Farhad Daftary is Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies, UK and Head of its Department of Academic Research and Publications. He is a consulting editor of the Encyclopaedia Iranica, co-editor of the Encyclopaedia Islamica, and has written and edited 25 books in the field of Ismaili studies, including The Isma’ili’s: Their History and Doctrines (1990; 2nd ed., 2007); The Assassin Legends (1994); A History of Shi’i Islam (2013); and The Ismaili Imams: A Biographical History (2021). Farhad Daftary’s books have been translated into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Urdu, Gujarati and numerous European languages. Janis Esots was an Associate Professor at the Department of Asian Studies, University of Latvia and a Research Associate at The Institute of Ismaili Studies (2013–2021). His research focused on Ismaili thought and the philosophical school of Isfahan (Mulla Sadra, Mir Damad and Rajab ‘Ali Tabrizi). He was the managing editor of Encyclopaedia Islamica and the editor of the Islamic Philosophy Yearbook Ishraq. Prior to his death in 2021, his monograph, Patterns of Wisdom in Safavid Iran: The Philosophical School of Isfahan and the Gnostic of Shiraz was published by the Institute of Ismaili Studies (2021).
This is a rich collection of pieces ... and deserves to be read by those seeking a more integrated and developed intellectual history of Shi'i Islam in the Safavid period. -- Sajjad Rizvi * The Muslim World Book Review *