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Obituary: Ehsan Yarshater: Historian who Transformed the West’s Understanding of Iran’s History and Languages

October 02, 2018 Roshan Institute for Persian Studies | School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Professor Emeritus Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak remembers the Persian historian and linguist.

By Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak / The Independent

The support of some of Iran’s cultural luminaries soon catapulted him from one ambition to another.

By 1954 Yarshater found his way into the circle of Assadollah Alam, a courtier and politician reputed to be one of Shah Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi’s closest friends and confidants after the political turmoil of the 1953 coup d’état.

Alam turned out to be a crucial presence in Yarshater’s public and personal life. He was an avid art collector and he asked Yarshater to purchase prime artefacts, valuable first-edition books, and other artistic goods; doing this, Yarshater began to buy such valuable items for himself as well, a fact that soon made him independently wealthy as well as an expert collector.

Read the full obituary by Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, professor emeritus professor of Persian language, literature and culture in The Independent.

Photo: Ehsan Yarshater, left, with Ahmad Karami-Hakkak, via The Independent.