نشریه پژوهش های علوم تاریخی
سال سوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 3، بهار و تابستان 1390)

Although the history of communication is as old as history of human society, the speed and volume of communication with the advent of electronic era in the 19th century created a revolution in the communication technology. At a time when Prussia was traversing the path of industrialization and the number of companies investing in different industries was increasing by the day, the Company of Siemens Brothers enjoyed an outstanding position in communication technology and manufacturing of electronic equipments. Through utilizing effective administrative system, family ties, experiment-based innovations, the Company launched great plans which connected different parts of the world and made the transmission of messages in short time possible. This development left a serious impact on economy, politics, military movements, diplomacy and cultural exchanges, in addition to providing necessary grounds for the completion of this technology in the 20th century. The present paper is an attempt to study the intrinsic reasons and extrinsic factors that prepared the grounds for the rise of Siemens and its role in the communications revolution which in its turn transformed the communication system in the world in the period under study.

The year 736 AH (1335 CE), death of the Mongol ruler, Sultan Abu Saeed, is known as the year in which the Ilkhanid government collapsed in Iran. In pursuit of legitimacy, however, the Ilkhanid chiefs and viziers would give the crown to any claimant of Genghis’ parentage and would govern the country under their name. As a result, they would give the rulership to some puppet Ilkhans, mint coins in their names, and let them into the political history of Iran, nine of which have been recognized so far. The last puppet Ilkhan ever known is Anushiravān, or Nushiravān, of whom not much is written in the historical sources and no more than a few coins are left. Of his final ending, too, little is known. In the 80th Decade CE (1980), some new coins were found in the European sales following which they were recorded in the coins catalogues and ultimately in the Islamic governments guide booklets and the history books relating to the Ilkhanid period. Images on the coins were totally similar to those on the Ilkhanid and Chupāni coins. A new name is seen on the coins which is the object of study in the present article.

The present study aims to provide an analysis of the historical thoughts of Ibn Funduq. The basic question in the present research is “What is the superiority of the science of history in view of Ibn Funduq?” Was he, similar to other historians of the Middle Islamic Period, influenced by the Aristotelian tradition, merely for the subjective and beneficial dignity of history? Or did he believe in the methodological dignity of history as a science? An investigation into Ibn Funduq’s writings, mainly his lengthy introduction in Tārikh, helped the author of this article reach the conclusion that Ali bin Zayd Beyhaqi did not principally believed in the methodological dignity of the science of history; rather, like all historians of the Middle Islamic Period, he merely believed in the subjective and beneficial dignity of history.

During the fifth and sixth centuries A.H, the Persian Gulf faced a recession in its commerce; instead, the centrality of the international maritime trade was transferred to the Red Sea and Mediterranean region at the time. Emergence of the Kish Island, as a significant trade area in the Persian Gulf region goes back to the mid-sixth century A.H. Efforts made by a local tribe known as Bani Qaysar made Kish, for the first time, the most strategic trade area in the Persian Gulf while also restored the centrality of maritime trade to the Persian Gulf after two decades. This article tries to go through the emergence of Kish in the sixth century and the role of Bani Qaysar kings in this respect. The study takes the advantage of the Persian and Arabic documents of the said period as well as two invaluable documents relating to the set of documents of Geniza.

While Temuchin is better known as the main and the first name of Genghis Khan, other Iranian sources of the seventh century A.H./thirteenth century CE indicate the name in its other forms such as Tamarchi. Furthermore, some sources consider the name as the tribe of the origin for Genghis. In the first place, it may seem that the different records of the name in history lie in miswriting or misinformation; the author, however, is of the belief that according to the names recorded in addition to the Mongol myths, the first Iranian sources relating to Mongols have known Genghis and his tribe to be ironsmiths, that is why he or his tribe are called Tamarchi (ironsmith). The above evidence is indicative of the fact that the Iranian sources of the 7th century reflected the history and perspectives of the Turks who were in opposition to the Mongols and therefore Tamarchi or Tamurchi are the two names used for Mongols in the Iranian sources.

Writing sacred words of a text in the header or along the right margins of documents is of a long tradition in documentation of the Iranian Islamic period. The present article deals with the time of origin, developmental process, type of words and the name of this tradition. Included among other issues covered in this study are the non-Iranian origins and the Iranian-Islamic influence over the tradition as well as its various styles.

The Iranians’ understanding of the political concepts posed in Mashruteh (Constitutional) Period is a challenging issue which can help us better study Iran’s Constitutional Revolution and the grounds for its failure. Right and law are two modern political concepts which entered into this period as part of people’s claims. The Iranians’ image of the said concepts is the basic issue discussed in this study. Poetry of the Constitutional Period, with all its peculiarities, serves as the closest source to the Iranian understanding of the political concepts in the said period.