Bibliographia Iranica

A predominantly bibliographic blog for Iranian Studies

  • Between Zoroastrianism and Islam

    Photo © Gianroberto Scarcia
    Marijan Molé (1924-1963). Photo © Gianroberto Scarcia

    Between Zoroastrianism and Islam
    International conference on the work of Marijan Molé

    Friday, June 24, 2016, École française d’Extrême-Orient – 22, avenue du Président Wilson, 75116 Paris.

    Organized by Samra Azarnouche (EPHE).

    The works of Marijan Molé (1924-1963) has left a distinctive and lasting imprint on the field of Iranian Studies. His careful and insightful studies on the Avestan and Middle Persian literature, the Islamic mystical treatises as well as the Persian epics play an important role in our understanding of Iranian history, culture and religions. This conference focuses on one of the peculiarities of Molé’s research, namely the scholarly attempt at bridging the gap between pre-Islamic and Islamic Iranian Studies, between the different strata of religious and literary traditions, and between the great mythical and prophetic figures. The (recent) discovery of his Nachlass (IRHT and BULAC) gives us the opportunity to make an inventory of his legacy, which highlights the originality of his approach in the study of religions.

    Program (PDF):

    MOLÉ ET L’AVESTA: ENTRE TRADITION ET COMPARATISME

    • Jean Kellens: “le printemps des études gâtiques”
    • Philippe Swennen: “Marijan Molé à l’aube du nouveau comparatisme indo-iranien”

    PROPHÈTES ET HÉROS

    • Anna Krasnowolska: “Molé’s Early Works and his Study of Persian Epics”
    • Michel Tardieu: “Vies de Zoroastre, Vies de Mani, Vies de Muhammad :un apport de M. Molé à l’histoire des religions”

    COSMOLOGIE ET ESCHATOLOGIE : D’UNE TRADITION À L’AUTRE

    • Antonio Panaino: “Le gētīg dans le mēnōg et le système chiliadique mazdéen” selon la réflexion de Marijan Molé
    • Shaul Shaked: “Immortality and Eschatology”
    • Pierre Lory: “Marijan Molé, ‘Aziz Nasafî et l’Homme Parfait”

    RAYONNEMENT ET POSTÉRITÉ DE L’OEUVRE

    • Jaleh Amouzegar: “Marijan Molé en Iran”
    • Alexey Khismatulin: “He was years ahead of his time: Destiny of the Unpublished Works by Molé on the Naqshbandiya”
    • Conclusions: Frantz Grenet

     

     

  • Norouz in the Abbasid Literary Sources

    Norouz in Abbasid SourcesBorroni, Massimiliano & Simone Cristoforetti. 2016. An Index of Nayrūz Occurences in Abbasid Literary Sources. Phasar Edizioni.

    This volume is the result of a two-years research project entirely funded by Ca’ Foscari University of Venice in 2012. The project focused on an exhaustive indexing of all edited Arabic sources mentioning the festival of Nayrūz (Nawrūz) in the Abbasid age (750-1258 CE). The preference given here to the Arabic form Nayrūz for the name of the first day of the Iranian traditional solar year is in agreement with the majority of the literary sources in Arabic language of the Abbasid period.

     

  • Iranian Studies in Honor of Pierre Lecoq

    Achaemenid Royal Archers, Coloured glazed terracotta brick panels, Susa, around 510 BC © Pergamon Museum, Berlin
    Achaemenid Royal Archers, Coloured glazed terracotta brick panels, Susa, around 510 BC © Pergamon Museum, Berlin

    Redard, Céline (ed.). 2016. Des contrées avestiques à Mahabad, via Bisotun. Etudes offertes en hommage à Pierre Lecoq. (Civilisations Du Proche-Orient Série III. Religion et Culture 2). Paris: Recherches et Publications.

