From the Undersigned Scholars and Supporters of the Encyclopaedia Iranica


friendsofiranica.org


We the undersigned, scholars and supporters of the Encyclopaedia Iranica, write to express our profound concern about the actions of the current board of directors of the Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation (EIF), an organization created in 1990 for the express purpose of supporting the cause of the Encyclopaedia Iranica and providing it with financial assistance.

The Encyclopaedia Iranica, a critically important academic reference work in Iranian and Persian studies and associated fields, was initiated by the late Professor Ehsan Yarshater at Columbia University. This project has been supported by Columbia University since its inception four decades ago, and it has been funded generously by the National Endowment for the Humanities and numerous other foundations, agencies, and individual donors. In 2018, the Persian Heritage Foundation (PHF), another charitable organization founded by Professor Yarshater, provided the endowment fund for the creation of the Ehsan Yarshater Center for Iranian Studies at Columbia University, with the Encyclopaedia Iranica project as its central mission. Despite numerous obstacles caused by the EIF and with a much reduced staff, the Yarshater Center since its inception has succeeded in publishing three new fascicles of the Encyclopaedia Iranica and launching a new open-access Encyclopaedia Iranica Online in cooperation with Brill publishers.

In light of recent reports, there are a number of questions we feel it is incumbent upon the board of the EIF to answer.

  • Why has the EIF board ended its relationship with Columbia University and the Yarshater Center and terminated its funding for the Encyclopaedia Iranica project?

  • During the current board’s tenure, going back over four years, what has it actually accomplished other than prompting the resignation or ousting of several academic board members and engaging in a costly battle with Columbia University?

  • How is EIF providing accountability to its donors for its actions and its expenditures?

  • Why is it holding on to its substantial funds (approximately twenty million dollars), that were raised over decades, or expending them in a wasteful legal battle, rather than focusing its efforts on the two major mandates of its articles of incorporation: fundraising for and financing the Encyclopaedia Iranica?

  • What exactly is EIF’s long-term plan for supporting the Encyclopaedia Iranica as it is required to do under the terms of its articles of incorporation?

Without clear and convincing answers to these questions, and given its recent actions, one can only conclude that the behavior of the current EIF board of directors has been in violation of its responsibilities as a tax exempt organization entrusted to support a scholarly and academic enterprise. It is an affront to the collective endeavor of more than 1600 scholars worldwide who so far have contributed more than 6,000 entries to the Encyclopaedia Iranica, to all those supporters who for four decades have donated to this project, and to those who have regularly benefitted from this unique academic resource in their research.

We therefore call on the board of the EIF to end its unproductive litigation, engage in a constructive attempt to reconcile its differences with Columbia University, and to resume responsible funding for the Encyclopaedia Iranica project. Should it fail to do so, we believe the New York State Attorney General and Bureau of Charities or other appropriate agencies should be asked to undertake an investigation of the EIF and, if it is found in violation of its mandate, remove and replace the current EIF board of directors in accordance with its articles of incorporation.



Signed in Support:

(263)

Rula J. Abisaab, Professor, Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University


Ervand Abrahamian, Professor Emeritus of History, City University of New York; former Editor, Iranian Studies


Janet Afary, Professor, Mellichamp Chair in Global Religion and Modernity, University of California, Santa Barbara


Amir A. Afkhami, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Global Health, History; Director of Medical Student Education, Department of Psychiatry, George Washington University


Mahnaz Afkhami, Executive Director of the Foundation for Iranian Studies


Kamran Scot Aghaie, Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, the University of Texas at Austin


Wali Ahmadi, Associate Professor of Persian Literature, Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of California, Berkeley


Denise Aigle, Directrice d’études émérite, École Pratique des Hautes Études; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Iranian Studies


Jamsheed Akrami, Professor of Film Studies, William Paterson University


Cyrus Alai, Independent Scholar, London


Hamid Algar, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley; Consulting Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica


Abbas Alizadeh, Research Associate Professor, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago


Roham Alvandi, Associate Professor of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science


Abbas Amanat, William Graham Sumner Professor of History and Director of Iranian Studies, Yale University; former Editor, Iranian Studies; Consulting Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica


Mehrdad Amanat, Historian, Independent Scholar


Camron Michael Amin, Professor of History, Coordinator of the Middle East Studies Certificate Program, The University of Michigan-Dearborn


M. A. Amir-Moezzi, Professor, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris

Ali Anooshahr, Professor of History, University of California, Davis


Ali Ansari, Professor, School of History, University of St. Andrews; Founding Director, Institute for Iranian Studies


Victoria Arakelova, Professor, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian-Armenian University, Yerevan


Said Amir Arjomand, Emeritus Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology, State University of New York, Stony Brook; past President of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies


Garnik S. Asatrian, Professor and Director, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian-Armenian University, Yerevan

Ahmad Ashraf, Former Associate Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica; former President of the Association for Iranian Studies

Assef Ashraf, Lecturer in the Eastern Islamic Lands and Persian-Speaking World, University of Cambridge


Nasrin Askari, Research Fellow and Translator, Department of Modern Languages, University of Birmingham

Sebouh David Aslanian, Professor of History, Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History, University of California, Los Angeles

Touraj Atabaki, Emeritus Professor of Social History of the Middle East and Central Asia, Leiden University, and International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam; former President, Association for Iranian Studies


Muriel Atkin, Professor of History, George Washington University


Blain Auer, Études de l'Islam en Asie du Sud, Section de langues et civilisations d'Asie du Sud, Faculté des lettres, Université de Lausanne


Gevorg Avetikyan, Member of the Editorial Group of Iran and the Caucasus journal; Director of International Programs, European University at St. Petersburg, Russia


Abdolhossein Azarang, The Encyclopedia of Iran, Tehran


Fakhreddin Azimi, Professor of History, University of Connecticut


Sussan Babaie, Professor in the Arts of Iran and Islam, The Courtlaud Institute of Art


Shaul Bakhash, Clarence Robinson Professor of History Emeritus, George Mason University


Sivan Balslev, Lecturer, Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem


Ayșe Baltacioglu-Brammer, Assistant Professor of History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, NYU


Hussein Banai, Assistant Professor of International Studies, Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington; Research Affiliate at the Center for International Studies, MIT; former Associate Editor, Iranian Studies


Ali Banuazizi, Professor of Political Science, Boston College; founding Editor, Iranian Studies; former President of the Middle East Studies Association and of the Association for Iranian Studies

Shahzad Bashir, Aga Khan Professor of Islamic Humanities, Brown University

Oliver Bast, Professor of Persian Studies at Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris

Kaveh Bayat, Independent Scholar, Tehran


Mangol Bayat, Independent Scholar

Marcel Bazin, Emeritus Professor, University of Reims - Champagne-Ardenne, France


Daniel Beben, Department of History, Philosophy, and Religious Studies, Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan

Anna Livia Beelaert, Leiden University


William O. Beeman, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, University of Minnesota


Ali Behdad, Director of the Center for Near Eastern Studies; John Charles Hillis Chair in Literature; Professor of English and Comparative Literature, UCLA


Maziar Behrooz, Professor of History, San Francisco State University

Houri Berberian, Professor of History, Director of Graduate Studies, Meghrouni Family Presidential Chair in Armenian Studies, Director of the Center for Armenian Studies, University of California, Irvine

Michele Bernardini, Professor and Director of the Department of Asian, African and Mediterranean Studies, University of Naples


Carol Bier, Research Scholar, Center for Islamic Studies, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley CA.

Sheila Blair, Norma Jean Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art (emerita), Boston College


Jonathan Bloom, Norma Jean Calderwood University Professor of Islamic and Asian Art (emeritus), Boston College; Hamad bin Khalifa Endowed Chair of Islamic Art (emeritus), Virginia Commonwealth University


Stephen Blum, Professor of Music Emeritus, City University of New York

Mansour Bonakdarian, Liberal Studies, New York University

Mehrzad Boroujerdi, Professor and Director, School of Public and International Affairs, Virginia Tech; former President of the Association for Iranian Studies


Rémy Boucharlat, Honorary Senior Researcher, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique


George Bournoutian, Professor of History emeritus, Iona College


Gerhard Bowering, Professor of Islamic Studies, Department of Religious Studies, Yale University


Elio Brancaforte, Associate Professor, Department of Germanic & Slavic Studies, Tulane University


Sonja Brentjes, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin.


Christian Bromberger, Professor Emeritus, Department of Anthropology, IDEMEC Aix-Marseille University and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique


Dominic Parviz Brookshaw, Senior Research Fellow in Persian at Wadham College, and Associate Professor of Persian Literature at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford


Richard W. Bulliet, Professor of History Emeritus, Columbia University


Sheila Canby, Art Historian, Independent Scholar


Alberto Cantera, Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies, Freie Universität Berlin


Mario Casari, Associate Professor of Persian language and literature, Sapienza University of Rome


Carlo Cereti, Professore ordinario, di Filologia, religioni e storia dell'Iran, Dipartimento di Scienze dell'antichità, Facoltà di Lettere e Filosofia, University of Rome; Consulting Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica


Houchang Chehabi, Professor of International Relations and History, Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies, Boston University; former President, Association for Iranian Studies


William C. Chittick, Distinguished Professor of Islamic Studies, SUNY


Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, University of Michigan Ann Arbor


Elvire Corboz, Lecturer in Contemporary Islam and Middle East, Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Edinburgh


José Cutillas Ferrer, Associate Professor of Arab and Islamic Studies, and Director of the Permanent Seminar of Iranian Studies, the University of Alicante.


Hamid Dabashi, Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University


Farhad Daftary, Head of the Department of Academic Research and Publications, the Institute of Ismaili Studies; Consulting Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica

Stephen Dale, Emeritus Professor of South Asian and Islamic History and Distinguished University Scholar, Ohio State University


Tahirih T Danesh, Executive Director, Persia Educational Foundation

Touraj Daryaee, Maseeh Chair in Persian Studies and Culture, Director of the Dr. Samuel M. Jordan Center for Persian Studies and Culture, University of California, Irvine; former President of the Association for Iranian Studies

Richard Davis, Professor Emeritus, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Ohio State University


Mohammad Reza Djalili, Professeur émérite de l’Institut de Hautes Internationales et du développement, Genève

Wendy DeSouza, Middle East/South Asia Program, University of California, Davis


Agnès Devictor; Senior Lecturer, Historian of Cinema, Laboratory: Cultural and Social History of Art, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris


Farhad Diba, Independent Scholar


Jean-Pierre Digard, Directeur de recherche émérite, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Anoush Ehteshami, Professor of International Relations, Nasser al-Sabah Chair and Director, HH Sheikh Nasser al-Sabah Research Programme, Director, Institute for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, School of Government and International Affairs, Durham University


Maryam Ekhtiar, Curator, Department of Islamic Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Hadi Enayat, Visiting Lecturer, Institute for Ismaili Studies, London


Haleh Esfandiari, Director Emerita and Scholar, Middle East Program, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.


Manoutchehr Eskandari-Qajar, Professor, Department of Political Science; Director, Middle East Studies Program, Santa Barbara City College; former President, International Qajar Studies Association (IQSA)


Mansoureh Ettehadiyeh, Professor of History, University of Tehran


Margherita Facella, Università di Pisa, Dpt. Civiltà e Forme del Sapere, Seminario di Storia Antica, Pisa


Aria Fani, Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Professorship in Persian and Iranian Studies, Co-Director of Persian and Iranian Studies Program, University of Washington; Associate Editor, Iranian Studies


Shervin Farridnejad, Free University of Berlin, and the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna

Mateo M. Farzaneh, Associate Professor of History, Northeastern Illinois University


