Category: Books

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From Oxus to Euphrates

Daryaee, Touraj & Khodadad Rezakhani. 2016. From Oxus to Euphrates: The world of late antique Iran (Ancient Iran Series 1). H & S Media.

For a long time, Sasanian studies were mainly cultivated by linguists and historians of religion, and the only standard work on the history of the Sasanian Empire was Arthur Christensen’s L’Iran sous les Sassanides (Copenhagen 1936; second revised and expanded edition 1944). Only in recent years, Christensen’s authority was challenged: Several new syntheses eventually allowed Late antique scholars to better understand the history and the structure of the great rival of the Roman Empire. However, we still lacked a handy, student-friendly introduction to Sasanians studies. Now, Daryaee and Rezakhani provide us with this very welcome booklet, which I highly recommend to students, to an educated audience, but also to Classical scholars (it’s never too late). Giusta Traina, Sorbonne University

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Pope and Historiography of Persian Art

Kadoi, Yuka (ed.). 2016. Arthur Upham Pope and a New Survey of Persian Art (Studies in Persian Cultural History 10). Boston: Brill.
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Shāhnāma as a Mirror for Princes

Askari, Nasrin. 2016. The Medieval Reception of the Shāhnāma as a Mirror for Princes (Studies in Persian Cultural History 9) Leiden; Boston: Brill.

Nasrin Askari explores the medieval reception of Firdausī’s Shāhnāma, or Book of Kings (completed in 1010 CE) as a mirror for princes. Through her examination of a wide range of medieval sources, Askari demonstrates that Firdausī’s oeuvre was primarily understood as a book of wisdom and advice for kings and courtly elites. In order to illustrate the ways in which the Shāhnāma functions as a mirror for princes, Askari analyses the account about Ardashīr, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty, as an ideal king in the Shāhnāma. Within this context, she explains why the idea of the union of kingship and religion, a major topic in almost all medieval Persian mirrors for princes, has often been attributed to Ardashīr.

Nasrin Askari, PhD, (2012), University of Toronto, has completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of British Columbia, and will be working on her next project at the University of Oxford as a Bahari Visiting Scholar in the Persian Arts of the Book.

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Books

Iranian Reception of Islam

Crone, Patricia. 2016. The Iranian reception of Islam: The non-traditionalist strands (Islamic History and Civilization 130). Collected Studies in Three Volumes. Vol. 2 edited by Hanna Siurua. Leiden; Boston: Brill.

Patricia Crone’s Collected Studies in Three Volumes brings together a number of her published, unpublished, and revised writings on Near Eastern and Islamic history, arranged around three distinct but interconnected themes. Volume 2, The Iranian Reception of Islam: The Non-Traditionalist Strands, examines the reception of pre-Islamic legacies in Islam, above all that of the Iranians. Volume 1, The Qurʾānic Pagans and Related Matters, pursues the reconstruction of the religious environment in which Islam arose and develops an intertextual approach to studying the Qurʾānic religious milieu. Volume 3, Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness, places the rise of Islam in the context of the ancient Near East and investigates sceptical and subversive ideas in the Islamic world.

ToC:

  • 1. Kavād’s heresy and Mazdak’s revolt
  • 2. Zoroastrian communism
  • 3. Khurramīs
  • 4. Muqannaʿ
  • 5. Abū Tammām on the Mubayyiḍa
  • 6. The Muqannaʿ narrative in the Tārīkhnāma: Part I, Introduction, edition and translation
  • 7. The Muqannaʿ narrative in the Tārīkhnāma: Part II, Commentary and analysis
  • 8. Al-Jāḥiẓ on aṣḥāb al-jahālāt and the Jahmiyya
  • 9. Buddhism as ancient Iranian paganism
  • 10. A new text on Ismailism at the Samanid court
  • 11. What was al-Fārābī’s ‘imamic’ constitution?
  • 12. Al-Fārābī’s imperfect constitutions
  • 13. Pre-existence in Iran: Zoroastrians, ex-Christian Muʿtazilites, and Jews on the human acquisition of bodies
  • List of Patricia Crone’s publications

Patricia Crone (1945-2015), Ph.D. (1974), School of Oriental and African Studies, was Professor Emerita at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. Her numerous publications include Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (1987); Pre-Industrial Societies (1989); Medieval Islamic Political Thought (2004); and The Nativist Prophets of Early Islamic Iran (2012).

Hanna Siurua (BA, School of Oriental and African Studies; MA, University of Sussex) is a professional editor based in Chicago. She specialises in Islamic and Middle Eastern studies and has edited numerous books and articles in these as well as other fields.