    This  volume is dedicated to Pierre Lecoq, one of the prolific and renowned scholars of Ancient Iranian and Orietal Studies. The book consists of seventeen papers written by some of the foremost scholars in the field of Iranian Studies, essentially concerned with different aspects of Ancient Iranian Art, Archaeology, History, Numismatics and Religion, reflecting Pierre Lecoq’s scholarly interests.
    Table of Contents:
    • Bibliographie de Pierre Lecoq
    • Gilbert Lazard:  “Pour saluer Pierre Lecoq”
    • Rudiger Schmitt: “Zur altpersischen Grammatik und Inschriftenkunde”
    • Adriano V. Rossi: “Considérations sur le § 14 de DB et sur Āyadana-/ANzí-ia-an ANna-ap-pan-na É.˹MEŠ˺ šá DINGIR.MEŠ
    • Ela Filippone: “Goat-Skins, Horses and Camels: How did Darius’
      Army Cross the Tigris?”
    • Rémy Boucharlat: “À propos de parayadām et paradis perse : perpléxité de l’archéologue et perspectives”
    • Margaret Cool Root: “Tales of Translation: Leroy Waterman, Biblical Studies, and an Achaemenid Royal-Name Alabastron from Seleucia”
    • Jan Tavernier: “À propos de quelques noms iraniens dans les
      inscriptions lyciennes”
    • Georges-Jean Pinault: “Ariyāramna, the Pious Lord”
    • Jean Haudry: “Le rejeton des eaux”
    • Philippe Swennen: “Le Yasna Haptaŋhāiti entre deux existences”
    • Jean Kellens: “Stratégies du Mihr Yašt“
    • Antonio Panaino: “Later Avestan maɣauua– (?) and the (Mis)Adventures of a ‘Pseudo-Ascetic’”
    • Céline Redard: “Le fragment Westergaard 10”
    • Enrico Raffaelli: “The Amǝša Spǝṇtas and Their Helpers: The
      Zoroastrian ham-kārs”
    • Rika Gyselen: “Noeud d’Héraclès, noeuds lunaires et sceaux
      sassanides”
    • Agnès Lenepveu-Hotz: “L’emploi de mar … rā chez Firdausī: simple raison métrique ou cause linguistique?”
    • Halkawt Hakem: “Kurdistān, Le journal de la République de Mahabad (1946)”
    About the Editor:
    Céline Redard (PhD 2010) is a scholor of Ancient Iranian Languages and a Research Assistant at the Université de Liège, Département des Sciences de l’Antiquité, Langues et religions du monde indo-iranien ancien.

  • Emergence of Iranian nationalism

    Zia-Ebrahimi, Reza. 2016. The emergence of Iranian nationalism: Race and the politics of dislocation. New York: Columbia University Press.

    Reza Zia-Ebrahimi revisits the work of Fath?ali Akhundzadeh and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, two Qajar-era intellectuals who founded modern Iranian nationalism. In their efforts to make sense of a difficult historical situation, these thinkers advanced an appealing ideology Zia-Ebrahimi calls “dislocative nationalism,” in which pre-Islamic Iran is cast as a golden age, Islam is reinterpreted as an alien religion, and Arabs become implacable others. Dislodging Iran from its empirical reality and tying it to Europe and the Aryan race, this ideology remains the most politically potent form of identity in Iran.

    Akhundzadeh and Kermani’s nationalist reading of Iranian history has been drilled into the minds of Iranians since its adoption by the Pahlavi state in the early twentieth century. Spread through mass schooling, historical narratives, and official statements of support, their ideological perspective has come to define Iranian culture and domestic and foreign policy. Zia-Ebrahimi follows the development of dislocative nationalism through a range of cultural and historical materials, and he captures its incorporation of European ideas about Iranian history, the Aryan race, and a primordial nation. His work emphasizes the agency of Iranian intellectuals in translating European ideas for Iranian audiences, impressing Western conceptions of race onto Iranian identity.

    The table of contents:

    Acknowledgments
    Note on Transliteration and Spelling
    Introduction
    1. The Paleontology of Iranian Nationalism
    2. Akhundzadeh and Kermani: The Emergence of Dislocative Nationalism
    3. Pre-Islamic Iran and Archaistic Frenzy
    4. Of Lizard Eaters and Invasions: The Import of European Racial Thought
    5. Europe, That Feared Yet Admired Idol
    6. Aryanism and Dislocation
    7. The Road to Officialdom
    8. Triumph
    Conclusion: The Failure of Dislocative Nationalism
    Notes
    Bibliography
    Index

    Reza Zia-Ebrahimi is lecturer (assistant professor) in history at King’s College London.

