فصلنامه تاریخ اسلام
پیاپی 33-34 (بهار و تابستان 1387)

Abulfat’h Muhammad ibn Abulghasem Abdulkarim ibn Abu Bakr Ahmad Shahrestani (479-548 A.H.); the Ash‘ari Shafi‘i theologian, usuli jurist, and philosopher, known as Afdhal, Hujjat-tul-Haghgh, and Tajiddin; is one of the greatest experts on history of science in Iran. He is mostly known for writing his “Milal va Nihal” (Nations and Creeds). This book is a comprehensive and detailed review on religious sects, schools of law, and various philosophical schools and creeds.This paper tries to introduce Shahrestani and his “Nations and Creeds” and investigate a number of its claims about the Shi‘ah and Isma‘iliah.

The Buyid period is among the most important ones for the growth and spread of Shi‘ism. In this period, the Shi‘ahs embarked upon eulogizing and elegizing the holy Imams and openly glorified them in public places, an act that has been called Managheb-khani by the people. This cultural move which was met with retaliation and various other reactions by the Sunnis was more or less common before the Buyid period, and continued throughout the Sejuq period as well. Here, by Managheb-khani it is meant saying poetry and writing prose in eulogizing the Shi‘ah imams and vilifying some Companions of the Noble Prophet, and reading and announcing it aloud in public circles and places.

Abd-ul-Hamid Hibat-u-Llah known as Ibn Ab-il-Hadid (586-656 A.H.) was born in a scholarly family in Mada’in (Ctesiphon). After his preliminary studies, he was attracted to the Mu‘tazilite creed and was so well versed in their ideas that he quickly became an authority on the principles of this sect and was recognized as one of their major leaders. He soon attracted the attention of Abbasid statesmen and agreed to accept state offices. Nevertheless, he continued his studies and quest for knowledge to the point that he became a prominent authority on the history of early Islam. This paper deals with the life and achievements of Ibn Ab-il-Hadid.

This article studies one of the foreign minorities in Iran during the Safavid period from the viewpoint of European travelers. This minority known as the Banian or the Moltanis were Hindu Indians who resided in Iran. In the Iran of the Safavid era, the Banian were known to work as middlemen for foreign traders and were also famous for taking usury. With a more precise look, it is possible to shed light on other dark corners of the life of this minority in Iran. This is especially true because of the fact that minorities enjoyed a reasonable degree of religious freedom in Iran in this period. Banian’s wealth and corruption among the officials of the Safavid government had even made the holding of the Sati Ceremony possible for this minority. They possessed their own special buildings and freely held their feasts and religious ceremonies. It is even more interesting that during the reign of Shah Soleiman, the Banian of Esfahan informed the Mughal emperor of India, Aurangzeb, with meticulous details of the fundamental weaknesses that were contributing to the downfall of the Safavid Dynasty and encouraged him to conquer Iran. Such correspondence between the Banian and the Indian emperor are the first recorded written reports, by the foreign minorities who resided in Iran, of the trend of the disintegration of the Safavid Dynasty.

The weakening of the Abbasid Caliphate in the last years of the 3rd century A.H. caused many independent and semi-independent governments to take hold throughout the Abbasid domain. One such government a branch of the Isma‘ilis called the Gharmatian, whose connections to the mainstream Isma‘iliah is not very well-known, managed to take over eastern Arabia and Bahrain and establish a republican-like state. For a century, the Gharmatian government in Bahrain was a base for military and missionary activities against the Abbasid Caliphate and posed a great challenge to the central government in Baghdad.After the introduction of the Gharmatian government, this paper deals with relations of this government with governments of the same age such as the Buyids, the Abbasids, and the Fatimids of Egypt. The paper also deals with the consequences of the rise of the Gharmatian in the Muslim World.

After the establishment of the Ghotb-Shahian government in 918 A.H. by Sultan Gholi Ghotb-Shah, the state experienced several different stages. The golden age of the Ghotb-Shahian government coincided with the reign of Sultan Mohammad Gholi and Sultan Mohammad Ghotb-Shah. In the beginning, Ghotb-Shahian engaged in several wars with their neighboring states including Adel-Shahian. After the end of this war, the aforementioned two sultans seizing the good opportunity provided by the previous rulers of the Ghotb-Shahian dynasty and also seeking help from prominent scholars such as Mohammad Mo’men Astarabadi shaped the golden age of this dynasty’s reign.In this period that relative calm had been established in the domain of the Ghotb-Shahian, they achieved great progress in cultural, religious, and political areas. The founding of the city of Hyderabad, the spread of the Shi‘ah creed, the widespread holding of religious ceremonies, and the creation of numerous books in fields such as literature, history, and religion are among the major achievements of this period.Towards the end of Sultan Mohammad Ghotb-Shah’s reign, the arrival of Mongol forces in Deccan and the death of Mir Mohammad Mo’men Astarabadi caused the golden age of the Ghotb-Shahian government, which was marked by peace and cultural, economic, and social development, to reach its end and bells began to ring for the complete downfall of the dynasty soon after.

The Nizari Isma‘ilis were rulers of the Alamut castles in Iran for more than two centuries (483-654 A.H./1090-1256 AD). During this period, they were busy propagating and spreading their ideas and beliefs. Their aim was to overthrow the Abbasid Caliphate and expel the Turks from Iran. Despite all these efforts, influenced by developments from the outside world, the Nizari Isma‘ilis switched over from idealism to realism. In the 6th century A.H. (12th century AD) and following measures taken by the Abbasid caliphs and fatwas issued by jurists, the Isma‘ilis were massacred in cities and took refuge in mountainous areas and consequently, they did not manage to continue propagating their works and beliefs for half a century. In the 7th century A.H., they were faced with the Mongol invasion of the Muslim World; the invasion that caused the fall of Baghdad and spread of Islamic mysticism. The Mongol invasion and migration of scholars to the territories controlled by the Isma‘ilis promoted the growth of various philosophical thoughts among them. The political developments in the Muslim World caused the Isma‘ilis to better understand the reality of the outside world and moved them away from the ideal of the reign of the Isma‘ili imam over the Muslim World to a more realistic view of the facts on the ground such that they organized a monarchy and began to establish relations with other governments and states. This paper has embarked on a study of the cultural developments in the Nizari Isma‘ili movement during the two centuries that they were in the peak of their power and strength in the Muslim World.

This article is aimed at primarily describing the capabilities of Arabic language. It also highlights the central role of Arabic language particularly its cultural role since the beginning of Islam up to the present era. The research also maintains that Islam is not only a system of belief, it is also a system of state, society, law, thought and art in which religion and faith has a central role. Both these gifts of the Arabs, their language and their faith, have had a significant role in the formation of Islamic civilization. Islam has not only used the achievements of other civilizations but it has added to its civilization many other new things. An outstanding characteristic of this civilization is assimilative power of Arabic culture and its comparative tolerance. At the end, once again, it is compared and contrasted Arabic language with other languages including English and French while stressing on its capacities and its unifying role.

One of the major principles of critical historiography is the investigation of the credibility of historical sources. In a critical study, Klaus U. Hachmeier, by dividing the historical sources of each period into the two categories of narrative sources (Tradition) and extant works (Uberreste), has shown that the narrative sources in his target area of study (the Buyids) suffer from problems such as: flaws and deviations in transferring the material, the authenticity of the author, and biasness. Hence, most of the studies that have been conducted about this period by scientists such as Busse and Kabir are not complete. Hachmeier believes that reports belonging to the category of narrative sources should be corrected or completed by the use of extant works which in turn are divided into the three groups of abstract extant works, object extant works, and written extant works. By studying the collection of “al-Sabi Letters” which is one of the four collections remaining from “Diwan al-Insha’” from the Buyid period, he tries to demonstrate the value of this group of sources, which in his opinion belongs to the third category of extant works (the written category), to the science of historiography and completion of narrative sources.