JOURNAL OF THE FACULTY OF LETTERS AND HUMANITIES (TEHRAN)
Year:2008 | Volume:59 | Issue:186|Papers Count:10

China is one of the most important countries where many Persian manuscripts have been found. Qalanesi Nasafi’s Ershad is one of the meritorious books, most of whose manuscripts are available in China. In his preaching sessions in the fashion of oratorical literature, the author who belonged to the class of the preachers of his own time has mentioned many instances of ancient Persian poetry as a testament to the claims made. Therefore Ershad is a valuable treasure of the oldest Persian poetry; it also represents the different eras of the development of Persian poetry. Due to the importance attached to these testaments, the present article focuses on a discussion of them; the other focus of the article is to inquire about the poets’ names.

A fairy tale is a story which happens in a fantastic world, however all these fictitious events seem completely real and normal to the protagonist. The Russian scholar, Vladimir Prop, has morphologically studied the Russian fairy tales in an innovative framework. According to him morphology refers to the description of the stories based on their elements, as well as the cohesion and the relationship which exists among single elements and between each element and the whole story. The present article is a review of the Iranian fairy tales in Prop’s framework, with the difference that the number of the elements has been reduced, and some new instances, non-existent in the Russian fairy tales, have been introduced for each function. The findings and results of the present research may be used in literary, anthropological, sociological, and psychological studies; they can also be of use in recognizing the beliefs of the Iranian nation.

Sahl Tastarī   is in fact one of the pillars of Islamic Sufism who, in the same rank as Junayd, Shiblī and Bāyzīd Bastāmī, More than any other component of simile, it is point of similarity which describes the poet’s imaginary world.There is a variety of divisions of point of similarity in the classical rhetoric, where point of similarity is divided into the following categories: esthetic, conceptual, factual, imaginary, allegorical, non-allegorical, single, multiple, and compound. On the other hand, point of similarity has been divided on the basis of grammar as well as its own character (quality, characteristics and function).We face a unique variety of point of similaritys in Dīwān-e Kabīr. One of the main reasons of such a variety is Mawlānā’s special method in partaking of imaginary point of similaritys. Classical rhetoric does not mention much of the relationship between point of similarity and the other two components of simile. The present article suggests a new classification for the point of similaritys used in D-based on Gotley classification-so that Mawlānā’s style of using point of similarity would be revealed.

The increasing influence of English language all around the world has contributed to the gradual interference of not only its words, but also its structures and patterns of expression in other languages, to the extent that nowadays there are many instances of such structures having been integrated into non-English languages, as totally established structures.Arabic has also been affected by this almost unilateral process of exchange on its own part. Since linguistically speaking, Persian and English are of the same language family, the influence of English on Arabic will certainly have an impact on the development of the reciprocal process of understanding between Arabic and Persian.The present article attempts to bring some examples of the structural interference of English in Arabic. It also notes the role of such impact on the process of translating from Arabic into Persian.

Each story of the great sage, Ferdowsi Tousi’s shāhnāmeh, contains a great number of proper names. Sometimes these names refer to a territory, sometimes to a race or a tribe, and other times to some historical era in Iran and/or in the ancient antiquity, or some other aspects. Januspar or Janushyar, which is the main focus of the present article, is one of these names, which refers to a person who kills Dara in the story of Alexander’s battle.

The present article describes a document related to Shah Baba Vali Khanqah in Behbahan, which was written in 803 A.H. The document concerns the designation of the successor of the religious leader (Qotb) of Behbahan Khanqah. The document was written in the twilight years of Khanqah’s religious leader (Qotb), Jamal id-Din Abdolhamid Jebel Jilouyi (Kohgilouyi), alias Saheb al-Bahr (the Owner of the Sea), in his own words. The great Qotb of Khanqah has appointed his special disciple, Seyyed Sharaf id-Din Hasan, as his successor, while he (the disciple) is going to take a journey. Having addressed the sultan, the vizier, the sadat, the judicature, and the elders (Mashayekh), he asks them to consider him as his successor and to welcome him warmly.It seems that the aforementioned Khanqah was a branch of the Morshediyye sect of dervishes of Kazerūn, in Behbahan.

Al-Resalat al-Qousia is a treatise on the divine talk between the Divine and the Great Qous (Qous-e Azam), written in the style of numinous address; a group of diligent, patient scholars have presumably attributed the book to Mohyi id-Din Ibn Arabi. The present article is a review and a critique of the justifications of those scholars who have attributed the book to Ibn Arabi. Relying on the exhaustive review of all the available copies and manuscripts, the analytical-comparative study of them all, the content  analysis of al-Resalat al-Qousia, and the comparison of the content of the book with other works of Abdolqader Gilani, it also proves that the treatise has actually been written by Abdolqader Gilani; the only justification for the attribution of the book to Ibn Arabi is the use of the title “Mohyi id-Din”; while there is no record available which calls Mohyi id-Din Ibn Arabi by the title of the Great Qous, besides the term Quos/ Quosia has not been mentioned in none of his works. In addition the present article both introduces the anonymous translator of al-Resalat al-Qousia, Hasan Gilani, and reviews his translation in an analytical-comparative manner.

Persian language has been subject to a series of changes in the passage of time; following these transitions, meter and rhyme of the Persian poetry have also undergone a series of evolutions. Having been affected by this transition, the present classic Persian poetry is replete with cases which are not in coincidence with the norms of meter and rhyme, and in many cases we can detect an asymmetry between the symmetrical elements of meter and rhyme.Texts on prosody analyze and explicate meter and rhyme in poetry, attempting to unravel it, regardless of the historical factors and the changes of the language involved. Although these methods can be useful in teaching meter and rhyme in Persian poetry, temporarily responding the readers’ minds, they are non-profound and incapable of satisfying the hunger of real scholars.The author of the present article maintains that historical studies are a precondition to the recognition of the factors which lead to the asymmetry between meter and rhyme; thus the present article focuses on the asymmetry proper.

The Neoclassic Egyptian poets were the first to have managed to save poetry from the scourge it was affected by during the Period of Degeneration, by means of the elements of movement, and to put it on the appropriate course of action. The present article attempts to review and evaluate the works of three prominent neoclassic poets (Baroudi, Shawqi, and Hafez Ibrahim), whose poetry manifests the signs of renewal and modernization more than other poets.These poets refused to use stilted rhetorical literary devices; on the other hand they provided enough room for the devices of expression to be manifested; despite their attempts to maintain the solemnity of their words and style, following the literary figures of the golden age of the Arabian literature, they feared not either to resort to experiencing a new style or to turn to unprecedented, newly invoked motifs.

Shat'h is one of the several issues regarding which there are various, contradictory vantage points. Even the highbrows of mysticism and philosophy are not much in agreement about this issue; their contradictory viewpoints range from considering it as heresy, and thus deprecating it to considering it as revelation and thus heightening it in importance. The ideas of those who are in favor of shat'h are grounded on the interpretation of the phenomenon, like there is no plausible relationship between the signified and the signifier in a number of the interpretations. The opposing group has emphasized the literal as well as the primary meaning and the lexical significations of the word. Scholars such as Ghazzāli, who are engaged in religious instruction and mysticism, either deny or doubt the attribution of such statements to mystics. More recent researchers, such as Stace et al. have expressed the characteristics of Shat'h, taking such new theories as Hermeneutics and different readings of a text into account. The present research attempts to express and analyze such points of view.