The Zoroastrian myth of migration from Iran and settlement in the Indian diaspora : text, translation and analysis of the 16th century Qeṣṣe-ye Sanjān 'The story of Sanjan' /
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The Qesse-ye Sanjān is the sole surviving account of the emigration of Zoroastrians from Iran to India to form the Parsi ('Persian') community. Written in Persian couplets in India in 1599 by a Zoroastrian priest, it is a work many know of, but few have actually read, let alone studied in depth. This book provides a romanised transcription from the oldest manuscripts, an elegant metrical translation, detailed commentary and, most importantly, a radical new theory of how such a text should be "read", id est not as a historical chronical but as a charter of Zoroastrian identity, foundation myth and justification of the Parsi presence in India. The book fills a lacuna that has been acutely felt for a long time.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [239]-242) and indexes. :
9789047430421 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
The western Christian presence in the Russias and Qajar Persia, c.1760-1870 /
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Winner of The 2018 Saidi-Sirjani Book Award In The Western Christian Presence in the Russias and Qājār Persia, c.1760-c.1870 , Thomas O'Flynn vividly paints the life and times of missionary enterprises in early nineteenth-century Russia and Persia at a moment of immense change when Tsarist Russia embarked on an expansionist campaign reaching to the Caucasus. Simultaneously he charts the relationship between the new Persian dynasty of the Qājārs and missionary activity on the part of European and American missionaries. This book reconstructs that world from a predominantly religious perspective. It recounts the sustaining ideals as well as the everyday struggles of the western missionaries, Protestant (Scottish, Basel and American Congregationalist) and Catholic (Jesuit and Vincentian). It looks at the reactions of diverse tribal peoples, the Tatars of the North Caucasus, the Kabardians and Circassians. Persia was the ultimate goal of these missionaries, which they eventually reached in the 1820s. Altogether this study throws light on the troubled course of history in West Asia and provides the background to politico-religious conflicts in Chechnya and Persia that persist to the present day.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004313545 :
0924-9389 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Orality and textuality in the Iranian world : patterns of interaction across the centuries /
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The volume demonstrates the cultural centrality of the oral tradition for Iranian studies. It contains contributions from scholars from various areas of Iranian and comparative studies, among which are the pre-Islamic Zoroastrian tradition with its wide network of influences in late antique Mesopotamia, notably among the Jewish milieu; classical Persian literature in its manifold genres; medieval Persian history; oral history; folklore and more. The essays in this collection embrace both the pre-Islamic and Islamic periods, both verbal and visual media, as well as various language communities (Middle Persian, Persian, Tajik, Dari) and geographical spaces (Greater Iran in pre-Islamic and Islamic medieval periods; Iran, Afghanistan and Tajikistan of modern times). Taken as a whole, the essays reveal the unique blending of oral and literate poetics in the texts or visual artefacts each author focuses upon, conceptualizing their interrelationship and function.
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1 online resource (xx, 456 pages) : illustrations (some color) :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004291973 :
1570-078X ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Society and Culture in the Early Modern Middle East : Studies on Iran in the Safavid Period /
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The volume comprises a collection of 20 of the 43 papers presented at the Third International Round Table on Safavid Persia, held at the University of Edinburgh in August, 1998 and edited by the Round Table's organiser. The Third Round Table, the largest of the series to date, continued the emphasis of its predecessors on understanding and appreciating the legacy of the Safavid period by means of exchanges between both established and 'newer' scholars drawn from a variety of fields to facilitate an exchange of ideas, information, and methodologies across a broad range of academic disciplines between scholars from diverse disciplines and research backgrounds with a common interest in the history and culture of this period of Iran's history.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047401711
9789004127746
Jawāhir al-akhbār : Bakhsh-i tārīkh-i Īrān az Qarāqūyūnlū tā sāl-i 984 hijri-yi qamarī /
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In medieval Persia, the munshī or court secretary belonged to a highly professional, privileged class, enjoying a comfortable income and attractive living conditions. The better one's style of writing, elegant yet concise, and the more types of document one could draft, in each case using the appropriate format and terminology, combined with the right kind of political intelligence, the higher one would rise in munshī hierarchy. Despite his high social standing, a munshī could find himself without a job overnight if he fell victim to court intrigue or if there was a change in power. The author of the universal history contained in the present volume, Būdāq Munshī Qazwīnī (d. late 10th/16th cent.), who in his lifetime worked as a scribe, secretary, local administrator, assessor, controller, and vizier, lost his job several times precisely for these reasons. Written from personal experience, the history's part on the Safavids is of special interest.
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Series taken from jacket. :
1 online resource. :
9789004402133
9789646781351
Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i Ismāʿīliyān /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī's (d. 718/1319) Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh has been described by many as the first world history ever. Composed in Persian for the Mongol Il-khans Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304) and Öljeitü (Uljāytu, r. 1304-16), its aim was to set out the history and condition of the Mongol people, conquerors of the world (part one), followed by a description of the other peoples and nations of the world and their histories (part two). Given its unprecedented scope, Rashīd, vizier to both rulers, mobilized a whole team of specialists, informants, and collaborators to assist him in his task. Making use of written and oral sources, the part on the Mongols is a key source on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire, while the second part constitutes the first attempt ever at writing a history of the world. The section published here describes the history of the Ismailis.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404236
9789648700503
Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i Īrān u Islām. Volume 1 /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī's (d. 718/1319) Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh has been described by many as the first world history ever. Composed in Persian for the Mongol Il-khans Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304) and Öljeitü (Uljāytu, r. 1304-16), its aim was to set out the history and condition of the Mongol people, conquerors of the world (part one), followed by a description of the other peoples and nations of the world and their histories (part two). Given its unprecedented scope, Rashīd, vizier to both rulers, mobilized a whole team of specialists, informants, and collaborators to assist him in his task. Making use of written and oral sources, the part on the Mongols is a key source on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire, while the second part constitutes the first attempt ever at writing a history of the world. The section published in these three volumes describes the history of Iran and Islam. Section: Iran, 3 vols; volume 1.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404328
9786002030689
Prefacing the Image : The Writing of Art History in Sixteenth-Century Iran /
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This book studies developments in art historical writing and factors which shaped the album preface. The prefaces were written in Persian between ca. 1491 and 1609 to introduce albums of calligraphy, painting, and drawing assembled for Safavid rulers and courtiers. Approaches to the study of these sources are examined, followed by an analysis of the sociohistorical court-centered context; the circumstances of the texts' composition, reception, and literary dimensions; and their art historical formation and content. It ends with an interpretation of calligrapher Dust Muhammad's preface and his conceptualization of a history and aesthetics of depiction. The book is the first to study the prefaces collectively and in relationship to other cultural practices. It also draws on a wide variety of additional primary sources. It includes forty illustrations and several tables.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004491830
9789004113763
Album Prefaces and Other Documents on the History of Calligraphers and Painters /
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This volume contains album prefaces in the original Persian version with English translation, miscellaneous documents relating to calligraphers and painters, and specimens of travel literature from the Timurid and Safavid periods.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004492301
9789004119611
Theater state and the formation of early modern public sphere in Iran : studies on Safavid Muharram rituals, 1590-1641 CE /
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During the Safavid period, the Shi'i Muharram commemorative rites which had been publically practiced since the 7th century, became a manifestation of state power. Already during the reign of Shah 'Abbas I (1587-1629) the Muharram rituals had transformed into an extraordinary rich repertoire of ceremonies and ceremonial spaces that can be defined as 'theater state'. Under Shah Safi I (1629-1642) these ceremonies ultimately led to carnivalesque celebrations of misrule and transgression. This first systematic study of a wide range of Persian and European archival and primary sources, analyzes how the Muharram rites changed from being an originally devotional practice to an ambiguous ritualization that in combination with other public arenas, such as the bazaar, coffeehouses or travel lodges, created distinct spaces of communication whereby the widening gap between state and society gave way to the formation of the early Iranian public sphere. Ultimately, the Muharram public spaces allowed for a shift in individual and collective identities, opening the way to multifaceted living fields of interaction, as well as being sites of contestation where innovative expressions of politics were made. In particular, the construction of the new Isfahan in 1590 is linked with the widespread proliferation of the Muharram mortuary rites by discussing rituals performed in major urban spaces.
