The Daēva Cult In The Gāthās

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The Daēva Cult in the Gāthās

Author : Amir Ahmadi
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 342 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2015-04-10
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781317537458

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The Daēva Cult in the Gāthās by Amir Ahmadi Pdf

Addressing the question of the origins of the Zoroastrian religion, this book argues that the intransigent opposition to the cult of the daēvas, the ancient Indo-Iranian gods, is the root of the development of the two central doctrines of Zoroastrianism: cosmic dualism and eschatology (fate of the soul after death and its passage to the other world). The daēva cult as it appears in the Gāthās, the oldest part of the Zoroastrian sacred text, the Avesta, had eschatological pretentions. The poet of the Gāthās condemns these as deception. The book critically examines various theories put forward since the 19th century to account for the condemnation of the daēvas. It then turns to the relevant Gāthic passages and analyzes them in detail in order to give a picture of the cult and the reasons for its repudiation. Finally, it examines materials from other sources, especially the Greek accounts of Iranian ritual lore (mainly) in the context of the mystery cults. Classical Greek writers consistently associate the nocturnal ceremony of the magi with the mysteries as belonging to the same religious-cultural category. This shows that Iranian religious lore included a nocturnal rite that aimed at ensuring the soul’s journey to the beyond and a desirable afterlife. Challenging the prevalent scholarship of the Greek interpretation of Iranian religious lore and proposing a new analysis of the formation of the Hellenistic concept of ‘magic,’ this book is an important resource for students and scholars of History, Religion and Iranian Studies.

Arete and the Odyssey's Poetics of Interrogation

Author : Justin Arft
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 377 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2022-09-20
Category : Questioning in literature
ISBN : 9780192847805

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Arete and the Odyssey's Poetics of Interrogation by Justin Arft Pdf

Arete and the Odyssey's Poetics of Interrogation explores how the enigmatic Phaeacian queen, Arete, is at the heart of an epic-scale "poetics of interrogation" used throughout the Odyssey to negotiate Odysseus' kleos, or epic renown. Arete's interrogation of Odysseus has been especially problematic in scholarship, but diachronic and synchronic analysis of similar interrogations across Indo-European, Orphic, and Greek epigrammatic corpora show that the "stranger's interrogation" is a formula that demands performance and negotiation of status. Within the Odyssey, this interrogation is part of an intraformular network used to generate kleos, and the queen's question initiates the longest and most complex negotiation of Odysseus' status in epic and memory. Arete's role as interrogator not only explains her strange authority and resonance with both Penelope and comparative afterlife figures, but it also establishes a gendered, agonistic tension between she and her husband, Alkinoos, that influences the structure, genre, and narratology of performances across the Phaeacian episode. This book reinterprets the Odyssey's central episode and challenges several assumptions about Nausikaa and Alkinoos' famed hospitality, even demonstrating how the Apologue is organized as a response to competing inquiries into Odysseus' fundamental status in tradition. The Odyssey ultimately navigates away from Odysseus' public reputation and roots his status in private memories, and Arete's carefully arranged interventions signal the larger process by which the Odyssey immortalizes Odysseus in poetry as a nostos hero. The queen and her question invite new applications of oral poetics that shed light on the structure, composition, and reperformance of the Odyssey.

The Daēva Cult in the Gāthās

Author : Amir Ahmadi
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2015-04-10
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781317537441

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The Daēva Cult in the Gāthās by Amir Ahmadi Pdf

Addressing the question of the origins of the Zoroastrian religion, this book argues that the intransigent opposition to the cult of the daēvas, the ancient Indo-Iranian gods, is the root of the development of the two central doctrines of Zoroastrianism: cosmic dualism and eschatology (fate of the soul after death and its passage to the other world). The daēva cult as it appears in the Gāthās, the oldest part of the Zoroastrian sacred text, the Avesta, had eschatological pretentions. The poet of the Gāthās condemns these as deception. The book critically examines various theories put forward since the 19th century to account for the condemnation of the daēvas. It then turns to the relevant Gāthic passages and analyzes them in detail in order to give a picture of the cult and the reasons for its repudiation. Finally, it examines materials from other sources, especially the Greek accounts of Iranian ritual lore (mainly) in the context of the mystery cults. Classical Greek writers consistently associate the nocturnal ceremony of the magi with the mysteries as belonging to the same religious-cultural category. This shows that Iranian religious lore included a nocturnal rite that aimed at ensuring the soul’s journey to the beyond and a desirable afterlife. Challenging the prevalent scholarship of the Greek interpretation of Iranian religious lore and proposing a new analysis of the formation of the Hellenistic concept of ‘magic,’ this book is an important resource for students and scholars of History, Religion and Iranian Studies.

Towards the Critique of Violence

Author : Brendan Moran,Carlo Salzani
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 256 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2015-08-27
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781472529282

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Towards the Critique of Violence by Brendan Moran,Carlo Salzani Pdf

In the past two and a half decades, Walter Benjamin's early essay 'Towards the Critique of Violence' (1921) has taken a central place in politico-philosophic debates. The complexity and perhaps even the occasional obscurity of Benjamin's text have undoubtedly contributed to the diversity, conflict, and richness of contemporary readings. Interest has heightened following the attention that philosophers such as Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben have devoted to it. Agamben's own interest started early in his career with his 1970 essay, 'On the Limits of Violence', and Benjamin's essay continues to be a fundamental reference in Agamben's work. Written by internationally recognized scholars, Towards the Critique of Violence is the first book to explore politico-philosophic implications of Benjamin's 'Critique of Violence' and correlative implications of Benjamin's resonance in Agamben's writings. Topics of this collection include mythic violence, the techniques of non-violent conflict resolution, ambiguity, destiny or fate, decision and nature, and the relation between justice and thinking. The volume explores Agamben's usage of certain Benjaminian themes, such as Judaism and law, bare life, sacrifice, and Kantian experience, culminating with the English translation of Agamben's 'On the Limits of Violence'.

Iranian Music and Popular Entertainment

Author : GJ Breyley,Sasan Fatemi
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 202 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2015-11-19
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317336792

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Iranian Music and Popular Entertainment by GJ Breyley,Sasan Fatemi Pdf

The word motreb finds its roots in the Arabic verb taraba, meaning ‘to make happy.’ Originally denoting all musicians in Iran, motrebi came to be associated, pejoratively, with the cheerful vulgarity of the lowbrow entertainer. In Iranian Music and Popular Entertainment, GJ Breyley and Sasan Fatemi examine the historically overlooked motrebi milieu, with its marginalized characters, from luti to gardan koloft and mashti, as well as the tenacity of motreb who continued their careers against all odds. They then turn to losanjelesi, the most pervasive form of Iranian popular music that developed as motrebi declined, and related musical forms in Iran and its diasporic popular cultural centre, Los Angeles. For the first time in English, the book makes available musical transcriptions, analysis and lyrics that illustrate the complexities of this history. As it presents the findings of the authors’ years of ethnographic work with the history’s protagonists, from senior motreb to pop-rock stars, the book reveals parallels between the decline of motrebi and the rise of ‘modernity.’ In the twentieth century, the fate of Tehran’s motrebi music was shaped by the social and urban polarization that ensued from the modern market economy, and losanjelesi would be similarly affected by transnational relations, revolution, war and migration. Through its detailed and informed examination of Iranian popular music, this study reveals much about the values and anxieties of Iranian society, and is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Iranian society and history.

Iranian Culture

Author : Nasrin Rahimieh
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 156 pages
File Size : 41,6 Mb
Release : 2015-08-27
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781317429357

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Iranian Culture by Nasrin Rahimieh Pdf

Throughout modern Iranian history, culture has served as a means of imposing unity and cohesion onto society. The Pahlavi monarchs used it to project an image of Iran as an ancient civilisation, re-emerging as an equal to Western nations, while the revolutionaries deployed it to remake the country into an Islamic nation. Just as Iranian culture has been continually re-interpreted, the representations and avocations of Iranian identity vary amongst Iranians across the world. Iranian Culture: Representation and Identity demonstrates these fissures and the incompatibilities that refuse to be written out of national culture, analysing works of literature, popular music, graphic art and film, as well as oral narratives. Using works produced before and after the 1979 revolution, created both inside and outside of Iran, this study reveals neglected complexities and contradictions in the field of Iranian cultural production. It considers how contested claims to culture, whether they originated in Iran or the Iranian diaspora, shape our understanding of this culture and what spaces they create for new articulations of it, and in doing so offers an important re-examination of our collective concept of culture. This book would be an excellent resource for students and scholars of Middle East Studies and Iranian Studies, specifically Iranian culture including film and contemporary literature and the Iranian diaspora.

