Critical Approaches to the Image of Women Rulers in the Book of History of Iran from the Rise of Islam to the Coming of the Seljuk Government, Cambridge University Research

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Researcher and PhD in History and Islamic Civilization of Kermanshah, Iran

Abstract

Although the presence and position of women in Islamic societies have been important topics and of interest to Orientalists, for some reasons, in the book "Cambridge History of Iran: Period from the Arab Invasion to the Seljuks", research from the University of Cambridge, the position and role of women in the political and social developments of Iran Ignored.
In fact, by ignoring the role of women in the collection of articles in this book, their presence in various matters, including political, social, and other matters, has been made very less important. The present article has tried to reflect the position and role of Iranian women in a descriptive-analytical and critical way according to the authors of the collection of articles in this book. It seems that despite the knowledge of the authors of the articles in this book about the role and position of women in the developments of this period, the position of Iranian women, especially the ruling women, has not been properly defined and explained. So the main question is: What is the role and position of Iranian women in the Cambridge history book? What image of Iranian women have the Orientalists presented in this book? Although it must be admitted that the reflection of the obvious presence of women in historical books is generally very weak, the critical study of this collection of articles shows that the lack of comprehensive examination of written historical sources has been one of the important factors of ignoring the role played by women in the history of Iran's developments. However, in this category, the prejudices of the Orientalists towards Muslim women have also been the reason for the lack of attention to include their role in the developments.
 
 Introduction 
The confrontation of orientalists with the role and position of women in Islamic lands has been one of the topics of their interest. It is very important. including the fame of its authors, the academic atmosphere of writing, and the many audiences of this work, at least in Iran; Finally, the inclusion of topics and the diversity of the authors of the articles in this book have added to its charms. It was compiled, edited, and published by Richard Nelson Frye at Cambridge University translated in Iran by Hassan Anousheh, and published in Tehran by AmirKabir Publishing House in 2005. We want to examine the image of women in this book, although we know that the image of women in historical texts is very faint and often neglected, but many traces of them can be found in historical developments.
 
 Material & Methods 
The present article has tried to reflect the position and role of Iranian women in a descriptive-analytical and critical way according to the authors of the collection of articles in this book. It seems that despite the knowledge of the authors of the articles in this book about the role and position of women in the developments of this period, the position of Iranian women, especially the ruling women, has not been properly defined and explained. So the main question is: What is the role and position of Iranian women in the Cambridge history book? What image of Iranian women have the Orientalists presented in this book? Although it must be admitted that the reflection of the obvious presence of women in historical books is generally very weak, the critical study of this collection of articles shows that the lack of comprehensive examination of written historical sources has been one of the important factors of ignoring the role played by women in the history of Iran's developments. However, in this category, the prejudices of the Orientalists towards Muslim women have also been the reason for the lack of attention to include their role in the developments.
 
Discussion of Results & Conclusions 
Reviews and critical evaluation showed that although this book has provided good information about the history and civilization of Iran after Islam until the arrival of the Seljuks, for reasons such as lack of access to sources and lack of attention to the role of women in the history of Iran after In Islam, the presence of women in politics, society, culture, etc. has been ignored and sometimes this issue has been ignored as if it denies the presence of women in the society in question. And because most of the historical books were written by men, the neglect of women is a frequent thing in history, and this is not exclusive to Iranian women. However, it seems that orientalists have discriminated more against Muslim women, and it is as if historians have refused to look at women realistically and have written history by default based on the superiority of men over Muslim women. In this book, the ability of Iran's ruling women and achieve the highest political power in the territory of their government has been ignored, and this has caused the role of women to be greatly reduced by wording and writing less about their position. In this book, the dangerous and behind-the-scenes roles of women, which are sometimes difficult to prove, are detailed, but the role of women in religious sciences, jurisprudence, mysticism, poetry, astronomy, medicine, and dozens of other civilizational matters, of which there were many examples in this period It has been neglected. Although studies and investigations have shown that the neglect of this issue is not a unique issue. Of course, studies and investigations have shown that the neglect of this issue is not a problem that is unique to the history of Iran, but in other existing studies, traces of concealment and neglect of the role of women can also be seen.

Keywords


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