The Azhyar Foundation Hosts the 22nd Session of New Discourse on the Ancient World. As part of its ongoing academic lecture series, the Azyar Foundation will hold the 22nd session of New Discourse on the Ancient World. This session, titled Boundaries of Land, Borders of Identity: The Struggle Between Zoroastrians and Christians Over Land Ownership in the Sasanian Era, will feature a lecture by Nima Jamali, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Ottawa and the University of Chicago. The event will take place online via Google Meet on Sunday, March 30, 2025, at 7:00 PM (Tehran time).

Nima Jamali is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Ottawa and the University of Chicago. He earned his PhD from the University of Toronto in 2021, defending a dissertation that involved the analysis, translation, and commentary of a 7th-century Syriac legal text. His research focuses on the history of law in West Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean during Late Antiquity, and his work has been published in journals such as Iran Namag, Gozarsh-e Mirath, Hugoye, and the Journal of the Canadian Society for Syriac Studies. He is currently working on his book, Statute of Limitations: A History of Legal Thought and Tradition in the Church of the East.

Historical sources from the Sasanian Empire rarely provide precise definitions of legal concepts. Consequently, one of the main challenges in studying the legal history of this period is reconstructing the fundamental features of legal concepts and institutions based on scattered references found in various texts. Among these concepts, land and ownership lack clear definitions in primary sources. However, legal disputes and conflicts between different groups provide valuable insights into their practical applications. This lecture will examine cases of land ownership disputes within the framework of the Sasanian legal system, analyzing how claims were presented and substantiated in court.

Beyond legal discussions, these disputes also offer crucial information about the complex relationships between different social groups and the role of collective identity in determining land ownership boundaries. This research, drawing from primary sources from various legal traditions in the Sasanian period, will explore these concepts and their connection to the multicultural society of the Sasanian Empire.

Google meet link: