BIPS AGM and Samanids Lecture

All members of BIPS are invited to attend our AGM. No booking is required.

What became of the Samanids?
Details: Professor Florian Schwarz, Director of the Institute of Iranian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, will speak on the Samanid dynasty. The Samanids are the quintessential Persian dynasty of the Islamic period. They carried the legacy of Iranian kingship and statehood over into the Islamic period, and they eased the birth of Islamic Persian literary culture. A different kind of legacy lived on in the core area of the Samanids, in Bukhara. A series of historical documents associates the famous so-called Samanid mausoleum in Bukhara with local properties, families, and an endowment (vaqf) supposedly established by the Samanid rulers. Guided by the story of the Samanid vaqf from its alleged origins in the 9th century to the early 20th century, Professor Schwarz will investigate the interactions between historiography, literature and documentation in the making of the image of the Samanids and explores the real-life consequences of historical memory and their implications for the study and writing of Persian history.

The lecture is free, but places are strictly limited and MUST be reserved in advance by email to bips@britac.ac.uk