 
                                      Wali Ahmadi
                                      Wali Ahmadi is Associate Professor of Persian Literature in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley, where he teaches classical and modern Persian literature and cultural studies. He is the author of Modern Persian Literature in Afghanistan: Anomalous Visions of History and Form (2008). He founded and edited Naqd va Arman / Critique &Vision: An Afghan Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences (1995-2003).
                                  
 
                        
                          Preface 
 
 Chapter 1,
 A Friend’s Tribute to Amin Banani
 Firuz Kazemzadeh
 
 Chapter 2.
 On the Coming of a Zoroastrian Messiah:
 A Middle Persian Poem on History and Apocalypticism in Early Medieval Islamic Iran
 Touraj Daryaee
 
 Chapter 3.
 A Primary Armenian Source on Land Tenure in the Khanate of Iravan (Erevan) 
 from the 16th to the 18th Centuries 
 George Bournoutian
 
 Chapter 4.
 Cycle of Neglect: Filial Relationships and Preparation for Kingship 
 The Case of Mozaffar al-Din Mirza
 Latifeh E. Hagigi
 
 Chapter 5.
 The Reform of Iranian Nomenclature and Titulature in the Fifth Majles
 H.E. Chehabi
 
 Chapter 6.
 Impact of the Constitutional Revolution on the Development of a Modern State in Iran
 Omid Uskowi and A. Reza Sheikholeslami
 
 Chapter 7.
 Suhravardi’s “The Sound of Gabriel’s Wings” and its Relation to Avicennan Cosmology
 Herbert A. Davidson
 
 Chapter 8.
 Nur al-Fu’ad, A Persian Treatise in Illuminationist Philosophy
 & a Persian Handbook on Ophthalmology
 Hossein Ziai
 
 Chapter 9.
 A Perfect Tragedy
 Ehsan Yarshater
 
 Chapter 10.
 On Teaching Attar’s Conference of the Birds to Anglophone Readers
 Dick Davis
 
 Chapter 11.
 “Tale of the Righteous Woman (Whose Husband had Gone on a Journey)” 
 A Poetic Translation from the Elahi-nameh of Farid al-Din Attar
 Franklin D. Lewis
 
 Chapter 12.
 Love, Separation, and Reunion: The Master-Narrative of the Human Condition in Persian Mystical Poetry
 Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak
 
 Chapter 13.
 Iqbal and the Predicaments of Identity Formation
 Wali Ahmadi
 
 Chapter 14.
 The Visual Poetry of Forugh Farrokhzad in The House Is Black
 Farzaneh Milani
 
 Chapter 15.
 Le projet d’une civilisation mondiale dans les Ecrits de Baha’ullah
 Shapour Rassekh
 
 Contributors