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Iranian Studies Series

The Iranian Studies Series publishes high-quality scholarship on various aspects of Iranian civilisation, covering both contemporary and classical cultures of the Persian cultural area. The contemporary Persian-speaking area includes Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Central Asia, while classical societies using Persian as a literary and cultural language were located in Anatolia, Caucasus, Central Asia and the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent. The objective of the series is to foster studies of the literary, historical, religious and linguistic products in Iranian languages. In addition to research monographs and reference works, the series publishes English-Persian critical text-editions of important texts. The series intends to publish resources and original research and make them accessible to a wide audience.

The Iranian Studies Series is co-published with Purdue University Press (Indiana, USA).

Forthcoming:

Sassan Tabatabai - Father of songs. Rudaki and his poetry. Abu ‘Abdollah Jafar ibn Mohammad Rudaki (c. 880 CE-941 CE), the poet attached to the Samanid court which ruled much of Khorasan (northeastern Persian) from its seat in Bukhara, is widely regarded as “the father of Persian poetry.” Rudaki is the first major poet to write in New Persian and holds a central position in the re-emergence of Persian as a literary language following the Arab conquest. The Arab conquest in the seventh and eighth centuries installed Islam as the official religion, and Arabic as the predominant literary language in Persian speaking lands. In the tenth century, the gradual weakening of the Caliphate, and the distance of Khorasan from the center of the caliph’s power in Baghdad, provided a hospitable atmosphere for a “renaissance” of Persian literature. Persian poetry—now written in the Arabic alphabet—flourished under the patronage of Samanid amirs who drew literary talent to their court. It was under the rule of Nasr ibn Ahmad II (r. 914-943) that Rudaki distinguished himself as the brightest literary star of the Samanid court. As a court poet, much of Rudaki’s verse is characterized as panegyric poetry, praising the qualities and characteristics of his patrons. As a founder and innovator of a new poetic aesthetic, Rudaki has had a great impact on subsequent generations of Persian poets. Rudaki is accredited with being the first poet to write in the rubai form; and much of the imagery we first encounter in Rudaki’s lines has become staples of Persian poetry.

Eshqname – The Book of Love: This medieval text deals with the psychology of love in all its facets. It is a verse commentary on the Al-Ghazzali’s influential mystical treatise, the Savaneh. The ideas it presents influenced not only the Persianate lyrical tradition but also the many literatures that drew on Persian literature, and mystical literature in many languages.

Seyr-ol-ebad – The Journey of the Servants to the Place of Return: this is a mystical treatise by the founder of Persianate sufism, the poet Sana’i, who lived in Ghazna in present-day Afghanistan. It describes the human quest from the moment of conception to his mystic attainment.

Abdul-Baha’s Sermon on the Art of Governance (1892) is one of the foundation texts of Iranian modernism. The Sermon sets out the principles underlying the relationship between religion and politics, and between the government and the people, using examples from Iranian and Ottoman history. Abdul-Baha makes his argument with little reference to the West, citing rather the Quran, Islamic traditions, New Testament texts and Bahai scriptures to explain how strict monotheism is compatible with a society that is not monist, but rather recognises distinct spheres of life and separate jurisdictions for religion and politics. These ideas are as relevant today as they were when the text was written. It reads as a religious justification for post-modern society, rather than as a modernist text from the late 19th century. The work has the structure and high rhetoric of a traditional Friday sermon, in the most exquisite Persian style, frequently tending to the poetic.

Borzuname – The Epic of Borzu: The epic of Borzu is one of the shorter epics interpolated in the great Iranian national epic, the Shahname or Book of Kings. This epic is performed in coffee houses and other public places in the Persian-speaking world to the present day.

Chistan – Persian Folk Riddles: this is a collection of folk riddles that were popular over much of the Persian-speaking world, especially Iran and Afghanistan. The riddles have an epigrammatic form and were used to test a person’s intelligence. Only a few have been previously published, in Persian or English.