فصلنامه پژوهش در تاریخ
سال یازدهم شماره 30 (بهار و تابستان 1400)

The theme of confrontation between Xrad (wisdom) and Āz (greed) is the most fundamental concepts of Iran, it is an adaptation of the creation myth human and it’s most pivotal element as a prince in political context. This confrontation in the unconscious minds of humans persists for generation and given the objective epic in the literature-mythical and made itself conscious. Samak-e ayyar story is an example of epic literature whose writer, myths based on symbols an ancient pattern that exists in Iranian mythology in the form of prominent characters such as samak-e ayyar, Khorshid shah, and extreme creatures have come up with damen and Fairy. In this article, particularly, the political society context of the story samak-e ayyar based on contrast between wisdom and greed reviewed. The main question is, what has the interaction of the concept of wisdom and greed affect the political context of the Samak-e ayyar story? This research is based on Iranian narratives, historically and in a descriptive analytical manner, tries to show the position of this theme in samak-e ayyar story and by referring to Avestan and Pahlavi texts, will examine the continuity of this confrontation. The results of this research show, confrontation wisdom and greed are the basis and focus of political thought Iranians and the main theme of the story, in the face of oppression it is embodied in its political context.

It is well recognised by scholars that in the ancient Greek mind the theme of the revengeful woman was as pervasive as it was persuasive. Fiona McHardy, for instance, has noted that the idea of the foreign or barbarian woman enacting gross acts of vengeance is pretty much routinely presented in Greek literature, and that barbarian women are depicted using specific ‘womanly’ tactics of persuasion, deception and patience in order to ensure that their revenge is both effective and devastating. Robert Rollinger’s recent investigation into human violence in Herodotus has noted that throughout the Histories, in which no fewer than ninety-two acts of violence are to be found, forty-two are perpetrated by Greece’s natural enemies, the Medes and Persians. Of these forty-two incidents, five are enacted by women of the royal house of Persia and of those five, four can be assigned as being specifically vendetta-motivated. The connection between the barbarian milieu and violence seems to be essential to the Herodotean view of history, but of all barbarian peoples, it is the Persians who stand out as the perpetrators of the acts of particularly violent despotism. And of all the Persian brutalities, those instigated by women tend to be the most violent, motivated as they are by purely the desire for revenge.

This very brief summary of Fakhr al-Din’s life includes the gist of the patronage he received: he had lived under the Khwarazmshahs and under the Ghurids and managed to gain patronage from both these parties, who were at war with one another. Yet in Herat, under the Ghurids and the Khwarazmshah, he was hated by the populace and could not go about openly in the street without bodyguards He studied there with his father and later in Nishapur. After he finished his education in Maragha we find him teaching at madrasas in Azerbaijan and western Iran. He teaches for some time in Rayy before he travels to Khwarazm and Transoxania in search of patronage. For a while unsuccessful, he eventually earns the favours of the Khwarazmshah Tekish and his family. Next, we hear that for reasons unknown to us he is expelled first from the lands of the Khwarazmshah and later from Transoxania, which is governed by the latter’s ally, the Qara Khitai.

This article examines the responses of the rural poor, both settled peasants and pastoral nomads, to the upheavals unleashed in the Iranian countryside by Riza Shah’s adoption of a programme of authoritarian state-building and rapid modernization. The article shows how, contrary to the conventional assumptions of rural passivity held by both Western scholarship and Iranian nationalism, peasant and nomad communities in fact generated a variety of active responses to the regime’s initiatives, both on their own account and in combination with other social forces, aimed at defending themselves and resisting unfavourable changes in their relations with landlords and state officials. In the two decades between his arrival in power in 1921 via a coup d’etat and his abdication in 1941, Riza Shah presided over a period of profound political, economic and social change in Iran, unprecedented in its scope and in its pace. Throughout the country the rural poor, both the settled peasants and the pastoral nomads, were deeply affected by the upheavals unleashed by the regime’s choice of authoritarian state-building and modernization based on European models.

The need to compile a comprehensive general history of the developments in Iran in the era of the Islamic Republic, after four decades of the Islamic Revolution, indicates a serious need not only at the level of historians but at all levels of Iranian society. Recognizing the need, the Islamic Revolutionary Documentation Center has made efforts to formulate such a plan. This comprehensive general history, with its micro-chronological divisions and detailed headings, tries to examine as much as possible all the big and small events of Iran after the revolution and the developments of the country in this period and give a complete and comprehensive picture, although not necessarily an obstacle. Especially to the current generation of Iranian society who have not been directly involved and witnessed many of these events. From the collection to the time of compiling this memo, five volumes have been published and have discussed the developments in Iran from February 13, 1979 to June 20, 1982. This note is dedicated to the review of the fifth volume of this collection. The author of this memo has tried to focus his critique of this volume by emphasizing the research method in the knowledge of history and the degree of its observance in this volume, and to present his evaluation from this point of view.