Arash Zeini

Tag: Late Antiquity

  • The Babylonian Talmud and the Paikuli inscription

    Herman, Geoffrey . 2014. Insurrection in the academy: The Babylonian Talmud and the Paikuli inscription. Zion 79(3). 377–407.

    In the Sasanian Empire Persian court culture cast its shadow well beyond the palace walls in Ctesiphon. Palatial or imperial custom was ubiquitous and smaller courts, as indeed the Divine Kingdom in heaven, acquired for themselves many of the characteristics of the royal court. Court culture impacted greatly on diverse realms of life including not just political thought, but also Sasanian art, literature, and religion.
    The Jews of Babylonia lived within this imperial context and it shaped their outlook. They looked upon royal palace culture in admiration as an ideal worthy of imitation. The Babylonian rabbinic academy and the literature woven around it may therefore be conceptualized and interpreted in light of this imperial context.
    The rabbinic academy is, indeed, portrayed as a ‘kingdom’, a microcosm of the royal palace. Here, its leaders presided over assembles sitting in a dignified and luxurious manner. They ‘reigned’ as doormen guarded the entrance, and certain court ‘rituals’ were observed.
    This article traces ways in which Babylonian rabbis employed Sasanian imperial themes when portraying the contemporary rabbinic academy, and when developing tales of court intrigue and usurpation narratives set in the rabbinic academy.
    Focusing on the Babylonian Talmud’s revision of the Yerushalmi’s account of the deposition of Rabban Gamaliel from the patriarchate (BT. Berakhot 27b-28a), the article suggests that specific images within the story evoke Sasanian imperial culture and literature. Indeed, its revision mirrors in many ways the themes and structure of a contemporary source – the monumental Paikuli inscription, a late third century CE royal inscription that describes a struggle over the Persian throne. This inscription, while describing a historical event, is itself inspired by, and partially caste in accordance with mythical and epic Iranian models and literary patterns. It can therefore serve to exemplify the genre of usurpation accounts to which the Talmudic authors were also exposed. More generally, these parallels highlight the impact of the Sasanian literary heritage on the Babylonian Talmud.
    Notwithstanding the fictional nature of many of the sources explored in this paper, they are nevertheless illustrative of the way in which the Babylonian academy was imagined. They are, in fact, suggestive of the actual dimensions of this institution of higher education when these sources were being created.

  • The last ruling woman of Ērānšhahr

    Daryaee, Touraj. 2014. The last ruling woman of Ērānšahr: Queen Āzarmīgduxt. International Journal of the Society of Iranian Archaeologists 1(1). 77–81.

    Read the article here.

  • Building a new vision of the past in the Sasanian Empire

    Canepa, Matthew. 2013. Building a new vision of the past in the Sasanian Empire: The sanctuaries of Kayānsīh and the great fires of Iran. Journal of Persianate Studies 6. 64–90.

    This article analyzes how Zoroastrian holy sites as celebrated in the Avesta or elaborated in later, related traditions, emerged as important architectural and ritual centers in late antiquity. Instead of ancient foundations whose details were lost in the depths of time, this paper argues that some of the holiest sanctuaries of the Zoroastrian religion, including Ādur Gušnasp, Ādur Farnbāg, Ādur Burzēn-Mihr, Ādur Karkōy and Lake Kayānsīh, emerged no earlier than the Arsacid era, and were actively manipulated and augmented by the Sasanian dynasty.

    Read the article here.

  • To convert a Persian

    Kiperwasser, Reuven. 2014. To convert a Persian and to teach him the holy scriptures: A Zoroastrian proselyte in Rabbinic and Syriac Christian narratives. In Geoffrey Herman (ed.), Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians: Religious dynamics in a Sasanian context, 91–127. Gorgias Press.

    Read the article here.

  • Review: The Iranian Talmud

    Hezser, Catherine. 2014. Review of Shai Secunda: The Iranian Talmud. Reading the Bavli in its Sasanian context. Theologische Literaturzeitung 139(7/8). 867–869.

