دانشگاه شهید بهشتی مجله تاریخ ایران 2008-7357 16 2 2023 08 23 Transformation of Iranian Social Customs during the Qajar Period (A Case Study of the New Style of Handshake) دگرگونی در آداب و رسوم معاشرتی ایرانیان در دوره قاجار (مطالعه موردی؛ دست دادن به سبک جدید) 247 264 103983 10.48308/irhj.2023.233109.1262 FA رضا بیگدلو استادیار گروه اجتماعی، پژوهشگاه علوم انتظامی و مطالعات اجتماعی، تهران، ایران 0000-0003-1251-7907 زینب احمدوند گروه تاریخ، دانشکده ادبیات و علوم انسانی، دانشگاه ارومیه، ارومیه، ایران. 0000-0001-7917-0464 Journal Article 2023 09 12 Abstract The arrival of modernity and the new European culture in Iranian society had an impact on political, social and cultural structures and caused these structures to undergo certain changes. A large part of these changes affected the social and cultural sphere, especially the lifestyle and etiquette of Iranian society. One of the customs that went through change was the greeting, especially the tradition of shaking hands. This article aims to investigate the arrival, acceptance and significance of the new handshake as a sign of the modern and Western (so-called Farangi) style of greeting and human interaction using the descriptive-analytical method. The results show that following cultural interactions with Europeans and the spread of Western culture and customs, the Western-style handshake became popular in Iran from the Naserid period onward and the nature of the manner of handshake and its conceptual and semantic implications changed significantly. In this new way, the handshake became a common practice and it transformed from an etiquette reserved for special occasions and individuals into a wide-ranging social practice. Introduction The human hand is an essential part of symbolization. Hands represent human inner feelings more than the face and other body parts. Today, handshake has become a symbol of social etiquette and the exchange of human feelings in society. In many cases, the way of shaking hands represents the class status, mutual feelings, lifestyle, and individual and social attitudes of people. Handshake is an evolved form of non-verbal human communication that has become a universal symbol in cultural, social, political, and economic interactions with the expansion of communication. A handshake is a physical gesture/movement and symbol that carries cultural layers, meanings, and concepts without which many individual, social, and political situations cannot be understood. Although some cultures still resist the generalization of shaking hands for greetings and goodbyes, other signs and shaking hands can have different meanings depending on the location and cultural conditions. It has become an everyday physical movement at the level of global culture. In addition, shaking hands in the social arena has become a concept and a symbol for conveying feelings and attitudes, as well as showing the equality or inequality of social status and class base. In addition, shaking hands has become a very effective and meaningful symbol in politics and diplomacy. Our meeting and contact with others starts with a handshake, and every conversation ends with a handshake. In social terms, shaking hands is also called a small hug. People greet each other, communicate, and say goodbye by shaking hands. Shaking hands is a form of expressing love and intimacy. In a handshake, our feelings, such as interest or indifference, discomfort, self-confidence, etc., are easily transferred to another person. During the COVID-19 epidemic, in addition to human health and well-being, social etiquette and greeting customs, and more precisely, the culture of shaking hands, also suffered a crisis. With this crisis, we realized how much the custom of shaking hands among humans has become familiar every day and how much our socializing has become dependent on it. At the height of the coronavirus epidemic, it was even suggested that the end of this custom had come, but immediately after the disease subsided, handshakes became popular again in socializing, which shows how much this way of greeting has many cultural implications. It is social and political, and without them, the possibility of these meanings and concepts will decrease or disappear. Today, in most countries, the custom of shaking hands is considered the most important and obvious way and action of socializing and interacting, and it has the most use, meaning, and meaning. The modern way of shaking hands is that two hands are clasped together and shaken. In most English-speaking countries and other countries, this symbol is used when saying hello and goodbye, as well as in many other cases.[3] Turning the custom of shaking hands into an essential and widely used symbol with various concepts and meanings is a modern phenomenon. The customs of meeting and greeting, including shaking hands, as an important cultural symbol, can become one of the subjects of study in cultural history. Considering the importance and major implications of shaking hands in today's life, the transformation of this symbol can be interpreted as a kind of evolution in the whole lifestyle. In Iran, shaking hands has a long history, and shaking hands as a religious ritual has a certain value and place in Iranian culture. The research question is to determine the time which shaking hands, as a way of greeting and socializing, became a common practice and its social implications. This historical and cultural exploration of shaking hands in Iran is sure to pique the curiosity of the audience. Materials And Methods In cultural history, the symbolic study of culture has a special place. In this approach, cultural insights started from Taylor's comprehensive understanding of culture, which laid the foundation for the interpretive and symbolic views of culture. Taylor's understanding of culture as a system of meaning or meaningful symbols has been instrumental in shaping cultural history as the history of knowing these meanings. These symbols exist consciously