The Philosophical Poetry of Nasir Khusraw

MEHDI AMINRAZAVI

Mehdi Aminrazavi received his early education in Iran, his Master's degree in Philosophy from the University of Washington in Seattle and his PhD from Temple University in Philadelphia. He is the author and editor of numerous articles and books on Islamic philosophy, among which can be named The Wine of Wisdom: The Life, Poetry and Philosophy of Omar Khayyam (2005) and, edited with S H Nasr, An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia (1999). He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Mary Washington (Virginia) and Co-Director of the Liedecker Center for Asian Studies.

MOHAMMAD AZADPUR

Mohammad Azadpur completed his higher education in the U.S., with a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Virginia, followed by an appointment as a Mellon Post-doctoral Fellow at the Center for Research on Culture and Literature at the Johns Hopkins University. His doctoral work focused on metaphysics, epistemology, and the history of western philosophy; defending, in his dissertation, a form of critical realism inspired by the philosophies of Kant, Wittgenstein, and McDowell. In his post-doctoral work, he concentrated on Islamic philosophical metaphysics and epistemology, but he was soon drawn to Islamic philosophical ethics and aesthetics, which he found to be integral (and foundational) to the pursuit of the more theoretical aspects of their positions. Currently, he is assistant professor of philosophy at San Francisco State University, where he teaches Islamic philosophy, ethics, aesthetics, and Wittgenstein. His publications include 'Who Is Nietzsche's Zarathustra? Philosophy, Morality, & the Persians' in New Nietzsche Studies (1999), and 'The Sublime Visions of Philosophy: Fundamental Ontology and the Imaginal World ('Alam al -Mithal)' in Microcosm and Macrocosm: A Dialogue between Phenomenology and Islamic Philosophy (2005), and 'Hegel and the Divinity of Light in Islamic Philosophy and Zoroastrianism' in The Classical Bulletin (forthcoming). He has also co-authored 'Avicenna on Education in Philosophy and Art' in Aesthetic Education Policy Review (forthcoming).

JALAL BADAKHCHANI

Formerly Deputy Director of the Central Library at Firdowsi University, Mashhad, Iran, and Librarian at The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, Dr Badakhchani obtained his doctorate in Islamic Philosophy at the University of Oxford in 1989. He is currently a Research Associate at The Institute of Ismaili Studies. Dr Badakhchani, apart from contributing to various encyclopedias and participating in international conferences, has published a new edition and English translation of Nasir al-Din Tusi's Sayr wa Suluk titled, Contemplation and Action: The Spiritual Autobiography of a Muslim Scholar (London, 1998), and a new edition and English translation of Nasir al-Din Tusi's Rawda yi taslim titled, Paradise of Submission: A Medieval Treatise on Ismaili Thought (London, 2005). He is presently working on an edition of Diwan Qa'imiyyat by Hasan Salah Munshi, a prolific Nizari Ismaili poet and writer of 13th century which has hitherto remained unknown, and a new edition and English translation of Tusi's three short treatises on Ismaili related topics namely: 'The Beginning and the End' (Aghaz wa anjam), 'Solidarity and Dissociation' (Tawalla wa tabarra) and 'Desideratum of the Faithful' (Matlub al-mu'minin).

