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Books

Ideological Variants in Persian Texts

Alsancakli, Sasha & Philip Bockholt. 2023. Authorship and Textual Transmission in the Manuscript Age: Contextualising Ideological Variants in Persian Texts (Cahiers de Studia Iranica, 64). Leuven: Peeters.

The present volume addresses dynamic and collective authorship by examining how authors and scribes in the Persianate parts of the Islamic world produced, copied, and interpreted texts during the manuscript age within specific cultural contexts, out of political necessity and as a result of professional choices. The processes of scribal adaptation faced by scholars studying the Islamic world in the pre-modern period took many different forms, most of which are still unexplored. The changes applied consist of minor corrections and amendments, as well as full-fledged reworkings of a text and modifications to its core ideological components. Under the label “ideological variations”, this volume intends to discuss any deliberate changes in content, rather than form, made by authors, copyists, and readers intervening at various stages in the process of textual production and transmission.

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Articles

Domestic Slaves in Zoroastrianism

Foroutan, Kiyan. 2024. On the question of domestic slaves in late medieval and early modern Zoroastrianism. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, FirstView. 1–25.

This article collects and analyses passages about male and female domestic slaves in the Persian Rivāyats. The Rivāyats consist of correspondence between Iranian and Indian Zoroastrians (Parsis) from the late fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries ce. In these letters, Parsis sought the opinions of Iranian Zoroastrians on various doctrinal and ritual issues. The passages in question cover a range of subjects, including the issue of converting household slaves to Zoroastrianism, their participation in domestic religious ceremonies, the exposure of their dead bodies in the towers of silence, and marrying female slaves. These references to slaves challenge the conventional narrative that pre-modern Zoroastrians were oppressed, marginalized, and poor communities. This narrative has overshadowed these pieces of evidence and has caused them not to be studied seriously. This paper seeks to go beyond this traditional reconstruction by examining these texts based on their context. The passages reflect the actual socio-religious issues of Zoroastrians, especially Parsis, and demonstrate their participation in the slave-owning milieu of late medieval and early modern Gujarat and Iran rather than mere anachronistic elements or rhetorical tools reflecting a scholastic treatment of a defunct legal question.

Abstract
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Articles

Contributions to Iranian Etymology II

Fattori, Marco. 2024. Contributions to Iranian Etymology II: Three Iranian Loanwords in Armenian and a Note on OIr. *abigna- ‘helper’. Iran and the Caucasus 28 (3), 289-300.

In this article the possible Iranian etymology of three hitherto unexplained Old Armenian words is discussed: Arm. aptak ‘slap, blow’ < Ir. *apitāka-, to be compared with Man.Parth. and MP abdāg ‘assailant’; Arm. žapawēn ‘hem, border’ compound of Parth. *žī(h), equivalent of NP zeh ‘string, hem, decoration’ + Arm. apawēn ‘cover, shelter, refuge’; Arm. xawsim ‘to speak’ from a metathetic form of MIr. *wā̆xs-, inchoative formation from the root *vac- ‘to speak’. Finally, Szemerényi’s convincing explanation of Arm. awgnem ‘to help’ and zawravign ‘aid, helper, defender’ as related to an OIr. noun *abigna- ‘helper’ attested in several anthroponyms (e.g. OP Bagābigna-) is reaffirmed and substantiated since it remained mostly unnoticed in the subsequent literature.

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Books

Bodyguards in the Ancient Mediterranean

Hebblewhite, Mark & Conor Whately (eds.). 2023. Brill’s Companion to Bodyguards in the Ancient Mediterranean. Leiden: Brill.

Among other interesting papers, two contributions are related to ancient Iranian history:

  • Michael Charles: Apple Bearers and Kinsmen Cavalry: Guards Units of the Kings of Achaemenid Persia
  • Jeffrey Rop: The Four Hundred and the Ten Thousand: The Politics of Greek Bodyguard Service in the Achaemenid Empire
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Articles Journal

Religious Conversion

Vol. 15, no. 2 of the open access journal Entangled Religions is a special issue dedicated to the question of Religious Conversion in a Religiously Plural World.

Religious conversion is a phenomenon that has intrigued scholars, theologians, and sociologists for centuries. As the conscious choice of a particular form of religion over another, it is eminently a form of religious contact. Religious conversion may be approached psychologically, sociologically, and conceptually. The contributions of this special issue show all three approaches and cover a wide array of geographical, social, and religious contexts.

Benedikt Römer has an article on Neo-Zoroastrianism, titled Reversion, Revival, Resistance: Framing Iranian Neo-Zoroastrian Religiosities

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Books

Sino-Iranian and Sino-Arabian Relations in Late Antiquity

Kotyk, Jeffrey. 2024. Sino-Iranian and Sino-Arabian relations in Late Antiquity: China and the Parthians, Sasanians, and Arabs in the first millennium (Crossroads – History of Interactions across the Silk Routes 8). Leiden: Brill.

What type of exchanges occurred between West and East Asia in the first millennium CE? What sort of connections existed between Persia and China? What did the Chinese know of early Islam?
This study offers an overview of the cultural, diplomatic, commercial, and religious relationships that flourished between Iran and China, building on the pioneering work of Berthold Laufer’s Sino-Iranica (1919) while utilizing a diverse array of Classical Chinese sources to tell the story of Sino-Iran in a fresh light to highlight the significance of transcultural networks across Asia in late antiquity.

Website Summary
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Journal

Dabir (vol. 10)

Volume 10 of Dabir, dated 2023, is now available with two issues.

Issue 1:

  • Nima Asefi: Open Access Frāy in Seven Documents from the Pahlavi Archive of Hastijan
  • Majid Daneshgar: Anthologies of Persian Poetry Inscribed in Indonesia: A Handlist of Rare Manuscripts
  • Mustafa Dehqan: Restricted Access From Historian to Poet: A Checklist of the Persian Poems of Idrīs Bidlīsī (Hašt Bihišt VI, Nuruosmaniye 3209)
  • Marco Ferrario: Before Skunḫa. A (Trans)Local Perspective on the Rise of the Teispid-Achaemenid Frontiers in Baktria, Sogdiana, and Beyond
  • Saloumeh Gholami: The Zoroastrian Manuscripts of the Rostam Jāmāsb’s Family and a New Dating of Videvdād 4100
  • Book Review:
  • David Gilinsky: ‘Shirat Moshe: A Complete Hebrew translation of Shahin’s Musa Nameh – the greatest poet of Iranian Jewry’ [Hebrew] , written by Baruch Pickel

Issue 2:

  • Negar Habibi: On Persian Design and Fashion in Twentieth-Century France: The 1930 Jean Pozzi Catalogue of Persian Art
  • Stefan Härtel: Thoughts on the Iconography of the Sophytos Coinage
  • Götz König: On the Yašt Gāhān (= Gāh Sārnā)
  • Nina Mazhjoo: Taking the Bull by His Horn: Augustus Slays the Mithraic Bull
  • Daniel T. Potts: Restricted Access The Tassels of Royal and Divine Sasanian Horses
  • Enrico G. Raffaelli: Restricted Access Dahmān Āfrīn and Srōš: Analyzing a Connection
  • Book Reviews:
  • Khodadad Rezakhani: the Age of the Great Kings , written by Lloyd Llwellyn-Jones
  • Hossein Sheikh: Hunnic peoples in Central and South Asia: sources for their origin and history , edited by Dániel Balogh
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Online resources

TISS-Parzor Academic Programme

‘Parzor is delighted to announce its long awaited TISS-Parzor Online Academic Programme on Culture & Heritage Studies’. As part of this programme, you can ‘learn, gain credits, explore exciting issues of environment and sociology, craft, art, literature, theatre, cuisine as well as business and philanthropy’.

Dr. Shernaz Cama announces the start of the TISS Parzor Online Academic Programme on Culture & Heritage Studies.

For admissions and programme details, visit the TISS Website. Admissions are open till 31st August and open to all! Apply now!

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Books

The Art of Teaching Persian Literature

Lewis, Franklin,Asghar Seyed-Gohrab & Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi (eds.). 2024. The Art of Teaching Persian Literature: From Theory to Practice. Leiden: Brill.

This unique book is the first publication on the art of teaching Persian literature in English, consisting of 18 chapters by prominent early-career, mid-career and established scholars, who generously share their experiences and methodologies in teaching both classical and modern Persian literature across various academic traditions in the world. The volume is divided into three parts: the background to teaching Persian literature: pedagogy, translation and canon, and thematic and topical approaches to the Persian literature class. It includes such topics as the history of teaching Persian literature, the traditional teaching of Persian literature, the political and ideological intentions revealed in the formation of the Persian literature curriculum, the necessity to include marginalized modern Persian literature, such as women’s or diaspora literature, and more applied approaches to curriculum development and teaching.

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Journal

Iran, Volume 62, Issue 1 (2024)

The table of contents of the latest issue (62/1) of the journal Iran: