Ṭūsī Reloaded: Ismāʿīlī Paths of Sufi Wayfaring and Sufi Paths of Ismāʿīlī Apophaticism

Much ink has been spilled on the tumultuous life and works of Na?īr al-Dīn ?ūsī. This paper re-evaluates his connections with Sufism and Ismā?īlism, and challenges the reduction of the former to a late interest, and the latter to an early affiliation abandoned in the wake of the Mongol invasion. The paper argues that Sufi and Ismā?īlī themes, sources, and ideas are in an organic interpenetration in ?ūsī’s works throughout his career. While his early Ismā?īlī eschatology has a fundamentally Sufi nature, his late Sufi treatise adopts the key components of Ismā?īlī negative theology of the divine nature. The case of ?ūsī illustrates that the Ismā?īlī double negation was preserved in Iran and Central Asia, and put into creative interactions with Sufism in the thirteenth century.     

A rare anthology of nice Sanskrit verses: Śrī-Sūktāvalī

A rare anthology of nice Sanskrit verses: r-Sktval     

Iskandar's Bibulous Business: Wine,Drunkenness and the Calls to the Sāqī in Nizāmī Ganjavī's Sharaf-nāma

The twelfth-century poet Nizāmī Ganjavī has produced his version of the adventures of Alexander as a unique composition mingling known Persian historiography and Qur'anic legends with unusual non-Islamic, especially Greek, elements in order to create his Iskandar-nāma (containing two parts, the Sharaf-nāma and the Iqbāl-nāma) as a synthesis of eastern and western cultures. A first point is the examination of the reasons behind the importance given to wine and drunkenness within the narrative. The poet has stressed this further by heading each chapter with a call to the sāqī. The essay examines the appositeness of the invocations with the episodes in the narrative, it analyses examples of wine imagery (containing references to medicine, to the mirror and to religion) and questions the relation between authorial persona, narrator and characters, examining in particular the famous teetotaler claim in one of the introductory chapters of the first part of the Iskandar-nāma.     

Al-Fārābī’s Cave: Aristotle’s Logic and the Ways of Socrates and Thrasymachus

In his commentary on Aristotle’s Rhetoric al-Fārābī harmonizes Plato and Aristotle in terms of philosophic education by ordering Aristotle’s eight logical works onto Plato’s famous image of the cave. He represents the way out of the cave with Aristotle’s four logical works of ascent (Categories, On Interpretation, Prior Analytics, and Posterior Analytics) and the return into the cave through Aristotle’s four logical works of the descent (Topics, Sophistical Refutations, Rhetoric, and Poetics). Al-Fārābī’s image of ascent and descent also alludes to Socrates’ conception of protreptic education in Book VII of the Republic. In essence, protreptic education consists in the Socratic art that freely turns the soul from the images and political interpretations of things to being itself. In this essay I argue that for al-Fārābī the four logical works of ascent guide the soul to free itself from its habituations so as to contemplate real beings, particularly the good of one’s own soul and the souls of one’s fellow citizens. Yet the ruler needs to use the arts of “descent,” as demonstrated by Thrasymachus, in order to rule the city well. The way of Socrates consists of the logical methods used to come to possess knowledge of being, while the way of Thrasymachus comprises the methods of persuasion to habituate citizens and protect the philosophic quest for the truth. Al-Fārābī, I conclude, combines the way of Socrates and the way of Thrasymachus in order to show that both ways are useful and necessary for good governance.     

Pachow,W., A Comparative Study of the Prāatimoksasūtra on the Basis of Its Chinese,Tibetan, Sanskrit and Pāli Versions [Buddhist Tradition Series Volume 31]

Indo-Iranian Journal -     

Jāmī's Salāmān va Absāl: Political Statements and Mystical Advice Addressed to the Āq Qoyūnlū Court of Sultān Ya‘qūb (d. 896/1490)

This article explores Salāmān va Absāl, one of seven poems which comprise Jāmī's collection of long masnavīs, known collectively as the Haft aurang. The work, which gained some renown outside Iran due to the English version of Edward FitzGerald, has nevertheless received little attention in modern scholarship. The few investigations of Salāmān va Absāl, moreover, have dwelled on its narrative, which tells the story of the carnal attraction of a prince for his wet-nurse, and never situated the work in its historical context or examined its political content. In addition, the allegorical symbolism of the tale, especially its depiction of key stages of the Sufi path, such as the act of repentance, has not been discussed in terms of representing a work of mystical advice. With these concerns in mind, the present article discusses the possibility that the political elements in Salāmān va Absāl complement the advice it gives on becoming a Sufi. Seen from this perspective, it would appear that Salāmān va Absāl correlates the notion of the just ruler to the Sufi concept of the “Perfect Man” to the extent that Jāmī presents the Sufi-king as the ideal medieval Islamic ruler. By implication, the work advises its royal patron, Sultān Ya‘qūb, to repent and embark upon the Sufi path, doing so, Jāmī intimates, would lead Ya‘qūb to realize his rank as God's “true” vicegerent.     

Peasant Uprisings in Astarabad: the Siyāh Pūshān (wearers of black), the Sayyids,and the Safavid State

Rebellions bringing together peasant-pastoralists, local dignitaries, and a few Sayyids prevented the Safavid monarchs from effectively controlling the political and economic activities in the province of Astarabad until the late sixteenth century. This paper investigates the nature of these rebellions led by the siyāh pūshān (wearers of black), and the socio-economic background and religious leanings of these rebels and their diverse allies. It also pays special attention to Astarabad's Sayyids, their intellectual formation, and their distinct approaches to the Safavid state from the early sixteenth century until the late 1570s when the uprisings lost much of their vigor. While heterodoxy may have been part of Astarabad's religious landscape, there is no evidence that it had a significant manifestation in the Siyah Push movement. More importantly, urban Shi?i doctrinal and legal traditions had profound roots in Astarabad, nurtured by the Sayyids and promoted by the Betekchi dignitaries prior to the rise of the Safavids. This is significant given the fact that a group of Sayyids from Astarabad (especially the town of Fenderesk) were directly involved in the insurgency against the early Safavids.     

Sar-qoflī in the Customs and Laws of Modern Iran: The Emergence of Haqq-e Kasb o Pīshe o Tejārat and the Evolution of the Shop-lease Contract System

In the shop-lease contract with sar-qoflī, which is a widely practiced form of lease contract in today's Iran, a lessor of a shop sells to a hirer a right called sar-qoflī which amounts to almost as much as the entire value of the shop's ownership, while obtaining a monthly rent of only small value. This peculiar form of contract was brought into existence based on a new right called “haqq-e kasb o pīshe o tejārat,” that emerged as a result of the blending of traditional customary practice relating to real estate leasing with Anglo-American value concepts. The adoption of this right, causing as it did the lessor's responsibility for compensation for the value of the usufructuary right, drastically changed the relationship between lessors and hirers in Iran.