MICHAEL BEARD

Michael Beard teaches in the English department at the University of North Dakota. After receiving his doctorate in comparative literature (Indiana University, 1974), he taught at the American University in Cairo (1974-1979). His particular research interests focus on Iranian writing in the 20th century, most notably in his book on Sadeq Hedayat (Hedayat's Blind Owl as a Western Novel (1990)). His publications also include Naguib Mahfouz: From Regional Fame to Global Recognition, ed. with Adnan Haydar, (1993),'Master Narrative and Necessity in Ibn Fattûma' in Edebiyat (2003) as well as a number of translations from Persian and Arabic, such as Outlandia: Songs of Exile, poems of Esmail Khoi, trans. with Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak (1999), Walking with the Wind by Abbas Kiarostami, trans. with Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak (2001), 'Brother's Future Family' by Mahshid Amir-Shahi in Stories from Iran: A Chicago Anthology: 1921-1991, ed. Heshmat Moayyad (1991), Naked in Exile: Khalil Hawi's 'Threshing Floors of Hunger', trans.& commentary with Adnan Haydar (1984), and In Forbidden Time: Love Poems by Henri Zoghaib, trans. with Adnan Haydar and the author (1991). Professor Beard has a particular interest in poetics and translation theory. He has been the co-editor of the literary journal Edebiyat for many years, is currently one of the editors of the journal Middle Eastern Literatures; and, with Adnan Haydar he co-edits the series on Translation from the Middle East for Syracuse University Press.

FARHAD DAFTARY

Farhad Daftary received his PhD from the University of California at Berkeley in 1971, and has been affiliated since 1988 with The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, where he is currently Associate Director and Head of the Department of Academic Research and Publications, as well as general editor of the 'Ismaili Heritage Series' and 'Ismaili Texts and Translations Series' of publications. Dr. Daftary is a Consulting Editor of the Encyclopaedia Iranica, a member of the Advisory Board of the Encyclopaedia of Islam (3rd edition) and a member of the Governing Council of the British Institute of Persian Studies. An authority on Ismaili history, he has written and edited numerous books, including The Ismailis: Their History and Doctrines (1990), The Assassin Legends: Myths of the Ismailis (1994), Mediaeval Ismaili History and Thought (1996), A Short History of the Ismailis (1998), Intellectual Traditions in Islam (2000), and Ismaili Literature (2004). Dr Daftary's books have been translated into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu and a number of European languages.

LEILA R DODYKHUDOEVA

Leila R Dodykhudoeva received her PhD in 1983 and is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. Her research interests include Lexicography, Lexicology, Ethnolinguistics, Endangered Languages, and Iranian Studies. This has brought her to an investigation of Nasir Khusraw's unique vocabulary both as a poet and philosopher. Her publications (in Russian) include The Concept of Poetic Creation: Nasir Khusraw's Qasidas, with M Reisner (2004) and 'The Concept of Sukhan-i Nik in Nasir Khusraw's Didactic Qasidas', with M Reisner, in Nasir Khusraw: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (2005).

MOHAMMAD JAVAD ESMAILY

Mohammad Javad Esmaily is a PhD candidate at the Iranian Institute of Philosophy, following his previous studies at Razavi University in Mashhad, and Tehran University, where he received his MA degree. His research interests include the study of ancient philosophy (Aristotle and his followers), Islamic philosophy (Avicenna), the Peripatetic school, the philosophy of nature in Greek and Islamic philosophy, and intellectual thought in the Islamic world. His publications include (in Persian): 'The Conflict between Philosophers and Mystics on Intellect & Love' in Ketab-e Maah (2004), 'Recognizing Islamic Philosophy' in Keyhan-e Farhangi (2004), 'Philosophy and Nature: A Historical Introduction to the Influence of Philoponus' Philosophical Thought' in Gozaresh-Goftogoo (2005).

ALICE C HUNSBERGER

Alice C. Hunsberger, author of Nasir Khusraw, The Ruby of Badakhshan: A Portrait of the Persian Poet, Traveller and Philosopher (2002), earned her PhD in Persian Literature and Islamic Studies from Columbia University, following her BA (cum laude) from New York University in Near Eastern Languages and Literatures. Her dissertation, which analyzed Nasir Khusraw's philosophy of the soul, including its Greek and Neoplatonic antecedents, won second prize in the Best Dissertation in Iranian Studies competition of the Foundation for Iranian Studies; her Master's thesis examined Nasir al-din Tusi's Ismaili philosophical text, Aghaz o Anjam. Currently an adjunct assistant professor of religion at Hunter College, City University of New York, Dr. Hunsberger has taught courses on Islam, sufism, women and Islam, philosophy of religion, approaches to religion, and Persian spiritual poetry, twice receiving the Hunter College President's Award for Excellence in Teaching. While a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London (1999-2001), she taught courses and lectured internationally on Nasir Khusraw's life and thought. In addition, Dr. Hunsberger has taught on-line courses for Oxford, Stanford and Yale on modern Middle East topics, and also lived one year in Isfahan, Iran (1977-78), teaching history of science at (Aryamehr) University of Technology. Besides her academic work, Dr. Hunsberger works as a professional executive of international organizations, including Amnesty International and, currently, Asia Society and Museum, New York.

FAQUIR MUHAMMAD HUNZAI

Faquir Muhammad Hunzai received his PhD in Islamic Studies at McGill University (Montreal) after earning his MA from Karachi University in Philosophy, Arabic and Persian languages and literatures.. As part of his doctoral thesis requirements, he translated for the first time into English, a work of the famous Fatimid thinker, Hamid al-Din Kirmani (al-Risalah al-Durriyyah), which has been published in An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia, edited by S.H. Nasr and M. Aminrazavi (2001). Formerly a Lecturer in Arabic and Persian at Government College, Gilgit, Pakistan, he is at present a Research Associate at the Institute of Ismaili Studies. His publications include The Shimmering Light - An Anthology of Ismaili Poetry (1996), a new edition and English translation of Nasir Khusraw's Gushayish wa Rahayish printed as Knowledge and Liberation (1998), The Holy Ahl al-Bayt in the Prophetic Traditions (2000), as well as contributions to the Encyclopaedia Iranica, Oriente Moderno and other publications. He has also translated from Urdu and Burushaski into English more than 50 works, including 'The Book of Healing, A Thousand Wisdoms, Balance of Realities and The Wise Qur'an and the World of Humanity, Vols. 1 & 2' of Allamah Nasir al-Din Nasir Hunzai whose main focus is esoteric Ismailism. In 2004 Dr Hunzai edited the Ismaili philosopher Hamid al-din Kirmani's al-Riyad in collaboration with Professor Hermann Landolt. He has completed an English translation of Nasir Khusraw's magnum opus on ta'wil, Wajh-i Din and is presently preparing its Persian edition for publication by the Institute of Ismaili Studies in 2006. He is also working on the translation of the Diwan of Nasir Khusraw.

HERMANN LANDOLT

Hermann Landolt was educated in Basel and Paris, receiving in 1964 the Diplome EPHE Ve Section (Sorbonne) and, in 1978 his DPhil from Basel University. For over three decades, 1964 to 1999, he taught Islamic Studies and Persian at McGill University, where he was honoured with the title Emeritus Professor in 2002. His duties at McGill included several assignments abroad: 1969 to 1971 in Iran as a delegate at McGill's Tehran branch; 1982 to 1984 at the Institute of Ismaili Studies as head of its Department of Graduate Studies and Research; 1992 teaching in Indonesia; and 1994 to 1994 in Paris as a visiting professor at EPHE (Sorbonne). Currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of ismaili Studies, his research interests include classical Ismaili thought as well as Sufism and later hikmat-philosophy. He is preparing a book on Suhrawardi's ishraqi philosophy, and several other publications including a new edition and translation of the Ismaili philosopher Sijistani's Kashf al-mahjub and contributions to the forthcoming Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie. Philosophie in der Islamischen Welt. Some of his main publications are: Correspondence spirituelle échangée entre Nuroddin Esfarayeni (ob. 717/1317) et son disciple 'Ala'oddawleh Semnani (ob. 736/1336) (1972), Nuruddin Abdurrahman-I Isfarayini: Le Révélateur des mystères (Kashif al-Asrar). Texte persan publié aves deux annexes, traduction et etude préliminaire (1986, 2005), Recherches en spiritualité iranienne (forthcoming).

LEONARD LEWISOHN

Leonard Lewisohn is the author of Beyond Faith and Infidelity: The Sufi Poetry and Teachings of Mahmud Shabistari (1995), and The Wisdom of Sufism (2001). He is the editor of The Heritage of Sufism (1999), vol. 1: The Legacy of Mediaeval Persian Sufism, vol. 2: Classical Persian Sufism from its Origins to Rumi Classical Persian Sufism from its Origins to Rumi, vol. 3 (with David Morgan): Late Classical Persianate Sufism: the Safavid and Mughal Period-covering a millennium of Islamic history. He is also editor (with Christopher Shackle) of The Art of Spiritual Flight: Farid al-Din 'Attar and the Persian Sufi Tradition (forthcoming) His articles have appeared in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd Ed., The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, 2nd Ed., The Encyclopaedia of Religion, 2nd Ed., Encyclopaedia Iranica, Iran Nameh, Iranian Studies, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Bulletin of the School of Oriental & African Studies, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, British Association for the Study of Religion Bulletin, African Affairs, and Temenos. For six years Research Associate in Esotericism in Islam at the Department of Academic Research and Publications of the Institute of Ismaili Studies (1999-2005), he is currently Iran Heritage Foundation Fellow in Classical Persian and Sufi Literature at the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, at the University of Exeter in England.

MEHDI MOHABBATI

Mehdi Mohabbati received his BA (1988) and his MA (1992) in Persian Literature from Ferdows University in Mashhad and his PhD from Tehran University in 1996. His dissertation was entitled 'Mystical Symbols in Persian Literature'. His professional career started as a lecturer at Ferdowsi University (1988-1990), followed by positions as Associate Professor at Tehran University and the Islamic Open University from 1994 to 2000, and also Vice President of the Islamic Open University from 1996 to 1998. From 2001 to 2004 he was Director of the Languages and Literature Department of the Encyclopaedia of Islam. Dr Mohabbati's publications include (all in Persian): The Windows of Life (1996), Rationalism in Persian Literature (1999), Mystical Symbols in Persian Poetry (1999), New Rhetoric in Persian Literature (2000), New Popular Persian (2000), To Be Human from Iqbal's Point of View (2001), Symbols of Mystical Poetry (tr.) (2003), Al Loma Fi Tasawwof (tr.) (2003), and The Blue Verses (2004).

MEHDI MOHAGHEGH

Mehdi Mohaghegh completed his schooling in Tehran, and later received the Certificate of Higher Studies in Theology (Ijtihad) in Qum. He obtained his PhD in both Ilahiyyat and Persian Literature from Tehran University, where he started teaching in 1960. He was visiting professor at SOAS (1961-1963), McGill/Montreal (1965-1968), and ISTAC/Kuala Lumpur (1991-1996). He is a member of the Egyptian and Syrian Academies of Arabic Language, as well as the Royal Academy of Al al-Bayt in Jordan. At present Dr Mohaghegh is the Executive Director of the Society for the Appreciation of Cultural Works and Dignitaries in Tehran and Permanent Member of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature. Author of a large number of works, he has won many awards. His publications include: An edition of Nasir Khusraw's Divan with Mujtaba Minovi (1974), and Tahlil-i Ash'ar-i Nasir Khusraw (1965), clarifying many issues about his thought and sources of influence.

JAMES W MORRIS

James W Morris received his BA from the University of Chicago in 1971 and his PHD from Harvard University in 1980, with his dissertation entitled The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra. He currently holds the Sharjah Chair of Islamic Studies and is Director of Research in the Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter, having previously taught Islamic and comparative religious studies at Princeton University, Oberlin College, and the Institute of Ismaili Studies in Paris and London, and has recently served as visiting Professor at the Sorbonne (EPHE, Paris) and University of Malaya. Professor Morris has published widely on many areas of religious thought and practice, including spiritual intelligence, the Islamic humanities (poetry and music), Islamic philosophy, Sufism, Shiite thought, the Qur'an, and the use of cinema in spiritual teaching; he frequently lectures and gives workshops in related areas throughout the Islamic world, Europe and North America. His recent books include The Master and the Disciple: An Early Islamic Spiritual Dialogue (2001); Ibn 'Arabi: The Meccan Revelations with W Chittick: (2002); Understanding Religion and Inter-Religious Understanding: Four Classical Muslim Thinkers (2003); Orientations: Islamic Thought in a World Civilisation (2004); The Reflective Heart: Discovering Spiritual Intelligence in Ibn 'Arabi's 'Meccan Illuminations' (2005); Ostad Elahi: Knowing the Spirit (forthcoming); and Openings: From the Qur'an to the Islamic Humanities (forthcoming).

