Behzad Zerehdaran – författare

This volume presents the Persian edition and the first-ever English translations of Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani's Takvin va Tashri (Genesis and Canonical Lawgiving). Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani (1854-1896) was an Iranian intellectual, philosopher and secular nationalist whose iconoclastic ideas about modernisation and opposition to the Qajar monarchy would be taken up during the Constitutional Revolution and by later thinkers such as Ahmad Kasravi. In this book, Kermani argues for an evolutionary understanding of the origins and roles of societal institutions and divine ideas, presenting the concept of God as a psychological projection. With a critical commentary that places Kermani’s ideas in the context of Qajar-era Iran, this important primary source will be of value to scholars and students of Iranian intellectual history.

This book delves into the history of subjective rights within the context of 19th-century Iran, specifically during the eventful Qajar era. The crux of its research lies in the emergence and evolution of the concept of subjective rights as opposed to the notion of objective rights. During this pivotal period, this transition marked a paradigm shift from “right as to be right” to “right as to have a right.” A central pillar of this book is the creation of a meta-theory, one that sheds light on the semantical evolution of the concept of rights. Within these pages, readers will find a concise history, tracing the conceptual path that led from the objective to the subjective realm of rights. In addition to these historical explorations, it delves into the intricate field of rights theory, investigating the foundations and justifications of rights. Employing the Hohfeldian framework, it analyses various conceptions of rights as they manifest within travel literature, enlightenment literature, and dream literature of the Qajar era. This book will be of interest to scholars and students with an interest in Iranian studies, Iranian history, Persian literature and human rights.