پژوهشنامه فرهنگ و ادبیات آیینی
پیاپی 1 (بهار و تابستان 1401)

Persian literature, especially Sufi literature, as a mirror of human thought and behavior, functions as the source of a lot of seven arts, specifically cinema. Dariush Mehrjui, as an Iranian filmmaker, has been able to establish a new philosophical thinking in cinema. Although cinema is an imported product and is not that much old in this ancient land, the precious heritage of Iranian Sufism, which is a symbol of our rites and traditions, can be considered one of its main sources. Although some of the people well educated in cinema have a certain opinion about its origin and find its roots in the Western world, there are filmmakers who are familiar with artistic and human concepts and who are not intimidated by the West, but are trying to give their art a local color. Dariush Mehrjuim, the Iranian filmmaker who has studied philosoiphy in the West, has been the founder of a new way of thinking in cinema. In this research, we have adopted content analysis and an intertextual approach to explore Sufism, as the hidden layer of the film called Hamoun, through symbols and signs. Finally, we came to the conclusion that modern man needs to pay attention to his past traditions and customs to acquire deeper knowledge and know himself. Therefore, Mehrjui finds common ground between Iranian Sufism and Western philosophy, especially some of the key principles of existentialism, which considers pragmatism and human agency very important to achieve excellence and a better. Similarly, Sufism emphasizes special human capacities and following a path based on one’s own abilities, to reach true happiness and perfection.

The Safavid Era is one of the most important historical eras in Iran. During this era, rituals with Shiite content are particularly valued by the rulers due to Shia enforcement as the official religious branch in Iran. Mourning tradition and dasteh-gardani (arrangement of group mourning rituals) for the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (peace be upon him) held in Muharram were among these rituals which were specifically developed during the Safavid Dynasty. Certain transformations and features emerge in mourning rituals during this era, which seem to be inspired by the political structure of the Safavid Era. The present study is carried out to answer how the components of the political structure during the Safavid Era are reflected in mourning rituals. The research methodology is historical and the result is indicative of the fact that group mourning rituals of Muharram served as a suitable medium for strengthening the foundations of Safavid government, taking into account the profound ideological and national beliefs and devotion of Shias expressed to their third Imam.

“Vay” is the name of a great and powerful god in ancient Iran who is the manifestation of the wind and to whom one of the Yashts is dedicated. According to Yashts and other Zoroastrian references, this god sometimes has an even higher position than Ahuramazda. Due to his power and influence, he was not easily settled in Mazdayasna like other pre-Zoroastrian gods and created some disturbances in this religion. On the other hand, considering the importance and place of the “wind” phenomenon in the works of mystics such as Sanai, Attar and Rumi, we decided to study the relationship between wind in Mathnavi and Avesta and compare the position of wind from both mythological and mystical perspectives. The question of this descriptive-analytical research is, whether the god of the wind, with all its importance and greatness, is reflected in post-Islamic mystical beliefs or not, and furthermore, can there be any indication that Rumi’s mystical understanding of the phenomenon of wind is influenced by the ideas of ancient Iran? Apparently, the importance of allegories of wind for Rumi goes back more to the Qur’an and Islamic attitudes. However, the result obtained in the end confirms some indirect influence which originates from the Iranian collective unconscious about this forgotten god.

Teaching religious beliefs to children is an example of ritual literature. This kind of education is found in different historical periods and among most nations. Hussainiya is a collection by Abu Turab Ibn Hassan Hosseini, nicknamed Jowzaa-e- Natanzi, a Shiite poet of the end of the thirteenth century AH. He wrote the book for his eight-year-old son, Hussein, and named the collection Hussainiya after him. This work is in the form of Masnavi, has the rhythmic structure of “Moftaelon Moftaelon Faaelon”, and contains more than 1300 verses. Its only Manuscript numbered 1531 is available in the library of the Faculty of Theology of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. This work is a unique example of the educational-ritual collections of the Sheikh sect in the Qajar era that has been unknown, and needs to be introduced and analyzed. The results of this study show that Abu Turab Husseini follows the founders of the Sheikh sect Ahmad Ehsaei and Muhammad Karim Ibn Ibrahim in the tradition of farzand-nameh-nevisi (writing for one’s child). He uses rhetorical tools such as the title of the book; keeping the attention of the readers; being proud of their religious ancestors; benefiting from anecdotes, allegories, and similes; and using a sincere, fatherly and critical tone to teach his son lessons in the field of theology, prophecy, Imamology, Shiism, and moral principles.

