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The Dēnkard Against its Islamic Discourse
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Kianoosh Rezania
Published/Copyright:
October 14, 2017
Abstract:
The Dēnkard is the most exhaustive Pahlavi work ever produced in Zoroastrianism. Due to the large amount of information included in it, this body of work has often been referred to within the field of Iranian Studies as a ‘Zoroastrian Encyclopedia’. This article discusses two main points. First, it holds that it was not the intention of the Dēnkard’s authors and editors to compose a Zoroastrian encyclopedia in the 9th and 10th centuries. By contrast, the independent texts which serve as the basis of this compilation deal with other religions or present a Zoroastrian apologetic. It also claims that the Dēnkard has not been perceived as an encyclopedia in later Zoroastrianism. Second, the article scrutinizes the editorial process that led to this book. It furthermore argues that the Dēnkard, in its current form, has been structured to resemble the Zoroastrian world history comprising nine millennia. This article aims, moreover, to show that the last three books of the Dēnkard aim to depict Zoroastrians as belonging to the People of the Book. The article finally argues that the Dēnkard should be considered entirely a theological apologetic within an inter-religious context, which was mainly carried by Muslim theologians.
Keywords: Zoroastrian apologetics literature; Dēnkard; inter-religious contact; Early Islamic period; Iran and Islam
Published Online: 2017-10-14
Published in Print: 2017-10-26
© De Gruyter
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- Thematic Focus: Iran and Islam: Early Encounters
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Keywords for this article
Zoroastrian apologetics literature;
Dēnkard;
inter-religious contact;
Early Islamic period;
Iran and Islam
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Thematic Focus: Iran and Islam: Early Encounters
- Iran and Islam: Early Encounters
- Descent and Inheritance in Zoroastrian and Shiʿite Law: A Preliminary Study
- The Dēnkard Against its Islamic Discourse
- Articles
- The Monotheistic Cousins of Muḥammad’s Wife Khadīja
- Ascension, Descension, and Prayer-Times in the Sīra and the Ḥadīth: Notes on Dating and Chronology
- Avicenna’s Shifāʾ(Sufficientia): in Defense of Medieval Latin Translators
- « Textes flottants » : l’exemple d’Abū Šāma. Une écriture de l’histoire dans le Proche-Orient aux VIIe–IXe/XIIIe–XVe siècles
- Observations of a Medieval Quantitative Historian?
- Heirs of Chinghis Khan in the Age of Revolutions: An Unruly Crimean Prince in the Ottoman Empire and Beyond
- Bibliographie raisonnée zur arabischen Papyrologie: Neuerscheinungen 2016 und Nachträge 2013–2015
- Reviews
- Pascal Buresi, Hicham El Aallaoui, Gouverning the Empire: Provincial Administration in the Almohad Caliphate (1224‒1269), Critical Edition, Translation, and Study of Manuscript 4752 of the Ḥasaniyya Library in Rabat (Studies in the History and Society of the Maghrib 3), Leiden: Brill, 2013, ISBN 978-90-04-23333-1.
- Michelina Di Cesare, The Pseudo-Historical Image of the Prophet Muḥammad in Medieval Latin Literature: A Repertory. (Studien zur Geschichte und Kultur des Islamischen Orients 26), Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2012, IX u. 541 S., ISBN 987-3-11-026382-4.
- Christian Gaubert, Jean-Michel Mouton, Hommes et villages du Fayyoum dans la documentation papyrologique arabe (Xe-Xie siècles), Hautes études orientales – Moyen et Proche Orient 6, Genf (DROZ), 2014; ISBN 9782600013789.
- François Georgeon, Nicolas Vatin, Gilles Veinstein (eds.), Dictionnaire de l’Empire ottoman. Avec la collaboration d’ Elisabetta Borromeo, 1332 pp., Paris: Fayard, 2015, ISBN: 978-2-213-62681-9 (hardcover).
- Michael Hope, Power, Politics, and Tradition in the Mongol Empire and the Īlkhānate of Iran, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. xii, 238 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-876859-3, Hardcover, 60 GBP.
- Andreas Kaplony, Daniel Potthast and Cornelia Römer, From Bāwīṭ to Marw. Documents from the Medieval Muslim World, Leiden: Brill, 2015, 190 p., 20 plates, ISBN 978-90-04-28205-6 (hardback); ISBN 978-90-04-28218-6 (e-book).
- Alex Mallett, Popular Muslim Reactions to the Franks in the Levant, 1097‒1291, Farnham/UK: Ashgate, 2014, 175 pp., index, ISBN 9781409456124.
- Ricoldus de Monte Crucis, Tractatus seu disputatio contra Saracenos et Alchoranum, Edition, Übersetzung, Kommentar von Daniel Pachurka, Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2016 [= Corpus Islamo-Christianum. Series Latina 9]; LI + 198 S., ISBN 978-3-447-10711-2.
- Jürgen Paul, ed., Nomad Aristocrats in a World of Empires, Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2013, 207pp., ISBN 978-3-89500-975-4.
- Jürgen Paul, Lokale und Imperiale Herrschaft im Iran des 12. Jahrhunderts. Herrschaft und Konzepte, Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2016, 568 S., ISBN 978-3-95490-103-6.
- Carl F. Petry, The Criminal Underworld in a Medieval Islamic Society. Narratives from Cairo and Damascus under the Mamluks, Chicago: The Center for Middle Eastern Studies 2012. (Chicago Studies on the Middle East, 9). ISBN: 978-0-9708199-8-7 / Bernadette Martel-Thoumian, Délinquance et ordre social. L’état mamlouk syro-égyptien face au crime à la fin du IXe – XVe siècle, Bordeaux : Ausonius Éditions 2012. (Scripta Mediaevalia 21). ISBN : 978-2-35613-065-5.
- Yossef Rapoport, Shahab Ahmed (eds.), Ibn Taymiyya and His Times, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, 400 pp, ISBN 978-0-19-940206-9 / Sophia Vasalou, Ibn Taymiyya’s Theological Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 342 pp, ISBN 978-0-19-939783-9.
- Elisha Russ-Fishbane, Judaism, Sufism, and the Pietists of Medieval Egypt, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015, 286 p, ISBN 978-0-19-872876-4.
- Daniella Talmon-Heller, Katia Cytryn-Silverman, eds., Material Evidence and Narrative Sources: Interdisciplinary Studies of the History of the Muslim Middle East. Leiden and Boston: E. J. Brill, 2015, xx + 390 pages including index, 108 illustrations including maps, plans, tables and photographs, ISBN13: 9789004271593; E-ISBN 9789004279667.
- Isabel Toral-Niehoff, Al-Ḥīra. Eine arabische Kulturmetropole im spätantiken Kontext, Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2014, xvii + 248 S., ISBN: 9789004229266.
