Anthropology of the Middle East

How did ancient Iranian religion represent the wolf? Between the mythological data, the realities of the agro-pastoral world, and the symbolism of exegetical tradition, Late Antique Zoroastrianism considered the wolf as primarily a species to kill. In reality, much more than the Canis lupus hides behind the word ‘wolf’ (Middle Persian gurg), including most nocturnal predators but also devastating illnesses, a monster whom the Savior will destroy at the end of time, and finally heretics who renounce or deform the Good Religion. However, this negative image is nuanced by the recognition of the strong ties between the she-wolf and wolf cubs, both in texts where the protective qualities of this large predator are evoked, and in iconography, namely magic seals, where one finds the image of the nourishing she-wolf, perhaps connected to perinatal magic.

As in many cultures Zoroastrians consider corpses as foci of pollution. Corpses are unclean and dangerous since they are afflicted by the demon of dead matter. As soon as the dying person loses consciousness, the demon of dead matter arrives from the north in the form of a fly and attacks the body. To counteract her influence, a corpse must be exposed to the gaze of a dog or a bird of prey before it is left exposed outside in the funerary tower. The dog’s presence forms an essential part of several Zoroastrian purification rituals. In this article we shall discuss two of these rituals: the sagdīd and the Baršnūm.

The suffering and cruelty inflicted on animals in the medieval Muslim world has been the subject of widespread theological-philosophical debate between Muslim thinkers and Iranian Manicheans. A Mu‘tazilite thinker ‘Abd al-Jabbâr al-Hamadânî al-Asadâbâdî takes Manichean objections into consideration.

The Qur’ân (5, 95) prohibits hunting for pilgrims at Mecca. If they do not observe this prohibition, they are obliged to sacrifice an animal. Through the analysis of the casuistry of this prohibition during the early Islamic period, we try to understand its meaning. We put forward that the prohibition means that wild animals are under the protection of the god of the Ka’ba.

Regarded as an animal of the past and supporting the eternal image of the ‘ship of the desert’, the dromedary camel is facing deep changes in its rearing system, causing significant changes in human relationships. A somewhat idealized virtuous animal among the nomad with which it shares the rough life of deserts, it becomes only one cog in the intensification process of settled production systems where it needs to better express its potential of production to avoid the risk of being marginalized, its utilitarian function becoming predominant. However, the urbanized Middle East likes to remember the virtues of the animal and its products, the dromedary returning this animal idealized for a weekend where the city dweller looking over its lost emotional proximity, rather than the economic benefits of its products.

Modern sub-Saharan African studies on the recent adoption and impact of working-animal use provide valuable ethnographic insights for archaeologists into early exploitation of this new resource in antiquity. The systematic use of working cattle and (often forgotten in models) of donkeys constituted a key factor in the burgeoning of complex societies in fourth- and third-millennium BC Mesopotamia. Modern analogy indicates that models should include the economic importance of year-round utilisation of working animals and strategies for achieving this, including user training and animal hiring and lending. Another key finding is that the situation of women, commonly culturally constrained worldwide from handling cattle, is greatly ameliorated by the availability of donkeys, which can empower them in terms of income and status.

Based on comparative fieldwork studies of the Muslim ‘Feast of the Sacrifice’, this article questions the places, shapes and stakes of ritual animal death in the urban space. The examples of Istanbul (Turkey) and Khartoum (Sudan) illustrate different but comparable perceptions, practices and management of a ritual event simultaneously associated with religious traditions and confronted with deep transformations in urbanised and globalised societies. Between ritual normalcy and controversial practice, sacrifice in the city is not reducible to a religious matter but addresses at once spatial, social and cultural issues, informed by economic and political stakes. Through a ritual performance and its manifold aspects, the article explores the multiple and evolving representations of the place and role of animals (and their death) in an urban context.

In the perspective of human–animal relationships, considered a social change marker, pet dogs in modern Iranian society constitute a form of acculturation that started under the former regime and perpetuates, if not intensifies, nowadays. At first glance, this acculturation form seems to be directly borrowed from Western patterns, but this article shows the peculiarities of the adaptation models to the Iranian context. This work, based on individual, semi-structured interviews with dog owners aims to study the subjective representations of pet dogs and the acquisition and cohabitation material conditions with this animal, within the context of a changing contemporary Iranian society.

The Turkish Army has been reported many times to use the burning of villages, forest and fields as a strategy in the war against the Kurdish insurgents. However, the army not only destroys the villages, the fields, the forests but also animals. Despite the vast research by academics on the destruction of the villages by the Turkish army, little is known about the damage caused by the army to animals. This article deals with the use of mules for the legal or illegal cross-border trade between Turkey-Iraq and Turkey-Iran, more precisely between Kurdish regions, and the destruction of the mules, who play a very important role in this kind of commerce, by the Turkish Army in the context of conflict against the Kurds.