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Iraj Afshar

Iranian bibliographer, historian (1925–2011)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ691197 ↗
Source-derived summary

Iraj Afshar (Persian: ایرج افشار; 8 October 1925 – 9 March 2011) was a bibliographer, historian, scholar, professor, and a figure in the field of Persian studies. Afshar was a professor emeritus of the University of Tehran. He was a consulting editor of Encyclopædia Iranica at Columbia University.

Biography

Iraj Afshar was born on 8 October 1925 in Tehran, Iran to parents Nosrat Barazandeh and Mahmoud Afshar. He attended the Zoroastrian Shāpour Secondary School and Firouz-Bahrām High School in Tajrish, Tehran. In 1945, he married Shayesteh Afsharieh and together they had four sons.

Iraj Afshar recorded the monuments of Yazd in his three-volume "Yādegār-hāye Yazd (Monuments of Yazd)". He was known as "the doyen of standard Persian language bibliographers". Afshar played a significant role in the development of the field of Iranology in Iran and throughout the world during the second half of the 20th century. He was the editor of Sokhan, a prolific Iranology journal, under the responsibility of Parviz Natel-Khanlari and also the editor of rāhnamāye ketāb (Bibliography Guide), Mehr, farhang-e Iranzamin (Culture of Iran) and Ayandeh.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Iraj Afshar” is iranian bibliographer, historian (1925–2011). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Iraj, Afshar and Iranian, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1925, 2011, 1945—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1925-10-08. For this dossier, Iraj, Afshar and Iranian is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “iranian bibliographer, historian (1925–2011)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q691197. VIAF identifies the subject as 54032206. The Library of Congress control number is nr94028742. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1925, 2011 and 1945.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Iraj Afshar”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Iraj Afshar primary sources, Iraj Afshar archive and Iraj research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Iraj Afshar”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Iraj Afshar” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.