Exile and the Nation

The Parsi Community of India and the Making of Modern Iran

By Afshin Marashi

University of Texas Press

Honorable Mention, Hamid Naficy Iranian Studies Book Award from the Association of Iranian Studies

In the aftermath of the seventh-century Islamic conquest of Iran, Zoroastrians departed for India. Known as the Parsis, they slowly lost contact with their ancestral land until the nineteenth century, when steam-powered sea travel, the increased circulation of Zoroastrian-themed books, and the philanthropic efforts of Parsi benefactors sparked a new era of interaction between the two groups.

Tracing the cultural and intellectual exchange between Iranian nationalists and the Parsi community during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Exile and the Nation shows how this interchange led to the collective reimagining of Parsi and Iranian national identity—and the influence of antiquity on modern Iranian nationalism, which previously rested solely on European forms of thought. Iranian nationalism, Afshin Marashi argues, was also the byproduct of the complex history resulting from the demise of the early modern Persianate cultural system, as well as one of the many cultural heterodoxies produced within the Indian Ocean world. Crossing the boundaries of numerous fields of study, this book reframes Iranian nationalism within the context of the connected, transnational, and global history of the modern era.

A groundbreaking book...There is little doubt that Exile and the Nation will become foundational reading for any student of Iranian modernity and nationalism, as it provides the most comprehensive picture of both the history of Zoroastrian revival as a branch of Iranian nationalism but also a complete historiographical account that explains the turbulent political history of modern Iran. Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies

[Exile and the Nation] succeeds in reconceptualizing Iranian modernity, and Iranian nationalism especially, in light of the Parsi-Iranian encounter. Through the stories of the book’s five protagonists, Exile and the Nation shows how Parsis played pivotal roles in the development of the ideologies that defined twentieth-century Iran. At the same time, Marashi’s book expertly weaves together disparate subfields within Iranian studies—namely, classical Zoroastrianism, colonialism, and Sufism—that are rarely in conversation. As such, scholars in the field will doubtlessly find Exile and the Nation enlightening and instructive. Iranian Studies

The perspective in [Exile and the Nation] is truly transnational, and its approach offers methodological as well as substantive inspiration for future studies…an intellectually provocative and engaging read. TRAFO—Blog for Transregional Research

[A] well-written, clearly argued study...Exile and the Nation is transnational history at its best; it demonstrates how those who helped revived the ancient ties between Iran and India, and then molded them to fit modern nationalism, were inspired by ideas that ostensibly came from the East but were leavened with German as much as British romantic elements. It is especially good at showing the insurmountable dilemma they faced: how to jump across centuries to Iran’s pre-Islamic, Zoroastrian past for inspiration, without disregarding let alone eliminating the country’s rich Islamic heritage. Middle East Journal

[Marashi's] engaging biographies of two Zoroastrians (one Parsi, one Iranian), two poets (one an Iranian translator of Zoroastrian texts, one a Bengali Nobel laureate), and an Iranian journalist with pro-Nazi sympathies contextualize the development of Iranian nationalism between the Constitutional Revolution and the 1930s, highlighting the significance of Parsi Zoroastrians to the related restoration of 'Iranian authenticity.' Journal of Asian Studies

An exciting new book...Exile and the Nation is a richly textured study of some of the main threads that make up Iranian national culture. It makes a number of important interventions…[Marashi's] book should be in the hands of every Iranian interested in the history of ideas and the trajectories of Iranian national identities. Peyk Magazine

In showing how new scholarly methods, mass audience books, and an alternative national identity were imported from Bombay, then adapted to Iran’s contrasting sociopolitical context in unforeseen ways, Exile and the Nation is as important a contribution to colonial Indian history as it is to understanding the origins of the modern Middle East. Los Angeles Review of Books

[Exile and the Nation] is an extremely well-researched and well-written work that addresses a topic that has yet to be adequately addressed…There is also a welcomed element of storytelling to the book not often found in scholarly, historical works...it is in both the richness of the biographical details Marashi provides and his versatile and nuanced account of the intellectual and political developments, that the depth of Marashi's research and writing skills most shine...this book is highly recommended for anyone interested in the history of modern Iran, a better understanding of nationalism in a phenomenological sense, or a well-grounded, historically based story related in a highly entertaining and informative way. Mashriq & Mahjar

Absolutely masterful. This is a wonderful and lucid weaving together of many disparate elements. Marashi never disappoints in his recounting of an engaging story, one that becomes all the richer for his ability to use it to illustrate cultural and intellectual diversity. He makes a convincing case for the centrality of Iranian ideas of nation constructed vis-à-vis the contemporary Parsi community in Iran, recognizing that this relationship was complex and multidirectional. Marashi pioneers a model of moving away from 'area studies' and nation as a boundary and into larger intellectual and cultural areas of conversation. Exile and the Nation is not a simplistic account of influence, but rather an exploration of a variety of intellectual roads—those taken and those avoided. Monica M. Ringer

With this work, Marashi once again demonstrates that he is one of the most innovative and theoretically astute historians of Iran. The book takes a South-South perspective, which currently hardly exists in Iranian studies. His intuition that Iranian intellectuals in this period were not stuck in an exclusively East-West relationship proved to be a ground-breaking and fruitful avenue for research, and thus Exile and the Nation is long overdue. Reza Zia-Ebrahimi

Afshin Marashi is Farzaneh Family Professor of Modern Iranian History at the University of Oklahoma. He is the author of Nationalizing Iran: Culture, Power, and the State, 1870–1940 and the coeditor of Rethinking Iranian Nationalism and Modernity.

Note on Transliteration and Dates
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter 1. To Bombay and Back: Arbab Kaykhosrow Shahrokh and the Reinvention of Iranian Zoroastrianism
Chapter 2. Patron and Patriot: Dinshah J. Irani, Parsi Philanthropy, and the Revival of Indo-Iranian Culture
Chapter 3. Imagining Hafez: Rabindranath Tagore in Iran, 1932
Chapter 4. Ebrahim Purdavud and His Interlocutors: Parsi Patronage and the Making of the Vernacular Avesta
Chapter 5. Sword of Freedom: Abdulrahman Saif Azad and Interwar Iranian Nationalism
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index

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