Translation between Arabic and Persian under Mongol Rule

Monday, 23 November 2026 at 17:00

Centre for the Study of Islam Monday Majlis Series

Event details

The establishment of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century created new contact zones across Eurasia and required a sizable administrative staff fluent in several languages, including Mongolian and Chinese. The new conditions stimulated translations from an unprecedentedly broad range of source-languages into several target languages, including Persian, which emerged as an indispensable mediating language across a vast area stretching from China to Anatolia. A striking sub-set of the translations made in this period, especially in the Ilkhanid territories of Iran, Iraq and Azarbayjan, consisted of translations of Arabic texts into Persian. This presentation will explore some examples of this phenomenon, with attention to the functions and possible significance of these Persian versions of Arabic texts.

Louise Marlow teaches at Wellesley College, in Massachusetts.

She is the author of Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (1997), Counsel for Kings: Wisdom and Politics in Tenth-Century Iran (2016) and Medieval Muslim Mirrors for Princes: An Anthology of Arabic, Persian and Turkish Political Advice (2023).

She is the editor of The Rhetoric of Biography: Narrating lives in Persianate societies (Boston: Ilex Foundation and Washington, D. C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2011), Dreaming across Boundaries: The interpretation of dreams in Islamic lands (Boston: Ilex Foundation and Washington, D. C.: Center for Hellenic Studies, 2008), and, with Beatrice Gruendler, Writers and Rulers: Perspectives on their relationships from Abbasid to Safavid times (Wiesbaden: Dr. Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 2004).

https://www.wellesley.edu/people/louise-marlow

Register please on this link: https://Universityofexeter.zoom.us/meeting/register/WJqkWIuFTWOBNd0vo2M0NA

In the spirit of the label ‘Majlis’ and also to make the talks even more interesting, our speakers present the topic discussed as embedded in their own journey.

You can watch the previous Majlises here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8YRkUahFj_81oJzCSDLTx4kVQQgeHLc-.

However, we don’t record the Q&A in order to keep the discussion free. Please come and enjoy the talks and the discussions : ) If you’d like to be included in the CSI (Centre for the Study of Islam, Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies, University of Exeter) mailing list, please write to me I.T.Kristo-Nagy@ex.ac.uk.

Organiser

Centre for the Study of Islam

Location

Online