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18128 results in Cambridge Histories

Page 874 of 907

  • 10 - NUMISMATICS

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 364-377

  • Summary

    In the first years after the conquest of Byzantine and Sāsānian lands the invaders made use of the existing currency, the Byzantine gold solidus or denarius aureus and the copper follis in Palestine and Syria, the Sāsānian silver drahm in the east. During the latter half of the eighth and the beginning of the ninth decades of the Hijra, a number of innovations were introduced and several radical iconographical changes were experimented. Excavations in recent years have disclosed the fact that during the transitional years following the Arab conquest, there were local issues of copper coinage. 'Abd al-Malik's monetary reform, began with gold coins in the year 77 and two years later mints in Iran and Iraq started issuing the purely epigraphical dirham which was to become the most popular coin in the Near and Middle East. The ‘Abbāsid and Khārijite movements are well reflected in the coinage.

  • 9 - THE VISUAL ARTS

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 329-363

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the traditional approach of Islamic art of Iran, first architecture and architectural decoration, then the so-called minor arts whose importance is far greater than their slightly pejorative name suggests. Northeastern Iranian ceramics provide examples of figural representations. The subjects are riders, dancers, standing or seated personages holding flowers and pitchers, as well as a number of unidentified activities. The greatest originality of these representations lies in their style. A sketchy line outlines the main subjects with very little consideration for bodily proportions and at times with distortions which could be considered as folk caricatures or as wilful modifications of visual impressions. There is a fairly large number of objects in metal which are commonly assigned to the period between the fall of the Sāsānian dynasty and the middle of the 5th/11th century.

  • 5 - THE EARLY GHAZNAVIDS

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 162-197

  • Summary

    The establishment of the Ghaznavid sultanate in the eastern Iranian world represents the first major breakthrough of Turkish power there against the indigenous dynasties. The Sāmānid in Transoxiana and Khurāsā meant that there was a strong barrier in the northeast against mass incursions from the steppes into the civilized zone. The group of Turks in Ghazna was a small one, set down in an hostile environment, and a dynamic policy of expansion may have seemed to Sebük-Tegin, the best way to ensure its survival. Sebük-Tegin's successful maintenance of himself in power at Ghazna and his victories against the Indians made him a force in the internal politics of the Sāmānid empire, at the time moving towards its final collapse. By acquiring Khurāsā, Mahmūd became master of a rich and flourishing province. Khurāsā had rich agricultural oases, irrigated by means of a skilful utilization of a modest water supply.

  • 3 - THE ṬĀHIRIDS AND ṢAFFĀRIDS

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 90-135

  • Summary

    During the 3rd/9th century, four generations of the Tāhirid family succeeded each other hereditarily as governors for the 'Abbāsid caliphs. The practical effects of the trends inaugurated by the Tāhirids were seen in the governmental policies and cultural climate of succeeding dynasties, the Saffārids and Sāmānids in eastern Persia, the various Dailamite and Kurdish dynasties in the west. The founders of the Tāhirid family fortunes were typical of the Persians who had lent their support, first to the anti-Umayyad da'wa of Abū Muslim, and then to the new regime of the 'Abbāsid which in 132/749 emerged from that upheaval. One of the most important aspects of early Saffārid policy, of significance for the spread of Islam in Afghanistan and on the borders of India long after their empire had collapsed, was that of expansion into eastern Afghanistan.

  • 1 - THE ARAB CONQUEST OF IRAN AND ITS AFTERMATH

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 1-56

  • Summary

    Muhammad's death in 11/632 was followed in his successor Abū Bakr's time by a crisis of apostasy, the Ridda, which put both the religion and the government of Medina in jeopardy. The emergence of the Sāsānian navy owed a great deal to the co-operation which existed with the Arabs. Khusrau I intervened in Yemenī affairs on the pretext of aiding the Arabs against Byzantium, with the result that Iranian forces replaced Ethiopian there. Among the secretaries at the Sāsānian court was one for Arab affairs. From ancient times Iran had had contacts varying in degree of closeness and amity with the Arabs. Before the Sāsānian era, Arab tribes had settled in the Tigris-Euphrates region, though at the beginning of the era Ardashīr I had wrested from them the district known as Maisan, in southern Iraq on the Persian Gulf. Iraq and Syria were in the hands of the Khurāsāns, to be followed by Egypt and Arabia.

