Die Arier

An interesting ZDF documentary about racist ideologies in Germany. 35 minutes into the documentary Josef Wiesehöfer is interviewed about the term ‘Arier’ followed by interviews  with people in Abyaneh, presumably because they are believed to be Zoroastrians! The journey to Iran ends with a few shots at Naqš-e Rostam.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHhh0o5cZj4

A new bibliographic blog!

As was planned, I have now moved this blog to a new location at Bibliographia Iranica. While purpose and scope remain largely the same, the new blog will be maintained by Sajad Amiri, Shervin Farridnejad, Yazdan Safaee and myself (Arash Zeini). I hope that we will be able to post more frequently on the new blog. On Facebook, the posts will be available on a dedicated page called Bibliographia Iranica. A Twitter account and Google+ page are forthcoming. Please do send us information about events and publications that you would like to see on the blog.

Thank you very much to all friends and colleagues who liked the idea of this bibliographic blog, encouraging me to widen its scope. And many thanks to Sajad, Shervin and Yazdan for agreeing to collaborate on the new site.

Map of the Zerafshan valley

Etienne de la Vaissière has kindly shared this map of the Zerafshan valley in the 7th century on academia.edu. He states:

Map drawn for my Histoire des marchands sogdiens, Paris: Collège de France, 2002, map 5. Please feel free to modify and adapt it to your needs: the layers can be modified in Illustrator. Although I have drawn it I claim no copyright, but would welcome that you mention the source.

 

Middle East Medievalists

Middle East Medievalists is an international professional association of scholars interested in the study of the medieval Islamic world’. The association’s website and online journal, Al-`Usur al-Wusta, are hosted by the Islamic History Commons.

MEM also have a page on Facebook.

انتشار اولین شماره «بساتین»

بساتین، نشريه‌اي علمي ـ تخصّصي در موضوع نسخه‌هاي خطي اسلامي است، اين نشريه در زمينه مطالعاتِ کتاب ‌شناختی، مباحث نسخه ‌شناسی، تاريخ علم مسلمانان، کتابخانه‌هاي تراثي، مجموعه‌داري کتب خطي و اسناد کهن، ترجيحاً با محوريّت ميراث مکتوب کهن شيعه و معرّفي آثار فرهيختگان مسلمان، به صورت دو فصلنامه، به سه زبان فارسي، عربي و انگليسي، منتشر مي‌گردد و قلمرو فعاليتِ آن نيز شامل تمامي حوزه‌هاي متنوّع کتاب‌ شناختي آثار تراثي، نسخه شناسی (دانش کوديکولوژی)، تصحیح متون کهن، فهرست نویسی نسخ خطي و اسناد کهن، در قالب و ساختاري پژوهشي است.

برای اطلاعات بیشتر به این پیوند رجوع کنید!

DABIR: Digital Archive of Brief notes & Iran Review

DABIR, published by the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture at the University of California, Irvine, is a new open access journal focusing on publishing brief notes rather than full length articles. Our aim is to speed up the publishing process, hoping to enable researchers to communicate and share their ideas more quickly.

Please visit the journal’s website, Facebook, Twitter or Google+ pages.

A few of our favourite things

The The International Dunhuang Project‘s (IDP) series of  A Few of Our Favourite Things is now complete. The 20 contributions cover a wide range of manuscripts found at Dunhuang, featuring among others objects discussed by Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst, Nicholas Sims-Williams and Prods Oktor Skjærvø.

Mantiq al-tayr ‘The Speech of the Birds’

Among the recently digitised Persian manuscripts of the British Library is the manuscript BL Add. 7735, an illustrated copy of Farīd al-Dīn ‘Aṭṭār’s Manṭiq al-ṭayr ‘The Speech of the Birds’. The Asian and African studies blog of the British Library discusses this manuscript and the Manṭiq al-ṭayr in a multi-part blog, featuring superb miniatures.

To find out more, see part 1, 2, 34.