Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women? By Susan Moller Okin with respondents (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), vi?+?146 pp. $29.95 cloth; $12.95 paper.

From the time she set the intellectual world on fire with her reflections on Eichmann (1963), Hannah Arendt has been seen, essentially, as a literary commentator who had interesting things to say about political and cultural matters. In this critical study, Shiraz Dossa argues that Arendt is a political theorist in the sense in which Aristotle is a theorist, and that the key to her political theory lies in the twin notions of the “public realm” and the “public self”. (...) In this work, the author explains how Arendt’s unconventional and controversial views make sense on the terrain of her political theory. He shows that her judgement on thinkers, actors, and events as diverse as Plato, Marx, Machiavelli, Freud, Conrad, Hobbes, Hitler, the Holocaust, the French Revolution, and European colonialism flow directly from her political theory. Tracing the origins of this theory to Homer and Periclean Athens, Dossa underlines Arendt’s unique contribution to reinventing the idea and the ideal of citizenship, reminding us that the public realm is the locus of friendship, community, identity, and in a certain sense, humanity. Arendt believes that no one who prefets his or her private interest to public affairs in the old sense can claim to be fully human or truly excellent. (shrink)

The current study aims to explain the fundamentals of religious pluralism in Wittgenstein later philosophy and Gadamer philosophical hermeneutics, specifically regarding culture. It, then, proposes the approach more suitable for the Islamic context. Having fulfilled such an objective, pluralism, concerning religious rituals, becomes accepted and cultural and religious interaction is realized without any relativism conclusion. Wittgenstein’s pluralism results in pure relativism. That is to say, in order to understand the rules of the language game and life style he mentions, one (...) needs to be placed inside. However, it is a dialectical model that Gadamer philosophical hermeneutics leads to. Dialogue gives opportunity to cultural interaction and convergence, developing the religious culture. The latter is of more proximity to Islamic resources such as the Quran, proposing a religious culture transcending cultural, historical, and social limitations. All in all, the two significant features of Gadamer’s which Wittgenstein ignores are first, the interaction of religious pluralism encouraging the development of religious culture and second, reciprocal relation between culture and religion based on hermeneutics circle. (shrink)

When the Taliban destroyed the famous statues of the Buddha in the Bamiyan Valley in Afghanistan more than a decade ago, the outrage of the global community, including that of prominent Muslim religious leaders, was matched perhaps only by the pious euphoria of Afghanistan’s hardliners. They had finally succeeded in removing visible signs of idolatry from their landscape, and fulfilled, at least in their own eyes, a long overdue religious mission. In the words of the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, “Muslims (...) should be proud to destroy idols. Our destroying them was an act of praise for God.”1Yet such extreme acts of puritanical iconoclasm at the hands of Muslim fundamentalists, at least within modern history, have more.. (shrink)

The current study examines the micro-linguistic details of Twitter responses to the whistleblower-initiated publication of the Panama Papers. The leaked documents contained the micro-details of tax avoidance, tax evasion, and wealth accumulation schemes used by business elites, politicians, and government bureaucrats. The public release of the documents on April 4, 2016 resulted in a groundswell of Twitter and other social media activity throughout the world, including 161,036 Spanish-language tweets in the subsequent 5-month period. The findings illustrate that the responses were (...) polyvocal, consisting a collection of overlapping speech genres with varied thematic topics and linguistic styles, as well as differing degrees of calls for action and varying amounts of illocutionary force. The analysis also illustrates that, while the illocutionary force of tweets is somewhat associated with the adoption of a prosaic and vernacular ethical stance as well as with demands for action, these types of voicing behaviors were not present in the majority of the tweets. These results suggest that, while social media platforms are a popular site for collective forms of voicing activities, it is less certain that these collective stakeholder voices necessarily result in forceful accountability demands that spill out of the communication medium and thus serve as an impulse for positive social change. (shrink)

This paper extends the discussion of business ethics by examining the issue of corruption, its definition, the solutions being proposed for dealing with it, and the ethical perspectives underpinning these proposals. The paper’s findings are based on a review of association, think-tank, and academic reports, books, and papers dealing with the topic of corruption, as well as the pronouncements, websites, and position papers of a number of important global organizations active in the fight. These organizations include the World Bank, the (...) International Monetary Fund, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, Transparency International, USAID, the United Nations, the International Chamber of Commerce, the Organization of American States, and the Council of Europe. Our discussion departs from prior analyses by adopting a Foucaultian theoretical framing and by incorporating insights found in the virtue ethics literature. Implications are provided for international business organizations. (shrink)

ABSTRACTTwo rival scholars from Shiraz in Persia, Dawānī and Dashtakī engaged in a bitter and extended dispute over a range of metaphysical and logical issues. One of these was the liar paradox. Their debate on this point marked the most extensive scrutiny of the paradox in Arabic until that time. Dashtakī’s solution was to deny that the statement ‘What I say is false’ is true or false, on the ground that there is one statement and one application of the (...) falsity predicate. Given that – ex hypothesi – there is no other statement, there is no basis for a reiteration of the truth or falsity predicate and describing the statement itself as true or false. Dawānī’s solution was to deny that ‘What I say is false’ is a statement at all, and he argued that it is instead akin to a performative utterance such as ‘I hereby sell you this’. (shrink)

Millions of children who were born during the first decade after the Islamic revolution in Iran are now reaching the age of marriage and childbearing. Short spacing between marriage and the birth of the first child has the potential to cause an excessive and costly increase in the growth of population in Iran. Research into the motivations for the birth of first child among newly married couples can create a knowledge base that will enable health centres to help these couples (...) make better decisions about the timing of their first pregnancy. Using a consecutive sampling technique and administering Miller’s Childbearing Questionnaire, data were gathered regarding the childbearing motivations and desires of 300 couples who had been referred to the Shiraz Health Center for premarital counselling. The Childbearing Questionnaire, with some minor modifications, was found to be a valid and reliable instrument for measuring the childbearing motivations of newly married couples of Shiraz County, Fars Province, Iran. The utility of these findings for counselling in health centres is discussed. Based on the results, a longitudinal study is being designed that will allow the development of models for predicting the time of first pregnancy after marriage. (shrink)

