History of Islam and Iran
Year:2019 | Volume:28 | Issue:40 (130)|Papers Count:8

The emergence of the religion of Islam and its rapid expansion prompted the reaction of Christians who considered Islam a rival religion. The first positions were taken by the clergy of the church. The prophet has been introduced in Christian works as a sickly face, inclined to magic, cunning, lucid, suicidal and Christian imitator. These are the ideas that directly influenced the formation of western imagery of the Holy Prophet. In the present time, despite the progress made in Islamic studies, the mentality of the masses and even many of the scholars of the west is affected by the sediments of these negative ideas. These concepts were identified in two types of individual and social identity of the Prophet. Naturally, variables such as location and posture, political affiliation, and the specialty of the Christian scholars have affected their perceptions of the Prophet. In the present paper, the content analysis method has been used and attempts have been made to identify the relationship between these two variables after the typology of the first Christian scholars until the 14th century and their perceptionof the Individual features of the Prophet. The results show that authors have had similar perception of the Individual features of the Prophetof Islam, in spite of their various occupation, place of birth and the era they lived in.

Planning was initially taken into consideration with a view to development at the beginning of the 20th century and in the wake of international changes intervening the both world wars, a move that was later taken up by underdeveloped countries. In Iran, the idea of planning and the temporary attempts to implement it came to the fore before they found international acceptance, during the reign of Reza Shah. Following the international and domestic changes caused by the Second World War, the idea of planning in Iran experienced a revival of interest within both the government and the national community. Attempts to develop the first plan and establish the Planning Organization took place in a space of four years. During this period, the employment of specialized knowledge, provided by American consulting firms and on the recommendation of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), led the Iranian Planning Organization to be considered as acting in the service of capitalist interests. In fact, although the idea of planning in Iran has a long history, its establishment and development after the Second World War took place under international conditions and the direction of the United States. In this light, the present study seeks to look into the emergence of the Planning Organization in Iran by addressing an important question: Is the establishment of Planning Organization in Iran the product of domestic thought and needs or an imposed program in line with capitalist interests. Using the historical method and relying on recent sources and documents, the present study acknowledges the origins of the Iranian planning system.

In Iran, most research on history of unemployment has been conducted by government subordinate institutions. These studies have mostly tried to provide policies for the state in the field of unemployment, based on official figures derived from public censuses. The hidden assumption in these studies with quantitative methods is the a-chronic of economic concepts such as unemployment. However, what remains to be neglected in these researches is the heterogeneity of the meaning of economic concepts, such as unemployment in different periods. Therefore, the question in the present paper is how unemployment, as a concept that is usually static, can be transformed into a historical research subject, as a changing concept. The present paper claims that unemployment can be transformed into a subject for historical research as a changing concept, with the help of the approach of social historians in the terms of labor and unemployment concepts. As a matter of fact, it has been shown that how to go beyond these studies with quantitative methods in interpreting unemployment through describing the conflict between ideological dimension and the material reality of unemployment.

During the 36 years of the reign (1370-1405), Taimūr Gūrkānī carried out numerous campaigns across the Transoxiana and a significant portion of the Middle East and Anatolia to conquer. The use of the concept of war against the infidels, which came in the Qur'an and sources of jurisprudence under the name of Jehād, left his hand in the grip of the slave, or legitimized it. The present study, based on the geographic area of the Taimūr’s wars was under the name of Jehād or Ghazweh, is about to search and identify the areas where their populations were enslaved by Taimūr’s troops. Therefore, it has been attempted to use a descriptive-analytic method based on the main sources to investigate the geographic dispersion or, in other words, the local analysis of slavery in the Taimur Gurkani conquests and analyze and criticize its motivations and characteristics. The results of this study show that during the Taimūr Gūrkānī attacks, the largest number of slavery or Esterqāq, was found in areas such as the Caucasus, India, the Ghebchagh plains and Jeté Ulus that was often also under the pretext of fighting with infidelity , bad religion , defending Islam and expanding it in the above areas; and in fact in order to obtain human resources and sell them in the slave trade markets or urdu bāzār, or to receive a ransom for their release from their parents and relatives.

Political participation based on national loyalty of the ethnic and religious minorities residing in a country is one of the fundamental pillars of the communities being politically developed. Though the grounding for modernity growth and the entry of the essential concepts related thereto was set during the period of Reza Shah, but, practically, the Pahlavi state stood far away from achieving political development bearing the participation of the entire clans and ethnicities and the groups living in this territory. The current research paper tries to adjust the modernism theories and modern government with Iran’ s status so as to criticize the centrism tendencies of the Pahlavi’ s modern government. It seems that in communities based on ethnic and tribal minorities, such a condition makes achievement of modern development impossible, and forces the modern state to use the mandatory and controlling practices to restrain these minorities in order to implement the goals and objectives desired.

Domination mechanisms are product and producer of knowledge and historical narrations. Subalterns as objects of control and power exertion are represented but have not their own voice or own history. Subaltern history cannot be reconstructed through state archives and government documents, because these documents are selected to provide the mainstream narration. Existing representations hinder other possible ways of thought and alternative narrations. Thus, for a construction of subaltern narration, beyond existing representations, fragments and traces should be investigated. In Pahlavi I era, Iranian tribes faced suppression and compulsory settlement, but this violent suppression of further than a quarter of Iran population is not shown in nationalist histories and are summarized under security issues and they have silenced the issue. Urban nationalist elites and state ideology through representing Iran Tribes as source of insurgency, have legitimized their violent suppression. This study has selected the poems of a prisoner in Pahlavi I era, Agha 'Enayat Jvanroyi, as a fragment of these subalterns' history and using Hermeneutic method tries to criticize existing representations and reconstruct an alternative narration through this trace and fragment of subaltern voice.

Quhestan was one of the most important states of Iran in the early Islamic centuries, which its name was associated with Khorasan. Although it was part of Khorasan in the political and administrative structure, it was mentioned in various geographic sources as an independent geographic and state unit. Quhestan has been considered for a long time due to its position of orientation, geographic texture, proper economy, being at a distance of caliphate, and the presence of various political, ethnic and religious groups. In close proximity to Quhestan, the three major provinces of Khorasan, Sistan and Kerman turned the region into an unmatched transit route. This research attempts to answer the following question: what was the economic situation in Quhestan region in the early Islamic centuries and what was the role of its geographical and climatic position in economic developments of Quhestan? The findings of this research show that positive historical changes (stability of the state, the establishment of security and the application of fair tax systems), and negative historical changes (burn wars, insecurity, instability of governments, unjust taxes, natural disasters such as famine, floods and contagious diseases) had led to the expansion of trade exchanges or the economic downturn in the region during the early Islamic centuries. The method of this research is descriptive-analytical and based on library resources.

Ardashir the first, founder of the Sassanid Empire, established a new administrative system. The Sassanid kings, as the Achaemenids, did mint the gold and silver coins. During this period, the gold, whenever it would be needed, was used beside the silver at the cast of second currency. Based on the narrations, a vast amount of gold was arrived to the center. The gold was used as the expenditure of war, wage, tribute, cultural memorial or jewelry. By the testimony of resources, most of the gold of the world was mined and used in this era and almost all of gold rade routes were toward Sasanian realm. The title Zarbod is an evidence to make doubt on idea of ceremonial Sasanian gold. Thus the role of Sasanian gold and its function in society and culture must be studied with a new approach. This article aims to analyze the social and economic function of gold and review its proficenicy and currency in Sasanian society. Also it is about to reject this old hypothesis on inefficiency of Sasanid gold on governmental economy and religious society.