The question of the political relevance of philosophy, and of the role which the philosopher should play in the government of his state, was often discussed in Antiquity. Plato’s ideal of the philosopher-king is well-known, but was precisely his failure to realise his political ideal in Syracuse not the best argument against the philosopher’s political engagement? Nevertheless, Plato’s ideal remained attractive for later Greek thinkers. This is illustrated, for instance, by one of Plutarch...

The Leiden Lectures on Arabic Language and Culture were initiated in 2013 on the occasion of the 400-year anniversary of the founding of the chair of Arabic at Leiden University. Each year an outstanding scholar in the field is invited to present a lecture on the rich and enjoyable variety of classical Arabic texts and their significance and relevance for today's world.

This book contains the first three lectures delivered by Petra Sijpesteijn, James E. Montgomery and Geert Jan van Gelder. F...

Colonialism advanced its project of territorial expansion by changing the very meaning of borders and space. The colonial project scripted a unipolar spatial discourse that saw the colonies as an extension of European borders. In his monograph, Mohit Chandna engages with narrations of spatial conflicts in French and Francophone literature and film from the nineteenth to the early twenty-first century. In literary works by Jules Verne, Ananda Devi, and Patrick Chamoiseau, and film by Michael H...

Wie het over Russische literatuur heeft, bedoelt bijna altijd de Russische literatuur van de negentiende eeuw, met onbetwiste hoogtepunten van de wereldliteratuur als Poesjkin, Gogol, Toergenjev, Dostojevski, Tolstoj en Tsjechov. Deze schrijvers vormen uiteraard de kern van deze Russische literatuur in kort bestek.Veel minder bekend is wat daaraan voorafging en wat daarop volgde. Dit boek geeft een overzicht van tien eeuwen Russische literatuur, van de eerste kronieken en heiligenlevens omstr...

This book presents three of the works of Abduʾl-Bahā, son of the founder of the Bahāʾi Faith, dealing with social and political issues.

In ‘The Secret of Divine Civilization’ (1875) Abduʾl-Bahā supports the administrative and broader social reforms of Mirzā Hosayn Khān, but looks mainly for organic reform through the efforts of Iranian intellectuals to waken and educate the masses. In this work, Abduʾl-Bahā gives virtuous and progressive Islamic clerics a leading role among th...

The Large Farāmarznāme (Farāmarznāme-ye bozorg), a poem from the Persian epic cycle dated to the late eleventh century, is hereby published for the first time in an English translation, in prose. The story tells how Farāmarz, a son of the famous Shāhnāme hero Rostam, conquers several provinces of India, before setting off on an extensive voyage over sea and land, leading his troops through a number of hazardous situations in various fictional countries. As a true epic hero, he displays...

Parvin Etesami (1907-1941) is among the few Persian female poets, who has gained nationwide popularity, while her authorship was disbelieved. She is celebrated in a plethora of publications every year in Iran and beyond. Etesami is the only female poet who has remained part of the daily lives of people in her society for about a century. Her poetry appears in school curricula both before and after the Revolution of 1979. People use her poetry on social media, particularly in critical times. I...