An Introduction to the Iranological Approach in Orientalism

The academic Journal of Oriental Art and Civilization (JACO) is now in its 11th year of publication. As it is obvious from the title and content of the research articles published by the JACO over the past eleven years, the scholarly, critical, and analytical studies of cultural, social, historical, and artistic relations of the culture and civilization of the oriental people with an Iranian approach - not a western one - has been the aim of its editorial board. Of course, this Iranian approach does not mean the denial of the efforts of the Western orientalists, particularly Europeans, in the past centuries, for which Iran and the Oriental world have always been a subject of knowledge based on an interpretation derived from Western cultural values and various philosophical schools of Europe (e.g., Said, 1978; Macfie,2002). It also does not imply that they have understood and evaluated the art of the Orient only through the lens of Kantian and Hegelian aesthetics (e.g.,Gombrich, 1950). Rather, the international editorial
composition of JACO shows that the senior head of the NRC attempts to establish a scholarly cultural dialogue between Iranian thinkers and researchers with their Oriental and Occidental counterparts
to analyze and understand the sociocultural aspects of Iran and the Orient based on the perspective of their own Oriental cultural and historical values. Noteworthy to mention that Iran and Iranian history,
culture, and civilization with more than five millennia of its formation and expansion from the riverside of the Tigris to the Indus and the Oxus and from the Darbent of the Caucasia to the shores of the
Persian Gulf (Qazwini, 1919), which has a colorful amount of cultures and peoples of a joint descent and linguistically familiar languages, includes the origin of various cults and religions throughout
history, as a bridge that stands between the Orient and the Occident, plays a colorful unique role:
The long life and joint lineage of Iranian and Indian languages and ancient religious beliefs, the spread of Dari Persian language and literature from Kashgar to Delhi and Konya, the connection of the
Kurdish language in Western Asia with the Pashtun language in Central Asia through the ancient Pahlavi language, the variety of Turkish dialects spread throughout the Iranian plateau, from Khorasan
to Qashqai, the praise of Shams Tabrizi and Mevlana of Balkh in Persian poets and the Urdu writings of Sir Allama Muhammad Iqbal of Lahore, the art and architecture and rites of Urartu, Elamite,
Mannai and Achaemenid inspired from the ancient Mesopotamia, the impact of Iranian art and architecture on the Early and Middle Ottoman (Sarre, 1910), the Sprachbund ties among Turkic and
Persian languages and literatures with Arabic and Quranic doctrines, and of course, for the first time in history, a comprehensive reflection and collectivity of the old histories of the people of the East and
West from ancient times to the high medieval period, in the masterpiece of ‘Jāme al-Tawārikh-i Rashidi, composed by “the Grand Premier of Iran” Khwāja Rashid al-Din Fazll-Allah Hamadāni (Rab’-e
Rashidi, Tabriz, 1306) and hundreds of other examples that are not included in this brief note, all of them are based on the firm and indisputable position of Iran and the Iranian World on the history, culture
of the Orient and orientalist activities. This is the reason why, now in its 11th year of publication, the JACO takes a new approach to the great question of the Orient and the status of Iran in Orientalism,
and brings an Iranian approach to Orientalism to split heaven’s ceiling with our powers to try a wholly new design, as versified by Hafez of Shiraz accordingly.
Finally, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of the famous thinker, author, Iranologist, and Persian poet from Lahore, Sir Allama Muhammad IQBAL (1873-1938), remember him, by
one of his Persian poets on Iran: