Continuity in Iranian Identity: Resilience of a Cultural Heritage (Iranian Studies)

287 Pages·2010·1.1 MB·English

by  Fereshteh Davaran

Continuity in Iranian Identity
Despite changes in sovereignty and in religious thought, certain aspects
of Iranian culture and identity have persisted since antiquity. Drawing on
anexplorationofhistory,religionandliteraturetodefineIraniancultural
identity and link the Persian past with more recent cultural and political
phenomena,thisbookexaminesthehistoryofIranfromitsancientroots
to the Islamic period, paying particular attention to pre-Islamic Persian
religions and their influence upon later Muslim practices and precepts in
Iran.
Accessible English translations of the pre-Islamic Andarz (Advice) liter-
ature and of the Adab (Counsel) genre of the Islamic era illustrate the
convergenceofreligionandliteratureinIraniancultureandhowthemostly
religiousAdabtextswereverymuchinfluencedandshapedbytheAndarz
sources.Withinthecontextofthishistoricalmaterial,andinparticularthe
pre-Islamicreligiousmaterial,theauthorhighlightsitsliteraryandethical
implicationsonpost-IslamicIranianidentity.
Exploringthelinkbetweenaconsistentpre-IslamicIranianidentityanda
uniquepost-Islamicone,thisbookwillbeofinteresttostudentsofIranian
studies, Middle Eastern studies and Religious studies, as well as anyone
wishingtolearnmoreaboutPersianhistoryandculture.
FereshtehDavaran teachesPersianlanguagecoursesintheSanFrancisco
Bay area, most recently at the University of California, Berkeley, and at
DeAnzaandDiabloValleyColleges.Shehastranslatedthreeclassicworks
ofEnglishliteratureintoPersianandhaspublishedmanyliteraryreviewsin
bothlanguages.
IranianStudies
Editedby:HomaKatouzian,UniversityofOxfordand
MohamadTavakoli,UniversityofToronto
Since 1967 the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS) has been
a leading learned society for the advancement of new approaches in the
study of Iranian society, history, culture and literature. The new ISIS
IranianStudiesseriespublishedbyRoutledgewillprovideavenueforthe
publicationoforiginalandinnovativescholarlyworksinallareasofIranian
andPersianateStudies.
JournalisminIran
Frommissiontoprofession
HosseinShahidi
SadeqHedayat
Hisworkandhiswondrousworld
HomaKatouzian
Iraninthe21stCentury
Politics,economicsandconfrontation
HomaKatouzianandHosseinShahidi
Media,CultureandSocietyinIran
LivingwithglobalizationandtheIslamicstate
MehdiSemati
ModernPersianLiteratureinAfghanistan
Anomalousvisionsofhistoryandform
WaliAhmadi
ThePoliticsofIranianCinema
FilmandsocietyintheIslamicrepublic
SaeedZeydabadi-Nejad
ContinuityinIranianIdentity
Resilienceofaculturalheritage
FereshtehDavaran
Continuity in Iranian Identity
Resilience of a cultural heritage
Fereshteh Davaran
Firstpublished2010
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,OxonOX144RN
SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada
byRoutledge
270MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,
aninformabusiness
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
©2010FereshtehDavaran
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedor
reproducedorutilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,
orothermeans,nowknownorhereafterinvented,including
photocopyingandrecording,orinanyinformationstorageor
retrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublishers.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Davaran,Fereshteh.
ContinuityinIranianidentity:resilienceofaculturalheritage/
FereshtehDavaran.
p.cm.–(Iranianstudies;7)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
1.Iran–Civilization.2.Nationalcharacteristics,Iranian.3.Culture
diffusion–Iran–History.4.Iran–History.5.Iran–Religion.
6.Islam–Iran–History.7.Iran–Intellectuallife.8.Pahlavi
literature–Historyandcriticism.9.Religiousliterature,
Persian–Historyandcriticism.
10.Islamicliterature–Iran–Historyandcriticism.I.Title.
DS266.D382010 955–dc22
2009029915
ISBN 0-203-88630-5 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10:0-415-48104-X(hbk)
ISBN10:0-203-88630-5(ebk)
ISBN13:978-0-415-48104-5(hbk)
ISBN13:978-0-203-88630-4(ebk)
ForArdavan:
As our mother used to say, when Imam Ali was asked which
isbettertohave,abrotherorafriend,hereplied,“Abrother
whoisalsoafriend.”
TomysonHamidandmynephewsBobak,AshkonandArdi,
andtoalltheirsignificantothers:
Youarethefutureofourincreasinglysmallclan.

