Bazaari (
Persian: بازاری) is the merchant class and workers of
bazaar
A bazaar () or souk (; also transliterated as souq) is a marketplace consisting of multiple small Market stall, stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa and India. However, temporary open markets elsewhere, suc ...
s, the traditional marketplaces of
Iran. Bazaari are involved in "petty trade of a traditional, or nearly traditional, kind, centered on the bazaar and its
Islam
Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
ic culture". They have been described as "the class of people who helped make the 1979
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...
".
[A Bazaari's World](_blank)
Robert D. Kaplan, ATLANTIC MAGAZINE, March 1996
A broader, more recent definition includes traditional merchants outside of Iran, "a social class...in places where the society is in the midst of an awkward modernization; where the bazaar is in some stage of transition between the world of ''
A Thousand and One Nights'' and that of the suburban
shopping mall", an example being traditional merchants (also
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
) who back the
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers ( ar, جماعة الإخوان المسلمين'' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan ...
in
Egypt.
However, it has also been noted that merchants in other Middle Eastern countries are predominantly minority non-Muslim populations without the political influence of bazaari in Iran.
Bazaari differ from a social class as usually defined, in that they include both "rich wholesalers and bankers" as well as lower-income workers. They are united not in their relation to the means of production but "in their resistance to dependence on the
West and the spread of Western ways", their "traditionalist attitude", and their "close family, financial, and cultural ties" with the Shia
ulama, or clerical class.
Bazaari, "led by its large merchants", in alliance with
ulama clergy "or important parts of the clergy", have played an important part in recent Iranian history. The alliance was "central" to the successful
Tobacco Protest against a British monopoly tobacco concession of 1891–92, to the
Constitutional Revolution
The Persian Constitutional Revolution ( fa, مشروطیت, Mashrūtiyyat, or ''Enghelāb-e Mashrūteh''), also known as the Constitutional Revolution of Iran, took place between 1905 and 1911. The revolution led to the establishment of a par ...
of 1905–11, and especially to the
1979 overthrow of
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi
, title = Shahanshah Aryamehr Bozorg Arteshtaran
, image = File:Shah_fullsize.jpg
, caption = Shah in 1973
, succession = Shah of Iran
, reign = 16 September 1941 – 11 February 1979
, coronation = 26 October ...
.
[Better than the past, What recent history has taught Iranians](_blank)
By Nikki Keddie, April 25, 2003, ''The Iranian'' Bazaari supported victims of the anti-Shah struggles in 1978 and their families, as well as providing "financial support for the antiregime strikes that began in May 1978 among university students and teachers and in the fall
f 1978spread to the workers and civil servants".
Modern Iran
' By Nikki R. Keddie, p.228
The bazaari continue to underpin the ruling elite today,
one example being Noor Foundation Director
Mohsen Rafighdoost
Mohsen Rafighdoust (also Rafiqdoust, fa, محسن رفیقدوست) is an Iranian Revolutionary Guards military officer and conservative politician. He is a member of the Islamic Coalition Party.
Early life
Rafighdoost was born around 1940 in so ...
, whose wealth has been described by American journalist
Robert D. Kaplan as likely to amount to "tens or hundreds of millions of dollars".
See also
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Bazaar
A bazaar () or souk (; also transliterated as souq) is a marketplace consisting of multiple small Market stall, stalls or shops, especially in the Middle East, the Balkans, North Africa and India. However, temporary open markets elsewhere, suc ...
*
Market (place)
A marketplace or market place is a location where people regularly gather for the purchase and sale of provisions, livestock, and other goods. In different parts of the world, a marketplace may be described as a '' souk'' (from the Arabic), ' ...
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Retail
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Social class in Iran
*
Souq
*
Iranian Revolution
The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...
References
{{Reflist
Bazaars
Economy of Iran