Nameh Farhangestan
Year:2007 | Volume:9 | Issue:3 (35)|Papers Count:11

The purpose of this paper is mainly to discuss the nationality of Mowlana, ending with some remarks on the responsibilities of us Iranians about introducing Mowlana and other luminaries of the Iranian civilization. Mowlana's nationality could be discussed in terms of geography/ history and the message of his poetry. In the former case, there are facts which cannot be changed whether we like them or not. Mowlana consider himself as belonging to korasan, and the greater korasan used to be part of the greater Iran. From the pictures AflakI presents of the circle of Mowlana in Konia, one gets the impression that Mowlana had opened a branch of the cultural Korasan in Konia. But in terms of message, Mowlana is a voice that belongs more to any place that could be heard better, the voice of a man whose great Masnavi is the greatest spiritual epic man has produced, a gift granted by God to the Persian language to make the Persian culture immortal. To Mowlana, the question of nationality is so irrelevant, as is the question of belonging to this or the other world. He likens himself to the sun; if the walls separating houses and countries are removed, what remains is the light arising from the unified soul. As he states symbolically in the beginning of his great Masnavi, his country is the reed-bed, and it is his separation from the reed-bed that has given rise to all the tales and complaints.

In this paper, the writer has tried to, in the light of modern literary theories and using current descriptive and analytic methods, reach an understanding, even though rudimentary, of Mowlavi as a story-teller. To do so, the writer has chosen the story of "Moses and the Shepherded" from Book 2 of the Masnavi, and has analyzed it overall structure, showing that the story yields itself to an analysis based on the latest literary theories in terms both of form and structure and structural and formal relations and elements including discourse, motif, plot, narration, rhetorical and narrative techniques, textual, situational and intertextual considerations. Finally, the writer has applied the findings of this research to some of the major stories of the Masnavi and claimed that they are applicable to all the stories of the book.

A while ago, Al-Azhar University offered pictures of some of the Arabic manuscripts of its library in its website for public use. Recently, the university has added several Persian and Turkish manuscripts under the title Logat al-Sarq"iyyah (Eastern Languages). Among the Persian manuscripts, there has apparently been a collection including several treatises, but the pages 1-31 are missing in the site. On page 32, a treatise begins entitled Ma'retat al-Sart'ah (Knowledge of the Dogmas), fundamental principles and dogmas of Hanafi religion, written by Abft RasId 'Abd al-RasId Ibn Yftsof, of which I have found no trace in the few sources available. "Gesse-ye Qaia va Qadar va Da'vI-ye SImorg" (The Story of Fate and Simorgh's Plaint), which appears in this paper, starts in the middle of page 41A of the treatise and ends on the bottom of page 46.

Dari Persian flourished in the Samanid period. This trend continued even after the downfall of the Samanid dynasty. In Iran, Turkey, India and Caucasus many scientific books were published in this language. The writings of Ebn-e Sina and Abu Reyhan Biruni in particular, played a great role in the development of the scientific terms in Dari Persian. Tajiki terms were also influenced by these developments. Generally, the development of Tajik may be divided into three periods: The first period started in the late 1910s. In this period, the new social, political, cultural and economic trends caused the need for coining new terms. The second period started early 1930s, and continued until late 1980s. As a result of the misguided policies of the first Committee for Coining Terms (1933), many serious mistakes happened. The third period starts in the late 1980s, covering the period of Glasnost and the independence of Tajikistan Republic. The purpose of this paper is to trace these developments in the national language of Tajikistan Republic.

Sath, an apparently blasphemous utterance made by a Sufi during a spiritual ecstasy, is a controversial term as there is no consensus on its definition. The purpose of this paper is to study sath in the works of 'Attar. In 'Attar, sath may be studied from tow points of view: its surface form, which mayor may not be against religion, and its deep meaning, which, in principle, cannot be against religion, but which needs to be interpreted. Words uttered in defense of Iblis, for example, provide a good example of sath, which frequents in 'Attars' works. Sathiyyat, in the works of 'Attar, appear in tow forms: some sath are utterances made by great Sufis, some are blasphemous utterances made by wise Sufis who pretend to be lunatics. It seems that these latter Sufis represent the hidden personality of 'Attar himself, who invents them to talk for him without his words being criticized by devout ascetics and cruel rulers. These apparent lunatics are able to utter their strong protest against not only the oppression of unjust rulers but the creation of the universe as well.

This paper is an attempt to expose certain characteristics of the sathiyyat of Mowlavi in his sonnets. The writer claims that some of the sonnets of Mowlavi are the products of the poet's subconscious moments and may thus be classified as sathiyyat. The writer first gives a definition of sath as understood by mystics and explores its constituent elements. The writer then examines the main the theme of some of the sonnets as well as their structures and language characteristics to show the deviations from the standard language. The writer concludes that the poet has written these sonnets in a state of ecstasy induced by the domination of love, a state in which the poet has reached a new but subconscious level of knowledge. This claim is substantiated by certain themes and characteristics taken from the sonnets.

Mirza Abolqasem Farhang Sirazi (1826-1891), versed in many arts, was the fourth son of the renown poet and calligrapher Vesal Sirazi. Some sources have attributed humorous writing to him, but the present writer doubts if he ever wrote humor. Edward BROWNE has attributed the humorous ode Vasf-e Paris (Description of Paris) to him, but Iraj Afshar proved many years ago that the ode was written by Hap Pirzade Na'ini and not Farhang Sirazi. SekanJabiyye is a bilingual (Arabic and Persian) treatise about various sciences written in a humorous language, part prose part verse. The treatise, which is full of intentional mistakes, is one of the best examples of humor from the Ghajar period. In the introduction" of the treatise, of which several manuscripts have survived, Hasem-ebn-e Seyk Mofid has been mentioned as the writer, but several sources have attributed the treatise to Farhang Sirazi. This is true about the humorous treatise Al-Zakarif, written in a style similar to that of Sekanjabiyye, Divan-e Hazl and Divan-jedd. In the introduction of all these manuscripts, the writer is mentioned as Hasem-ebn-e Sek Mofid, pennamed as Hasem, and kadem. There is thus no doubt that all these have been written by the writer of Sekanjabiyye; a study of these manuscripts will no doubt throw light on the writer of Sekanjabiyye.

Having briefly referred to the researches done on Tahmine and the story of "Rostam and Sohrab", the writer sets out to open up a new vista on the research on the Sahname. What the writer does is compare the story with similar stories found in other cultures. The purpose of this comparison is to find the underlying meaningful structure of all these stories. The writer claims that, apart from the surface love affair found in the story and similar stories, these stories show the special function of women among ancient nations, a function which has a basic political and ritual significance. If this function is not considered, the writer argues, the connection of these stories to the social and cultural aspects of the time is hard to understand.

By compounding is meant a process whereby two words join to make a compound word. For example, golkane (greenhouse), which consists of gol (flower) and kane (house)? This is the most productive process of word formation in Persian, both in colloquial and scientific languages. In the series of articles that follow, the purpose is to categorize compound words in terms of three criteria: the structure of the compound word (each compound word consists of two words, both of which may or may not belong to the same grammatical category); the category of the compound word; syntactic-semantic relations between the two word constituting the compound word. This paper discusses the compound words with the structure Noun+Noun. In Persian, when two words join, they either from a compound noun or a compound adjective, each of which having its own varieties discussed here in some detail.