Hemagglutinin is a major virulence factor of influenza viruses and plays an important role in viral pathogenesis. Analysis of amino acid changes, epitopes’ regions, glycosylation and phosphorylation sites have greatly contributed to the development of new generations of vaccine. The hemagglutinins of 10 selected isolates, 8 of 2010 and 2 of 2013 samples were sequenced and analyzed by several bioinformatic softwares and the results were compared with those of 3 vaccine isolates. The study detected several amino acid changes related to (...) altered epitopes’ sites, modification sites and physico-chemical properties. The results showed some conserved modification sites in HA structure. This study is the first analytical research on isolates obtained from Shiraz, Iran, and our results can be used to better understand the genetic diversity and antigenic variations in Iranian and Asian H1N1 pathogenic strains. (shrink)

The present study highlights the significance of gender role orientation as one of the most important individual factors on WIF and FIW. Furthermore, this paper also examines the effects of some of the essential personal backgrounds such as age, job experience and duration of marriage on WIF and FIW. This study consists of 198 married female nurses in Shiraz-Iran. The findings revealed that married female nurses who adopt more egalitarian gender role attitude are associated with higher WIF. Unlike previous (...) studies, the finding also indicates that respondents who adopt a more egalitarian gender role attitude experienced higher FIW, which may be explained by the specific cultural context in Iran. This study also established that female nurses with older age, more years of job experience, and longer duration of marriage, perceived lower level of WIF and FIW. Implications are discussed and recommendations are made regarding future researches in this area. (shrink)

Beholding Beauty: Saʿdi of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry. By Domenico Ingenito. Leiden: Brill, 2021. Pp. xx + 697, illus. $132, €110 (cloth).

One of the most celebrated authors of medieval Iran, Saʿdī Shīrāzī (d. 691/1292) is best known to many for his Gulistān (The Rose Garden), a prosimetrum that me.

The exceptional intellectual richness of seventeenth-century Safavid Iran is epitomised by the philosophical school of Isfahan, and in particular by its ostensible founder, Mir Damad (d. 1631), and his great student Mulla Sadra (aka Sadr al-Din Shirazi, d. 1636). Equally important to the school is the apophatic wisdom of Rajab 'Ali Tabrizi that followed later (d. 1669/70). However, despite these philosophers' renown, the identification of the 'philosophical school of Isfahan' was only proposed in 1956, by the celebrated French Iranologist Henry (...) Corbin, who noted the unifying Islamic Neoplatonist character of some 20 thinkers and spiritual figures; this grouping has subsequently remained unchallenged for some fifty years. In this highly original work, Janis Esots investigates the legitimacy of the term 'school', delving into the complex philosophies of these three major Shi'i figures and drawing comparisons between them. The author makes the case that Mulla Sadra's thought is independent and actually incompatible with the thoughts of Mir Damad and Rajab Ali Tabrizi. This not only presents a new way of thinking about how we understand the 'school of Isfahan', it also identifies Mir Damad and Rajab Ali Tabrizi as pioneers in their own right. (shrink)

Background: Dignified care is one of the main objectives of holistic care. Furthermore, paying attention to dignity as one of the fundamental rights of patients is extremely important. However, in many cases, the dignity of hospitalized patients is not considered. Dignity is an abstract concept, and comprehensive studies of the dignity of Iranian patients hospitalized in general hospital settings are limited. Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the concept of dignity from the perspective of patients hospitalized in (...) general hospital settings in Iran. Research design: This study takes a qualitative approach. Data were gathered using individual, semi-structured interviews. Qualitative content analysis was the method used to analyse and interpret the data. The criteria suggested by Guba and Lincoln were used ensure the trustworthiness of the study. Participants and research context: A total of 14 hospitalized patients in general hospital settings in Shiraz participated in this study. Ethical considerations: The Research Ethics Committee of the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences approved the protocol of the study and the ethical principles were followed throughout. Findings: The findings of this study revealed four main themes – ‘respectful atmosphere’, ‘patient privacy’, ‘preservation of authority’ and ‘receiving attention’ – and 10 categories. Discussion: Patients need to be hospitalized in a respectable environment in which their privacy is preserved and paid attention, providing them with sufficient authority in terms of medical decisions and their life-related issues. The dignity of hospitalized patients will be preserved under these conditions. Conclusion: Patients hospitalized in general hospital settings need to retain their dignity. This can contribute to the optimal therapeutic outcomes for them. Therefore, it is suggested that a cultural, professional and institutional background, in which all components of the patient’s dignity are protected and emphasized, should be provided. (shrink)

Introduction: Maintaining dignity is one of the most important human rights. However, maintaining and promoting the dignity of nursing students as an important caregiver group has scarcely been considered. Dignity can be viewed as an abstract concept particularly in relation to the perspective of male nursing student perspective. Therefore, more investigation is required to explore the male students’ understanding of the concept of dignity. Objectives: The purpose of this study is to define and explain the concept of dignity among male (...) nursing students in the neonatal intensive care unit. Research design: This is a qualitative content analysis study. The data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews. The data were analyzed by conventional content analysis method. Participants and research context: Twenty male nursing students in public health centers in Iran were selected by targeted sampling to achieve data saturation between February 2017 and November 2017. Findings: The findings of this study were presented in three main themes, including “extensive support,” “belief in ability,” and “participation in decision making,” and 7 sub-categories of data were extracted. Ethical considerations: The study’s protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences and the ethical principles were followed throughout the study. Discussion and conclusion: According to the findings of the study, male nursing students required extensive support, and their academic and practical skills required to be respected; in addition, they should be involved in decision making, because in such an environment, the dignity of these students will be maintained and promoted. Therefore, it is suggested that a cultural, professional, and institutional background in which all components of the male nursing student’s dignity are protected and emphasized should be provided. (shrink)

