Maria Subtelny

Professor, Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto

Biography

A native of Toronto, Prof. Subtelny received her PhD from Harvard University in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. She has been teaching in the Department of Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto (St. George Campus) since 1984. Her area of specialization is the history and culture of medieval Iran from Late Antiquity to the early modern period, with a focus on the Timurid period of the 15^th century.

Select publications

A Manuscript of the Pseudo-Aristotelian Sirr al-asrār (The secret of secrets) from the Atelier of the Timurid Bibliophile Prince Bāysunghur Mīrzā (Forthcoming : 2025)
Kashifi's Asrar-i qasimi: A Late Timurid Manual of the Occult Sciences and Its Safavid Afterlife (Brill, Leiden : 2021)
A Man of Letters: Hoseyn Va‘ez Kashefi and His Persian Project (I. B. Tauris, London : 2020)
The Works of Ḥusayn Vā‘iẓ Kāshifī as a Source for the Study of Sufism in Late 15th– and Early 16th-Century Central Asia. (Brill, Leiden : 2018)
The Islamic Ascension Narrative in the Context of Conversion in Medieval Iran: An Apocalypse at the Intersection of Orality and Textuality. (Brill, Leiden : 2015)
An Old Tale with a New Twist: The Elephant and the Blind Men in Rūmī’s Masnavī and Its Precursors. (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden : 2014)
Between Persian Legend and Samanid Orthodoxy: Accounts about Gayumarth in Bal‘ami’s Tarikhnama. (I. B. Tauris, London : 2013)
The Binding Pledge (möchälgä): A Chinggisid Practice and Its Survival in Safavid Iran. (Routledge, London : 2011)
Templificatio hominis: Ka‘ba, Cosmos, and Man in the Islamic Mystical Tradition. (Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen : 2010)
Tamerlane and His Descendants: From Paladins to Patrons. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge : 2010)
Timurids in Transition: Turko-Persian Politics and Acculturation in Medieval Iran. (Brill, Leiden : 2007)
Le monde est un jardin: Aspects de l’histoire culturelle de l’Iran médiéval. (Association pour l’Avancement des Études Iraniennes, Paris : 2002)