نشریه مطالعات تاریخی جنگ
سال سوم شماره 2 (تابستان 1398)

The Buyid dynasty, having a familial nature, ruled a significant portion of the Islamic territory in the fourth and fifth centuries. Although the Islamic culture and civilization was at its flourishing peak in the fourth century, it began to decline from the fifth century onward due to numerous factors. The coincidence of this phenomenon with the era of political weakness of Buyids caused by interior struggles confirms a causal relationship between the two events. Using a descriptive-analytical method, by describing the struggles, this study seeks to explain their impact on Islamic culture and civilization, and to answer this question that how the Buyid’s succession struggles contributed to the decline of Islamic culture and civilization, especially in the area of rational sciences. The findings show that the Buyid’s succession conflicts led to the decline of the political power of the Buyid's emirs, which in turn led to the weakness of the ministry, the strengthening of the political opponents of the Sultan, the weakening of economic prosperity, the escalation of social insecurity, the spread of sectarian strife and the prevalence of anti-rational currents. These factors gave rise to the decline of the rational sciences and, consequently, the decline of the Islamic culture and civilization.

Iran faced a defensive position when confronting the devastating Russian tsarist battles. The present study aims to analyze the reasons of the formation of defensive idea and its dimensions in the narrations of intellectual agents (historians, poets, theologians) living in Fath-Ali Shah's era. The results of this study, that used a historical analysis method, show that reminding readers of vivid memories or archetypes belonging to Iranian territorial models happened in order to expand this honorable historical past and in order to fight decadence and to go past crises, which would both raise the readers' awareness toward external threats and reproduce country-religious symbols, with the intention of emphasizing the necessity of defending the boundaries and borders. This type of multi-faceted actions foregrounded historical awareness-raising as a social praxis in critical situations and as a central signified element in the defensive idea. As a result, numerous cases of religious symbols were integrated in the war against archetypes and everyday realities. Representing a mythical view, historical models, hero-centeredness, using and referring to sacred religious texts, depicting sublime human goals of the Islamic troops each reflect part of dimensions of the defensive idea dealt with and reflected by knowledge sources.

In July 1941, Britain and the Soviet Union assaulted Iran on the pretext of the presence of the Germans in Iran. The occupation of Iran was followed by several consequences especially concerning health and medical care. Fars province was not immune to these consequences. The main aim of the current paper, that uses a descriptive and analytical method, is thus to investigate the consequences of World War II on the hygiene status of the people in Fars province. It seeks to answer the question of the impacts of the occupation of Iran during World War II on the health status and the spread of infectious diseases in Fars province. It seems that the occupation of Iran and its aftermath have been influential factors in the deterioration of the health status and the spread of some infectious diseases in Fars province. According to the research findings, after the occupation of Iran, health facilities became unavailable and medical and pharmaceutical centers ran into trouble so much so that in late 1942 AD infectious diseases spread epidemically and a large number of people were afflicted and some of them lost their lives.

With the fall of Isfahan and the gradual collapse of the Safavids, the stage was set for the Russian and Ottoman aggression. Things changed with the rise of Nader and when Afghan invaders were repelled. So conditions were set for the defeat of the Russians and the Ottomans. Nader Shah freed parts of the West, but inevitably led his army to Herat. In his absence, Shah Tahmasp II proceeded to the Caucasus to free Yerevan. A series of wars between the Safavid and the Ottoman Empire occurred in 1731/1143 AH, culminating in the defeat of Shah Tahmasp and his withdrawal. Despite its importance, apparently this war has not yet been taken into scholarly consideration, which is largely due to the weakness of domestic sources that suffer from incomplete and sometimes inaccurate data. External sources of data, especially Ottomans, are beneficial. The present study thus tries to analyze Iranian, Armenian, European and Ottoman sources in a comparative way and answer the question that which of these sources can aid the proper understanding of the dimensions and nature of the Safavid-Ottoman wars in Yerevan in 1731/1143 AH. The present paper was written using text and data mining and an analytical-critical approach based on first-hand sources. The results show that among the four sources, the Ottoman ones, especially the Nevres Chronicle, the author of which was present in the battle scenes, contribute to the understanding of the subject of this research.

The aim of military training in the Qajar period (1794-1925) was to change the military and to provide new knowledge. This training took place both in practical and, with the opening of Dār-al-Fonūn in 1852, in theoretical aspects. The present study aimed to understand to what extent this training brought about the military development in the Qajar era. It used a statistical and descriptive-analytical method to answer the question that how the theoretical and practical training of the military influenced the growth of military knowledge and the position of the military in the Qajar period. The findings indicate that the Qajar system was subject to practical and theoretical training for more than 130 years, but the methods of recruiting and holding military posts were not based on the educational system. The highest recruitment of foreign teachers was in the military field, with a frequency of 26.26%. Of the 104 students who entered the artillery and Dār-al-Fonūn infantry, none achieved an important position in the system, and most graduates of both fields were attracted to executive jobs, particularly as operators of electrical telegraphs, with a frequency of 34.34 percent. Above all, among them, only 3% (2.88 %) reached Dār-al-Fonūn's infantry rank.

This study examines a less-studied aspect of Paul Tsitsianov's character. The main difference between this military figure and the commanders preceding and following him in the Caucasus was his Georgian origin and double identity. The main question this study addresses is thus what relationship can be identified between the Georgian lineage of Tsitsianov and his policy in advancing Tsarist Russia's colonialist strategy in the Caucasus. The present descriptive-analytical study is based on analyzing the information gathered from primary sources as well as Persian, English, and Russian archived documents to answer the aforementioned question. In other words, this study seeks to provide a descriptive account of Tsitsianov's measures while analyzing his cultural mentality and military behavior in relation to the research question. The results indicate that a meaningful relationship between Tsitsianov's double cultural origin and character, and his behavior pattern can be identified. In fact, Tsitsianov's coercive and humiliating treatment of the royal family of Georgia and the Iranian Khans of South Caucasus and his use of traditional methods to further Russian policy in the region signified his double identity and the contradictions within Russian colonial strategy toward South Caucasus.