Talk:Ahmad Kasravi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Ahmad Kasravi article.
Article policies
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page.
Biography Portal
Stub This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
This article is supported by the Arts and Entertainment work group.
This article has been automatically assessed as Stub-Class by WikiProject Biography because it uses a stub template.
  • If you agree with the assessment, please remove {{WPBiography}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page.
  • If you disagree with the assessment, please change it by editing the class parameter of the {{WPBiography}} template, removing {{WPBiography}}'s auto=yes parameter from this talk page, and removing the stub template from the article.
WikiProject Iran Ahmad Kasravi is part of WikiProject Iran, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Iran-related topics. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of objectives.
B This article has been rated as B-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as mid-importance on the Project's importance scale.
After rating the article, please provide a short summary on the article's ratings summary page to explain your ratings and/or identify the strengths and weaknesses.

Contents

[edit] Azeri Language

Well, actually he couldn't show that azeris are persians, the strongest reason that he provided was 4 small villages with turkish names that were located around "khalkhal" that were using the "talish" language. he had nothing to do with even smaller cities in azerbaijan, and as some people know almost at the end of his life he changes his mind about azerbaijan that they couldn't be persians, nor indo-europeans, which we can see at this time what genetic and new historical founds shows.

He didn’t say Azeris are Persians. He shows that Azeris have Iranian origin like Persians
The commentator is correct. He based his proof on his research in an Iranian dialect samples of which he found among the Safavids and which survived in some villages in Azerbaijan. He did not, however, make any argument about whether the Azerbaijanis were "pure" Iranians or "pure" Turks. Such a view was foreign to him at the time he wrote that article.130.156.7.7 15:57, 23 August 2006 (UTC)Evan Siegel
130.156.7.7,23 August 2006; are you Evan Siegel or you are quoting from him? Kiumars

kasravi based his information about language not only on information from some persian dialect island [like khaghazkanan in khalkhal] but also from name of cities in the region and also from travel guide who have wrote by some moslem geographist who passed from region and had mentioned about strange persian dialect in region[may be pahlavi],he has also evaluated the poets of ancestors of safavids which is in persian,i think that bias is dangerous and even destructive in history,it is true that the language of region is a turkish dialect now ,but in previous centuries for a long time persian was the main language espesially in south of aras river,but even during diplomatic relations of safavid and ottoman the letters from both countries was both in persian and turkish.As richard nelson frye has been said:irano turkish world has cultural exchange from old time.Spitman 20:43, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Protected

Azerbaijani,

The words "solid", "showed" and "discovery" are almost never used in social scientific research. There are two excpetions to that: Duverger's finding about electoral systems and number of parties, and so called "democratic peace" idea. Even in these cases there are exceptions to the rule, and thus social scientists refrain from calling them discoveries. In that sense, he cannot "show" he can only "argue" or "claim". The conclusion cannot be a "discovery", it can be a "study" or say, a "reserach". Of course, what makes the wording above worse than what it already is (which has been unfortunately protected), is that it serves a political aim of making Azerbaijan just a marginal aspect of Iran. Azerbaijani, the user, is very active in other pages related to Azerbaijan (for instance, Azerbaijan) where he does just the same thing. Inserting wordings and paragraphs out of context with very questionable references (Armenian or pan-Iranian sources) regarding their objectivity to Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani does all these, moreover, despite the overwhelming objections to his addiditions and deletions in the related discussion pages. What I do, on the other hand, cannot be interpreted as distorting anything or being offensive. I keep the main substance of the paragraph removing its biased political connotations that depict Azerbaijan as a leaf in the grand Iranian forest. This is childish. I am really sorry to deal with this. Opportunity cost is too high. Thank you. Elnurso 02:59, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Kasravi was known for advocating the assimilation of Azeri people with Persians. I think this fact should be reflected in the article. Please see the quote:
The idea of linguistic assimilation was espoused by a leading intellectual of Azarbaijan. Ahmad Kasravi, who has been described as the most controversial of modern Iranian thinkers, saw as his chief concern the transformation of a disunited Iran into what he hoped would be an integrated Iran at whatever the cost. He wrote his magisterial work, Tarikh-i Hijdah Saleh-i Azarbaijan (Eighteen years of history of Azarbaijan), to prove that the fate of Azerbaijan lay with the rest of Iran. He believed that Iran owed its backwardness to multidimensional disunity, and among the forces working for this condition were linguistic differences, which he considered as harmful as tribal loyalties. Kasravi's concern with the lack of linguistic unity began at the early stage of the constitutional movement, when the shah had attempted to fragment the reformist forces by playing up the differences between Persian- and Turkic-speaking liberals, and this concern grew stronger when the Ottomans tried to awaken separatist sentiments in Tabriz. In the mid 1920s, as Shah Reza was preparing for his assimilation campaign, Kasravi wrote a pamphlet titled Zaban-i Azari ya zaban-i bastani Azarbaijan (The Azari language; or, the ancient language of Azarbaijan), a venture into historical linguistics. Azari, the original language of Azarbaijan, had been closely related to Persian, and the influx of Turkic words began only with the Seljuk invasion. Therefore, the argument went, Turki was a foreign tongue imposed by conquerors, and the true national language of Azerbaijan was Azari, which survived only in geographical names and among inhabitants of a few remote villages. The belief in the intrinsically Iranian character of the Azeris, as well as in the need for national integration on the basis of Persian, was the essence of what became known as Kasravism (Kasraviyya).
Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition. ISBN: 0231070683
Another one:
Along with his own strong Iranian identity, Kasravi's unwavering commitment to eradicate any subidentities to Iranian identity calls into question his ability to conduct objective research on Azerbaijan. As Ernest Renan wrote: "Getting its history wrong is part of being a nation" (Renan, "What is A Nation?" p. 145). Kasravi himself claimed that historical materials on the origins of the Azerbaijanis in Iran were often manipulated to suit interested parties' needs in the political polemics raging in the area. (See Ahmed Kasravi, al-'Irfan, Tishrin I, 1922, pp. 121-123, Evan Siegal translation).
Brenda Shaffer. Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity.
Grandmaster 07:43, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
Brenda shaffer is not reliable source but just a scholar for hire. Evan Siegel provided a very good response to her claim. As for Kasravi's research it has been quoted by the likes of Minorsky, Savory and Boseworth. Note Professor Swietochowski (see history of the name of Azerbaijan article) also agrees that the original language of Azerbaijan was not Turkic and thus he actually accepts Kasravi's thesis in the historical sense. Of course Kasravi did not put the theory out first either, it was Markwart and other scholars before Kasravi. --alidoostzadeh 03:14, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

