Author: Arash Zeini

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Events Online resources

The 9th Ratanbai Katrak Lectures

Prof. Dr. Alberto Cantera (Freie Universität Berlin) will deliver the 9th Ratanbai Katrak Lectures 101 years after the inauguration of the Ratanbai Katrak Lecturership at the University of Oxford.

Convened by Prof. Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina for the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.

‘With which Yasna shall I worship you (kana θβąm yasna yazāne)?
Zoroastrian Rituals in the Antique and Late Antique Iranian world’

Please use this link to attend the lectures on Zoom.

Lecture 1: Manuscripts and Rituals: The Written Transmission of the Zoroastrian Rituals
11 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD

Lecture 2: The Questioned Antiquity of the Zoroastrian Rituals: Their Reception in Western Academia
18 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Wolfson College, Linton Road, Oxford OX2 6UD

Lecture 3: The Ritual System: Modularity and Productivity
25 May 2023, 5:30pm – 7:00pm; Ertegun House, 37A St. Giles’, Oxford OX1 3LD

9th-Ratanbai-Katrak-LecturesDownload
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Articles

On the office of hu-dēnān pēšōbāy

Rezania, Kianoosh. 2023. On the concept of leadership and the office of Leader of the Zoroastrians (hu-dēnān pēšōbāy) in Abbasid Zoroastrianism. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 1–36.

Like many other religions, Zoroastrianism frequently restructured its priestly organization during its long history, largely because of the environmental changes to which it was exposed. A major shift in status – from being the state religion in the Sasanian Empire to holding only a minor position in the early Islamic period – challenged the Zoroastrian hierarchy of authority. The Abbasid state provided Zoroastrianism with an opportunity to initiate a new office, which was called hu-dēnān pēšōbāy “Leader of the Zoroastrians”. This article is the first to deal with this office in detail and scrutinizes the concept of leadership (pēšōbāyīh) in Sasanian and Abbasid Zoroastrianism. It sheds some light on the priestly structure of Zoroastrianism in this period and investigates the position of the office within the overall religious organization. It re-examines, moreover, evidence for the officiating Zoroastrian theologians in this office at the Abbasid court in Baghdad. Finally, it searches for the parallels between this office and that of the East-Syrian catholicos and the Jewish exilarch.

Abstract from FirstView
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Books

From Samarqand to Toledo

Kaplony, Andreas & Matt Malczycki (eds.). 2022. From Samarqand to Toledo: Greek, Sogdian and Arabic documents and manuscripts from the Islamicate world and beyond (Islamic History and Civilization 201). Leiden: Brill.

Documents open up another an approach complementary to the overwhelming richness of literary tradition as preserved in manuscripts. This volume combines studies on Greek, Sogdian and Arabic documents (letters, legal agreements, and amulets) with studies on Arabic and Judeo-Arabic manuscripts (poetry, science and divination).

From the website

Following article in the volume is of particular interest to scholars of Sogdian:

Huseini, Said Reza. 2022. Thinking in Arabic, writing in Sogdian: Arabic-Sogdian diplomatic relations in the early eighth century. In Andreas Kaplony & Matt Malczycki (eds.), From Samarqand to Toledo: Greek, Sogdian and Arabic documents and manuscripts from the Islamicate world and beyond (Islamic History and Civilization 201), 67–87. Leiden: Brill.

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Events

Orality and Textuality in Zoroastrianism

The Circle for Late Antique and Medieval Studies presents a discussion with Professors Almut Hintze, Martin Schwartz and Peter Jackson Rova on the oral traditions in Zoroastrianism. The panel discussion is online and open to the public. The website is here.

Wednesday, April 26, 2023; 12:00 pm — 1:30 pm

You can register via Zoom.

How should we conceive of Prophet Zoroaster? What was the context in which he lived and composed the Gathas of Zoroaster? Do they provide a unique window into oral composition and transmission of tradition(s)? Can the early poetry attributed to Zoroaster teach us something about the cryptic techniques of Indo-European poetry and the beginnings of Greek philosophy? How did orality sustain the Zoroastrian community through millennia?

