The Iran Society, founded in 1935

Tom Holland & Ali Ansari: “What have the Persians ever done for us?”

Brunei Lecture Theatre, SOAS, Thornhaugh Street WC1H 0XG

Join the historian Tom Holland in illustrated conversation with Ali Ansari discussing the role of the Persians in world civilisation, looking at their contributions to religion, philosophy, politics, literature and wider culture, including horticulture and fashion. From Paradise and the walled garden to the business suit and the high heel: what has been the impact […]

William Figueroa: Iran and China

Army & Navy Club 36-39 Pall Mall, London, United Kingdom

Iran has a long history of trade and cultural relations with China, going back to almost mythological times. At present, China plays a very big part in Iran's economy.  This lecture will take a quick run through the historical relationship and then concentrate on the role that China has played with Iran in the 20th […]

Sean Strong: “You’re Fired”: A Comparison of Roman and Sasanian Military Careers

Army & Navy Club 36-39 Pall Mall, London, United Kingdom

In late antiquity, the Roman and Sasanian Empires were actively engaged with one another in both conflict and collaboration. It would be on the battlefield however, that leadership would be put to the test the most, with generals competing for success and their respective ruler’s favour. The late sixth century was a time of conflict […]

Mira Xenia Schwerda: “May a Revolutionary be a Dandy? The Photographing of Revolutionary Heroes in Early Twentieth-Century Iran”

During the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911), Iran’s first revolution, both men and women took to the streets to voice their dissatisfaction with the existing autocratic regime. These protests and the connected revolutionary movement critically impacted the making of modern Iran as a nation state. Photography, which had become available and affordable to the general public for the […]

Professor Edmund Herzig: The ‘Isfahan factor’ in the success of the Julfa Armenian merchants

Army & Navy Club 36-39 Pall Mall, London, United Kingdom

The Armenian merchants of New Julfa were recognised by contemporaries as being among the most successful international merchants of the 17th and 18th centuries, with a trade network that extended East-West from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and North-South from the White Sea to the Indian Ocean. This lecture discusses the causes of this extraordinary […]

Sebastian Rose: The Indo-European Telegraph Department in Iran: Radical technology of change?

Army & Navy Club 36-39 Pall Mall, London, United Kingdom

From 1865, the Indo-European Telegraph Department (IETD) and its network formed a vital link between London and India. Initially constructed for imperial security, the IETD network played a transformative role in connecting empires, cultures and peoples across the British empire and beyond. But what was the telegraph network’s impact on Iran? And how was it […]

Tom Holland & Ali Ansari: “What have the Persians ever done for us?”

Join the historian Tom Holland in illustrated conversation with Ali Ansari discussing the role of the Persians in world civilisation, looking at their contributions to religion, philosophy, politics, literature and wider culture, including horticulture and fashion. From Paradise and the walled garden to the business suit and the high heel: what has been the impact […]

Nahid Assemi: Staging Piety – The tilework of the Takkiyya Mu’avin al-Mulk in Kermanshah

Army & Navy Club 36-39 Pall Mall, London, United Kingdom

The Takkiyya Mu’avin al-Mulk is a building complex in the city of Kermanshah in western Iran, dedicated to the annual commemoration of the martyrdom of Husayn ibn ʿAli at the Battle of Karbala in 680, an event of seminal significance to Shiʿi Islam.  Private takkiyyas built by social elites were a phenomenon of the Qajar period, […]

Michael Zirinsky – “American Presbyterian Missionaries and Iran: Ambiguity and Altruism; Arrogance and Amity”

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The talk will focus on the American Presbyterian mission, which began in the early 1830s and began to decline with the Great Depression’s retrenchment and Reza Shah’s nationalist requirements, eventually leading to the shutting of all mission schools in 1940, except for the one which they ran for their own children, which continued until the 1978-79 […]