Spektrum Iran

Abstract Mīrdāmād, a famous Shiite scholar in the Safavid era, explains his ideas on
one of the most controversial issues in the history of Islamic philosophy,
that is the question of human free will, in Risāla al-Īqāẓāt fī al-Khalq al-Aʿmāl
(Treatise of Awakenings on the Creation of Actions). Influenced by Tūsī’s
solution for the problem, he also tries to justify human free will not
alongside, but along the Primary Cause’s will. He intends to prove that
human free will is not in contradiction to God’s absolute will by defining a
middle way which is neither compulsion of man (ǧabr), nor delegation of
power to man (tafwīd). In order to do that, he distinguishes two types of
agents: the direct agent (al-fāʿil al-mubāshir), that is human being whose free
will is the last component of the sufficient cause, and therefore, he is the free
agent in performing his acts; and the Perfect Maker (al-ǧāʿil al-tām) who is
the one that creates the existence of an act and all its causes and conditions,
including human’s power, will and knowledge.

Abstract In the last twenty years, several studies have looked at the impact of landscape on language on the one hand and the interpretation of geographical features as an expression of mythology and history on the other. Although the attribution of cultural features to the natural environment often seems archaic, looking at traditional societies and their relationship to the surrounding landscape not only offers insights into a particular culture, but can also give us ideas for a more balanced and ecologically sound approach in times of global climate change and environmental degradation.Apart from its economic value, nature today is mostly experienced as an aesthetic contrast to civilisation and urbanisation. In Afghan Nuristan, there is no such contrast between nature and human society. The landscape speaks in two ways. On the one hand, it can itself be “read” as a chronicle of the country. Just as boundaries within human society are drawn by ethnicity, gender, ancestry and social hierarchy, gods and other superhuman beings are also assigned to certain areas. Rivers and mountains are only conditionally accessible and usable by humans; they are divine or monuments of divine action. On the other hand, the natural environment has so influenced the structure of Nuristani languages that a speaker of a Nuristani language can hardly avoid always simultaneously “expressinglandscape” in an utterance.

Abstract Travel writing becomes an academic object of inquiry in the wake of Edward Said’s Orientalismin which he states travelogues are not the mirror-like pictures of Eastern terrains, but texts that are affiliated with Orientalism written to promote Western Imperialism. Nevertheless, travel scholars like Behdad and Blanton take issue with him, positing that travel writers can transcend rigid strictures of Orientalism. Hence, by invoking the perspectives of Behdad and Blanton, the current study embarks on reading Ella Maillart’s The Cruel Way to throw light on her counter-Orientalism: the moments in which she poses a challenge to Orientalist rhetoric. Accordingly, it argues that she displays her counter-Orientalism in two ways: firstly, through desiring of and engaging fruitfully with holy spaces; secondly via sympathizing and identifying with her local travellees oppressed by Reza Shah’s modernization project. Since Iran has remained unexplored in the studies of her travel book, this study delimits its scope mainly to Iran and partially to Afghanistan.

Abstract “Tanā sub” (The proportion of the verses or suras) is one of the most important linguistic and literary rules that plays a role in various sciences, especially Qur`anic sciences. Among its applications in the Qur'anic sciences is the discovery of the sequence of the revelation of verses and suras, which Noldeke uses extensively in his theory of the sequence of revelation. This paper intends to explain and evaluate the quality and position of using this tool in the above-mentioned theory by a descriptive-analytic method. The study of the theory from this perspective shows that proportion has been used frequently and as a widely used criterion in this theory, and Noldeke benefited greatly from it in discovering the sequence of the revelation of verses and suras. However, some cases of using this tool in the mentioned theory, like establishing a proportion among different suras are not logical and accurate, and this tool can not be helpful in such cases solely.

Abstract In this article, the reception of Jalāl ad-Din Mohammad Rūmī (1207-1273) by Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel (1770-1831) is presented and examined. In the introduction, the main features of Hegel’s philosophy are briefly outlined, with particular emphasis on his attitude to pantheism. Then Hegel’s reception of Rūmīi is shown in his “Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences”, “Lectures about Aesthetics” and “Lectures about Philosophy of Religion”. Finally, Hegel’s statement is examined, in which he claims a great deal of agreement with Rūmī.