Religious Narration is a literary style in narration of killing places. This style is mostly seen in historical-fictional killing places after the 16th century. Due to their eloquent influence, some religious narrations are gradually accepted as historical reality, and their analysis will fulfil two purposes (1) recognizing historical and evolutionary development of religious narrations in Ashoura’s narrations in the Persian language, and (2) identifying the origin of some distortions in the historical reports of this event. Killing place researchers classify the killing place and killing place narrations into two general types: valid killing places that mostly include the old resources and writings of the 9–11th centuries, and the resources dealing with story telling that consist of the killing places related to 12–21st centuries. This paper analyzes religious narrations in three historical-fictional killing places, Rozatolshohada, Toufanolboka and Moharagholgholoub, which have provoked serious criticism in terms of historical report criteria, but are valued in terms of literary writing and artistic style. The scope of the research is the narration of Holy Qasem Ibn Hassan’s fights and martyrdom whose narrations in many parts may not be supported by evidence. The results indicate that many religious narrations are related to the dialogue of the characters, especially Imam Hussein’s family members, which in most parts are unfounded and have emotional content.

Persian ghazal that once only focused on romantic conversation proper found new horizons after expanding its subject matter and theme. However, at the same time, it caused serious damage to its form and coherence. The purpose of this paper is to study the ritual ghazal of contemporary Iran in terms of both text and hypertext. The fundamental issue of the paper is the challenges that have weakened today’s ritual ghazal, looking for the origin of these challenges at the hypertext that has influenced this poetic form. The method of the present study is argumentative and inductive. The main corpus of the paper is the ghazal poems published in the collection of contemporary poets. A critical examination is done of today’s ritual ghazal and its main problems, and it is concluded that in today’s poetry in general and ritual ghazal in particular, although thematic and especially ideological approaches have been extended, very serious damage has been done, which has negatively influenced the persuasion of general and intended audience. More importantly, the impact of hypertext damage is so considerable and far-reaching that disturbs the text of many of today’s ritual ghazals, and the root of many of the text’s weaknesses must be traced to its hypertext.

Our awareness of past cultures and civilizations usually does not go beyond historical periods; therefore, it will not be surprising to find ideas and beliefs that seem advanced at the beginning of the life of some nations. This is not because of the superior intelligence of that nation, but we know of a period of their social life which coincides with the beginning of history, and it is during this period that they seem to have more advanced thoughts and distinct civilization and culture compared with their contemporaries. This is the life of Iranian people. In this paper, the author tries to support this hypothesis by extracting the signs of intellectual and moral schools (Totemism, Atheism, Mithraism and Dualism) in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh as the national epic.

Poetry is an interconnected set of emotion, music, form, imagination and language. Emotion is one of the most important elements of poetry that expresses inner feelings such as joy, sadness, love, hate, resentment and complaint. One method of analyzing poetry is to analyze its elements in relation to each other, by which the degree of success of the poet in conveying his inner emotions can be measured. Burqai is one of the contemporary ritual poets who has published various works such as Toofane vajeha, Qibla mayel be to, Roqeh, Hodoode sa’te 3, and Tahayor. Tahayor is one of his Alawi poems in which he has depicted parts of the life of Imam Ali as of birth to martyrdom in sixteen sections. Using a descriptive-analytical method, the present study has analyzed the relationship between the element of emotion and other components of poetry in the collection of Tahayor to answer these questions: How is the element of emotion reflected in the collection of Tahayor? How is the connection between the element of emotion and other components of the poem manifested? Has Bourqai succeeded in conveying his emotions? The results show that emotion has been displayed in relation to music, imagination and language. The poet has expressed his emotional states in a collection of poetic elements in harmony with his inner feelings, which has led to the formation of deep emotions in the audience and has made his poetry coherent, making him successful in conveying harmonious emotions.

Safarzadeh’s Safar-e Bidaran was composed on the eve of the victory of the Islamic Revolution of Iran, when the revolutionary combats were most intense. Within this period of time, writing about the concept of unity indicates the role of unity in the victory of the Revolution. In this paper, the most important features of the discourse of unity in the mentioned book are discussed in a descriptive, analytical and documentary method. The poet tries to deal with the discourse of unity in his poetry. This discourse both manifests the hegemony of the masses who have revolted against the regime and shows the impact of poetry, as an important medium, on the movement. Safarzadeh is a poet with religious and Quranic ideology and the concept of unity in Safar-e Bidaran is mostly ideological and Islamic rather than nationalist. In her poetry, the concept of homeland has Islamic connotations. In fact, the poet seeks a unity that covers the entire Islamic nations. Drawing on his Quranic thoughts, Safarzadeh has managed to beautifully intertwine the unity of self and the unity of the Islamic world; a unity that is manifested in both the textual and structural nature of the poem and its theme. The frequency of the terms that show plurality and unity at the same time and the cases where religious and Quranic allusions have been used to describe unity are of significant importance in this work.

Fotovatnamehs (letters of chivalry) are one of the influential written legacies in the culture and civilization of Iran and Islam. The breadth of themes and contents of fotovatnamehs has made researchers in various fields interested in them. The purpose of this study is to analyze and evaluate the potential of fotovatnamehs from the perspective of being a type of ritual literature. This paper tries to study and reflect on the ritual characteristics of these texts by adopting a descriptive-analytical method and using the criteria of religiosity based on Glock and Stark’s theory. The findings show that among the dimensions of religiosity, the ritual dimension and consequences dimension indicate the ritual content of fotovatnamehs more than other measures of religiosity.

Rituals are symbolic and common activities that are carried out in human societies to take advantage of supernatural forces. In this paper, two rites have been addressed, which seem to be rooted in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh. One of them is singing “Makhta”. What creates a link between “Makhta” and mourning in Shahnameh is not only the way of mourning, but also the belief in the immortality of the person killed, his championship during life, and the belief that the martyr has defeated evil and increased goodness. The belief that the victim evil is innocent and the epic and tragic nature of  of these mourning poems also strengthen the connection between singing “Makhta” and mourning poems in Shahnameh. Another issue raised in this article is the Flag of Imam Ali (pbuh), which is raised every year on the day of Nowruz in the shrine ascribed to Imam Ali in Balkh province. The research shows that this “Flag” has nothing to do with Imam Ali and is the same Derafsh Kaviani (Flag of Lotus) mentioned in Shahnameh.

Customs are one of the specific cultural and social issues of any society which have always played an important role in popular culture. The rituals of some communities are so extensive and comprehensive, and are held in various ceremonies and on different occasions. The rituals show the culture and beliefs of the people of each nation. Since some of the Sur rituals in the villages of Arkan and Kastan in North Khorasan Province are unique, carry symbols, and ultimately bring empathy and cooperation to the people of these two regions, this descriptive-analytical research tried to study these rituals with the aim of getting acquainted with the popular culture of these two regions, and the way they have held some Sur rituals in the past and preserved their customs. Field research was used to collect materials, making an effort to preserve and record the ancient rituals and traditions of the Turkish-speaking people of the region. The results of this study show that, from the past to the present with the modernization and progress of life in various fields, Sur rituals have undergone changes and even in some cases have been forgotten among the people of Arkan and Kastan. However, some ceremonies are still held enthusiastically among the people of these two regions, and their citizens strive to preserve and perpetuate these rituals.