SHIITE STUDIES
Year:2018 | Volume:16 | Issue:1 (61) |Papers Count:10

One of the remarkable events in the contemporary history was Mirza Shirazi’ s migration to Samerra (1291-1312 AH) and his settling there. The findings of the present study show that the following factors led to Mirza Shirazi’ s migration to that city: the frozen intellectual atmosphere dominant in Najaf city as well as the distance of its educational domain from politics, prosperity and affluence of Samerra, the Shiite and Sunnite idea of proximity in Samerra considering its largely Sunnite social context, concern for creating a new educational capacity, paying attention to Mahdawiyyat. The major consequences of that migration were the establishment of educational school of jurisprudence in Samerra and turning it to the gravity point of Islamic world, attempting to write according to the needs, the jurisprudence’ s coming to political scene, enlightening the public thoughts and making people believe that they can overcome dictatorship, formation of the first legitimate constitutional government in Larestan city in Fars province, combating colonialism, and educating a large number of combatant and struggling scholars in Islamic world.

Dr. Sayyid Hassan Nasr has translated Allama Tabatabaie’ s Shi’ a in Islam into English in order to introduce the intellectual and doctrinal foundations of Shi’ a to the western world. This translation, according to its honorable translator, has been taught in American universities as a source for knowing Shi’ a. Considering some basic conflicts between the original text and the translation, they cannot be the result of “ constraints of translation” . In most cases, the author’ s view has been changed basically and what he meant has been reflected in a quite different way. Some of those concepts, apart from being absent in Shi’ a in Islam, seem to be out of Allama’ s intellectual system. In the present article, we have used a comparative method to mention the points of difference separately, while mentioning the original Persian and English texts.

The Faili Kurds are a group of originally Iranian Shi‘ ite Kurds settling in Iraq. The members of this ethnic-religious group were previously persecuted by the Ba’ th government in Iraq due to its Pan-Arabism ideology and hatred towards Kurds, Shi‘ ites and Iranians. The zenith of Ba’ th government’ s persecution of Faili Kurds was in 1970 and 1980 decades. In that period, Iraq government deprived them of citizenship, confiscated their properties, murdered their youths, and dislodged their elderly people and women as Mu’ awidin. After the fall of Ba’ th government, discretion of Pan-Arabism ideology, and establishment of the new government in Iraq, all ethnic groups found opportunity to be present in political, economic and social and cultural scenes in Iraq. The present article has attempted to explore the historical and identity background of Faili Kurds to analyze and evaluate their present status and role in political and social scenes. The findings of the study show that although Faili Kurd try to re-attain their identity as citizens of Iraq and play effective role in political and social structures of their country like other groups, the depravations imposed upon them under Ba’ th government have not yet been removed completely.

Historiography is among the first fileds paid attention to by Shi‘ ites. The first works were written in Kufa schoolas the pioneer among the scientific centers of Shi‘ ism. The present article seeks to investigate what the course of evolution in the first center of historiography was and what its effect was on the Islamic historiography. This article studies the course of Shi‘ ite historiography, started in the first century AH, in two periods of Imams’ presence and occultation period. In the former, which is considered the period of historiographers’ period, historiography is not done in a specialized form, and this historiographic look began in the second half of the 2nd century with the emergence of Shi‘ ite famous historiographers.

The present article investigates the political-military efforts made by Nezaris under Hassan Sabah and in confronting Saljuqids, considering the political situation between 484 and 517 AH in the period of Hassan Sabah’ s authority and leadership. The research method is descriptive-analytical based on library and written sources. Indeed, the Nezari movement, established by the first Da’ i (inviter) of Rudbar by initiating new ways of life among Isma’ ilis, meta-mountains in north, east and west of Iran 483 AH, began in the height of Saljuqids’ power, influence and the caliphate of Abbasids and Umawids and kept on its political growth until Hulaku Khan’ s invasion. The movement of Hassan Sabah’ s castles entered a religious, political and military confrontation with Saljuqids inside their lands. Thus, Hassan Sabah’ s conversion to Isma’ ili Shi‘ ism was a way to attract help from Fatimid Mustanser to obtain political-military authority in Alamowt. In the present article, the political-military attempts of the Nezaris and Isma’ ili Shiites along with Hassan Sabah’ s charismatic leadership in confronting with Saljuqids are investigated.

Speech act is one of the subjects in discourse analysis that one can use to reveal the concepts hidden in the deep structures and phrases. This theory has been discussed by Austin and developed by his pupil, John Searle. Using qualitative studies and descriptive-analytical method, the present study attempts to investigate the interrogative propositions in Fadakiyya sermon presented by her Majesty Fatima. The findings of the study show that among 31 interrogative propositions in that sermon, 22 contain emotional act and 9 others contain encouraging act. There are no proclaiming, promissory and declarative acts in those statements. Numerous applications of emotional act show the speaker deep understands of the situational context of the sermon and the audience’ s character. Her Majesti Fatima uses indirect interrogation to transfer the intended concept through the most beautiful rhetorical form, and makes her addressee speculate deeply by including figurative questions in her sermon.

Taking tax is one of the important social affairs. While explaining the related regulations, Imam Ali attempted to establish the culture of taxtaking in society. He explained the rules related to tax-taking for governors and government agents to encourage people to pay their tax, while respect people’ s rights. Accordingly, he designed a new way of taking tax. Indeed, he made people regard giving their taxes as a religious obligation, just as daily prayer and fasting, that must be done by complete consent, not as tribute or ransom. Upon careful consideration of letter 25 of Nahj al-Balagha, it becomes clear that this instruction by Imam, while explaining the culture of tax-taking, is an effort for modifying the way of taking tax done under the first caliph, a modification based on what Islam expects from Muslims. According to this idea, Islam is performing one’ s duty according to awareness and faith, not out of compulsion and fear. Therefore, Imam Ali believed that the agents are not allowed to force those who deny zakat to pay their zakat. In this article, we have tried to use a descriptiveanalytical method to explain the culture of tax-taking under Imam Ali and to contrast it with the method used by previous governments.