Christoph Marcinkowski: Encyclopedia - Christoph Marcinkowski

Christoph Marcinkowski

Dr. Christoph Marcinkowski (born May 21, 1964) is an award-winning German scholar in Islamic, Iranian, and Southeast Asian studies based in Singapore. He is also active as an editor and journalist. Dr Marcinkowski is the first scholar who has published a book studying the close diplomatic and cultural contacts between Safavid Iran and the kingdom of Ayutthaya (Siam, present-day Thailand) during the 17th century, with a special focus on the reign of the Siamese King Narai the Great (r. 1656-88).

Moreover, among his pioneering scholarly achievements is his award-winning study and first English translation from Persian of Dastur al-Muluk, one of only two surviving administrative handbooks from Iran´s Safavid period (1501-1722). The only other surviving handbook is Tadhkirat al-Muluk, published back in 1943 by Professor Vladimir Minorsky (1877-1966), the “father” of Iranian studies in Europe (see the article "Minorsky, Vladimir Fed'orovich" by Professor Bosworth in Encyclopedia Iranica [1]).

Characteristic for Dr. Marcinkowski´s work are his interdisciplinary approach and the versatile character of his scholarship, in which he is assisted by his knowledge of several oriental languages. He is the author of more than 50 articles in distinguished scholarly journals and has published 7 books, including translations, ranging from Islamic philosophy, Iranian studies, the contemporary Iraq-crisis, and the history of Imami or Twelver Shiism (see Twelvers), to the history of Islam in Southeast Asia and Persian cultural influences in the Indian Ocean region.

Christoph Marcinkowski - Early Life and Education

Dr. Marcinkowski was born in the former Western part of Berlin, Germany. He is of German-Polish Catholic parentage, the Polish part of his family (herbu Gryf, Polish heraldry) dating back to the second half of the 13th century and the area of Poland's old royal capital of Kraków. His formal primary education began in 1970 at the age of 6, when he entered Spreewald Grundschule [2] in Berlin-Schöneberg. In 1976, his secondary education started when he entered Rückert Gymnasium [3] (see Gymnasium (school) and also Friedrich Rückert), also in Berlin-Schöneberg. In 1983, he obtained his graduation (Abitur).

Early in 1984, he enrolled at Freie Universität Berlin, choosing the subjects Islamic Studies (major), as well as Political Sciences and Journalism. Among his teachers in Islamic Studies were Professors Fritz Steppat [4] and Baber Johansen [5]. In October 1984, he went for Persian language studies to Iran (upon recommendation of his professors in Berlin), where he stayed until April 1986. Upon his return to Germany, he decided to change the combination of his subjects to Iranian Studies (major), Islamic Studies and Political Science. His teacher in Iranian Studies had been Professor Bert Fragner [6], who became later Professor at the University of Bamberg, as well as president of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft [7] (German Oriental Society) and who is now Director of the Institute for Iranian Studies at the Austrian Academy of Sciences [8], Vienna. Fragner was also the supervisor of Marcinkowski´s masters thesis entitled Taqiya versus Wilayat al-Faqih: Die schiitischen Theologen Iraks und ihr Verhältnis zur Staatsmacht (Iraq's Shiite Clerics and their Relations with the State). An enlarged English translation of it was published in 2004 (see below). Marcinkowski´s Masters degree was granted in 1993.

In March 1995, Marcinkowski left Germany, first for Singapore, a city for which he has since then maintained always the deepest admiration, and from there in May to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Marcinkowski was to stay more than 9 years in Southeast Asia. At Kuala Lumpur, he enrolled in a PhD programme in Islamic Civilization at the renowned International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), of which Professor Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, one of the leading philosophers and scholars of the contemporary Islamic world, is the Founder Director. Al-Attas´s encouragement and his human qualities, such as open-mindedness and tolerance, but also his resoluteness, shaped Marcinkowski as a scholar.

