Fourth Biennial Iranian studies conference

Symposia Iranica has established itself as the principal worldwide gathering of early career scholars across the entire field of Iranian studies. What better occasion to celebrate the vision and the generosity of the Soudavar family across the generations in promoting the serious academic study of the culture of Iran? There is the foundation of the Malek Library and Museum in Tehran by Hajj Hossein Agha Malek. Fereidoun Soudavar and his wife, Shamsi Amir-Alai, established Britain’s first endowed Chair in Persian at Oxford and a Lectureship in Cambridge, a gift that will keep giving for generations, while his sister-in-law, Ezzat Malek, a lady of extraordinary grace and vision, curated the Malek Library and Museum in Tehran and bequeathed that tradition of scholarship and sponsorship to the next generation, to Abolala and Fatema Soudavar, whom she nurtured and inspired with her love of Iran and its culture.

Fatema Soudavar has been tirelessly active in encouraging and sponsoring Iranian studies internationally, from dozens of individual scholarships and an unobtrusive helping hand extended to numerous small projects to the Soudavar Memorial Foundation’s flagship enterprise, the annual conferences on Iran’s heritage and culture over more than two millennia. This has been published as the multi-volume series The Idea of Iran. Her passionate engagement with the field through her own writings, which range from the academic to the biographical and fiction, as well as her prodigious output, marks her out as one of the most prolific independent scholars of our day.

Abolala Soudavar, with his unique combination of profound erudition, deep analysis of primary sources and piercingly original insights, has transformed the study of Iranian art from ancient to early modern times by a flood of ground-breaking, game-changing books and articles. That range and depth of expertise is simply unrivalled, and he is generously ready to share it with one and all who come to him for advice or information. The collection he assembled, and for which he wrote an extensive catalogue, Art of the Persian Courts, that has become an indispensable guide – a classic of its kind – for all scholars working on medieval Iranian art, is now on long-term loan in Washington. It is open to all researchers and is thus among the very greatest of his many gifts to the global community of those who love the Iranian heritage.

Symposia Iranica is delighted to celebrate the achievements and boundless generosity of this remarkable family, and to dedicate this edition of the conference to Abolala and Fatema Soudavar.