Background: Nurses face challenges regarding professional identify. Being unaware of these challenges and not owning positive professional identify leads to a lack of self-confidence. Thus, nurses face problems in interpersonal communication and lose their attachment to their profession. Few studies have engaged with impediments to forming positive professional identity in relation to intensive care nurses. Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate the impediments to forming positive professional identity in nurses working in intensive care unit. Research design: In (...) this study, the conventional content analysis method was used in order to obtain the impediments to forming positive professional identities in nurses. Data were collected through 15 semi-structured interviews and 2 focus group interviews from March 2015 to June 2016. Purposive sampling was used and participants were recruited until data saturation was reached; they were then analyzed using the conventional content analysis method. Participants and research context: In total, 24 intensive care unit nurses from one hospital in Northern Iran were selected through purposive sampling. Ethical consideration: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Findings: Four main themes of professional identity challenges were extracted from the analysis of the data: neglect of professional status of nursing; distrust of nursing knowledge; unprofessional performance; and low professional attraction. Discussion and conclusion: Nurses stated that the neglect of the professional status of nursing and distrust of nursing knowledge have always been a hindrance in forming a positive professional identity. They also mentioned that unprofessional performance and low professional attraction are the other influencing factors in this regard. Thus, detecting these factors can guide nurses and their managers towards creating positive professional identity, and as a result, will improve their job satisfaction, professional advancement, and durability. (shrink)

The article is devoted to comparative analysis of metaphysical studying of a Samaritan theologian and exegete al-Ghazzāl ibn ’Abū Surūr (d. after 1755) and a representative of Shiraz Illuminationism school, philosopher, astronomer and mathematician Ghiyāth al-Dīn Manṣūr al-Dashtakī (d. 1541). Based on a scrupulous analysis of the doctrines by al-Ghazzāl and Ghiyāth al-Dīn, the author comes to the conclusion about their genetic link – supposedly, as a result of perception of Illuminationist systems in the Middle East in 17th–18th centuries. (...) It is noticed that a Samaritan exegete, acquainted with Arab-Mus­lim philosophic literature as a prominent specialist, taught about ontologistic primacy of light, metaphysical nothingness of dark, stated about light nature of action and com­plete dependence of matter on the will of the Creator. Separately it discusses the desire of both authors to deconstruct the classic for Arabic philosophy thesaurus. It is expressed in the convergence of the categories ‘movement’ (ḥaraka) and ‘action’ (fi‘l), as well as in the consistent replacement of the concept ‘self’ (ḏāt) with the concept of ‘light’ (nūr). The differences between the concepts of al-Ghazzāl and ad-Dashtakī are also discussed separately: while the first author inscribes the opposition ‘light – dark’ in a creation onto­logical context, the latter professes belief in the ‘total unity’ of the lights, their eternity and uncreation. The research is preceded by a short excursion into the history of Samari­tan theology of the 11th–18th centuries. Moreover, the article provides the description of unpublished documents which served the textological basis for the author’s work – in particular, the manuscript of al-Ghazzal’s interpretation of Genesis and Exodus ‘Dis­persion of the darkness [covering] the secrets of the Giver’ (Kashf / Kāshif al-Ghayāhib ‘alā Asrār al-Wāhib; British Library, Add MS 19657). (shrink)

_Keys to the Sciences (Maqālid al-ʿulūm)_ contains the definitions of Arabic technical terms in twenty-one sciences. Written by an unknown author, the work was dedicated to Shāh Shujāʿ, who reigned Shiraz and its neighbouring region in the 8th/14th century.

Background: In order to prove their commitment to the nursing profession, nurses need to base their professional activities on certain acknowledged values. Although a large number of studies have addressed professional values in nursing, only a few studies are available on the identification and comparison of nurses’, nursing students’, and nursing instructors’ understanding of such values. Objective: The study aims to compare nurses’, nursing students’, and nursing instructors’ perception of nursing professional values. Research design: In this descriptive-comparative study, data were (...) collected using Weis and Schank’s Nurses’ Professional Values Scale–Revised. The data were analyzed using the SPSS statistical software (v 22). Participants and research context: A total of 299 nurses, 341 nursing students, and 100 nursing instructors from multisite, 20 different wards from 3 university hospitals and associated nursing schools located in the cities of Shiraz, Fasa, and Jahrom in Fars province, participated in 2016. Ethical considerations: The Institutional Review Board of the researchers’ primary university has verified that the study complies with research ethics. Findings: The total mean scores of the nurses’, nursing students’, and nursing instructors’ perception were found to be 4.23 (0.44), 3.92 (0.50), and 4.34 (0.35), respectively, in the domain of justice—this domain was the subjects’ top priority—and 3.40 (0.56), 3.29 (0.49), and 3.55 (0.36), respectively, in the domain of activism—this domain was attached the least importance by the subjects. There were significant differences across the three groups’ perception in all of the dimensions of professional values ( p < 0.001). Discussion: The three study groups’ overall mean scores fall within the range of relatively important or important. Several studies show the same results, but there are still controversies in this regard. Conclusion: There is need for plans to increase nurses’ awareness of certain professional duties and improve their professional performance in all areas alongside their care duties. (shrink)

Background: Values are the basis of nursing practice, especially in making decisions about complicated ethical issues. Despite their key role in nursing, little information exists on the factors affecting their development and manifestation in nursing students. Objective: This study identifies and describes the facilitators and inhibitors of the development and manifestation of professional values based on the experiences of nursing students and instructors and nurses. Research design: Data were collected through 29 semi-structured interviews and two focus group interviews in 2013–2015 (...) and were analyzed using the conventional content analysis method of Elo and Kyngäs. Participants and research context: In total, 18 nursing undergraduates, five nursing instructors, and five nurses from Shiraz University of Medical Sciences and one of the teaching hospitals in Shiraz were selected through purposive sampling. Ethical considerations: The research was approved by the Ethics Committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences and the teaching hospital examined. Findings: The findings consisted of two categories: personal and environmental factors. Personal factors consisted of the two subcategories of personal stimuli (work experience and past relationships, inner beliefs and acting on values, belief in God and a divine worldview) and personal inhibitors (the lack of professional motivation and enthusiasm, negative emotions). Environmental factors consisted of the two subcategories of environmental stimuli (cooperation, order and discipline) and environmental inhibitors (unfavorable work environment, society’s negative attitude toward nursing, the violation of rights). Discussion and conclusion: Given the impact of personal and environmental factors on the development and manifestation of professional values in nursing students, it is upon the education authorities to take account of them in their planning, and nursing managers are also recommended to further address these factors in their development of a proper work environment, provision of standard facilities and removal of barriers. (shrink)

Background: Adolescents can be vulnerable to diminished dignity in the hospital because young people have significantly different healthcare needs than children and adults. They like to cooperate with caregivers only when they get respectful and dignified care. Care without considering dignity can adversely influence the adolescents’ recovery. However, many studies have been conducted on exploring the concept of the patients’ dignity from the adult patients and fewer studies still have explored the dignity of young people. Objective: This study explores the (...) hospitalized adolescents’ perception about dignity. Research design: A conventional qualitative content analysis method was used to explore the meaning of hospitalized adolescents’ dignity. Participants and research context: Hospitalized adolescents in general medical and surgical pediatric units were eligible to participate. Data were obtained through unstructured interviews. Purposive sampling was used and adolescents were recruited until data saturation was reached (n = 13). Ethical considerations: Ethical approval for the study was granted by the Ethics Committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. Participants were provided with information about the purpose, reasons for recording interviews, voluntary participation, and confidentiality of data and interviewees. Findings: Dignity was reflected in four themes: (1) protection of personal privacy, (2) protection of autonomy, (3) respect for identity, and (4) intimate communication. Discussion and conclusion: Hospitalized adolescents stated that healthcare services should protect their personal privacy and autonomy. Also, they should respect the adolescent’s identity and communicate intimately with them to provide the dignity. Adolescence is a discrete developmental stage, with specific healthcare needs which must be addressed effectively by healthcare providers especially nurses. (shrink)

Background: Ethical codes are guidelines that orient nurses and ensure that their decisions are in accordance with the values of the professional system. These codes show that there is a connection among values, patients’ rights, and nurses’ duties. Objectives: This study aimed to compare the viewpoints of patients, nurses, and nurse managers regarding the extent to which clinical ethical codes are observed. Research design: In this descriptive–comparative study, data were collected using three questionnaires based on Iranian nurses’ ethical codes with (...) a focus on clinical care. The reliability of the questionnaire was verified by test–retest method (r = 0.9). The patients were interviewed by the researcher, but nurses and managers completed the questionnaires themselves. After all, the data were analyzed using the SPSS statistical software (v 15). Participants and research context: In all, 100 patients, 100 nurses, and 30 managers from internal and surgical wards of two major hospitals in Shiraz, Iran, participated in 2014. Ethical considerations: This research was approved by the Ethics Committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. All the participants signed written informed consents. Findings: According to the results, 70% of the patients, 86% of the nurses, and 53.3% of the nurse managers rated nurses’ adherence to ethical codes as satisfactory. The mean scores (standard deviation) of the level of adherence to ethical codes were 38.44 (6.91) in the patients, 41.08 (4.82) in the nurses, and 37.83 (6.98) in the nurse managers. The results of analysis of variance revealed a significant difference between the attitudes of the nurses and the other two groups (p = 0.001). Discussion: Nurses’ adherence to ethical codes was satisfactory in all three groups. Accordingly, our findings agree with the results of some national and international studies, although there are still controversies in this regard. Conclusion: Although the nurses rated their performance in certain fields more satisfactory compared to the patients and managers, all the three groups agreed that clinical ethical codes were properly observed in the internal and surgical wards. Nurses can improve the quality of care by considering the viewpoints of patients and managers about their ethical performance. (shrink)

Introduction: Dignified care is one of the moral responsibilities of professional caregivers. However, in many cases the dignity of hospitalized patients, especially women in the delivery room, is not maintained. Dignity is an abstract concept and there has been no previous research exploring the dignity of pregnant women in the delivery room in Iran. Objectives: The objective of this study is to define and explain the concept of dignity for pregnant women in the delivery room from the perspectives of professional (...) caregivers. Research design: This is qualitative research. The data were collected through in-depth semi-structured individual interviews. The conventional content analysis method was used to analyze the data. In qualitative content analysis, participant narrative is examined in-depth and sorted into categories and themes. Participants and research context: Potential participants who met the entrance criteria for this study were approached between July 2016 and February 2017. In all, 20 professional caregivers working in the delivery room setting within Iranian general hospitals were invited to participate in the study. The sampling was done through targeted sampling until saturation was achieved. Ethical considerations: The research ethics committee of the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences has approved the study’s protocol and all commonly recognized ethical principles were followed throughout the study. Findings: The findings of this study were presented in three main themes, including “privacy,” “respecting patients’ preferences,” and “comprehensive attention” and eight categories. Discussions and conclusion: Women in the delivery room need to be taken care of in an environment where healthcare staff promote the preservation of dignity through maintaining privacy, by providing attentive care and through ensuring that patient preferences regarding care and treatment are respected. In such an environment, the dignity of these women would be maintained and desirable outcomes achieved. (shrink)

Introduction: Maintaining patient dignity in a caregiving environment is one of the most important moral responsibilities for caregivers. Nonetheless, there are vulnerable groups, specifically teenagers, who in their final stages of life are prone to their dignity being threatened. Moreover, dignity is an abstract concept and there is no studies done on teenagers’ dignity in the final stages of life available in Iran.Purpose: The purpose of this study is to describe the caregivers’ experiences regarding teenagers’ dignity in the final stages (...) of life.Research design: This study is a descriptive phenomenological qualitative research project. The data was collected using deep individual and semi-structured interviews as well as taking notes. The Colaizzi analysis method was used to analyze the data.Participants and research context: 22 caregivers working with teenagers in the final stages of life in a public health centers in Iran who had the criteria to enter the study were selected using a purposeful sampling method and invited to join the study from August 2018 to June 2019. The sampling continued until data saturation.Findings: The findings of the present study were presented in the form of three main themes including “private,” “respecting individual identity,” and “attention to teenagers’ needs” and an additional eight categories.Ethical Considerations: The study’s protocol was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Shiraz University of Medical Sciences and all ethical principles were followed throughout the study.Discussion and conclusion: Based on the present study from the caregivers’ point of view, teenagers in their final stages of life required to be cared for and taught in an environment that their privacy was maintained and their individual identity was respected as well as getting attention from the caregivers and companions. In such situations, the teenagers felt calm and their dignity was maintained; therefore, providing a cultural, professional, and organizational setting where all the components of maintaining dignity in teenagers are supported and prioritized is necessary. (shrink)

