Boston University CAS 233 Houchang E. Chehabi Spring 2012 IR 329/HI 385: PREMODERN IRAN

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1 1 Boston University CAS 233 Houchang E. Chehabi Spring 2012 IR 329/HI 385: PREMODERN IRAN This course covers the history of the Iranian plateau and adjacent areas from the eve of the Muslim conquest of the Sasanian Empire (early 7 th century) to the eve of the Constitutional Revolution of It aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to Persian culture and Iranian history, including sessions on Persian literature, sociopolitical thought, and the visual arts. Each session will comprise a lecture and a discussion of the assigned readings. Requirements: each week students must turn in a one-page paper in response to one of the items on the reading list for that week. A total of eleven papers will be expected from each student in the course of the semester, and each paper will account for 5 % of the grade. Class participation will count for 15 % of the grade. There will be a final cumulative exam which will count for 30 % of the final grade. A student can miss up to two lectures; for every additional lecture missed the final grade will be taken down one level (an A will become an A- etc.). Cell phones are not allowed in class; a student found texting will be asked to leave the class. Required readings include books and articles; they are available on Blackboard. Office hours are Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:00-3:00 and Wednesday by appointment. The instructor can be reached at Students are expected to know and understand the provisions of the CAS academic code. Cases of suspected academic misconduct will be referred to the Dean s Office. Students are expected to know and understand the provisions of the CAS academic code. No make-up exams will be given except in very exceptional circumstances travel arrangements will not count as such. Weekly Schedule Week 1 January 17: Introduction to the Geography of the Iranian plateau January 19: Pre-Islamic Iran Richard N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia: Arabs in the East, pp Week 2 January 24: The Islamization of Iran January 26: Beginnings of Persian Awakening David Morgan, Medieval Persia , pp Richard N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia, pp Roy Mottahedeh, Some Islamic Views of the Pre-Islamic Past, Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 1 (1994):

2 2 Week 3 January 31: Ferdowsi and the Shahnameh February 2: Shahnamehs and the arts of the book: Museum visit or lecture A. Shapur Shahbazi, Ferdows : A Critical Biography, pp , 30-41, 49-53, 77-86, Excerpts from the Shahnameh. Week 4 February 7: The Persian Language February 9: Persianate Political Culture Gilbert Lazard, The Origins of Literary Persian. Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi, Persian, the Other Sacred Language of Islam: Some Brief Notes, in Omar Alí-de-Unzaga, ed., Fortresses of the Intellect: Ismaili and Other Islamic Studies in Honour of Farhad Daftary (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011), pp Kai K s ibn Iskandar, A Mirror of Princes, The Q b s N ma, trans. Reuben Levy, excerpts. Week 5 February 14: The Encounter with Turks February 16: Political History of Pre-Mongol Iran David Morgan, Medieval Persia , pp Richard N. Frye, The Golden Age of Persia, pp Clifford Edmund Bosworth, The Ghaznavids: Their Empire in Afghanistan and Eastern Iran, pp Nizam al-mulk, Book of government or, Rules for Kings, trans. Hubert Darke, pp Week 6 February 21: No class February 23: The Mongol Invasions David Morgan, Medieval Persia , pp George Lane, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth Century Iran: a Persian Renaissance, pp

