This issue of Iranian Studies includes four articles, an archival report, a roundtable, and book reviews.
Dr. Nozhat Ahmadi and Mohammad Amin Keikha Shahinpour's article examines the Ottoman archives to shed light on Ottoman policies toward Shah Ismā‘īl. In the absence of parallel Iranian sources, their study offers new insight into this period of Safavid and Ottoman relations. Dr. Efe Balikçioğlu provides a comprehensive study of the reception and perception of ‘Omar Khayyām's poetry in Ottoman and Turkish translations. Sarah Eskandari's article focuses on religious pilgrimage in the late Qajar era and the transmission of disease, particularly cholera, caused by the movement of pilgrims. This study of public health crises occasioned by religious pilgrimage resonates deeply with the recent experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mohadeseh Salari Sardari examines modern Iranian architecture against the backdrop of assumptions that French architects André Godard and Maxime Siroux served as major sources of Western influence. In contrast to the prevailing views, she reveals a more complex history that shaped a local architectural modernism.
Dr. Kathryn Babayan's archival report introduces a remarkable undertaking between the University of Michigan and University of Isfahan to collect and digitize all extant anthologies, majmu'a, produced in seventeenth-century Iran. Graduate students at both institutions are collaborating with scholars to examine the anthologies, generate tables of contents, and eventually make a database accessible to historians of the Safavid era from across the globe.
This issue also includes a roundtable edited by Dr. Barzoo Eliassi on minoritized communities in Iran. In addition to his introduction, the roundtable includes contributions by Dr. Afshin Matin-Asgari, Dr. Eric Lob, Dr. Azadeh Kian, Dr. Leila Rahimi Bahmany, Yosra AleAhmad, and Dr. James Barry. Encompassing language, ethnicity, gender, and religion, their contributions lay bare what nationalist discourses of Iranian identity have occluded. Dr. Paola Rivetti, Associate Editor for Social Sciences, provided vital support and guidance to the contributors and ensured the roundtable's timely completion.
I am grateful to Dr. David Yeroushalmi and Dr. Lior Sternfeld for the obituary of our late colleague, Daniel Tsadik.