In this study, the depictions of miʿrac in the Haveranname of Ibn Husam Husafi (d.875/1470-1471), of the Timurid Era, and the Khamse of Nizami (d.597-611/1201-1214), of the Safavid Period (1501-1736), are examined comparatively. The work in Haveranname was produced by Farhad (d.883/1478-1479), the leading figure of the Shiraz miniature school of the Timurid period, and his apprentices. The miʿrac miniature in Nizami's Khamse was painted by Sultan Muhammed (d.963/1555-1556), a prominent artist of the Safavid period. Sultan Muhammed’s miniature is (...) included in foreign publications, but some of its themes are not properly explained. The miʿrac of Farhad, on the other hand, has not been included in publications and has only been described in a few shallow sentences. In both miniatures, the composition of the visual elements and the use of imagery differ; thus, both works reflect different artistic qualities and construction codes. In fact, the socio-cultural elements of both periods, their understanding of aesthetics and forms of daily life (such as clothing and attire) shape the visual panorama of the miniatures in different frameworks. The artistic and social factors of the two periods and the common visual elements in miniatures affected the clothing and personalities of the works, and the artists created the works under the influence of art patron and customer in the spiritual atmosphere dominating these two periods. This study aims to reconstruct the timeless universal message of art on the axis of a phenomenon by comparatively introducing both miniatures to the scholarly world. The data obtained in the research are analyzed analytically and then evaluated with a descriptive method. (shrink)

This paper studies miniatures from two copies of Ibn Husam Husafi’s Haveranname. The first one is from the Tahran Gulistan Palace Library, which consists of four pages, and the one-paged work is from the Museum of Riza Abbasi. These miniatures have been produced by Ferhad of Shiraz School of Miniature and his apprentices, in which Ali is depicted in a fierce fight with a dragon. Four of these miniatures have been published but not thoroughly examined. No published information is (...) available about the other miniature, studied here. It is evident from the quality of the drawing that the miniature has been produced by Ferhad. In the miniature, Ali is portrayed on his horse, Duldul, in an open field, attacking a seven-headed dragon with his sword, Zulfikar. The miniature also contains some poetry as well as some depictions of people and imaginary creatures. The miniatures from Haveranname have been auctioned in various parts of the world. In the book of the record, there is no detail about how the museum has retrieved it. As a result of the analyses in the current research paper, it is proposed that the miniature originates from the copy of Haveranname of the Gulistan Palace Library and has been acquired in an auction. (shrink)

By focusing on the works and intellectual network of the Timurid historian Sharaf al Dīn ʻAlī Yazdī (d.1454), this book presents a holistic view of intellectual life in fifteenth century Iran. İlker Evrim Binbaş argues that the intellectuals in this period formed informal networks which transcended political and linguistic boundaries, and spanned an area from the western fringes of the Ottoman State to bustling late medieval metropolises such as Cairo, Shiraz, and Samarkand. The network included an Ottoman revolutionary, a (...) Mamluk prophet, and a Timurid occultist, as well as physicians, astronomers, devotees of the secret sciences, and those political figures who believed that the network was a force to be taken seriously. Also discussing the formation of an early modern Islamicate republic of letters, this book offers fresh insights on the study of intellectual history beyond the limitations imposed by nationalist methodologies, established genres, and recognized literary traditions. (shrink)

Ḥaydar al-Harawī (d. 825/after 1427) was a significant scholar from Khorasan who migrated to the Ottoman lands. A distinguished student of al-Taftazanī, he earned high regard from Mehmed I and received patronage from him. al-Harawī dedicated his commentary on al-Zamakhsharī’s al-Kashshāf to Mehmed I with exaggerated expressions of praise and provided significant details about his biography in the introduction of the work. After spending many years in Ottoman lands, al-Harawī established contact with Shahrukh, the son of Timur. He rewrote the (...) introduction of Sharḥ al-Kashshāf and ded- icated the work to Shahrukh. This new patronage relationship is evident in the second version of the introduction, where not only the dedication part but also the content was rearranged concerning the new patron’s identity. Important biographical details not found in the first version are included in the second version, making it a crucial source for al-Harawī’s biography. This article brings the second version of the introduction to light for the first time, constructing al-Harawī’s biography by compiling information from both versions. While no specific dates are provided in either version, the duration of al-Harawi’s stay in certain cities is mentioned. Gaps in the narrative were filled based on histori- cal events, allowing for accurate dating of approximately forty years of al-Harawī’s life, from Sarakhs through Shiraz, Tabriz, Shirvan, Bursa, Edirne, and back to Khorasan. This comprehensive overview sheds light on the relationship between scholars and rulers, the influence of political developments on scholarly life, and the intellectual world of a scholar dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge. (shrink)

Of the many illustrious figures of the Buyid period none is perhaps as intriguing, or as enigmatic, as Abū Hayyān al-Tawhīdī. We know all too little of his biography. He was probably born between 310/922 and 932 but whether in Baghdad, Shiraz, or Nishapur remains uncertain. From his works we know that he studied in Baghdad under such renowned scholars as the jurist and qādī Abū Hāmid al-Marwazī. He tells us that he was in Mecca in 353/964 and, in (...) 366/976, at the court of the vizier Abū al-Fath Ibn al-'Amīd in Rayy—an unhappy experience that informs his scathing portrayal of that vizier, as of the Sāhib Ibn 'Abbād, in his Akhlāq al-Wazīrayn, one of his literary masterpieces. More significantly for the book under... (shrink)

