Mohammad Hajitaghi; Ebrahim Kiani Mehr
Abstract
Iranian identity is a flowing, multifaceted and complicated concept which has been formed over the long history of Iran, being rooted in concepts and sources like, religion, history, ...
Read More
Iranian identity is a flowing, multifaceted and complicated concept which has been formed over the long history of Iran, being rooted in concepts and sources like, religion, history, land, language, customs, traditions, festivals and Iranshahr (Iranian civilization) thoughts. This authentic concept underwent many changes due to Arab invasion and lack of integrity in the political system of the country although it was reformed in new ways after experiencing short intervals of wane. Invasion of Mongols along with the overthrow of the Abbasid caliphate, caused an unintended revival of Iranian political identity under the ruling of Mongols and provided some Iranian thinkers such as Wassaf-e-Shirazi with an invaluable opportunity to reproduce and reorganize some instances and criteria of Iranian identity including idealistic royal thoughts, justice and Iranian patriotism. This article extracts and analyzes some instances of Iranian identity during Wassaf History using a historical procedure in the form of an analytic-descriptive approach. In so doing, a question and a hypothesis are put forward to be analyzed. The question the article is set to answer is: How has the role of the author in reviving the Iranian identity been reflected in his work regarding his professional status in his time? Hypothesis: Wassaf, who was aware of the components of Iranian identity and had close relationships with the most prominent ministers of the Ilkhanids, as well as using the tendency of converting to Islam by Mongol Ilkhanids from Ghazan Khan, tried to become like his predecessors such as Khwaja Rashid al-Din Fazlallah and Jovini to restore the components of Iranian identity in his work. The findings of the study reveals that Wassaf has introduced concepts and instances of Iranian identity in his work in order to have a significant impact on its preservation, transmission and consolidation in Iranian society.