Moreover, at ISTAC it has been in particular the fascinating and (for a Southeast Asian country as Malaysia) surprisingly rich library which magnetized Marcinkowski. It was this library (where he often delved in the classical works of Western, Islamic, and Asian philosophies, particularly Theravada Buddhism, as well as Sufism and Christian mysticism), which had the strongest influence in Marcinkowski´s interdisciplinary approach as a scholar. In this regard, he was particularly fascinated by Safavid Iran, with its symbiosis of "orthodox" Twelver Shiite scholarship, "heterodox" Kizilbash Sufism, and its mixture of Turkish, Persian and Mongolian cultural elements. This interest culminated in his doctoral dissertation entitled Mirza Rafi‘a's Dastur al-Muluk: A Manual of Later Safavid Administration (supervised by the Canadian-Iranian scholar Professor Ahmad Kazemi-Moussavi and published in 2002, see below), which he defended successfully, resulting in the granting of the PhD degree in August 1998.

Christoph Marcinkowski - Academic Positions and Work Experience

In January 1999, Professor Al-Attas appointed him Senior Research Fellow at ISTAC, and already in January 2002 Marcinkowski became Associate Professor of History. Marcinkowski´s teaching activities at ISTAC involved courses on Islamic history and historiography, as well as history of Western civilization. In addition to this, he supervised several master's theses and doctoral dissertations. Moreover, from 1999 to 2003, he functioned also as the Head of the ISTAC Doctoral Dissertations and Masters Theses Format-Committee.

However, Dr. Marcinkowski´s personal focus at ISTAC was on research: Since 2000, he has participated at more than 25 international conferences, seminars, and public lectures on invitation in Europe, the United States, Australia, and Southeast Asia, which led him to extended travels and resulted in more than 50 published articles in distinguished academic journals. During his tenure at ISTAC, Marcinkowski had also been Visiting Professor and Advisor at the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia (IAMM) at Kuala Lumpur, and since November 2003 he is also Academic Editor of the "Contemporary Islamic Scholars Series" for the publishing house Pustaka Nasional, Singapore.

In July 2004, Dr. Marcinkowski resigned from his position at ISTAC, in solidarity with Professor Al-Attas, who had been forced out of office when ISTAC´s autonomy was revoked unlawfully. In the same month, Marcinkowski accepted a position as Associate Research Scholar and member of the editorial team offered to him by Professor Ehsan Yarshater, one of the world's leading scholars of Iranian Studies as well as Director of the Center for Iranian Studies and Editor of the Encyclopedia Iranica at Columbia University.

In June 2005, Dr. Marcinkowski returned to his native Berlin, where he worked as an independent scholar and writer. In December 2005 he emigrated to Singapore where he presently lives and works as an academic editor for several distinguished publishing houses, as well as a contributor to a number of English-language newspapers in Southeast Asia. Currently, Dr. Marcinkowski is working on his two latest books, one of them entitled The Gate of Knowledge. My Years with the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and the other one dealing with the history of the Arab Hadhrami sayyids of Singapore (see also Hadhramaut and Yemen).

In his recent writings, he addressed also several issues of contemporary politics, such as that of Muslim unrest in Southern Thailand (see also Pattani separatism and South Thailand insurgency), in a paper entitled “'Kidnapping' Islam? Some Reflections on Southern Thailand's Muslim Community Between Ethnocentrism and Constructive Conflict-Solution” [9]. The paper was submitted to the 1st Inter-Dialogue Conference on Southern Thailand (FIDCOST), Pattani, Thailand (June 13-15, 2002), which was organized by Prince of Songkla University, Pattani, Thailand, and Harvard University’s Department of Anthropology, and sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation and Toyota Foundation (also forthcoming in print).

Besides his native German, Marcinkowski is fluent in English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Persian (farsi), has a thorough knowledge of Classical Arabic, Modern and Ottoman Turkish, Latin, and Classical Greek, and access to Polish, Malay/Indonesian and Thai.

Christoph Marcinkowski - Awards and Recognitions

Dr Marcinkowski’s academic achievements are annually referred to in Marquis Who's Who in the World since the 22nd edition of 2005 and since 2006 also in Marquis Who's Who in America (both New Providence, New Jersey, United States).

