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xv Notes on Translation Because most of the published accounts that I used for this study have never been presented to the Anglophone world, the unenviable task of providing the reader with English translations of the Persian texts fell to me. In translating some Persian polysemic words, I chose to accede to their contextual meanings by introducing the word’s etymological significance or historical context, or simply by inserting the Persian words in parentheses. In transliterating names of persons or places, or certain Persian words or concepts, I followed the simple rule of approximating the sound of Persian letters to those in the English alphabet. The only exception pertains to those Persian or Arabic proper names that have a certain norm of spelling owing to their appearance in English (e.g., Mohammad , Muslim, Mahmoud). For simplicity’s sake, I disregarded the distinction between long and short vowels in Persian. I eliminated the typographical ciphers and diacritics that are used to designate Persian letter-sounds involving scanning and accentuation. I have used the apostrophe to mark the vowel ayn in the middle of some Persian words (e.g., Sa’id) but simplified that rule in one case only (Sho’aiyan). I have dropped the apostrophe when the ayn appears as the first vowel of the word (e.g., Ali or Elm). My main objective in translating excerpts from the texts relating to this research is to negotiate between a readable English and the writing styles and idiosyncrasies of the authors of these texts, because I hold that the style of writing captures, at least partially, the nuances in a discourse as a subset of language that locates, conditions, and makes possible the articulation of the subject matter. Finally, in referring to “the OIPFG,” I mean to denote the original Fadai Organization between 1971 and 1979. All earlier or later changes to the name of the group—the People’s Fadai Guerrillas (PFG, the original designation), the Organization of People’s Fadai Guerrillas (OPFG, the mid-carrier name of xvi | Notes on Translation the group), and Organization of Iranian People’s Fadai Guerrillas (OIPFG)— fall under this acronym. I also frequently use “Fadaiyan” (the Persian plural of “Fadai”) or the Fadai Guerrillas in addition to PFG, OPFG, or OIPFG. One revolution and several schisms later, and to this day, certain factions still call themselves the OIPFG. For clarification’s sake, I have tried to specify these later groups by extra notation. ...

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