Myth

An amalgamation of ancient mythological and linguistic features from Ghabrestan Tepe, this article is disposed to introduce some of the oldest findings especially about the then prevailing myths. It can possibly be said that the oldest motifs carved by men, on bones, stones or on cave walls have been the depictions of myths related to Homo sapiens; however, even after the lapse of thousands of years, it is still impossible to find the main tenets they actually tried to narrate through those depictions. Unfortunately, we have to admit that, even the use of modern methods, doesn’t help us to reach to those stories that are much warped and deformed. This article, tries to carry, what has remained from some later version of the myths, backwards in time and, by focusing on a pottery design, uncover what once has been a mythological and significant narrative. Perhaps this had been a well-known mythological story narrated in religious and domestic circles.

At first glance, myths are considered as the old stories but, the truth is that they are the product of a way of man’s wise thinking which have survived in the form of narration and action. Ad the myths answer to the man’s needs of world-knowing , they continue living, in the modern world and by the help of science, through accordance with the mental frames of man. One of the newest fields that benefiting from its capacities help in myth renovation is internet technology. The spread of this wide web has changed it to a modern environment. The subject of digital body in this new environment and its capacities on achieving the collective goals set the ground for the formation of mythical meanings and concepts which challenge the scientific wisdom. Therefore, this research analyzes the capacities of this media in developing the new mythical concepts based on the contemporary myth theory of Roland Barrett and the mythical analysis of Louie Straus . The method is descriptive-analytic and based on the library resources. The results revel that in this modern environment, reality, idealism and fantasy are interwoven in the form of old archetypes and have changed the validity of many concepts. Thinking about Creation, escape from prohibition, simultaneous presence, excess of time and place, unified world, dominance over loneliness and the wishes that came true through the myths, now form a modern thinking horizon in a vital, interactive and experimental environment which renovates the myths inside this worldwide web.

George James Frazer (1854-1941), the spiritual father of myth-ritual school, was bred up in the British tradition of empiricism. Believing in the evolutionary process of culture, Frazer mainly focused his attention on explaining such epistemic forms of thought as magic, religion and science. Accordingly, while interpreting the processes through which magic leads to religion and finally evolves into science, Frazer noticed the importance of myth and ritual and their position in this process. However, most researchers regard his reasoning in this regard as incoherent and variable. Thus, in this article, the author tries to reconsider the methodology and axioms on which Frazer relies as well as to make clear the position of myth in his anthropological system. The author believes that Frazer’s dual viewpoint about myth’s position results in no way from the attributed incoherency of his thoughts, but in fact his contemplations on intermediate levels, which make possible going from one stage to the other, provides him with an adequate explanation of the position of myth and its relation to ritual. In the end, it is revealed that Frazer thinks of myth as posterior to ritual in the first intermediate level, while prior to ritual in the second intermediate level. Accordingly, analyzing the validity of Frazer’s reasoning as well as his methodological and epistemic viewpoints, the author has put forth a couple of critical suggestion

In the Qur'anic view, the main mission of the prophets and their heavenly books is preaching. If the Qur'an, in some cases, deals with any subject, it has only a preaching approach. If we look at the Qur'an as a book of preaching, we sometimes come across verses that seem untrue: such as the imprisonment of a people called Gog and Magog behind a dam until the Day of Judgment or the dropping of meteors to drive demons out of the sky. Allameh Tabatabai considers these two as untrue and considers the relevant verses as permissible. However, all the commentators of the Qur'an, in the last fourteen hundred years, have all considered these verses to be true, and it is a difficult claim to claim that they misunderstood the Qur'an. The competitive theory, which is discussed in this article, is that those are myths, and in preaching, there is nothing wrong with using the myths of the audience as a tool. This theory, while leaving the verses of the Qur'an on their apparent meaning that all commentators have understood over fourteen centuries, also proves the legitimacy of the Qur'an.

In the 1980s, Polish researcher Maria Składankowa promoted in her publications a theory stating that the representatives of the Sistani family described in Ferdowsī's Šāh-nāma were reflections of the rainy and sunny steppe shamans. The four main representatives of this lineage were said to alternately represent these particular shamans beginning with the primordial and rainy shaman personified by Sam and ending with the solar shaman in the form of Sohrab. Another rain shaman according to Składankowa was to be Rostam. This article aims to introduce Składankowa's theory to the international research community and to subject it to verification. The battle between Rostam and White Dīv, which was the seventh trial in Rostam's cycle of seven trials, was used for verification. This is a clash between two national heroes and the circumstances of this battle blur the boundaries between what is commonly understood as good and as evil. Thus, this is an example that perfectly demonstrates Składankowa's theory of rejecting religious notions of good and evil and focusing on the primeval connection between man and nature when it was man's greatest ally and enemy. Neither Rostam nor White Dīv, according to Składankowa's theory, are therefore completely good or completely evil, like any element of nature, which can be a life-giving or destructive force. Identified with good forces, the sun warms the earth and causes vegetation but can also cause drought and the death that follows. Identified with evil forces, rain can cause floods, but without it, vegetation will die. There is no absolute good or absolute evil in nature. Nor is there one in the battling Rostam and White Dīv. Ferdusī's description of this combat in Šāh-nāma clearly goes back to this primeval myth leaving the story universal.