3 3 Week 7 February 28: Pragmatism and Antinomianism in Persian Literature March 1: Sufism and Hafiz Sa di of Shiraz, The Rose Garden. Obeyd-e Zakani: Ethics of the Aristocrats & Other Satirical Works, trans. Hasan Javadi, pp Hafiz, Ghazals. Annemarie Schimmel, The Genius of Shiraz: Sa di and H fez, in Ehsan Yarshater, ed., Persian Literature, pp Week 8 March 6: Zoroastrians in Medieval Iran March 8: Jews in Medieval Iran Jamsheed Choksy, Conflict and Cooperation: Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society, pp Robert Brody, Judaism in the Sasanian Empire: A Case Study in Religious Coexistence, in Shaul Shaked and Amnon Netzer, eds., Irano-Judaica II, pp More to be announced. Week 9 March 20: The Legacy of the Timurids March 22: The Rise of the Safavids David Morgan, Medieval Persia , pp Thomas Lentz and Glenn D Lowry, Timur and the Princely Vision: Persian Art and Culture in the Fifteenth Century, chapter 1. Saïd Amir Arjomand, The Rise of Shah Esm il as a Mahdist Revolution, in Studies on Persianate Societies 3 (2005): Kathryn Babayan, Sufis, Dervishes and Mullas: the Controversy over Spiritual and Temporal Dominion in Seventeenth-Century Iran, in Charles Melville, ed., Safavid Persia: The History and Politics of an Islamic Society, pp Week 10 March 27: Shah Abbas March 29: Safavid Society David Morgan, Medieval Persia , pp Edmund Herzig, The Deportation of the Armenians in and Europe s Myth of Sh h Abb s I, in Charles Melville, ed., History and Literature in Iran: Persian and Islamic Studies in honour of P.W. Avery, pp Kathryn Babayan, The Aq id al-nis : A Glimpse of Safavid Women in Local Isfahani Culture, in Gavin Hambly, ed., Women in the Medieval Islamic World, pp Week 11

4 4 April 3: The Safavids Relations with Europe and Persia in the European Imagination April 5: Film on Isfahan Rudi Matthee, The Safavids under Western Eyes: Seventeenth-Century European Travelers to Iran, Journal of Early Modern History 13 (2009): Masashi Haneda, Europeans at Bandar Abbas and the State of Persia in the 17th and 18th Centuries, in Markus Ritter, Ralph Kauz und Birgitt Hoffmann, eds., Iran und iranisch geprägte Kulturen: Studien zum 65. Geburtstag von Bert G. Fragner, pp Montesquieu, Persian Letters, excerpts. Week 12 April 10: The Religious Sphere under the Safavids April 12: The Eighteenth Century Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi i Islam, pp V.B. Moreen, The Status of Religious Minorities in Safavid Iran, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 40 (1981): Vera B. Moreen, A Seventeenth-Century Iranian Rabbi s Polemical Remarks on Jews, Christians, and Muslims, in Michel Mazzaoui, ed., Safavid Iran and Her Neighbors, pp John R. Perry, Cultural currents in the Turco-Persian world of Safavid and post-safavid times, in Colin P. Mitchell, ed., New Perspectives on Safavid Iran: Empire and society, pp David Morgan, Medieval Persia , pp Week 13 April 17: Early Qajar Rule: April 19: Late Qajar Rule: Nikki R. Keddie, Qajar Iran and the Rise of Reza Khan, pp Nikki Keddie, The Economic History of Iran, , in Iran: Religion, Politics and Society, pp Monica Ringer, Negotiating Modernity: Ulama and the Discourse of Modernity in Nineteenth- Century Iran, in Ramin Jahanbegloo, ed., Iran: Between Tradition and Modernity, pp Week 14 April 24: Non-Muslims in Iran April 26: The Beginnings of Iranian Modernism Daniel Tsadik, The Legal Status of Religious Minorities: Im m Sh Law and Iran s Constitutional Revolution, Islamic Law and Society 10:3 (2003): Abbas Amanat, The historical roots of the persecution of Babis and Baha is in Iran, in Dominic Parviz Brookshaw and Seena B. Fazel, eds., The Baha is of Iran: Socio-historical studies, pp Mehrdad Amanat, Messianic expectation and evolving identities: the conversion of Iranian Jews to the Baha i faith, in ibid., pp Mangol Bayat, Mysticism and Dissent: Socioreligious Thought in Qajar Iran, chapter 5.

5 5 Week 15 May 1: Conclusions Alessadro Bausani, The Qajar period: an epoch of decadence?, in Edmond Bosworth and Carole Hillenbrand, eds., Qajar Iran: Political, Social, and Cultural Change