The science of Iran has not taken the place it should have, and we know the Iranian world superficially. It’s as if a large veil has been thrown over him, through which only individual lights shine through: Susa, Persepolis, Samarkand, Herat, Isfahan, Shiraz, miniatures, poems... All these lights should have sparkled, they should have been as bright as the incomparable blue of the Iranian sky, like the vast deserts of Iran of golden sand, like its naked mountains, like its theology of light, like the vaults of its temples lined with azure tiles, like its Isfahan roses, like its poets with their “inimitable simplicity.” For us, it blurs into a heterogeneous cluster of Islamic countries, although even there it shows a strong individuality. At the same time, the history of Iran is closely connected with world history. Any historian, any educated person needs to know it. How can one read and understand the Bible without knowing about the Babylonian captivity and the liberation decree of Cyrus, “the anointed of Yahweh,” in the words of Deuteronomy Isaiah? How can one study Greek history without ignoring the Persian wars, Herodotus, who was born an Iranian citizen, Alexander and his conquest of the world? Who will be left indifferent by the arrival of the magicians, Iranian priest-kings, to the cradle of Christ? Who would dare forget how fundamental the long struggle with the Parthians and Sassanids was for the Roman Empire? How would we perceive Indians if we did not know that Indian Islam was at least partly influenced by Iranian Islam? But didn’t the courtly love of our beautiful Middle Ages originate in the country of the Cathars, to which the echoes of what happened in the valleys of Mesopotamia reached? Similar questions can be multiplied ad infinitum.