or unconsciously everywhere, from art to everyday life. In this way, it seems that the common point of cultural historians is that all of them deal with the symbolic matter and the interpretation of the symbolic matter. Based on this view, Clifford Geertz defines culture as "the historical pattern of meaning that is embodied in the form of symbols and is a system of inherited perceptions that are expressed in symbolic forms and through which people communicate with each other and their knowledge and attitudes or attitudes In the case of life, they continue or expand." Geertz's fame is due to his special approach to culture and the way he conveys it with a special methodology: From my perspective, culture is a semantic concept. I align with Weber's belief that humans are creatures entangled in the webs of meaning they themselves create. These webs, I argue, are culture, and their analysis cannot be reduced to an empirical science seeking laws. Instead, it requires an interpretive science that delves into the layers of meaning. In order to explain how the act of shaking hands spreads and becomes universal in people's meetings and exchange of meanings and feelings, the approach of Diffusionism seems to be more capable. Diffusionism is a theoretical framework that suggests that culture, including moods, morals, and social etiquettes, evolves through diffusion and transmission from one society to another. Therefore, by moving a national and civilizational unit to another geographical and national area, a part of their spirits and moods are also transferred. The cultural-behavioral changes and newly emerging moods of social groups in Iran in recent centuries can be explained according to the diffusion theory: How with the development of commerce, traffic and communication that began in the 19th century, the way of thinking and the spirit of Iranians changed in the new era and continued in wider, deeper and more complex dimensions. The central point of departure of this theory is to reflect on cultural changes on the one hand and pay attention to cultural similarities on the other hand. In other words, the basic question is why do cultural phenomena change and how do they change? Diffusionism generally considers change as a result of being influenced by the external environment, which brings the phenomena of the source culture to the destination environment through contiguity or transmission. Diffusionists believe less in the ability of cultures to discover, innovate, and emphasize more their ability to imitate and adopt culture. Therefore, before going to the laws of birth and internal development of cultural phenomena, they are looking for the laws of movement and temporal-spatial displacement of these phenomena. History and geography are very important aspects of the diffusionist approach. On the one hand, the phenomena are moving in the geographical area and on the other hand, they are located on the axis of time, in which case the movement is determined through dating and determining the life of the phenomena. Diffusionism, by emphasizing the limitation of innovations, considers the contact and coexistence of cultures as the reason for cultural change. In other words, in diffusionism, less attention is paid to the factor of creativity and the cultural diversity of societies, and more imitation of individuals and societies is considered. Results and Discussion In Iranian culture, shaking hands was standard on special occasions and situations, but it was not expected and unfamiliar in meetings, greetings, and other cases. In historical writings, Iranians do not shake hands at parties and meetings. For example, Chardin describes the customs of greetings and parties of Iranians in the Safavid era in full detail, but he does not mention shaking hands during meetings and parties. He writes about the customs of visiting Iranians: When meeting and welcoming people of the same class or those with a superior character and base, they give more compliments and respect. When they enter, they greet them and do not sit in front of them, and when the assembly ends, they go out the door after all. When someone goes to visit a great person who is sitting in the hall of his house, it is customary to enter the room quietly and silently, stand up in the first empty place, put his legs together, stand with his hands on his chest, lowers his head a little, looks at the observer and permits him to sit, and as soon as he gives him permission to sit with his hand and head It is given and sits. However, if an older person goes to see someone, the house owner gets up as soon as he sees him, walks towards him, and pretends he has moved on. When the people of the same rank arrive, the owner of the house gets up, and if someone worthy of respect enters him, he moves from his place and looks as if he is going to get up. Those in the assembly should only get up when someone enters the hall if the house owner gets up out of respect for him or if a particular reason requires them to get up. According to Polak's report, it was not usual to shake hands during the Nowruz meeting, a significant event in the Iranian calendar, and handing over the year in the court. The Shah did not shake hands with anyone. Those present at the greeting ceremony, who were mostly nobles, dignitaries, and dignitaries, received their hands and then pressed their hands to their hearts and foreheads as a sign of gratitude. Despite this, some sources from the Qajar era talk about the Iranians shaking hands on Nowruz Eid. Naser al-Din Shah writes in his memoirs: "Then we went to the door of Shams-ul-Amara; Amin-ul-Sultan was there. We talked. Then we watched the alley. People wearing new clothes used to shake hands with each other." Polak writes in his description of the Nowruz ceremony of the Nasrid era Iranians: In Nowruz, considered a significant public celebration for the whole nation, the crowd is bustling in all the streets and public squares from very early