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Books

Zoroastrian Religion, History and Tradition

Williams, Alan, Sarah Stewart & Almut Hintze (eds.). 2016. Zoroastrian flame: Exploring religion, history and tradition. London: I.B. Tauris.
For many centuries, from the birth of the religion late in the second millennium BC to its influence on the Achaemenids and later adoption in the third century AD as the state religion of the Sasanian Empire, it enjoyed imperial patronage and profoundly shaped the culture of antiquity. The Magi of the New Testament most probably were Zoroastrian priests from the Iranian world, while the enigmatic figure of Zarathushtra (or Zoroaster) himself has exerted continual fascination in the West, influencing creative artists as diverse as Voltaire, Nietzsche, Mozart and Yeats. This authoritative volume brings together internationally recognised scholars to explore Zoroastrianism in all its rich complexity. Examining key themes such as history and modernity, tradition and scripture, art and architecture and minority status and religious identity, it places the modern Zoroastrians of Iran, and the Parsis of India, in their proper contexts. The book extends and complements the coverage of its companion volume, The Everlasting Flame.
ToC:
Part I: Themes and Approaches
  • Philip Kreyenbroek: „Looking to the Past in the Gāthās and in later Zoroastrianism“
  • Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina: „Knowledge, Power and Positionally across the Insider-Outsider Divide in the Study of Zoroastrianism“

Part II: Antiquity and Tradition

  • Alberto Cantera: „The ‚Sacrifice‘ to Mazdā: Its Antiquity and Vareity“
  • Almut Hintze: „A Zoroastrian Vision“
  • Daster Firouze M. Kotwal: „Continuity, Controversy and Change: A Study of the Ritual Practice of the Bhagaria Parsis of Navsari“
  • Antonio Panaino: „Betten Astral Cosmology and Astrology: The Mazdean Cycle of 12,000 Years and the Final Renovation of the World“
  • Touraj Daryaee: “Refashioning the Zoroastrian Past: From Alexander to Islam“

Part III: Tradition and Culture

  • James R. Russel: „On the Image of Zarathustra“
  • Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis: „Ancient Iranian Motifs and Zoroastrian Iconography“
  • Franz Grenet: „Extracts from a Calendar of Zoroastrian Feasts: A New Interpretation of the ‚Soltikoff‘ Bactrian Silver Plate in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris“
  • Albert de Jong: „The Dēnkard and the Zoroastrians of Baghdad“
  • Jamsheed K. Choksy: „Friendship in the Pahlavi Books“
  • Ashk Dahlén: „Literary Interest in Zoroastrianism in tenth-Century Iran: The Case of Daqiqi’s Account of Goshtāsp and Zarathustra in the Shāhnāmeh“

Part IV: Modernity and Minorities

  • Shernaz Cama: „The Sacred Armour of the Sudreh-Kusti and its Relevance in a Changing World“
  • Jenny Rose: „Riding the (Revolutionary) Waves between Two Worlds: Parsi Involvement in the Transition from Old to New“
  • Richard Foltz: „Co-opting the Prophet: The Politics of Kurdish and Tajik Claims to Zarathustra and Zoroastrianism“
  • Khojaste P. Mistree: „Collision, Conflict and Accommodation: A Question of Survival and the Preservation of the Parsi Zoroastrian Identity“
  • Sarah Stewart: „Ideas of Self-Definition among Zoroastrians in Post-Revolutionary Iran“
Alan Williams is Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Religion at the University of Manchester and a British Academy Wolfson Professor from 2013-2016. His publications include The Zoroastrian Myth of Migration from Iran and Settlement in the Indian Diaspora (2009) and The Vision of Rumi: Revealing the Masnavi, Persia’s Great Masterpiece (I.B.Tauris, 2016).

Sarah Stewart is Lecturer in Zoroastrianism at SOAS, University of London. She is co-general editor of the series ‘The Idea of Iran’, within which she has co-edited six volumes (all published by I.B.Tauris), and editor of The Zoroastrian Flame: Zoroastrianism in History and Imagination (I.B.Tauris, 2014).

Almut Hintze is the Zartoshty Brothers Professor of Zoroastrianism at SOAS, University of London. Her publications include A Zoroastrian Liturgy: The Worship in Seven Chapters, Yasna 35-41 (2007).

 

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An historiographical Study of Sasanian Iran

Jackson Bonner, Michael Richard. 2016. Al-Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal. An historiographical Study of Sasanian Iran (Res Orientales 23). Peeters Publishers.