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1 online resource (404 pages) :
Includes bibliographical references. :
9789004207561 :
1569-7401 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Safarnāma-yi Gawhar-i maqṣūd /
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Travel notebooks have existed almost ever since writing was invented. Two travel narratives with high dramatic and literary value from classical antiquity are Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's Aeneid . In Arabic literature, Ibn Baṭṭūṭa's (14th cent.) famous Travels come to mind, and for medieval Persian literature, the travel notebook ( Safar-nāma ) of Nāṣir Khusraw (11th cent.). While the safar-nāma has a long history in the Persianate world, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, it enjoyed a special kind of popularity. Today, more than 250 safar-nāma , for the most part from that period, are preserved in libraries throughout Iran. The travel notebook published here was written in the autumn of 1908, just after Muḥammad ʿAlī Shāh's coup d'état against the constitutional movement of Iran. Its author Āghā Sayyid Muṣṭafā Tihrānī (Mīrkhānī), a politician and supporter of that movement, writes critically about this and many other social issues while traveling from Tehran to Mashhad, unaware that one day, his comments would be published.
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1 online resource. :
9789004402959
9789646781696
Iran in the early Islamic period : politics, culture, administration and public life between the Arab and the Seljuk conquests, 633-1055 /
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This book presents a translation of Bertold Spuler's groundbreaking work on the transformation of Iran from a Persian Zoroastrian Empire to a province of the Arab Muslim Empire to a land divided by a number of Persian and Turkish kingdoms.
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Editor's preface and acknowledgements -- Selective post-1952 bibliography -- Author's preface and acknowledgements -- General maps -- 1. Chronological overview of political history -- 2. The religious situation -- 3. The ethnic situation -- 4. Intellectual and cultural life -- 5. The administration of Persia -- 6. The legal situation -- 7. The social and economic situation -- Specialised maps -- Bibliography: Primary sources ; Secondary sources -- Indices. :
1 online resource (xxviii, 617 pages) : maps. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [526]-579)and indexes. :
9789004282094 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Tārīkh-i Shāh Ṣafī : Tārīkh-i taḥawwulāt-i Īrān dar sālhā-yi 1038-1052 HQ, bih inḍimām-i Mabādi-yi tārīkh-i zamān-i Nawwāb Riḍwān Makān (Shāh Ṣafī), Tārīkh-i taḥawwulāt-i Īrān dar...
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During the reign of Shāh ʿAbbās I (r. 996-1038/1587-1629), the Safavid state was at the top of its power and magnificence. When ʿAbbās died in 1038/1629, he was succeeded by his grandson Sam Mīrzā, son of former crown-prince Muḥammad Bāqir Mīrzā who had been murdered on his father's orders in Rasht in 1024/1615, taking on the name of Shāh Ṣafī. The reign of Shāh Ṣafī (r. 1038-52/1629-42) marks the beginning of a steady decline of the Safavid empire, ending with the deposition of its last ruler, Shāh ʿAbbās III, by Nādir Khān in 1148/1736. The present work by Abu ʼl-Mafākhir Tafrishī is a history of the reign of Shāh Ṣafī. Often based on the author's personal experience or on other eyewitness accounts, it is a welcome source of information on the reign of this cruel and incapable Safavid emperor. In the appendix: a short text on the reign of Shāh Ṣafī by the author's brother, Muḥammad Ḥusayn Tafrishī.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405585
9789648700619
Philosophy in early Safavid Iran Najm al-Dīn Mah
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Muslim philosophical activities on the cusp of the Safavid era (i.e., late 9th/15th and early 10th/16th centuries) have so far escaped the attention of modern scholars. In Iran, the city of Shiraz was the principal center of philosophy at this time, and it was here that Najm al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Nayrīzī (d. after 933/1526), whose life and works are the subject of this book, spent his formative years. An accomplished Shīʿī scholars, Nayrīzī engaged with Avicennan as well as Suhrawardian philosophy in his works. Beside Nayrīzī, the present study introduces his contemporaries among the philosophers of Shiraz and provides an outline of the main challenges of their thought, particularly of the two leading figures, Jalāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī (d. 908/1502) and Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Dashtakī.
