نشریه بررسی های نوین تاریخی
سال یکم شماره 1 (بهار 1393)

The scientific worldview today represents the culmination of human thought and a reference used by all the philosophical, ritual, mystic and even mythical worldviews. It emerged following the introduction of Copernicusand Kepler’s theories on the world’s helio-centerism, and expressed itself through the publication of Galilei’s Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo (1632) based on mathematical concepts and experiment, declaring the decline of the traditional worldview and the Scholasticism; whilst ‘Pères de l’Église’ of the Roman Catholicism perpetuated the reactionary, anti-science and anti-rationalistic nature of Christianity through inquisition, persecuting and torturing the rationalist scholars! However, with the Pope’s desecration and the decline of Catholic domination over culture and thought, the Age of Enlightenment and the epoch of science and rationalism began as a result of the works of René Descartes and his contemporaries Francis Bacon and John Locke, which finally gave birth to the European scientific and industrial revolutions and inception of industrial capitalism of the Modern era. The historical upshots of the development of sciences have been information revolution, invention of artificial intelligence and robots, the control theory, and preparation of cybernetic principles as well as a massive evolution in energy economics and management, and electric and electronics industries, all of which furnished the scientific and industrial jump of the man with unimaginable dimensions in the twentieth century that allow us now to speak of a scientific philosophy that has turned our view from the creation of the world towards the origin of the life and its dispersion across the world; that intermittently works hard in every aspects to make possible man’s eternality; and, indeed, that should always fight with ignorance, superstitions, dogmatism and dogmas! The fundamentals of the scientific philosophy include: scientific worldview, scientific ethics, scientific logic, and scientific social-political project.

In olden mentality there is an association and coexistence between nature and mystery. A mentality in which the tree, itself,isn’t worshiped. Rather there is always a spiritual essence and substance beyond the tree which is worshiped. In ancient iconographies goatlikes, stars, birds and snakes usually encircle the sacred tree. While each of these symbols have distinct mytical and cosmological meaning. Of course, the appearance of goddesses in a tree, is a popular motif in ancient East especially in Mesopotamia and India. The tree of life motif is very ancient in sumer and ancient Elam’s art at 3.rd millennium B.C.. The basic subject of this text is the motif of the tree of life in old and ancient Elam’s art. And accoding to which sources can we interpret its meaning? I suppose the tree of life motif in ancient Elam’s art has a religious-mythical meaning and it shood be interpreted according to literal and written sources of ancient Mesopotamia especially sumer’s sources. Here we have used theoretical bases of “cultural diffusionism school” for data interpretation. Although the motif of the sacred tree or the tree of life is a very old motif in ancient Elam’s art-3.rd millennium B.C., those writtings which are written in previous Elam’s orthography-A and B- and are discovered in Khuzestan, could not help us interpret the meaning of the motif. But according to the sumerian texts, the motif of the tree of life or the sacred tree is the reflection of coming back to the life and immortality of ISHTAR and TAMUZ mythology, which indeed has a religious meaning.

This paper aims to consider an artifact known as the “Ring of Power” found of a late Elamite tomb of Arjān, Behbāhān, to follow the evolutionary process of its motif of “Winged Lion” on the contexts of pre-Islamic sought western Iran to the end of Achaemenid Empire. The motif is viewed as an index of ancestral political authority of Drius the Great in the region. The theoretical framework of the paper is based on the Piercean philosophical semiotics as a proper foundation for the study of indexical dimensions of materials relating to the creating as well as transferring human social identities. It is a contextual study of the semiotic fields of the motif under consideration. As the results show, there would be some straightforward relations between the Daris the Great’s political claims and appearing of the motif into the power-related contexts of Achaemenid Empire.

In spite of the studies on Gondishāpour, little attention has been paid so far to the appellation, geographical, political and military location of this city. Gondishāpour is mentioned in historical texts with different names, including Jantashapyrta, beit Lapat, Veh Andyvkh Shāpour, Billābād and Gondishāpour. It was a city in Khuzestan and located between the cities of Susa, Shoushtar and Dezful; its position coincides with the current location of Shāhābad (or Islāmābād) village. The city’s Prison was of great importance in Sassanid era and was apparently considered a hold for political prisoners. Due to its political standing and strategic location, the city had been the nation’s capital for some time, too.

Due to the rich rivers, such as Oxus and Yaxartes, its fertile plains, rich mines and access, the realm of the Sāmānid state had a special economic potential. So thanks to the periods of power during the Sāmānid rule, its economy was in flourish. This geographic and economic situation leads to wealth for its people. Last Sāmānid rulers’ ignorance about the agriculture and instead, their focus of the trade in slaves, and even they were unable to secure the commercial roads which lead to their decline. So that some scholars believed that the resulting stagnancy overthrew the Sāmānid state. The aim for the current issue is to show the influence of the geographic location and economic situation of the territory on rise and fall of the Sāmānid dynasty.

