This book sheds light on the various aspects of the impact of pre-Islamic Iranian literature and culture on Arabic literature and Islamic culture, following the Arabic conquests and the collapse of the Sassanid Empire in Iran in the seventh century. It covers a period in Iranian literary history, dominated by the Arabic language, which was the language of the Quran, when Iranian scholars and administrators were transferring Irans literary and administrative heritage through translation of Iranian books into Arabic and adaptation of Iranian traditions and practices, including the Sassanid administrative, financial and agricultural systems and various cultural practices, to the Islamic Caliphate thus ensuring their survival in a period of turmoil and transition from the Sassanid to the Islamic periods. The book relies on scattered references in Arabic sources mainly from the first centuries of Islam, as the original Iranian sources did not survive the Arab conquests, a primary reason why this area of scholarly research has remained mostly in the dark.The significance of research in this area is that without exposing and understanding of their Iranian roots it is not possible to have a deep and comprehensive understanding of Arab and Islamic literature and culture, and particularly their rapid expansion and diversification during the early centuries of Islam. The work has been translated by Shahrokh Mohammadi, son of the author.

English description: Twenty-seven articles by prominent Indo-Europeanists, Indologists and Iranists have been selected to commemorate the most innovative and consequent exeget of Avesta (the missal of the pre-islamic Paniranian religion, Mazdaeism or Parsism) of our times, Jean Kellens and to inscenery his intellectual pathway and thereby also the present debates around the oldest language and religious history of the common ancestors of Indians and Iranians. The themes Jean Kellens has put into fresh light, intertextuality, stilistics, ideology, textual history and reuse, are especially represented, but always under the light of the mother discipline: grammar. German description: In der vorliegenden, Jean Kellens, dem anerkanntesten Exeget des Avesta - des Messbuches und zugleich des altesten und heiligsten Textes des Mazdayasnismus oder Parsismus, der vorislamischen Religion des Iran - gewidmeten Festschrift, werden samtliche Aspekte der heutigen Debatte zur fruhesten Sprache und Geschichte der Indoiraner durch einen Strauss von 27 Aufsatzen reprasentiert, insbesondere solche, die Jean Kellens ans Licht gebracht hat: Intertextualitat, Stilistik, Ideologie, Textrezeption und -neuverwendungen - unter steter Rucksicht auf das Grundfach: Grammatik.

The first book-length study to examine Turko-Persian culture as an entity.

This is a most comprehensive and ambitious collaborative survey of Islamic history and civilization.

Persian literature is the jewel in the crown of Persian culture. It has profoundly influenced the literatures of Ottoman Turkey, Muslim India and Turkic Central Asia and been a source of inspiration for Goethe, Emerson, Matthew Arnold and Jorge Luis Borges among others. Yet Persian literature has never received the attention it truly deserves."A History of Persian Literature" answers this need and offers a new, comprehensive and detailed history of its subject. This 18-volume, authoritative survey reflects the stature and significance of Persian literature as the single most important accomplishment of the Iranian experience. It includes extensive, revealing examples with contributions by prominent scholars who bring a fresh critical approach to bear on this important topic.The first volume offers an indispensable entree to Persian literature's long and rich history, examining themes and subjects that are common to many fields of Persian literary study. This invaluable introduction to the subject heralds a definitive and ground-breaking new series.

An, erudite, and invaluable contribution to the philosophical, religious, political, cultural, and historical dynamism of the Islamic civilization. ZARREEN AKBAR, Scholar of Islamic Literature. In this exceptionally impressive and brilliant book, Mirza Ashraf, rationally discusses and analyses the diversity and unity in Islamic civilization. Addressing many contemporary issues of concern, including terrorism, he proves philosophically that Islam united different tribes, races, and nations within its civilization, while keeping their socio-cultural diversity intact. In this process of cultural amalgamation, Islam, no more remained exclusively an Arab phenomenon. It became a multi-cultural, transnational socio-political and economic civilization. The author of this illuminating book has shown an intrinsic picture of Islam which I believe, could not be more timely. Dr. MOJAHID MIRZA; author of, Quagmire of Being, and an Independent Journalist and Broadcaster stationed at Moscow. Beginning with its founder Prophet Muhammad, Islamic civilization as a world religious, cultural, and political force, with rich, varied, and abundant literature, Mirza Ashraf has presented an insightful analysis of this civilization. It progressed because of its universal human values, with efforts to initiate progress in all fields of learning. This book, is a timely contribution to the present tension between Western and Islamic civilization. It explicates that the strain of recent cataclysm is focused on Islam as a religion, while its political and cultural aspects, which are the core of its civilization, are being ignored. Dr. MUHAMMAD HAFEEZ; author of: Human Character and Behavior, The Mission and Destiny of Humankind, and Who are the Believers.

First published in 1988, Ira Lapidus' A History of Islamic Societies has become a classic in the field, enlightening students, scholars, and others with a thirst for knowledge about one of the world's great civilizations. This book, based on fully revised and updated parts one and two of this monumental work,describes the transformations of Islamic societies from their beginning in the seventh century, through their diffusion across the globe, into the challenges of the nineteenth century. The story focuses on the organization of families and tribes, religious groups and states, showing how they were transformed by their interactions with other religious and political communities. The book concludes with the European commercial and imperial interventions that initiated a new set of transformations in the Islamic world, and the onset of the modern era. Organized in narrative sections for the history of each major region, with innovative, analytic summary introductions and conclusions, this book is a unique endeavour.