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Date
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Time
6:30 pm to 8:00 pm
Venue
SOAS Gallery
Room
Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre (BGLT)
Event type
Lecture & Event highlights

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In these lectures, two distinctive understandings of Wisdom, from the Zoroastrian and the Sufi Muslim traditions respectively, are discussed in juxtaposition, in a study of two of the most famous examples of their religious literature. 

‘Wisdom’ is part of the name of the Zoroastrian creator deity, Ahura Mazdā, the ‘Wise Lord’. 

Various different notions of wisdom, knowledge and understanding have been intrinsic to a succession of Iranian cultures, from the ancient era of Zarathushtra, through the Achaemenian, Parthian and Sasanian dynasties, down to the early Islamic period and into the period of Classical Persian literature.

Should the Wisdom of Iran, as discussed in these lectures and in the texts that inform them, be seen as an esoteric and secretive matter, confined to an élite of intellectuals and cognoscenti?  Or is it a matter of open access to all who strive after it?

Definitions of terms such as ‘wisdom’, ‘knowledge’, ‘understanding’, ‘mysticism’ and ‘esotericism’ will be given, and answers sought, in what will, it is hoped, be an accessible, non-elitist, down-to-earth, exposition.

The lectures will be followed by a Q&A session.

Image © British Library. Used with permission

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Lecture 1: Wednesday 7 May

The Wisdom of the Gāthic tradition in Pahlavi literature: Dēnkard VI (9th Century A.C.)

In 1979 Shaul Shaked published his Wisdom of the Sasanian Sages (Dēnkard VI), which was a revised version of his own doctoral thesis on Pahlavi andarz (gnomic) literature (1964). Shaked had foreshadowed the bold ideas of his thesis about the gnomic aphorisms of Dēnkard VI in an article with the controversial title ‘Esoteric trends in Zoroastrianism’ (Jerusalem, 1969). 

This latter article did not meet with much favour among Western scholars at the time. In this lecture, 56 years after its first publication, there will be a further consideration of Shaked’s ideas about ‘esoteric trends’ in Zoroastrianism and andarz literature in general.

Lecture 2: Thursday 8 May

Wisdom in the Masnavī of Mowlānā Jalāloddīn Rūmī Balkhī (1207-1273)

Rūmī is a Persian ‘Sūfī’ poet who has been afforded ‘saintly’ status in the Muslim world, and is nowadays fêted globally as the epitome of mystical knowledge and love. Yet, in the Masnavi, Rūmī appears as a Ḥanafī Muslim who cites from the Qur’ān and Ḥadīth countless times. The question whether Rūmī himself was ‘orthodox’, on the one hand,  or ‘antinomian’ and unorthodox, remains a live issue for Muslims. 

Also, it is possibly of concern to many influenced by the ‘versions’ of those who edit out Rūmī’s Muslim background and depict him as a ‘universalist’ thinker whose poetry transcends religious boundaries and categories.

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Professor Alan Williams is one of the few contemporary Western academics to have worked on both Old and Middle Iranian languages and literature, and also on Islamic Persian Classical and contemporary New Persian poetry.

From 1972-1976 he studied Literae Humaniores (Classics) then Persian and Arabic at The Queen’s College, Oxford. He continued his doctoral studies at SOAS on a Zoroastrian Pahlavi text with Professor Mary Boyce; with Professor Nicholas Sims-Williams he studied Ancient Iranian and Middle Iranian languages. After his doctoral studies, Alan taught Zoroastrian history and religion at SOAS, and was appointed Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Sussex (1979-85). Having relocated to the University of Manchester, he was promoted to Senior Lecturer, Reader, and then Professor in 2009. From 2013-16 he held a British Academy Wolfson Research Professorship, and from 2016-19 held a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Scholarship. He retired in 2022.

He has been a Trustee and Member of Council of the British Institute of Persian Studies, and of the E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Trust. He was formerly on the Academic Council of the Persian Heritage Foundation. He has published editions and translations of Pahlavi and Persian Zoroastrian texts, as well as studies of several volumes of Rūmī’s Masnavī, and of modern Persian poetry.

With Professors Almut Hintze and John Hinnells, and Dr Sarah Stewart, he has edited several collections of essays on Zoroastrianism and the Parsis, and written many articles and chapters on Zoroastrianism, Sufism, Cultural Anthropology and Translation Studies. His translations of Rūmī have been published by Penguin and IB Tauris / Bloomsbury Press: Book Three is to be published this year, and Books Four to Six are in preparation. He has recently written a new Introduction to the E. J. W. Gibb Memorial Trust’s re-publication of R.A. Nicholson’s Mathnawí of Jalálu’ddín Rúmí.

Chair

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This event is free to attend, but registration is required. Please note that seating is on a first-come, first-served basis.

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In 2011 SOAS was awarded a gift of £2 million by the Fereydoun Djam Charitable Trust to promote Iranian studies. This generous endowment enables SOAS to build on its long and distinguished tradition of study into one of the world's oldest and richest cultures. As part of this initiative, SOAS introduced new scholarships in Iranian studies as well as this lecture series to promote diverse aspects of Iranian studies.

The Kamran Djam Lecture Series is hosted by the Centre for Iranian Studies at SOAS and are named after Fereydoun's son, Kamran Djam, who predeceased his parents in 1989.

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