The Journal of Epic Literature
Year:2008 | Volume:4 | Issue:6|Papers Count:22

The first section of this article deals with issues such as the Arab-Iranian relations in the very early days, their migration towards certain regions of Iran, how and in what manner Arabs entered Iran especially in the Khorasan Province, the conquest of this region in the first century Hegira, and also the conflicts and wars between them.Next, Arab-Iranian relations after the conquest of Iran during the reign of rightly guided Caliphs, Omavids, Abbasid, feudal systems, Safavid, the condition of their residence and settlement in South of Khorasan, significant tribes and clans in this part of land is pointed out.Finally, Arab Khaneh region whose residents speak Arabic is introduced, and their characteristics in many aspects in particular language and dialect, is investigated. Also different views regarding the Arabs of this region are debated.

To date Narrative literature, as an integral part of literary works, has not been extensively investigated in Iran. Among such works, the ones with a tone of local color in them are more prominent. One such instance is a novel “cloudy years” written by A. A Darvishian. In this article stylistic aspect of this novel in terms of diction, syntax, and figurative language is analyzed. The most distinctive stylistic feature in the novel is the use of native Kermanshahi words and on syntactic level frequent use of short verbs and sentences is prominent. These characteristics help depict the exact description of the events in different scenes of the story. The author has made ample use of literary devices such as allusions, proverbs, similes, and in particular animism.

In this article a large proportion of mystical anecdotes pivoting on the miraculous deeds of Gnostics are discussed. Applying modern approaches to history and narrative establishes that historical authenticity of these tales has some association with certain narrative aspects of the tales. Miraculous acts within the atmosphere of the story are then criticized. The structure of stories of this genre is analyzed in terms of plot, narrator, character, point of view, and other aspects. Finally verbal paradoxes used by Gnostics are examined in great detail.

Out of the wide variety of Mystic Tales, ones associated with death is the main concern in this article. Death of saints like the other parts of their lives is in a veil of mystery. Since to date, no serious attempt is made to classify such stories, hence in this article a precise and comprehensive method is suggested which classifies more than twenty eight kinds of such “incredible deaths”. For each story, full information about plot, content, saints, mystic figures, Performers of Miraculous Acts, moral points and the corresponding sources of tales is neatly presented thereby a large volume of information becomes readily available. For this purpose the method of Arneh-Thompson has been used. The research data is drawn upon thirteen prose mystic manuscripts covering the anecdotes till the end of the sixth century.

The realm of poets and poetry in the Emirates is quite vast. Not only in the Emirates but also in other Arabic countries poetry is divided into two groups: folk and eloquent poetry.At present not only intellectuals and the cultivated but also ordinary people in the Emirates turn to literature especially to poetry hence, numerous newspapers and magazines examine and criticize the two kinds of poetry.This article purports to investigate the traces of such genre of poetry from the very beginning till the present in this country. Also the reader is introduced to three generations of poets namely: the pioneers, mukhadram, and the young ones.

Moslems according to Koran (49:13) Sura Hogarat which states: “We have created you as male and female and divided you into tribes in order to get acquainted with each other” have paid special attention to civil and urban society, and scientists such as Farabi introduced utopia as a place where people gather and help each other. Historians and geographers in their works spoke about different aspects of civil life. One of their innovations was the compilation of independent books about the history of towns among which history of Nayshapour, Sistan, Bokhara, Qom and Bayhaghi remain to this day. In these books, one comes across many civic terms, administrative social institutions, and various professions which are valuable for investigating civil discussions regarding administrative legal systems governing the cities. History of Sistan apart from historical social discussions contains many social, administrative, govermental terms and expressions which are fully discussed in the text.

This article mainly discusses prepositions and conjunctions in the Persian language and it opens a new chapter with regard to the role played by prepositions in Contemporary Persian literature. As a rule prepositions and conjunctions are classified under parts of speech which altogether are dealt with in the Grammar section of language, however in this article attempt is made to show that contemporary literature engages and involves them in an entirely different level that is in the domain of rhetoric and figures of speech.

A research of this genre is one of the ways that can shed some light on the condition and position of men and women in the eyes of the people.This article strives to answer the following questions:How are men and women depicted in “Proverbs and Mottos”? How are their images regarding sexual clichés or conventional beliefs represented?What characteristics are given to their mannerisms?Are there any conventional biased beliefs towards them? If so, what is expected of them?Dehkhoda’s “Proverbs and Mottos’ (Amsal- o Hekam) covers 2604 pages in four volumes and contains 22134 proverbs and wise sayings.In general in this book one bears witness to the overall approval of the conventional beliefs. The results of this investigation are fully discussed in the text.

Throughout history appeared great men and women who strove to depict human suffering and expectations. As much as they resisted the worn out traditions of their society and rebelled against the oppressors, selfish opportunists attempted to put out the flame kindled by them and distort their image. One such example is Abu Nuwas, the great Iranian poet who lived in the Abassid era in the second century Hegira. His intelligence propelled him to present his avant-garde views in the form of wine poetry known as Khamriyyat because of which he was insulted and endured years of imprisonment.This article hopes to provide an inspective revision of his personal life and his scholarly literary character based on reliable historical references in order to unveil the shadows surrounding his life and to pave the way to a better understanding of his Khamriyyat, which is absolutely unique within the domain of Arabic Poetry.

This article is an attempt to introduce the national epic “Memoirs of Zarir”, hence the following points are discussed: the nomenclature of this work, synopsis of the story, its origin, the role of Goossunan in its preservation, the process of its writing, rhythm in pahlavi Poetry, discovery of Emile Benveniste regarding this work, dramatic techniques, the appearance of the work in other references, paying special attention to their similarities and differences, Daghighi and Memoirs of Zarir, and finally the translations made so far of this work is pointed out.

Soghd is the ancient name of a region in the vicinity of Badakhshan Valley in Transoxnia (Mavara’un-Nahr). The centre of this region is the city of Samarkand. Soghdian people in Sassanid era due to their activities in trade and business especially with China and India were well known; hence soghd was recognized as one of the main economic poles in Iran. From the soghdian language which is a Middle Iranian language, remained many works the most significant of which is the ancient soghdian letters. In 1907, these letters have been found by Sir Orel Stein in one of the watch towers of the Wall of China. These documents include five intact letters and four torn pieces amounting to a letter which gives the account of social and political upheavals of Chinese people in that period. The first letter is written by a young lady from DooVang to her husband.