The papers in this volume dedicated to Iranian studies in the Islamic period (from ca. 700 until today) were presented in Vienna in 2007 on the occasion of the 6th European Conference of Iranian Studies under the auspices of the Societas Iranologica Europaea (SIE), the largest European independent academic organization of Iranian studies founded in 1983 by several of the most renowned scholars of the field with the high goal of promoting and supporting this discipline and all its subject areas in European countries and worldwide. The present volume contains a wide variety of subjects ranging from odern and classical Persian literature, over history, geography and religion, to art and architecture. Unfortunately not all the papers from the Vienna conference, islamic period, found their way into the volume, but the ditors hope to have succeeded in choosing the right excerpt of articles from the conference in order to show the broad range and depth of contemporary Iranian studies. In spite of the variety of subject matter; however, the articles remain within the framework of what is usually called cultural studies. -Javad ABBASI (Ferdowsi University of Mashhad), "Report of dread: Diaries on the situation iin southern Khorasan at the time of the fall of the Safavid dynasty"; -Victoria ARAKELOVA (Yerevan State University), "On some derogatory descriptions of esoteric religious groups"; -Hassan EMAMI (University of Birjand), "Reflections on the relations between Persian literature and England from the Middle Ages to the mid-nineteenth century"; -Eugenio GALDIERI (ICOMOS, Rome), "Escaliers: un moyen architectural au temps des rois safavides"; -Kinga MACIUSZAK (Jagellonian University, Cracow), "The mystery of Shamirân. Echoes of the Semiramis legend in Persian literature"; -Laetitia NANQUETTE (SOAS, London), "Persian literature of exile in france: a comparison between two short stories by Chahla Chafiq and Goli Taraqi"; -Nader NASIRI-MOGHADDAM (Université de Strasbourg), "Un "traité secret" irano-russe de 1881"; -Laura E. PARODI (Genoa, Italy), "Of Shaykhs, Bibis and Begims: sources on early Mughal marriage connections and the patronage of Bâbur's tomb"; -Claus V. PEDERSEN (University of Copenhagen), "The novel ine arly modern Persian literature"; -Nosratollah RASTEGAR (Institut für Iranistik, ÖAW, Wien), "Zum Stellenwert der Frauen in Firdausis Shâhnâme. versuch einer Typologie ihrer sozialen Funktionen"; -Giorgio ROTA (Institut für Iranistik, ÖAW, Wien), "The mask of Shâh 'Abbâs I"; -Karin RÜHRDANZ (Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto), "'Ein kändlein von schwartzgriener igiada' - Persianate nephrite vessels"; -Maria E. SUBTELNY (University of Toronto), "Zoroastrian elements in the Islamic ascension narrative: the case of the cocmic cock"; -Mohsen ZAKERI (Universität Gôttingen), "Qawâdiyân (Kawâdiyân) - Balkhi-Istakhri Atlas and its Middle Persian ancestry". -General index.