Shafique Virani’s The Ismailis in the Middle Ages: A History of Survival, A Search for Salvation, published by Oxford University Press in 2007, has been well received internationally, with awards from UNESCO and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (ISESCO), the £10,000 Book Prize of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, and the €6000 Farabi International Award, Iran’s highest honour in the humanities. For the Farabi Award, Professor Virani was flown to Iran as a guest of state, met with the President and other dignitaries, and was given a guided tour of many parts of the country. He delivered a lecture at the Institute for Social and Cultural Studies in Tehran, gave the Dr. Jamal Karim Rad Memorial lecture to the judiciary in Qazvin, and was on national radio and television.
First published on Munk Centre Monitor, Spring 2009
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