His doctoral dissertation Mirza Rafi‘a's Dastur al-Muluk was awarded the Best Research on Iranian Culture Award for the Year 1379/2000 (First Prize in the International Category), conferred by Iran´s then President Sayyed Mohammad Khatemi on behalf of the Iranian Ministry of Culture.

• In his laudatory address, President Khatemi wrote: “The selection of the book Mirza Rafi‘a's Dastur al-Muluk. A Manual of Later Safavid Administration as the “Best Cultural Research of the Year“ award, bears testimony to the great value derived from your move to conduct this work and that deserves gratitude”.

Dr. Marcinkowski is a member of several distinguished scholarly associations, among them the The Siam Society Under Royal Patronage, Thailand, the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (DMG), Germany, the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA), United States, the International Society for Iranian Studies (ISIS), United States, the Association for the Study of Persianate Societies (ASPS), United States, the Societas Iranologica Europaea (SIE), Italy, the International Association of Historians of Asia (IAHA) (corresponding member), and the Columbia University Iranian Studies Seminar, United States (until June 2005).

Christoph Marcinkowski - Major Works Books

Marcinkowski´s first book publications (published by ISTAC) had been two German translations of key texts of Professor Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, the most important contemporary Islamic philosopher (his translations contain glossaries and detailed introductions on Al-Attas and his life and work):

• In 1998 appeared Die Bedeutung und das Erleben von Glückseligkeit im Islam (ISBN 9839379089, original title: The Meaning and Experience of Happiness in Islam, originally published by ISTAC in 1993). In this work, Al-Attas aimed to clarify the term sa‘adah, which expresses the Islamic perspective of happiness. In order to realize this purpose, he provides an account of the meaning of religion in Islam as well as an overview of human nature. Al-Attas explains the relation between happiness and true faith (iman), righteous deeds, remembrance of God (dhikr), stability and calmness of the heart (tuma’ninah), and certainty of truth (yaqin). In such an approach, man’s various faculties and their relation to virtue and vice are clarified. It is in this context that the author presents his original thesis on the concept of tragedy (which he conceives of as being rooted in the religious tradition of the West and goes beyond the concept’s literary ramnifications), and its relation to that of happiness in the Western tradition. This the author explains by elucidating the exact opposite of happiness, namely the condition described in the Qur’an as shaqawah which, as he explains, is, in its generic sense, that which is understood in the West as tragedy.
  Professor Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas, the Founder Director of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), is one of the most important contemporary Islamic philosophers

• The other translation is Islam und die geistigen Grundlagen von Wissenschaft (ISTAC, 2001, ISBN 9839379135). The title of the English original is Islam and the Philosophy of Science (ISTAC, 1989). In this work, originally a keynote address delivered by Al-Attas to the International Seminar on Islamic Philosophy and Science held in Malaysia in 1989, the author gives a concise and penetrating analysis of Western conceptions of knowledge, science, truth, and reality, and then compares and contrasts it with the conception of Islam. In his attempt to provide a reasonable solution, he deals with the sources and methods of knowledge by giving a brief account of human nature and human faculties, the meaning of Truth-Reality as denoted by the term haqq/haqiqah and its relation to Justice and Wisdom, the concept of the reality of existence (wujud), the laws of nature as God’s customary way of acting, the signs of God in nature to be approached within the framework of muhkamat/mutashabihat and tafsir-ta’wil, the issue of change and permanence, etc. The ideas contained in this monograph constitute the fundamental basis of the Islamic worldview, and it is within this framework that, according to Al-Attas, the Islamic philosophy of science should be formulated.

• The magnum opus of Marcinkowski is his award-winning dissertation Mirza Rafi‘a's Dastur al-Muluk: A Manual of Later Safavid Administration. Annotated English Translation, Comments on the Offices and Services, and Facsimile of the Unique Persian Manuscript, a work of more than 700 pages, published by ISTAC in 2002 (ISBN 9839379267). Dastur al-Muluk (Regulations of the Kings) provides invaluable information on political and religious administration, biographies of eminent personalities, economics, as well as culture and geography, during the early 1720s. This work takes the reader to the world of the imperial palace of Iran's splendid Safavid capital of Isfahan, describing the responsibilities of the offices and services, from the Grand Vizier down to the kitchen staff. This often-quoted seminal work constitutes now one of the key studies of Iranian studies.