This book is a study of the pre-Islamic passages of Abu Hanifa Ahmad ibn Dawud ibn Wanand Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal. It is intended for scholars of Late Antiquity. Special emphasis is placed on Dinawari’s exposition of the rule of the Sasanian dynasty and questions relating to the mysterious Khudaynama tradition which are intimately connected with it. Beginning with a discussion of Dinawari and his work, the book moves into a discussion of indigenous Iranian historiography. Speculation on the sources of Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal follows, and the historiographical investigation of the most substantial portion of Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal‘s notices on the Sasanian dynasty comes next. The findings of the book are set out in a narrative of Sasanian history at the end.
This book was written with one main question in mind: what does Dinawari’s Kitab al-Akhbar al-Tiwal have to say about pre-Islamic Iranian history? A host of other questions arose immediately: who was Dinawari; when did he live; what did he do; how was his work perceived by others; where did Dinawari get his information and how did he present it; is Dinawari’s information reliable?

About the Author: Michael Bonner was an undergraduate classicist who took an MPhil and DPhil in Sasanian history at the University of Oxford. He is a former policy adviser within the Canadian government, and now works as a communications consultant in Toronto.‎ He also teaches Latin and English part-time at the Ontario Academy of Technology. His personal website is www.mrjb.ca.

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Cultural, Religious and Social aspects of Vaqf in Iran

Werner, Christoph. 2015. VAQF en Iran aspects culturels, religieux et sociaux. (Cahiers de Studia Iranica 56). Paris; Leuven: Peeters.
This volume contains the text of the five Ehsan and Latifeh Yarshater Distinguished Lectures on Iranian Studies, organized by the Unité Mixte de Recherche 7528 “Mondes iranien et indien”, and delivered in 2012 at the Collège de France in Paris.
It analyses cultural and social – as well as religious, economic, political and material aspects of endowments in Iran from the 14th century up to the present time. The five chapters cover various periods and are arranged chronologically along major themes: The institution of vaqf in early modern and contemporary Iran; Mystical endowments and religious endowments in fourteenth and fifteenth century Azerbaijan; Mashhad and its illumination vaqfs; Robes of honour conferred by Imam Reza; and Philanthropy, public education and nationalism in vaqf foundations of the Pahlavi period.
Table of Contents:
I. L’institution du vaqf en Iran
  • Vers une définition de l’institution du vaqf en Iran
  • Administration du vaqf et indépendance de l’institution
  • Le vaqf comme institution vivante
  • Vaqf et bonyād : un imbroglio idéologique
  • Manuels juridiques et vaqf : questions et réponses

II. Mouvements mystiques et fondations pieuses : les Kujujī et les Ṣafavides au 14e siècle

  • Les cheikhs Kujujī
  • L’histoire de Tabrīz et du nord-ouest de l’Iran au 14e siècle
  • La Kujujī Vaqfīye de 782h.q./1380
  • Le fondateur comme notable urbain dans les chroniques
  • Le fondateur poète
  • Le fondateur comme cheikh et mystique

III. Ville de lumière : Machhad et ses fondations d’illumination
Fondations d’illumination à Machhad selon le «Paradis des
histoires»

  • Le sanctuaire de l’Imam Reżā – origine, développement et administration
  • Le catalogue de Seyyed Hamadānī, «s̱ār al-rażavīye»
  • Les objectifs des fondations de l’Āstān-e Qods
  • L’administration des fondations d’illumination à l’époque qajare
  • Fondations d’illumination et introduction de l’éclairage électrique

IV. Robes d’honneur conférées par l’Imam Reżā

  • Robes d’honneur – la tradition des ḫelʿat
  • Pīškeš et ḫelʿat
  • Une collection des décrets émis par l’Āstān-e Qods
  • L’Āstān-e Qods-e Rażavī comme état semi-indépendant
    Conclusion

V. Mécénat, instruction publique et nationalisme : Le vaqf à l’époque Pahlavi

  • Législation et l’administration des owqāf à l’époque Pahlavi
  • Les Fondations Malek
  • Les Fondations Doktor Maḥmūd Afšār
  • La Fondation Moqaddam à Téhéran et autres fondations hybrides
    de l’époque Pahlavi

English summaries: Vaqf in Iran Cultural, Religious and Social aspects
Introduction
I. The institution of vaqf in Iran
II. Mystical movements and pious foundations: the Kujujī and the
Ṣafavids in the 14th century
III. City of light: Mashhad and its illumination vaqfs
IV. Robes of honour conferred by Iman Reżā
V. Philanthropy, education and nationalism: vaqf in Pahlavi Iran

About the Author:

Christoph Werner is Professor of Iranian Studies at Center for Near and Middle Eastern Studies (CNMS) was established at the Philipps-University of Marburg.