Abstract In the tradition of historical-comparative language or linguistics research, either the common word pairs of any language pair, which are counted as descendants of a hypothetical original language are examined, for example Indo-European (hereditary word pairs) due to a genetic relationship, or a kind of secondary relationship due to indirect/direct proven geographical contact (foreign or loanword pairs). Of course, this is quite apart from the coincidental coherences, which are usually only sought in the formal area, which is the case, for example, with the false friends or certain onomatopoeia and interjections. Furthermore, there ist one seldom researched incident, which can be placed between the common hereditary and loanwords of a language pair in etymological research. When it comes to a single intralingual hybrid word, which consists of inherited and borrowed or different (other language) elements at the same time, one speaks of “hybrid formations” (Kluge 2011: XXIf.). But if we take up this topic from a language-pair-related perspective, we are dealing with interlingual hybrid word pairs, which on the one hand can be hybrid in every single language involved in the language comparison process and on the other hand in comparison to one another, i.e., not even interlingually pure or show an equally bilateral or multi-sided orientation. In view of the fact that the interlingual hybrid word pairs as a linguistic topic have so far been occasionally neglected in the absolute majority of the relevant studies and almost within all (any) language pairs, the present research has dealt with this topic using the example of the genealogically related German and Persian languages that came into contact with each other at times.

Abstract In this paper, I attempt to reread and interpret some aspects of the ontological doctrine of Iranian philosopher Mullā Ṣadrā according to the radical critique of the whole history of metaphysics and ontology, which the German philosopher Martin Heidegger declares emphatically in his destruction of the history of metaphysics. Heidegger concentrates his criticism under the title Ontotheology and thereby indicates the lack of an explicit understanding of the problem of ontological difference, which shows itself in the reduction of the Being of beings to an absolute and first being as an absolute intellect. I try to explain how the ontological doctrine of Mullā Ṣadrā, i.e. the “Priority of the Being” could be confronted with this criticism, and which potential answers could his philosophy have according to the basic ontological challenge that the concept of the Being – and consequently the ontological concepts in general – cannot be reduced ontotheologically to a causal relation to the first and highest being or to a reflection and an abstraction of the human subject. To disclose these potential answers, I discuss two specific aspects of Mullā Ṣadrā’s ontology. First his attempt to overcome the scholastic distinction between essence and existence and secondly his different ontological understanding of the specific and unique universality of the Being.

Abstract The filed of Iranian Studies was established in W/S 1978 at the University of Heidelberg as a minor field of study for master's and doctorate degrees. Before the establishment of this field, the related topics were presented in the courses offered by the faculties of Oriental Studies and Classical Studies, the Modern Philology Faculty and the Faculty of Philosophy and History. This paper reconstructs the activities related to the establishment of this discipline based on the correspondence on the subject preserved in the university archives.

Abstract On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, a new revolutionary manifesto, the „Manifesto of the Second Step“, was issued by the Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on February 11, 2019, instead of an annual message of thanks to the nation. In it, Ayatollah Khamene i announced that the Islamic Revolution in Iran has entered a new evolutionary phase that is much more decisive than the first 40-year phase or the "First Step" in the historical process of building the New Islamic Civilization. This paper illustrates why that is so by quoting the exact wording of the manifesto and commenting it. Furthermore, the central concepts underlying the manifesto, namely "self-formation", "society re-formation" and "civilization re-formation", as well as the main focus of the paper namely the cultural-political aspects of the Manifesto will be explored and explained from the textual perspective. The main goal of this article is to bring this manifesto, which is undoubtedly one of the most current and important documents of the Iranian cultural policy since 1979, closer to the German-speaking reader as an interested cultural dialogue partner and to create awareness for possible problems related to the cultural dialogue.

Abstract During the development of epistemological matters and explanation of various intellectual mechanisms in Europe, the epistemological efforts on intellectuality and epistemic justification can be seen in the Islamic world, too.
Usulies ‘belief in internalism and Akhbaries’ acceptance of externalism (despite there was not any relation between Islamic tradition and western philosophy) or arguing on the various ways of solving gettier problem are some examples of these efforts.
The theory of essential production that is a view between rationalism and empiricism is one of the most famous (or maybe the best) epistemic theories appealed to for solving induction problem in the Islamic world, at the same time that lengthy debates about solving the problem of induction was offered in the west. Our aim in this paper is proposing the idea of the possibility of using epistemological sophistications of Islamic and western traditions in their special epistemic investigations.
By noting that the epistemic implications of internalism and externalism is explored in more details in the west, we can use these implications for improvement of mechanisms of derivating divine orders from their reasons. On the other hand, evoking new structures of intellectuality which suggested in Islamic tradition can lead to reconsideration of current categorizations of justification structures of epistemology that are suggested by western epistemologies.