Anahita

Author : Manya Saadi-nejad
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2021-01-14
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9781838601560

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Anahita by Manya Saadi-nejad Pdf

Anahita was the most important goddess of pre-Islamic Iran. From her roots as an ancient Indo-European water deity her status was unrivalled by any other Iranian goddess throughout the course of three successive Iranian empires over a period of a thousand years. The first scholarly book on Anahita, this study reconstructs the Indo-European water goddess through a comparison of Celtic, Slavic, Armenian and Indo-Iranian myths and rituals. Anahita's constantly-evolving description and functions are then traced through the written and iconographic records of Iranian societies from the Achaemenid period onwards, including but not limited to the Zoroastrian texts and the inscriptions and artistic representations of the great pre-Islamic Iranian empires. The study concludes by tracing survival of the goddess in Islamic Iran, as seen in new Persian literature and popular rituals. Manya Saadi-nejad demonstrates the close relationship between Iranian mythology and that of other Indo-European peoples, and the significant cultural continuities from Iran's pre-Islamic period into the Islamic present.

The Revolutionary Guards in Iranian Politics

Author : Bayram Sinkaya
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 224 pages
File Size : 43,6 Mb
Release : 2015-06-19
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9781317525646

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The Revolutionary Guards in Iranian Politics by Bayram Sinkaya Pdf

The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) has been dubbed the ‘kingmaker’ in recent studies of Iranian politics, precipitating heated debates surrounding the potential militarization of the Iranian regime and giving rise to paradoxical understandings of the IRGC; whether as a military institution entering politics, or a political institution with a military history. Revolutionary Guards in Iranian Politics offers a way out of this paradox by showing that the IRGC is not a recently politicized institution, but has instead been highly politicized since its inception. It identifies the ways in which the IRGC relates to national political dynamics, examines the factors contributing to this relationship, and its implications on Iranian politics from the revolution up to the present day. The book examines the three decades following the revolution, uncovering the reasons behind the rise of the Revolutionary Guards and tracking the organization’s evolving relationship with politics. Establishing a theoretical framework from revolution and civil-military relations theories, this book provides new perspectives on the relationship between the IRGC and Iranian politics. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East Studies and Iranian Studies, in particular Iranian Politics.

The Thousand and One Borders of Iran

Author : Fariba Adelkhah
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 401 pages
File Size : 46,9 Mb
Release : 2015-09-16
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781317418962

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The Thousand and One Borders of Iran by Fariba Adelkhah Pdf

A country marked by controversy, Iran’s social, cultural and political dynamics are too often reduced to a few misleading clichés. Islamism is widely considered to shape all social relations in Iranian society and, while Iranian society is indeed Islamic, this term’s multiple meanings in everyday life and practices go far beyond the naïve and monolithic idea we are used to. The Thousand and One Borders of Iran analyses travel as a social practice, exploring how diasporas, margins and so-called peripheries are central in the construction of a national identity and thus revealing the complexities of Iranian history and society. Written by a leading anthropologist, it draws upon fieldwork carried out in Iran and Iranian migrant communities across Dubai, Tokyo and Los Angeles from 1998 to 2015. While casting new perspectives on the place of transnational relations in an increasingly globalized world, this work also sheds new light on the evolution of Iranian society, countering the explanation furnished by nationalist ideology that has been reproduced by the Islamic Republic itself. Its unique approach to the analysis of Iranian society through the theme of travel and borders considers the links and even the quarrels between the centre of Iranian society and the periphery, and the foreign elements that have contributed to society’s development. Travel is key to these interactions and, following the travels of merchants and workers, students or the faithful, elected officials and experts, or exiles and refugees, this book offers an anthropological study of travel that re-thinks Iranian history and national identity. This book would be of interest to students and scholars of Iranian Studies, Middle Eastern Studies and Anthropology.

