Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Omid Ghiasi ¹
• Roozbeh. Zarrinkoob. ²

¹ PHD student of History, University of Tehran. Tehran , Iran

² Assistance professor of history, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

During the Sasanian period, many cities were built or renovated, and the historians of the first Islamic centuries have listed urban planning as one of the fundamental characteristics of the Sasanian kings. From the beginning of the Sassanid period and with the rise of kings like Ardeshir Babakan and Shapur I, the process of urban development began, and this process can be followed until the end of the Sasanian period and before the political turmoil caused by the murder of Khosrow Parviz. There have been some researches about the Sassanid cities, but mostly from the archaeological and linguistic points of view. Most of these researches have not achieved much success in establishing the relationship between the social issue arising from the objective existence of cities in the history of the Sassanid period on the one hand, and the conceptual world of the Iranian people in the Sassanid period regarding urbanization on the other hand, as a research problem. This research aims to turn the relationship between the social context in the history of the Sasanian period and Iranians' understanding of the city as a distinct settlement into a problem by relying on the method of conceptual history, and show how several layers of meaning at the end of the Sasanian period in this The concept was accumulated.

Keywords

• Sasanian
• City
• Village
• Ābādi
• Conceptual History

Main Subjects

• Social history

Expanded Abstract

The multi-layered Concept of The City in The Sasanian Period

In the Sassanid period, urbanization spread in Iran and compared to previous periods, urban life played a major role in the social Context. Despite this, there is no direct information about Sassanid period cities in historical sources, and historians and geographers mostly mention the names of cities and their builders. The focus of new research on cities has also been more from an archaeological point of view. Most of these researches have not been able to turn the relationship between social reality and people's understanding of the city in the Sassanid period into a problem.

 In this research, the method of conceptual history was used and the reading of texts and sources was followed in the way explained in this method, and the relationship between social reality and the conceptual world of that period was followed up on the phenomenon of the city.The point that makes this method more efficient than simply explaining concepts is the relationship that this method establishes between social reality and the conceptual world. The context in which a concept is meaningful and understood. From Koselleck’s point of view, there is always a mutual relationship between social background and concepts. He believes that conceptual history reflects the relationship between concept and historical reality.Therefore, in the Sassanid period, the relationship between the settlements of the people that were their places of residence and the concept or concepts that were formed in their minds from those settlements can be turned into a problem. In the understanding of the early Sassanid period, a city was understood along with a settlement outside it, and at the same time in semantic connection with it.Like the whole of Iran, they probably understood the state or larger region as a "šahr", and the center of that province or state was called " šahrestān". A šahr that was defined by the uncertain concept of parwār, which was also dependent on the meaning of the šahrestān to which this parwār was attributed. Through historical sources, we observe that in the early Sassanid period, a conceptual distinction was made between the city (= šahrestān) and A concept has not been created to distinguish it, and the city is meant in a sense that has a core and the periphery, the periphery that takes its meaning from the city.

The lack of conceptual distinction between settlements such as city and village at the beginning of the Sassanid period strengthens another assumption about the understanding of the people in the Sassanid period about the meaning of the city. The word šahr, which is rooted in the concept of Xšaθra and is the same root as the word king, in ancient Iranian languages, it means both the territory that is ruled over and the ruler who ruled over that territory.

In the relationship between the king and the city, in the relationship between the territory that is ruled and the one who rules it, the following and guarding of this territory is highlighted, which is the duty of the king towards the city and it can be Under the word `` Ābādi '' in Middle Persian and New Persian. The root of the word Ābādi is āpāt. Therefore, the city can be understood in the sense of a protected and inhabited land against a ruined, uninhabited and unguarded land.Koselleck has explained that a historical and semantic enlightenment should not only deal with the concepts included in the linguistic history (Sprachgeschichte), but also should express the content outside the language (Außersprachlich) in that social context. In this way, although the concept of settlement is not directly mentioned in the texts, it provides a conceptual answer to why there was no distinction between the city and the village in the Sasanian period. A simple and broad concept that included any habitat. Nevertheless, at the end of the Sassanid period, the changes in the conceptual world of Iranians had undergone a change compared to the early Sassanid period, which challenges the integrity of the application of the concept of Ābādi.At the end of the Sassanid period, especially after the social changes that led to the reforms of Kavad I and Khosrow I , multiple concepts and hierarchies emerged in the Sassanid administrative system. As explained, in the early Sassanid period, the concept of a city with a suburb was meaningful, and the suburb had a meaning in relation to the city and did not have an independent concept. This concept remained until the end of the Sassanid period, and over time, it included the meaning of the village.Therefore, it can be said that referring to the surrounding of the cities, compared to the vague concept of parwār in the early Sassanid period, has gradually approached the concept of the village, but it is still understood in relation to the city. On the other hand, another important development has occurred regarding the concept of the city in comparison with the initial period of Sassanid rule. If we consider the city as the capital of the state or province in that period, it seems that at the end of the Sassanid period and on the eve of the Muslim invasion, the city became a more general concept and several cities appeared in each state or province. Based on this, we used the method of conceptual history and as explained by Koselleck, we traced the concept in the historical background. Now we can interpret the contradictions about the distinction and non-differentiation in the Sasanian period regarding the meaning of the city in the light of a multi-layered concept that explains its inner complexity.

Key Words:Sasanian, City, Village, Ābādi, Conceptual History