NASROLLAH POURJAVADY

Nasrollah Pourjavady was born in Tehran and received his early education there. He went to the United States in 1963 to study Western philosophy, and having obtained his BA in 1967 returned to Iran and earned his MA and PhD degrees from the University of Tehran. Subsequently, he taught philosophy and mysticism at Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, and then at the University of Tehran, where he still teaches as a full professor. He has also taught as a visiting professor at Colgate University, NY State (2002) and at the Gregorian University in Rome (2005). Over the last thirty years, Professor Pourjavady has written some 20 books as well as over a hundred essays and articles in the fields of Islamic mysticism, philosophy, and Persian literature. These include: a critical edition of Ahmad Ghazzali's Sawanih (1980) and its English translation (1986), Ru'yat-e mah dar asman (La vision de Dieu en theologie et mystique musulmane (1996), Ishraq wa Irfan (2001), and Du mujaddid (Two Renewers of Faith) (2002), which is a study of two key figures in the development of Islamic thought, Abu Hamid Ghazzali and Fakhruddin Razi. Professor Pourjavady was also the general editor of a monumental three-volume book on Iranian art and culture, The Splendour of Iran (2001). He has also edited and introduced the works of several lesser known classical Iranian mystics and Persian poets, such as Abu'l-Hasan Busti, Abu Mansur Isfahani, Mubarakshah Marvirudi, Yar-Ali Tabrizi, and Awhaduddin Razi. As the founding-director of Iran University Press, the largest academic publishing house in Iran, he supervised the publication of some 1,200 academic books and 11 periodicals in Persian, English, French, and German for 24 years, until the Spring of 2004. He personally edited two of these journals, Nashr-i Danish and Ma 'arif. He is a member of the Academy of Persian Language and Literature, which awarded him the Academy's Persian Literature Award in 2004. He received the Alexander von Humboldt Research Award in 2005, and will spend the year 2006 as a research scholar at the Free University of Berlin.

DANIEL RAFINEJAD

Daniel Rafinejad is an advanced doctoral student in Iranian Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles, working under the supervision of Dr Hossein Ziai. He has a BA in Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures from Columbia University. After receiving his MA from UCLA, he was the first UCLA student to be awarded a Doctoral Fellowship in Iranian Studies by the Roshan Cultural Heritage Institute in Washington DC. His research interests focus on the development of the classical Persian poetic lexicon, and he has done extensive research on the technicalities of Nasir Khusraw's poetry.

MARINA L REISNER

Marina Reisner completed her undergraduate studies at the Institute of Asian and African Studies (IAAS) of Moscow State University (MSU) in 1976, and then began her post-graduate courses at the same Institute. The topic of her PhD was 'Evolution of the Classic Persian Ghazal from the 10th to the 14th Centuries' which she defended in 1980. She has been teaching History of Persian Literature in the Iranian Philology Department of the Institute since 1983. In 1996, Dr Reisner defended her second dissertation (Dr Lit), titled 'The Persian Qasida in the pre-Mongol Period: Problems of Genesis and Evolution'. She is now the assistant Head of the Department and full professor since 2001. Dr Reisner is a Member of Union Europeene des Arabisants et Islamisants (since 2000) and of the Societas Iranologica Europaea (since 2003). Her publications (in Russian) include The Concept of Poetic Creation: Nasir Khusraw's Qasidas, with L R Dodykhudoeva (2004) and 'The Concept of Sukhan-i Nik in Nasir Khusraw's Didactic Qasidas', with L R Dodykhudoeva, in Nasir Khusraw: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow (2005).