• In 2003 followed his Persian Historiography and Geography: Bertold Spuler on Major Works Produced in Iran, the Caucasus, Central Asia, India and Early Ottoman Turkey, published by Pustaka Nasional in Singapore (ISBN 9971774887), with a foreword by Professor Clifford Edmund Bosworth, a leading contemporary scholar in Islamic and Iranian studies and member of the British Academy. This is a translation of an acclaimed work by the Professor Bertold Spuler, a leading 20th-century German orientalist (German original: “Die historische und geographische Literatur in persischer Sprache," Handbuch der Orientalistik, 1. Abteilung, Band IV, 2. Abschnitt, Lieferung 1, Leiden and Cologne: E. J. Brill, 1982, pp. 101-67).

• Also in 2003, ISTAC published his Measures and Weights in the Islamic World. An English Translation of Professor Walther Hinz's Handbook “Islamische Maße und Gewichte“ (ISBN 9839379275), also with a foreword by Professor Bosworth, F.B.A. This work is an annotated translation of a work in German by the late German orientalist Walther Hinz, published in the Handbuch der Orientalistik, erste Abteilung, Ergänzungsband I, Heft 1, Leiden, The Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1970. It constitutes an important research tool.

• In 2004, Pustaka Nasional of Singapore published his Religion and Politics in Iraq. Shiite Clerics between Quietism and Resistance (ISBN 9971775131), with a foreword by Professor Hamid Algar of the University of California at Berkeley, who ranks among the world's leading historians of Islam. This book contains a critique and stern condemnation of terror and dictatorship under the Saddam Hussein regime. In the author's view, it is the Iraqi people themselves who are to build a democratic and prosperous future for their country. The book recounts the major political developments faced by Iraq's Shiite clerics from the end of the 19th century, under the ailing Ottoman empire, to the 1980s. This crucial period saw fierce internal struggles, foreign intervention and bloody persecution of the political opposition, as well as the emergence of a totalitarian one-party system with absolute control over all sectors of social and religious life. During this period, Baathist Iraq attacked its Muslim neighbours Kuwait and Iran and used poison gas in its "ethnic cleansing" campaign against the Kurds. This book focusses on the dilemma of Iraq's clerics within this setting, caught between political activism and quietism. It addresses also major developments in neighbouring Iran insofar as they had a bearing on Iraq.

• Dr. Marcinkowski´s latest book is From Isfahan to Ayutthaya: Contacts between Iran and Siam in the 17th Century (ISBN 9971774917), with a foreword by Professor Ehsan Yarshater of Columbia University, published in Singapore by Pustaka Nasional in 2005. Utilizing parts of the Ship of Sulayman, a travel account by Ibn Muhammad Ibrahim, a member of an Iranian 17th-century mission to Siam, and other works by European explorers, Dr. Marcinkowski unfolds the influences and impact resulting from contacts between Iran and the Siamese kingdom and the visual effects in present-day Thailand. He discusses the community of Iranian merchants in Siam, the mysterious Shaykh Ahmad and the creation of the office of Shaykh al-Islam. He also touches briefly the spread of Islam in the region.

From among his about 50 published articles, there are also several dealing with Islamic theology, such as “Some Reflections on Alleged Twelver Shiite Attitudes Towards the Integrity of the Qur’an,” The Muslim World (Hartford, Connecticut, United States), vol. 91, no. 1-2 (Spring 2001), pp. 137-53, which aims at clarifying the Twelver Shiite view on the “physical” extend of the qur’anic text, an issue which in the past had led to misunderstandings, particularly among Sunnites.