Born in 1315, Shamseddin Mohammad, known as Hafiz, grew up in the city of Shiraz where he studied the Qur’anic sciences. In his youth he learned the Quran rigorously and assumed the epithet ‘Hafiz’ which means the one who knows the Quran by heart. Also known as the ‘Tongue of the Hidden’ and the ‘Interpreter of Secrets’, Hafiz utilizes grand religious ideas and mingles them with Sufistic teachings, thereby creating a kind of poetry which baffles interpretation. The poetry of (...) Hafiz has intoxicated and continues to intoxicate many in the world. The exhilarating effect of his poetry was also known to the poet himself. In one of his poems, he says that the angels are memorizing his poems in heaven and that Venus is enraptured and that Christ rjoices in his songs: “What marvel that in heaven are sung/ The dulcet words by HAFIZ strung?/Or that, by Venus’s air entranced,/Messiah in his sphere has danced?” As Friedrich Nietzsche has said of Hafiz: “Bist aller Trunkenen Trunkenheit/ wozu, wozu dir-Wein? (the intoxication of all intoication you are/what need do you have to ask for wine?)”. (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 76–81 Comments on Eugene Thacker’s “Cosmic Pessimism” Nicola Masciandaro Anything you look forward to will destroy you, as it already has. —Vernon Howard In pessimism, the first axiom is a long, low, funereal sigh. The cosmicity of the sigh resides in its profound negative singularity. Moving via endless auto-releasement, it achieves the remote. “ Oltre la spera che piú larga gira / passa ’l sospiro ch’esce del mio core ” [Beyond the sphere that circles widest / penetrates (...) the sigh that issues from my heart]. 1 The axiomatic sigh of the pessimist is in a way the pure word of philosophy, a thought that thinks without you, speaks where you are not. The live pneumatic form of the soul’s eventual exit from the dead body’s mouth, the sigh restores consciousness to the funeral of being, to the passing away that is existence. Pessimism speaks in piercing aphorisms because first it sighs. “Beyond the sphere passeth the arrow of our sigh. Hafiz! Silence.” 2 … pessimism is guilty of that most inexcusable of Occidental crimes—the crime of not pretending it’s for real. To the pessimist, the ‘real’ world—the world on whose behalf we are expected to wake up in the morning—is a ceaseless index of its own unreality. The pessimist’s day is not an illumined space for the advancement of experience and action, but a permanently and inescapably reflective zone, the vast interior of a mirror where each thing is only insofar as it is, at best, a false image of itself. Within this speculative situation, inside the doubleness of the mirror, pessimism splits into two paths, false and true, one that tries to fix pessimism (establish a relation with the mirror) and decides in favor of the apparent real, and another that totally falls for pessimism (enters the mirror) and communes with the greater reality of the unreal. These two paths are distinguished by their relation to pessimism’s guilt vis-à-vis the world’s reality-project. The first form, that which remains pessimism for the world and puts on a smiling face, stays guilty to itself (i.e. unconscious) and thus turns hypocritical, becoming at once the pessimism of the commoner who really just wants things to be better for himself and the pessimism of the elite who wants to critically refashion reality in his own image. The general form of this worldly, hypocritical pessimism is the impulse to ‘make the world a better place’, which is the global mask under which the world is diurnally made worse. The second form, that which follows pessimism away from the world and ceases to put on a smiling face, refuses guiltiness as itself theessential Occidental mode of pretense and turns honest, becoming at once the intelligent pessimism required of all ordinary action and the radical pessimism necessary for self-knowledge: seeing that no one is capable of doing good. The general form of this universal, honest pessimism is the impulse not to worry, to give up and embrace dereliction, which is the only real way the world is actually improved. Where worldly pessimism is the engine productive of interminably warring secular and sacred religions (good-projects), universal pessimism strives hopelessly for the paradise of a supremely instantiated pessimus: things are getting so bad that there is no longer any time for them to get worse; things are so constantly-instantly worst that this is BEST. Cosmic pessimism is the mode of universal pessimism which can yet discourse with the world, which has not chosen silence and can spread the inconceivably BAD NEWS in an orderly form ( kosmos ) that the world can understand (if it wanted to). … the result of a confusion between the world and a statement about the world. That is what the world is (the result of a confusion between the world and a statement about the world). … a generalized misanthropy without the anthropos. Pessimism crystallizes around this futility—it is its amor fati , rendered as musical form. Pessimism’s love of fate is a blind love, a love of the blindness of being human in a cosmos conceived around the human’s eclipse, a heavy levitation in the contradictory space between the inescapability of its having been and the impossibility of its will-be. Pessimism’s song of futility is a sensible way of loving fate, with a minimum of eros, by means of a kind of matrimonial love of the fatal. As music, pessimism stays open to the irreparable and the inexorable without the binding of affirmation, in the apparent absence of the radical, infinitely surplus will that absolute amor fati seems to require. Crying, laughing, sleeping—what other responses are adequate to a life that is so indifferent? “Unless a man aspires to the impossible, the possible that he achieves will scarcely be worth the trouble of his achieving it. We should aspire to the impossible, to absolute and infinite perfection [….] The apocatastasis is more than a mystical dream: it is a norm of action, it is a beacon for high deeds [….] For true charity is a species of invasion [….] It is not charity to rock and lull our fellow men to sleep in the inertia and heaviness of matter, but rather to arouse them to anguish and torment of spirit.” 3 … the impossibility of ever adequately accounting for one’s relationship to thought. “The paroxysm of interior experience leads you to regions where danger is absolute, because life which self-consciously actualizes its roots in experience can only negate itself [….] There are no arguments [….] On the heights of despair, the passion for the absurd is the only thing that can still throw a demonic light on chaos [….] I live because the mountains do not laugh and the worms do not sing .” 4 It took three attempts before she was fully decapitated, all the while she continued, perhaps miraculously, to sing. According to the earliest account of Cecilia’s martyrdom, the beheading turns out worse. After not severing her head in three strokes, “the cruel executioner left her half dead” (seminecem eam cruentus carnifex dereliquit). 5 Cecilia’s effortlessly powerful endurance of the three strokes—a fitting icon for pessimism as an art of dereliction—demonstrates the “passivity and absence of effort [….] in which divine transcendence is dissolved.” 6 There’s a ghost that grows inside of me, damaged in the making, and there’s a hunt sprung from necessity, elliptical and drowned. Where the moving quiet of our insomnia offers up each thought, there’s a luminous field of grey inertia, and obsidian dreams burnt all the way down. Like words from a pre-waking dream. There is no reason to think that they are not. NOTES 1. Dante Alighieri. Vita Nuova . ed. and trans. Dino S. Cervigni and Edward Vasta. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. 1995. 41:10. 2. Hafiz of Shiraz. The Divan . trans. H. Wilberforce Clarke. London: Octagon Press. 1974. 10.9. 3. Miguel de Unamuno. The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations . trans. Anthony Kerrigan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1972. 305-6. 4. E.M. Cioran. On the Heights of Despair . trans. Ilinca Zarifopol-Johnston. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1992. 9-10. 5. Giacomo Laderchi. S. Caeciliae Virg[inis] et Mart[yris] Acta. . . Rome. 1723. 38. 6. Georges Bataille. On Nietzsche . trans. Bruce Boone. London: Continuum. 2004. 135. See Nicola Masciandaro. “ Half Dead: Parsing Cecilia .” A Commentary on Eugene Thacker’s "Cosmic Pessimism" Gary J. Shipley Pessimism is the refusal to seek distraction, the refusal to remodel failure into a platform for further (doomed) possibilities, the refusal of comfort, the acceptance of the sickness of healthy bodies, the cup of life overflowing with cold vomit. If, as Ligotti suggests when discussing Invasion of the Body Snatchers , 1 humans prefer the anxieties of their familiar human lives to the contentment of an alien one, then the pessimist, we could argue, represents some perverted combination of the two, preferring (presuming he has a choice) the defamiliarization of human life to the contentment of its unquestioned mundanity. The quasi-religious state of mind that Wittgenstein would mention on occasion, that of “feeling absolutely safe,” 2 is a state the pessimist could only imagine being approximated by death, or perhaps some annihilative opiate-induced stupor. This Wittgensteinian commingling of certainty and faith looks every bit the futile gesture, a mere rephrasing of collapse or partial collapse. The only certainty open to the pessimist is that of the toxic formula of life itself—a formula known and lacuna-free. Certainty, far from being the gateway to deliverance, becomes the definitive impediment; and the possibility of salvation, as long as it remains, becomes crucially reliant on postulations of ignorance, epistemic gaps, a perennial incompleteness: “the perfect safety of wooed death […] the warm bath of physical dissolution, the universal unknown engulfing the miniscule unknown.” 