We mark this Nowruz in a time when understandably many of us and our colleagues around the world are feeling considerable fear, uncertainty, and grief. We send our best wishes at this time to all those in our shared endeavour of understanding the cultures, histories, and languages of the Iranian world, and all those across the wider region, who are in danger, or afraid for friends and loved ones.

It may be less celebratory, but perhaps more important, then, that today we should mark the new day and year, and the coming of spring: and that we should remember that spring will come, always.

#Iran #Nowruz #IranianStudies

Mongols from the West, co-edited by the IFI's Dr. Bruno de Nicola, has now been published with its Spanish translation, Mongoles en el Oeste!

Mongoles en el Oeste explora el papel de los reinos ibéricos en la integración euroasiática impulsada por el Imperio mongol en los siglos XIII y XIV. A través de estudios rigurosos y basados en fuentes documentales, el volumen propone una reflexión crítica sobre la expansión europea medieval y sus vínculos con procesos globales. Al conectar la historia peninsular con la historiografía del mundo mongol, esta obra invita a repensar los orígenes de la globalización desde una perspectiva intercontinental que pone en diálogo a Europa, Asia y el mundo islámico.

https://brill.com/display/title/73324

#IranianStudies #Mongols #History #Spain #Iberia

Upcoming book presentation!

Dr. Nilab Saeedi will present her book on the work of Muṣliḥ al-Dīn Lārī, especially his universal chronicle, Mirʾātu’l-Advār wa Mirḳātu’l-Aḫbār (The Mirror of Epochs and the Staircase of Historical Reports).

Lārī was a 16th century writer whose work carefully uses different historiographies to navigate the Ottoman, Timurid and Safavid worlds in his writing. Dr. Saeedi traces how he acts as everything from political commentator to cultural mediator through his work, giving very different approaches to these dynasties depending on different needs and requirements.

Find out more:
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/en/ifi/veranstaltungen/event-details/nilab-saeedi-three-empires-and-persian-historiography-the-thought-of-muslih-al-din-lari

Book link:
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/10.4324/9781003660507/three-empires-persian-historiography-nilab-saeedi

#Persian #Ottoman #Iran #History #IranianStudies

How did the Sasanian Empire really fall? Last month, the Sképsislamica podcast channel sat down with the IFI's Khodadad Rezakhani to find out.

The conversation ranges through how early Islam related to the Sasanians, the lack of sources from inside the Sasanian Empire, and if the Empire was truly a Zoroastrian religious autocracy as it's sometimes portrayed. How modern discourses and framings have shaped scholarship on the Empire also matters for how we process all of these ideas, and unpacking it could open different ways of looking at the Sasanians' world.

You can watch the video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTuk8u7TTu4

#IranianStudies #History #Persia #Iran #SasanianHistory

While European imperial expansion has long been a focal point of historical inquiry, it is only more recently that scholars have begun to systematically question how knowledge production reinforced colonialism and to rethink bureaucracy as an instrument of governance.

Starting from the sixteenth century states made substantial investments in the production of knowledge resulting in new archival regimes - but much of this knowledge was often not put to governmental service, was never exploited, or was simply ignored. If knowledge is not power, but collected by power, then what is it and what is its function?

The "Archival Impulse" conference organised by Ulfat Abdurasulov and Paolo Sartori at the IFI and Jan Hennings at Central European University, thus aims at examining how archives have grown along with imperial expansion from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Find out more at: https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veranstaltungen/event-details/the-archival-impulse-knowledge-production-record-keeping-and-imperial-governance-15th-19th-centuries

#IranianStudies #Archives #Colonialism #History

Lecture coming up TODAY in just under three hours! This is organised by the Persian Manuscripts Association, who from March will be joining with our NoMansLand Webinar Series to co-organise a series of online lectures for the rest of 2026.

This lecture will be by Prof. Marcus Milwright (University of York), entitled: "Encircling Inscriptions in Early Persian Architecture: Thoughts on Moving, Reading, and Looking".

More information about this and future lectures:
https://persianmanuscripts.org/2026-2/

To participate online, please register at
https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/k_dPULmeQTGjoz36EqDBwQ#/registration

#IranianStudies #Iran #Persian #History

A recent interview with the IFI's Dr. Robert Steele regarding the protests in #Iran - do have a read (in German):

https://www.oeaw.ac.at/news/proteste-in-iran-experte-erwartet-fall-des-regimes

#IranProtests #IranianStudies

#NewatFID: One of our latest interesting acquisitions at #FID. A photo book about the Islamic Revolution in 1979. You can find more literature on this topic at:

https://hallelit.gbv.de/search?q=subject(%22islamische+Revolution%22)&l=menasearch&d04=z1,uz,z18,z10

#Print #islamicrevolution #photobook #iranianstudies

The IFI's Khodadad Rezakhani contributed to this segment on the recent Iran protests - have a listen and stay informed on the situation:

https://oe1.orf.at/player/20260204/822379/1770225900000
(In German)

#Iran #IranianStudies

Event tomorrow on Prepositional Compounds in Avestan and Old Persian - this is an in-person guest lecture, if you're in Vienna tomorrow morning then please do come and join us!

https://www.oeaw.ac.at/ifi/veranstaltungen/event-details/prepositional-compounds-in-avestan-and-old-persian

#linguistics #IranianStudies #Persian #Iran