"This book offers a comparative study between a number of Talmudic and Middle Persian narratives. The present work seeks first and foremost to examine Talmudic narratives in their Iranian context, and secondly to examine the Talmudic background of Iranian narratives where applicable. The first and second chapters will offer an analysis of the alteration of historical and biblical figures in the Bavli (the Babylonian Talmud) based on the influence of Iranian mythical and historical figures, while the third chapter will provide an account of how Iranists can learn from Talmudic studies. Here we suggest that a Talmudic narrative may have encouraged Zoroastrian priests to compose an extensive work of religious literature, namely the Ardā Wīrāz-nāmag, an idea which will be further explored in the appendix. The relationship between Iranian and Jewish materials in the Talmudic era is merely a piece of a larger puzzle, a piece that a number of scholars-such as Elman, Secunda, Mokhtarian, Her-man, Kiel, Kalmin, to name a few-have recently begun to focus on. By focusing on Talmudic narratives that have not yet been sufficiently examined for Iranian themes and ideas, this book represents a contribution towards piecing this puzzle together"--

This interrogates the racist construction of Aria and Aryanism in an Iranian context, arguing that these concepts gave the Indo-European speaking Persian ethnic group an advantage over Iran's non-Persian nationalities and communities.

The true story of a California girl's twelve years in the harem of her husband's Arabian family.

For many centuries, from the birth of the religion late in the second millennium BC to its influence on the Achaemenids and later adoption in the third century AD as the state religion of the Sasanian Empire, it enjoyed imperial patronage and profoundly shaped the culture of antiquity. The Magi of the New Testament most probably were Zoroastrian priests from the Iranian world, while the enigmatic figure of Zarathushtra (or Zoroaster) himself has exerted continual fascination in the West, influencing creative artists as diverse as Voltaire, Nietzsche, Mozart and Yeats. This authoritative volume brings together internationally recognised scholars to explore Zoroastrianism in all its rich complexity. Examining key themes such as history and modernity, tradition and scripture, art and architecture and minority status and religious identity, it places the modern Zoroastrians of Iran, and the Parsis of India, in their proper contexts. The book extends and complements the coverage of its companion volume, The Everlasting Flame.