Nameh Farhangestan
Year:2011 | Volume:12 | Issue:2 (46)|Papers Count:14

In this line from the introduction of the story of Rostam and Sohrab in The Sahnameh: اگر تندبادی برآید ز کنج به خاک افکند نارسیده ترنج (If a strong wind blows from the corner, will cast the green citrons down to the earth), the word konj has traditionally been understood to mean "corner". Recently, however, other interpretations have been presented. Mahyar NAVVAbI argues that the word is derived from the word kang, (as appearing in combinations such as kang des and behest-e kang), which was a place in Soghdiana. DAbIRSIYAQI believes that the word is a dialectal form of kang, which means the "branch of a tree". The writer of this paper shows that all these interpretations are wrong and suggests that the word is ganj, which means a treasure, as appearing in the combination "treasures of the wind" and other Persian and Pahlavl expressions.

The story of "SeYk-e San'an", narrated in 'Attar's parliament (conference) of the Birds, has long precedent in Islamic writings. Researches have made many attempts to trace the character of the seyk and the history of the story, the most recent attempt being made by SAii KAdkANI in his introduction to 'Attar's parliament (conference) of the Birds. In this paper, the writer mentions three versions of the story found in two Arabic sources written befor 'Attar: one source is Abu al-Faraj Esfahani's Al-Diyariu and the other one is Ibn al-Jowzi's Bahr al-Domou', The latter version is very close to that of 'Attar. The writer also explores the character of Abu 'Abdullah of Andalusia, protagonist of the AbSihI's (790-850) version, who resembles 'Attar's version of "Seyk-e San'an".

The history of Iranian relations with the East Africa goes back to ancient times, but in the centuries after the rise of Islam, these relations have become more and more serious. The early relations pursued commercial-economic goals: ivory, slave force, and amber were the products exported to Iran. In the tenth century, political factors also played a role in the relations. After the immigration of Shirazi family to Africa, they gradually seized power in Zangebar, Mombasi, Kilva and Shangvaya. For many centuries after that, Kilva was governed by a succession of Shirazi governors. The long-term presence of Shirazi family in the east coats of Africa resulted in close relations between African and Iranian different cultures. The purpose of this paper is to describe the celebration of Nowruz (New Day), a prominent cultural festival of Iranians celebrating the New Year. In this paper, the writer tries to show the similarities and differences between the ways Nowruz is celebrated and observed by Iranians and Africans.

Archetypal criticism is a type of new criticism that using the findings of mythology, anthropology, psychology, and structuralism analyzes literary works. Archetypal criticism argues that archetypes determine the form and function of literary works, that a text's meaning is shaped by cultural and psychological myths. The task of the critic is to identify the basic forms personified or concretized in recurring images, symbols or patterns in a literary work. In this paper, the writer analyzes from an archetypal criticism viewpoint, Shirley JAcksONS renowned short story "The Lottery", using the notions introduced by James FRAZER, lEVi-STRAUSS, and especially Northrop FRYE, founders of archetypal criticism. To this end, the writer discusses the archetype of sacrifice as a recurring theme from the past to the present and its role in the modern story and its continuation in today's life, and concludes that if there was a value associated to this archetype in the past, in modern times, the archetype has changed into an inhuman and evil act.

Mythology, with its two principal characteristics, symbolism and exaggeration, provides Sufis with an effective means with which to express their mystical thoughts symbolically. Mythological themes used by Sufi poets and writers go back to dateless times. We refer to them as "myth from within" because, already used in their non-mystical way, they were borrowed, developed, and loaded with new meanings, within the context of Sufi discourse. However, a number of myths originate from SUfis themselves, where certain Sufis seyks have in the past behaved so unusually and expressed so bombastic statements that they have become the origin of some strange stories coming not much short of myth per se. Their staunch followers, years later, have aggrandized further the stories they have heard about their dead seyks; we refer to the stories so made as "myth from without". Such myths, if not comfortably within the conventional definition of myth, merit serious study, at least as an area closely related to mythology proper.

QaZI Esmail ebn-e Nezam-ol-molk Abarquhi is a writer of the 8th-century AH, about whom there is no information in biographies. It can be inferred from one of his own statements in his book Ta'bir-e Soltani, he was born in the last decade of the seventh century AH. Tohfeh-ye Baha'I and Ta'bir-e Soltani are two of his books that have survived, none of which has been published. Ta'bir-e Soltani is a book of dreams interpretation in which dreams have been interpreted in an alphabetical order. The book was written in 763 AH and was dedicated to the Sah Soja' Mozaffari. The book, however, is important from the literary, linguistic, and anthropological perspectives. Linguistically, the book contains certain rare words which are also found in the poetry of his contemporary poet Hafez, From a literary perspective the book is important because it contains lines from the Manzumeh-ye Kargusi which has not been survived. From an anthropological perspective, the book makes many valuable references to the traditions, rituals and customs of the people.

Tarik-e Beyhaqi and Kalileh va Demneh, the most important Persian prose works from the Gaznavids' period, include important political thoughts. A comparison of the two books, therefore, can shed light on the political thoughts of their writers and the function of the Gaznavid kings who ruled Iran in one of its most critical periods. The most important political thoughts dealt with in these two books are the following: characteristics of the ideal king including the comparability of kings and prophets; analysis and criticism of kings' behavior including their oppressions; characteristics of an ideal vizier; political partnership of women, etc. The writer tries to explore the similarities of the political thoughts expressed in these two books and the purposes sought by their writers.

The line 107 (from stanza 49) of Draxt i Asurig is still ambiguous. In an attempt to present a satisfactory interpretation of the line, the writer first critically surveys the existing interpretations put forward by W. B. Henning, Y. M. NAvvAbI and M. SaId. Based on the contextual clues and through a comparison of the original text and its Persian translation, that is, the short versified version entitled "The story of Grapevine and Ewe" (Qesseh-ye Raz va MiS), the writer offers a new interpretation of this sarcastic line.

In this paper, which is the last in the series of papers on Persian compounds, 13 other structures are discussed, some of which are the following: Structure 26: adjective + present stem. The number of compounds formed in this way amounts to 130, almost all of which are adjectives that can be used as nouns through conversion. The syntactic relations between the combined words vary.Structure 27: adjective + past stem. These compounds are nouns and adjectives in which the adjective functions as an adverb modifying the past stem.Structure 28: numeral + noun. The compounds formed in this way can be both adjectives and nouns. The relationship between adjectives and nouns is that of conversion.Structure 29: present stem + noun. These compounds can be nouns or adjectives.Structure 30: Noun + preposition + noun. These compounds, which are many in number, are adjectives.