نگار ذیلابی

Arabesque (stylized plant and geometric motifs) is sometimes considered as a feature of Islamic art and one of the innovations of Islamic civilization; On the other hand, some art historians, in addition to the characteristics of the Islamic period, have pointed out its pre-Islamic sources, especially the Sassanid and Byzantine sources and the transfer of previous cultural traditions. In this research, in addition to these two sources, Nabatean culture as a rich treasure of ancient pictorial themes has been included as another source in the field of Islamic arabesque plant motifs. The main question of this research is what were the motifs and plant motifs in Nabatean works and based on the similarities between Nabatean and Islamic motifs, to what extent can Nabatean motifs be considered as a source for Islamic arabesque? In this research, with an approach based on cultural history and various evidences, especially material artifacts and reports of archaeologists and obvious cultural similarities, we have shown that the Nabataean motifs can also be counted among the descendants of Arabesque, and on this basis, and considering the multitude of descendants The history of arabesque, the essentialist and mystical views of traditionalists in limiting the scope of interpretation of these motifs to Islamic art, are subjected to a serious revision.

Egypt’s Alawite community was a noteworthy one before Fatimids established themselves in Egypt. This paper aims to find out what factors and motives made Alawites immigrate to Egypt from various cities of the Muslim World. Finally, it tries to see what objectives and motives contributed to the bilateral policies between Alawites and the ruling class. Examining the data from variegated historical sources indicate that the policy implemented by rulers and governors vis-à-vis Alawites was not of a religious nature before Fatimids began to take root in Egypt. Rather, it was mainly based on the political, social and secular traditions. Contrary to popular belief, Alawites did not form a monolithic society with certain religious, ethnic or political purposes. Hasanids, for instance, were more precautious than their Husainid or Jaʿfarid relatives. In various periods, Hasanids sought to cooperate and reconcile with the ruling system, and with Umayyad and Abbasid governors under the cover of taqiya (precautionary dissimulation of religious belief and practice). They were thus able to both partake of the political, economic and social benefits and pave the way, in propitious moments, for their Fatimid relatives to take power.

The unbreakable bond between hadith and history paves the way for the efficiency of each in order to measure the other. In this regard, the explorations of the hadith and history scholars have included incompatible propositions in the drawing of Muawiyah's identity, the first Umayyad Caliphate. In the present study with the approach of social semiology, with emphasis on the process of meaning-making in the context of community and culture, the main question raised is in Imam Ali's letters to Muawiyah, regarding the set of linguistic and content symbols, what are the symbols to draw Muawiyah's personality used and based on this set of symbols, how can the religious and historical identity of Muawiyah be identified? From the authors' point of view, the letters of Imam Ali (AS) have a very good capacity for studying social semiology and provide a clear and comprehensive reflection on the problems of Imam Ali's era. Imam Ali (AS) has analyzed Muawiyah's identity codes using social symbols in various aspects and provided the context of audience access to a clear picture of Muawiyah's identity by providing an identity representation system. The study indicates that the purposeful selections of Imam Ali (AS) in the letters of Nahj al-Balaqah provide a new reading of historical events according to religious, Arab culture and literary symbols and are considered as the reliable sources of measuring contradictory historical propositions.

The misogynous narratives that were reflected in Nahj ul-Balāgha, are typically understood as such by decontextualizing the statements and embedding them in the modern framework. Given the incongruity between the traditional statement and the feminist viewpoints of the modern era, the statements- as part of Islamic and especially, Shiite tradition- are inconsonantly compared with the modern outlooks. The present paper shows that many of those statements regarding women in Nahj ul-Balāgha are not buttressed by any reliable evidence as well as the content of those statements could  be traced in the bulk of similar statements in the literary works written after the fourth century A.H. Moreover, given the cultural circumstances of the time that  Nahj ul-Balāgha was embedded in,  those attitudes towards women are intelligible and also they were accepted and considered to be consonant with the popular mentalities wrought into the historical and literary works contemporary with compiling Nahj ul-Balāgha and those composed in the subsequent centuries. To expound this hypothesis, attempts are made to analyze the evidence, context as well as cultural mentalities about women in Nahj ul-Balāgha, and its exegeses and sundry literary and historical texts produced up to the 6th/12th century in order to compare those texts with the former. The approach is non-confessional 

Blacksmithing, as an instrumental skill since the dawn of humanity, supplied the necessary instruments in the daily life as well as military and civil activities. Examining a wide range of historical, literary and social sources, the present paper draws the scheme of blacksmithing in the structure and context of the traditional Muslim world. The method employed for this purpose is ‘thick description’. This task is undertaken by depicting the general scheme of the profession and investigating the phenomenal aspect of that, such as its various functions, the instruments, the workplace, professional ethics, monitoring and payment of the professional, main and subsidiary income and professional base and social status. Despite the high diversity of productions and demands of various groups of society,the profession was not high-paying and those belonging to this guild were the lower classes in the Muslim world.

One of the important financial resource tax in the tax system of Islam. This type of tax in Egypt, many developments were the prime causes social and political evolution taxes in this period as well as political, social and economic change governors and the financial relationship governors of the Caliphate and also how to impose taxes and obtaining Egypt and other changes in the financial resources of the community have the greatest impact. The consequences of changes in financial resources can be said that these changes will have the greatest impact upon the subjects and citizens left the government and caused riots and protests, some are social.

Jews were well-known in spell and its various types and techniques, and they were known as magical secrets and magical supernatural abilities in Muslim societies’ culture. From the various types of magic, spells were more prevalent in Jewish and Muslim societies, and its basis was human and animalistic images. Considering such position, the recognition of Jewish pictorial spells in Islamic culture is the subject of this article. The question is what are the origins and forms of illustrated spells in the Jewish culture of Muslim societies? To answer, based on the cultural history approach, various evidences of the use of illustration in Jewish tales have been investigated in Jewish and Islamic sources and their continuity in the Jewish communities of the dwellers of Islamic lands has been shown

Mukus tax (customs duty), a type of special tax on the import and export of commercial goods, was an important financial resource for governors in Egypt (19-254 AH/ 640-868 CE). The Mukus tax initiated by the Byzantine tax law of Egypt was adopted and applied in a modified form under the Muslim governors’ rule. The governors tried to capitalize on the proceeds of import and export, improve foreign trade and set up ports and to make them economically prosperous. Drawing on earlier sources, the study will examine the law associated with Mukus tax under Egyptian governors, the similarity of the mucus system with other systems like ʿushūr and how it affected Egypt’s economic system.

Aniconism in Islam is an incontrovertible presumption for the researchers of Islamic arts. The main question of this study is that what the imagination and interpretation of Muslims, in the early centuries, was about figural images which caused aniconism in Islam. The present paper shows that the permanence of the verdict seems to be associated with the cultural conception of magic and talismans which was rooted in the old civilizations such as Iran, Egypt and ancient Palestine. The main hypothesis is that the relation between image-making and the magic and talismans was one of the most important social factors that caused the reaction of Muslim jurists and scholars to the issue and subsequently led to the persistence of aniconism in the middle centuries. Therefore, it can be stated that Islam’s opposition to figural images was not from an aesthetic standpoint but along with the Quran’s stand against polytheists and idolaters, was because of that cultural conception of magic and talisman.

The profession of degreasing used to be an important and regular profession in the various parts of the Muslim world. Degreasing was most importantly used in the following areas: food, industry, as flammable substance and for medical purposes. Examining a wide range of historical, literary and social sources, the paper draws the scheme of degreasing profession in the structure and context of the world of Islam. The method employed for this purpose is ‘thick description’. This task is undertaken by depicting the general scheme of the profession and investigating the phenomenal aspect of the profession, like its various functions, the instruments of the task, the workplace, professional ethics, monitoring and payment of the professional, his main and subsidiary income, professional base and social status. Due to the tremendous variety of production and the demands of various groups of society for their production, the profession was high-paying and practitioner of this guild was considered to be affluent in the Muslim world.

Ra’iyyat, is used in three semantic fields in Islamic resources: it’s oldest and the most pervasive usage was known as one subordinates a ruler. This colloquial sense, based on the literal meaning of the word ra’i defined as shepherding and pasturing cattle, refers to an ancient tradition according to which the image of a ruler was a resemblance of a shepherd who protect and guide the people. In this sense, raiyyathas been the subject for many discussions and teachings in Islamic literature, especially in the books such as Adab al-Muluk (the king’s manners) and also official documents and letters in the first ten centuries of Islamic era. Since ra’iyyat had no right to meddle in political and military affairs, the second application of the term ra’ iyyat, means civilians, became prevalent in the Islamic literature and administration. According to many Islamic resources,in central and eastern regions of Islamic world, particularly, this term referred to classes of the king followers who were not allowed to carry weapons. The same definition of ra’iyyat became particularly prevalent in Safavid and Ottoman administration and ra’iyyat was used as a governmental term vis-à-vis “army”. The third definition of ra’iyyat was used to refer to the producers, taxpayers and farmers that often lived in central and eastern regions after the tenth century. Agricultural productions in main parts of the Islamic world were carried out on the basis of landlordism system and so vassals were the most important workers. In this article, along with explaining and comparing these three semantic fields, the historical evolution of the term in the related Islamic texts and also classification of ra’aya in Islamic administration will be considered .

Exilarch or Rosh Galut or ReishGaluta was the head of the Jewish Community in the Eastern regions and acted as the political and administrative moderator between the governments and their Jewish citizens. This post had an integrated political and administrative organization during Sassanian era and after that, it was also pursued in the basic structure of Islamic governments. This article provides a history of this institution in Sassanian era and then its evolution in the Islamic era and depicts an image of this institution including the mode of selecting the Exilarch, the customs of ascending the throne, his political, administrative and juridical duties and the way that this institution interacted with Islamic governments, based on the Islamic and Jewish resources.

Two founders of Fatimid caliphates were Abu cAbd Allah al- Shici and cUbayd allah al- Mahdi. They had different behavior with their Sunni subjects in two different era, i.e., invitation time and then at the beginnings of the formation of the state in Ifriqiyya. Taking into consideration those policies and behaviors, this article shows that there is a significant difference between the former caliphate and the latter with regard to the status of Sunnites. While Abu cAbd Allah followed a policy of toleration towards the Sunnites, al-Mahdi was prejudiced against them. Apart from their individual characteristics, the obvious difference was a result of the socio-political conditions. Historians told that Abu cAbd Allah's policy was according to the necessities of the missionary or invitation period on which it was going to fascinate hearts of the religious opponents to pave the way for the formation of the new state, but cUbayd Allah's policy was aimed at stabilizing of the state by emphasizing on Ismacili identity.

The precent article is an introduction by Franz Rosenthal, the prominent German orientalist, on a book in which he has tried to compile parts of the classic Islamic words that are in fact translations or adaptions of prior Greek texts; in order to prove the influence of Greek civilization on Islamic culture. The objective of this work is to explain the extent of the quantity and quality of Muslim contact with the Greek Classic heritage and various channels through which that heritage influenced the progressive Islamic thought of the succeeding ages. In his analytical introduction - the present translation - Rosenthal discusses the general importance of Islam's contact with the Greek Classic heritage and insists that this contact must be considered as the beginining of a fundamental and fruitful change in the history of mankind. In this view, west central Arabia can be regarded as a part, though a very far off one, of ancient Helenistic world. Considering the cultural revolution in the Arabian Peninsula following the advent of Islam and the Translation Movement of early Islamic centuries, he emphasizes the historical significance of the Muslim's adaptation of the Greek Classic heritage.

The Khazars were a nation of Turkic origin and language who from the 7th to lOth centuries A.D., Ist to 4th A.H., had a strong and independent state in the northeast regions of the Black Sea and the northwest areas of the Caspian sea. In early Islamic sources, the cities of Atel, Balenjar, and Samandar have been mentioned as different capitals of the Khazarian state. In the 2 nd half of the 8th century, the ruling class and the majority of the Khazars embraced Judaism, driven by political motives. In the Ist century A.H., relations between the Muslims and the Khazars were marked by endless and inconclusive wars on both sides of the Caucasus Mountains. Following the conversion of the Khazars to Judaism and the establishment of relatively cordial relations With the Abbasi khalifahs in Baghdad, though the intensity of these conflicts subsides, they sporadically continued until the conquest of the Khazars by the Russians in the 4 Th century A. H. Muslim travelers and geographers have given accounts of large populations of Muslims living in the country of the Khazars. The endeavor of this paper has been to portray a clear picture of the history of the khazars with an emphasis on their relations with the Muslims, based on ancient Islamic texts, and the reconstruction of the existing scattered information on the final fate of the Khazars.

Member of the Encyclopedia of the world of Islam. Many historians have researched about Abbasides' rebellion, repeatedly, as one of the most important events of the early Islam. However,there are no convincing replies for numerous questions about this subject yet. And there are still a lot for the researchers to find out about in this regard. In this article, by introducing one of the greatest emissaries of this movement, Bokayr b. Mahan, It has been tried to examine the role of his guidance and leadership, more exactly, first in kufeh and then in khorasan. And after that it has been tried to acquaint the readers with the process of events according to the facts which the resources give us about the leadership and his special role (with an emphasis on the oldest sources). It should be mentioned, of course that, It is never possible to get correct and scientific information of a movement, by studying the story and the so-called heroes of the story. But in most cases these are the inferior supporters who play the basic role in a movement and determine its nature and its course. In additian unfortunately the old sources and traditional historiography have always avoided to recognize the numerous inferior people and have just paid attention to few famous and recognized characters. However, the writer does not want to clarify the nature of insurrection and examine its different aspects, but he tries to explaine some valuable points which can be obtained by following Bokayr's political life. By this article, the writer wishes to take the first step for a more serious research and examination.