Inspired by Iran Trivia Quiz

Answer: Pahlavi

The Pahlavi dynasty was founded by Reza Khan (1878-1944), a military officer from northern Iran who had become the leader of the Persian Cossack Brigade and the Minister of War of Ahmad Shah, the last monarch of the Qajar dynasty. In that capacity, in 1921 Reza Khan instigated a coup, overthrowing the shah and installing himself as prime minister. In December 1925, the constituent assembly proclaimed him Shah (King) of Iran. Pahlavi, the name he took when he was crowned, is the name of a Middle Persian script derived from Aramaic.

Reza Shah was forced to abdicate in 1941 by the British, and was succeeded by his eldest son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. Like his father before him, Pahlavi embarked on an ambitious programme of reforms known as the White Revolution, which resulted in great economic growth. However, his increasingly authoritarian rule (accompanied by widespread human rights abuses) and the Shah's perceived subservience to Western powers led to political unrest, which culminated in the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The following year Reza Pahlavi died in exile in Egypt.

Reza Pahlavi's eldest son, Crown Prince Reza, has been an active leader of the opposition to the Islamic regime that has ruled Iran for nearly five decades. In recent times, he has been vocal in supporting protests against the Islamic Republic and on various occasions has stated that he merely seeks a transitional role in the process of restoring democracy to Iran. However, though participants in the 2025-2026 protests have often chanted Prince Reza's name, he remains a controversial figure for many Iranians.

The three wrong answers are all names of presidents of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The photo depicts the arms of the Pahlavi dynasty, which were used as Iran's coat of arms from 1932 to 1979.

Answer: the supreme deity of Zoroastrianism

The Strait of Hormuz is a relatively narrow (about 97 km/56 mi at its widest) waterway that lies between the southern coast of Iran and the Musandam Peninsula, shared by Oman and the United Arab Emirates. The port city of Bandar Abbas is located across the strait from the northern tip of the Peninsula. The strait's importance for the trade of oil and natural gas between the Gulf countries and Europe and the rest of Asia cannot be understated: any disruptions of the maritime traffic through the strait are likely to have a considerably negative impact on the supply of these energy sources.

For this reason, the Strait of Hormuz has never been completely closed during the various conflicts that have racked the Gulf region in the past few decades. However, as a consequence of the war launched by the US and Israel against Iran on 28 February 2026 the government of Iran has made it extremely difficult for ships to pass through the straits - causing oil and gas prices to surge worldwide.

The name Hormuz is widely believed to have derived from the Middle Persian pronunciation of the name of Ahura Mazda ("Lord of Wisdom"), the supreme being of Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Iran. In this dualistic belief system, the benevolent, all-wise Ahura Mazda is opposed by the destructive spirit Angra Mainyu (Ahriman). Other theories posit that Hormuz comes from a Persian expression meaning "place of dates", or from the Greek word "hormos", meaning cove or bay.

Answer: Nowruz

In the Iranian calendar, reformed in the 11th century by famed poet and polymath Omar Khayyam, the beginning of the year coincides with the vernal (spring) equinox in the Northern Hemisphere - thus falling on a date between 19 and 22 March in the Gregorian calendar. The name Nowruz (which has a variety of different spellings and pronunciations) means "new day" in Persian. This festival has its roots in the ancient Zoroastrian religion and is strongly linked with the Sun's light. According to the "Shahnameh", the national epic of Greater Iran, Nowruz was established by a mythical king, Jamshid, who saved humankind from a winter that was meant to kill every living creature.

Many customs and rituals are connected to Nowruz. Preparations for the big day include a thorough housecleaning and the purchase of new clothes and flowers. One of the most distinctive traditions is the "Haft-Sin" ("Seven S's"), a table laid out with seven symbolic items whose Persian names start with the letter S. Traditionally, these items are apples, garlic, vinegar, sumac powder, sprouted grain or lentils, a sweet pudding made from germinated wheat ("samanu"), and oleaster (wild olive). As can be seen in the photo, other additions to the table - whose names also begin with S - may include hyacinth flowers, a mirror, a goldfish bowl, a book of wisdom, candles, coins and a clock.

Besides Iran, Nowruz is celebrated in those parts of Asia and Europe that have been influenced by Persian culture - such as the Balkan and Caucasus regions and Central Asia. Though mainly a secular festival, it is also a holy day for the followers of Zoroastrianism, the Baha'I Faith, and Ismaili Shia Muslims.