3 The height of Leibniz’s Panglossian insanity nurtured the idea that our knowing everything—via the universal calculus—could be accurately described a triumph, as opposed to a nightmare in which our every futility is laid bare. Stagnancy and boredom are perhaps two of the greatest ills of Western civilisation, and the most potent pessimism tells you that you’re stuck with both. The most we can hope for, by way of salvation, is to throw open our despair to the unknown. The fact that Schopenhauer’s pessimism stopped short of morality and allowed him to play the flute, as Nietzsche complained, highlights the predicament of a man who despite having adorned nothingness with a smiling face still found himself alive. The demand here is that it be felt: a cross-contamination of intellect and emotion. The safety net of numerous parentheses makes for a failed philosophy, rather than a philosophy of failure. Depressives make bad pessimists, because, unless they choose to die, living will always infect them with necessities of hope, forcing them to find something, anything (all the various “as ifs”) to make existence tolerable. For as Cioran observed, while “[d]epressions pay attention to life, they are the eyes of the devil, poisoned arrows which wound mortally any zest and love of life. Without them we know little, but with them, we cannot live.” 4 And even when cured of our depressions we’ll find ourselves consumed, eaten alive by the hyper-clinical (borderline autistic) mania that replaces them: a predicament captured all too clearly in the microscriptual fictions of Robert Walser, where spectral men and women stifle their depressive madness with protective comas of detail, their failed assimilations buried beneath thick crusts of remote data. Like Beckett’s Malone their stories may have ended, but cruelly their lives have not. Pessimism is an extraneous burden (a purposeless weight) that makes everything else harder to carry, while at the same time scooping it out and making it lighter. If pessimism had a sound it would be the harsh non-noise of tinnitus—the way that every person would hear themselves if they refused their distractions long enough to listen: a lungless scream from the extrasolar nothing of the self. The music of pessimism—if indeed we can imagine such a thing—is the reverberating echo of the world’s last sound, conjectured but never heard, audible only in its being listened for. The one consolation of this hollow paradox of audibility being, that “he will be least afraid of becoming nothing in death who has recognized that he is already nothing now.” 5 The pessimist suffers a derangement of the real, a labyrinthitis at the nucleus of his being: he’s the stumbling ghost relentlessly surprised that others can see him. If Cioran’s refusal is manifested in sleep (when even saying ‘no’ is too much of a commitment), then Pessoa’s resides in the dreams inside that sleep. Pessoa chooses to exploit the fact that he’s being “lived by some murmuring non-entity both shadowy and muddied” 6 by growing more voids to live him. His is a Gnostic breed of sleep, “sleeping as if the universe were a mistake,” 7 a sleep that dreams through Thacker’s cosmic pessimism (“a pessimism of the world-without-us.”, “the unhuman orientation of deep space and deep time” 8 ), through the critical error of there being anything at all when there could be nothing. The metaphysical pessimist is someone who, however well life treats them, still desires to wake from it, as from the poisonous air of a bad dream. Pessimism is a paradox of age, being simultaneously young and old; its youth residing in a refusal to accept the authority of existence (its rich history, its inherent beneficence), a refusal to “get over” the horror of what it sees with its perpetually fresh eyes, and its maturity in the unceremonious disposal of the philosophical playthings (those futile architectures) of adolescence. As Thacker remarks: “Pessimism abjures all pretenses towards system—towards the purity of analysis and the dignity of critique.” 9 A sentiment shared with Pessoa, who duly categorizes those that choose to enact this futile struggle: “The creators of metaphysical systems and of psychological explanations are still in the primary stage of suffering.” 10 If the pessimist has shared a womb with anyone, it’s with the mystic and not the philosopher. As Schopenhauer tells us: “The mystic is opposed to the philosopher by the fact that he begins from within, whereas the philosopher begins from without. […] But nothing of this is communicable except the assertions that we have to accept on his word; consequently he is unable to convince.” 11 The crucial difference between the mystic and the pessimist is not the latter’s impassivity and defeatism, but his unwillingness/inability to contain in any way the spread of his voracious analyticity, his denial of incompleteness, his exhaustive devotion to failure. The truth of our predicament, though heard, is destined to remain unprocessed. Like the revelations of B.S. Johnson’s Haakon (“We rot and there’s nothing that can stop it / Can’t you feel the shaking horror of that?” 12 ) the pessimist’s truths are somehow too obvious to listen to, as if something inside us were saying, “Of course, but haven’t we gotten over that?” Pessimism is simple and ugly, and has no desire to make itself more complex or more attractive. The true moral pessimist knows that the Utilitarian’s accounts will always be in the red. He can see that for all his computational containments, his only honest path is a negative one, and that such a path has but one logical destination: that of wholesale human oblivion. Thacker notes how at the core of pessimism lies the notion of “the worst,” through which death is demoted by the all-pervasive suffering of a life that easily eclipses its threat. And so with doom made preferable to gloom, death begins to glint with promise, “like beauty passing through a nightmare.” 13 But even among pessimists suicide is, for the most part, thought to be an error. Schopenhauer, for instance, regarded suicide a mistake grounded in some fundamentally naïve disappointment or other. Pessoa too thought suicide an onerous escape tactic: “To die is to become completely other. That’s why suicide is a cowardice: it’s to surrender ourselves completely to life.” 14 There is a call here to be accepting of and creative with the puppetry of your being, an insistence that it’s somehow a blunder to attempt to hide in death from the horrors you find inlife. 15 Tied up with this perseverance is the slippery notion of the good death, for maybe, as Blanchot warns, suicide is rarely something we can hope to get right, for the simple reason that “you cannot make of death an object of the will.” 16 “Even in cases where the entire corpus of an author is pessimistic, the project always seems incomplete,” 17 and this is not simply because the project itself belies something yet to be disclosed, but because the project itself is a thing waiting. It waits on a cure it knows will not come, but for which it cannot do anything (as long as it continues to do anything) but wait. NOTES 1. See Thomas Ligotti. The Conspiracy Against the Human Race . New York: Hippocampus Press. 2010. 91. 2. Ludwig Wittgenstein. “A Lecture on Ethics.” Philosophical Review . (74) 1. 1965. 8. 3. Vladimir Nabokov. Pale Fire . New York: Vintage. 1989. 221. 4. E. M. Cioran. The Book of Delusions . trans. Camelia Elias. Hyperion. 5.1. (2010): 75. 5. Arthur Schopenhauer. The World as Will and Representation. vol. 2 . trans. E .F J. Payne. New York: Dover. 1966. 609. 6. Eugene Thacker. “Cosmic Pessimism.” continent. . 2.2 (2012): 67. 7. Fernando Pessoa. The Book of Disquiet . trans. Richard Zenith. London: Penguin. 2002. 35. 8. Eugene Thacker. “Cosmic Pessimism.” continent. . 2.2 (2012): 68. 9. Ibid. 73. 10. Fernando Pessoa. The Book of Disquiet . trans. Richard Zenith. London: Penguin. 2002. 341. 11. Arthur Schopenhauer. The World as Will and Representation. vol. 2 . trans. E .F J. Payne. New York: Dover. 1966. 610-11. 12. B.S Johnson. “You’re Human Like the Rest of Them.” in Jonathan Coe. Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. Johnson . London: Picador. 2004. 177. 13. Fernando Pessoa. The Book of Disquiet . trans. Richard Zenith. London: Penguin. 2002. 415. 14. Ibid. 199. 15. “Suicide is, after all, the opposite of the poem.” Anne Sexton. No Evil Star: Selected Essays, Interviews and Prose . ed. Steven Gould Axelrod. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1985. 92. 16. Maurice Blanchot. The Space of Literature . trans. Ann Smock. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 1989. 105. 17. Eugene Thacker. “Cosmic Pessimism.” continent. . 2.2 (2012): 75. (shrink)

