Laughter in Satire and the Socio-cultural History of Iran in Islamic Middle Ages

Laughter is a human action which has various meanings, referents and expressive and practical forms in different socio-cultural systems. The meaning of laughter was conceptualized in the literary framework of satire and gained a particular mode of expression in the socio-cultural aspect of the Islamic society during the middle ages. The survey of the fundamentals and transformations of this semantic system in the literary culture of satire can pave the way for a deeper understanding of the socio-cultural condition of the Islamic society. In this regard, the process of meaning construction and systematic conceptualization of meanings as well as referents and topics of this genre within the historical and socio-cultural context of historical texts will be considered as the main problem of this research. The main question in this article is how was the process of satire, which contributed to human, cultural and social actions of laughter in the historical context of Islamic Iran, represented as humor, burlesque, satire, and witticism? The findings of this study revealed that satiric literature, regarded as critical witticism, did not have any certain place within the history of Persian literature. It chiefly included similar inter-individual concepts and referents which inclined towards laughing and causing laughter. However, over six centuries, this genre moved from its Arabic inter-individual and inner group form to social witticism in novel multicultural and multi ethnic Islamic communities experiencing the complicated historical, socio-cultural and political contexts of the Islamic society in Iran.