Christoph Marcinkowski - Reviews of Dr Marcinkowski's Books by Other Scholars

• Dr. George Lane, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS, London, United Kingdom): Review of Marcinkowski, Persian Historiography and Geography: Bertold Spuler on Major Works Produced in Iran, the Caucasus, Central Asia, India and Early Ottoman Turkey. With a foreword by Professor Clifford Edmund Bosworth, Fellow of the British Academy (Singapore: Pustaka Nasional, 2003, ISBN 9971774887), in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (Cambridge, United Kingdom), 67, no. 1 (2004), pp. 91-93.

• Professor Lawrence I. Conrad, Hamburg University: Review of Marcinkowski, Measures and Weights in the Islamic World. An English Translation of Professor Walther Hinz's Handbook "Islamische Maße und Gewichte". With a foreword by Professor Clifford Edmund Bosworth, F.B.A. (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 2003, ISBN 9839379275), in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (London) 13, no. 2 (November 2004), pp. 266-67.

• Professor Clifford Edmund Bosworth, Prof. Emer., University of Manchester, United Kingdom: review of Marcinkowski, Mirza Rafi‘a's Dastur al-Muluk (Kuala Lumpur: ISTAC, 2002, ISBN 9839379267) in Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae (Budapest, Hungary), vol. 58, forthcoming in 2006.

• Dr. George Lane, SOAS, London: Review of Marcinkowski, From Isfahan to Ayutthaya: Contacts between Iran and Siam in the 17th Century. With a foreword by Professor Ehsan Yarshater, Columbia University (Singapore: Pustaka Nasional, 2005, ISBN 9971774917), in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (Cambridge, United Kingdom), forthcoming in 2006.

• Professor Clifford Edmund Bosworth, Prof. Emer., University of Manchester, United Kingdom: review of Marcinkowski, From Isfahan to Ayutthaya: Contacts between Iran and Siam in the 17th Century. With a foreword by Professor Ehsan Yarshater, Columbia University (Singapore: Pustaka Nasional, 2005, ISBN 9971774917), in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (London), forthcoming in 2006.