in the morning. Everyone has new clothes. Acquaintances who face each other shake each other's hands and hug each other with the cry of "Eid Mubarak." A subordinate person congratulates while holding one hand of his master or patron with his two hands and gets the answer of his congratulations. From the point of view of diffusionism, the reign of Naser al-Din Shah was the era of unprecedented influence and spread of the manifestations and culture of Western civilization compared to the past years and decades. Undoubtedly, the Shah's travels to Europe were influential in this regard. The Shah himself used a lot of courage to bring modernity to the country. His reign saw the spread of clothes and uniforms, tables and chairs, sweets, Farangi food and drinks, the creation of industries and factories, the spread of Farangi sciences, electric lights, sports and Farangi dances, the publication of newspapers and books and many other things are actually signs of stepping on the path. It was modernization and traditionalism. Therefore, the French civilization was not only through the construction of factories and sports and eating, but intellectually and culturally also by establishing a forget house, publishing newspapers and new sciences, building western schools such as Dar al-Funun and the new system, creating Dar al-Shuri, a bank, the Kazakh brigade, the police and etc. gradually infiltrated the political, military, social, civil and cultural structure of Iran. This era also saw the influence of Farang's contributions to culture and social behavior, as noted in the writings of Etimad al-Saltanh. If Etimadul-Saltaneh is concerned about the consequences: "Frangipani has weakened the opinions and I don't know if this is good or bad for the nation and government of Iran." Shaking hands in diplomatic meetings seemed very common during the late Qajar period. Abdullah Mostofi writes in the description of his trip to England: As soon as we got back to the hotel, General Slade told the Ambassador that a special message from His Majesty the King would arrive for His Excellency. Its bearer is Lord Chamblan (the king's butler). We had just taken off our official clothes and changed into ordinary clothes. We gathered in the public hall of the embassy when the very tall and elegant young Lord Chamberlain entered. Mushir al-Mulk stood up and stood in front of the Shah's messenger; they shook hands and sat together; we stood and formed a circle around them. Conclusion One of the important tasks of cultural history is the study of rapid and increasing socio-cultural changes, and historians, sociologists, and anthropologists examine these changes over time and in a historical manner. One of these cases, which has become an important symbol for socializing and exchanging human feelings in Iranian society with changes in the way and semantic implications and scope of repetition, is shaking hands. This research was conducted to answer the question: When did shaking hands as a symbol of greetings and human interactions of Iranians in a modern way come up, and what implications did it bring? The research results, by referring to the historical, literary, and personal texts of Iranians, show that shaking hands in the pre-modern era of Iranians was an action with special conceptual implications. Shaking hands or shaking hands was considered a symbol of love and affection, respect, agreement, and farewell, but this action on special and important occasions was mainly elite and was not seen as a common thing with much repetition. Following the cultural interactions with the Europeans and the spread of Western culture and lifestyle, handshakes from the Naseri era became popular in Iran as a style and rule of the Farangi. This act was gradually seen among the government elites and then among the general public and significant changes occurred in the way and quality of shaking hands and its conceptual and semantic implications. In the new meaning and action, shaking hands has become common and reached a more general social level from special situations and persons. Before that, both hands were used to shake hands, but at this time, only the right hand was used. The scope of its specific and limited meanings expanded a lot and covered a wide range of meanings and concepts. This action showed that society's hierarchical structure is changing, and the distance between ranks and classes has worn out from a social and mental point of view. The symbol of shaking hands was actually an indicator of modernization, Europeanization, modernization, or, in the conventional term, becoming “Frangima’ab” of people who wanted to show that they had left the traditional world and entered the modern world. In fact, this European symbol was the vanguard of a new cultural current in Iranian society, which was able to create a gap in the relatively integrated traditional cultural current, a gap that has divided the society into two major Western and traditional currents until today. ورود مدرنیته و فرهنگ نوین اروپایی به جامعۀ ایرانی در ساختارهای سیاسی، اجتماعی و فرهنگی تأثیراتی بر جای گذاشت و این ساختارها را دستخوش تغییر و دگرگونی کرد. بخش بزرگی از این تغییرات در حوزه‌های اجتماعی و فرهنگی و به‌ویژه در سبک زندگی و آداب ‌و رسوم معاشرتی جامعۀ ایرانی روی داد. یکی از این وجوه آداب احوال‌پرسی و به‌ویژه نماد دست دادن بود. این پژوهش با استفاده از روش توصیفی ـ تحلیلی بر آن است به این پرسش پاسخ دهد که دست دادن به عنوان نمادی از احوال‌پرسی و تعاملات انسانی به شیوۀ مدرن و «سبک فرنگی» از چه زمانی در جامعۀ ایرانی رواج یافت و چه دلالت‌هایی را به همراه آورد؟ یافته‌های پژوهش حاضر نشان می‌دهد که به دنبال تعاملات فرهنگی با اروپاییان و رواج فرهنگ و آداب غربی، دست دادن به سبک فرنگی از عهد ناصری در ایران رایج گردید و در شیوه و کیفیت دست دادن و دلالت‌های مفهومی و معنایی آن دگرگونی‌های مهمی رخ داد. در مفهوم جدید، دست دادن به کنشی عام تبدیل شد و از موقعیتها و اشخاص و مناسبت‌های خاص به سطح اجتماعی عام‌تری راه یافت.

https://irhj.sbu.ac.ir/article_103983_cb70f7a0793b0e62c2687d90b7aa6801.pdf