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Constructions of Persian and Iranian Identity, Ethnicity, and Religion From...
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Constructions of Persian and Iranian Identity, Ethnicity, and Religion From Ancient Times to the Present

A special issue of Religions (ISSN 2077-1444).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (15 August 2021) | Viewed by 31239

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Kristin Joachimsen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
MF-Norwegian School of Theology, Religion and Society, 0363 Oslo, Norway
Interests: Hebrew Bible; Book of Isaiah; Books of Ezra and Nehemiah; Book of Esther; historiography—Persian Yehud; memory studies; identity–religion–ethnicity; postcolonial studies
Dr. Marianne Hafnor Bøe

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Cultural Studies and Languages,University of Stavanger, 4021 Stavanger, Norway
Interests: comparative religion; Islam in Norway; religion and gender; religion and feminism; religion and law

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Identity, ethnicity, and religion are all contested terms. Moreover, they have often been conceptualized in one-dimensional, homogeneous, and contrastive ways. Both ethnicity and religion might also be used heuristically as illustrations of more general patterns of cultural dynamics. This Special Issue of Religions draws attention to their complexity by focusing on the dynamics of cultural imaginations of self and other in terms of ancient Persia and modern Iran.

Cultural imagination concerns how a group is constructed through narratives, practices, symbols, memory, and (imaginary worlds of) objects, people, or events. Persia and the Persian king Cyrus (601–530 BCE) are good cases in point to explore how others construct cultural groups through interconnectedness, but also appropriation, and in some instances even rejection, of “the Other.” The Iranian human rights advocate Shirin Ebadi, in her Nobel Peace Prize lecture in 2003, called herself a “descendant of Cyrus the Great.” She further stated that “The Charter of Cyrus The Great is one of the most important documents that should be studied in the history of human rights,” noted for its ideas of tolerance and freedom of religion. Concurrently, the President of Iran (2005–2013) Mahmoud Ahmadinejad referred to the Cyrus’ Cylinder as a sign that “the Iranian nation has always been the flagbearer of justice, devotion, and human values throughout history” (PressTV2010). Moreover, the US President Donald Trump and his administration have blended a tribute of Cyrus with an anti-Iranian agenda, exploiting the ancient Persian king’s politics of liberation against the present Islamic regime of Iran.

How notions of identity, ethnicity, and religion are connected, vary. In some cases, a pre-Islamic Iran is interpreted as a golden age linked to the Aryan race and to Europe, in which “the other” is represented by Islam and the Arabs. In other cases, Islam is intrinsically linked to a different sense of “Iranianness” that, in turn, is contrasted with the Western “other”. Such constructions are relevant for ideas of nation, nationalism, and diaspora. They may configure in identity politics and rights claims dealing with gender, religious belonging, race, ethnicity, social background, class, etc.

This Special Issue provides the opportunity to address the constructions of Persian and Iranian identity, ethnicity, and religion. We invite contributions that address both theoretical and empirical perspectives on these issues from scholars and researchers in the study of religions and related disciplines. Topics of interest are, amongst others:

  1. How are oneself and others constructed in terms of ethnic and religious identity markers?
  2. How do identities intersect, through the embeddedness of ethnicity, religious affiliation, gender, race, social background, class, geography, etc.?
  3. How is identity both composite, relational, and situational?
  4. How does the imperial setting have an impact on identity constructions?
  5. The politics of Iranian nationalism: past and present ideas and constructions of “Iranianness” in Iran, diaspora, and beyond.

Dr. Kristin Joachimsen
Dr. Marianne Hafnor Bøe
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Religions is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • identity
  • ethnicity
  • religion
  • gender
  • diaspora
  • Persia
  • Iran

