The Change In Cultural, Social And Moral Behavior Of Iranians During The Mongol Invasion From The Perspective Of Zaydari Nasavi
Subject Areas : Culture
مهدی ربطی
1
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خدابخش اسداللهی
2
*
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احمدرضا نظریچروده
3
,
نصرالله زیرکگوشلوندانی
4
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2 -
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Keywords:
Abstract :
Examining the cultural, social, and moral changes among Iranians during the Mongol invasion, beyond a mere historical narrative, provides an opportunity to understand the causes of the Khwarazmian state's collapse and the relationship between moral crises and weaknesses in socio-political structures. Zaydari Nasavi’s work, Nafsah Ul-Masdur, as a direct eyewitness account and the secretary of Jalal al-Din Khwarazmshah’s court, serves as a credible source for investigating these transformations. This study, employing a library-based approach and historical content analysis, critically rereads and contextualizes Nasavi’s text, extracting his key concepts regarding ethics, society, and politics on the eve of the Mongol invasion. The findings indicate that Nasavi, emphasizing moral decline within the ruling class and the weakening of social capital among the populace, identifies changes in Iranians’ cultural and social behaviors as a fundamental factor facilitating Mongol penetration and dominance. In his view, the moral crisis is not an individual issue but a socio-historical variable that explains political collapse. Nasavi’s approach can be considered a “historical analytical model” in which social ethics and cultural norms play a decisive role in the stability or disintegration of political power. This analytical framework, while opening a new horizon for understanding the link between ethics and politics, also has the potential to be applied to other critical periods in Iranian history.