The Road to Today - Part One Business and Persian History

In our society, the history of a place is often overlooked when we look at how the economics of that place functions today. While we cannot change past actions, we can learn from them in order to cooperate better on the business stage today, so while this might not be a piece primarily on business, I encourage you to read this piece, and think about the economics of the world now, and how things might have ended up today, if only history had been a little bit different.

While I am not personally from there, I have many friends from Iran, and I have been

over there a few times, as I lived nearby for a while. The country has a rich history with both

ancient and modern dynasties holding powerful economic and cultural grasps over the broad

“Persian” region. In ancient times, the Achaemenids and Parthians controlled the area, while

after the start of Islam a variety of Islamic dynasties rose in the region, like the famous Safavids,

Qajars and most recently, the Pahlavis.

The rich history of the region was largely brought about due to the region’s strategic importance as a trade route between Europe and Asia - on land, and to a certain extent on water. The Silk Road brought precious goods like gold, diamonds, spices and its namesake, silk, to the area, which also brought immense cultural growth to the region. Epic works like the Shahnameh were written by people like Abul-Qasem Ferdowsi and intricate miniature paintings were made by people like Kamal ud-din Behzad, with expensive materials and knowledge traded on the Silk Road (How to Talk About Art History). These works still reflect the country’s rich culture to this day. For example, the Shahnameh is considered as the national poem of the country, and miniatures are often the first thing people picture when thinking about “Persian art.”(Bayasanghor Shahnameh)

The rich cultural and commercial blessings, though, were not to last. In the cycles of

countries dynasties/types of government are bound to rise and fall. For a well known example, Rome was first a kingdom, then a republic, and finally an empire. By the 19th century, the Qajar

Dynasty had replaced the powerful Safavid Dynasty. Still, despite the new system of

government, the country was slow at industrialization, which would be detrimental in later years.

By the late 1800s, as Europe had mostly industrialized, Western European nations sought

to expand eastward. British capitalists, for one, gained concessions within the country from the

weakening Qajar government. The Imperial Bank of Persia was the main issuer of banknotes

until 1932, while a concession on tobacco was also granted to a British businessman.(Browne) This concession in particular would go on to spark a huge uproar amongst the people of Persia, who revolted in 1891 and 1892, when famous religious leader Mirza Shirazi issued a Fatwa (a ruling on Islamic law) demanding the government to revoke the given concession.