The three holidays listed as wrong answers are Jewish (Pesach), Hindu (Diwali) and Buddhist (Vesak).

Answer: refrigerator

Much of Iran's vast territory, particularly in the country's eastern part, is covered by the extremely hot, arid Kavir and Lut Deserts. The ice houses known in Persian as yachkals ("ice pit") were built in these inhospitable areas for centuries, probably as early as 400 BC. With their distinctive conical shape, these structures were built of a traditional, water-resistant mortar called "sarooj". Following the principles of evaporative and radiative cooling, they took advantage of those regions' low humidity and frequently cold night temperatures. Yakhchals had three main components: a large, underground storage space, thick shade walls, and ice pits or pools. They often had access to a "qanat" (Iranian aqueduct), whose water filled the pools or powered the evaporative cooling process.

Yakhchals were used to store ice brought from nearby mountains or produced in the pools, as well as storing food. Since antiquity the people of Iran have been partial to frozen desserts, whose preparation was made considerably easier by the availability of yakhchals. The technology was so effective that it was adopted by the Mughal emperors of India, who were strongly influenced by Persian culture. A number of these structures (such as the one in the photo, located in Kerman) are still standing and in a good state of preservation. In recent times, interest in yakhchal technology has been renewed as a more sustainable alternative to electricity-powered refrigeration.

Answer: paradise

While the idea of paradise is often associated with an otherworldly place of eternal bliss, the original paradise was very much an earthly one. Although the word came into English and other European languages through the Hellenistic Greek "paradeisos" - which in early Greek translations of the Old Testament referred to the Garden of Eden - its origins lie in the Old Iranian "pairidaeza", meaning "walled enclosure". By the 5th century BC, the word had come to denote the walled gardens that flourished during the Achaemenid Empire. The photo shows a 19th-century reconstruction of the walled garden at Persepolis by French architect and scholar Charles Chipiez.

Not unlike Italian-style Renaissance gardens, these gardens were formally laid out - often split in four sections with a pond in the middle. In fact, water was a key element in the design of these gardens, as were fruit-bearing trees and fragrant flowers. The ancient Persian paradise garden later became the template for the Islamic gardens found throughout the Mediterranean, the Middle East and as far as India. In modern Persian (Farsi), the word "pardis" means both paradise and garden.

The three incorrect choices are all words of Persian origin. Check, one of the most common English words whose ultimate roots lie in ancient Persia, comes from "shah", the word for king. Other common words of Persian origin are lemon and spinach.

Answer: pistachio

The pistachio (Pistacia vera) is a smallish tree of the family Anacardiaceae (the cashew family) native to Iran and Central Asia. Though regarded as culinary nuts, pistachio nuts are seeds rather than true nuts, unlike hazelnuts or chestnuts: the actual fruit, commonly thought of as a shell, is a drupe that splits open when ripe. Almonds and walnuts are also drupes, much like peaches or plums. Being native to arid regions, pistachios do not need a lot of water to grow and can tolerate extreme temperatures, especially in the summer months. In fact, pistachio fruits need long, hot summers to ripen properly.

Pistachios are widely cultivated in Iran, which is the third-largest producer after the US and Turkey. A wild variety of pistachio, Pistacia atlantica, grows in the Zagros Mountains of Kurdistan, in the western part of the country, near the borders with Turkey and Iraq. This tree, called "baneh" in Farsi, is an economically important species for the rural populations of that area, not only for its fruits but also for its resin.

Pistachios feature in many traditional Iranian dishes, such as Persian ice cream ("bastani"), jeweled rice ("javaher polow"), pistachio soup ("soup-e pesteh"), and Persian chicken with pistachios. The English word itself comes from Middle Persian "pistakē" through the Italian "pistacchio".

Answer: Caspian tiger

The Caspian tiger was a population of Panthera tigris tigris once found in northern Iran, and occurring as far east as the western Chinese region of Xinjiang. This animal, genetically closely related to the Siberian tiger, was assessed by IUCN to be extinct in 2008, though the actual extinction occurred in the 1970s - brought about by hunting and habitat loss.

