Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Omid Ghiasi ¹
• Fateme Bakhtiyari ²

¹ PhD student of Ancient history, university of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

² PhD student of history of Islam , university of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.

Abstract

Nobility, as an important and widely used concept in social analysis, has not been understood the same throughout history and has different levels of meaning. The main issue of this essay is to understand the impact of the worldview of the two societies, late ancient Iran and the early Islamic as the two main origins, on the concept of nobility in the Islamic period of Iranian history. To answer this problem, the question must be answered as to what the nobility understood in late ancient Iran and early Islam.
Based on the conceptual history method, the present essay studies the social context of the mentioned societies in order to obtain conceptual components, and then, based on the comparative method, compares the components of nobility in these two societies.
In both societies, the ancestry of the nobility was very important, but the more complex social structure in ancient Iran, their dependence on land, and the ideology of the Iranian monarchy made the understanding of the nobility different from the tribal structure among the new Muslim Arabs.
This conceptual difference affected the social reality and created a multi-layered concept of nobility in the Islamic period of Iranian history.

Key Words:
Nobility, Ancient Iran, Islam, conceptual History, comparative Study

Keywords

• Nobility
• Ancient Iran
• Islam
• conceptual History
• comparative Study

Extended Abstract

Comparative study on the Nobility in the social Context of ancient Iran and early Islam

From the perspective of conceptual history

Nobility, as an important and widely used concept in social analysis, has not been understood the same throughout history and has different levels of meaning. The main issue of this essay is to understand the impact of the worldview of the two communities, late ancient Iran and the early Islamic as the two main origins, on the concept of nobility in the Islamic period of Iranian history. To answer this problem, the question must be answered as to what the nobility understood in late ancient Iran and early Islam. The word Nobility and its derivatives, such as Noblesse, are widely used today at various levels of language, whether colloquial or academic, especially in the fields of political science and sociology.

The present article intends to go beyond the current concept of Nobility in the field of social sciences, referring to the historical context of this word in the Iranian-Islamic tradition, the concept of Nobility among the ancient Iranians on the one hand and the early Muslims on the other as two origins. Late ancient Iran, politically dominated by the Sassanid dynasty, like any other society, had a powerful and influential group that had a two-way relationship with political power. This group was not linguistically identified with the word Ashraf (which is an Arabic word), but in terms of content they were a group that according to historical sources is considered equivalent to the Nobility of the Muslim community. It should be noted that different worldviews and contexts could have a different effect on the identity of the concept of Nobility.

The worldview of ancient Iranian society was based on a hierarchical structure in which the royal family had the most important influence with the sanctity it received from Farah Izadi. In addition to being abstract and subjective, it also had a social expression in the context of society. On the other hand, with the advent of Islam in Saudi Arabia, a different worldview was presented that focused on equality of all members of community. But the question is whether this worldview was able to change the identity of the Nobility and the Islamic community's understanding of the Nobility, or whether the previous context and tradition continued in how the Nobility was understood.

The present essay intends to approach the conceptual world of the two societies by examining their meaning. In the community of ancient Iran, the Nobility, although not known by exactly the same title, were a group of the classified system of the community, whose prominence separated them from the masses, while there was solidarity and cohesion among themselves. This group was understood in the community of that time with military and economic functions and belonging to the concept of Iranian land was one of their prominent features. In the first Islamic community, despite the negative semantic of Nobility in the Qur'an, the understanding of this group was a continuation of the same understanding of the previous community. The Nobility was those who inherited honor from the tribe, and because the structure of the Bedouin Arab tribes continued in the social structure of the first Islamic community, understanding of this group relied on the same functions of the pre-Islamic Nobility. A group that, due to its ability to create value solidarity, was itself a source of political power and strongly inclined to inequality with the masses. By retaining the duty of war, this group could still be considered as a property in the community without relying on wealth. The Nobility of the Islamic community did not belong to the land, but relied on the value of its lineage and tribe, which was also considered important in society and allowed them to gain privileges and create a role in politics.

Therefore, by adopting the method of conceptual history that pays attention to the social context of concept formation, it can be concluded in what context the concept of Nobility was formed. According to the method of conceptual history, some concepts cannot be interpreted explicitly, and it is the context that gives meaning to the concept, but when the concept takes on a certain semantic load, it can give shape and form to the context. According to conceptual history, concepts have layers of meaning, and their long-term meanings do not disappear with any change in the level of political and social regimes. Therefore, it can be said that the concept of Nobility in ancient Iran was understood in the form of a family structure and in Islamic society was first understood in the form of a tribe.