https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/ Iranian Journal for the History of Islamic Civilization en daily 1 Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0330 Wed, 11 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0330 https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106334.html The Mevleviyya was one of the most influential Sufi orders of the Ottoman era. Through the institution of the Mevlevihane (Mawlawi Lodge), it succeeded in preserving, disseminating, and reinterpreting the cultural legacy of Jalal al-Din Balkhi/ Rumi (d. 672/ 1273) throughout the Ottoman realm. The Mevlevihanes were not merely lodges for spiritual discipline and the training of disciples; rather, they functioned as cultural institutions that played a fundamental role in the transmission, continuity, and institutionalization of Iranian cultural heritage. The central question of this study is how the Mevlevihanes became arenas for the reproduction and expansion of Iranian cultural elements within the Ottoman domains, while simultaneously contributing to the formation of the empire’s cultural identity. The findings of this research demonstrate that within the Mevlevihanes of the Ottoman realm, various elements of Iranian culture, such as Nowruz and Ashura, were manifested through distinctive rituals and practices. Moreover, the Persian language, through the tradition of Masnavi recitation and commentaries on Rumi’s works, attained a privileged status. Mastery of Persian thus became essential for a deeper understanding of Rumi’s thought and the broader literary heritage of Iran within the Mevlevihanes. From this perspective, the Mevlevihanes were not only spiritual centers but also significant cultural hubs that fostered a vital connection between Iranian traditions and the Ottoman spiritual and cultural milieu. Examining the role of these institutions opens new horizons for the study of historical interactions between Iranian and Ottoman cultures and underscores the importance of paying closer attention to the history of Sufism and its cultural institutions. https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106337.html Iran and the Ottoman Empire had a relationship full of many ups and downs over the centuries. Following the signing of the Second Treaty of Erzurum on 16 Jumadi al-Thani 1263 AH/ June 1, 1847, efforts to resolve the two countries' disputes, focusing on border delimitation, began. The activity of the first border delimitation commission, which lasted from 1266 to 1268 AH (1850-1852 AD), ended without result, and the disputes between the two governments remained unresolved. Twenty-four years after the end of the first commission, with the mediation of Russia and England, preparations were made for holding the second commission in Istanbul. Over the course of two years, four rounds of negotiations took place (from Shawwal 17, 1291 AH/ December 26, 1874, to Dhul Hijjah 8, 1292 AH/ January 5, 1876). The study attempts to explain, using a descriptive and analytical approach and based on newly discovered documents, how and why the Second Commission was held and the reasons for its postponement and suspension. The research findings indicate that negotiations were postponed due to internal crises in the Ottoman Empire, followed by the Balkan uprising and Russia's declaration of war on the Ottoman Empire (April 24, 1877/ Rabi' al-Thani 10, 1294). Diplomatic efforts by Iranian representatives to resume negotiations failed due to the unwillingness of the representatives of the three governments of Russia, Britain, and the Ottoman Empire, and the Second Commission for Delimitation was suspended. Once again, diplomatic efforts to resolve the Iranian-Ottoman disputes failed. https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106338.html The transformation of the international legal order in the nineteenth century confronted Eastern polities with a constellation of novel principles that unsettled the foundations of their traditional relations. Concepts such as territorial sovereignty, sovereign equality of states, non-intervention, and the binding force of treaties, rooted in modern rationality and a Eurocentric logic, operated as the common language of the emerging order and rendered entry into it unavoidable. Qajar Iran, situated amid political pressures, imperial rivalries, and diplomatic imperatives, was compelled to rethink its place within this nascent system. Adopting a historical–analytical approach, this study examines how Iran engaged these principles. The methodology rests on critical analysis of diplomatic documents, legal texts, and reports of missions and travelogues, including Sefaratameh, Heyratnameh, and the mission report of the Ajodanbashi (Adjutant-General). The findings indicate that Iran did not merely receive these concepts passively; rather, it acted as a conscious agent seeking to recalibrate modern notions in light of its own intellectual, political, and cultural contexts. Although colonial structures and geopolitical asymmetries constrained the scope for action, Iranian legal discourse gradually assumed a more indigenous orientation and began to articulate an autonomous legal identity within the new order. The study shows that Iran’s transition to modern international law was neither linear nor simple, but a complex, contested, and ultimately generative process, one that combined the unavoidable adoption of modern principles with elements of resistance and conceptual re-articulation. In this