Zoroastrian Scholasticism in Late Antiquity
Zoroastrian Scholasticism in Late Antiquity

Author: Arash Zeini

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2020-03-02

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 1474442900

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Examines Zoroastrian exegesis by investigating a late antique translation of an ancient Iranian textChallenges the view that considers the study of the Zand an auxiliary science to Avestan studiesViews the Zand of the YH as a text in its own right and investigates it within the wider Pahlavi leiteratureConsiders the so-called glosses in the Zand for the first time as an integral part of the textOffers a variorum edition of the Middle Persian text, refusing to establish an UrtextIn late antiquity, Zoroastrian exegetes set out to translate their ancient canonical texts into Middle Persian, the vernacular of their time. Although undated, these translations, commonly known as the Zand, are often associated with the Sasanian era (224-651 ce). Despite the many challenges the Zand offers to us today, it is indispensable for investigations of late antique exegesis of the Avesta, a collection of religious and ritual texts commonly regarded as the Zoroastrians' scripture.Arash Zeini also offers a fresh edition of the Middle Persian version of the Avestan Yasna HaptaA hA iti, a ritual text composed in the Old Iranian language of Avestan, commonly dated to the middle of the second millennium bce. Zeini challenges the view that considers the Zand's study an auxiliary science to Avestan studies, framing the text instead within the exegetical context from which it emerged.

Sino-Iranian and Sino-Arabian Relations in Late Antiquity
Sino-Iranian and Sino-Arabian Relations in Late Antiquity

Author: Jeffrey Kotyk

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2024-08-15

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 9004700838

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What type of exchanges occurred between West and East Asia in the first millennium CE? What sort of connections existed between Persia and China? What did the Chinese know of early Islam? This study offers an overview of the cultural, diplomatic, commercial, and religious relationships that flourished between Iran and China, building on the pioneering work of Berthold Laufer’s Sino-Iranica (1919) while utilizing a diverse array of Classical Chinese sources to tell the story of Sino-Iran in a fresh light to highlight the significance of transcultural networks across Asia in late antiquity.

Early Islamic Iran
Early Islamic Iran

Author: Edmund Herzig

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2011-11-08

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 178673446X

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How did Iran remain distinctively Iranian in the centuries which followed the Arab Conquest? How did it retain its cultural distinctiveness after the displacement of Zoroastrianism - state religion of the Persian empire - by Islam? This latest volume in "The Idea of Iran" series traces that critical moment in Iranian history which followed the transformation of ancient traditions during the country's conversion and initial Islamic period. Distinguished contributors (who include the late Oleg Grabar, Roy Mottahedeh, Alan Williams and Said Amir Arjomand) discuss, from a variety of literary, artistic, religious and cultural perspectives, the years around the end of the first millennium CE, when the political strength of the 'Abbasid Caliphate was on the wane, and when the eastern lands of the Islamic empire began to be take on a fresh 'Persianate' or 'Perso-Islamic' character. One of the paradoxes of this era is that the establishment throughout the eastern Islamic territories of new Turkish dynasties coincided with the genesis and spread, into Central and South Asia, of vibrant new Persian language and literatures. Exploring the nature of this paradox, separate chapters engage with ideas of kingship, authority and identity and their fascinating expression through the written word, architecture and the visual arts.

ReOrienting the Sasanians
ReOrienting the Sasanians

Author: Khodadad Rezakhani

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2017-03-15

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1474400302

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A narrative history of Central Asia after the Greek dynasties and before IslamCentral Asia is commonly imagined as the marginal land on the periphery of Chinese and Middle Eastern civilisations. At best, it is understood as a series of disconnected areas that served as stop-overs along the Silk Road. However, in the mediaeval period, this region rose to prominence and importance as one of the centres of Persian-Islamic culture, from the Seljuks to the Mongols and Timur. Khodadad Rezakhani tells the back story of this rise to prominence, the story of the famed Kushans and mysterious aAsian Huns, and their role in shaping both the Sasanian Empire and the rest of the Middle East.Contextualises Persian history in relation to the history of Central Asia Extends the concept of late antiquity further east than is usually done Surveys the history of Iran and Central Asia between 200 and 800 bc and contextualises the rise of Islam in both regions "e;

Plutarch and the Persica
Plutarch and the Persica

Author: Eran Almagor

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2018-07-16

Total Pages: 353

ISBN-13: 074864556X

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Explores the experiences spectators have when they watch a film collectively in a cinema.

HĀ-'ÎSH MŌSHE: Studies in Scriptural Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature in Honor of Moshe J. Bernstein
HĀ-'ÎSH MŌSHE: Studies in Scriptural Interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature in Honor of Moshe J. Bernstein

Author: Binyamin Y. Goldstein

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2017-10-23

Total Pages: 419

ISBN-13: 9004355723

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The eighteen studies in this volume in honor of Moshe Bernstein on the occasion of his 70th birthday mostly engage with Jewish scriptural interpretation, the principal theme of Bernstein’s own research career as expressed in his collected essays, Reading and Re-Reading Scripture at Qumran (Brill, 2013). The essays develop a variety of aspects of scriptural interpretation. Although many of them are chiefly concerned with the Dead Sea Scrolls, the significant contribution of the volume as a whole is the way that even those studies are associated with others that consider the broader context of Jewish scriptural interpretation in late antiquity. As a result, a wider frame of reference for scriptural interpretation impinges upon how scripture was read and re-read in the scrolls from Qumran.

Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies
Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies

Author: Sonja Brentjes

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-01-24

Total Pages: 876

ISBN-13: 1351692690

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The Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies provides a comprehensive survey on science in the Islamic world from the 8th to the 19th century. Across six sections, a group of subject experts discuss and analyze scientific practices across a wide range of Islamicate societies. The authors take into consideration several contexts in which science was practiced, ranging from intellectual traditions and persuasions to institutions, such as courts, schools, hospitals, and observatories, to the materiality of scientific practices, including the arts and craftsmanship. Chapters also devote attention to scientific practices of minority communities in Muslim majority societies, and Muslim minority groups in societies outside the Islamicate world, thereby allowing readers to better understand the opportunities and constraints of scientific practices under varying local conditions. Through replacing Islam with Islamicate societies, the book opens up ways to explain similarities and differences between diverse societies ruled by Muslim dynasties. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for both established academics and students looking for an introduction to the field. It will appeal to those involved in the study of the history of science, the history of ideas, intellectual history, social or cultural history, Islamic studies, Middle East and African studies including history, and studies of Muslim communities in Europe and South and East Asia.