پژوهش نامه تاریخ اسلام
سال هفتم شماره 28 (زمستان 1396)

Mu'tazilites, as an intellectual theological school flourishing at the early Abbasid era, had a great influence on the establishment of Abbasid caliphate. This paper, using a descriptive and analytical method based on library resources, attempts to explain causes and contexts of the rise and decline of this intellectual school, as well as the relations between the Mu'tazilites and the other outstanding theological school known as Ahl al-Hadith. The main question of the paper is why Mutawakkil (r. 847-861), despite of the marvellous contribution of Mu'tazilites to intellectual development in Islamic society, was opposed to them. The study's conclusion is that caliph Ma'mun (r. 813-833), in confrontation with Amin (r. 809-813) and his supporting sect of al-Hashwiyah which denied the authority of Ma'mun, intended to ratify the opposite thought system of Mu'tazilites who stood against orthodox Arabs. After Ma'mun, Mutawakkil, again by supporting Ahl al-Hadith, combated Mu'tazilites and tried to restore Arab nationalism.

Islamic civilization reached its golden age during the period of the Abbasid caliphate. One of the manifestations of the numerous progresses in that period is the prosperity of shipping in rivers, and particularly in Tigris and Euphrates. Under the control of Abbasid caliphs, new canals and branches of rivers were dug and waterways were dredged. With different social and political purposes, the caliphs facilitated transportation in Iraqi rivers. In the article here, it has been endeavored to describe Abbasid caliphs' efforts and purposes in supporting shipping in rivers and it has been tried to explain how they benefited from so many military and commercial advantages of this kind of shipping. The findings show that these actions of Abbasids led to more government income, agricultural development, growth of urbanization, and transmission of knowledge and culture to capital of caliphate.

Immigration and settlement of Sadat in different parts of Muslim world have been arisen from various political, economic, and social factors and have been occurred in different forms. This process has continued through a long period in Khorasan. It began with the arrival of political activists with different purposes such as insurrection or asylum, and went on with the arbitrary immigration of groups and individuals who sought social and economic benefits.
A considerable extent of various narratives and accounts presented to report and explain this process are far from reality. Existing data show that the most important reasons for the initiation of immigrations to Khorasan and other parts of Iran have been the difficult political conditions and social deprivation of Al e AbI Talib in their homeland (Hejaz and Iraq) on the one hand, and the partisanship atmosphere of the Prophet's household in the destination (Khorasan) on the other hand. Moreover, the economic and social conditions of Khorasan and the political occurrences in surrounding lands, particularly the dominance of Alavids in Tabaristan, promoted the continuance of these immigrations.

Shi'ism has had a lot of ups and downs in Iran from the collapse of Ilkhanids to the establishment of Safavids. The study of the situation of Shi'ism in that period in Azerbaijan, which later became the provenance for the formation of Safavid rule and consequently, official recognition of Shi'ism, is very important. The main question of this paper is that what the attitude of Azerbaijan local rulers was to Shi'ism and the Shiites of this region before Safavid periods. This article, using descriptive-analytical examination of historical texts, attempts to clarify how the local rulers of Azerbaijan had a tendency toward Shi'ism after the collapse of the Ilkhanids. This tendency developed during the time of Aq Qoyunlu and Qara Quyunlu rulers and subsequently led to the establishment of Safavids and the domination of the Shi'ite religion in the region.

The years 1960 to 1990 are considered the most prominent period of Sirah writing and rereading the prophet Mohammad's life in the Iranian Shiite society. As thoroughly accepted in the contemporary scientific researches, religion is not a supernatural phenomenon and therefore, the traditional Sirah writing, since has been combined with superstitions or theological opinions, has not met the needs of that period. Consequently, the main focus of most Sirahs of that period was the secularization of religion and specially, Islam. Meanwhile, Zaryab Khoei, in accordance with the needs of the day and by a different approach, has paid a great deal of attention to the writing of the prophet's Sirah. Applying a semantic analysis, this research aims to describe Zaryab’s specific methodology in his book, Sirat o rasul e Allah (life of the messenger of Allah). The findings show Zaryab’s intention to compound two opposing views: the belief in the unchangeable sacred element, and the western historicism. By this localizing method, he has established a specific relation between the sacred historiography and the western historicity. Accepting the divine characteristic of Mohammad's prophecy, he has also used scientific and rational analyses to assess narrations of the Mohammad's life and to criticize and reject some incorrect accounts and superstitions of the Sirah references.

Chalesh miyan e Farsi va Arabi (Ney publication, 2006), written by Azartash Azarnoush, explains the challenges between two main languages of the Muslim world; Persian and Arabic. Although it has been welcomed by scholars because of the author's proficiency in Arabic literary studies, several criticisms have been presented on the theory offered in the book. The article here, as another criticism and applying a historical approach, attempts to examine the degree of writer’s loyalty to the historical facts. Accordingly, the historical data of this book have been evaluated based on the historical methodology. The findings show that the inadequacy of the historical insight of the book has led to weakness of the theory of challenge between Persian and Arabic languages.