Africa dwarfs Iran: about 30,370,000 km² km² against 1,622,847 km² km². At true size Africa is about 18.7× larger — the whole of Iran fits into Africa roughly 18 times.
The old Mercator map treated both about equally (1× vs 1.4× inflation), so at least their relative sizes were preserved — even if both were drawn at the wrong absolute scale.
Iran fits 18× into Africa.