Introduction: Religious Diversity in Late Antique and Early Medieval Iran (original) (raw)
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Religiographies 2024 vol.3 no.
Religiographies, 2024
Zoroastrianism, as one of the oldest living religions in the world, presents a number of strictly archaic and initiatory characters, which emphasized the foundational role of the priestly college, spe cialized in the performative exercise of sacred oral poetry and its ritual use, and contemporarily charged with the mental and technical means to interplay with the gods in the daily and solemn sacrifices. The liturgy was the actual means through which it was possible not only to enter in direct connection with the gods invited to take part in the ritual, but also to promote the human sacerdotal college up to a higher dimension out of the mixed dimension of historical time. The power of the ritual thus elevated the priestly staff into an anticipation of the liberated time of the afterlife. The way through which the priests interplayed with the gods and on some occasions eventually represented and embodied them during the solemn liturgies, to which only strictly qualified members were admitted was, per se, hyper-esoteric. A number of Mazdean speculative categories created the theological framework for the philosophy of the liturgy. This was conceived as an uninterrupted chain of sacri ficial events underpinning the order and the structure of the world and the teleology of time, thus protecting the life and the pillars of the positive creation against the anti-cosmic disorder of Ahreman, the evil spirit. The Zoroastrian tradition in its millennial history inevitably went through various phases in which some of its theological doctrines changed or engaged in adaptations, and apart from the decay suffered after the collapse of the Sasanian Empire (224-651 CE), it assumed new lines of development, which marked the history of a (now) minoritarian, sometimes even persecuted, com munity living within the framework of mainly Islamic-and Hindu-dominated societies. This socio-religious situation eventually produced some profound changes, but it did not destroy various basic elements of continuity underpinning its ancestral background. In modern times, mostly the Parsis and the Indian Zoroastrian community experienced new intellectual and spiritual trends in dialogue with modern western Esoteric movements in both the colonial and post-colonial eras.
Programma European Academy of Religion
18-22 giugno 2017: European Academy of Religion, EX Nihilo: A “Zero Conference” on Research in the Religious Fields, Bologna. Intervento: Componimenti per varie occasioni: uno sguardo interno alla Lugo ebraica dei da Fano, all’interno del panel: Fonti per la storia e la cultura ebraica.
Religiographies, vol.1, n.1, pp. 1-13, 2022
In this first editorial of Religiographies, we will briefly discuss the history of the research centre that sponsors it, the Fondazione Giorgio Cini’s Centre for Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Spiritualities, since 1958, and present the journal, describing its aims and scope and why we think it is needed, and finally, we will explain the relevance of this inaugural special issue, “Holy Sites in the Mediterranean, Sharing and Division.”
Evolution of religion, ethnicity and community in the ancient Iran
Zoroastrianism may be one of the oldest continuously practiced religions in the Near East. Yet, it has dramatically changed from its distant almost monotheistic beginnings three millenniums ago to the later fire-centered practice. The purpose of this paper is to trace the development of Zoroastrianism and position it within the context of the social developments in the ancient Iran. The analysis uncovers the interaction of social networks in the region in pre-Islamic times and their influence on the development and status of Zoroastrianism as a state religion of that time.
Al-Idha , 2014
This Research Paper deals with the Functional Prerequisites in Islamic and Western Sociological Perspectives. Functional perquisites means: “the basic needs ; food, shelter and dress, etc. that an every individual requires to live his life. Functional prerequisites may also refer to the factors that allow a society to maintain social order.”In Islamic context Allah is the creature of the earth and heavens and every thing which is found between them. He produces every Functional and Spiritual prerequisites of human kind. He creates the man for Him and every thing of the Universe for man. Almighty Allah says: "So eat of the sustenance which Allah has provided for you, lawful and good; and be grateful for the favors of Allah”. (Quran 16:14) Functional Prerequisites are basic human needs, without them human cannot remain alive. Islamic sources discuss the basic needs of human in detail because Islam focuses on social issues keenly. The Shari’ah (Islamic Law) considers the saving of life in his basic objectives. In this research the Functional prerequisites from Islamic and western sociological perspectives are analytically compared. Keywords:Functional Prerequisites, Islamic and Western, Sociological Perspectives, comparative Study
History of Religions, 2023
This article examines the parallel conceptualizations of "religion" developed by two intellectuals of distinct backgrounds in late Sasanian Iran, Burzōy and Paul the Persian, and the broader climate of incipient "secularity" their ideas, and the convergence between them, may reflect. The article shows how these authors made similar innovations within their respective religious and scholarly traditions (Zoroastrianism for Burzōy, and specifically the genre of andarz or wisdom literature; East Syrian Christianity for Paul the Persian, along with late antique Neoplatonism) significantly breaking with their antecedents and contemporaries. Both Burzōy and Paul delineate a certain sphere of discourse, focused above all on questions of cosmology, eschatology, and the otherworldly consequences of action in this world, in which the members of various "traditions" or "religions" participate. These authors also share the assumption that the choice between these traditions or religions should be made on the basis of reason, and not tradition; and they are also each, in their way, emphatically non-committal to any individual tradition or religion. Aspects of Burzōy and Paul the Persian’s shared late Sasanian context, including the popularity of the inter-religious disputation, are brought forth to explain their parallel departures from tradition. The transmission and reception of these authors’ respective works and ideas in the medieval Islamic world are also considered, along with the broader intellectual legacy of the Sasanian Empire. The file uploaded here is the article's "final accepted version"; the published version can be accessed here: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/epdf/10.1086/724560.