    Catherine Hezser, SOAS, has reviewed Shai Secunda’s excellent The Iranian Talmud. The last paragraph of the review says it all:

    This relatively short (the body of text has 146 pages only) but excellent and methodologically careful discussion sums up previous approaches to studying the Bavli contextually and constitutes the basis of all future comparative studies. The book will interest not only Talmudists and historians of ancient Judaism but also scholars of Iranian history and Zoroastrian religion and scholars and students of early Christianity.

    Read the review here.

  • Review: Remembering and forgetting the Persian past

    Elizabeth Urban has reviewed Sarah Bowen Savant’s very important The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion for Marginalia:

    However, The New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran will prove fascinating to anyone interested in identity narratives and how authors shape the past in the service of the present. Savant builds a bridge between the history of Persia and the memory of Persia, and atop this bridge we can clearly witness the inherent tension in any identity between the old and the new.

    Read the full review here.

  • Secrecy and canonisation

    Bahari Lecture Series: “Sasanian Iran in the Context of Late Antiquity”

    20 May (Week 4)
    Arash Zeini (University of St Andrews):
    Secrecy and canonisation in Sasanian Iran: A scholastic reading of the Zand

    Tuesday at 5pm
    Ioannou Centre for Classical & Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles’, Oxford (OCLA)

  • Bahari lecture series

    Sasanian Iran in the Context of Late Antiquity

    Tuesdays of Weeks 2–9 of Trinity Term 2014 at 5pm
    Ioannou Centre for Classical & Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles’

    The lectures are convened by Professor Touraj Daryaee and Professor Edmund Herzig and organised by the Oxford Centre for Late Antiquity (OCLA). The full programme is here.

  • The Sasanian Empire as a garden

    The Sasanian Empire as a garden: The limits of Iranshahr

    Speaker: Touraj Daryaee (University of California, Irvine)
    Where: The British Institute of Persian Studies, London
    When: 22 May 2014

    Poster at the BIPS.

  • Public lecture II

    02_Ardashir_investiture2. The Sasanian Empire and religious authority: The case of Zoroastrianism

    As one of the major political and economic powers in the region, the Sasanian Empire (224–651 CE) elevated Zoroastrianism to the dominant religious and cultural force within its polity, bringing to the foreground the question of the interaction between religion and sovereignty in the Sasanian era. By providing an historical overview this lecture highlights the dynamics between political and religious authority during the Sasanian era.

    Speaker: Arash Zeini
    Where: University of St Andrews, School of Classics, Swallowgate, S11.
    When: 07 May 2014, 17:30

  • Markets for land

    Rezakhani, Khodadad & Michael Morony. 2014. Markets for land, labour and capital in late antique Iraq, AD 200-700. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 57. 231–261.

    Read the article here. Abstract:

    Lack of direct evidence on the functioning of factor markets in Sasanian/Late Antique Iraq makes it difficult to present a clear picture of the production side of economy during this period. However, relying on the Talmudic evidence, as well as what is men-tioned in the Mādayān ī Hezār Dādestān (MHD), this article aims to provide an idea of factor markets during the Sasanian period, as well as demonstrating the areas where further evidence and research could render better results and allow us to understand the economy of this region in more depth.

  • Patterns of argumentation in late antique and early Islamic interreligious debates

    A workshop taking place on 21–22 February 2014 at King’s College London.

    Visit the workshop website. The programme is available here.

    The workshop ‘Patterns of Argumentation in Late Antique and Early Islamic Interreligious Debates’ brings together a group of experts on late antique and early Islamic religious texts to reflect on this type of literature. We will discuss how religious ideas in the Eastern Mediterranean world (6th-8th c. CE) were shaped by the challenges of rival religious groups, and especially what patterns of argumentation were employed within the genre of religious disputation in order to formulate answers to critical questions from inside and outside the community.

  • Further engaging the paradigm of Late Antiquity

    Pourshariati, Parvaneh. 2013. Introduction: Further engaging the paradigm of Late Antiquity. Journal of Persianate Studies 6. 1–14.

    In her excellent introduction to the latest volume of Journal of Persianate Studies, a special issue, Pourshariati discusses the problem of periodisation in the study of Iranian history. Read the article here.