From the website
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Books

Iranian and Minority Languages

Sedighi, Anousha (ed.). 2023. Iranian and minority languages at home and in diaspora. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

While the typology, syntax, and morphology of Iranian languages have been widely explored, the sociolinguistic aspects remain largely understudied. The present companion addresses this essential yet overlooked area of research in two ways: (i) The book explores multilingualism within Iran and its neighbouring countries. (ii) It also investigates Iranian heritage languages within the diasporic context of the West.

The scope of languages covered is vast: In addition to discussing Iranian minority languages such as Tati and Balochi, the book explores non-Iranian minority languages such as Azeri, Tukmen, Armenian and Mandaic. Furthermore, the companion investigates Iranian heritage languages such as Wakhi, Pashto, and Persian within their diasporic and global contexts.

From the website
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Books

The Babylonian Talmud

Amsler, Monika. 2023. The Babylonian Talmud and late antique book culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

In this book, Monika Amsler explores the historical contexts in which the Babylonian Talmud was formed in an effort to determine whether it was the result of oral transmission. Scholars have posited that the rulings and stories we find in the Talmud were passed on from one generation to the next, each generation adding their opinions and interpretations of a given subject. Yet such an oral formation process is unheard of in late antiquity. Moreover, the model exoticizes the Talmud and disregards the intellectual world of Sassanid Persia. Rather than taking the Talmud’s discursive structure as a sign for orality, Amsler interrogates the intellectual and material prerequisites of composers of such complex works, and their education and methods of large-scale data management. She also traces and highlights the marks that their working methods inevitably left in the text. Detailing how intellectual innovation was generated, Amsler’s book also sheds new light on the content of the Talmud.

From Cambridge Core
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Online resources

Derbent: What Persia Left Behind

Derbent: What Persia Left Behind, is a documentary directed by Pejman Akbarzadeh. For more information, including a timeline and screening schedules, visit derbentonline.com.

Trailer

Registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the 6th-century Derbent (Darband) fortification complex is considered the largest defensive structure of Sasanian Persia (Iran) in the Caucasus.
“Derbent: What Persia Left Behind”, also explores the unique architecture of the massive fortress, and how it has been preserved for some fifteen centuries by Persian, Arab, Turkish and Russian rulers. Built strategically in the narrowest area between the Caucasus Mountains and the Caspian Sea, the fortification includes the northernmost Middle Persian (Pahlavi) inscriptions in the world, which are in danger of destruction. The 42-km defence wall of the complex that extended toward the Black Sea had already been destroyed in the Soviet era.

From the film’s website
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Books

Studi Iranici Ravennati

Panaino, Antonio, Andrea Piras and Paolo Ognibene (eds). 2023. Studi iranici ravennati IV (Indo-iranica et orientalia, Lazur 25). Milan: Mimesis.

This volume collects a number of scientific articles dealing with history, linguistics, philology, archaeology, ethnology and anthropology of the ancient and modern Iranian peoples.

From the website
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Books

Gandhāran Art in its Buddhist Context

Rienjang, Wannaporn & Peter Stewart (eds.). 2023. Gandhāran art in its Buddhist context. Oxford: Archaeopress Archaeology.

This book considers Gandhāran art in relation to its religious contexts and meanings within ancient Buddhism. Addressing the responses of patrons and worshippers at the monasteries and shrines of Gandhāra, papers seek to understand more about why Gandhāran art was made and what its iconographical repertoire meant to ancient viewers.

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Events Online resources

Zoroastrianism: History, Religion and Belief

This year, we missed to announce the ‘Zoroastrianism Summer Course‘, which is offered by the ‘Shapoorji Pallonji Institute of Zoroastrian Studies‘ and takes place at the Norwegian Institute in Rome.

But we would like to take this opportunity to mention ‘Zoroastrianism: History, Religion and Belief‘, which has been designed by Dr Sarah Stewart and Dr Céline Redard and is offered as a free online course (MOOC).