2019.4

Using Reza Khan’s travel diary about his campaign in Khuzestan, the article examines how the future shah justified his claim to the Iranian throne. It analyzes the diary’s political purpose and the use of Iranian cultural tradition to construct the image of a modern ruler.

The article reconsiders the date of the Battle of Dhū Ḳār. Based on new evidence, it places the Arab victory over Khusraw II’s forces in the summer of 602 and refines the chronology of the Sasanian governors of al-Hira.

The article examines the Avtar Bani as the sacred text of the Sant Nirankari Mission and analyzes its semantic, performative and iconic functions in the movement’s continuing dispute with mainstream Sikhs.

Comparing episodes from the Ayodhya book of Valmiki’s Ramayana and Tulsidas’s retelling, the article shows how changes in the characters’ motives reflect bhakti ideas and new models of virtuous conduct.

The article examines the origins, assets and investments of sovereign wealth funds in the Arabian monarchies of the Persian Gulf. It discusses their role in economic reform, support for private enterprise and social stability.

The article compares the Russian spatial preposition “na” with the Chinese frame construction “在……上”, examining their prototypical meanings, image schemas, extended meanings and syntactic functions.

The article examines the concept of fate in Chinese, its cultural and historical development, and its conceptual, value-related and figurative features in the Chinese linguistic worldview.

The article examines the erosion of noun class agreement in Bantu languages, including reduction of class inventories, unification of plural markers and a shift toward semantic agreement based on animacy.