Persian as a Philosophical Language

The purpose of this course is to introduce advanced undergraduate and graduate students to a significant body of philosophical literature produced in Persian over the last millennium, with deep rooted origins extended even deeper into pre-Islamic and non-Islamic history.  Ordinarily understood in the context of “Islamic philosophy” and given secondary status to works produced in Arabic, this body of philosophical literature that expands from the works of Avicenna in the 11th to those of Muhammad Iqbal in the 20th century and after, this body of philosophical literature demands and in this seminar receive an exclusive attention primarily based on the language in which it has been produced and thereafter posited a number of crucial epistemic and philosophical questions of its own.