مجله مطالعات ایرانی
پیاپی 6 (پاییز 1383)

The article aims to make a comparison between “Bahman Nameh” of Hakim Iranshah-ibn-e-abelkhayr and “The Story of Bahman” of Ferdowsi’s Shah Nameh. Endeavor has been done to depict common points and differences of the two works through library method. A comprehensive comparison becomes difficult since the story is presented in 10,443 lines in “Bahman Nameh” while, the Iranian master of epic story telling Ferdowsi has narrated the same in 186 lines only.

Tokens, envelopes and clay tablets were the earliest principal media used by mankind. Tokens were first used for book keeping in the pre-historic period. Their evolution led to the invention of clay tablets that first included numbers, but later changed to economic ideo-numerical inscriptions (pictographs).The authors try to describe these writing evidences together with their geographical distribution, evolution, advantages and disadvantages, origin and chronology in Iran.

Landlords (dehqans), as a noble and aristocratic class of late Sassanid dynasty, formed the nucleus and basis of the Iranian nation. They maintained some aspects of their importance during the early Islamic centuries as well. Actually, they were nobles who survived and could transfer ancient Iranian heritage to the next generations. During this transition, they played several key roles. They not only acted as intermediaries between Sassanid government and the public, but also played the same role during the Islamic period as a factor that facilitated the situation for Arabs to conquer and rule Iran. According to Ferdowsi and other Islamic historians, after the decay of the Sassanids, ‘dehqans’ became the narrators of national tales and epics of the Iranian kings and mythical heroes. After Islam, the conquerors let ‘dehqans’ administer local affairs and act as actual rulers of early Islamic governments due to their experience and expertise in local administration and their acquaintance with the public and the farmers.

The article intends to introduce Antoine Galland (1646-1715) the French Orientalist and the invaluable services he has rendered.Galland is the first translator of the book ‘The Thousand and One Night’ (Alf-a lailato wa laila) from Arabic into French (1704) which played an important role in connecting European literature with Eastern, Indian and Iranian legends. It made French and other European novels and poems to be influenced by these legends.According to studies, the Persian book “Hezar Afsan” forms the main nucleus of “The Thousand and One Nights”. Galland’s translation is an outstanding work in contrastive literary analysis and shows the indirect influence of the literature of ancient Iran on European literature.

In this article the author has attempted to contrast two Dēnkart, the sixth manuscripts marked K-3 and D-10 ‘a’. The comparison depicts that some of the maxims/sayings are not recorded, have verbal differences, and contain errors in one of the two manuscripts.

The article aims to study a middle Persian book titled ‘Sayings of AzarFaranbaq Farokhzadan’. The book is comprised of 147 questions asked by Zoroastrians from their ‘herbad’ (leader) ‘AzarFaranbaq’ and answered by him.It includes questions about marriage, adopting and bringing up of children, guidance, cleanness and being dirty, conversion of Zoroastrians to Islam and its consequences, adultery with infidels, sins and good works, religious rites, donation, oaths and religious examination, loans and mortgages, not wearing Kusti, alms giving, waging war and buying wine from Christians. The writer has been the leader of Parsis Zoroastrians in 2nd and 3rd centuries A.H. during the caliphate of al-Ma’mun from Abbassid dynasty (198-218 A.H.). Some works, being important because of having religious and legal terms in middle Persian remain from him. The above book has been translated into English by The Indian Parsi scholar Bahram Gour Enklesaria in 1969 A.D. along with edited Pahlavi text and phonetic transliteration. No Farsi translation has been done until now.

The article aims to depict the views of those opposed to Hallaj in an analytical/descriptive method. Before getting to the main discussion, the views of Hallaj on Islamic jurisprudence, scholastic theology and Sufi doctrines are briefly discussed to give the reader an awareness of Hallaj’s views to understand his opponents thoughts, from one side and to prepare the bases for studying his influence on Iranian gnosis and Sufism, from the other.The diversity of the views of the scholars and the public about Hallaj is so extensive that some consider him as a ‘perfect human being’ while others think of him as an infidel and this makes the study of his life important. The author has carefully extracted the views of the opponents of Hallaj from various sources based on library research and has presented them with the least judgment so that the readers can get to their own conclusions without any prejudice.

Burial in big-clay-jar-type vaults was one of the common interment methods in Ashkanid era. Many cemeteries of this type from the era have been discovered and excavated in various places. But there existed no information on historical and archeological condition of Marivan. Fortunately, after some search operations in various cemeteries, researchers could discover and identify an amber of vaults of “Khomreh-ee” type using different burial methods of Ashkanid era. Preliminary investigations furnished us with valuable data on burial methods and religions insights of nomadic Ashkanids in the vicinity of Zaribar river.