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Books

Ancient Iran and Islamic Identity

Mozaffari, Ali. 2014. Forming national identity in Iran: The idea of homeland derived from ancient Persian and Islamic imaginations of place. London: I.B. Tauris.

Modern Iran is a country with two significant but competing discourses of national identity, one stemming from ancient pre-Islamic customs and mythology, the other from Islamic Shi’i practices and beliefs. At one time co-existing and often mutually reinforcing, in more modern times they have been appropriated by intellectuals and the state who have drawn upon their narratives and traditions to support and authenticate their ideologies. The result has been an often-confused notion of identity in Iran. In this essential work, Ali Mozaffari explores the complex processes involved in the formation of Iranian national identity. He lays particular stress upon the importance of place, for it is through the concept of place that collective national identity and ideas of homeland are expressed and disseminated. The author reveals the ways in which homeland is conceived both through designated permanent sites and ritual performance, illustrating his arguments through an analysis of the ancient Achaemenid capital of Persepolis and the Shi’i rituals of Moharram.

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Books

Ideological archaeology of Zoroastrianism

Ahmadi, Amir. 2015. The Daēva cult in the Gāthās: An ideological archaeology of Zoroastrianism (Iranian Studies 24). New York, NY: Routledge.

Addressing the question of the origins of the Zoroastrian religion, this book argues that the intransigent opposition to the cult of the daēvas, the ancient Indo-Iranian gods, is the root of the development of the two central doctrines of Zoroastrianism: cosmic dualism and eschatology (fate of the soul after death and its passage to the other world).

The daēva cult as it appears in the Gāthās, the oldest part of the Zoroastrian sacred text, the Avesta, had eschatological pretentions. The poet of the Gāthās condemns these as deception. The book critically examines various theories put forward since the 19th century to account for the condemnation of the daēvas. It then turns to the relevant Gāthic passages and analyzes them in detail in order to give a picture of the cult and the reasons for its repudiation. Finally, it examines materials from other sources, especially the Greek accounts of Iranian ritual lore (mainly) in the context of the mystery cults. Classical Greek writers consistently associate the nocturnal ceremony of the magi with the mysteries as belonging to the same religious-cultural category. This shows that Iranian religious lore included a nocturnal rite that aimed at ensuring the soul’s journey to the beyond and a desirable afterlife.

Challenging the prevalent scholarship of the Greek interpretation of Iranian religious lore and proposing a new analysis of the formation of the Hellenistic concept of ‘magic,’ this book is an important resource for students and scholars of History, Religion and Iranian Studies.

For ToC and haveing a look inside the book see here.

About the Author:

Amir Ahmadi is an Adjunct Researcher at the School of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, Monash University. He has published in Philosophy, History of Religions and Iranian Studies.

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Books

Admonitions of the wise Ōšnar

AODGoshtasb, Farzaneh & Nadia Hajipour (eds.). 2014. Admonitions of Ošnar-i Dānā. Tehran: Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies.

The (h)andarz ī ōšnar ī dānāg “The Counsels of the wise Aošnar” (AŌD) is the conventional name of a short didactic treatise in Middle Persian belonging to the so-called andarz “wisdom-literature”. AŌD is pseudo-epigraphically ascribed to Aošnara- pouru.jira “Aošnara, the very wise”, a sage mentioned in Yt.13.131. He is also mentioned in Dēnkard VII.1.36 (DkM 598) to be coeval with the primeval king Kay-Kāōs. The frame story of AŌD is a so-called “number-litany”, in which a disciple asks the sage to give an andarz “wise saying” for every number from one to thousand. However the extant manuscripts of AŌD contains the andarz only up to number six.

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Articles

Anti-sasanian movements

Sárközy, Miklós. 2015. Anti-sasanian movements in 6th century Persia – the case of Wistaxm and Windoē. In Csabai Zoltán, Szabó Ernő, Vilmos László & Vitári-Wéber Adrienn (eds.), Európé égisze alatt: Ünnepi tanulmányok Fekete Mária hatvanötödik születésnapjára kollégáitól, barátaitól és tanítványaitól Pécs, 281–296.

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Books

Perspectives on Pasargadae

Mozaffari, Ali (ed). 2014. World heritage in Iran: Perspectives on Pasargadae. Heritage, Culture and Identity. Farnham, Surrey, UK: Ashgate.