The Asiatic (or Iranian) cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) is a critically endangered subspecies of the world's fastest land animal, now only found in protected areas of eastern-central Iran. The Caucasian lynx (Lynx lynx dinniki), a subspecies of the Eurasian lynx, mainly occurs in the forested mountain areas of the northern and northeastern part of the country. The Persian or Anatolian leopard (Panthera pardus tulliana), one of eight recognized living leopard subspecies, also inhabits rugged mountain areas. One of the most important habitats for this big cat are the Hyrcanian forests of northern Iran, near the shores of the Caspian Sea, where the Caspian tiger also once roamed.

While the Asiatic lion, Iran's national animal, has been extinct in the country since the mid-20th century, a number of populations survive in the Gir Conservation Area, in the western Indian state of Gujarat.

Answer: they depict human and animal figures

Miniature art is the best-known form of Persian painting. Often compared to the miniatures found in medieval Western and Byzantine manuscripts, Persian miniatures were painted on paper rather than parchment or vellum, using mostly mineral-based pigments, which can keep their bright colours for a long time if properly preserved. They were meant for private use, either as book illustrations - usually taking a whole page - or as separate works to be kept in a dedicated album, known as a "muraqqa".

The earliest examples of Persian illustrated manuscripts date from the early 13th century, just before the Mongol conquest of Iran in 1219 introduced Persian artists to Chinese influences. In the 14th century, illustrated copies of classic works of Persian literature - such as the epic "Shahnameh" (Book of Kings) by Ferdowsi - began to be commissioned, producing some of the finest examples of miniature art. This art form reached its zenith in the 15th and 16th century: the stunning work in the photo (depicting the Biblical episode of Joseph's attempted seduction by Potiphar's wife), by renowned painter Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād, dates from 1488. The miniatures produced in the Ottoman Empire and the Indian subcontinent during the Mughal era were strongly influenced by their Persian counterparts.

Though the Islamic tradition prohibits the visual representation of sentient beings in order to prevent idolatry, this prohibition was never followed to the letter in Persian art: on the contrary, the depiction of human and animal figures is a central element in Persian miniatures. In the classic period of Persian miniature art, artists were exclusively male, associated in workshops led by a senior painter; the work was usually divided between different artists.

Persian miniature art has survived to the present day with the work of eminent artists such as Mahmoud Farshchian. In 2020, the art of miniature of Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan was inscribed in the UNESCO List of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Answer: Arthur Miller

Born in 1972, Asghar Farhadi developed a keen interest in filmmaking in his early teens; he later obtained a BA in dramatic arts and an MA in stage direction. After directing several short films, he made his feature film debut in 2003 with "Dancing in the Dust", and at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival won the Silver Bear for Best Director with "About Elly". His first Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film came in 2011 with "A Separation", followed by "The Salesman" in 2016.

Farhadi's films are deeply rooted in modern Iranian society, which they present in all its complexity. He particularly focuses on cultural norms and class and gender relations, often placing married couples at the centre of his plots. "The Salesman" is about a couple of theatre actors, Emad and Rana, and the distressing events that befall them while they are working in a production of Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". At the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, the film's male protagonist, Shahab Hosseini, won Best Actor, and Farhadi Best Original Screenplay.

Unlike other Iranian directors, Farhadi still lives in his native country, and has often emphasized his connection and commitment to his people. In 2016 he declined to attend the Academy Award ceremony to protest the travel ban issued by President Donald Trump against the citizens of Iran and other six Muslim countries. He has also expressed his support for the protests that began on 28 December 2025.

Answer: women's rights

The Nobel Peace Prizes awarded to lawyer and former judge Shirin Ebadi in 2003 and human rights activist Narges Mohammadi in 2023 are a well-deserved tribute to the struggles of Iranian women against the authoritarian regime that has ruled the country since 1979. While Ebadi, through the organization she founded in 2001, the Defenders of Human Rights Centre, has been dealing with various aspects of human rights, Mohammadi (the organization's vice-president) has focused her efforts on the fight against women's oppression through acts of mass civil disobedience.

Because of her political activity, Mohammadi - a highly educated woman with a degree in physics and extensive experience as a journalist - was imprisoned multiple times, the first in 1998. Though the periods spent in prison have had a negative impact on her health, she has never given up on her fight on behalf of her fellow Iranian women and other political activists.

Mohammadi was in prison when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Arrested again at the end of 2025, in February 2026 she was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison and two years of internal exile. The photo shows some gifts Mohammadi received from her fellow prisoners when she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, which she contributed to the Nobel Prize Museum in Stockholm.