Early Islamic Iran

About This Volume

How did Iran remain distinctively Iranian in the centuries which followed the Arab Conquest? How did it retain its cultural distinctiveness after the displacement of Zoroastrianism – state religion of the Persian empire – by Islam? This fifth volume in The Idea of Iran series traces that critical period in Iranian history when ancient tradition were transformed uring the country;s conversation and the establishment of Islam. Distinguished contributors discuss, from a variety of literary, artistic, religious and cultural perspectives, the innovative years around the end of the first millenium C.E., when the political strength of the Abbasid Caliphate was on the wane and the eastern lands of the Islamic empire began to take on a fresh ‘Persianate’ or ‘Perso-Islamic’ character. Separate chapters engage with ideas of kingship, authority and identity, and their fascinating expression through the written word, architecture and the visual arts.