Iranian Studies

Zusammenfassung
Ziel dieser Arbeit war zum einen, die Basisstruktur der Verben der Zaza-Sprache zu entwi-ckeln. Zum zweiten ging es darum das bisher nur oberflächlich behandeltes Thema Ergativität im Zaza detailliert zu untersuchen. Kapitel eins gab einen Überblick über die bedrohte irani-sche Sprache Zazaki und über einige ihre wissenswerten Eigenschaften. Kapitel zwei stellt zunächst die morphologisch und/oder syntaktisch ergativen Sprachen der Welt anhand mehre-rer Beispielen dar. Die Verbfunktionalität des Zaza wird im Kapitel drei behandelt, welches der Kern dieser Arbeit ist. Kapitel vier behandelte das Thema der Ergativität bezogen auf die Zaza-Sprache.

Analytischer Ausgangspunkt des zentralen Kapitels drei der Arbeit waren die Konstrukts der Role and Reference Grammar (RRG). Dieses Kapitel nahm sich vor, die Grundstruktur der Verben im Zaza mittels der Instrumente der RRG herauszuarbeiten. Zunächst wurden die syn-taktischen Strukturen der Verben in §3.1 dargestellt. Operatoren, syntaktische Relationen, privilegierte syntaktische Argumente und Junkturen wurden im ersten Teil dieses Kapitels behandelt. Es stellte sich heraus, dass das Zaza interessante Operatoren zur Verfügung stellt. Zum zweiten wurden unter der Rubrik „Semantik“ die lexikalische Darstellung und logische Struktur der Verben sowie ihre Makrorollen untersucht. Zum dritten mussten diejenigen morphosyntaktischen Eigenschaften der Zaza-Verben untersucht werden, die innerhalb der RRG nicht behandelt worden waren. In alldem wurde versucht, meine Darstellung durch zahl-reiche Beispiele zu illustrieren und zu untermauern. Die Frage, ob die morphologischen Stammbildungstypen mit der semantischen Klassen der Verben in direkter Relation stehen, war eines der hauptsätzlichen Ziele dieser Arbeit. Die Prüfung zeigte, dass die Stammbil-dungsmorpheme für die Bildung der semantischen Klassen keine Rolle spielen. Diese Mor-pheme üben aber mehrere morphosyntaktischen Funktionen aus. Sie markieren Diathese, Transitivität, Agentivität und vieles mehr. Durch diese Morpheme sind die Kategorien der Verben eindeutig geregelt. Ein weiteres, für die Frage der Ergativität ebenfalls relevantes Re-sultat war, dass es im Zaza keine Verben gibt, die sowohl intransitiv als auch transitiv sind. Ein Verb ist entweder intransitiv oder transitiv. Die Klasse der atransitiven Verben existiert im Zaza nicht.

Kapitel vier präsentierte die Entwicklung der Ergativität in den iranischen Sprachen in histori-scher Reihenfolge vom Anfang bis zu den modernen iranischen Sprachen. Die benachbarten und nahverwandten indischen Sprachen wurden in diesen Teil ebenfalls einbezogen, da sie sehr ähnliche Entwicklungen aufweisen. Anhand der Beispiele von den altiranischen Sprachen Altpersisch und Awestisch stellte sich heraus, dass diese nicht ergativ sind. Auch die altindischen Sprachen wie Vedisch wiesen dieses Charakteristikum nicht auf, sondern waren akkusativisch. Der Anfang der Ergativität liegt sowohl für das iranische als auch für das indi-sche Sprachterritorium im mittleren Stadium. Hierbei war die Entwicklung in den benachbar-ten indischen und iranischen Räumen gleichlaufend. Die Rückkehr zum akkusativischen Sys-tem im neueren Stadium zeigt ebenfalls einen synchronen Werdegang. Während einige indi-sche Sprachen noch eine gespaltene Morphologie haben, haben andere wie Oriya und Bengali eine akkusativische Morphologie. 
Auch im iranischen Gebiet ist der Rückgang zum ursprünglichen System nicht abgeschlossen. Dementsprechend sind die neuiranischen Sprachen in drei Gruppen zu unterteilen:
a. Akkusativische iranische Sprachen (Neupersisch, Dari, Sorani)
b. In Umwandlung begriffene iranische Sprachen (Kurmanji)
c. (Split-)Ergative iranische Sprachen (Zaza, Pastho, Gorani)

Die Ergativität im Zaza ist stabil und daher gehört die Sprache zu Gruppe c. Die ältesten Za-za-Schriften sind auf Anfang des 20. Jahrhunderts datiert. Es sind keine älteren Inschriften überliefert, daher besteht in Bezug auf die Einflüsse auf das Zaza im Hinblick auf die Ergati-vität oder andere linguistische Bereiche große Unklarheit. Obwohl sich dies nicht genau bele-gen lässt, verweisen die vorhandenen außersprachlichen Daten darauf, dass das Zaza die Er-gativität aus seiner ursprünglichen Heimat Dailam übernommen hat.