REZA SABERI

Reza Saberi is a pharmaceutical scientist by training and has been teaching and doing research in Iran, Britain, and the United states. He is now working as an editor in a scientific publishing company in the United States. Apart from his field of interest, he has published articles and books on a wide variety of subjects such as history, literary criticism, short stories and a novel. Safarnameh is his first film made when he decided to follow Nasir Khusraw's footstep to Mecca on the occasion of his thousandth birtdate in 2003. He visited cities and historical remains of caravanserais, schools, tombs, mosques, churches, and castles that Nasir Khusraw mentions in his Safarnameh. This film is made with his personal camcorder while travelling this path on his own and is directed, and edited solely by him.

KHUDOI SHARIPOV

Khudoi Sharipov, in addition to publishing extensively on Persian poetry and poetics, has published two books on Nasir Khusraw, The Eloquent Hakim: On the Personality and Time of Nasir Khusraw (with A Maniyozov, 2003 & 1384) and The Secrets of the World: A Critique and Discussion on the Poetry of Nasir Khusraw (2004). He earned all of his degrees in Tajik (Persian) Language and Literature at the Tajik National University in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, where he is now Head of the Faculty of the History of Tajik Literature. His doctoral dissertation was Literary Theory in the Persian Heritage of the 9th and 15th Centuries, and his master's (candidate) thesis, The Evolution of Tajik-Persian Literary Thought in the 10th and 11th Centuries. Professor Sharipov's other published books include studies on Samanid poets, the theory of poetry according to Aristotle, Farabi, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd, and Nasir al-din Tusi, poetics and speech in general, and theories of prose in Persian literature. His published articles investigate topics such as the function of the qasida, riddles in ghazals, the contrast of 'words of poetry' and literary speech, Islam and Persian literature, the evolution of style and artistic value, and contemporary Tajik literature, as well as specialized studies on Rudaki, Firdawsi, Nizami, Ghazali, Shaykh Kamal Khojandi, Jami, Mirza Tursunzada, and Garmorudi. This year, he has published Subtle Stories from Badaye` al-Waqaye` (2005).

FINN THIESEN

Finn Thiesen studied several Asian languages in various universities in Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and India before eventually taking his magister artium degree in Comparative Indo-European linguistics at the University of Copenhagen in 1976 (Thesis 'On the Phonetic Realisation of the Proto-Indo-European Laryngeals'). 1982-1991 he held a lecturership in Urdu at the University of Oslo, where since 1991 he has been Senior Lecturer in Iranian philology. His major work is A Manual of Classical Persian Prosody with Chapters on Urdu, Karakhanidic and Ottoman Prosody (1982). Among his articles may be mentioned 'Pseudo-Hafez: A Reading of Wilberforce Clarke's Rendering of Divan-e Hafez' in Orientalia Suecana (2002-2003), 'Telugu Loanwords and the Influence of Prehistoric Telugu on Indo-Aryan' in Per Aspera ad Asteriscos, Studia Indogermanica in Honorem Jens Elmegard Rasmussen (2004), 'Un Texte Intraduisible, le Cas Hafez' in Forum (2004), 'On the Meaning of the Terms Zahed and Zohd in Divan-e Hafez' in Dag Haug and Eirik Welo (eds.): Haptac Ahaptaitis: Festschrift for Fredrik Thordarson (2005). Together with Erling Kittelsen he has published a volume of Norwegian renderings of poems by Farrokhi, Rumi, Hafez, Hatef and Sohrab Sepehri: Fra Vinhus og Moske (2003). Dr Thiesen is presently working on a monograph 'Rhythm and Rhyme in Divan-e Hafez'.

