مجله کاشان شناسی
سال دهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 18، بهار و تابستان 1396)

In this survey, twenty travel books of most famous travelers who visited Kashan from the reign of Shah Abbas the Great to the time of Persian constitutional revolution have been investigated. Accordingly, what a traveler has seen and heard about Kashan is compared to other traveler's records of the same or different time and also to the present situation, and this way, the truth or falsity of these records has been revealed. Among the travelers of Safavid period, Chardin, Anthony and Robert Shirley, Tavernier, Figueroa, Della Valle, Herbert and Olearius, whose descriptions include the typical records of that time, have been chosen. Furthermore the works of Polak, Browne, Curzon, Sykes, De Bode, Olivier, Flandin, De Sercey, De Gobineau, Dieulafoy, Aubin and Pottinger have been examined as the selection books of Qajar period. The data of these sources has been analyzed based on historical geography of Kashan region under the categories: administrative divisions, routes, geographical situation and configuration of the city, weather, water supply, rampart of the city, alleys and neighborhoods, mosques and sacred sites, earthquake, markets, houses, telegraph offices, Fin garden, population, religious minorities, governors, industry, mints, agriculture, mineral materials, genuine or superstitious beliefs and ideas, Heydari-Nemati conflicts, recreations, costumes, women's condition, fear of scorpion, insects and diseases, dialects, cookery and the revision of native's attitudes toward travelers. The relation of traveler's descriptions to his life era and his occupation and character has also been discussed in the article.

The poet Kamal al-Din Ali Muhtasham Kashani is especially well-known for his Tarkib-Band (a kind of Persian poem) about Day of Ashura. This famous Tarkib-Band was composed in a context formed by the former Persian poets. In the article here, three of these former poets whose works have lots of potentials for poetry education and particularly, elegy have been explored: the first person is Mawlana Hasan Kashi, the mystic and poet of seventh and eighth century AH; the other, Nur al-Din Hamza ibn Ali, usually recognized as Azari Isfarayeni, the less-known Shiite mystic of eighth and ninth century AH; and the last, Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Sulayman Rawandi, Sunni historian and poet of sixth century AH. As result of the survey, it seems that though Muhtasham's use of Hasan Kashi and Azari Isfarayeni's poems is possible, influence of Rawandi's Tarkib-Band (which is a lament for Sayyid Fakhr al-Din 'Ala al-Dawle ArabShah) on the Muhtasham's Tarkib-Band is somehow more justifying and with regard to its precedent composing, sounds more reasonable.

Less than three hundred years after Muhtasham Kashani, in the birthplace and homeland of this pioneering poet of Voqu’ School and WaSukht style and the composer of the most famous elegy of Ashura, a man was born who stood a head and shoulders above other poets in composing elegy and Ta’zieh. Endeavour has been made in this article to point out a brief biography of Muhtasham and Seyyed Mustafa Kashani, known as MirAza, and to indicate the similarities in their lives and their religious-Shiite birthplace, and also to discuss stable and long-age government of two Safavid and Qajar kings and their support from poetry and rituals of Ashura and eventually, to reveal the type of literal and spiritual borrowings of MirAza’s Ta’zieh scripts from Muhtasham’s Tarkib-Band. This study seeks to answer how Muhtasham’s poems of Ashoura, as the best examples of his kind in all the periods of Persian poetry, have influenced the Mirazaa’s folk, dramatic, and musical poetry. The results of this analysis suggest that every single word of this Muhtasham’s poem has been recurred within the scripts of Ta’zieh, especially those of MirAza’s, and even reciting some verses of Muhtasham’s Tarkib-Band has been a part of Ta’zieh ceremony in Naseri Tekyeh Dowlat during the zenith of this art.

Jami’ mosque of Kashan is one of the oldest recorded sites of Islamic era. This mosque has three stucco Mihrabs; one in the dome and two in the north Shabistan of the mosque. In order to determine the date of the main Mihrab, samples of the bricks were taken for Thermoluminescence (TL) dating. In addition, sampling was accomplished for identification of the pigment and stucco used in the Mihrab. Polarized light microscope (PLM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used for identification of pigments and the mortar and plaster components, and a scanning electron microscope with energy dispersive X-ray (SEM-EDX) for elemental analysis of the samples. The result of Thermoluminescence (TL) dating of brick sample of the upper Mihrab addressed 550±20 years ago as construction date of the Mihrab. Results also revealed that in the decorations, lapis lazuli and red lead had been used for creating blue and red colors.

The Mihrab of Kahsan’s Jami’ mosque is one of the most important stucco Mihrabs of Islamic Period which has had an important place in the history of Islamic art of stucco designs and the evolution of the jami’ itself. Yet, despite this historical significance, no comprehensive study of this Mihrab has been done and this is maybe because of the desolate condition of the Mihrab in the recent decades. Therefore, this paper’s objective is to present a detailed description of this Mihrab and then, according to decorative and structural features, to determine its place among all Islamic Mihrabs. To reach this objective, a descriptive-analytic approach has been used. At the end, the problem of dating this Mihrab has been discussed.
According to available evidence, it can be concluded that the Mihrab of Kashan’s Jami’ is one the important stucco Mihrabs of the Islamic period and the only reasonable time for its construction is the period between sixth and eighth centuries AH.

City of Kashan is located in north of Isfahan province, between the Karkas Mountains of Natanz and the Great Salt Desert; where vegetation is inappreciable and bushes and shrubs are slight. Kashan has a warm and dry climate and in accordance with that, some structures, titled Khane-Bagh (house-garden), have been designed which contained a building with fruitful and unfruitful trees at its opposite side and a stream between the building and garden. Nowadays most of Khane-Baghs have destroyed and only few of them remained empty and almost dilapidated here and there. Lajavardi Khane-Bagh is the only structure of this kind that despite of alterations and modifications, has survived firm and steady is now employed as the cultural center of Fayz Kashani.
This article is presented in two parts; at the former one, pre-Islamic revolution owners of the structure, namely Lajavardi family, have been introduced and at the second one, architecture of the building and its usages before and after Islamic revolution of Iran have been investigated based on field research and documentation.

This paper aims to bring into light the efforts of Sheikh AbdulAli Moobad Bidgoli, a writer and freedom fighter of Persian constitutional revolution, in editing the Amir Bahador ShahNameh. After briefly explaining the features of this special edition of ShahNameh and comparing it with previous editions, the author has discussed Moobad’s fascination and infatuation with the ancient Iranian culture and Ferdowsi’s ShahNameh. Moobad supervised the publication process, organized the annexations and appendices, and compiled the relevant dictionary. According to the present paper, it has been unveiled that the verses in extension page of this edition have not been composed by Mobed Bidgoli, but by a poet called Sayyid Muhammad Baqa Khorasani.