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Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 313 KiB  
Article
Yehudite Imaginations of King Darius and His Officials: Views from the Province beyond the River
by Kristin Joachimsen
Religions 2022, 13(3), 262; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13030262 - 19 Mar 2022
Viewed by 2652
Abstract
This article analyzes representations of the Persian king Darius and his officials in the Books of Haggai, Zechariah 1–8, and Ezra 4–6 in the current Hebrew Bible. These writings, produced in the Persian period or somewhat later, portray these literary characters in various [...] Read more.
This article analyzes representations of the Persian king Darius and his officials in the Books of Haggai, Zechariah 1–8, and Ezra 4–6 in the current Hebrew Bible. These writings, produced in the Persian period or somewhat later, portray these literary characters in various ways in relation to the restoration of the community, city, and temple of YHWH in Jerusalem. In biblical scholarship, the main interest has been to scrutinize the conditions behind the textual representations of Darius, related to dating the selected texts and the temple restoration, as well as Darius’s role as the central supplier of Achaemenid imperial ideology. The current study suggests refocusing by highlighting the historical significance of the literary imaginations of this monarch. What is at stake is not the historical Darius or the officials Zerubbabel, Sheshbazzar, and Tattenai, but rather literary representations of them suiting the needs of those who produced them. In Haggai and Zechariah 1–8, Darius’s role in the temple restoration is downplayed, while in Haggai, Zerubbabel is represented by a blend of Yahwistic and imperial signs and symbols, and in Zechariah 1–8, the imperial connotations are toned down. This is while Zerubbabel is decisive for authorizing both the temple community and the prophet. In Ezra 4–6, Darius is one of many Persian kings engaged in the restoration of the temple and the city of Jerusalem. While Zerubbabel gains support from the prophets Haggai and Zechariah, Sheshbazzar brings the vessels back to Jerusalem and lays the foundations of the temple on King Cyrus’s command. At the same time, Tattenai gets Cyrus’s order confirmed and, apart from that, is asked to stay away from the works of the Yehudites. By analyzing the representations of Darius and other Persian officials through a cultural-historical lens, selection and perspectivization are stressed. The selected writings convey local negotiations of power relations with the empire in terms of keeping a position in the imperial hierarchy while, at the same time, cultivating the identity of their subaltern group through certain symbols, institutions, and practices. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Constructions of Persian and Iranian Identity, Ethnicity, and Religion From Ancient Times to the Present)
12 pages, 1042 KiB  
Article
Playing with Peace: Solomon as the Man of Peace and Rest, and the Temple as the House of Rest
by Louis C. Jonker
Religions 2022, 13(1), 2; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13010002 - 21 Dec 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2746
Abstract
It is well-known that the notions of peace, rest and order belonged to the royal Achaemenid ideology, particularly from the time of Darius I onwards. This can be witnessed in Achaemenid architecture, iconography and royal inscriptions. However, although the relations between the Persian [...] Read more.
It is well-known that the notions of peace, rest and order belonged to the royal Achaemenid ideology, particularly from the time of Darius I onwards. This can be witnessed in Achaemenid architecture, iconography and royal inscriptions. However, although the relations between the Persian Empire and the Greek city-states were never completely peaceful, the diplomatic relations between Persia and particularly Sparta emphasised the value and importance of peace for international politics. How did this international discourse influence the literature formation in Yehud at the same time? In addition, can one read the Chronicler’s portrayal of King Solomon of old as playful (and undermining) irony and polemic against the imperial masters? In this article, I revisit an earlier study in which I have started investigating the rhetorical locus of the Chronicler’s portrayal of this king. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Constructions of Persian and Iranian Identity, Ethnicity, and Religion From Ancient Times to the Present)
13 pages, 284 KiB  
Article
Henry Corbin’s Oriental Philosophy and Iranian Nativist Ideologies
by Ahmad Bostani
Religions 2021, 12(11), 997; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12110997 - 14 Nov 2021
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 4624
Abstract
This paper aims to explore the roots of the nativist discourse among Iranian intellectuals in the 20th century prior to the Islamic Revolution, a discourse based on Eastern authenticity and the felt need for a return to Islamic, Persian, or Asian traditions. This [...] Read more.
This paper aims to explore the roots of the nativist discourse among Iranian intellectuals in the 20th century prior to the Islamic Revolution, a discourse based on Eastern authenticity and the felt need for a return to Islamic, Persian, or Asian traditions. This general tendency took various forms among anti- and even pro-regime intellectuals, including severe anti-modernist evaluations of Al-e-Ahmad, Hossein Nasr, Ahmad Fardid, and Ehsan Naraqi. This nativist movement, as some scholars have shown, played a significant role in the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979. This paper aims to discuss some philosophical origins of these East-based and anti-West ideologies in the specific interpretation of Henry Corbin of the East/West spiritual split. This paper demonstrates that these ideas, to a considerable extent, stemmed from Corbin’s “Eastern scheme,” based on the authenticity of spiritual illumination. This paper explores how this Oriental philosophy, rooted in ancient Persia and medieval Iranian wisdom, has been used for political purposes through the ideologization of tradition in contemporary Iran. Therefore, it discusses Corbin’s theological scheme’s political and social ramifications to demonstrate the traces of his scheme in the works of a few nativist intellectuals in an ideologized form. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Constructions of Persian and Iranian Identity, Ethnicity, and Religion From Ancient Times to the Present)
17 pages, 701 KiB  
Article