Die Übernahme blieb aber auf die Morphologie beschränkt und schien keinen Einfluss auf die Syntax zu haben. Ein Beispiel von der heutzutage gesprochenen Zaza-Sprache an dieser Stelle kann das ergative System exakt präsentieren.
(5.1)
a. Kutık-Ø    astık-i            we-n-o
hund-NOM knochen-OBL essenPRÄS-PRÄS-1sg
‘Der Hund frisst den Knochen.’

b. Kutık-i      astık-Ø          wer-d-Ø
hund-OBL knochen-NOM essenPRÄS-PRÄTT2-3sgM
‘Der Hund fraß den Knochen.’

Eine direkte Beziehung zwischen der Verbsystem und der Ergativität  im Zaza liegt nicht vor. Wäre das Präteritalsuffix des Zaza standardmäßig für alle Verben /-t/ bzw. /-d/, könnte von einem Zusammenhang gesprochen werden. Das ursprüngliche altiranischen /-ta/-Partizip be-schränkt sich auf eine morphologische Verbgruppe (-t) des Zaza. Diese Weiterentwicklung lässt sich nicht verallgemeinern, dass die Zaza Sprache mehrere präteritalen Suffixe hat. Au-ßerdem ist die Ergativität keine indogermanische Eigenschaft, da diese akkusativisch sind.

Außer Hawramani (Gorani) stammen die sprachlichen Daten der iranischen Sprachen von Muttersprachlern, die meistens Akademiker, teilweise Sprachwissenschaftler sind. Die Daten der Informanten befinden sich in Anhang 6.5. Die Beispiele aus dem Zaza stammen aus schriftlichen oder mündlichen Quellen, und wo keine passenden Daten vorlagen, wurden die Beispiele vom Autor selbst geschaffen. Er konnte bis zum sechsten Lebensalter nur die Mut-tersprache Zaza sprechen und verstehen und lernte erst in der Schule Türkisch. In einem Dorf ist er aufgewachsen und hatte sein ganzes Leben lang großes Interesse an seiner Mutterspra-che. Er beherrscht das Zaza in allen Bereichen daher können seine Beispiele als zuverlässig betrachtet werden.

Abschließend wird erneut darauf verwiesen, dass die Lage der Zaza-Sprache wie der vieler anderer bedrohter Sprachen auf der Welt keinen Anlass zu Optimismus gibt. Solange die zu-ständigen Regierungen keine gesetzlichen Regelungen zur lokalen Förderung dieser Sprachen treffen, wird ihr Aussterben in naher Zukunft kaum zu verhindern sein. Neben dem Verlust eines interessanten Forschungsgegenstandes würde dies auch den Untergang einer spezifi-schen Art der sprachlichen Weltbetrachtung bedeuten.

The 1978-1979 revolution in Iran saw the country move from a monarchy to an Islamic Republic. This gave rise to political, economic and social changes, but also a series of cultural shifts, most heavily effecting Iran’s pre-Islamic and Pahlavi Era inheritance. While some sites seamlessly transferred from one cultural context to the next, others were ignored or even defaced. Even within the positive recasting of pre-Islamic heritage during the reformist movements of the late 1990s, the concept of Iranian identity has remained complicated, an unstable foundation upon which to construct a uniform heritage policy. Finding a way to reconcile the various political movements has become central to the successful management and preservation of Iran’s heritage as a sustainable resource that can serve a complex nation with a long and rich history. This paper will examine three specific examples of heritage sites that were affected by the changes in Iranian identity politics: the tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae, Sa’dabad palace and the Azadi Tower. An exploration of the similarities and differences between these sites before and after the revolution will then highlight the surprising creativity with which such heritage has been treated within the Islamic Republic.

This article adopts the theoretical framework of complex realism to trace the evolution of the Islamic Republic of Iran's foreign policy and developmental activities in Africa between the 1980s and the 2000s. Contrary to common assumptions, the deradicalization of the Islamic Republic's foreign policy in Africa began not under the moderates in the early 1990s, but under the conservatives in the mid-1980s. This period marked the first time that the Islamic Republic instrumentalized development to advance its strategic interests in Africa—a policy that has continued despite the factionalization of Iran's political elite. Based on one year of archival research and interviews in Iran, this article is the first to investigate the history and activities of the Islamic Republic's rural development organization, Construction Jihad, in Africa. It posits that development, instead of arms or ideology, has enabled Iran to make the farthest inroads into the continent due to Africa's sizeable agrarian economies, widespread rural poverty, and formidable developmental challenges.

We invite applications for our panel "Figuring It Out: Crises and Resistance in Graphic Novels, Comics, and Cartoons" at the XV Conference of the Italian Society for Middle Eastern Studies (SeSaMO). The conference will be held in presence at L’Orientale University of Naples (Naples, Italy) on June 22-24, 2022.

In this essay I seek to explore the icon of the Fighting Cock movement (Khorus Jangi) and of its Manifesto, " The Slaughterer of the Nightingale, " in order to consider its implications and imagistic allusions. In outlining the background of the Khorus Jangi and associated movements, I discuss the imagery of the khorus both in ancient Iran and globally, and in the context of the ideology of the Khorus Jangi. The Manifesto is discussed and analyzed and it is seen that the khorus prefigured the Manifesto, and heralded the appearance of a new movement in painting, as distinct from what had already happened in surrealist and modernist circles in writing. The manifestation of surrealist and modernist ideology in imagery seems to have been a response to this wake-up call of the Khorus Jangi.

Aida Foroutan, “Why the Fighting Cock? The Significance of the Imagery of the Khorus Jangi and its Manifesto ‘The Slaughterer of the Nightingale,’” Iran Namag, Volume 1, Number 1 (Spring 2016), XXVIII-XLIX.

https://www.irannamag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/1.1-English-Foroutan-Iran-Namag.pdf

This is an introductory lecture about Iranian pop music in diaspora for undergrad students of INTRODUCTION TO POPULAR MUSIC. It is also a workshop to introduce fundamental aspects of Iranian pop music and political dislocation to non-Iranians.

""The  article deals  with the  works  of Farid-al-Din  ‘Attar  (12–13  c.),  a  great  Sufi poet  who
played an important role in the formation of the Sufi literary tradition and Persian poetry. Attar
was the creator of the Sufi mathnawi poetic form, in which the philosophical basis and mystical
practices of Sufism are not presented by being plainly defined or by a description of the mystical
experience of the author, but are rather “shown” by means of a skillfully constructed sequence of
various  stories  and  parables.  The  article  addresses  problems  of  interpretation,  translation  and
commenting,  as  well  as  the  biographical,  philological,  metaphysical,  and  poetical  aspects  of
‘Attar’s  creative  work,  by  means    of  which  it  is  possible  to  see  beyond    the  surface  level  of
entertaining stories into the deeper levels of meaning.
Keywords:  Persian  poetry,  Sufism,  Farid-al-Din  ‘Attar,  spiritual  journey,  hermeneutics,
translation, commentary""

La France et l'Iran : entre attirance stratégique et rupture idéologique

Du point de vue des révolutionnaires khomeynistes iraniens, la France est un pays de type « petit Satan » (sheytân koutchik), une catégorie à mettre en perspective avec le statut de « grand Satan » (sheytân bozorg) réservé aux Etats-Unis ; pour les élites politiques de la République islamique, ce statut se justifie avant tout par le non-respect par la France de l’accord Eurodif et par le soutien de Paris à Saddam Hussein pendant la guerre Iran-Irak (1980-1988). Cette vision caricaturale de ce que représente la France et de son comportement sur la scène internationale s’inscrit en contrepoint de la perception réductrice qu’ont les néoconservateurs français de l’Iran. Selon eux, l’agressivité et l’intransigeance sont les éléments indispensables à la mise en œuvre d’une diplomatie iranienne lucide et efficace. Cette posture politique est étayée par des experts français qui réduisent l’ensemble de la politique iranienne de la France à une stratégie d’endiguement (containment) nucléaire. 

Allant encore plus loin, François Heisbourg estime que « la paix et la guerre nucléaires dans le monde dépendent de l’avenir des ambitions nucléaires iraniennes ». Ce prisme nucléaire réduit à néant toute autre proposition de définition de l’intérêt national français s’agissant des relations avec Téhéran. Les impératifs économiques, géopolitiques (stabilisation de l’Irak et de l’Afghanistan) ou de sécurité énergétique (notamment concernant le secteur gazier) ne sont donc plus des critères permettant de définir, de manière équilibrée, avec le dossier nucléaire, la stratégie française vis-à-vis de l’Iran. Il s’agit au contraire de lutter idéologiquement contre ce que Bruno Tertrais appelle « le double révisionnisme » iranien qui concernerait la Shoah et l’utilisation de la bombe nucléaire (Hiroshima). 