Christoph Marcinkowski - Articles by Dr Marcinkowski in Academic Journals

1. "Notes on the Ottoman-Habsburg Antagonism in South East Europe and its Climax during the 17th Century". Al-Shajarah (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) vol. 2, no. 1 (1997): 103-38.
2. "Dr. Marcinkowski explains what ISTAC has to offer". Education Quarterly (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) no. 7 (Nov.-Dec. 1999): 28-29.
3. "Al-Kulayni and his Early Twelver-Shiite Hadith-Compendium Al-Kafi: Selected Aspects of the Part Al-Usul min al-Kafi." Islamic Culture (Hyderabad, India) vol. 74, no. 1 (Jan. 2000): 89-126.
4. "Selected Aspects of the Life and Work of al-Shaykh al-Mufid (336-413/948-1022)." Hamdard Islamicus (Karachi, Pakistan) vol. 23, no. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 2000): 41-54.
5. "Selected Features of a Unique Persian Manual on Islamic Administration from Late Safavid Iran: Mirza Rafi‘a's Dastur al-Muluk." Al-Shajarah (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) vol. 5, no. 1 (2000): 45-94.
   The Masjid-e Shah in Isfahan, Iran
6. "A Brief Demarcation of the Office of Shaykh al-Islam Based on the Two Late Safavid Administrative Manuals Dastur al-Muluk and Tadhkirat al-Muluk". Islamic Culture (Hyderabad, India) vol. 74, no. 4 (Oct. 2000): 19-51.
7. "Persian Religious and Cultural Influences in Siam/Thailand and Maritime Southeast Asia: A Plea for a Concerted Interdisciplinary Approach." Journal of the Siam Society (Bangkok, Thailand), vol. 88, pt. 1-2 (2000): 186-94.
8. "Challenges and Perspectives for the Perception and Teaching of Islamic History," in The International Association of Historians of Asia, ed., The 16th Conference of the International Association of Historians of Asia, 27th-31st July 2000, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia, International Association of Historians of Asia, 2000.
9. "Some Reflections on Predispositions in the Writing and Perception of the History and Civilization of the Muslims. Part One: The Case of Muslim Scholarship." Iqbal Review (Lahore, Pakistan), vol. 41, no. 4 (Oct. 2000): 43-59.
10. "Some Reflections on Predispositions in the Writing and Perception of the History and Civilization of the Muslims. Part Two: The Case of Non-Muslim Scholarship." Iqbal Review (Lahore, Pakistan), vol. 42, no. 2 (Apr. 2001): 97-113.
11. "Some Reflections on Alleged Twelver Shiite Attitudes Towards the Integrity of the Qur’an." The Muslim World (Hartford, Connecticut,United States), vol. 91, no. 1-2 (Spring 2001): 137-53.
12. "A Glance on the First of the Four Canonical Hadith-Collections of the Twelver-Shiites: Al-Kafi by al-Kulayni (d. 328 or 329 A.H./940 or 941 C.E.)." Hamdard Islamicus (Karachi, Pakistan), vol. 24, no. 2 (Apr. -Jun. 2001): 13-29.
13. "Rapprochement and Fealty during the Buyids and Early Saljuqs: The Life and Times of Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Tusi," Islamic Studies (Islamabad, Pakistan), vol. 40, no. 2 (Summer 2001): 273-96.
14. "A Shahnama of 1612 C.E./1021 A.H. in the Persian Manuscript-Collection of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia". Al-Shajarah (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), vol. 6, no. 1 (2001): 125-31.
15. "The Reputed Issue of the 'Ethnic Origin' of Iran's Safavid Dynasty (907-1145/1501-1722): Reflections on Selected Prevailing Views". Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society (Karachi, Pakistan), vol. 49, no. 2 (Apr.-Jun. 2001): 5-19.
16. "Leaving the Gazi's Path: Turkey's Evaporating Eastern Dreams" [review of Idris Bal, Turkey's Relations with the West and the Turkic Republics: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Model (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2000)]. Journal of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), vol. 3, no. 1 (2001): 104-107.
17. "Some Observations on the Offices of Judge (Qazi) and Army-Judge (Qazi-‘Askar) in Later Safavid Iran and in the Ottoman Empire", in: Judi Upton-Ward (ed.), New Millennium Perspectives in the Humanities (New York NY: Global Humanities Press, 2002), 231-44.
18. "Twelver Shiite Scholarship and Buyid Domination. A Glance on the Life and Times of Ibn Babawayh al-Shaykh al-Saduq (d. 381 A.H./991 C.E.)." Islamic Quarterly (London, United Kingdom), vol. 45, no. 2 (2001): 199-222.
19. "Twelver Shiite Scholarship and Buyid Domination. A Glance on the Life and Times of Ibn Babawayh al-Shaykh al-Saduq." Islamic Culture (Hyderabad, India), vol. 76, no. 1 (Jan. 2002): 69-99.
20. "Bridging the Ocean: Some Aspects of the Iranian Cultural Presence in Southeast Asia with Emphasis on the Siamese Kingdom of Ayutthaya". Al-Shajarah (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), vol. 7, no. 1 (2002): 27-56.