The Politics of Calendars: State Appropriations of the Contested Iranian Past
by Ehsan Kashfi
Religions 2021, 12(10), 861; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12100861 - 12 Oct 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2544
Abstract
This paper seeks to investigate how commemorative practices, rituals, and holidays are invented, deployed, and recast for political and ideological purposes, to reinforce and sustain a particular narrative of national identity. It argues that the choice of particular moments of a country’s past [...] Read more.
This paper seeks to investigate how commemorative practices, rituals, and holidays are invented, deployed, and recast for political and ideological purposes, to reinforce and sustain a particular narrative of national identity. It argues that the choice of particular moments of a country’s past to be commemorated in calendars as national holidays and the way in which the collective past is preserved and remembered both reflect and articulate a country’s vision of its present essence, of who its people are. Recognizing the link between the collective memory and national identity, the Iranian states before and after the 1979 revolution made a special effort to articulate their narrative of the past by commemorating a particular set of holidays and rituals. Viewing the calendar as a political artifact, this paper compares changes in the Iranian national calendars in the Pahlavi era (1925–1979) and the Islamic Republic (1979–2018). It examines the inclusion of new religious holidays and the removal of national days associated with the monarchy as well as the assignment of new meanings and celebratory practices to the old ones as the signifiers of a political maneuver to articulate a new shared public memory and narrative of identity since the 1979 revolution. It then examines two nationwide celebrations before and after the 1979 revolution, representing two state-sponsored, competing narratives of Iranian identity: firstly, the 2500-year celebration of the Persian Empire in 1953, and, secondly, the Ashura commemoration, a religious gathering dedicated to the remembrance of Shia Imams. These commemorations provided the state a unique political opportunity to present its own appraisal of the past and, in turn, national identity. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Constructions of Persian and Iranian Identity, Ethnicity, and Religion From Ancient Times to the Present)
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18 pages, 361 KiB  
Article
Abram the One from Beyond-the-River, and King Chedorlaomer of Elam (Genesis 14): Persia and the Formation of Judaean Ethnic Identity in a Late Patriarchal Narrative
by Gard Granerød
Religions 2021, 12(8), 632; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12080632 - 11 Aug 2021
Cited by 1 | Viewed by 3222
Abstract
The perception of Persia in Judaean/Jewish texts from antiquity contributed to the construction of a Judaean/Jewish identity. Genesis 14 gives an example of this; in it, Abra(ha)m wages war with a coalition headed by King Chedorlaomer of Elam. The article argues that Genesis [...] Read more.
The perception of Persia in Judaean/Jewish texts from antiquity contributed to the construction of a Judaean/Jewish identity. Genesis 14 gives an example of this; in it, Abra(ha)m wages war with a coalition headed by King Chedorlaomer of Elam. The article argues that Genesis 14 is one of the latest additions to the patriarchal narratives (Genesis 12–36), composed in the Persian or early Hellenistic period. It was conceived and used as an ethnic identity-forming story. The characters in the narrative represented groups and nations in the neighbourhood of the province of Judah. Abra(ha)m was perceived as the ancestor of the Judaeans and the inhabitants of the province Beyond-the-River. The King of Elam represented the Persian Empire. The article uses redaction criticism to argue that Genesis 14 is among the latest additions to the patriarchal narrative in the late Persian or Hellenistic period. Moreover, it uses a combination of philological and historical methods to argue that the description of Abra(ha)m as hāʿibrî (traditionally translated “the Hebrew,” Gen 14: 13) characterises him as a person from the region Eber-nāri (Beyond-the-River). The article uses similar methods to argue that the names of people and places in Genesis 14 referred to political entities in and around Judah. Eventually, the article uses Anthony D. Smith’s theory of ethnic community and elements from postcolonial theory as “reading lenses” and a framework for analysing Genesis 14. Reading this way underscores that Genesis 14 originated and worked as an ethnic identity-forming story. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Constructions of Persian and Iranian Identity, Ethnicity, and Religion From Ancient Times to the Present)
29 pages, 337 KiB  
Article
The American Cyrus: How an Ancient King Became a Political Tool for Voter Mobilization
by Hanne Amanda Trangerud
Religions 2021, 12(5), 354; https://doi.org/10.3390/rel12050354 - 18 May 2021
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 12435
Abstract
During the 2016 presidential election, Evangelical supporters of Donald Trump presented him as a modern version of the ancient King Cyrus of Persia. To many conservative Christians, the comparison offered a justification of voting for a candidate whose character supposedly was at odds [...] Read more.
During the 2016 presidential election, Evangelical supporters of Donald Trump presented him as a modern version of the ancient King Cyrus of Persia. To many conservative Christians, the comparison offered a justification of voting for a candidate whose character supposedly was at odds with their Christian virtues. Subsequent to his inauguration, the idea of Trump being an American Cyrus continued to develop and circulate. It is the aim of this article to deepen the understanding of Cyrus as a political tool in the West and explain how he ended up as a means to mobilize American voters. With an emphasis on the last 250 years, the article looks at how various personalities have been compared to Cyrus or presented as modern Cyruses. Based on these examples, it develops a typology, arguing that the modern Cyrus can be best understood as different types and subtypes, of which several have been applied to Trump. The article demonstrates how the various subtypes have separate evolutionary lines, which in turn can be attributed to different goals and functions. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Constructions of Persian and Iranian Identity, Ethnicity, and Religion From Ancient Times to the Present)
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