M. Rahim Shayegan

M. Rahim Shayegan (/ʃɑːjɛɡɑːn/, Persian: رحیم شایگان, romanized: M. Raḥīm Šāygān; born 1966) is an Iranian-American historian of the ancient world. He is Professor of Iranian and the Ancient Near East and the Eleanor and Jahangir Amuzegar Chair in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). At UCLA, he also serves as the founding director of the Pourdavoud Institute for the Study of the Iranian World,^[1] the founding director of the Yarshater Center for the Study of Iranian Literary Traditions,^[2] as well as the founder and chair of Global Antiquity,^[3] an academic unit of the Division of Humanities.

M. Rahim Shayegan
رحیم شایگان
Born	1966 (age 58–59) Pahlavi Iran
Education	University of Cologne, University of Paris, University of Göttingen, Harvard University
Occupation(s)	Historian, scholar, educator
Employer	University of California, Los Angeles
Known for	Iranian studies
Notable work	Arsacids and Sasanians: Political Ideology in Post-Hellenistic and Late Antique Persia (2011)
Father	fr:Daryush Shayegan
Awards	Guggenheim Fellowship

Biography

Shayegan received his B.A. from the University of Cologne, Germany, and his M.A. from the University of Sorbonne (now University of Paris), France. He did graduate work at the University of Göttingen, Germany, and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University. He was a Junior Fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, before joining the faculty at UCLA. He is a foreign corresponding member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2022),^[4] a fellow of the Academia Europaea (2019),^[5] and a Guggenheim fellow (2013).^[6]

Shayegan's research focuses on Iranian philology and epigraphy, religion, and the history of Iran, primarily the history of the Achaemenid, Arsacid, Seleucid, and Sasanian periods.^[7]

Writing

Shayegan’s scholarly work spans a broad array of subjects, historical periods, and linguistic traditions. Central to his academic inquiry are the dynamics of cultural and intellectual exchange between the Mediterranean world and the regions of West and Central Asia. This comparative perspective underpins his investigations into the linguistically diverse empires of antiquity, whose political, ideological, and religious frameworks emerged through intricate processes of cultural transmission and acculturation.^[8]

Shayegan's most quoted and authoritative book Arsacids and Sasanians: Political Ideology in Post-Hellenistic and Late Antique Persia (2011) is a study of written, numismatic, and archeological sources to reassess Sasanian political ideology and its foundation in Achaemenid Persian imperial thought, Babylonian scholarship and prophetic traditions, as well as Hellenistic Greek philosophy. It discusses the political intricacies of early Arsacid and Sasanian history—particularly in relation to Babylon and Elymais—and analyzes the impact of Roman propaganda that shaped Roman attitudes toward Sasanian Persia.^[9] The book has been widely reviewed by Classicists and Iranists alike.^[10]

Other published books include Aspects of History and Epic in Ancient Iran (Harvard University Press, 2012) and Cyrus the Great: Life and Lore (Harvard University Press, 2019). His forthcoming book is called Achéménides et Sassanides : Continuités et ruptures, the revised version of his five lectures at INALCO/Collège de France in 2022.^[11] Shayegan is the editor of the series Iran and the Ancient World with University of California Press.^[12]

Personal

Shayegan is the son of late Franco-Iranian academic Dariush Shayegan.^[13]

Selected Writing

• Bakhos, Carol; Shayegan, M. Rahim, eds. (2010). The Talmud in Its Iranian Context. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. ISBN 978-3-161-50187-6.
• Shayegan, M. Rahim (2011). Arsacids and Sasanians: Political Ideology in Post-Hellenistic and Late Antique Persia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-76641-8 – via Google Books.
• Shayegan, M. Rahim (2012). Aspects of History and Epic in Ancient Iran: From Gaumāta to Wahnām. Hellenic Studies. Vol. 52. Cambridge, MA: Center for Hellenic Studies, Trustees for Harvard University. ISBN 978-0-674-06588-8 – via the Center for Hellenic Studies .
• Shayegan, M. Rahim (2013). "Sasanian Political Ideology". In Potts, Daniel T. (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran. Oxford and New York City: Oxford University Press. pp. 805–813. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199733309.001.0001. ISBN 978-0-19-973330-9 – via the Internet Archive.
• Shayegan, M. Rahim (2017). "Persianism: Or Achaemenid Reminiscences in the Iranian and Iranicate World(s) of Antiquity". In Strootman, Rolf; Versluys, Miguel John (eds.). Persianism in Antiquity. Oriens et Occidens. Vol. 25. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag. pp. 401–457. ISBN 978-3-515-11382-3 – via Academia.edu.
• Shayegan, M. Rahim, ed. (2019). Cyrus the Great: Life and Lore. Vol. 21. Washington, D.C. and Cambridge, MA: Ilex Foundation - Center for Hellenic Studies, Trustees for Harvard University. ISBN 978-0-674-98738-8.
• Shayegan, M. Rahim (2022). "The End of the Parthian Arsacid Empire". In Gehler, Michael; Rollinger, Robert; Strobl, Philipp (eds.). The End of Empires. Universal- und kulturhistorische Studien / Studies in Universal and Cultural History. Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien. pp. 213–247. doi:10.1007/978-3-658-36876-0_9. ISBN 978-3-658-36876-0.