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Books

Turks and Iranians: Interactions in Language and History

Csató, Éva, Lars Johanson, András Róna-Tas & Bo Utas (eds.). 2016. Turks and Iranians: Interactions in language and history (Turcologica 105). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

The contributions by an international group of leading scholars discuss the historical and cultural relations of old and modern Turkic and Iranian languages. A main topic is how contacts of spoken and written languages from pre-Islamic times until various periods of the Islamic era have influenced the emergence and development of Iranian and Turkic varieties. The purpose is to contribute to a better understanding of the interrelations between cultural-historical contacts and linguistic processes, and to stress the necessity of cooperation between experts of Turkic and Iranian studies.

-See the Table of the Contents here

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Books

Iranian Studies in Honour of Éva M. Jeremiás

Szántó, Iván (ed.). 2015. From Aṣl to Zā’id: Essays in honour of Éva M. Jeremiás (Acta et Studia XIII). Pilis-csaba: The Avicenna Institute of Middle Eastern Studies.
Cove­ring a wide range of subjects within the general field of Iranian studies, this collec­tion of essays consists of contri­bu­tions by twenty scho­lars. Most arti­cles concen­t­rate on Persian lingu­istics.
A number of further essays discuss Persian lite­ra­ture, histo­rio­graphy; reli­gion, science ; and art. The volume contains nume­rous illu­s­t­ra­tions, mostly in colour, and it includes a compre­hen­sive biblio­graphy of Éva M. Jere­miás up to 2015.
Table of Contents:
  • C. EDMUND BOSWORTH: The poet ‘Asjadī and early Ghaznavid history
  • MÁRIA GÓSY: Similarities and differences in the early acquisition of grammar by Persian and Hungarian children
  • ELA FILIPPONE: The so-called Old Persian ‘potential construction’ (being Text production strategies and translation strategies in the Achaemenid documentation, III)
  • BERT G. FRAGNER: Orientalismus in Abenteuererzählungen aus der frühen Sowjetunion
  • CARINA JAHANI: Complex predicates and the issue of transitivity: The case of Southern Balochi
  • ANNA KRASNOWOLSKA: The Sarmatian myth and Poland’s nineteenth-century Orientalism
  • PAUL LUFT: Authenticity and identity of Qājār poetry on stone and paper
  • MARIA MACUCH: Precision orientated legal language in the Sasanian law of inheritance
  • ÁGNES NÉMETH: How do young Iranians speak?
  • PAOLA ORSATTI: Spoken features in classical Persian texts: subordinate conditional clauses without a conjunction
  • ANTONIO CLEMENTE DOMENICO PANAINO: Jesus’ trimorphisms and tetramorphisms in the meeting with the Magi
  • ADRIANO V. ROSSI: Diglossia in Persian
  • CHRISTINE VAN RUYMBEKE: Sir William Jones and the Anwār-i Suhaylī. Containing a fortuitous but nevertheless essential note on the Orient Pearls
  • ‘ALI ASHRAF SADEGHI: Rare forms of personal endings in some Classical Persian texts
  • NICHOLAS AND URSULA SIMS-WILLIAMS: Rustam and his zīn-i palang
  • IVÁN SZÁNTÓ: Bahāʼ al-Dīn al-‘Amilī and the visual arts
  • KATALIN TORMA: Georgius Gentius and the early reception of the Gulistān in Hungary
  • ZIVA VESEL: Les figures astrologiques dans les traités persans
  • SIBYLLE WENTKER: A visit of the Shah. Vienna and the false Rūznāma of Nāṣir al-Dīn Shah

About the Editor:

Iván Szántó (PhD 2009) is a scholar of Art History with special focus on Iranian Art and staff member of  The Institute of Iranian studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW).

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Selected Features of Bactrian Grammar

Gholami, Saloumeh. 2014. Selected Features of Bactrian Grammar (Gottinger Orientforschungen, III. Reihe: Iranica 12). Harrassowitz Verlag.

Bactrian, the only Iranian language written in the Greek alphabet, was spoken in ancient Bactria in northern Afghanistan. It is an intermediary Middle Iranian language, possessing the characters of both Eastern and Western Iranian groups, and thus playing a very important role in the dialectology of Iranian Languages.
Saloumeh Gholami’s study deals with various relatively unknown phonological, morphological and syntactical features of Bactrian and includes the following topics: historical phonology of Bactrian; the syntactical position of different kinds of nouns and their relationship in a sentence; the different types of pronouns and their syntactical properties; the function and syntactical position of prepositions and postpositions; adverbs and their formation; proximate and remote deixis adverbs as well as their different syntactic positions; various kinds of conjunctions and their functions; selected aspects of the verb; word order in clauses with transitive or intransitive verbs, and an investigation of double object constructions; as well as the different types of compounds.

For more information see the ToC of this volume.