JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE FACULTY OF LETTERS AND HUMANITIES
Year:2005 | Volume:38 | Issue:3|Papers Count:11

The development of technical prose in Khorassan in the fourth century and the rise of Badi al-Zaman Hamadani in this region, who is a prominent figure in the technical prose and Arabic literature, and the confession of Yaqut Hamavi, the renowned biographer living in the 6th and 7th centuries, to Sa'alebi's special attention paid to him and his works, all these provided the motivation for the explore the characteristics of Rasā 'el through Yatimatoddahr, Sa'alebi's most valuable work, and to show the contribution of Khorassan to the development of Arabic literature in this region.

The most important function of language is to establish communication. What serves this function is not the words but sentences. Thus a discussion of sentences is of special importance. For this reason, typology of sentences is an inseparable part of the grammar of each language. In Arabic, sentence shave traditionally been divided into nominal and verbal sentences. In this paper the writer takes a fresh look at this traditional typology and presents an alternative typology by criticizing the traditional one.

The invasion of France to Egypt and the presence of the French in Egypt for three years left considerable cultural and scientific effects. Among these effects in the area of Literature and Humanities, one may mention the influence of La Fontaine on the Egyptian poet Ahmad Sho' ghi, who has written a great number of poems telling animal stories. An analysis of these stories shows Sho'ghi's view of the characteristics of children's literature. According to him, Children's literature is direct; its purpose is to teach; makes use of simple words; employs honor. In this paper, the writer discusses some of Sho'ghi's stories.

Yaqub bin Osman Ghaznavi Charkhi, a Khorassani mystic living in the 8th and 9th centuries A.H., a follower of the Nagshbandi Order, has written a Persian interpretation of the Qur'an which has always been of interest to the people of the subcontinent, Afghanistan and Middle East. The evidence for this is a great number of manuscripts kept in the libraries of these countries, some of which have been mentioned in the list of manuscripts. Apart from the manuscripts available, the book has been printed several times in Kabul, Bombay and Lahore. The book, however, has not yet been corrected critically. In this paper, the writer first presents some information about the life of Yaqub Charkhi and then describes the characteristics of his interpretation with respect to its style and content.

Abol Abbas Amoli, a pioneer mystic,was a follower of Abu Saeed and Khareghani on the one hand and a prominent mystic following Fotov'vatand Khosravani schools of mysticism on the other hand. He lived in the fourth and fifth centuries A.H., and prominent mystics such as Ghosheiri, Khareghani, Abu Saeed, Khajeh Abdullah, Meybodi, Ein al-Ghozat and Shaikh Eshragh have mentioned him as a great leader and master of Khosravani school, and none has denied his position in Fatyani school. In this paper, the writer, presenting a sketch of his personality as a mystic, shows, based on the microfilm version of Morad al-Moridin and a survey of about twenty books, that he was well-versed in three mystic schools, the pre-Islamic mystic school of Khosravani, the Islamic mysticism and Fatyani school which was dominant before Shaikh Eshragh.

Sudabeh is Iranian because her behavior towards Siyavash is reminiscent of two surviving Persian myths, both being associated with Zoroaster's life. On the one hand, she is Godly; she loves Siyavash like an angle, reveals the secret of his creation, calls him "the tree of worship" and is aware that he runs the universe. This is reminiscent of the angel Ashi's behavior towards Zoroaster. The devilish behavior of Sudabeh towards Siyavash - sinfully approaching him - is reminiscent of the myth of the confrontation of the demon giantess with Zoroaster and the Aryan myth of "Yam and Yami". She tells lies, resorts to witchcrafts, throws Siyavash in fire till at last Siyavash is forced to resort to the enemy and loses his life.

A common and recurring theme in Persian poetry is the idea of plants growing from man. The idea is rooted in Persian myths. In various periods and styles of poetry, we see such images in which plants grow from man's tears, blood, limbs and the earth of man's grave. The archetype of this theme in Iranian culture is the myth of the rhubarb growing from the water from the back of Giyoumars. Two early literary reflections of this archetype are found in the Shahnameh as the growing of plants from Faridoun' s tears and from the blood of Siyavash. The archetype has various manifestations in Iranian and non-Iranian stories and myths, all of which are ultimately derived from ancient beliefs.

The purpose of this paper is to survey the views of classical Persian writers and poets on etymology. These views are discussed under the following headings and sub-headings: 1. unauthentic etymology, with the related sub-headings etymology and writing errors, colloquial etymology, aesthetic language games. 2. Authentic etymology, with the related sub-headings indirect etymology, semidirect etymology, direct etymology, which is in fact conscious etymology.

As understood from the Avesta, there are two forces in the world: the evil, which is a symbol of chaos and untruthfulness and the good, which is the symbol of order and truthfulness. The supreme being, called Ahura Mazda, meaning "Wise Lord" is all good, and created the world and all good things, including people. He is opposed by Anghra Mainyu, meaning "Destructive Spirit," the embodiment of evil and creator of all evil things. The cosmic battle between good and evil will ultimately lead to the destruction of all evil. The world is thus divided into two camps of evil and good; the two forces never unite. The purpose of this paper is to explore this duality as understood from the Avesta.

Myths have diverse meanings in terms both of structure and content. In this paper, the writers study the structural elements of the story of Zahhak taking a mythological approach. The writers begin with the conviction that a comparative study of these elements within different but related frameworks and to look at the story from different but complementary points of view can help clarify the dark sides of this ancient myth.