Pasargadae is the location of the tomb of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Empire. Through the ages it was Islamised and the tomb was ascribed to the Mother of Solomon. It was only at the beginning of the twentieth century that archaeological evidence demonstrated the relationship between the site and Cyrus and it was appropriated into conflicting political discourses on nationalism and Islamism while concurrently acknowledged as a national and then a World Heritages site. However, Pasargadae is neither an isolated World Heritage site, nor purely a symbol of abstract state politics. Pasargadae and its immediate vicinity constitute a living landscape occupied by villagers, nomads and tourists.This edited volume presents for the first time a broad, multi-disciplinary examination of Pasargadae by experts from both outside and within Iran. It specifically focuses on those disciplines that are absent from existing studies, such as ethnography, tourism and museum studies providing valuable insights into this fascinating place. In its totality, the book argues that to understand World Heritage sites and their problems fully, a holistic approach should be adopted, which considers the manifold of perspectives and issues. It also puts forward a novel approach to the question of heritage, representation and construction of collective identity from the framework of place.

 Table of Contents:
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Articles

Avestan text criticism

Cantera, Alberto. 2014. The problems of the transmission of the Avesta and the tools for Avestan text criticism (TATEC). In Tara Andrews & C. Macé (eds.), Analysis of ancient and medieval texts and manuscripts: Digital approaches, 95-116. Brepols.

The Avestan manuscripts contain the recitatives of several Zoroastrian liturgies that are today still celebrated. These Liturgies took shape around the sixth century BC, long before they were written down for the first time.

Today we know of more than 300 manuscripts, including Avestan texts, but the true number is probably much higher since the tradition of producing manuscripts has continued until recently and the production of copies of parts of Avestan manuscripts is part of the instuction of Zoroastrian priests.

Using the tools proposed in this article will offer a more realistic picture of the complex processes of the Avesta transmission, over and above the simplistic stemmata produced by Geldner solely on the basis of the agreement in error, since errors spread in the Avestan transmission not only through the process of copying from written sources, but also through the influence of ritual practices.

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Journal

Iran Nameh: Volume 30, Number 2 (Summer 2015)

Irannameh-30-2Iran Nameh is a quarterly journal of Iranian Studies. A special issue, volume 30, Number 2 (Summer 2015), is  dedicated to Ehsan Yarshater
for his lifetime service to Iranian Studies.

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Articles

Art of the Achaemenid Empire

Colburn, Henry. 2013. Art of the Achaemenid Empire, and art in the Achaemenid Empire. In Brian A. Brown & Marian H. Feldman (eds.), Critical approaches to ancient Near Eastern art, 773-800. De Gruyter.

This chapter introduces two major aspects of the study of Achaemenid Persian art, namely its definition, and the analysis of quotations of other artistic traditions. Achaemenid art is best defined as consisting of two categories of material. One is the art of the empire, that is, art produced in furtherance of imperial goals. The other category consists of art in the empire, or the artistic production of regions subject to Achaemenid rule. Though this art often took an outward form typical of its local context it was always produced in dialogue with the art of the empire. In both of these categories visual quotations of other, often earlier, artistic traditions figured prominently. These quotations were utilized by individuals as a means of constructing and negotiating visually their positions in the social order of the empire, and by parsing these quotations it becomes possible to reconstruct some of the social conditions in which they were selected. This concept is illustrated in three case studies that demonstrate the breadth of Achaemenid art and its value as a historical source for the study of the empire.

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Events

Zoroastrianism in Iran and India: Then and Now

Call for Applications

The Institute of Religious Studies at the University of Zurich (UZH) invites to the summer school:

Zoroastrianism in Iran and India: Then and Now
August 30th – September 2nd 2015

Zoroastrism is one of the oldest living religious traditions today. It shaped the Persian Empire and strongly influenced other religions, such as Judaism and Islam.
Zoroastrian communities today in Iran, India and in the diaspora are faced with typical challenges of modernity. They are confronted with the need to negotiate the preservation of tradition in the light of requirements of tolerance and the preservation of identity in an age of globalization.
Our Summer School appeals primarily to Master students and PHDs and will be conducted bilingually (English-German).
In lectures and workshops both historic and contemporary socio-scientific subject areas (rituals, beliefs, conflicts, etc.) are discussed with the contributors.
In the discussion with Zoroastrian guests the contemporary situation in India and Switzerland in particular will be analyzed.

Location
KAA E-11
Religionswissenschaftliches Seminar
Kantonsschulstrasse 1
8001 Zürich

Categories
Online resources

History of Iran Podcast

History of Iran Podcast

The History of Iran Podcast project is an ongoing chronological attempt to trace the History of Iran in an innovative way of keeping the “dynastic framework as a useful way of organising the narrative”, but also “going to stop at certain points and explain and elaborate on certain points”. Starting with some general questions and topics on geography in the very first episodes, this series hosted by Khodadad Rezakhani is an ongoing account of the people, events, historic monents, political and cultural remarks that shaped the History of Iran. An invaluable resource for anyone that needs a ground level survey of the Iranian History.

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