We have an article for the Azeris of Iran. I inserted that into the article.Hajji Piruz 23:11, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ayatollah as-Sadr

The article says that there was a fatwah by "Ayatollah as-Sadr" authorising the killing of Kasravi. Which Ayatollah as-Sadr was this? There were rather a lot of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.25.109.195 (talk) 14:27, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

== Joined a seminary?

==

"Initially, Kasravi enrolled in a seminary." This misses the point. Basically, his father got him to enroll. It was not an autonomous decision. Rather, he did it with reluctance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Evan Siegel (talk • contribs) 04:27, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Joined a seminary?

"Initially, Kasravi enrolled in a seminary." This misses the point. Basically, his father got him to enroll. It was not an autonomous decision. Rather, he did it with reluctance. (Evan Siegel (talk) 04:30, 13 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Joined the Persian Constitutional Revolution?

"Later, he joined the Persian Constitutional Revolution."

Well, not according to his memoirs or his history of the period. All he reports is that he developed a strong sympathy for the constitutional cause.

(Evan Siegel (talk) 04:35, 13 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Halley's Comet

"He experienced a sort of conversion to Western learning when he learned that the comet of 1910 had been identified as a reappearance of Halley's comet."

This is unsourced. A reference to it appears in Kasravi's memoirs. (Evan Siegel (talk) 04:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Quoth Roy

"Thenceforward he became, in Roy Mottahedeh's words, "a true anticleric.""

Where's the source? Mantle of the Prophet, I guess... I'm not so sure that this is true, in any case. He had enemies among the clergy before this and friends among them after... (Evan Siegel (talk) 04:40, 13 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Tiflis

"It was in Tbilisi where he first became acquainted with a wide spectrum of political ideas and movements, and he soon was employed by the government of Iran in various cultural posts."

Travel is broadening, but the only thing Kasravi relates in this regard is his meeting with a friend of the editor of Molla Nasroddin and a lengthy discussion in which they find they agree on a sort of intellectual pan-Islamic reform (my inference).

The fusion of what should be two separate sentences gives the impression of cause and effect. This is, of course, false.

(Evan Siegel (talk) 04:44, 13 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] liberal?

"He had liberal views on religion, was a strong supporter of democracy"

This is too vague to be of any use. What was liberal about his views. And... were they indeed liberal in any case. Kasravi's views on religion evolved during his life. Kasravi was for democracy when the people were ready for it. First, though, they would have to submit to a totalitarian period of preparation in which all their disparate beliefs would be fused into, well, I surmise into Kasravi's belief system. The actual content of this prescription varied little in the course of Kasravi's political maturity (from the early thirties, onward). (Evan Siegel (talk) 04:48, 13 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Hajjis with Warehouses

"What Is the Religion of the Hajis with Warehouses"

There's nothing wrong with warehouses. I have a warehouse. Kasravi no doubt had a warehouse. The point was that the hajjis were hoarders. (Evan Siegel (talk) 04:50, 13 March 2008 (UTC))

"Kasravi was very critical of ... the policies of the central government."

This is altogether too vague.

(Evan Siegel (talk) 04:52, 13 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] contemporary witness?

"cannot claim the full authority of a contemporary witness that his writing at times suggests."

Has the author even read Kasravi's History? There is very little first-hand witness in it. Almost all of it is based on written documents and interviews with participants. I can't imagine how the author of this entry believes that it somehow "claim[s] the full authority of a contemporary witness". (Evan Siegel (talk) 04:56, 13 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] The Constitutional History of Iran

History of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (Evan Siegel (talk) 04:59, 13 March 2008 (UTC))

[edit] Missing topics...

Pakdini, Pakzaban, the journals he launched and edited, his policy towards towards the military, towards Reza Shah, towards Mohammad Reza Shah, ... (Evan Siegel (talk) 05:02, 13 March 2008 (UTC))