Publications
A.A. Seyed-Gohrab & S. McGlinn: The Essence of Modernity
2007 - 172 p. - € 24,50 - ISBN 978 90 5170 899 8Purdue UP ISBN: 978-1-55753-466-8 (U.S.A. & Canada) $ 32,00
This book is one of the earliest and most influential treatises on the relationship between western-style law and Islam. Yak Kaleme means literally ‘One Word,’ and the one word that is explained here is Qanun, codified law, which the author regards as the key to the regeneration and progress of Iran. ‘One Word’ was influential in the lead-up to the Iranian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, but the book’s significance is wider than that, and its message is relevant today. It was one of the first treatises to demonstrate that Islam is compatible with the introduction of modern western forms of government, and specifically that the principles of the sharia can be incorporated in a codified law comparable to that found in European countries. This was a daring argument in the late 19th century Middle East, when it was extremely difficult to convince the rulers and religious class that a civil code of law was needed: would it not diminish the status of the ruler, and would it not be an admission that the religious law, the sharia, was deficient?
The author argues that the principles underlying constitutional government can be found in Islamic sources, particularly in the Quran and traditions of the Prophet. A codified law is simply a way of making these Islamic principles available to the people in a form they can understand. The intelligent and informed participation of the people in society contributes to their welfare and good governance. Unlike some contemporary Oriental travellers to Europe, he observes that European dominance derives not from a few technological advances, but primarily from the organisation of society, on the basis of codified law.
Franklin Lewis & Sunil Sharma (eds.): The Necklace of the Pleiades
2007 - 382 p. - € 39,50 - ISBN 978 90 5170 952 0Purdue UP ISBN: 978 1 55753 501 6
In Persian literature the Necklace of the Pleiades is a metaphor for the six or seven stars (Parvin, or Sorayyâ, high up in the constellation Taurus) which the heavens bestow, like precious pearls, upon a poet in gratitude and reward for composing a beautiful poem. The poem itself is compared to a string of pearls, with its carefully chosen words bored like unique pearls and strung in perfect metrical proportion. As Hafiz puts it:
You've sung a ghazal, pierced the pearls, come and sing it sweetly, Hafiz!The heavens strew the very Necklace of the Pleiades upon your verse.
This volume collects 24 essays (three of them in Persian) on Persian literature, culture and religion by Persian scholars from around the world, presented to Professor Heshmat Moayyad of the University of Chicago, on his 80th birthday, in recognition and gratitude for his long and fruitful career as scholar and teacher in the field of Persian and Iranian Studies.
The topics covered here in essays by some of his friends, colleagues and former students range from the Persian Alexander romance, to Ferdowsi’s Shahnama and other epics, the poetics and imagery of the ghazal and the qasida, Mughal court poetry, Sufism, Ismaili history, Baha’i literature, Iranian linguistics, the modern writer Sadeq Hedayat, and the reception of Salman Rushdie's novel in Persian translation. These essays reflect the state of the field of Persian literary studies and will be of substantial interest not only to scholars of Iranian culture, history and religions, but of Middle Eastern and South Asian studies, as well.
A.A. Seyed-Gohrab: Courtly Riddles
2008 - 204 p. - € 28,50 - ISBN 978 90 5170 858 5Purdue UP ISBN: 978-55753-467-5 - $ 38,00 (USA & Canada)
Riddles are among the oldest genres in many literary traditions. Literary riddles occur in early Persian literature from the tenth century, and they continue to be used in modern Iranian society. Riddles were composed at courts in the Iranian world for various purposes, especially highlighting the insignia of the ruler’s administrative and military power. The riddle offers the poet a means to demonstrate his artistic accomplishment in a compact composition, and secure his social, professional and personal position at the court and in cultured circles. The aesthetic of puzzlement that happens outside the riddle and around it, was much appreciated at courts.
This book is the first study of Persian literary riddles to appear in English. It translates and analyses a wide range of complex riddling poems from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, including the masters of the genre. It also analyses the relationship between metaphors and riddles and the genre of literary description (wasf).