NARGIS VIRANI

Nargis Virani received her MA in 1991 and her PhD in 1999 in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Harvard University, and also holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Education from London University and a Bachelor of Commerce from Bombay University. During the course of her Arabic Studies she studied at many prestigious institutions in the Muslim world such as the University of Jordan in Amman, the Bourguiba Institute in Tunis, and al-Azhar mosque in Cairo. At al-Azhar she studied the Qur'an with the Shaykh of al-Azhar and holds a shahadah (certificate) and an ijazah (permission to teach the Qur'an). Her areas of specialization are Arabic Language and Literature, Persian Language and Literature, Islamic Intellectual Thought, and Sufism. Her doctoral dissertation entitled 'I am the Nightingale of the Merciful Macaronic or Upside Down?' analyzed the Mulamma'at, the mixed-language poems, in Rumi's Diwan. In this work she proposes that 'speaking in many tongues' be looked at as a brilliant linguistic strategy employed by the mystic to fashion an imaginative form of apophatic discourse. She is currently converting her dissertation into a book which will also include a translation into English of all of Rumi's multilingual verses in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Greek, and Armenian. Dr Virani's second book project is tentatively entitled, 'Qur'an in Muslim Literary Memory'. She hopes to analyze the use of the Qur'an by a variety of 'litterateurs' from secular, religious, and mystical backgrounds. Dr Virani taught Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of British Columbia, Canada as a lecturer in 1991-93, and worked as a Research Associate coordinating the Qur'anic Studies for the Institute of Ismaili Studies, London, in 1999-2000. Since the fall of 2000, she has been Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Washington University in St. Louis, where she also headed the Arabic programme for several years.

SHAFIQUE N VIRANI

Shafique N Virani, a scholar of Islamic intellectual history, is the Head of World Humanities at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates. This year, the university honoured him with an award of 'Exemplary Merit' for his contributions in research, teaching and service. He formerly served on the faculty of Harvard University in the Department of Sanskrit and Indian Studies, where he was nominated to receive the Undergraduate Council's award for excellence in instruction, the Joseph R Levenson Memorial Teaching Prize. Dr Virani received his PhD from Harvard University (2001) in the joint fields of Arabic and Islamic Studies and Indo-Muslim Culture. His dissertation, entitled 'Seekers of Union: The Ismailis from the Mongol Debacle to the Eve of the Safavid Revolution', received both national and international appreciation, winning awards including 'Best Dissertation of the Year' by the Foundation for Iranian Studies, Harvard University's 'Ilse Lichtenstadter Memorial Publication Prize', and recognition by the Malcolm H Kerr Dissertation Award of the Middle East Studies Association, which applauded the thesis as 'a path-breaking work of Islamic history'. Most recently, it won the 'International Book of the Year' prize from the Iranian Ministry of Culture. His MA (1995) and BA (1992) degrees were earned at McGill University in the fields of Islamic Studies and Religious Studies respectively. Having published articles in both journals and edited volumes, Dr Virani is currently putting the finishing touches on a book about medieval Ismaili history and thought, which will be published through the Oxford University Press.

MOHSEN ZAKERI

Mohsen Zakeri received his BA in English Literature in Tehran in 1977, then went to the University of Washington, Seattle, where he first received a degree in Psychology, then changed to Near Eastern Studies and obtained an MA in 1984. He earned his PhD in Near Eastern History from the University of Utah, Salt Lake City (1987), with his dissertation on 'Sasanian Soldiers in Early Muslim Society: The Origins of the Ayyaran and Futuwwa,' a revised version of which was published in 1995. He taught medieval history courses at the University of Utah for three years. From 1994 to 2000 he was responsible for teaching Persian language and literature at the Universities of Halle and Jena in Germany. Currently he is preparing the results of a research project soon to be published by Brill under the title Persian Wisdom in Arabic Garb: Ali b. Ubayda al-Rayhani's Jawahir al-Kilam wa-Far'id al-Hikam. In addition to these books, he has published over twenty articles in different European journals related to the history of Iran and Persian literature in the early Islamic period. His next research project deals with the texts translated from Middle Persian into Arabic and their translators.