  • Mani’s Book of Giants in Sogdian

    Fig. 4: So20220/I/R/ and So20220/II/V/ [K20]. Depositum der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Orientabteilung. Photos: Fotostelle der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.
    Detail of K20 © Berlin-Brandenburgischen
    Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin.

    Morano, Enrico. 2016. Some New Sogdian Fragments Related to Mani’s Book of Giants and the Problem of the Influence of Jewish Enochic Literature. In Matthew Goff, Loren T. Stuckenbruck & Enrico Morano (eds.), Ancient Tales of Giants from Qumran and Turfan. Contexts, Traditions, and Influences [Antike Geschichten von Riesen aus Qumran und Turfan. Kontexte, Traditionen und Einflüsse], 187–198. (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 360). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
    Enochic influence on Manichaean tradition has long been recognized. Much has been written ever since, both on the Book of Giants and on Enochic literature, but many details still remain obscure, owing to the scantiness of the primary literature and to the poor state of the manuscripts. The present paper aims to give further evidence of the important role that Jewish tradition played in the development of Mani’s religion. In the first part, two still unpublished Sogdian texts from, or related to, Mani’s Book of Giants will be presented and edited for the first time. In the second section, a Sogdian text written on a fragmentary page of a bifolio and clearly linked to Jewish Enochic literature, is edited here for the first time. All these texts are part of the Berlin Turfan collection.
    About the Author:
    Enrico Morano is retired teacher of Classics in High Schools and the current President of the International Association of Manichaean Studies (IAMS), is a scholar of Ancient Iranian Religions, Manichaeanism and Middle Iranian languages.

  • Christian-Zoroastrian Dialogue in the Sasanian Period

    g13070-9Rezania, Kianoosh. 2015. Einige Anmerkungen zur sasanidisch-zoroastrischen Religionspraxis im Spiegel der interreligiösen Dialoge der Christen und Zoroastrier. In Claudia Rammelt, Cornelia Schlarb & Egbert Schlarb (eds.), Begegnungen in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart: Beiträge dialogischer Existenz ; eine freundschaftliche Festgabe zum 60. Geburtstag von Martin Tamcke, 172–80. Berlin; Münster: LIT Verlag.

    The primary sources for Zoroastrianism in the Sasanian Period (3rd-7th. CE) are limited to a few inscriptions, coins and a few Zoroastrian Middle Persian works,  which can be dated with some certainty to this time. The majority of the Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts were written or compiled in the early Islamic period and need to be placed in the religious context of the 9th and 10th centuries. In addition to the primary Zoroastrian sources, however, there are couple of Christian works, which comprise valuable information relatied to the Middle Iranian languages, the Sasanian administration and not least the Zoroastrian theology and religious practice. Most of the literatures, datable to the Sasanian Zoroastrianism are intelectual productions of an inter-religious context. They contain reports of dialogues between Christians and Zoroastrians or represent imaginary dialogues between those religious groups. This paper aims to explore some little known Zoroastrian practices as depicted in such interfaith dialogues.

    About the Author:
    Kianoosh Rezania is a scholar of Zoroastrianism, Ancient Iranian Studies and the history of religions. He is a visiting research fellow of the Center for Religious Studies (CERES) of Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

  • Forgotten religions in the Middle East

    We rarely introduce non academic books. The following volume, however, is too close to our interests to be ignored:

    Russell, Gerard. 2015. Heirs to Forgotten Kingdoms. Simon & Schuster UK.

    Despite its reputation for religious intolerance, the Middle East has long sheltered many distinctive and strange faiths: one regards the Greek prophets as incarnations of God, another reveres Lucifer in the form of a peacock, and yet another believes that their followers are reincarnated beings who have existed in various forms for thousands of years. These religions represent the last vestiges of the magnificent civilizations in ancient history: Persia, Babylon, Egypt in the time of the Pharaohs. Their followers have learned how to survive foreign attacks and the perils of assimilation. But today, with the Middle East in turmoil, they face greater challenges than ever before.
    For more on the book, see its website. William Dalrymple has reviewed it for the Guardian.