Iran and Russian Imperialism

Author : Moritz Deutschmann
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 222 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2015-12-22
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317385318

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Iran and Russian Imperialism by Moritz Deutschmann Pdf

Rather than a centralized state, Iran in the nineteenth century was a delicate balance between tribal groups, urban merchant communities, religious elites, and an autocratic monarchy. While Russia gained an increasingly dominant political role in Iran over the course of this century, Russian influence was often challenged by banditry on the roads, riots in the cities, and the seeming arbitrariness of the Shah. Iran and Russian Imperialism develops a comprehensive picture of Russia’s historical entanglements with one of its most important neighbours in Asia. It recounts how the Russian Empire strived to gain political influence at the Persian court, promote Russian trade, and secure the enormous southern borders of the empire. Using hitherto often neglected documents from archives in Russia and Georgia and reading them against the grain, this book reveals the complex reactions of different groups in Iranian society to Russian imperialism. As it turns out, the Iranians were, in the words of the Russian orientalist Konstantin Smirnov, "ideal anarchists," whose resistance to imperial domination, as well as to centralized state institutions more generally, impacted developments in the region in the century to come. Iran’s troubled relationship with the wider world continues to be a topic of considerable interest to historians, yet little focus has been given to Russia’s historical connections to Iran. This book thus represents a valuable contribution to Iranian and Russian History, as well as International Relations.

Persian Authorship and Canonicity in Late Mughal Delhi

Author : Prashant Keshavmurthy
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 41,5 Mb
Release : 2016-01-29
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317287957

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Persian Authorship and Canonicity in Late Mughal Delhi by Prashant Keshavmurthy Pdf

Writing in the eighteenth century, the Persian-language litterateurs of late Mughal Delhi were aware that they could no longer take for granted the relations of Persian with Islamic imperial power, relations that had enabled Persian literary life to flourish in India since the tenth century C.E. Persian Authorship and Canonicity in Late Mughal Delhi situates the diverse textual projects of ‘Abd al-Qādir “Bīdil” and his students within the context of politically threatened but poetically prestigious Delhi, exploring the writers’ use of the Perso-Arabic and Hindavi literary canons to fashion their authorship. Breaking with the tendency to categorize and characterize Persian literature according to the dynasty in power, this book argues for the indirectness and complexity of the relations between poetics and politics. Among its original contributions is an interpretation of Bīdil’s Sufi adaptation of a Braj-Avadhi tale of utopian Hindu kingship, a novel hypothesis on the historicism of Sirāj al-Din ‘Alī Khān “Ārzū”s oeuvre and a study of how Bindrāban Dās “Khvushgū" entwined the contrasting models of authorship in Bīdil and Ārzū to formulate his voice as a Sufi historian of the Persian poetic tradition. The first book-length work in English on ‘Abd al-Qādir “Bīdil” and his circle of Persian literati, this is a valuable resource for students and scholars of both South Asian and Iranian studies, as well as Persian literature and Sufism.

Gender and Dance in Modern Iran

Author : Ida Meftahi
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 48,5 Mb
Release : 2017-07-14
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317620617

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Gender and Dance in Modern Iran by Ida Meftahi Pdf

Gender and Dance in Modern Iran: Biopolitics on Stage investigates the ways dancing bodies have been providing evidence for competing representations of modernity, urbanism, and religiosity across the twentieth century. Focusing on the transformation of the staged dancing body, its space of performance, and spectatorial cultural ideology, this book traces the dancing body in multiple milieus of performance, including the Pahlavi era’s national artistic scene and the popular café and cabaret stages, as well as the commercial cinematic screen and the post-revolutionary Islamized theatrical stage. It links the socio-political discourses on performance with the staged public dancer, in order to interrogate the formation of dominant categories of "modern," "high," and "artistic," and the subsequent "othering" of cultural realms that were discursively peripheralized from the "national" stage. Through the study of archival and ethnographic research as well as a diverse literature pertaining to music, theater, cinema, and popular culture, it combines a close reading of primary sources such as official documents, press materials, and program notes with visual analysis of filmic materials and imageries, as well as interviews with practitioners. It offers an original and informed exploration into the ways performing bodies and their public have been associated with binary notions of vice and virtue, morality and immorality, commitment and degeneration, chastity and eroticism, and veiled-ness and nakedness. Engaging with a range of methodological and historiographical methods, including postcolonial, performance, and feminist studies, this book is a valuable resource for students and scholars of Middle East history and Iranian studies, as well as gender studies and dance and performance studies.