Contents
Acknowledgements viii
Preface x
Introduction 1
1 OldIranians 7
2 MiddleIranians 30
3 Iranianreligions 64
4 MiddlePersianliterature:Andarz 99
5 IranianpersistenceintheIslamicera 136
6 Islamic-eraPersianliterature:Adab 170
Conclusion 220
Notes 223
Bibliography 255
Index 267
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the members of my PhD dissertation committee in
the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California,
Berkeley,ProfessorsWaliAhmadi,MartinSchwartzandGaryHolland,for
their careful readings and expert advice. I especially appreciate the quick
and generous responses of my committee chair, Professor Ahmadi, not
only through the last few years, but also particularly during his sabbatical
year of 2004–5. Professors Hamid Algar and Mohammed Este’alami,
ProfessorEmeritusDavidStronach,andthelateProfessorMohammedJafar
Mahdjoub also were great teachers when I was their student; Professor
Homayoun Katouzian deserves my gratitude as well for his helpful role
in finding a publisher for this book. I also would like to thank Jasmin
Shahbandi,MaryMarsellaandJonahHolmes,myfellowstudents,forread-
ing and commenting on my work. My family and friends were supportive
andvery,verypatient.Finally,IextendmydeepestthankstoLauraSteele,
myfriendandeditor,withoutwhosetechnicalskillsandvastknowledgeof
relatedsubjectsthisworkwouldnothavereacheditsfruition.Anyerrorsin
factorjudgmentremainmyown.
All translations are mine unless stated otherwise. For those English
translationsbyothersthatarenotinthepublicdomain,Ihavemadeevery
efforttosecurepermissiontocitethemextensively.Inonlytwocases–thatis,
thoseofR.Levy’s1951translationof‘Unsural-Ma‘ali’sMirrorforPrincesand
ofG.M.Wickens’1964translationofNasiral-DinTusi’sTheNasireanEthics–
wasIunabletocontactthecurrentrightsholdersdespitemybestefforts,
and I cite those texts below in good faith. I thank Durham University for
permissiontociteF.R.C.Bagley’s1964translationofGhazaliTusi’sBookof
CounselforKings;BibliothecaPersicaPressforpermissiontociteS.Shaked’s
1979 translation of A. Emetan’s Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages: D¯enkard VI;
the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters for permission to cite
A.V. Williams’ 1990 translation of The Pahlavi Rivayat Accompanying the
Dadestan-i Denig; and Taylor & Francis Books UK for permission to cite
H.Darke’s1978translationofNizamal-MulkTusi’sTheBookofGovernment;
or,RulesforKings.
Acknowledgements ix
Throughout this book, I use the standard Library of Congress translit-
erations of Persian and Arabic into Latin script; one may find slightly
differenttransliterationsofthesamewordselsewhere,aswiththesurname
ofthelateProfessorAhmadTafazzuli,frequentlyrenderedasTafazzoliby
others. Whenever authors have published in English, I follow their own
transliterations of their names. I also normalize the spellings of proper
nouns and other foreign words in direct quotations in order to avoid
confusion. For some words that go through changes in different stages of
Iranian history, alternative forms are at times mentioned in parentheses,
andsubsequentlyonlyoneformisused.