talk about Islam as if it were a simple, unified entity; a singular object. But in reality the history of Islam, like the history of other religions such as Christianity, is fundamentally a history of different interpretations. Throughout the development of Islam there have been different schools of thought and ideas, different approaches and interpretations of what Islam is and what it means. There is no such thing as an a-historical Islam that is outside the process of historical development. The actual lived experience of Islam has always been culturally and historically specific, and bound by the immediate circumstances of its location in time and space. If we were to take a snapshot of Islam as it is lived today, it would reveal a diversity of lived experiences which are all different, yet existing simultaneously. Religion, like all human phenomena, needs to be understood in this context. There is always a plurality of 'Islams' as there is a plurality of other human phenomena—this also happens to include modernity.

What Shirin Ebadi’s Nobel Means to Progressive Muslims
It is going to inspire the silent majority of Muslims worldwide who simply want to live lives of quiet dignity. Where there are oppressive forces from both inside Muslim society and outside of it now we have a paragon of resistance to look up to. And how I relish the fact that this Muslim recipient is a woman, a strong mother of two children, a judge, and an activist. How many stereotypes about being a Muslim and a woman, an Iranian and a woman, she shatters through the very grace of her being!

Howard Dean: Sharon's Man?
Although often portrayed as progressive, former Vermont governor and Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean falls short on several issues important to progressives, with the Middle East being one of the more glaring.

Like Father, Like Son?
The omnipresent neo-conservative kingmakers are at it again, this time with the eloquent and dashing Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, eldest son of the former Shah of Iran.