  • 4 - The SĀMĀNIDS

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 136-161

  • Summary

    The original home of the Sāmānids is uncertain, for some Arabic and Persian books claim that the name was derived from a village near Samarqand. The Sāmānid state had received recognition in the year 261/875 when the caliph al-Mu'tamid sent the investiture for all of Transoxiana to Nasr b. Ahmad, in opposition to the claims of Ya‘qūb b. al-Laith, the Saffārid. Ismā‘īl was the real founder of the Sāmānid state, and is highly regarded in all sources for his good qualities as a ruler, indeed almost an idealized ruler. He enlarged the Sāmānid domain in all directions. In 280/893 he raided to the north and captured the city of Tarāz where a Nestorian church was reputedly turned into a mosque and much booty was taken. The organization of the Sāmānid state was modelled after the caliph's court in Baghdad with its central and provincial divisions.

  • 12 - LIFE SCIENCES, ALCHEMY AND MEDICINE

    • By S. H. Nasr, University of Tehrān; Chancellor, Aryamehr University
  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 396-418

  • Summary

    Islamic science came into being in the 2nd/8th century as a result of the vast effort of translation which made the scientific and philosophical traditions of antiquity available in Arabic. This interest in science during the late Sāsānian period is reported in Arabic sources to have been associated more with the Syriac language than with Pahlavī. The transition from the Sāsānian to the Islamic era in the sciences is marked by the period of translation from Graeco-Syriac, Pahlavī and Sanskrit sources into Arabic. From the Islamic point of view the whole universe is alive and the life sciences really deal with all things. Among the Muslim philosophers who developed the theory of the faculties of the vegetable and animal souls, many of the most important were Persian. Most of the study of plants was connected with their properties and application to different fields, especially medicine.

  • (b) - ‘UMAR KHAYYĀM: ASTRONOMER, MATHEMATICIAN AND POET

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 658-664

  • Summary

    Ghiyāth al-Dīn Abu'1-Fath 'Umar b. Ibrāhīm al-Khayyāmī in Persian texts is usually called simply 'Umar-i Khayyām, that is, 'Umar the tentmaker, and it is reasonable to assume that his father or grandfather followed that trade. In fact, his surviving scientific works, if one excludes the spurious Naurūnāma treatise on the Persian New Year's Day, occupy only 130 pages in Rozenfel'd's translation. For an assessment of these works the reader is referred to his and Yushkevich's introductory essays and commentary and to Professor E. S. Kennedy's chapter in Volume 5 of the Cambridge History of Iran. It is the rubā'īyāt or quatrains which, mirrored in FitzGerald's masterpiece, have won for 'Umar the poet a fame far greater than was vouchsafed to 'Umar the scientist. Not until the middle of the 9th/15th century, three hundred years after his death, do the first attempts appear to have been made to collect together the whole corpus of his poems.

  • 16 - NĀSIR-I KHUSRAU AND IRANIAN ISMĀ‘ĪLĪSM

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 520-542

  • Summary

    In order to appreciate the importance of Nāṣir-i Khusrau in the history of Iranian thought, it is necessary to place him in the setting of Ismā'īlism as a whole, for he was one of its most outstanding personalities. This chapater discusses the survival of Ismā'īlism under the mantle of Sūfism which comes nearer perhaps to revealing its true grandeur and the inspiration of its distant origins, rather than in the brilliant setting of the Fāṭimid court. On the basis of such data an attempt may be made to evaluate Iranian Ismā'īlism in the Persian language and literature. More than once Nāṣir evokes his exile and his nostalgia in terms of touching sadness. However, he gives scarcely any solid facts about his life and his activities. From the outset, when the connection between the alchemy of Jābir and the Ismā'īlī gnosis is considered, the fact that the concepts of Jābir seem to be unknown to Rhazes is indicative.