21. "Challenges and Perspectives for the Perception and Teaching of Islamic History". Islamic Culture (Hyderabad, India), vol. 76, no. 3 (2002): 63-82.
22. "Ittiphon dan sasana lae wattanatham khong Iran nai prethet Siam lae khong dindaen rim fhang thale Asia tawan-auk chiangtai nai thassana wisai dan prawatsat, kham wingwon hai mi withikan chai wicha tang-tang ruamkam" [Persian Religious and Cultural Influences in Thailand and Maritime Southeast Asia in Historical Perspective: A Plea for a Concerted Interdisciplinary Approach], San Islam [The Message of Islam] (Bangkok, Thailand), vol. 1, no. 2 (June-August 2002): 50-61 (in Thai).
    Three pagodas of Wat Phra Si Sanphet in Ayutthaya, Thailand's ancient capital
23. "The Iranian Presence in the Indian Ocean Rim: A Report on a 17th-Century Safavid Embassy to Siam (Thailand)". Islamic Culture (Hyderabad, India), vol. 77, no. 2 (2003): 57-98.
24. "Iranians, Shaykh al-Islams and Chularajmontris: Genesis and Development of an Institution and its Introduction to Siam". Journal of Asian History (Bloomington IN, United States), vol. 37, no. 2 (2003): 59-76.
25. "The Iranian-Siamese Connection: An Iranian Community in the Thai Kingdom of Ayutthaya". Iranian Studies (New York NY, United States), vol. 35, nos. 1-3 (Winter-Summer 2002): 23-46.
26. "A Biographical Note on Ibn Bajjah (Avempace) and an English Translation of his Annotations to Al-Farabi's Isagoge." Iqbal Review (Lahore, Pakistan), vol. 43, no. 2 (April 2002): 83-99.
27. "From Suspicion to Trust: Rephrasing Contemporary Greek Foreign Policy" [review of Achilleas Mitsos and Elias Mossialos (eds.), Contemporary Greece and Europe (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2000)]. Journal of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia), vol. 4, no. 2 (2002): 122-25.
28. "An Introduction to the Twofold Character of Islamic Administrative Literature: Observations on the 'Practical' and 'Non-Practical' Genres." Islamic Studies (Islamabad, Pakistan), vol. 41, no. 2 (Summer 2002): 271-94.
29. "Mirza Rafi‘a's Dastur al-Muluk. A Prime Source on Administration, Society and Culture in Late Safavid Iran." Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (Germany), vol. 153, no. 2 (2003): 281-310.
30. "The Buyid Domination as the Historical Background for the Flourishing of Muslim Scholarship During the 4th/10th Century". Iqbal Review (Lahore, Pakistan), vol. 45, no. 4 (October 2004): 83-99.
31. "Administrators of Sacred Ground: Mutavallis in the Late Safavid Manual Dastur al-Muluk". Journal of Shiite Studies (in press).
32. "'Holier than Thou': Buddhism and the Thai People in Ibn Muhammad Ibrahim's 17th-Century Travel Account Safineh-yi Sulaymani". Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (Germany) (in press).
33. Review: George Lane, Early Mongol Rule in Thirteenth-Century Iran. A Persian Renaissance (Studies in the History of Iran and Turkey, ed. Carole Hillenbrand) (London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (Germany) (in press).
34. Review: Mehmet Maksudoglu. Osmanlı History 1289-1922, Based on Osmanlı Sources (Kuala Lumpur: International Islamic University Malaysia 1999), Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft (Germany) (in press).
35. "Safine-ye Solaymani (Ship of Solayman)", Encyclopaedia Iranica (New York NY, United States, Columbia University, ed. Ehsan Yarshater) (available online [10], soon also forthcoming in print).
36. "Shiites in South-East Asia", Encyclopaedia Iranica (New York NY, United States, Columbia University, ed. Ehsan Yarshater) (available online [11], soon also forthcoming in print).
37. "Thailand-Iranian Relations", Encyclopaedia Iranica (New York NY, United States, Columbia University, ed. Ehsan Yarshater) (available online [12], soon also forthcoming in print).
38. "Persian Presence in Islamic Communities of Southeast Asia", Encyclopaedia Iranica (New York NY, United States, Columbia University, ed. Ehsan Yarshater) (available online [13], soon also forthcoming in print).
39. "Features of the Persian Presence in Southeast Asia," in Measuring the Effects of Iranian Mysticism in Southeast Asia, ed. Imtiyaz Yusuf (Bangkok: Cultural Centre, Embassy of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 2004), pp. 24-44.
40. "Spuler, Bertold," Encyclopaedia Iranica (New York NY, United States, Columbia University, ed. Ehsan Yarshater) (forthcoming).
41. "Dastur al-Moluk", Encyclopaedia Iranica suppl. (New York NY, United States, Columbia University, ed. Ehsan Yarshater) (forthcoming).
42. "Tadkerat al-Moluk", Encyclopaedia Iranica (New York NY, United States, Columbia University, ed. Ehsan Yarshater) (forthcoming).
43. "Qurchi-Bashi", Encyclopaedia Iranica (New York NY, United States, Columbia University, ed. Ehsan Yarshater) (forthcoming).

See also

• List of Islamic scholars

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