JOURNAL OF IRANIAN ISLAMIC PERIOD HISTORY (JOURNAL OF FACULTY OF LETTERS AND HUMANITIES) (TABRIZ)
Year:2016 | Volume:7 | Issue:12 |Papers Count:8

Buwayhid government provided opportunities for the activities of all social classes such as the followers of the other major Devine religions scattering in most parts of Iran in three geographical areas which were different from the organization of the court and the government and in an atmosphere of tolerance. Buwayhid Rulers supported the religious minorities, especially the elite ones and hired them based on their expertise and efficiency in various social-political sectors as well as in the executive positions in the court and the government. Most of the Christians were engaged in academic activities like the scribes and medicine, Jews were involved in business and currency exchange, Zoroastrians were mostly engaged in agriculture and animal husbandry and Sabeans were involved in the academic and practical professions. Despite the contribution of the religious minorities in various fields and the rulers’ attempt to uphold their rights, in some cases, the rights of minorities were violated in different forms of looting, confiscation of property and destruction of their houses and shops. Consequently like the other eras, they were gradually marginalized and deprived of social and political privileges due to some reasons. Based on what was mentioned earlier, the reactions and attitudes of the religious minorities towards Buwayhid tolerance needed to be investigated. The present study implements a descriptive-analytical approach to examine the social roles of the religious minorities in this era.

Recognition of the ancient history of Iran from the 19th century and the development of some conceptions such as nationalism, nationalist and equalitarian thoughts among the modern intellectuals during the Qajar era led to a new revision of some of the ancient Iranian historical characters by some Qajar writers. In this research it has been tried to examine the revision which has been done on the ancient historical characters by some modern intellectual historians during Qajar and after the constitutional period. This research concentrated on the revision that had taken place over two characters during Sassanid, i.e. Mazdak and Anoshirvan by Akhondzadeh and Kermani who seemed to be influenced by Dasatiri Texts as well as revolutionary thoughts and some protest movements besides familiarity with the new political discourses. Although some studies have been done on the revision of the ancient history of Iran, the major emphasis of this research is on the reflection and different recreation of the above mentioned historical characters in the works of Mirza Fatali Akhondzadeh and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani as the two modernists in the pre-constitutional period. The present study used historical method and implemented library resources using an analytical- descriptive approach. The results revealed that Akhondzadeh and Kermani with a focus on the political issues of their time, such as the issue of republicanism and socialist ideas had examined the characters and the historical statuses of Mazdak and Anushirvan.

With the formation of the Safavid government (1502-1722) in the geographical sphere of Iran, which led to the termination of local governments and the creation of political unity in the country, the Iranian society came under the influence of the political and religious orientation of the Safavids. The Safavids continued the old governmental and cultural traditions of Iran, but they also promoted the ideological tenets of the Twelve-Imam Shiism as the official religion, and in this way, they gave a distinct identity to Iran and its people, and parts of this distinct identity remained forever. This change of policy influenced the imprints on the coins minted in this period in a way that they had new shapes and Images. Of course, it was not something new in Iran. Before the Safavids, policies and ideologies could influence the shapes and imprints of the coins, and they reflected the political and religious attitudes of the rulers and the kings. Compared to those coins minted during the Ilkhanids, the coins of the Safavids excluded the marks and traces of religions other than Shiism since the Safavid kings had announced their firm support for the official religion. The present study uses a combined method consisting of field studies and library approaches in a historical-analytical manner to study the process of changes of coins during the Safavid period in terms of images and religious mottos imprinted on them as a reflection of the attitudes of the Safavid kings. It also compares and contrasts the Safavid coins and the Ilkhani as well as Taimouri ones. Findings show that the Safavids used the coins as an instrument for the promotion of Shiite teachings.

