Sep 29: Job talk - Persianist: Daniel Sheffield (Princeton University)

The Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizationsat Harvard University
presents:

"On Translation and Toleration: Āẕar Kayvān and Universal Civility in the Early Modern Persianate World"

Daniel Sheffield

Link-Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow; Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Studies
Princeton Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at Princeton University

Monday, September 29, 4:00 p.m. 6 Divinity Avenue, room 201

 Abstract: In the 1570s, a freethinker called Āẕar Kayvān (d. 1618) left Shiraz for Patna, bringing with him the idea that the end of the Muslim millennium would herald a new “Persian Age” (dawr-i ʻajam), an era of religious tolerance and sacred kingship. This talk examines the early Safavid context in which these ideas formed, their reflection in contemporary literature, and their reception in Mughal India, presaging Akbar’s Divine Religion (dīn-i ilāhī).

Dr. Sheffield is a candidate for the Persianist position in NELC.