فصلنامه مطالعات تاریخ اسلام
پیاپی 33 (تابستان 1396)

In this paper, the ‘irjā’ movement will be analyzed from a discursive perspective in order to rethink some paradoxes in its approaches and tendencies. It will be shown that the discourse of ’irjā’ had one core, but different origins, meanings, and significations in Iraq, Transoxiana/Khurāsān, and the Levant. This discourse generally followed a special perspective regarding faith, and its relationship with deeds, as well as some political principles. This paper seeks to uncover the different social and political contexts of this discourse. A major objective is to see how the different social and political contexts in Iraq, Transoxiana/Khurāsān, and the Levant gave rise to a mostly singular view on faith, and the emergence of different political stances against the Umayyads. It will be also demonstrated that political stances against the Umayyads and the will of the state - despite its relationship with the movement -- was not the only determining factor in the formation of the ’irjā’ discourse.

Wonder book writing is one of genres of literatures in the Islamic civilization. Writing wonderful information about territories in the geographical sources simultaneous with descriptive geography made such information an interesting issue for various authors. Then, different factors such as its appeal for people, lack of familiarity of authors with such phenomenon followed by their fantasies as well as use of literary devices like exaggeration and verisimilitude, made it widespread. Gradually writing about marvels influenced various texts, and finally an independent genre emerged. This paper uses a historical as well as descriptive- analytical method to study origin, historical path and evolution of writing of wonder books in Islamic civilization. Accordingly, three eras have been introduced for the historical path of writing wonder books in Islamic civilization: Beginning and formation (1st-3rd century AH / 7th-10th century AD), prosperity and glory (4th-8th AH / 11th-15th AD), and decline and fall (8th century AH / 15th century AD onwards).

During the 10th century AH, the Ottoman reign, which reached its apex in the ages of Selīm I and Süleymān the Magnificent, was flourished and developed in many aspects of court, administrative, military, economy and art because of numerous factors. In this research, the role of Iranians in the artistic and bureaucratic writings of the Ottoman Empire has been considered as one of the important factors in development and progress of the Ottomans’ during the century. The historical documents, sources, and related studies indicate that the Iranian scribes played a significant role in two aspects of writing: book design and administrative writings. An increase in the number of books by transcription of religious, literary, historical and scientific works, artistic inventions, the transfer of Iranian artistic heritage into the Ottoman Empire, strengthening of court writing, and providing a skillful personnel were some of those activities that led to the reinforcement, development and expansion of court writings. These efforts along with other policies in the different sectors of government brought about the Ottomans’ glory in the 10th century AH.

The Bektashi order (tariqat) appeared in 8 AH/14 AD century in Anatolia, influenced other territories and gradually became an important Islamic sect. Despite being attributed to an Iranian from Nishabur of Khurasan, this order is absent from historical sources in Iran. Yet, from 1069 A.H/1658 AD onward, among the accounting and financial documents of administrative apparatus of Astan Quds Razavi in the Archive Center of this organization, we can find the names of Bektashi Sufis settling next to the holy shrine of Imam Reza (A.S). This community received financial support from Astan Quds Razavi in Safavid, Afsharid and Qajar eras. Although some research has been done about the Bektashi order, the aforementioned documents have not been studied yet. Thus, this study, using descriptive-analytic approach and relying upon the data of the documents and library sources, is aimed to describe and introduce the content, informational value, characteristics and significance of these documents in the first place, and tries to discover the reason why Bektashi Sufis has had some relationship with Astan Quds Razavi and has received financial support from it secondly.

This paper, using a structruralist approach, together with an analytic-descriptive study of the various materials concerning “Islamic Unity”, attempts to emphasize on four schemata for approaching the Islamic Unity, among the Imami Shi’i Ulama, i.e. the plan of Nadir Shah; the Unity of Islam (Ittiḥādīy-i Islām); the approach with regards to comparative Islamic Jurisprudence (al-Fiqh al-Muqāran); and the approach with regards to common documents and literatures. The paper, moreover, tries to show that these four approaches have to be seen in conjunction with each another, as an integrated system, in such a way that the theoretical aspect has to be grounded on common principles and the practical aspects have to be accepted by political and social reformers.

Active parties in Egypt in the years 1922-1952 were the same zealous nationalists of political scene of the country. These parties competed against each other with various styles and tools. One of these tools was “history” that led to production of species of historiography in Egypt's party historiography. One of the most important of these historiographies was the Saad Zaghloul's book, i.e. Zaim al-Thawrah, written by Abbās Mahmūd al-Aqqād, a member of the Wafd Party. The topic of this research is study and analysis of this historiographical work in order to understand how this national leader in Egypt's contemporary history has been portrayed and how Wafd Party's disputes and competitions are reflected in this text. The method of this research, according to the characteristics of historiography, is understanding the relationships between the studied text components, the author and political-cultural macro- context in this era. The result of the research shows that Al-Aqqād, in response to the political and intellectual atmosphere of Egypt, intends to defend the Wafd party and its founder, i.e. Saad Zaghloul. Due to the competition with other parties, he portrayed Zaghloul as the best example of an ideal leader in Egypt. However, because of a feud with Mustafa Nahas, the leader of Wafd Party at that time, the author presented such an ideal image only in the case of Saad Zaghloul.

Despite considerable knowledge about religious developments in Iran during Ilkhanid era, there is not enough information regarding religious status in Iranian cities and regions in that period. It is Hamdollah Mostofi who has provided a relatively clear topography in this field of study. He talks about religious combination of cities in most cases. Compilation and classification of such information from this book and putting them together with other existing materials in other sources and studies can provide a clearer picture of religious scattering in Iran during Ilkhanid era. This paper will study this issue through a historical method by gathering, categorizing and analyzing such information and using tables, maps and diagrams. It is shown that Shia Islam was spreading in this era, and at the same time there were some changes for other religions.