The Sih Rozag In Zoroastrianism

Focusing on the Avestan and Pahlavi versions of the Sīh-rōzag, a text worshipping Zoroastrian divine entities, this book explores the spiritual principles and physical realities associated with them. Introducing the book is an overview of the structural, linguistic and historico-religious elements of the Avestan Sīh-rōzag. This overview, as well as reconstructing its approximate chronology, helps in understanding the original ritual function of the text and its relationship to the other Avestan texts.The book then studies the translation of the text in the Middle Persian language, Pahlavi, which was produced several centuries after its initial composition, when Avestan was no longer understood by the majority of the Zoroastrian community. Addressing the lacuna in literature examining an erstwhile neglected Zoroastrian text, The Sih-Rozag in Zoroastrianism includes a detailed commentary and an English translation of both the Avestan and Pahlavi version of the Sīh-rōzag and will be of interest to researchers and scholars of Iranian Studies, Religion, and History.

Critically deploying the idea of uneven and combined development this book provides a novel non-Eurocentric account of Iran’s experience of modernity and revolution. Recasting Iranian Modernity presents the argument that Eurocentrism can be decisively overcome through a social theory that has international relations at its ontological core. This will enable a conception of history in which there is an intrinsic international dimension to social change that prevents historical repetition. This hitherto under-theorized international dimension is, the book argues, manifest in combined patterns of development, which incorporate both foreign and native forms. It is the tension-prone and unstable nature of these hybrid developmental patterns that mark Iranian modernity, and fuelled the socio-political dynamics of the 1979 revolution and the rise of political Islam. Challenging solely comparative approaches to the Iranian Revolution that explain it away as either a deviation from, or a reaction to, modernity on the grounds of its religious form, this book will be valuable to those interested in an alternative theoretical approach to the Iranian Revolution, modern Iran and political Islam, working in the fields of International Relations, Middle East and Islamic Studies, History, Political Science, Political Sociology, Postcolonialism, and Comparative Politics.

Culture and Cultural Politics Under Reza Shah presents a collection of innovative research on the interaction of culture and politics accompanying the vigorous modernization programme of the first Pahlavi ruler. Examining a broad spectrum of this multifaceted interaction it makes an important contribution to the cultural history of the 1920s and 1930s in Iran, when, under the rule of Reza Shah Pahlavi, dramatic changes took place inside Iranian society. With special reference to the practical implementation of specific reform endeavours, the various contributions critically analyze different facets of the relationship between cultural politics, individual reformers and the everyday life of modernist Iranians. Interpreting culture in its broadest sense, this book brings together contributions from different disciplines such as literary history, social history, ethnomusicology, art history, and Middle Eastern politics. In this way, it combines for the first time the cultural history of Iran’s modernity with the politics of the Reza Shah period. Challenging a limited understanding of authoritarian rule under Reza Shah, this book is a useful contribution to existing literature for students and scholars of Middle Eastern History, Iranian History and Iranian Culture.

Through an examination of a wide range of medieval sources and a close textual study of the account about Ardashīr in the Shāhnāma, Nasrin Askari demonstrates that medieval authors understood Firdausī’s opus primarily as a mirror for princes

Rituals play a prominent role in Zoroastrianism, one of the oldest religious traditions of mankind. In this book, scholars from a broad range of disciplines make the first ever collective effort to discuss Zoroastrian rituals in different historical contexts and geographical settings.

Anahita was the most important goddess of pre-Islamic Iran. From her roots as an ancient Indo-European water deity her status was unrivalled by any other Iranian goddess throughout the course of three successive Iranian empires over a period of a thousand years. The first scholarly book on Anahita, this study reconstructs the Indo-European water goddess through a comparison of Celtic, Slavic, Armenian and Indo-Iranian myths and rituals. Anahita's constantly-evolving description and functions are then traced through the written and iconographic records of Iranian societies from the Achaemenid period onwards, including but not limited to the Zoroastrian texts and the inscriptions and artistic representations of the great pre-Islamic Iranian empires. The study concludes by tracing survival of the goddess in Islamic Iran, as seen in new Persian literature and popular rituals. Manya Saadi-nejad demonstrates the close relationship between Iranian mythology and that of other Indo-European peoples, and the significant cultural continuities from Iran's pre-Islamic period into the Islamic present.

Four Testaments brings together four foundational texts from world religions—the Tao Te Ching, Dhammapada, Analects of Confucius, and Bhagavad Gita—inviting readers to experience them in full, to explore possible points of connection and divergence, and to better understand people who practice these traditions. Following Brian Arthur Brown’s award-winning Three Testaments: Torah, Gospel, Quran, this volume of Four Testaments features essays by esteemed scholars to introduce readers to each tradition and text, as well as commentary on unexpected ways the ancient Zoroastrian tradition might connect Taoism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Hinduism, as well as the Abrahamic faiths. Four Testaments aims to foster deeper religious understanding in our interconnected and contentious world.

Historiography is the study of the methodology of writing history, the development of the discipline of history, and the changing interpretations of historical events in the works of individual historians. Exploring the historiography of Persian art and architecture requires a closer look at a diverse range of sources, including chronicles, historical accounts, travelogues, and material evidence coming from archaeological excavations. The Historiography of Persian Architecture highlights the political, cultural, and intellectual contexts that lie behind the written history of Persian architecture in the twentieth century, presenting a series of investigations on issues related to historiography. This book addresses the challenges, complexities, and contradictions regarding historical and geographical diversity of Persian architecture, including issues lacking in the 20th century historiography of Iran and neighbouring countries. This book not only illustrates different trends in Persian architecture but also clarifies changing notions of research in this field. Aiming to introduce new tools of analysis, the book offers fresh insights into the discipline, supported by historical documents, archaeological data, treatises, and visual materials. It brings together well-established and emerging scholars from a broad range of academic spheres, in order to question and challenge pre-existing historiographical frameworks, particularly through specific case studies. Overall, it provides a valuable contribution to the study of Persian architecture, simultaneously revisiting past literature and advancing new approaches. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East and Iranian Studies, as well as Architectural History, including Islamic architecture and historiography.