The Necklace of the Pleiades is a volume on Persian literature, culture and religion by Persian scholars from around the world. This book reflects the state of the field of Persian literary studies and will be of substantial interest not only to scholars of Iranian culture, history and religions, but of Middle Eastern and South Asian studies, as well.

The topics of the 24 essays range from the Persian Alexander romance, to Ferdowsi’s Shahnama and other epics, the poetics and imagery of the ghazal and the qasida, Mughal court poetry, Sufism, Ismaili history, Baha’i literature, Iranian linguistics, the modern writer Sadeq Hedayat, and the reception of Salman Rushdie’s novel in Persian translation.

Franklin Lewis is an Associate Professor of Persian Language and Literature at the University of Chicago.

Sunil Sharma is Associate Professor of Persianate and Comparative Literature at Boston University.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Bibliography of Heshmat Moayyad’s works
I. Alexander Romance
J. Christoph Bürgel, On Some Sources of Nizami’s Iskandar-nama
Angelo Michele Piemontese, Sources and Art of Amir Khosrou’s “The Alexandrine Mirror”
II. The Epic Cycle
Dick Davis, Rostam and Zoroastrianism
Amin Banani, Reflections on Re-reading the Iliad and the Shahnameh
Kinga Ilona Markus-Takeshita, Shirin and Other Female Archetypes in Firdaus’s Shahnamah
Mahmoud Omidsalar, Editing the Shahnama: The Interface Between Literary and Textual Criticism
Jalal Matini, Kus-e pilgus: pahlavani degarsan
III. Religious Texts and Contexts
Paul Losensky, The Creative Compiler: The Art of Rewriting in ‘Attar’s Tazkirat al-awliya’
Wilferd Madelung, Shahriyar b. al-Hasan: A Persian Isma‘ili da‘i of the Fatimid Age
Alyssa Gabbay, “In Praise of One of the Deeply Learned ‘Ulama” – A Mysterious Poem by Qajar Court Poet Mirza Habib Allah Shirazi “Qa’ani”
IV. The Poetic Text and Central Motifs
Iraj Afshar, Nosxa’i kohna az Divan-e Emami-ye Haravi
Julie S. Meisami, A Life in Poetry: Hafiz’s First Ghazal
Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, “My Heart is the Ball, Your Lock the Polo-Stick”: Development of
the Ball and Polo-stick Metaphors in Classical Persian Poetry
V. Center and Periphery
Franklin Lewis, Sincerely Flattering Panegyrics: The Shrinking Ghaznavid Qasida
Sunil Sharma, Novelty, Tradition and Mughal Politics in Nau‘i’s Suz u Gudaz
Youli Ioanessyan, The Position of the Khorasani Dialects within the Persian-Dari-Tajiki Linguistic Continuum
VI. The Modern Period
Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti, The Political Realm’s Literary Convention: The Examples of ‘Ishqi and Iqbal
Afsaneh Najmabadi, Re-membering Amrads and Amradnumas: Re-inventing the (Sedgwickian) Wheel
Michael Hillmann, The Title of Hedâyat’s Buf-e Kur [(The) Blind Owl)]
Claus V. Pedersen, Sâdeq Hedâyat, a Writer ahead of Time
Sholeh Quinn, “A Fenceless Garden” – A Short Story by Mohammad Zarrin
Fereydun Vahman, Fayzi: nevisanda-ye na-senas
Paul Sprachman, Refuting Rushdie in Persian
Michael Bylebyl, From Dawn’s Art