Cette perception réductrice des enjeux iraniens s’est plus particulièrement imposée parmi les élites politiques en France au lendemain de l’accession de Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005) et de Nicolas Sarkozy (2007) à la présidence de leur pays respectif.

Somewhere on the border between Oman and Yemen lies the body of Rafat Afraz. Rafat had been a school administrator at the Refah school for girls in Tehran, a site of Islamic revolutionary activism in the early 70s and the temporary headquarters of the Khomeini-led revolutionary forces in 1979. Rafat and her younger sister Mahbubeh[1] joined the Sazman-i Mujahedin-i Khalq (the People's Mujahedin Organization or Mujahedin) in 1970, a guerilla organization that at its moment of founding was, simply put, a "combination of Islam and Marxism."[2] By mid-1975, the organization had a violent split between its Marxist and Islamist selves with the former disavowing the latter. Around this time, the sisters left Iran. Traveling via London, Damascus, and Aden, they made their way to the Martyr Fatima Ghanana Hospital in Ghaitha and the border village of Hawf in the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen to help the Cover of Mahbubeh and Rafat Afraz' memoir about the Dhufar revolution. Photo from Naghmeh Sohrabi.

Images of dragon-slaying by Eastern Christian warrior saints allegorise the overthrow of evil forces, a topos that appears first on the eastern confines of the Byzantine Empire in Transcaucasia. Representations of a triumphal rider trampling or slaying a fallen enemy are frequent in antiquity but acquire a moral significance only under the emperor Constantine in the early fourth century – a century later than analogous imagery on the investiture relief of Ardashīr I (r. 224–241) at Naqsh-i Rustam. Close parallels in iconography between the Iranian and the Judaeo-Christian traditions expressing the fundamental juxtaposition between victor and vanquished, and the latter often characterised by ophidian features, may in large part be due to the influence of Iranian dualistic notions, and specifically Zoroastrian eschatological thought systems. Conclusive evidence points to the fact that the iconographic semantics of the medieval Western Asian equestrian dragon-fighter in its heroic as well as saintly incarnation owe much to ancient prototypes that germinated in the syncretistic melting pot of the great Near Eastern religions. The visual representation of a fighter doing battle with a serpent or dragon employs a traditional and enduring iconographical formula of some antiquity and wide diffusion throughout the Near Eastern world. It is part of a stock of popular imagery that survived into medieval times. The fighter takes aim at an ophidian creature using a variety of weapons while the creature is shown either as a lively upright being imbued with fighting spirit, or, more commonly, in the guise of a vanquished being lying on its back beneath the horse's feet with gaping upturned jaws. The idea of connecting the cult and iconography of the Eastern Christian warrior saints with a serpent-dragon can be traced to at least the early seventh century. In the Christian church the dragon motif developed in the eastern confines of Byzantium, where the so-called holy rider vanquishing a dragon was a well-established literary topos and was represented in early wall painting. Depictions are found on portable items, ranging from magical amulets to luxury objects, as well as on sacred architecture, in particular churches and funerary settings. The motif fell on particularly fertile ground in the southern Caucasus region which was part of the pan-Iranian religio-cultural realm and was steeped in its artistic conventions.

Middle Persian zamān is one of the most important terms in the Iranian cultural and religious lexicon. Its origin, however, remains yet controversial, although, the scholarly debate on this lexeme has opened different perspectives with alternative solutions, particularly with regard to its ultimate roots—Semitic or Indo-Iranian. The present study is a thorough examination of all the aspects of the issue with new interpretation of the extant data. The word zamān is one of the most important of the Middle Persian cultural and religious lexicon; in spite of this significance the etymology of zamān remains controversial, in particular if we consider that the scholarly debate has produced three main solutions: 1) an Akkadian loanword in (Old) Persian (from simānu to *ǰamāna-); 2) an Iranian borrowing (from *ǰamāna-) in Aramaic and Hebrew z e man; 3) an Akkadian loanword in Old Persian followed by another one from Old Persian into Aramaic and Hebrew, in order to explain the initial z-of these (later) Semitic forms. In reality, the conspectus of the attestations of Parthian žamān(ak) (and Armenian žaman(ak)), Bactrian ζαµανο (žamā ̆ n) and Sogdian ǰamn-, zamnw-(plus other ones), all referring to " time " , strongly demonstrate the indisputable existence of an ancient Iranian stem *ǰamā ̆ n(a)-(and its possible varieties), which cannot be the fruit of a loanword from Akkadian or any other ancient Semitic language. Furthermore, this article outlines the

This article analyzes the techniques by which the kings of the early Sasanian dynasty engaged the past and shaped the experience of future generations. I concentrate on the innovations and legacy of the first two kings of kings of the dynasty, Ardashir I (r. 224–239/40 C.E.) and his son Shapur I (239/40–270/2 C.E.). These sovereigns fashioned a new and politically useful vision of the past to establish their dynasty's primacy in Persia and the wider Iranian world, eclipsing their Seleucid, Fratarakid, and Arsacid predecessors. I identify and examine the artistic, architectural, and ritual means by which the early Sasanians conformed the built and natural environment of their homeland to their grand new vision of the past. I argue that the Achaemenid patrimony of the province of Pars played an important role in these efforts, serving as inspirations and anchors for the Sasanians' new creations.

This essay examines the role and meaning of Shaykh Mushrif al-Dīn “Saʻdī” Shīrāzī’s Gulistān in late Mughal India. As the prose primer for a Persian education, the Gulistān encompassed the double meaning of adab, as exemplar both of literary form and of proper conduct. I explore instances in which the original text is cited in the work of Sirāj al-Din ʻAli Khān Ārzū (1689-1756 CE), a scholar and poet, who also wrote a commentary on the text. I then explore the larger context of Ārzū’s life and work in the context of mid- eighteenth-century Delhi, to situate the stakes of social and literary adab in a time of political fragmentation and social upheaval. Patronized by high-ranking Mughal officials, Ārzū was engaged in a larger project of recouping the cultural prestige of the imperial capital as political power devolved to regional centers in the face of factional politics and external invasion. Such an analysis seeks to historicize particular readings of classical texts of Persianate education.

The paper provides a translation of the colophons to the Persian Gospels’ manuscripts in Armenian script (Matenadaran N 8492 and N 3044), in which the history of the manuscripts is recounted. This leads us to interpret the reasons to translate Gospels in Persian and write in Armenian script. The data of colophons assume to reveal many question concerning the Armenians living in Eastern Transcaucasia in 18th century. As per colophons the Gospels have been translated into Persian for the Christians living in the above mentioned area, as they needed this vast religious knowledge to resist the Muslim preachers who were engaged in religious discourse. Religious discourse was one of main tools of Spreading Islam and Islamisation in the time of Safavid Shah Soleyman and his son Shah Sultan Husayn.
Despite living among the Persian speaking population, Armenians were preserving their Armenian identity by holding into Christianity and the Armenian writing. Starting from the middle ages when religious ideology was dominant, Armenian writing, literature and particularly Alphabet and the letters had been sanctified and held a sacred content. At the core of writing the translation of Gospels in Armenian script was residing the same idea of sacredness.

عنوان اصلی مقاله‌ای که در پی خواهد امد "بازخوانی تعلیم و تربیت اسلامی و مدرسه جدید در اندیشه دکتر شریعتی" است که در آن سعید پیوندی ضمن تعریفی از مفهوم مدرسه مدرن در دوره جدید به دیدگاه شریعتی در این باره و رویکرد او به مساله تعلیم و تربیت پرداخته است. او می‌نویسد:
"... در میان اندیشمدانی که نظام آموزشی را از دیدگاه دینی و اسلامی مورد نقد قرار داده‌اند بدون تردید علی شریعتی از جایگاه ویژه‌ای برخوردار است. دکتر شریعتی یکی از نادر منتقدان نظام آموزشی است که دامنه برخورد خود در این حوزه را به اصلی‌ترین جنبه‌های فعالیت و فلسفه وجودی و وظایف مدرسه می‌گستراند، و با نگاهی اسلامی انقلابی، در صدد ارائه‌ی نوعی الگوی جایگزینی هم برمی‌آید..."

Resumen: Ya restan menos de 340 días para estrenar los nuevos años 20. Sin embargo, no bastan ni cien años para que la mujer oriental deje de resultar un verdadero intríngulis dentro de la perspectiva occidental. La fotógrafa iraní Shadi Ghadirian (Teherán, 1974) otorga su visión sobre la mujer de Oriente Próximo mediante su exposición ‘’Como todos los días’’. Se trata de su primera muestra en el Centro Cultural Internacional Oscar Niemeyer, la cual fue estrenada el 11 de enero y se clausura el 31 de marzo. La exhibición en la ciudad asturiana de Avilés marca un recorrido por las series fotográficas de Ghadirian que prueban la evolución de su trayectoria artística desde la perspectiva de género hasta un punto de vista más experiencial, aunque sin diluir la primera reflexión.

Abstract: She already has less than 340 days for the new 20 years. However, there are not enough years for the Oriental woman. The Iranian photographer Shadi Ghadirian (Tehran, 1974) gives her vision on the woman of the Middle East through her exhibition "Like every day." It is his first show at the International Cultural Center, Oscar Niemeyer, which was released on January 11 and closed on March 31. The exhibition in the Asturian city of Avilés marks a journey through the photographic series of Ghadirian that prove the evolution of his artistic career from the perspective of the genre to the most experiential point of view, although without diluting the first reflection.

Baha’u’llah’s Bishārāt (Glad-Tidings):
A Proclamation to Scholars and Statesmen
Christopher Buck and Youli A. Ioannesyan
Baha’i Studies Review 16 (2010): 3–28.

This article is a historical and textual study of the one of the major writings of Baha’u’llah: the Lawḥ-i Bishārāt (‘Tablet of Glad-Tidings’), revealed circa 1891, and advances new theories as to its provenance and purpose. The ‘Tablet of Glad-Tidings’ is a selective compendium of Baha’u’llah’s laws and principles, sequentially presented in a series of fifteen ‘Glad-Tidings.’ As the Arabic term, bishārāt, suggests, these ‘Glad-Tidings’ were a public announcement of some of the essential teachings of the new Baha’i religion. The ‘Glad-Tidings’ is the most extensive of several ‘Tablets’ by Baha’u’llah that present key teachings in a numbered structure. The Glad-Tidings may, in part, be regarded as serially articulated ‘world reforms’ intermixed with religious reforms emanating from Baha’u’llah in his professed role as ‘World Reformer.’ The ‘Glad-Tidings’ also functioned analogously (albeit anachronistically) to a press release, serving not only as a public proclamation, but to rectify the inaccuracies and gross misrepresentations that had previously circulated in print. Intended for widespread translation and publication, the Glad-Tidings was sent to scholars — notably Russian orientalist, Baron Viktor Rosen (1849–1908) and Cambridge Orientalist, Edward Granville Browne (1862–1926) — and possibly pre-revolutionary Russian statesmen as well. As a ‘Proclamatory Aqdas,’ the Tablet of Glad-Tidings was part of a much broader proclamation by Baha’u’llah, who proclaimed his mission to the political and religious leaders of the world. This study will argue that the Baha’u’llah may have revealed the Tablet of Glad-Tidings for E.G. Browne — or rather through him, since Baha’u’llah evidently intended that Browne should translate and publish the Bishārāt in order to make the nature of the Baha'i teachings more widely known. This would then correct the distortions that had previously been published regarding Baha’u’llah's purpose and the nature of the religion that he founded, thereby, promoting a public awareness that a new world religion was on the horizon of modernity.

This chapter interrogates how activist social media communication in authoritarian contexts is shaped through the mutual articulation of social media user practices, business models, and technological architectures, as well as through the controlling efforts of states. It specifically focuses on social media protest activity and contention in China, Tunisia, and Iran, authoritarian states which have made a large effort to control online activity. The analysis shows that instead of blocking or repressing social media activism, authoritarian states rather shape online contention. Online censorship and offline repression push users to adapt their communication by creatively misspelling words, using synonyms, symbolic language and parody, and through self-censorship. Simultaneously by using commercial platforms activists effectively lose control over their data, and over the spaces through which they communicate. This is particularly problematic in authoritarian settings, in which activist communication depends on specific technological arrangements and on the ability to keep sensitive data out of the hands of the authorities. Finally, while activist social media communication is shaped by Internet censorship and encapsulated by commercial social platforms, activists are constantly exploring new ways to evade censorship, but also to regain control over their collective data. They do so through technical means, especially filtering circumvention tools, but also by posting and translating information across different social media services, and by setting up their own platforms to curate their data.

Öz Bu çalışmada Belucilerin ulusçu istemlerini meşrulaştıran toplumsal faktörler değerlendirilmiştir. Bu değerlendirmenin yapılmak istenmesinin esas nedeni, Pakistan ve İran topraklarında bölünmüş halde yaşayan bu halkın yükselen ulusçu istemleriyle küresel/bölgesel aktörlerin stratejileri arasında yakın bir ilişkinin olmasıdır. Beluci ulusçuluğunun değerlendirilmesi hususunda ise Kopenhag Okulu'nun öngördüğü güvenlikleştirme yaklaşımı kullanılmıştır. Ulusçuluk girişimleri genel itibarıyla devletler arası ilişkiler üzerinden ve realist kuram bağlamında anlamlandırıldığı için, Beluci kimliğinin konsolide olmasında etkili toplumsal faktörlerin sosyal inşacılık üzerine temellendirilmiş bir yaklaşım olan güvenlikleştirme çerçevesinde ele alınması önemli bir farklılık oluşturmaktadır. Çalışmanın vardığı sonuç ise, Beluci ulusal kimliğinin Pakistan ve İran'ın toprak bütünlüğünü tehdit edebilecek ve bölgesel dengelere etki edebilecek şekilde kullanılabilecek bir toplumsal meşruiyete sahip olduğudur.

Title in Italian: "La letteratura tagica fra riforme e rivoluzioni (1870-1954). Con uno studio preliminare delle Ëddoštho [Memorie] di Sadriddin Ajnī e appendici bibliografiche"

The thesis focuses on the period of reforms and revolutions the Tajik intellectuals and men of letters experienced in the field of culture and literature from the second half of the 19th century, when Tsarist Russia penetrated in Turkestan, to the first Soviet decades (1870-1954).
In 1870, Ahmad Donish, one of the first reformers in the history of Modern Tajik literature, wrote the Risola dar nazmi tamaddun va taovun [Treatise on the organization and regulation of common decency], trying to persuade the emir of Bukhara of the need of reforms.
In 1954, Sadriddin Ayni, the author commonly regarded as the founder of Soviet Tajik literature, died of disease. His final major work, Yoddoshtho [Reminiscences; 1948-1954, uncompleted], to which a preliminary study is devoted to in this thesis, is a collection of lively short-stories where the author describes his childhood spent in two villages near Bukhara, his youth and schooldays in Bukhara city between 1882 and 1903, also depicting the social and economic situation of the Emirate with particular reference to the lowest social strata (petty farmers and craftsmen) living there.
The period under consideration in this thesis also marked the transition from the manuscript era to the periodical press age.
The reformers of the first two decades of the 20th century, the Jadids, turned newspapers and journals into an instrument of protest against the social, cultural, and spiritual degradation of the Bukhara Emirate. In the 1920s, magazines became a platform for the expression of a nascent Tajik nationalism, as in those years Tajikistan, rather than a Federal Republic of the Soviet Union, was an Autonomous Region within the Republic of Uzbekistan. Moreover, Soviet magazines became the first editorial space for the spreading of the Tajik realistic prose, since during the 1920s and the 1930s Tajik tales and novels were first published there in serial form, later in book form."

The Faculty of Arts and Letters of the University of Bonn is advertising two RA/TA positions which are attached to the Alexander von Humboldt-Chair for Islamic Studies (Prof. Dr. Judith Pfeiffer). Applicants should work towards a Ph.D. in a relevant field. For more information please visit
https://www.uni-bonn.de/de/universitaet/medien-universitaet/medien-arbeiten-an-der-uni/medien-personalmanagement/pdfs-stellenausschreibungen-wiss.ma/07-22-3-202.pdf

In 1955, Jean Cocteau commented on the retrospective exhibition of Hosayn Behzad's works at the Musée d'Art Moderne, Paris: "Hosayn Behzad is an enchanter of the East of the storytellers. (...) No doubt, in our country (...) there is only one master in the art of miniature painting and that master is Hosayn Behzad, (the) Iranian artist". Supported by an autobiographical testimony of Hosayn Behzad dating from 1953, this paper focuses on the changes that Persian miniature painting underwent in the first half of the twentieth century. At that time, the booming international art market and the increased demand for old miniatures led to several decades of the restoration of Safavid art in Iran before giving birth to a new artistic movement specific to that country, the so-called "New miniature painting," which was initiated by Hosayn Behzad. The context of its emergence and the forms taken by "New miniature painting," will be highlighted.


« Twentieth-Century Mutations of Persian Miniature Painting : A Testimony from the Iranian Miniaturist Hosein Behzad », in Markus Ritter, Ilse Sturkenboom and Fernando Valdéz Fernandéz (eds), Beiträge zur Islamischen Kunst und Archäologie, series ed. Ernst Herztfeld Gesellschaft, vol. 5, Reichert Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2017, pp. 149-166.