Nowadays, due to restrictions on fossil fuels, the use of renewable energies is increasing day by day. Among renewable energies, solar energy has received more attraction due to its availability in all places. Among solar energy technologies, the solar tower has been welcomed due to its high power generation of electrical energy. For accurate modeling of the studied system, each component of the system has been evaluated and modeling has been done. Therefore, in this research, solar tower modeling has been (...) conducted to achieve high electrical energy production, and to better compare the production rate, 5 cities in Iran with different weather conditions have been considered. According to the results, it can be mentioned that the highest production power by the studied system is related to Shiraz city with an average production of 20 kW/m2, and among the cities studied, the lowest rate is related to Mashhad with a production power of 15 kW/m2. (shrink)

Although Fuzzy logic and Fuzzy Mathematics is a widespread subject and there is a vast literature about it, yet the use of Fuzzy issues like Fuzzy sets and Fuzzy numbers was relatively rare in time concept. This could be seen in the Fuzzy time series. In addition, some attempts are done in fuzzing Turing Machines but seemingly there is no need to fuzzy time. Throughout this article, we try to change this picture and show why it is helpful to consider (...) the instants of time as Fuzzy numbers. In physics, though there are revolutionary ideas on the time concept like B theories in contrast to A theory also about central concepts like space, momentum… it is a long time that these concepts are changed, but time is considered classically in all well-known and established physics theories. Seemingly, we stick to the classical time concept in all fields of science and we have a vast inertia to change it. Our goal in this article is to provide some bases why it is rational and reasonable to change and modify this picture. Here, the central point is the modified version of “Unexpected Hanging” paradox as it is described in "Is classical Mathematics appropriate for theory of Computation".This modified version leads us to a contradiction and based on that it is presented there why some problems in Theory of Computation are not solved yet. To resolve the difficulties arising there, we have two choices. Either “choosing” a new type of Logic like “Para-consistent Logic” to tolerate contradiction or changing and improving the time concept and consequently to modify the “Turing Computational Model”. Throughout this paper, we select the second way for benefiting from saving some aspects of Classical Logic. In chapter 2, by applying quantum Mechanics and Schrodinger equation we compute the associated fuzzy number to time. These, provides a new interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.More exactly what we see here is "Particle-Fuzzy time" interpretation of quantum Mechanics, in contrast to some other interpretations of Quantum Mechanics like " Wave-Particle" interpretation. At the end, we propound a question about the possible solution of a paradox in Physics, the contradiction between General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. (shrink)