This gathering looks at marriage laws and practices in two formative periods of pre-Islamic Persian history, and early and medieval Islamic Middle East, in order to identify the various cross currents at work. Through the lens of marriage laws, it is possible to see how these communities interacted, intermarried, or resisted interacting with one another, in order to strengthen communal identities or secure communal boundaries. This conference is a truly historic inter-disciplinary event, with presenters sharing perspectives from the fields of Iranian and Middle East Studies and including scholarship from various disciplines such as History, Religious Studies, Gender Studies, and Literary Studies.

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