  • Sasanian fantastic creature Baškuč

    Matiashvili, Irma & Helen Giunashvili. 2016. Sasanian fantastic creature Baškuč (*Pasku(n)č) in Georgian Christian culture. In Dato Barbakadse & Jürgen Trinks (eds.),
    Chancen und Schwierigkeiten des interkulturellen Dialogs über ästhetische Fragen. Unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Entwicklungen in der Kaukasusregion (Transkulturelle Forschungen an den Österreich-Bibliotheken im Ausland 13), 145–158. LIT Verlag.

    Die Frage, ob und wie philosophische und kulturwissenschaftliche Reflexionen dazu geeignet sind, kulturelle Distanzen und die Möglichkeiten ihrer Überwindung zu klären, wird in diesem Band sowohl in grundsätzlich-philosophischen Überlegungen als auch anhand besonders aussagekräftiger Beispiele des jeweiligen Kulturkreises behandelt. Die ausgewählten Beiträge einer Tagung in Tbilisi mit TeilnehmerInnen aus Armenien, Georgien und Österreich zeugen davon, dass in der Kaukasusregion mit ihrer wechselvollen Geschichte, ihrer tief verwurzelten Volkskultur und nicht zuletzt den künstlerischen und politischen Konflikten im Streben nach einer spezifischen Moderne höchst komplexe Entwicklungen und Beziehungen zu beobachten sind. Analysen der Literatur, der bildenden Kunst, der Musik und des Films machen dies konkret.

  • Studies in honour of Stephanie Jamison

    Gunkel, Dieter, Joshua Katz, Brent Vine & Michael Weiss (eds.). 2016. Sahasram Ati Srajas. Indo-Iranian and Indo-European studies in honor of Stephanie W. Jamison. Beech Stave Press.

    The renowned Indologist and Indo-Europeanist Stephanie W. Jamison has now been honored with this extensive collection of essays by colleagues and students from around the world. The contributors represent a virtual who’s-who of Indo-Iranian and Indo-European scholarship and have produced contributions on everything from Vedic (e.g., Joel Brereton, George Cardona, Paul Kiparsky, Thomas Oberlies) to later Sanskrit (e.g. James Fitzgerald, Hans Henrich Hock, Ted Proferes) to Iranian (e.g. Mark Hale, P. Oktor Skjærvø) to other Indo-European languages (e.g. Dieter Gunkel, Martin Joachim Kümmel, Alan Nussbaum, Don Ringe, Michael Weiss). The volume also includes posthumously published articles by Lisi Oliver and Martin West. In all, these scholars have provided a worthy and rich tribute to a scholar whose own rich scholarship has been so vital to numerous subfields of linguistics, literary, religious, and cultural studies.

    A table of contents is available here.

  • Counsel for kings

    Marlow, Louise. 2016. Counsel for kings: Wisdom and politics in tenth-century Iran, vol. I & II (Edinburgh Studies in Classical Arabic Literature ). Edinburgh University Press.

    Volume I: The Nasihat al-muluk of pseudo-Mawardi: Contexts and themes.

    Volume II: The Nasihat al-muluk of pseudo-Mawardi: Texts, sources and authorities.

    For the table of contents, see above links.

    A textual and contextual study of an early Arabic mirror for princes

    Mirrors for princes form a substantial and important genre in many pre-modern literatures. Their ostensible purpose is to advise the king; at the same time they assert that the king, if he is truly virtuous, will appreciate being reminded of the contingency of his power. The unknown author of the Counsel for Kings studied in this book wrote in a distinctive early tenth-century Iranian environment. He deploys an abundant set of cultural materials representing ‘perennial wisdom’ of mixed provenances, which he reinvigorates by applying them to the circumstances of his own time and place.

    The first volume situates Counsel for Kings in its historical context. The second volume gives direct access to a substantial portion of the text through translation and commentary.

    Key features

    • Integrates the evidence of Counsel for Kings with established materials for the study of Samanid history

    • Demonstrates the interplay of mirrors for princes with other forms of literary expression, such as anthologies of adab, historiographical, theological, philosophical and homiletic writings, encyclopaedic works and poetry

    Louise Marlow is Professor of Religion and Program Director for Middle Eastern Studies and Wellesley College.