Bøker av Shahrokh Meskoob

Equally literary analysis and a deep dive into the timeless ingredients of our collective humanity-love and greed, fear and malice, cowardice, loyalty, treachery, and courage-Lament for Siavash is considered Shahrokh Meskoob's best work on the eleventh-century Iranian national epic, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi. It interweaves Zoroastrian and Zurvanite mythology and religion, Arsacid heroic poetry, Sasanian history, and Islamic mysticism to relate the story of the death of prince Siavash and his resurrection as his son Kay Khosrow-the perfect man. Meskoob's concept of the hero celebrates ethical integrity, an ideal that in his telling was diminished in Sasanian society in the early Middle Ages and which, following the Arab invasion in the seventh century, devolved into a fatalistic ethos of martyrdom in Shi'ite Iran. While highlighting the supremacy of the cosmic order over humanity, the commentary underscores every individual's freedom to willfully act on their own conscience and self-purpose, thus offering the reader a heroic definition of the meaning of life. Read Lament if you wish to wrap yourself in the most spirited values articulated in Iranian civilization. Mahasti Afshar's superb English translation perfectly captures the Persian original, in particular Meskoob's terse and complex prose-poetic constructs, while her textual notes provide insightful information for the general reader and the scholar alike. A foreword by Stanford Iranian Studies Director Abbas Milani confirms Meskoob's status as an Iranian scholar for our times.

Shahrokh Meskoob was one of Iran's leading intellectuals and a preeminent scholar of Persian literary traditions, language, and cultural identity. In The Ant's Gift, Meskoob applies his insight and considerable analytical skills to the Shahnameh, the national epic of Iran completed in 1010 by the poet Abul-Qusem Ferdowsi.

In this insightful study of Iranian cultural history and national identity, the late Shahrokh Meskoob, one of Iran's leading intellectuals, reviewed the roles of three social classes, the courtiers and bureaucratic officials (ahl-e divan), the religious scholars (ulama), and the Muslim Gnostics (Sufi poets and writers), in the development and refinement of the Persian language during the past 1,000 years and gives the reader a fresh perspective on Iranian cultural heritage and the struggle to forge a distinct national identity. Dr Ali Banuazizi's foreword and interview with the author sets the stage for a fuller appreciation of this invaluable and wide-ranging contribution to Iranian intellectual history.