The Association for the Study of Persianate Societies and its flagship Journal of Persianate Studies are delighted to congratulate the winner of the second ASPS/JPS Early Career Prize: Dr. Golriz Farshi (University of Michigan) for her paper ‘Conversion and Piety: Rashid al-Din’s Conceptions of Charity’. A prize committee consisting of JPS Associate Editor D Gershon Lewental (chair), Sussan Babaie, and Jo-Ann Gross selected the winner based upon the creativity of topic and source materials, originality of analysis, and overall scholastic contributions, and announced their decision at the recent ASPS convention in Tashkent in August 2025. The winner will receive a cash prize of $250 and have their article published in the Journal of Persianate Studies.
The prize committee thought that Dr. Farshi’s submission was a well-argued and thoughtful study offering an original analysis of Rashīd al-Dīn’s theological and political conception of charity, linking his theological writings to his personal piety, royal favour, and broader Īl-khānid religious culture. It makes effective use of lesser-studied texts to show how the Īl-khānid vizier framed his charitable works as divinely-inspired, casting them as both personal expressions of gratitude and instruments of political legitimacy.
The biennial prize seeks to encourage and reward scholarship about the broader Persianate world by individuals at the beginning of their careers and we encourage end-stage doctoral students and early-career scholars to look out next year for the call to submit original and unpublished work for the prize to be awarded at our next convention in 2027. For more information on JPS, as well as past issues, visit https://brill.com/view/journals/jps/jps-overview.xml.
