This article provides an overview of the ethics of war and peace in the most important and normatively influential work of epic literature known in the eastern lands of Islam, namely the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi (d. 1020 CE). As one of the greatest sources of the Iranian cultural identity for over a millennium, Shahnameh (lit. The book of kings) defines normative ideals in the ethics of war and peace within narratives that connect the ancient history of Iran to its mythical eras and in effect to both the medieval time of the epic's authorship and modern Iranian identity. By identifying limits, standards and legitimacy for war and peace in Shahnameh, this article aims to facilitate an Iranian contribution to the global literature and practice on peacemaking that has deep roots in the Islamo-Persian tradition.

This essay discusses the various dimensions of diversity at Alborz, both when it was run by the American missionaries and when it was under Iranian management. In the first part, the ascriptive traits of human beings are the object of the analysis: gender, race, language, religion and class. In both periods Alborz was characterized by its openness to Iranians of different religious backgrounds, both teachers and students. The second part of the essay discusses the variety of the educational experience enjoyed by students, and concludes that it gradually diminished, as education came increasingly to be defined as instruction and extracurricular activities were reduced after the mid-1960s.

Iranians were aware of Sasanian history through traditional historical writings, but they knew nothing about Achaemenid history. Following European travelers to Persia from the fifteenth century, who were well prepared by reading the classical and biblical texts, Persepolis and Pasargadae were rediscovered and Achaemenid history re-established in the nineteenth century. The rise of Reza Khan to power and his grand emphasis on nationalism and ancient Iran that characterized his reign also left a deeper impact on Achaemenid studies in this period. In this paper the re-establishment of Achaemenid history and its development in nineteenth and twentieth centuries are discussed and reviewed.

The coincidence of the appearance of two Circassian women as wives of ambassadors on the Anglo-Persian diplomatic and political stage has generated more than passing interest in academic and lay literature. Though the story of Sir Robert Sherley and Lady Teresia Sherley is better known in British circles, and has even generated renewed interest with two simultaneous exhibitions in 2009 in London, the story of Fath Ali Shah's Ambassador to the Court of St. James, Abol Hassan Khan, has not received sufficient attention, and has certainly not been fully explored in the context of the politics of Regency England. The present article revisits key moments of the life of the Sherleys and of Abol Hassan Khan and Delaram, his Circassian wife, but goes beyond the retelling of their journeys to focus on how the latter two's visit to England generated bawdy depictions in the popular press and became the vehicle for political satire quite unconnected to their persons.

Despite being one of the pioneers of Iranian cinema's “new wave” in the 1960s, Daryush Mehrjui has maintained his position in the cinema as an influential filmmaker. He is still capable of making films which are both popular with public audiences and highly acclaimed by Iranian critics. Mehmaneh Maman (Mum's Guests), a social comedy he made in 2004, is one such film which has received little critical attention outside Iran. In this paper, the representation of “the nation” in Mum's Guests and the latter film's reception by local critics is contrasted with that of Ejareh Neshinha (The Lodgers, 1986); another popular social comedy which Mehrjui made almost two decades earlier. This comparison aims to examine the differences between the two films in the light of theories of postmodernism and globalization. It is argued that Mehrjui's representation of the nation in Mum's Guests demonstrates a more conscious acknowledgment of differences based on class, gender, ethnicity and religion; and a more inclusive approach to marginalized sections of Iranian society. The collapse of boundaries between “the local” and “the global,” as well as that of “high-art” and “low-art” are other key elements of Mehrjui's more recent film. The two films also differ in terms of their portrayal of themes such as happiness and solidarity, political/ideological conflict, and science and consumerism, which are explained with reference to the impact and consequences of globalization.

The first substantial study of the Arabic autobiography, Franz Rosenthal's “Die arabische Autobiographie” appeared in 1937 and has yet to be superseded. Rosenthal mentions most of the autobiographies well known to historians and literary scholars of the Middle East, including al-Ghazāli's (d. 505/1111) spiritual biography, al-Munqidh min al-ḍalāl, Usāmah ibn Munqidh's (d. 584/1188) Kitāb al-i'tibār, famous for its humorous anecdotes about the behavior of the Crusader Franks, Ibn Khaldūn's (d. 809/1406) autobiography, included at the end of his voluminous history Kitāb al-‘ibar and since published separately, al-Suyūṭī's (d. 911/1505) al-Taḥadduth bi-ni'mati ‘Llāh, and a number of others. The first autobiographical text known in Arabic is ascribed to Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq al-'Ibādī (d. 260/873), the famous translator of Greek scientific works. It is included in the biographical dictionary of Ibn Abī Uṣaybi'ah (d. 668/1270) and described as “Treatise on the Trials and Tribulations which Befell Him” (risālah fīmā aṣābahū min al-miḥan wa ‘sh-shadā'id).

Between the Masjid-i Jāmiᶜ and the Maydān-i Shāh was a distance of several kilometers, dotted by minarets, mausoleums, mosques and bazaar areas which served the trade of the central plateau of Persia. They had been built over the intervening centuries since Sasanian times, the old town gradually expanding, some of the small clusters of the bazaar still remaining as satellite villages under Shāh ᶜAbbās’ reign. It was his genius which formed the new city, and it was his conception that linked the new with the old.

Today, the least known to the visitor but in many ways quite the most fascinating aspect of Isfahan is the region that lies between the great mosques: the bazaar. Built by Shāh ᶜAbbās, the entrance to the bazaar, the Qaysariyah, stands at the center of the north end of the Maydān-i Shāh. Set back from the main plaza in a fivesided recess, it forms a courtyard which once embraced a large pool.

As a key primary source for the history of the eleventh-century Isma‘ili majlis, the Fatimid chief missionary al-Mu'ayyad fi al-Din al-Shirazi's autobiographical Sira offers a prime opportunity to consider the application of centralizing features of the Fatimid state in eleventh-century Buyid Shiraz. Previous studies on the Fatimid majlis have raised questions about an Isma‘ili core curriculum as well as the intended audience/s of Fatimid da‘wa teachings. This article situates al-Mu'ayyad's memoir in the broader context of the Persian and Arabic historiographical traditions in order to provide new insights into the transmission of Isma‘ili doctrines in different social settings outside of Fatimid Cairo. It concludes that Abu Kalijar's study sessions with al-Mu'ayyad suggest that Qadi al-Nu‘man's Kitab Da‘a'im al-Islam was used as a core text for introducing some of the main principles of Fatimid religio-political rule in addition to Isma‘ili doctrines to non-Isma‘ili audiences.

By analyzing linguistic utterances between teachers and students in a Persian heritage language class in the United States, this research study sought to illuminate what kinds of linguistic resources were used by these speakers to show different attitudes, moods and emotions. Furthermore, this study demonstrated possible functions of these linguistic markers and the way they were utilized to influence another party.

The Date of the Composition of Husayn Vaᶜiz-i Kashifi's Anvār-i Suhaylī is uncertain. It is conjectured that it must have been completed at the end of the ninth/fifteenth century, probably about the time that he wrote another famous work, the Akhlāq-i Muḥsinī. Since Kashifi died in 910/1504-05 “at a ripe old age,” this implies that he had probably already reached an age of experience and wisdom when he started to recast the collection of fables known as Kalīla wa Dimna.

This is not the place to go into detail about the rich and varied history of these fables, and of their adoption in most cultures of the ancient world. It will suffice to recall only the stages of the history of this text that are directly related to the late fifteenth- century Timurid version studied here.

The Pancatantra, the Sanskrit text on which Kalīla wa Dimna was based, was probably composed in Kashmir by an unknown Brahmin around 300 A.D. By using fables which had animals as the main characters, the text aimed at informing youths, who were destined for government posts, about the laws governing political life.

Afghanistan is one of the few places where the category of bachah—the beardless young male—has maintained its aesthetic and erotic aspects in the public imagination. This article provides an introduction to the history of the various arrangements of man-bachah relationships in Afghanistan from the rise of the Afghan kingdom in the late eighteenth century. By looking at both primary and secondary sources, alongside ethnographic materials gathered during fieldwork in Afghanistan between 2016 and 2021, this article shows how the content and implications of the category of bachah have been in constant flux and intimately connected to wider social, political, and economic developments both inside the country and beyond.

A high official of the Iranian government was recently visiting the United States when he offered to meet students and scholars of Iranian affairs in order to discuss questions of mutual interest related to Iran. It was hoped that such a meeting in an academic environment would bring about a greater understanding of the current government policies and thus bridge the generation and information gap existing at present.

Among the questions he was asked was the following. Why should Iran spend a larger percentage of its national budget on military expenditure (in relation to portions allocated to health, education, etc.) than most countries for which such data is available?

Among the twenty-seven such countries only Indonesia, Brazil, Spain, Portugal and Turkey showed a higher percentage of military expenditure for the years, 1952-1963.

Boir Aḥmad is the territory of the largest tribe (or confederation of tribes) of Kohkīlūyah in South Iran, located roughly south of the Bakhtīyārī and west of the Qashqā'ī. Its population (75,000 in 1966) subsists on a mixed economy of agriculture and animal husbandry, which in the highly segmented mountainous topography necessitates a variety of nomadic and transhumant adaptations.

The political position within the wider Iranian context of the area presently called Boir Aḥmad has had a variegated history. Under the rule of the Atābegs of Lur-i Buzurg (12th-14th cent.) it was fairly well integrated and administered, with a flourishing economy and a largely sedentery population. In the following centuries, less stable "anarchic" forms of political organization seem to have prevailed, until the Qājār rulers tied the area to the center by appointing the local khāns as tax collectors and through interfering in their power struggles.

In a twenty-four-year writing career that began in 1945 with the publication of the story “Pilgrimage” in Sukhan magazine and ended in 1969 with a heart attack at age 46, Jalal Al-e Ahmad established himself as a major voice in modern Persian fiction. His first and best known collection of short stories, The Exchange of Visits, appeared in 1946, followed in short order by Our Suffering (1947), Sihtār (1948), and The Unwanted Woman (1952), which was reprinted in 1964 with two additional stories. A fifth collection of stories entitled The New Generation remains unpublished, although a sampling of stories from that collection entitled Five Stories was published posthumously. The first of five longer pieces of fiction, Tale of the Beehives, was published in 1955. Three years later The School Principal appeared. Then, in 1961, came The Letter ‘N’ and the Pen, followed in 1968 by The Cursing of the Land, of which several chapters had previously been published separately. A final novel, A Stone on a Grave, remains unpublished.

This paper analyses Iranian television production on Public Access TV channels in Germany. It is based on a broader study with qualitative interviews, hermeneutic content analysis of 40 hours of aired TV programs and a ?dense description? of the production background. Iranian immigrants were amongst the most active mother-tongue TV producers on local Public Access Channels (so called ?Open Channels?) since these were first launched in 1984. These non-commercial channels aim to make alternative themes and voices heard in the local public. However, the 9/11 attacks led to increased difficulties of access for immigrants from the Middle East, such as limited airtime and the obligation to translate programs. These measures diminished dramatically the opportunities to present Iranian TV shows on Open Channels. From the perspective of Communication Studies, this paper aims to analyse the intentions and strategies of Iranian immigrant media participation, but also the difficulties of access to the public sphere in Germany.

In contrast to the situation in most countries, in German-speaking countries the study of Iran is not concentrated in one academic discipline. As a result, the attempt to “reconstruct” the history of Iranian Studies inevitably involves various disciplines. The individual results of these together form the kaleidoscopic spectrum of studies on Iranian themes in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

The only academic discipline in the German language area that includes the name “Iran” is the one called “Iranistics” (German “Iranistik”).