Traditional Iranian society, at the beginning of the 19th century, was involved in aggressive determination of the world powers which their benefits had been derived from emerging European disciple. As the main actors of this colonialist process, the governments of Russia, France and UK, have brought most disasters to Iran and Iranians. Among them, the tsarist Russian government with a territorial greed toward iran was the initiator of a long-term war. At the time of defence against Russian army, passive defence considerations and defensive architecture thereunder, was part of Iran’s millitary program. At that time, Abbas Mirza, the crown prince of Qajar, asked for advisory assistance from some European countries in order to modernize the order of the battle. In this regard, some European castle-building experiences was transferred to Iran. The first European style castles of Iran was Kurdasht and Abbasabad castles, built in the beach of Aras river. This research, which is conducted using analytic-descriptive method and based on library resources, attempts to examine the qualities of defensive architecture of Iranian army at that period regarding their design and construction.

The focus of the present study is on the issue of women in Molla Nasreddin magazine. Since Molla Nasreddin magazine was one of the leading magazines in the first quarter of the twentieth century in the East, analyzing its approach toward the issue of women can provide first-hand knowledge of the situation of Iranian and Muslim women in the early twentieth century. One can also learn more about the attitudes of Muslim intellectuals towards women. The present paper seeks to answer the following questions: “how did Molla Nasreddin magazine reflect the status of Muslim women? ”, and “what was its view towards the status of Muslim women? ” The results showed that with a pathological approach Molla Nasreddin magazine had examined women's issue in five areas: women marriage, the veil (Hijab), the education of women, violence against women and the emancipation of women. Under the influence of the new ideas that were common in the Caucasus, the way out of the situation was women's education and continuous criticism against those who disagreed with the women liberation.

A number of Iranian intellectuals and historians paid special attention to the Japan progression pattern in the years before the Constitutional Revolution in Iran in1906 and tried to describe it. This research tried to describe and analyze the progression pattern of Japan from the perspective of the mentioned people. The data was gathered using library resources. The results indicated that the historical sources under investigation could provide a rational analysis of the reasons for the Japan progression pattern. Skepticism and critical and rational explanations could also be observed in these works. They have tried to explain the why and the what of the Japanese progressive pattern to provide a model for the Iranian progressive movement.

Because of the economic problems caused by the World War II, the government of Iran hired Dr. Arthur Millspaugh as the head of Finance Organization on November 12th, 1942, to carry out the economical reforms. One of the problems Millspaugh encountered to perform his duties, was the issue of transportation, particularly the shortage of cars and suitable tires. Intensive supervision of private and public cars, the establishment of the supplier institution, reorganization of the cargo handling organization, was among his efforts to resolve the problems. However, none of the reforms was effective. The present article used the documents of the National Archives, the documents of the Documentation Center, the diplomatic history of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ettelaat newspaper (1942-1945), and parliamentary negotiations to address the issue under investigation. It implemented analytical –descriptive approach to investigate the problems of transportation at that time and Millspaugh’s efforts to solve them. Our main question is why Millspaugh failed to fix the country's transport problems? Our hypothesis is that Allied military needs to transportation, left Millspaugh reforms ineffective.

In order to systemize finances, every government needs to follow a regular and written system to be able to organize revenues and costs of the country. To do so, Safavid government planned and organized financial relations. They were handled by Mostufi Al- Mamalek in the scriptorium and the related issues were written down in the financial books. One of the aims of this research is identifying and introducing these financial books and their functions in the court. The main issue in this research is identifying and evaluating the element of continuity in administrative organizations in the Safavid era with the particular focus on the functions of the financial books which were among the most important elements in the financial processes. In this research attempts have been made to introduce these financial books implementing comparative, analytic and descriptive methods and also using library resources. The researchers tried to investigate the quantity of Safavid administration organizations’ adaptation from the past eras especially regarding the functions of these financial books. The present study relied on epistles from the Safavid period related to the system and financial books of administrative organizations available at Astan-e Quds-e Razavi. The results of this research showed that Safavid administration organizations at least had adapted some functions and applications of these financial books from the previous eras and the element of continuity in this field is quite obvious. In this regard, three main types of books were available: Rooznamche, Avarejeh and Justifications (Toojihat) from the 4th century to the end of Safavid dynasty-even after Safavid era based on the existing data-with the same functions. However, some changes have been made in this process regarding the titles and contents of the books except those above mentioned trilogy books.