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2 results

  • 8 - TRIBES, CITIES AND SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 305-328

  • Summary

    The history of the Sāsānian period is often presented with Islamic bias, for the purpose of leading to conclusions which authors of the Islamic period wished to demonstrate, reflecting the conflicts and problems of their times. In Central Asia and in Afghanistan of today there persisted elements, probably rather heterogeneous, of the confederation known as the Hephthalites, which had an Indo-European core but had been infiltrated by various Turkish elements. Certain Iranian authors of the Islamic era have produced a summary classification of social divisions, based on a particular aspect of actual social conditions quite independent of the Muslim theoretical system. The seat of local government was generally in the citadel, but the central monument of the city, in proportion to its degree of conversion to Islam, was the Great Mosque. In pre-Islamic times Iranian society had been possessed of reserves of slaves and had retained them under Islam.

  • 12 - LIFE SCIENCES, ALCHEMY AND MEDICINE

    • By S. H. Nasr, University of Tehrān; Chancellor, Aryamehr University
  • Edited by R. N. Frye
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Iran
    Published online:
    28 March 2008
    Print publication:
    26 June 1975, pp 396-418

  • Summary

    Islamic science came into being in the 2nd/8th century as a result of the vast effort of translation which made the scientific and philosophical traditions of antiquity available in Arabic. This interest in science during the late Sāsānian period is reported in Arabic sources to have been associated more with the Syriac language than with Pahlavī. The transition from the Sāsānian to the Islamic era in the sciences is marked by the period of translation from Graeco-Syriac, Pahlavī and Sanskrit sources into Arabic. From the Islamic point of view the whole universe is alive and the life sciences really deal with all things. Among the Muslim philosophers who developed the theory of the faculties of the vegetable and animal souls, many of the most important were Persian. Most of the study of plants was connected with their properties and application to different fields, especially medicine.