Seven-Stoned Mill

Bastani Parizi’s use of the title is informed by analogy of the mill of the politics. In Persian
literature, the ever-present and perennial entity of the time has famously been resembled to
turning of the stones of the mill or wheels of the machine of the Time; the history as well, has
been called ‘Seven-Stoned Mill,’ almost a juggernaut and a huge beast of no mercy to the
king and pauper and which grinds everything in itself like grains of wheat; Bastani Parizi sees
the fate of the politics as a mill from where no one would escape unscathed and the only
trace this huge beast leaves would be ground material. The chapters of the book are all
obviously on topics of politics and history. The eponymous chapter of the book which is also
the last chapter, focuses on the structure and uses of mills from the past to the present;
according to the chapter, Iranian cities and villages had once more than 20,000 mills. The
book names some of the most important mills; it accounts first ever mills and places called
after the same mills. Bastani Parizi artfully places historical events among the apparent
history of mills. Mills and millers then find way to histories. Figuratively, the life and fate of
men is narrated, men who had been victim to this huge juggernaut, trapped between stones of
this beast of history, which indiscriminately and blindly, grinds small and great in its
unremitting turning, and those who are greater and have greater weight, are ground first and
in the worst manner: minister, chancellor, and governor; Buzarjomehr, or Bozorgmehr, the
physician of the court of Sassanid Empire (226-651); the Barmakids and Hasanak the Vizier,
the chancellor of Sultan Massoud the Ghaznavid, Khajeh Nizam-ul-Mulk Tousi, vizier of
Seljukid dynasty, Shamsoddin Ata al-Mulk Joveini, Rashideddin Fazlollah, Mirza
Abolghasem Ghaem Magham Farahani, chancellor of Mohammad Shah of Qajar, Mirza Taqi
Khan Amir Kabir, also a chancellor of Nassereddin Shah of Qajar, Teimour Tash, Dr.
Mohammad Mosaddegh and King Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s prime minister Amir
Abbas Hoveida and others tasted the sheer blind power of this mill. For Bastani, the
unchanging stone of the mill which is the bedrock, is centre of political power and authority;
the moving and changing stone is the public, which applies immense force on the state and
political power. The mill indiscriminately grinds king, vizier, chancellor, governor, sheriff
and other symbols of the ruling elite; it is blind to small and great, ugly and beautiful, and the
virtuous and the vicious; anyone, according to Bastani Parizi, who engaged in the politics,
will inevitably fall victim of this grinding blind force to be mercilessly slain.