Almost 75 years after the initial publication of Theodor Nöldeke's Geschichte des Qorâns, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Zanjānī (1892–1941), an Iranian religious scholar, made a brief reference in the final chapter of his Tārīkh al-Qurʾān to an edition of Nöldeke's work revised by Schwally, Bergsträsser and Pretzl. He described Nöldeke as a great scholar and his Geschichte des Qorâns as a valuable contribution. Al-Zanjānī’s work also included an outline of Nöldeke's discussion on the order of the revelation of the suras. It is probably safe to say that al-Zanjānī’s book is the first independent work on the history of the Qur'an by a Muslim scholar. This fact leads one to wonder about the apparent lack of previous interest in the historiography of the Qur'an among Islamic scholarship. The present paper seeks to address this question and offer an overview of historiographical scholarship on the Qur'an contributed by Muslim writers both before and following Nöldeke

Keywords. Historiography of the Qur'an, Qur'anic historiography, Qur'an in the Muslim World, Theodore Noldeke, Noldeke, Nöldeke, Abū Àbd Allāh al-Zanjānī, Geschichte des Qorâns

This chapter seeks to place Iran’s recent foreign policies in the Cold War and beyond in the broader context of the country’s experiences in international affairs. Modern Iran emerged around 1501, when Esma‘il I, a youthful prince descended from Muslim, Georgian, Turkish, and Byzantine royalty and nobility, proclaimed himself shah and re-established a Persian state after a hiatus of nine centuries. From that time onward, ensuring Iran’s security and at times its survival repeatedly impelled its leaders to seek support from imposing external allies or patrons who could help the new state to resist the threats, demands, and assaults of powerful and often threatening neighbors. From the late fifteenth to the early eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was by far the most dangerous international opponent of Iran. In response, Esma‘il and his successors turned to European powers and Russia for assistance. From the late eighteenth century, expansionist Russia represented the greatest threat to both Iran and the Ottoman Empire, prompting both states to seek the protection of the British Empire. In practice, for much of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this often meant that Britain and Russia effectively colluded in dividing Iran into spheres of influence. This pattern recurred when Britain and the Soviet Union were allied against Adolf Hitler’s Germany during World War II, a conflict that also brought the United States into direct involvement in Iran’s affairs. As British power in Iran declined, the United States stepped in, organizing a coup that cemented the hold on power of Shah Reza Mohammad Pahlavi and effectively replacing Britain as Iran’s foremost international ally and patron. Following the Shah’s overthrow in 1979 and the Islamic Revolution, which left the nation locked in bitter antagonism with the United States and vulnerable to attack by neighboring Iraq, Iran was initially somewhat friendless. From 1980 to 1988, it was locked in a bitter, stalemated war with Iraq, in which up to one million Iranians died or were seriously wounded. Facing continued hostility from the United States and also from Israel and Saudi Arabia, together with threats to its nuclear program, in the early twenty-first century Iran turned for security to post-Soviet Russia. As China’s reach expanded dramatically in these years, stretching well into Central Asia and beyond, Iran’s leaders also believed it profitable to align their country with the ambitious and increasingly influential new global superpower. The history of Iran’s involvement with major external powers nonetheless suggests that the purported new triple alliance will soon find itself navigating treacherous territory and troubled waters.

The Faculty of Arts and Letters of the University of Bonn is advertising two Research Assistant/Teaching Assistant Positions which are attached to the Alexander von Humboldt Chair for Islamic Studies (Prof. Dr. Judith Pfeiffer). Applicants should work towards a Ph.D. in a relevant field (e.g., Islamicate intellectual history of the late medieval and/or early modern period, history of Oriental Studies, Islamic historiography, or similar subjects). For more information please visit https://www.uni-bonn.de/de/universitaet/medien-universitaet/medien-arbeiten-an-der-uni/medien-personalmanagement/pdfs-stellenausschreibungen-wiss.ma/07-22-3-202_en.pdf

In Hurufi history, the identity of Faḍlallāh’s children is a controversial subject. Although the Hurufi writings provide information on Faḍlallāh Astarābādī, the information related to his family has been analyzed incorrectly. More than ten different names for Faḍlallāh's children are in circulation. This lack of clarity prevents the precise historical analysis of his children. This article shares new findings regarding the Faḍlallāh family using a unique copy of Faḍlallāh’s genealogy, which provides a list of his children and grandchildren. Other sources, including Faḍlallāh’s testament, the Maḥramnāma, and primary Hurufi sources, are also considered. This article reveals Faḍlallāh’s four children, only three of whom were alive when he died, and the roles played by Faḍlallāh’s family at the time of Shāhrukh and Jahānshāh.