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I B TAURIS AND COMPANY LTD Persian Literature from outside Iran by Ehsan Yarshater John Perry Sunil Sharma
After the fall of the Sassanian Empire and with it the gradual decline of Middle Persian as a literary language, New Persian literature emerged in Transoxiana, beyond the frontiers of present-day Iran, and was written and read in India even before it became firmly established in cities such as Isfahan on the Iranian plateau. Over the course of a millennium (ca. 900-1900 CE), Persian established itself as a contact vernacular and an international literary language from Sarajevo to Madras, with Persian poetry serving as a universal cultural cachet for literati both Muslim and non-Muslim. The role of Persian, beyond its early habitat of Iran and other Islamic lands, has long been recognized: European scholars first came to Persian via Turkey and British orientalists via India. Yet the universal popularity of poets such as Sa'di and Hafez of Shiraz and the ultimate rise of Iran to claim the centre of Persian writing and scholarship led to a relative neglect of the Persianate periphery until recently. This volume contributes to the scholarship of the Persianate fringe with the aid of the abundant material (notably in Tajik, Uzbek and Russian) long neglected by Western scholars and the perspectives of a new generation on this complex and important aspect of Persian literature. CONTRIBUTORS FOREWORD INTRODUCTION: PERSIAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE BEYOND IRAN AND ISLAM (J. R. Perry) PART 1: PERSIAN LITERATURE IN THE INDIAN SUB-CONTINENTCHAPTER 1: ESTABLISHMENT OF CENTERS OF INDO-PERSIAN COURT POETRY (Alyssa Gabbay) CHAPTER 2: TEACHING OF PERSIAN IN SOUTH ASIA (T. Rahman) CHAPTER 3: THE PERSIAN LANGUAGE SCIENCES IN INDIA (J. R. Perry) CHAPTER 4: PERSIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY IN INDIA (B. Auer) CHAPTER 5: PERSIAN LITERATURE OF THE PARSIS IN INDIA (J. K. Choksy) CHAPTER 6: ISMAILI LITERATURE IN PERSIAN IN CENTRAL AND SOUTH ASIA (F. Daftary) CHAPTER 7: PERSIAN MEDICAL LITERATURE IN SOUTH ASIA (F. Speziale) CHAPTER 8: INSCRIPTIONS AND ART-HISTORICAL WRITING (Y. Porter) PART 2: PERSIAN LITERATURE IN ANATOLIA AND THE OTTOMAN REALMS, POST-TIMURID CENTRAL ASIA, TAJIKISTAN, MODERN AFGHANISTAN; JUDEO-PERSIAN LITERATURECHAPTER 9: PERSIAN LITERATURE IN ANATOLIA AND THE OTTOMAN REALMS (S. Kim) CHAPTER 10: PERSIAN LITERATURE IN CENTRAL ASIA UNDER UZBEK RULE (Ertugrul OEkten) CHAPTER 11: TAJIK LITERATURE (K. Hitchins) CHAPTER 12: PERSIAN LITERATURE IN MODERN AFGHANISTAN (R. Farhadi and J. R. Perry) CHAPTER 13: JUDEO-PERSIAN LITERATUREABBREVIATIONS BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX