Prince Arfa' was a remarkable man, The son of a Tabrizi cloth merchant, by dint of hard study and good fortune he attracted the attention of Naser ed-Din Shah and […]

Dr Homa Katouzian is the Iran Heritage Foundation Research Fellow, St Antony’s College, and Member, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. He is Senior Editor, Iran Namag, A Quarterly […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Sussan Babaie is Professor of the Arts of Iran and Islam at the Courtauld Institute. She is best known for her work on Persian and Islamic Art of the early […]