Editor
Prof. Ehsan YarshaterProfessor Ehsan Yarshater is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Columbia University and Director of its Center for Iranian Studies. He has authored and served as the editor of numerous scholarly works. Among others he has authored Persian Poetry in the Second Half of the 15th Century (1953), Southern Tati Dialects (1970), and has edited the third volume of Cambridge History of Iran, in two parts, covering the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods (1983, 1986), and Persian Literature (1988). He is the General Editor of the 40-volume Tabari Translation Project, and the Founding Editor of the Persian Text Series, the Persian Heritage Series and the Persian Studies Series. Lecture series in his name have been instituted at Harvard, the University of London, and the University of California at Los Angeles.
Managing Editor
Prof. Ahmad AshrafProfessor Ashraf has taught sociology and social history of Persia at the University of Pennsylvania,Columbia University, Princeton University, and Tehran University. He is the author of several books and numerous articles, including Historical Obstacles to the Development of Capitalism in Iran (1980). His writings have covered such topics as social hierarchies in Persia, tradition & modernity, Iranian national identity, agrarian relations in Persia, and charismatic leadership and theocratic rule in post-revolutionary Persia. Prof. Ashraf has served on the editorial board of the Iranian Studies, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, and Iran-Nameh. Since 1992, he has served as a Trustee-at-Large of the American Institute of Iranian Studies.
Associate Editor
Prof. Nicholas Sims-WilliamsProfessor Sims-Williams is currently Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He studied Iranian languages and Sanskrit at Cambridge University and went on to do a PhD there under Dr. Ilya Gershevitch, his thesis being an edition of a fragmentary manuscript containing Christian texts translated from Syriac into Sogdian, the Iranian language of medieval Samarkand. This was later published as The Christian Sogdian manuscript C2, Berlin 1985, and awarded the Prix Ghirshman of the Institut de France.
Associate Editor
Dr. Christopher J. Brunner, Ph.DDr. Brunner (B. A., University of Michigan, 1966; Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania, 1971), taught pre-Islamic Iranian languages and religions at Columbia University in the 1970s and was the original Assistant Editor of Encyclopaedia Iranica. His dissertation, A Syntax of Western Middle Iranian, was published in the Persian Studies Series of the Center for Iranian Studies (1977), and his Sasanian Stamp Seals in the Metropolitan Museum of Art was published by the Museum (1978). His journal articles and Encyclopaedia Iranica entries deal with Sasanian seals, texts, and other pre-Islamic topics. Dr. Brunner is a retired director of computer applications development, with experience in Japanese language and literature.
Associate Editor
Mr. Mohsen AshtianyA graduate of University of St. Andrews and Oxford University, Mohsen Ashtiany has taught Persian literature and history at Harvard University, Oxford University, University of Manchester and the University of California at Los Angeles.
He is the author of a number of articles in the field of Persian studies. His current project is a monograph entitled Studies in Classical Persian Literature.
Senior Assistant Editor
Mr. Manuchehr KasheffA distinguished instructor of Persian, Mr. Manuchehr Kasheff has been teaching at Columbia University since 1974. He is the Secretary and Treasurer of the American Association of Teachers of Persian, and has written a number of articles for the Encyclopaedia Iranica, the Encyclopaedia of Asian Studies, and Iran-Shenasi. He has translated books by A.J. Arberry, S. Runciman and T.S. Eliot into Persian.
Assistant Editor
Dr. Dagmar Riedel, Ph.DDr. Riedel studied Islamic history and medieval Arabic and Persian literatures at the Universitat Hamburg (Germany) and Indiana University. Her dissertation about Persian and Arabic anthologies received the 2005 dissertation prize of the Foundation of Iranian Studies. In 2005-2006, she was a fellow at the Arabic manuscript project of the Chester Beatty Library Dublin. She has taught at Indiana University and Universität Hamburg. Her current research focuses on the history of Islamic studies in the West and the transmission of knowledge in the Islamic world.
Assistant Editor
Prof. Majdoddin KeyvaniProfessor Keyvani (B. A. in Persian Literature, University for Teachers’ Education (UTE), Tehran, 1961; Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics, University of Wales, Britain), has taught Applied Linguistics, English language skills, and theory and methods of translation for over 30 years at UTE and several other academic institutions in Tehran. He was the founder and first dean of Zāhedan’s Teachers’ Training College (1972 – 1978). He has been on the Academic Council of the Center for Great Islamic Encyclopaedia (GIE) since its inception in 1984. Prof. Keyvani is the author of over 130 articles and reviews and has translated numerous articles and over 15 books mostly on Islamic Mysticism into Persian. His latest project is the translation of Pella Pella tā molāqāt-e Khodā (Step by Step up to Union with God), by Abd-al-Hosayn Zarrinkub, to be published by the Persian Heritage Foundation.
Assistant Editor
Mrs. Houra YavariHoura Yavari received a BA in English Language and Literature and an MA in Psychology from the University of Tehran. Pursuing her studies in the US, she received an M.ED. from the Bank Street College of Education, while studying literature and literary criticism, particularly as applied to modern Persian fiction. She is the author of Psychoanalysis and Literature: Two Texts, Two Selves, Two Worlds (Tehran, 1995), Living in the Mirror: A Literary Perspective (Tehran, 2005), and Modernity and Persian Fiction (Tehran, 2009). She is the Consulting Editor on Modern Persian Fiction to the Encyclopaedia Iranica, to which she has contributed the article “Modern Fiction: History and Development”.
Budget
The Editor, the Advisory Committee, and the Consulting Editors serve free of charge. Office space, utilities, and distribution of funds are the charge of Columbia University. Thus, the budget for the project is devoted to careful and meticulous preparation of the entries. The operating budget for the one-year period 2009-2010 is $979,500. This includes the budget for producing and maintaining our online program, which is at present offered free of charge as a service to students and viewers. The Encyclopaedia budget is presented to the National Endowment for Humanities, together with our application for approval, and our receipts and expenditures are audited by the New York firm of Granick & Gendler, as well as periodically by the Accounting Department of Columbia University.
The Foundation was formed in 1990 in order to help raise funds for the expenses of the Encyclopaedia as well as for an Endowment Fund, which has a target of $18 million so as to make the Encyclopaedia self-sufficient. It is currently chaired by Ali Saberioon with Akbar Ghahary and Ab-tin Sassanfar as Vice-Chairs, Tina Tehranchian as Treasurer, Dina Amin as Secretary and Ehsan Yarshater as President.
Sponsorship & Recognition
The Encyclopaedia Iranica is a project of Columbia University and is prepared at its Center for Iranian Studies. The idea for the Encyclopaedia was conceived in 1973, and began at Columbia in 1974. The National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency and the foremost sponsor of educational and research projects in the field of humanities, has recognized the need for and significance of the Encyclopaedia Iranica, which it has classified as a “major project,” and has supported since 1979 — an exception both in terms of the duration of sponsorship and the amount of support accorded to research-tool projects.
The American Council of Learned Societies has endorsed the Encyclopaedia Iranica. Professor Stanley N. Katz, former ACLS President, wrote to the Editor: It is an honor for the ACLS to have even this remote connection to such a distinguished academic undertaking, and I congratulate you on this success and wish you the best of luck in the continued excellence of the Encyclopaedia.
In June 1997, following the sponsorship of The American Council of Learned Societies, the Union Academique Internationale voted unanimously to extend its patronage to the Encyclopaedia Iranica project.
In 1990, the Getty Grant Program, well-known for its sponsorship of art history and archeology studies, also recognized the particular contribution of Encyclopaedia Iranica in these fields by allocating a substantial grant for a 3-year period.
Many foundations, organizations and individuals with an interest in Iranian culture have supported the Encyclopaedia Iranica. Khosrow Eghbal, a former chairman of the Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation, assigned $2 million for the Encyclopaedia in his will. Mahmoud Khayami, now the Honorary Chairman of the Foundation, and Mr. and Mrs. Khosrow B. Semnani have made considerable contributions to the Encyclopaedia ; Dr. Akbar Ghahary, Dr. Abtin Sassanfar, and Mrs. Sadigheh Rastegar, all trustees of the Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation, as well as many other supporters have helped the finances of the Encyclopaedia .
For more information please visit Iranica’s website at
www.iranica.com.