Michael M.J. Fischer, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities, and Professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies, MIT


Willem Floor, Independent Scholar, Washington, DC; Consulting Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica


Bert G. Fragner, Professor and former Founding Director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna


Richard Foltz, Professor, Department of Religions and Cultures, Concordia University, Montréal


Navid Fozi, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Bridgewater State University


Supriya Gandhi, Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Yale University


Saghi Gazerani, Independent Scholar, Tehran


M. R. Ghanoonparvar, Professor Emeritus of Persian and Comparative Literature, the University of Texas at Austin


Ali Gheissari, Professor of History, University of San Diego; former Editor, Iranian Studies; Consulting Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica


Maziyar Ghiabi, Wellcome Trust Lecturer in Medical Humanities, College of Social Sciences and International Studies, University of Exeter


Saloumeh Gholami, Professor of Minority Languages in the Middle East, Institute of Empirical Linguistics, Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany


Gad Gilbar, Professor Emeritus of Middle Eastern History, University of Haifa


Helen Giunashvili, Researcher, George Tsereteli Institute of Oriental Studies, Ilia State University, Tbilisi


Nile Green, Ibn Khaldun Endowed Chair in World History, University of California, Los Angeles


James M. Gustafson, Associate Professor of History, Indiana State University


John Gurney, Emeritus Fellow, Wadham College, University of Oxford


Masashi Haneda, Executive Director and Vice President, Director of Tokyo College, The University of Tokyo


Forogh Hashabeiky, Associate Professor of Iranian Languages, Uppsala University, Sweden


Manata Hashemi, Farzaneh Family Assistant Professor of Iranian Studies, University of Oklahoma


Denis Hermann, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, IFEA (French Institute for Anatolian Studies), Istanbul


Edmund Herzig, Masoumeh and Fereydoon Soudavar Professor of Persian Studies, University of Oxford; Consulting Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica


Almut Hintze, Zartoshty Brothers Professor of Zoroastrianism, SOAS University of London


Bernard Hourcade, Directeur de recherche émérite, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique


Marie Huber, Assistant Professor of Persian and Comparative Literature, Stanford University


Manfred Hutter, Professor of Comparative Religions, University of Bonn


Hossein Kamaly, Imam Ali Chair in Shia Studies, Hartford Seminary


Ayfer Karakaya-Stump, Associate Professor of History, College of William and Mary


Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, Professor Emeritus, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, the University of Maryland; Adjunct Professor, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, University of California, Los Angeles


Homa Katouzian, Editor, International Journal of Persian Literature; Co-editor AIS/Routledge Iranian Studies book series; former Editor, Iranian Studies; St Antony’s College, University of Oxford


Ralph Kauz, Professor of Sinology, University of Bonn


Peter Jackson, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History, Keele University, UK


Peyman Jafari, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Princeton University | Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies


Stanisław Jaśkowski, Department of Iranian Studies, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Warsaw


Farhad Kazemi, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, New York University; former Editor, Iranian Studies; former President of the Middle East Studies Association and of the Association for Iranian Studies


Ranin Kazemi, Associate Professor of History, San Diego State University; former Associate Editor, Iranian Studies


Majdoddin Keyvani, Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics and Translation; Editor, Ayeneh-ye Miras, Tehran


Hani Khafipour, Assistant Professor of Teaching Iranian History and Culture, Department of Middle East Studies, University of Southern California


Arash Khazeni, Professor of History, Pomona College


M. Mehdi Khorrami, Emeritus Professor, Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University
















Signatures in Support: 263

Last updated: 2 December 2021

contact@friendsofiranica.org














Farhad Khosrokhavar, emeritus Professor at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris


Mana Kia, Associate Professor, Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies, Columbia University


Azadeh Kian, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Director of Social Science Department Université de Paris VII


Hasmik Kirakosian, Senior Researcher, Institute of Ancient Manuscripts-Matenadaran and Associate Professor of Iranian Studies, Yerevan State University


Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, Professor, Institute of History, University of Warsaw; member, Polish Academy of Sciences


Nobuaki Kondo, Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Professor, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies


Mikiya Koyagi, Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies, University of Texas at Austin


Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Professor Emeritus for Iranian Studies, Georg-August University Göttingen


Justine Landau, Associate Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University


George Lane, Senior Teaching Fellow, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London


Judith A. Lerner, Research Associate, Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, New York University; Co-editor, Inner and Central Asian Art and Archaeology; former Co-editor, Journal of Inner and Central Asian Art and Archaeology.


Scott Levi, Interim Chair, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures; Professor and Chair, Department of History, Ohio State University; Consulting Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica


Franklin D. Lewis, Associate Professor of Persian Language & Literature and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago


John Limbert, Emeritus Distinguished Professor of International Affairs, United States Naval Academy


Meir Litvak, Professor, the Alliance Center for Iranian Studies, Tel Aviv University


Paul Losensky, Professor, Department of Central Eurasian Studies and the Department of Comparative Literature, Indiana University, Bloomington; Consulting Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica


Mauro Maggi, Professor of Iranian Philology, Università degli studi di Roma La Sapienza


Maria Macuch, Professor emeritus, Institut of Iranian Studies (Institut für Iranistik), Freie Universität Berlin


Hirotake Maeda, Professor, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tokyo Metropolitan University


Shireen Mahdavi, emeritus Professor, Department of History, University of Utah


Ali Akbar Mahdi, Lecturer, Department of Sociology, California State University (Northridge); Professor Emeritus, Ohio Wesleyan University; former Associate Editor, Iranian Studies


Setrag Manoukian, Associate Professor, Institute of Islamic Studies and Department of Anthropology, McGill University


Beatrice Manz, Professor of History, Tufts University


Afshin Marashi, Professor and Farzaneh Family Chair in Modern Iranian History, University of Oklahoma


Vanessa Martin, Emeritus Professor of Middle Eastern History, Royal Holloway University of London


Ulrich Marzolph, Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Göttingen, Germany


Afshin Matin-Asgari, Professor of History, California State University, Los Angeles


Rudolph Matthee, John and Dorothy Munroe Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Delaware; past President of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies; Consulting Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica


Robert W. McChesney, Emeritus Professor, Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University; former Editor, Iranian Studies


Charles Melville, Emeritus Professor of Persian History, University of Cambridge


Matthew Melvin-Koushki, Associate Professor of Islamic History, University of South Carolina


David Menashri, Professor (emeritus), Tel Aviv University


Daniela Meneghini, Associate Professor of Persian language and literature, Ca' Foscari University of Venice


Abbas Milani, Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies, Stanford University


Farzaneh Milani, Cavaliers’ Distinguished Teaching Professor, Raymond J. Nelson Professor, Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures, Department of Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, the University of Virginia


Mohsen Milani, Professor of Politics and Executive Director, Center for Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, the University of South Florida


Ali Mirsepassi, Albert Gallatin Research Excellence Professor, Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, Director of Iranian Studies Initiative, New York University


Mansoor Moaddel, Professor of Sociology, University of Maryland


Azfar Moin, Associate Professor and Department Chair, Religious Studies, the University of Texas at Austin


Jawid Mojaddedi, Professor of Religion, Rutgers University


Reza Molavi, Chairman, Comet Enterprises (UK) Ltd.; Associate, British Iranian Chamber of Commerce; Former Executive Director, Centre for Iranian Studies, Durham University; Former Research Fellow, School of Government & International Affairs, Durham University


Amir Moosavi, Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, Rutgers University-Newark


Vera Moreen, Independent Scholar


Norma Claire Moruzzi, Associate Professor of Political Science, Gender and Women’s Studies; Chair, Middle East and Muslim Societies Cluster, University of Illinois at Chicago; Associate Editor, Iranian Studies


Nodar Mossaki, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow


David Motadel, Associate Professor, Department of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science


Negar Mottahedeh, Professor of the Humanities, Duke University


Roy P. Mottahedeh, Gurney Professor of History, Emeritus, Harvard University


Mehdi Mozaffari, Professor emeritus of Political Science, Aarhus University, Denmark


Negin Nabavi, Associate Professor of History, Montclair State University


Hamid Naficy, Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani Professor Emeritus of Radio, Television, Film, School of Communication, Northwestern University


Firouzeh Nahavandi, Professor, Faculté des sciences sociales et politiques; Director, the Research Centre for International Cooperation and Development (CECID), Université libre de Bruxelles


Afsaneh Najmabadi, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History and of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University


Vali Nasr, Majid Khadduri Professor of Middle East Studies and International Affairs; former Dean, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), Johns Hopkins University


Andrew J. Newman, Professor and Chair of Islamic Studies and Persian Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, The University of Edinburgh; Founder and moderator of 'Shii News and Resources'


Golnar Nikpour, Assistant Professor of History, Dartmouth College


Christine Nölle-Karimi, Professor, Institute of Iranian Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences


Vahid Noshirvani, former Lecturer in Economics and Associate Director of the Center for Iranian Studies, Columbia University


Milad Odabaei. Postdoctoral Research Associate, Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies, Princeton University

Paola Orsatti, Associate Professor of Persian language and literature, Sapienza University of Rome


Eva Orthmann, Professor of Iranian Studies at the University of Göttingen


Nacim Pak-Shiraz, Professor and Personal Chair in Cinema and Iran, Head of Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Edinburgh


Jürgen Paul, Professor of Islamic Studies, the Oriental Institute, Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg


Ludwig Paul, Professor of Iranian Studies, Hamburg University


Irina Pavlova, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Saint Petersburg State University


Nahid Pirnazar, Iranian Studies, University of California


Anja Pistor-Hatam, Professor, Institute for Islamic Studies, Kiel University, Germany


Sheldon Pollock, Arvind Raghunathan Professor of Sanskrit and South Asian Studies, Columbia University


Ismail Poonawala, Professor Emeritus of Arabic & Islamic Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, UCLA


Irina Popova, Director of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts, Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg


Lawrence G. Potter, Adj. Associate Professor, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University


Daniel T. Potts, Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Archaeology and History, New York University; Consulting Editor, Encyclopaedia Iranica


Parvaneh Pourshariati, Associate Professor of History, New York City College of Technology (CUNY); past President, Association for the Study of Persianate Societies


Sholeh A. Quinn, Associate Professor of History, University of California, Merced


Enrico G. Raffaelli, Associate Professor of History of Zoroastrianism, Departmnent of Historical Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga


Babak Rahimi, Associate Professor of Communication, Culture and Religion, Director of Third World Studies Program, University of California, San Diego

Ali Rahnema, Professor, Department of Economics and Management, The American University of Paris


Kamran Rastegar, Professor of Comparative Literature, Department of International Literary and Cultural Studies; Director, The Center for the Humanities, Tufts University


Kianoosh Rezania, Professor of the History of West Asian Religions, Director, Zoroastrian Middle Persian: Digital Corpus and Dictionary (MPCD), Käte Hamburger Kolleg Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe; Center for Religious Studies, Ruhr-Universität Bochum; Associate Editor, Iranian Studies

Yann Richard, Professeur Émérite, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris


Lloyd Ridgeon, Reader in Islamic Studies, the University of Glasgow, UK


Giorgio Rota, Researcher, Institute of Iranian Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences


Christine van Ruymbeke, Ali Reza and Mohamed Soudavar Reader in Persian Studies, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge


Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi, Assistant Professor in Comparative Political Theory, Department of Politics and International Relations, Goldsmiths College, University of London


Parviz Saney, Visiting Professor, Columbia Law School; Visiting Scholar, Yale Law School; Professor and former Dean of the National University of Iran


George Sanikidze, Professor of History, Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies, Ilia State University, Tbilisi


Houman M. Sarshar, Consulting Editor, Encyclopædia Iranica; assistant to the late Ehsan Yarshater (1990-1992); Founder and President, Kimia Foundation


Paolo Sartori, Senior Fellow, Institute of Iranian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna; Editor, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient


Jennifer M Scarce, Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, former Principal Curator of the Middle East Collections, National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh; Honorary Lecturer Middle Eastern Cultures, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, University of Dundee, Scotland


Cyrus Schayegh, Professor of International History, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, University of Geneva


Sabine Schmidtke, Professor of Islamic Intellectual History, School of Historical Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ


Martin Schwartz, Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies, University of California, Berkeley


Anousha Sedighi, Professor of Persian and Persian Section Head, Portland State University; Associate Editor, Iranian Studies

A.A. (Asghar) Seyed-Gohrab, Professor of Persian and Iranian Studies, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht University; Professor, Institute for Area Studies, Department of Middle Eastern Studies, Leiden University


Nazanin Shahrokni, Assistant Professor of Gender and Globalization, The London School of Economics


Soli Shahvar, Professor of Iranian Studies, Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, The University of Haifa, Israel

Shaul Shaked, Emeritus Professor of Iranian Studies, Religious Studies, Aramaic and Magic in Late Antiquity, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Fatemeh Shams, Assistant Professor of Persian Literature, University of Pennsylvania


Matthew Shannon, Associate Professor of History, Emory & Henry College


Sunil Sharma, Professor of Persianate & Comparative Literature, Boston University; President of the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies

Marianna Shreve-Simpson, Research Associate, Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, University of Pennsylvania


Nicholas Sims-Williams, Professor Emeritus of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, SOAS University of London

Nahid Siamdoust, Visiting Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies and Anthropology of Religion, Harvard Divinity School


Sussan Siavoshi, Cox Chapman Professor of International Relations, Trinity University; Editor, Iranian Studies


Marta Simidchieva, Department of Humanities, York University, Toronto


Prods Oktor Skjaervo, Aga Khan Professor of Iranian Studies (emeritus), Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Harvard University


Nader Sohrabi, Senior Research Fellow, University of Leipzig


Paul Sprachman, Professor Emeritus, Rutgers University


H. Lyman Stebbins, Associate Professor of History, La Salle University; Associate Editor, Iranian Studies


Lior B. Sternfeld, Assistant Professor of History and Jewish Studies, Penn State University


Maria Subtelny, Professor of Persian and Islamic Studies, Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto


Kamran Talattof, Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Chair in Persian and Iranian Studies, University of Arizona


Amin Tarzi, Professor and Director of Middle East Studies, Marine Corps University


Tilmann Trausch, Adjunct Professor of Iranian Studies, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn


Soraya Tremayne, Founding Director, Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group, Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford


Ernest Tucker, Professor, History Department, United States Naval Academy


Bo Utas, Professor emeritus of Iranian studies, Uppsala University, Sweden


Fereydun Vahman, Professor Emeritus, University of Copenhagen


Farzin Vejdani, Associate Professor, Department of History, Ryerson University


Denis V. Volkov, Associate Professor, HSE University and Moscow State Linguistic University


Christoph U. Werner, Professor and Chair of Iranian Studies, University of Bamberg; Deputy Editor, Iranian Studies


Houra Yavari, Editorial Board, Encyclopaedia Iranica, Yarshater Center for Iranian Studies, Columbia University (retired)


Neguin Yavari, Nizami Ganjavi Centre, University of Oxford


Riza Yildirim, Graduate Division of Religion, Emory University


Mandana Zandian, M.D., Research Scientist, poet and writer


Mehdi Zarghamee, former Chair of the Board of Directors of Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation; Past Chancellor of Sharif University


Fariba Zarinebaf, Professor of History, University of California, Riverside


Reza Zia-Ebrahimi, Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor), Department of History, King's College London


Michael Zirinsky, Professor of Modern History, Emeritus, Boise State University


Sami Zubaida, Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology, Birkbeck, University of London