Kirman and the Qajar Empire

Author : James M Gustafson
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 233 pages
File Size : 43,8 Mb
Release : 2015-07-16
Category : History
ISBN : 9781317427902

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Kirman and the Qajar Empire by James M Gustafson Pdf

Despite its apparently peripheral location in the Qajar Empire, Kirman was frequently found at the centre of developments reshaping Iran in the 19th century. Over the Qajar period the region saw significant changes, as competition between Kirmani families rapidly developed commercial cotton and opium production and a world renowned carpet weaving industry, as well as giving strength to radical modernist and nationalist agitation in the years leading up to the 1906 Constitutional Revolution. Kirman and the Qajar Empire explores how these Kirmani local elites mediated political, economic, and social change in their community during the significant transitional period in Iran’s history, from the rise of the Qajar Empire through to World War I. It departs from the prevailing centre-periphery models of economic integration and Qajar provincial history, engaging with key questions over how Iranians participated in reshaping their communities in the context of imperialism and growing transnational connections. With rarely utilized local historical and geographical writings, as well as a range of narrative and archival sources, this book provides new insight into the impact of household factionalism and estate building over four generations in the Kirman region. As well as offering the first academic monograph on modern Kirman, it is also an important case study in local dimensions of modernity. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of Iranian studies and Iranian History, as well as general Middle Eastern studies.

The Daeva Cult in the Gathas

Author : Amir Ahmadi
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 342 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2019-12-12
Category : Electronic
ISBN : 0367871831

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The Daeva Cult in the Gathas by Amir Ahmadi Pdf

Addressing the question of the origins of the Zoroastrian religion, this book argues that the intransigent opposition to the cult of the daēvas, the ancient Indo-Iranian gods, is the root of the development of the two central doctrines of Zoroastrianism: cosmic dualism and eschatology (fate of the soul after death and its passage to the other world). The daēva cult as it appears in the Gāthās, the oldest part of the Zoroastrian sacred text, the Avesta, had eschatological pretentions. The poet of the Gāthās condemns these as deception. The book critically examines various theories put forward since the 19th century to account for the condemnation of the daēvas. It then turns to the relevant Gāthic passages and analyzes them in detail in order to give a picture of the cult and the reasons for its repudiation. Finally, it examines materials from other sources, especially the Greek accounts of Iranian ritual lore (mainly) in the context of the mystery cults. Classical Greek writers consistently associate the nocturnal ceremony of the magi with the mysteries as belonging to the same religious-cultural category. This shows that Iranian religious lore included a nocturnal rite that aimed at ensuring the soul's journey to the beyond and a desirable afterlife. Challenging the prevalent scholarship of the Greek interpretation of Iranian religious lore and proposing a new analysis of the formation of the Hellenistic concept of 'magic, ' this book is an important resource for students and scholars of History, Religion and Iranian Studies.

Man, Meaning, and Mystery

Author : Hjelde
Publisher : BRILL
Page : 328 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2018-11-13
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9789047400264

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Man, Meaning, and Mystery by Hjelde Pdf

At an international symposium in Norway, the 100 years’ anniversary of the academic study of religion was celebrated. This volume contains the papers that were presented at this conference. A major part of the papers deals with the situation of this discipline around the turn of the last century, focussing especially on the work of the Dutch-Norwegian scholar W. Brede Kristensen (1867-1953) and on other founding fathers in the Scandinavian countries. Other contributors discuss methodological questions relating to the idea of a phenomenology of religion. Furthermore, an attempt is made to compare the study of religion at the end of the twentieth century with the situation a hundred years earlier, and to trace some of the lines of development. The book includes a bibliography of publications by W. Brede Kristensen.