Nameh Farhangestan
Year:2009 | Volume:10 | Issue:4 (40)|Papers Count:15

Ideas discussed in this paper include: human sciences are scattered; Iranian studies are scattered; scholars of Iranian studies are poorly informed; Iran must be the center of Iranian studies; the domain of Iranian studies, classification of departments based on factors such as the number of members, the number of duties; foundation for forming the departments; methods of accessing the departments, classification of the duties of the departments; general Iranian studies; specific Iranian studies including economic, archeological, historical (based on national stories and myths), geographical and local geographical Iranian studies; Iranian studies in connection with various western and eastern domains and schools; rural Iranian studies; political Iranian studies; urban Iranian studies; industrial Iranian studies; folklore Iranian studies and studies of Iranian dialects.

Cutting hair in mourning ceremonies was a widespread tradition in all cultures, as evidenced in certain ancient sources. Even today there are people who cut their hair at the loss of a beloved one. The Shahnameh also makes a reference to this tradition. The lines in the Shahnameh referring to this tradition can only be interpreted in the light of the findings of mythologists and anthropologists. Based on such knowledge, the writer interprets this tradition as a symbolic castigation and the ruffling of hair at the time of death as an ascetic denial of sexual relations.

The most comprehensive research on the life and poetry of Kasai so far is done by Mohamamd Amin Riyahi , who managed to collect, based on recent and previous studies, 307 lines of Kasā’ῑ’s poetry. Based on some newly discovered sources, Ali Ashraf Sadeghi added nine more lines to the collection. In this paper, the writer introduces a newly discovered ode by Kasā’ῑ which is written in praise of Imam Ali (peace be upon him), scribed by Abdol Karim Maddah in 1444. This ode consists of 26 lines and has the following characteristics: It is one of the oldest manuscripts recording one of Kasā’ῑ’s poems; it is complete, presenting a yet another reason that Kasai was a Shiite Muslim. In line 25, Kasai mentions his pen name.

As a first step toward revising the function of the criticism of modern Persian poetry, this paper aims at explaining one of the problems facing such a criticism; that is, criticizing poetry without much scholarly precision and based on formulas whose validity is taken for granted. As an example of such formulas, the writer questions the validity of the principle of the superiority of the so-called structural poetry''.

A person's background knowledge and training is an important factor in the formation of his thoughts. This is true about Mowlana as well. Based on this belief, the writer of this paper sets out to find out the extent of Mowlana’s knowledge by examining the books he has read. But he confines himself to the books Mowlana has explicitly referred to or has been mentioned by his disciples. In this last section of the paper, the writer deals with only two books: Resāle-ye Sepahsalar and Manaqeb al-Arefin.

Semiotics is more like an umbrella term for a collection of plural and diverse critical approaches. Most of these approaches share some basic concepts, but they differ in their respective methodologies. This paper attempts to introduce one of the theories of semiotics which is particularly applicable to poetry. The theory is proposed by the French theorist Michael Riffaterre. The paper comprises three sections. In the first section, some of Riffaterre's most important views on poetry criticism are explained (including his notions of semantic processes, semiosis versus mimesis, the distinction between meaning and significance, ungrammaticality, heuristic reading and retroactive reading). In order to give a practical example of Riffaterre's semiotic model, in the second section a critical reading is offered of Hey, You Over There!'', a poem by the modern Iranian poet Nima Yushij. Included in this section are also explanations on some other important terms in Riffaterre's theory (such as accumulation, descriptive systems, transformation, and nucleus), which are offered in the discussion about the poem. The conclusion presented in the final section of the paper identifies the semiotic processes through which the significance of the poem is conveyed to the reader.

ḴWāĵE Ya’ḡῡb ČarḴῑ (died in 1446), is among the most celebrated mystics of the Naqšbandῑyye order in Transoxiana. He was contemporary with the founders of the order including ḴWāĵE Bahā al-dῑn Naqšband and `Alā al-dῑn `Attār and achieved great stages in mysticism. From 1399 to 1446, he trained disciples and wrote mystic books in Persian. The most important works he wrote in Persian include "An Interpretation of the Qur'an'', the treatises "Abdālῑyye'', and "Onsῑyye''. His book of interpretation has been printed in India and Pakistan several times. Recently the 1880 edition of the book was corrected and printed by Hassan Ali Mohammady and Leila Hamami, but this printing has various types of errors, including typographical errors

The book Ketāb-e Mostatāb-e Ᾱšpazῑ, 1965 pages, published in two volumes, is written by the eminent translator, Najaf Daryabandari. In the first volume, dealing with "the schools of cooking'', the writer discusses in ten chapters the cooking traditions of the most important countries including Iranian, Chinese, Roman, Hindi, Turkish, Arabic, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Russian and French. In the section on Iranian cooking, the most important sources have been introduced. What distinguishes this book from other cooking books is its fluent style of writing, making frequent use of original Persian words and expressions. The other advantage of the book is that it not only offers recipes for a great number of dishes from various countries, but also explains the origin of the use of each dish and the rituals associated with it.

In this paper, the writer has made an attempt to discuss certain legal issues in the Sassanid period. The basis of this paper is the only book survived from that period: Mādῑyān ῑ hazār Dādestān or "One Thousand Legal Articles''. Besides criminal law, the book deals with other legal issues including inheritance, properties, lease, agreements and investment contracts. The importance of the book lies in the fact that it contains a great number of specialized legal terms, most of which discussed for the first time. The book has not been translated into Persian yet.

In the previous issues, the writer examined seven compound structures. In this issue, the writer examines four more issues as follows: Structure 8: Noun+state adjective, which functions as compound adverb and compound noun. Structure 9: Noun+relative adjective, which functions as compound noun and compound adjective. Structure 10: Noun+simple adjective, which functions as noun and compound adjective. Structure 11: Pronoun+simple adjective, which functions as compound adjective. This last structure may be divided into three groups: structures which function as adjective complement; structures in which the pronoun has an emphatic role, and structures in which the adjective has a subjective meaning.

In this article, the writer examines certain words that are common among Persian, Hindi and Urdu. The purpose of the writer is to show the historical and cultural interaction of Iran with the sub-continent. The paper is based on the views of the eminent historical linguist Anthony Arlotto on semantic changes at word level. The writer discusses the semantic changes of certain Persian words in the subcontinent languages compared with their current meanings as evidenced by dictionaries. The words selected for this purpose are discussed under four headings: emergence of meaning, semantic extension, semantic reduction, and change of signified.