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the people, or the major interest groups of the regions, had to be given some authority.
This was about as much electoral power as they would permit in local elections. So
mayors were elected, even though the shah played a very significant role in selecting
those who would be allowed to run for the position. If necessary, he’d step in to assure or
prevent – just as the mullahs are doing now in some of the similar political situations.
Isfahan was a very powerful place – it was still a tribal center – that is, of the Bakhtiar
and Qashqai, who to some extent, had their influence in that region and in the country. It
was the largest industrial area at the time. The industry was mostly in textile factories:
weaving, cotton and silk and wool goods, as well as the old style of manual
manufacturing – that is what we would call handicrafts, but they called essentials, the
things of everyday life actually made in the bazaars. So the bazaar was still the economic
center of manufacture, finance, politics, economy.
Q: The Bazaaris are a distinct political group in a way?
MILLER: Well they were the urban elite. They were the businessmen, those who had
money and economic power. The bazaar was the center of all Iranian cities, and it still is.
The Bazaar contained within itself, the heart of religion of religious belief. Many of the
older mosques originally endowed by the bazaari were in the bazaar. The bazaar was a
way of life – restaurants, baths, as well as shops, and places of manufacture, schools,
seminaries, and residences. It was the physical and cultural core of the old cities of Iran,
as it was for much of the Middle East. Cairo has somewhat similar structures, at least
from Islamic times, and even from before Islamic times. Isfahan, being an old city, one of
the oldest in Iran; it is an old city that goes back to about the 5 th century before the birth
of Christ. Isfahan was the largest city in the Middle East and – much larger than London
and probably any other city in the world at the time of Shah Abbas around 1600. So it has
visible accretive remains from the earliest times, from pre-Christian times right to the
present. The sense of a nation and a people with a very long history is something you see
every day, any Isfahani knows this. He sees it in the buildings he lives in, and works in,
and walks by. Isfahani neighborhoods are defined by the established – established over
millennia - economy, and even Isfahani ethnic backgrounds, were defined thousands of
years ago. Its Jewish center, for example, has been there from pre-Christian times. The
Armenians come late into the 16 th century; they are there from Safavid times. There are
regions of Isfahan that are even now called Arab and Turkmen and Afghan dating from
the invasions of centuries past. Understandably Isfahan is very complex architecturally,
and even linguistically. Within the city there are distinct dialects of language based on the
great movements of people caused by the invasions of past centuries.
Q: When was the overthrow of Mossadeq?
MILLER: 1953.
Q: Was the shah really in power, particularly from the Isfahan …
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