A.A. Seyed-Gohrab, S. McGlinn & F. Doufikar-Aerts: Gog and Magog
2007 - 162 p. - € 19,50 - ISBN 978 90 5170 859 2Purdue UP ISBN: 978-1- 55753-469-9 (U.S.A. & Canada)- $ 26,00
Gog and Magog originate in the Bible and Quran, where they feature as savage tribes, threatening a settled people. They are held back by an iron wall, built to protect the civilized lands by a figure who has been identified in the Islamic tradition as Alexander the Great. The story has been elaborated in the traditions of diverse cultures from Indonesia to Europe, in genres ranging from exegesis to apocalypse, folk stories and in folk religion, not excluding the contemporary folk religion of the internet. The figures are constantly reinterpreted, as the figures of the enemies of order change: for the Persians of Ferdowsi’s time they are Turks, for contemporary Israelis they are Arabs, while Arabs may identify any figure of power who presages the end of the world with Gog and Magog.
The articles deal with Gog and Magog in Indonesia, the Persian-speaking and Arabic-speaking worlds, and in the West, in both classical and contemporary cultures. Naturally they are part of the required caste in the Alexander romances, where they contrast with the power and virtue of the hero. In Indonesia, they figure as ‘Juja-Makjuja’ in a Javanese apocalypse, in which the side of evil is associated with the Dutch colonial presence. In medieval Western Europe they are an evil people contained somewhere in the East which will break loose and wreak havoc over the civilised world. In the Byzantine tradition, Gog en Magog are represented as creatures with dogs’ heads and snake tongues, while on the covers of contemporary Arab apocalyptic literature they may be giants or half-humans, and are sometimes associated with flying saucers and the Bermuda Triangle.
Anousha Sedighi: Agreement Restrictions in Persian
2008 - 224 p. - € 21,50 - ISBN 978 90 5170 953 7Purdue University Press ISBN 978 1 55753 500 9
Persian is a relatively understudied language within the field of theoretical linguistics. This book adopts the Minimalist Program of Chomsky (1995-2004), which is at the forefront of recent theories of formal syntax, and applies it to the Persian language. Agreement Restrictions in Persian is the first comprehensive attempt to tackle the issue of verbal agreement in Persian from a cross-linguistic point of view.
Although it is commonly believed that in Persian the verb agrees with the subject, several constructions seem to constrain this obligatory rule. For instance, in the presence of a plural inanimate subject, the verb may appear with the third person singular morphology.Adopting the framework of Distributed Morphology, the author argues that agreement is in fact obtained with the inanimate plural subjects. However, a post-syntactic “impoverishment” operation causes the verb to surface in non-agreeing form. The second construction involves so-called psychological constructions. At first sight, the verb does not seem to agree with the understood subject and appears in the third person singular form. The author proposes that again, agreement does in fact obtain. Unlike the previous analyses, which consider the experiencer as the subject, it is argued that the psychological-state is the subject of the sentence. The author captures properties of Persian psychological constructions by proposing that they contain a Tense requirement and applied arguments.
Findings of this work not only contribute to better understanding of Persian syntax, but also provide important implications for the grammar theory as a whole. The author, Dr. Anousha Sedighi, is an assistant professor of Persian at Portland State University.
A.A. Seyed-Gohrab & S. McGlinn: The Treasury of Tabriz
2007 - 296 p. - € 34,50 - ISBN 978 90 5170 860 8Purdue UP ISBN: 978-1-55753-468-2 (U.S.A. & Canada)- $ 45,00
'A Treasury from Tabriz' is a massive manuscript from 14th century Persia. It is almost perfectly preserved, and contains 209 works on a wide range of subjects, in Persian and Arabic. It is indeed a whole treasure-house, compressed between two covers. It was bought by Islamic Consultative Assembly in Tehran in 1995, and has been published in facsimile by Tehran University Press.
The city of Tabriz was one of the main cultural centres of the Persian-speaking world in the 14th century. Scholarly and cultural activities included manuscript production, illumination, miniature paintings, architecture, astronomy, philosophy, mysticism, music and literature. The manuscript contains important works selected by an educated gentleman of Tabriz, and copied in his own hand, between 1321 and 1323AD. Together, the texts in the compendium show us the canon of learning for a man of letters in the Islamic world, covering prophetic traditions, ethics, mysticism, jurisprudence, theology, exegesis, history, grammar, literature and literary criticism, philosophy, astronomy and astrology, geomancy, mineralogy, mathematics, medicine, music, cosmography and geography. The essays collected in this volume introduce diverse aspects of this compendium for the first time, giving us a window into this world, and in some cases the best available texts of important works of Islamic culture and learning.
This collection of essays contains fourteen articles, each dealing with one aspect of this manuscript, from palaeography and codicology to philosophy, Islamic mysticism, history, literary works, astronomy and wisdom literature. Each article revolves around a specific topic, explaining its importance in the cultural and literary milieu of the fourteenth century Islamic world.