What it says
دست انجام شد (dast anjâm shod) is the bazaar Persian way to mark a transaction as final. The phrase combines دست (dast, hand) with انجام شد (anjâm shod, it was done, third-person singular passive past). “By-hand done.” Iranians say it the moment money has changed hands, a key has been passed, an agreement has been sealed. The handshake is the contract.
How to use it
- دست انجام شد، مبارک باشه (dast anjâm shod, mobârak bâshe) “Deal closed, congratulations”
- سر همین قیمت دست انجام شد (sar-e hamin gheymat dast anjâm shod) “At this price the deal is sealed”
- دست انجام بشه، بریم چای بخوریم (dast anjâm beshe, berim châi bokhorim) “Once the deal closes, let’s go drink tea”
The literal meaning
The deal was done by hand. The hand here stands in for the handshake that historically (and still, in many cases) closed Iranian commercial agreements. Bazaars in Tehran, Isfahan, Tabriz, and Mashhad ran on this for centuries: the haggle ended when palms met. Paperwork came after, if at all.
The figurative meaning
The idiom marks finality. Once you say دست انجام شد, the negotiation is over and the price is locked. To re-open it would be a serious breach of bazaar etiquette. The phrase carries weight beyond commerce, too. Families use it for arranged marriage agreements between two households, for inheritance settlements among siblings, for the moment a long argument finally lands on a resolution everyone can live with. The structure is symbolic: a handshake, a witness, a sealed thing. The phrase implicitly invokes آبرو (âberu, social face), because to renege on a دست انجام شد is to lose face publicly, and that loss travels fast in Iranian commercial circles.
Related expressions
قرار شد (gharâr shod, it was set) is the lighter cousin for any agreement. تمام شد (tamâm shod, it ended) covers the more general close-out. معامله شد (mo’âmele shod, the deal was done) is the slightly more formal commercial alternative. The handshake itself is called دست دادن (dast dâdan), and bazaar regulars sometimes punctuate the agreement with بسم الله (besmellâh, “in the name of God”) to seal it with religious weight. See دست for the full Persian vocabulary built on the hand, and بازار for the cultural institution behind the idiom. For the bazaar register and how it shapes Iranian commercial speech, read our guide to Iranian bargaining language, which walks through the full negotiation arc from greeting to handshake to tea.
References
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