This article examines how the Persian prison poem (habsiyāt) incorporated Islamic legal norms for governing non-Muslim peoples into its poetics. By tracing how Khāqāni of Shirvān (d. 1199) brought the aesthetics of incarceration to bear on Islamic legal regulations pertaining to non-Muslim communities (ahl al-zemma), I offer a new perspective on…[Read more]

Mīrzā Fatḥ ‘Alī Ākhūndzāda’s Letters from Prince Kamāl al-Dawla to the Prince Jalāl al-Dawla (1865) is often read as a Persian attempt to introduce European Enlightenment political thought to modern Iranian society. This essay frames Ākhūndzāda’s text within a broader intellectual tradition. I read Ākhūndzāda as a radical reformer whose inte…[Read more]

Review of Ali-Akbar Dehkhoda, Charand-o Parand. Revolutionary Satire from Iran, 1907–1909, Translated by Janet Afary and John R. Perry, in Iranian Studies

Translation and Annotation of ‘Svarajya Siddhi’ of Gangadharendra Sarasvati from the nineteenth century. This text is considered one of the five Siddhi texts, the other four being Naishkarmya Siddhi, Advaita Siddhi, Ishta Siddhi, and Brahma Siddhi. These texts have a very great value in Advaita Vedanta.

In the area of dispute resolution, the U.S. FTAs with Arab countries share some commonalities. However, the US – JO FTA clearly differs from other U.S. FTAs with Arab countries. Areas of difference include treatment of perishable goods, appeal, panel report, and implementation of panel report. The dispute settlement mechanism in the US – JO FTA…[Read more]

Arab countries are attempting to broaden their engagement in the multilateral trading system in a manner that has many implications. Not only have some Arab countries either acceded or are in the pipeline of acceding to the World Trade Organization (WTO), but their new commitments coincide with reorientations in their economic strategies. The…[Read more]

This essay examines the development of prison memoirs in modern Iranian prose, with a focus on how literary texts function as a tribunal, delivering forms of justice missing from the existing legal system. It constructs from the prison memoirs of a range of dissident writers (Dashti, ʿAlavi, and Baraheni) a genealogy of prison consciousness in…[Read more]

During the final decade of his productive life, Moshe Gammer (1950-2013) edited the first major English-language series on Daghestani philology. This chapter examines key aspects of Gammer’s legacy, while offering an overview of Daghestani philology from the colonial period to the present, and outlining how this field of inquiry enables us to r…[Read more]

Addressing Walt Whitman’s reception in Iran, the present essay focuses on the front cover of a book-length translation of Whitman into Persian to study how Whitman’s image is visually translated for an Iranian audience. Among literary discourses of contemporary Iran, the one that associates poetry with mysticism plays the most significant role in…[Read more]

This chapter introduces Slavoj Žižek as a thinker, some key concepts and themes of his work as it relates to radical theology, discusses his critical and historical impact, and offers an annotated bibliography of some of his most important works. The file I have uploaded here is the post-print version of the chapter, so may contain errors.

The Arabic narrative sources record a host of tales related to the founding of Baghdad and to its founder, the caliph al-Manṣūr. In one account, reported in several versions by al-Ṭabarī and al-Ḫaṭīb al-Bagdādī, a Byzantine ambassador arrives at al-Manṣūr’s court and criticizes the caliph’s new capital. The present paper suggests that the tale m…[Read more]

An examination of Mourning and Tears in the works of John Chrysostom, with comparison to his classical and hellenistic predecessors (Aristotle, Seneca, Plutarch).

An examination of the debate over the Theory of Names between Origen and Celsus in Origen’s Contra Celsum and its implications for late antique ritual worship.

A translation and study of seven hymns (madrashe) on vigil of Ephrem the Syrian preserved in Classical Armenian.

An introduction to key ideas and debates concerning the work of Slavoj Žižek in relation to radical theology

Section 295-C of Pakistan’s penal code prohibits insulting the Prophet and carries a mandatory death penalty. This law was passed based on a claim of ijma‘ (consensus among Islamic scholars) that such an offense is subject to a hadd (divinely fixed) punishment. Nearly half of those charged under this statute crimes of hadd are Christians, who mak…[Read more]

Section 295-C of Pakistan’s penal code prohibits insulting the Prophet and carries a mandatory death penalty. This law was passed based on a claim of ijma‘ (consensus among Islamic scholars) that such an offense is subject to a hadd (divinely fixed) punishment. Nearly half of those charged under this statute crimes of hadd are Christians, who mak…[Read more]

The present edition was originally prepared for a paper given at the international conference “Bridging the Worlds of Judaism and Islam” held at Bar-Ilan University on January 3-4, 2006 (“ʿAlī ibn Ṭaybughā’s commentary on Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah, Sefer ha-Maddaʿ, Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah I-IV: a philosophical ‘encyclopaedia’ of the 14th century…[Read more]

Among the great diversity of source material and multiple historio- and biographical works covering the history of the early Qāsimī state , Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim’s (d. after 1100/1687) Bahǧat al-zaman fī tārīḫ al-Yaman occupies a position of paramount importance. For the political, economic, social, cultural and intellectual hi…[Read more]

Drawing on the creativity of the nascent field of “queer ecology,” I argue for a kind of irreverent ecocriticism (Nicole Seymour) and a constructive theological posture of irreverence towards the twin metaphysical concepts of “God” and “Nature.” I do so by engaging the work of feminist philosopher of science, Karen Barad. Barad’s writing is ke…[Read more]