"Persia: Land, people and civilization"
Report By Ar. Amna Jahangir & Photos By Ar. Mansoor Ahmed
Holding my distinctive image of Persia which I never visited in my lifetime, I attended a talk on "Persian: Land, People and Civilization" held at Department of Architecture and Design (DAD), COMSATS Lahore Campus, on Friday, May 06, 2011, as a part of Series of Talk by its Iranian Foreign faculty member, Ar. Sharia Hosseini. Also Ar. Sharia Hosseini is a foreign student for Ph.D. at Department of Architecture, UET Lahore. She made an elegant presentation and her talk was expressive and influential enough in reframing my view point about Persia/Iran with which we share culture and history. It is always refreshing, informative and worth listening to a local resident describing culture, history and brief introduction to arts and architecture of her country.
Around a hundred people including teachers, artists, architects and students attended the talk.
Prof. Shahnawaz Zaidi, professor and advisor at COMSATS DAD, giving a welcome and introductory note, expressed his hope for the talk, to give a revisit to a mutual culture that Iran and Pakistan shared through history. Ar. Sharia Hosseini, the speaker, started her talk with humbly expressing her difficulty of putting the diverse aspects of Persian Civilization; its culture and history in a single talk and went on to tell that this talk will be followed by two others focussing on Persian Civilization.
Briefly touching on the geographical location of Iran, the speaker illustrated in map the location of Iran in Asia, with its neighbouring countries and geographical constraints. Most part of Persian is arid/desert, with two mountain ranges on North and South Western sides. Northern part has lush-green forests. Iran has 30 provinces in total, with prominent cities like Tehran (capital), Mash'had, Shiraz and Isfahan. Islamic Republic of Iran previously named as Persia has almost half of the population of Pakistan, with the literacy rate of 80% (population who can read and write). It has its own Persian Calendar according to which this year is 1390, with the New Year starting on 21st March of our calendar and the official language of Iran is Persia.
In the North Iran Caspian Sea is at its extreme end, with thick forests and Alborz mountain range on land. The occupation of people there is agriculture and fishing. They are the biggest producers of rice and tea in the country. Mostly females are more active in rice and tea crops. Architecture of the North is almost rural. One of the historic villages over there is Masoleh Village, in which planning is based on mutual sharing of public and private spaces. Ar. Sharia Hosseini beautifully explained its planning in one sentence, "the roof of my house is courtyard of your house".
Central part of Iran is mostly arid, constituting two big deserts: Lout and Markazi. Explaining the landscape of central Iran, the speaker said "Deserts are as beautiful as forests". She further highlighted on the ways of capturing water in the desert through Kariz (process to reach the water level by digging). It's not the forest and mountain areas of Iran in North that have the famous Persian gardens, but these are all located in this hot and arid area of Iran. Such famous gardens included Bagh Shahzada which is designed as a step garden incorporating water works. Another popular garden Bagh Fein Kashan is located in the hottest city of Kashan. Bagh Dowlatabad in City of Yazd has the biggest historic "wind catcher" (called "Badgir" in Persian) of the world with the height of 33 meters.
Southern part of Iran has five beautiful islands in addition to its mainland part. It has Persian Gulf on its one side and the weather is hot and humid. Sea provides the opportunities of fishing, boating and sea trading to its inhabitants which now become their occupations over the period of history. This area is characterised by a mixed culture: Persian and Arabic. Over here, architecture too incorporates the climatic condition and its culture by planning the housing in outward manner and having Arabic motifs. The Islands of Persia are free-economic zones, less costly, and the government of Iran is now planning to upgrade it to generate tourism.
Extremely cold climate prevails in western and north-western part of Iran, yet the weather is not dry there. Its mountains inhabit tribal people with their own peculiar tribal lifestyle; their own culture including special dances, music, games, dresses, handicrafts etc. In Iran, around two million people are tribal out of the population of 70 million. Villages of this area are very beautiful and worth-visiting. Here the life of people depends on animals. The tribes of people are called "eil" in Persian. There are about 8 important iels in Iran. Once government of Iran tried to provide permanent living to them, however, these people rejected that to carry on their own culture living in temporary structures. Their tents are made up of animal hair and wool which is 100% waterproof, and it's extremely light-weight. The interior of tent is richly decorated and vibrantly colourful. Their women are extremely brave, participate in warfare, carry weapons and keep on wearing their own traditional dresses in common life. Their women are taking part in all the activities side by side with men and even they have well known singers among them.
Ar. Sharia Hosseini then went on to highlight life in important cities of Iran. Tehran, the capital city of Iran, has a very congested skyline incorporating high-rise buildings. World's forth tallest telecom tower called Millad Tower is located in Tehran, which has now become the symbol of Tehran. The city has good network of transport, with Metro trains. These metro stations are generating new urban squares in the city, making them meeting and seating points and even art galleries.
The second part of talk brought in light the brief political history of Persia, starting with pre-historic time to the present. Median Empire remained dominated in Persia till 330 B.C. followed by Achaemenid Empire, the biggest empire of the world ever, with Alexander the Great coming in Persia in 550 B.C. Following him were the Seleucid, Parthian and Sassanid Dynasties uptill 651 A.D. One of the major event in Persian history is the entrance of Islam in 642 A.D. with Islam (Shia'ism) becoming the state religion during Safavid Dynasty (1506-1722 A.D.). Few following Muslim dynasties include Ghaznavids, Seljuqs, Khwarazamis, Timurids etc. The speaker said that during pre-historic times, Mitraism with the worship of Mitra (goddess of Sun) was predominant in Persia. During 1200-1000 B.C., Zoroastrianism (Mazdaism) was the religion followed in Iran, in which god Ahura Mazda was an entity and Ahriman was the devil perceived not as an entity but just as a bad thought. It is evident from a carving in Persepolis that Cyrus the Great was Zoroastrian, believing in religious teaching of Zoroastrianism (pindar-e-naik; good thought, kirdar-e-naik; good deed and goftar-e-naik; good words).
Highlighting the social and cultural life in Iran, Ar. Sharia Hosseini told the audience about their festivals. Nouroz is the festival for the celebration of Persian New Year. On the festival of Khana Tekani, Persians clean their houses. Chahar Shanba Sori is celebrated on last Tuesday of the year. While on Sizda Be Dar( the 13th day), Persians after having vacations for 12 days they will go out of house in 13th day and use to spend a day in greeneries, villages and farms in order to finish the Nouroz festival with the nature. Shab-e- Yalda is the longest night of the year in which nobody sleeps at night, and all chat and party lest any darkness may conquer them.
The speaker ended her presentation with narrating a part from speech of Cyrus the Great, from his human right charter which is the first human right charter ever: "Never attack any nation unless they are going to attack you. Once you attack and conquer them, never force them to change their culture and religion. You are the owner of their land, not the owner of their beliefs."
In the end she showed a video of stage performance by a famous Persian artist, depicting Persian dance, music and dress. The next talk in this talk series on Persia is scheduled to be held by the end of June.