Stories are rooted in the cultural beliefs of every nation, especially the mythological stories that originated from the ethnic and national unconscious according to Jung. The objective of the present study was to analyze the Azeri story "Malik Mohammad, Malik Ahmad and Malik Jamshid" based on Joseph Campbell's hero journey's theory (1987-1904). The significance of this study is the cultural and mythological importance of folk tales and Campbell's theory. This study was conducted as interdisciplinary by descriptive-analytical method. The question is; How do the stages of the above story match Campbell's hero journey? What are the most important mythological symbols of this story? Hypothesis Given the mythological nature of this story, although not all stages of the hero journey can be applied, it definitely has many stages, and many mythological symbols can be found and analyzed. Some of the study results; due to the Oedipus complex in the hero (Malik Mohammad), instead of him reaching unity with the father with the help of the goddess, the father of the earth (the king) is in love with the mother, and he, with the connivance of the goddess, prevented the two from reaching each other. Therefore, the stage of his oneness with the father is not complete. Also, this folk tale, with its simple plot, lacks stages of the hero's refusal of the return, magic flight and rescue from without to bring the hero back, and the hero simply returns to society.

Myth in the Quran is one of the topics that has been studied by western Qurʾānic scholars. The new studies of Western scholars have investigated this issue with different approaches and methods, sometimes with a contextual approach and sometimes with a phenomenological approach. In the meantime, Karen Armstrong, using the principles and characteristics of the phenomenological approach, has studied the myth in religions, especially in Islam and the Qurʾān. She considers all the events mentioned in the holy books of the three Abrahamic monotheistic religions to be myths, although there may be historical events behind them, but over centuries this historical event has become the source of religious inspiration and the center of religious spirituality. To transform and enter the lives and hearts of believing and worshiping generations, it must be recreated in the form of a myth along with actions and rituals. Karen Armstrong is a British author and commentator who has written many works in the field of Islam and the Quran. The comparative and phenomenological approach to religion is one of the main characteristics of her works. Like other mythologists, she introduces myth as an event that once happened in some way, but at the same time always happens. According to her, an event should be freed from the shackles of a certain period and enter the lives of contemporary worshipers, because otherwise it will remain a unique and unrepeatable event, or a strange historical event that does not connect with the lives of others. In other words, the key point of the view of this group of orientalists about the relationship between myth and historical event can be summarized in the following sentence: "As long as a historical event has not become a myth, it cannot become a source of religious inspiration." As the title and content of this research indicate, the subject matter pertains to Karen Armstrong's phenomenological approach to Quranic narratives and their relationship to the concept of myth. The research aims to not only compare her perspective with the methodological principles of phenomenology but also to critically evaluate it. Previous studies on this topic can be broadly divided into two categories: Western studies on myth in the Quran and Islamic studies that critique Western scholars' views on this issue. The research in the first category constitutes the primary sources for this research, along with other critical studies among the various critiques offered by Muslim scholars; the contextual approach employed by Western scholars has received particular attention. This approach has been extensively discussed by scholars such as Angelika Neuwirth in the Encyclopedia of the Quran. In response, several articles have been written critiquing and examining this perspective. But the analysis of Armstrong's point of view based on phenomenological approach is a subject that has been rarely discussed and this research can be considered one of the initial critical studies in this regard. In contrast to Western scholars, Muslim scholars and exegetes have primarily focused on the concept of "Asāṭīr al-Awwalīn" (اساطیر الاولین) when addressing the issue of myth in the Quran. They have sought to explain this concept within the Quranic framework. The majority of Muslim exegetes define Asāṭīr as the writings of the ancients about their own lives, including their history, speeches, stories, and events. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1209 CE) identifies this definition as the view held by the majority of exegetes. However, what is studied under the title of myth in the western Qurʾānic studies has other criteria and indicators that are determined by contextual and phenomenological approaches. Using library sources and descriptive-analytical method, this article aims to examine Armstrong's view of myth in the Quran by emphasizing the methodological principles of the phenomenological approach and evaluate it in the form of a case study. The principle of autonomy or independence, which expresses the uniqueness of the realm of the sacred and its experience, is one of the most important methodological principles of the phenomenological approach. Emphasizing this principle, Armstrong considers the language and realm of the Qurʾān to be different from the language and realm of experimental and social affairs, and this is where she finds her way to mythological or symbolic language. Relying on the comparative method, which is one of the methodological principles of the phenomenological approach, Armstrong compares Islam and Christianity and, in this way, pays attention to the character of Jesus and the mythological issues created by Paul. She tries to present a view similar to her own view of Christianity by presenting three introductions: The Prophet being the successor of Christ, the Qurʾān's non-opposition to myth and the moral function of the stories of the Qurʾān. In this way, the Quran, by presenting a mythological image of the Prophet of Islam and other prophets, tries to bring these characters out of the confinement of those times and places and repeat them for all ages. In addition to the criticisms that were expressed regarding the symbolic nature of the language of the Quran and the effectiveness of a belief in the lives of believers as a criterion of truth, Armstrong's comparison between the Prophet of Islam and the Jesus has been criticized.