Humanism has mostly considered the question “What does it mean to be human?” from a Western perspective. Dabashi asks it anew from a non-European perspective, in a groundbreaking study of 1,400 years of Persian literary humanism. He presents the unfolding of this vast tradition as the creative and subversive subconscious of Islamic civilization.

Dabashi is one of the world's most well-versed and learned scholars of Persian history and culture, and this book could only be written by someone of his intellectual stature who shows a mastery of Persian literature over a thousand years. His creative and engaging narrative carries the reader through a literary odyssey of great geographic breadth and skillful analysis.

Dabashi is one of the world's most well-versed and learned scholars of Persian history and culture, and this book could only be written by someone of his intellectual stature who shows a mastery of Persian literature over a thousand years. His creative and engaging narrative carries the reader through a literary odyssey of great geographic breadth and skillful analysis. -- Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, University of Pennsylvania This is a study of profound erudition, deep historical and literary knowledge, and professional acumen. Dabashi marshals an impressive amount of historical material blended into a wide historical narrative. -- Arshin Adib-Moghaddam In this powerfully challenging book, Hamid Dabashi not only pays tribute to the achievements of such great Persian writers as Ferdowsi and Sa'di, who expressed a subversively humanistic vision in counterpoint to the transcendental Islamic scholasticism of the past, but he also shines his intellectual spotlight on influential occidental thinkers ranging from Kant to Said, whose humanism, whether philosophical or literary, fell short of true universality. In a masterful critique of the Eurocentrism he sees as being present, if masked, in the teaching of Comparative Literature, he rescues Persian literature from the 'overextended narratives of Orientalism and ethnic nationalism' and shows how its vibrant aesthetic and spiritual qualities find expression in the work of contemporary writers, filmmakers, and artists. This important work of cultural history has urgent contemporary relevance. -- Malise Ruthven Elegant as well as passionate, Hamid Dabashi's scholarly writings always have a revelatory quality. Yet again he uncovers, in his new book, an astonishing new world for English readers. -- Pankaj Mishra In this fascinating study of the metaphysical concerns of Persian literature, Dabashi presents Persian adab as a movement heretical to the ideological dispositions of Islamic empires. He traces the morality that informs the adab of the Persian language, and shows how a sustained history of a millennium and a half created an amorphous literary subconscious that remained irreducible to any religious identity. A landmark work that shall nurture all future discourse on the subject. -- Musharraf Ali Farooqi