Literature in general and stories in particular are one of the most important reflections of human social life during history, and therefore literary texts are always one of the sources for history researches, especially for social history studies. On the other hand, writings and particularly literary texts have been one of the main spaces for introducing the human thoughts that writers have presented their ideas through them. In these vast areas of literary books, story always has a high position for analyzing of examinations and considerations of thought and also social achievements. In history of Persian literature, before the modern period and the rise of modern Persian novel, there have been some samples of stories which mainly were formed for entertainment. But at the same time, some traces of social life and folklore from the past centuries have remained in those stories that could help the present historians to find subjects such as kind of the words, the style of writings, ordinary terms, and the manner of life in the last centuries. At the present paper, the Story of ‘Samak ‘Ayyār’ has been investigated based on the mentioned viewpoints, and it has tried to find and analyze the reflection of social conditions from mediaeval centuries in this story book.

The second half of the 5th A.H., the age of stability and authority Seljuk rule in Iran and escalates again The Caliphate in Baghdad and also the hallmarks of the state and the development of political ideas and jurisprudential debate in line with the Monarchy and Caliphate on behalf of the people because of Imām Mohammad Ghazzāli and Khwādjeh Nizām-al-Mulk decline and degeneration of intellectual and spreading religious conflicts between the Islamic sects. Doubtless, one of the factors that leads to the instability across the Seljuk rule, the Ismailia measures in this time. The Ismailia measures in Iran Seljuk evening in creating the internal chaos in the Ismailia new and different areas of Iran and the character assassination of different political, jurisprudence and intellectual and military and it showed his Ismailia of martyrs. From the very beginning until the end of Seljuk rule created many problems Seljuk many Thrones efforts to combat and clashes with the Ismailia and this led to instability and chaos, political and social insecurity.

Accrding to the old persian texts and literary studies Bahram-e-gur and harpist slave girl‘s romance is attributed to Bahram-e-gur, 15.th sasanid king. However many art works adorned to the narrative pictures of this romance are discovered from different historic era’s. Among them, 8 enamelled ceramics, attributed to Ilkhanid era, are reserved at museum or personal collections. This study is performed to discuss and research about the origin of this motif and its abundance on Ilkhanid art works using the metod of investigating and comparing common and different characteristics in Bahram-e-gur and the harpist slave girl’s romance, according to the three literary texts-Firdowsi’s Shahname, Nizami’s Haftpeykar and Dehlavi’s Hasht Behesht- and its crrespondence to the narrative pictures which are pictured on the three enamelled plate attributed to Ilkhanid era, reserved at Metropolitan Museum in Newyork. Finally, according to the achieved results by comparing literary narratives and narrative pictures of the motif of Iranian Ilkhanid ceramics, shows Sasanid Bahram-e-gur and Azade, his musician slave girl, narration according to Firdowsi’s Shahname. And shows that in this time period, among old persian texts, the narration of Shahname was more popular than others.

Different ways were contrived to protect the cities against the human and animal harm in the past times proportional to the natural conditions and exposure to the environment. To this end, it can be referred to construction in impassable places, making use of the moats and the use of natural elements such as rivers, valleys, mountains and others. One of these methods was to build a wall around the city known as ‘Fort’. Forts had different shapes and sizes which have been reviewed in different researches; however, the subject which has been studied less is the impact that the shape and the size of the enclosure has had on the city development trend. The author is on the idea that the forts had direct effect on the formation and development of the cities and the aim of the present research are to study and research the mentioned impact in one of the historical cities of Iran. Several enclosures have been built for Tabriz in history and the enclosure size had direct relation with the extent and the number of people and importance of the city; but the enclosures were destroyed for some reason. One of the main reasons for destroying the wall of Tabriz was earthquakes. The last severe earthquake of Tabriz was in 1193 A.H. (1780); According to the historical texts, the city was completely destroyed by that earthquake and the city’s population reached the minimum such that the population of the city has been mentioned around four thousand people in some books. Najaf Quli Khan, the governor of the city, built an enclosure surrounded the city, and it was smaller than the previous enclosures and it subsumed certain parts of the city. Construction of Najaf Qoli Khān Barbican had direct impact on the formation and development of Tabriz during the rule of Qajar Dynasty. This paper tries to gain the economic, social and political features of the enclosure and analyze its urban effects on the formation and development of Tabriz in Qajar era.