Culture and Customs of Iran

Elton L. Daniel · Ali Akbar Mahdi

Oct 2006 · Greenwood Publishing Group

About this ebook

Iran is often a hotspot in the news, and the Muslim state is usually negatively portrayed in the West. Culture and Customs of Iran rejects facile stereotyping and presents the rich, age-old Persian culture that struggles with pressures of the modern world. This is the first volume in English to reveal the important sociocultural facets of Iran today for a general audience in an objective fashion. Authoritative, substantive narrative chapters cover the gamut of topics, from religion and religious thought to Iranian cuisine and festivals.

About the author

ELTON L. DANIEL is Professor of History at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and serves as Associate Editor of the Encyclopedia Iranica at Columbia University. He has conducted research in Iran, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, France and the United Kingdom and has traveled extensively throughout the Middle East. He has published books and articles on the history of early Islamic Iran, 19th-century Persian travel literature, and a revised translation of Ghazzali's Alchemy of Happiness. Ali Akbar Mahdi is professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Ohio Wesleyan University, author of several books on Iran, and editor of Teen Life in the Middle East (Greenwood, 2003).