sense, Iran’s encounter with modern international law exemplifies a negotiated accommodation, in which reception, critique, and reinterpretation unfolded in tandem, helping shape a distinctive legal self-understanding within the global order. https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106339.html Haji Mirza Zain al-Abedin Shirvani (1194-1253 AH/ 1780-1837 AD) was a Sufi master of the Ni'matullahi order during the Qajar period. He spent nearly four decades traveling through various Islamic lands in pursuit of spiritual truth and self-knowledge. He documented his observations in three major travelogues titled Rīyāḍ al-Sīyāḥa, Ḥadāʼiq al-Sīyāḥa, and Bustān al-Sīyāḥa. In his works, Shirvani viewed geography as going beyond mere topography, considering it a medium for spiritual wayfaring, discovering truth, and attaining self-knowledge. In his view, geography was not merely a description of place, but an instrument for representing diverse human cultures, mystical paths, and beliefs. He used it to narrate his spiritual journey, convey mystical concepts, and explore the relationship between humanity and the universe. The Caucasus was among the regions that attracted Shirvani’s attention, including its natural geography, human and ethnic diversity, and specific areas such as Dagestan, Circassia, Talesh, Arran, Qarabagh, Armenia, Georgia, and their dependencies. The Caucasus, which had been separated from Iran by the Russians, became the focus of Shirvani's travel during a critical historical period, lending particular significance to his accounts of the region. The present study aims to revisit and critique the representation of the historical geography of the Caucasus in these works. Using a critical approach and historical criticism, the geographical and historical data in Shirvani’s travelogues were examined and compared with earlier sources. Findings reveal that although his reports on the Caucasus largely rely on earlier Islamic historians and geographers and offer little innovative detail, his firsthand observations, especially regarding demographic composition, linguistic diversity, religions, and cultural characteristics of certain Caucasian cities, are valuable and unique. The novelty of this article lies in its critical emphasis on the role of Shirvani’s travelogues in both continuing and reimagining the Islamic tradition of historical geography concerning the Caucasus. https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106340.html The present study aims to analyze the critiques made by Pahlavi-era clerics of the Safavid government's religious approaches. As the first comprehensive Shia state in Iran, the Safavids had a profound impact on shaping the religious and cultural identity of Iranians, and a critical reassessment of their religious policies can contribute to a better understanding of the evolution of religious thought in Iran. By examining the works and perspectives of clerics such as Ebrahim Zanjani, Shariat Sangalaji, Khomeini, Taleqani, Motahhari, Beheshti, Abolfazl Borqe'i, and Salehi Najafabadi, who belong to different intellectual currents, this research has identified three main axes of critique concerning the Safavids' religious approaches. First, religious despotism and the instrumental use of religion to consolidate political power were primarily raised by revolutionary clerics who emphasized the contradiction between religious despotism and authentic Islamic teachings. Second, the departure from rationality and the prevalence of innovation and superstition, which was the most frequently repeated axis of critique and was raised by a diverse spectrum of clerics with Salafi, philosophical, and reformist tendencies. Third, sectarian division and the weakening of Islamic unity, which was influenced by the discourse of Islamic awakening and the unity of the Islamic world against Western colonialism. The research findings indicate that contemporary clerics' critiques of the Safavids' religious approaches were influenced by their intellectual origins, epistemological concerns, and political orientations, reflecting the transformations of religious thought in contemporary Iran https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106341.html Doctrines are fundamental elements in the formation of governments and social systems that regulate power relations, legitimize rulers, and guide domestic and foreign policies. Every government system is founded on an ideological framework that shapes its values, laws, and structures. These doctrines can influence areas such as economics, culture, religion, and even art and architecture. In Safavid Iran, these doctrines not only transformed the political and social structure but also influenced artistic and architectural styles. The Safavids, relying on religious legitimacy and the concentration of power, sought to express part of their political and cultural identity through urban architecture and magnificent buildings. One of the most prominent manifestations of this influence can be seen in the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque in Isfahan. Our main issue in this research is how the reflection of Shiite teachings in the architecture of the Safavid era, with emphasis on the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque, was manifested. This research, employing the historical method and a descriptive-analytical approach, draws on sources and field observation of works of art to answer the above question. It seems that the Safavid rulers used the application of teachings in the field of art and architecture as an effective tool for legitimizing and promoting the Shia religion, and the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque had become a symbol of Shiite political architecture. https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106342.html Traditional Turkish drama or Temaşa (aka Spectacle) was integral to the social life of the Ottoman people. These plays were performed by stock characters in the open air, without a written text, and were mainly structured around a primary plot, with abstract, minimal set decoration. However, the newly introduced Western drama in the 19th century was equal to the performance of Aristotelian texts on the stage of a theatre hall. This dramatic transformation depicts a journey from performing conventions to the theatrical rules and from the realm of diegesis to mimesis. This study aims to trace traditional theatre in Turkish modern drama during three historical eras, including Tanzimat, Constitutional, and the Republic, from its inception to the end of its first period in 1940. Through narratological analysis of the case studies of The Wedding of the Poet (aka Şair Evlenmesi) by İbrahim Şinasi (1859), The Lord of Istanbul (İstanbul Efendi) by Musahipzade Celal (1913), and A Guest Came… (aka Bir Misafir Geldi…) by Celaleddin Ezine (1939), it can be said that although Turkish modern theatre initially had a familiar relationship with the traditional theatre, dramatic literature gradually distanced itself from diegetic narrative discourse and ultimately formed a mimetic structure https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106344.html The phenomenon of narrative warfare is one of the central components in the formation, consolidation, or weakening of discourses in religious and historical societies, especially in the context of political and ideological conflicts. In modern communications literature, this phenomenon is considered one of the main branches of soft warfare and a manifestation of cognitive warfare, which uses media, narrative, and persuasion to reconstruct reality in the minds of the audience. This research, focusing on the relationship between the war of narratives and the two fundamental concepts of morality and expediency, conducts a comparative study of the two intellectual-political movements of the impeccable Imams (AS) and the intellectual-political movements dependent on the ruling power in the early Islamic centuries. The main question is to what extent the two main currents in this field have adhered to expressing truths and moral values, or have they used narrative to serve expedient goals. The present study, using a descriptive-analytical method and based on reliable sources of the sects, first reviewed the concepts of narration, morality, and expediency, and then identified and compared narrative methods such as distortion, deletion, guided interpretation, and fabrication. And then, the relationship between purpose and means in narrative is analyzed, and the question of whether the legitimacy of the purpose can justify the use of unethical means is examined. The results show that power-dependent political movements have often considered political objectivity a license to manipulate narratives, whereas the intellectual-political movement of the impeccable Imams (AS) has been based on adherence to truth and observance of moral standards in the logic of narrative. This study has finally explored and analyzed, in a comparative manner, the consequences of these two logics for the collective memory of Muslims and the production of religious knowledge https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106346.html In the digital age, "Algorithmic Authority" has emerged as the dominant mediating force governing knowledge ecosystems. This article analyzes a fundamental challenge: "The structural antagonism between the operational logic of algorithmic information systems and the cognitive requirements of "Historical Thinking." Defined as a critical competence essential for sound judgment, cognitive autonomy, and the continuity of civilizational awareness, historical thinking relies on principles such as contextual analysis, source verification, corroboration, and the comprehension of multi-causal complexity. This research tackles the central problem of how the inherent logics of algorithmic systems, including engagement optimization, personalization, computational opacity, and decontextualizing structures, systematically undermine and neutralize these cognitive principles. Adopting a conceptual-analytical approach and drawing upon a critical synthesis of interdisciplinary literature, this study elucidates this collision. The key finding asserts that the erosion of historical thinking does not simply reflect a deficit in individual media literacy. Instead, it results as a structural and inevitable consequence of the irreconcilable conflict between these two logics. By subverting individual autonomy in the public sphere, this erosion ultimately precipitates a crisis in "Civilizational Awareness," which underpins a critical collective memory. https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106347.html The expansion of relations between Iran and Europe during the Safavid era (16-18 AD/ 10-12 AH) led Europeans to broaden their understanding of Iran’s geography. Europeans pursued this goal by extensively producing and distributing geographic maps during this period. Unlike travel writers, European cartographers rarely conducted fieldwork or surveys, leading to perceptual errors in Iranian toponyms on their maps. The number of maps and the diversity of information they included about Iran’s geographical features, especially descriptions of its natural landscape, were remarkable. In this context, the present article examines how the river "Bendemir" was named and depicted on a map of Iran and its surrounding regions created by the French cartographer Guillaume Delisle in 1702 AD (1113 AH). This study specifically asks: What is the historical origin of the name "Bandemir" on Delisle’s map, where is it located along the northern coast of the Persian Gulf, and to what extent does Delisle’s placement match the geographical realities of the Safavid period? The article uses a descriptive-comparative methodology and draws on various Iranian and European sources to assess this natural feature, as shown on Delisle’s map. The study's findings reveal a pattern of tension between the cartographer’s mental geography and the territorial realities of the Safavid era. Specifically, the river labeled "Bandemir" lacked an independent geographical identity along the northern coast of the Persian Gulf, nor did it align with the territorial realities of the Safavid province of Fars. Delisle, shaped by perceptual errors from previous travel writers and cartographers, and by the historical fame of the dam known as Amir, which ‘Azad al-Dawla of the Buyid dynasty reportedly built, gave this name to what scholars would later identify as the Sakkan or Qara-Aghaj River. https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106348.html The growth of Islamic movements in Muslim societies during the recent decades has brought about increasing attention of scholars to roots and records of such happenings. In this field, the study of Muslims’ responds to the colonial presence of European powers in Islamic lands, attracting academics, has resulted in various theories. Following this approach, the present work aims to study the movement of an Islamic sect, namely Sanusiyya/ Senussiyyah, in north Africa, especially in Libya, during 1850-1914 when their successful struggle against European colonial powers helped Muslim awaking much. The findings show that from ideological point of view, Sanusis’ beliefs were founded on local understanding of Islam-Sufism in Libya. This restricted expansion of Sanusism within and without Libya. As to the financial resources, the Sanusis were mostly dependent on slave trade. But this asset became unreliable as a result of slavery trade prohibition policy of the great powers in the 19th century. In the field of political-military efforts, it seems that the origin of Sanusis’ achievements should be searched for in the colonial policies of Britain (in Egypt and Sudan) and France (in Tunis and Algeria) who to avoid unnecessary conflicts preferred to keep Libyan desert as a buffer between their colonies, while weakness prevented the Ottomans’ involvement in Libyan affairs. Having accepted legitimacy of the Ottoman Caliphate, the Sanusis took advantage of the existing power vacuum and established themselves in Libya (mid-19th century). Since then, till the beginning of the Great War (1914) they conducted the Jihads and operations against both Franch and Italian colonialism in Libya itself. https://jhic.ut.ac.ir/article_106349.html The Great Hakimi Zij, composed by the Egyptian astronomer Ibn Yunus (d.399/ 1009), is among the most significant astronomical works compiled in the Islamic civilization and constitutes a fundamental source for the history of observational practice. This article examines the place of the Hakimi Zij within the history of Islamic astronomy by focusing on its observational content and historical function, and by assessing its role in the transmission of astronomical data to modern astronomical traditions. A close analysis of the text demonstrates that Ibn Yunus, through the systematic and precise recording of his own observations and the careful compilation of dispersed materials from earlier astronomers, preserved a corpus of data some of which represent the only known sources for reconstructing otherwise lost observational traditions. The Great Hakimi Zij constitutes the sole extant source for Iranian observations of the solar apogee from the Sasanian period, as well as for data attributed to figures such as Aḥmad al-Nahāwandī, al-Māhānī, and the Banū ʾAmājūr, and thus plays a foundational role in reassessing the history of Islamic observational astronomy, particularly the observational program of the Mumtaḥan astronomers. The article further traces the wide circulation of the Hakimi Zij across various Islamic regions, including Egypt, Syria, Iran, and Yemen, and examines its profound influence on later astronomical tables, most notably the Ilkhanid Zij. It then explores the routes through which the observational data of this work were transmitted to Europe and the ways in which Western astronomers made use of them from the seventeenth century onward-data that played a significant role in the formation of modern astronomical research, including studies of the secular acceleration of the Moon and long-term variations in the Earth’s rotational velocity. In this way, the Great Hakimi Zij stands not only as a landmark work in the history of Islamic astronomy, but also as a civilizational document attesting to the link between Islamic observational practice and the formation of modern astronomical knowledge