Document Type : review paper
Abstract
One of the less-known traditional cultural movements، Azarkeivanian، emerged in the middle of the Safavid era in Iran by a Zoroastrian priest، Bahram Ben Farhad (also known as Azarkeivan). Although some scholars have questioned the historicity of such a character، one can justify his real existence and his historical presence by citing the extant remains of records and documents. Due to the religious fundamentalism prevalent at the time of the Safavids، he left Shiraz for India، and it was probably there that، having been concerned with the preservation of thte religious heritage of his predecessors، he thought of founding a new cultural movement. The movement that had claimed a revival of the intellectual and cultural traditions of the ancient Iran and a compliance with the theosophic wisdom – which، having been influenced by the Khosrowani wisdom of the sages of the ancient Iran in the Islamic era، had been revived by Shaykh Shahabaddin Suhrawardi – now reproduced ancient signs and symbols. It was، ths، Azarkeivan who – through rereading Iranian works and archives and Islamic texts as well as merging them with the more permissive beliefs and all those cults and religious doctrines prevelant and promoted in India in the reign of Gurkaniyans، tried to define and develop a new Iranian Identity. Employing a descriptive approach in the historical research based on an analysis of literary texts، the present article has an overview of the beliefs and views as well as the impact of this particular intellectual movement on a part of the literary and historiographical movements of the Qajar and the Zand period.
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