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Mohsen Zakeri

Dr.

Academic Profile

Zakeri finished his Ph.D. studies in Near Eastern History at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City in 1987. The title of his Dissertation was Sasanian Soldiers in Early Muslim Society: the Origins of the 'Ayyaran and Futuwwa (an expanded revised version of this was published, Wiesbaden 1995). He taught medieval and Islamic history courses at the University of Utah (1984-1987). From 1994 till 2000 he was Teaching Assistant for Persian language, literature and history at the Universities of Halle and Jena in Germany. Working as a Research Fellow at the University of Frankfurt, he prepared the results of a research project recently published as Persian Wisdom in Arabic Garb: 'Ali b. 'Ubayda al-Rayhani (d. 219/834) and his Jawahir al-kilam wa-fara'id al-hikam. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 2007 [Awarded the International Book Prize of Iran for the year 2009].
From 01.02.2011 till 01.02.2113 he worked on the presentations of a wise king in the early Arabic and Persian mirrors for princes in the DFG-Project: 'Der „weise“ Herrscher in der persischen und frühislamisch-arabischen Fürstenspiegelliteratur' at the department of Arabistik/ Islamwissenschaft at the University of Göttingen (Prof. Dr. Irene Schneider).
Currently he is preparing the publication of a monograph on the life and work of Muḥammad b. Khalaf b. al-Marzubân (d. 309/921), who was a prolific author and had translated more than fifty ‘books’ from Middle Persian into Arabic.

Sample Publications

Sāsānid Soldiers in Early Muslim Society: The Origins of ‘Ayyārān and Futuwwa. Wiesbaden 1995. Persian Wisdom in Arabic Garb. ‘Alī b. ‘Ubayda al-Rayḥānī (d. 219/834) and his Jawāhir al-kilam wa-farā’id al-ḥikam (Edited and Translated). 2 vols. Leiden 2007.

Current Position

Wissenschaftlische Mitarbeiter, none