  • 7 - IRAN UNDER THE BŪYIDS

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 250-304

  • Summary

    The Iranian highlands by the Caspian Sea were controlled by the Zaidite rulers of Tabaristān and by various local potentates. The form of government established by the Būyids may be described with reservations as a military dictatorship. The Būyids were Dailamites and were largely dependent on soldiers drawn from their own people. The Dailamites had a long tradition of military prowess dating back to pre-Christian times and including campaigns against Georgia as allies of the Sāsānians. Women had always held an important place in Dailamite society and they were to wield great political influence and were even to achieve personal rule. In the mountain fastnesses of their homeland the Dailamites had already succeeded in repelling more than a dozen Muslim attacks before the beginning of the 3rd/9th century, when they began to receive Islamic influences. Baha' al-Daula, after protracted efforts, had finally succeeded in restoring some semblance of unity to the Būyid empire.

  • 13(a) - PHILOSOPHY AND COSMOLOGY

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 419-441

  • Summary

    This chapter discusses the philosophy and cosmology in Persia from the rise of Islam to the Saljuq period, which is almost synonymous with studying the first phase in the development of Islamic philosophy and cosmology itself. The Persian translators and the whole class of secretaries who cultivated philosophy were important in creating the new style of philosophical prose in Arabic. The early history of Islamic philosophy and theology during the 3rd/9th century is connected with the cities of Baghdad, Basra and Kufa, in all three of which the Arab and Persian elements were mixed, such that it is often difficult to separate them. The written record of Islamic philosophy begins with the "philosopher of the Arabs" Abū Ya‘qūb al-Kindī, who wrote extensive treatises in Arabic on philosophy and the sciences during the 3rd/9th century, relying most of all on the translations of Syriac scholars as well as of course on Islamic sources.

  • 2 - THE ‘ABBĀSID CALIPHATE IN IRAN

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 57-89

  • Summary

    This chapter gives an account of all the principal political events in Iran under the ‘Abbāsids and then discusses the long-term significance of these events for the history of that country; but it should never be forgotten that the ‘Abbāsids intended to create and for a time nearly succeeded in creating a universal Islamic empire. When Zaidī 'Alid pretenders rebelled in the Yemen and in Māzandarān they posed essentially similar political threats to the ‘Abbāsids. The actions of the central government, and the reactions of the Iranian Muslims under ‘Abbāsid rule, were always more subject to Islamic considerations than to any specific feeling about Iranians as a group. The success of the ‘Abbāsid revolution has often been viewed as a success by Iranians over Arabs; but a very great number of the soldiers and propagandists who won and maintained ‘Abbāsid rule were Arabs, and there is sign that the Iranian supporters of the dynasty in the early period were anti-Arab.

  • (b) - THE MATURITY OF MINOAN CIVILIZATION

  • from CHAPTER IV
  • Edited by I. E. S. Edwards, C. J. Gadd, N. G. L. Hammond, E. Sollberger
  • Book:
    The Cambridge Ancient History
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    03 May 1973, pp 141-164

  • Summary

    THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE EARLY PALACE PERIOD (c. 2000–1700 b.c.)

    The first palaces in Crete were built soon after the turn of the millennium. Could there be a more obvious mark than this for the beginning of an epoch? With them Minoan civilization rose from its prehistoric beginnings and attained the rank of an advanced civilization. But did it really even now enter the realm of history? Names, personalities and direct written sources are lacking. On the other hand the historical setting of this civilization cannot be disputed. It finds expression in its involvement in contemporary and subsequent events of Mediterranean history. Monuments consequently play a greater part than actions and people in providing a picture of this period, and the archaeological interpretation of these monuments is of cardinal importance. The Greeks later associated this period with the figure of Minos in their mythology. Any attempt to separate the historical and the mythical features of Minos is hopeless, but his name has rightly been given to this civilization which we can discern in the strange light of early history.

    The palaces stood for about 600 years. After their destruction in about 1400 b.c. they were not rebuilt. The Palace Period can be split into an earlier and a later stage in terms of stratification and architectural developments. The present chapter is concerned only with the earlier stage of the Palace Period.

Page 874 of 907