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1 online resource. :
9789004214774
Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i Sāmāniyān u Buwayhiyān u Ghaznawiyān /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī's (d. 718/1319) Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh has been described by many as the first world history ever. Composed in Persian for the Mongol Il-khans Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304) and Öljeitü (Uljāytu, r. 1304-16), its aim was to set out the history and condition of the Mongol people, conquerors of the world (part one), followed by a description of the other peoples and nations of the world and their histories (part two). Given its unprecedented scope, Rashīd, vizier to both rulers, mobilized a whole team of specialists, informants, and collaborators to assist him in his task. Making use of written and oral sources, the part on the Mongols is a key source on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire, while the second part constitutes the first attempt ever at writing a history of the world. The section published here describes the history of the Samanids, the Buyids and the Ghaznavids.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404199
9789648700398
Rayy : from its origins to the mongol invasion : an archaeological and historiographical study /
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This book offers a new history of the ancient city of Rayy. Based on the results of the latest excavations on the Citadel and the Shahrestan (the political and administrative nucleus of the city in all periods), the study of historical and geographical texts and on surveys carried out between 2005 and 2007 by the author and the Iranian archaeologist, Ghadir Afround, the complete occupation sequence of the city, from its foundation in the Iron Age and the Parthian reconstructions (2nd to 1st centuries BC), up to the Mongol invasions and rapid depopulation in the 13th century CE, comes to light.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004280700 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh : Tārīkh-i Salghariyān-i Fārs /
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Rashīd al-Dīn Hamadānī's (d. 718/1319) Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh has been described by many as the first world history ever. Composed in Persian for the Mongol Il-khans Ghāzān (r. 1295-1304) and Öljeitü (Uljāytu, r. 1304-16), its aim was to set out the history and condition of the Mongol people, conquerors of the world (part one), followed by a description of the other peoples and nations of the world and their histories (part two). Given its unprecedented scope, Rashīd, vizier to both rulers, mobilized a whole team of specialists, informants, and collaborators to assist him in his task. Making use of written and oral sources, the part on the Mongols is a key source on the emergence and organisation of the Mongol empire, while the second part constitutes the first attempt ever at writing a history of the world. The section published here describes the history of the Salgharids of Fārs.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404274
9786002030047
The Iranian reception of Islam. the non-traditionalist strands : collected studies in three volumes /
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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. The Qurʾānic Pagans and Related Matters Islam, the Ancient Near East and Varieties of Godlessness
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and inbdex. :
9789004319295 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Mirʾāt-i wāridāt : Tārīkh-i suqūṭ-i Ṣafawiyān, payāmadhā-yi ān wa farmānrawāyi-yi Malik Maḥmūd-i Sīstānī /
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The final years of the reign of the Safavids (1501-1722) have been described by many (near-) contemporary authors. A key-event in this period was the rebellion of Malik Maḥmūd Sistānī who, in 1722, in exchange for recognizing Maḥmūd the Afghan as the new shah of Persia rather than doing battle with him in a last-ditch effort to liberate Isfahan, was allowed to claim sovereignty in Mashhad in Khurāsān-an independence which lasted until his defeat in November of 1726. In the standard Persian sources covering this episode, Malik Maḥmūd is described in negative terms, as an adventurer who had to be dealt with. The present work, written by a first-generation Indian of Persian descent, gives a much more positive description of Malik Maḥmūd and his claims to power, often providing hitherto unknown details. Most likely based on oral testimonies by followers who had fled to India, this a is welcome addition to the standard account.
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1 online resource. :
9789004404069
9789646781856
Laṭāʾif al-ḥisāb : Risāla-ī dar bāra-yi sargarmīhā-yi riyāḍī /
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Quṭb al-Dīn Lāhījī (d. ca. 1088-95/1677-1684) was a philosopher and traditional Islamic scholar who also took an interest in mathematics. He was a student of Mīr Dāmād (d. 1040/1630-31) of the 'School of Isfahan' in philosophy, as well as a contemporary of the philosopher, traditionist and mystic Muḥsin Fayḍ Kāshānī (d. 1091/1680). After his studies in Isfahan, Lāhījī returned to Lāhījān. There he was entrusted with the office of Shaykh al-Islām which his elder brother had held for three years before him, in succession to their father, who had been Shaykh al-Islām of Lāhījān before then. He held this office for many years. Among his works are Maḥbūb al-qulūb (history of philosophy), Fānūs al-khayāl (the imaginal world in Illuminationist philosophy) and the Tafsīr-i sharīf-i Lāhījī (Qurʾān interpretation). The present collection of mathematical puzzles aims to show the fun and practical use of mathematics. As a Persian text, it is quite rare in its kind.
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1 online resource. :
9789004405639
9789648700947