About
Behzad Borhan is a Course Lecturer of Persian Language at McGill University’s Institute of Islamic Studies (IIS) and a Ph.D. candidate in Islamic Studies at McGill. He received his first Ph.D. in Persian Language and Literature from the University of Tehran in 2020. He previously served as a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Religious Studies at Yale University (2017–2019) and as a Visiting Professor of Persian Literature at the University of Tehran. He is an Executive Board Member of the American Association of Teachers of Persian (AATP) for the 2026–2028 term and a former Council Member of the Association for Iranian Studies (AIS) (2023–2025).
His scholarship is organized around two principal areas of specialization: Persian language and literature, and Sufi studies with a particular focus on karāmat (saintly miracles). In Persian language and literature, his work combines philological precision with an emphasis on pedagogy and cultural transmission. In the classroom, he approaches Persian as a living aesthetic and intellectual tradition. Poetry, music, performance, and close textual analysis form an integral part of his teaching, inviting students to engage the language not only through grammar and syntax, but through sound, embodiment, and artistic experience. He is also preparing a new annotated translation of ʿUmar Khayyām’s Rubāʿiyyāt, based on the latest critical edition.
His research on Persian and Arabic mystical literature and the study of Sufism examines how hagiographical narratives construct sanctity, authority, and spiritual intimacy through narrative form. He is the 2025 Research Award recipient of Canadian Friends of Sufi Arts, Culture and Knowledge (CFSACK) for his project, The Islamic Hagiography Index Archive (IHIA), a research initiative dedicated to indexing and analyzing miracle narratives across Islamic sources. He is the author of the annotated edition of Rumi’s Mathnawī, Laṭāyif al-Maʿnawī min Ḥaqāyiq al-Mathnawī (2017), which received the Best Student Book of the Year Award from Iran’s Ministry of Science, Research, and Technology. His forthcoming monograph, Among Our Shaykh’s Karāmāt (Az Karāmāt-e Shaykh-e Mā), will be published by Nashr-i Ney.
Education
Ph.D., Persian Language and Literature, University of Tehran, 2020
M.A., Persian Language and Literature, University of Tehran, 2014
Publications
Books & Chapters
Books
- Among our Shaykh’s Karāmāt (Az Karāmāt-e Shaikh-e Mā). 360 pp. Tehran: Nashr-i Ney (Forthcoming, Summer 2026)
- Laṭāyif al-Maʿnavī min Haqāyiq al-Mas̲navī, Abd al-Laṭīf Abbāsī Gujarāti. Edited, annotated, and introduced by Behzad Borhan. 555 pp. Tehran: Intishārāt-i Maḥmūd Afshār and Sukhan, 2017.
Book Chapters
- “Lyrical Language Learning: A Multisensory Approach to Teaching Persian Language through Literature and Music.” In Adopting and Adapting Persian Literature in Teaching Persian, edited by Pouneh Shabani-Jadidi and Azita H. Taleghani. Brill, 2026.
- “Body in Medieval Islamic Hagiographies.” In Handbook of Sufi Studies: Sufism and the Body, edited by Sara Abdel-Latif and Eyad Abuali. Brill, 2026.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
- Borhan, Behzad. “Islamic Miracles in the Eyes of Religious Others,” Taylor and Francis’s Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations.
- Borhan, Behzad; Hajian-nezhad, Alireza. “A constructivist explanation for the contrast between Nirvānā and Fanā.” Persian Literature (Adab-i Fārsi, Journal of Faculty of Literature and Humanities, University of Tehran), no. 23, 2019, p. 21-41.
- Borhan, Behzad. “Zinā of the Eye or Gaze of the Eye? A suggestion for editing a verse in the Mas̲navi of Rumi.” Persian Language and Literature, no. 22, 2020, p. 36-46.
- Borhan, Behzad. “Analysis of ambiguous phrases in the Tārīkh-i Jahān-Gushā of Juwainī.” Kohan Nāmeh-yi Adab-i Pārsī, no. 03, 2016, p.103-118.
- Borhan, Behzad. “Some new facts about Abd al-Laṭīf Abbāsī Gujarāti’s life.” Subcontinent, vol. 04, no. 04, 2015, p. 221-235.
Peer-Reviewed Book Reviews
- Persianate Selves: Memories of Place and Origin Before Nationalism, Mana Kia (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press 2021, xxiv + 312 pp.) in Iranian Studies Journal, 2022.
- Sinews of war and trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula, by Laleh Khalili (London: Verso 2020, 386 pp.) in British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2021.
Invited Talks & Conference Presentations
- “Persian in Play: Music, Theatre, and Literature in Language Learning,” presented at the 5th International Conference on Teaching Persian Language and Literature, hosted by Cambridge University and Yerevan State University, September 2025.
- “Lyrical Language Learning: A Multisensory Approach to Teaching Persian Language through Literature and Music,” invited talk in Literature in Persian Language Pedagogy Lecture Series, hosted by University of Toronto and University of Chicago, February 2025.
- “Wishful Hearing: Auditory Experiences in Sufi Literature,” presented at the Iranian Studies Conference (AIS 2024), Mexico City, Mexico, August 2024.
- “Nowruz in Persian Literature and Spring Poems of Khayyam,” invited talk at Concordia University, April 2024.
- “You Wrote This Poem,” Shared Pain, Twitter Trend, and an Overnight Anthem Called Barāye,” invited talk in Persian Circle, University of Chicago, November 2023.
- “Making sense of Kīmīyā-yi Saʿādat through al-Ghazzālī’s Sufi sources,” presented at MEA 2023, Montréal, Canada, November 2023.
- “The Evolution of Karāmat Narratives in Sufi literature,” Presented at MESA 2022, Denver, Colorado, December 2022.
- “Among our Shaykh’s Karāmāt… Abū Saʿīd Abū'l-Khayr and his Karāmāt Narratives,” invited talk in Persian Circle, University of Chicago, November 2022.
- “A Narrative of Karāmat or a Karāmat of Narrative?” in the Iranian Studies Conference (AIS 2022), Salamanca, Spain, August-September 2022.
- “From Chords to Words: Pedagogical Benefits of Intertwining Persian Literature with Persian Traditional Music,” Presented at the 3rd International Conference on Teaching Persian Language and Literature, University of Cambridge, December 2021.
- “Narratives of Karāmāt in the Sufi Literature,” invited talk at Khārazmī University, Tehran, Iran. March 2019.
- “The Ghāsem-e Ghani Collection in Sterling Library at Yale,” invited talk at The National Library of Iran, Tehran, Iran. September 2018.
- “Ghāsem-e Ghani and His Qājāric Documents,” invited talk at University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran, October 2018.
- “Mystical Hermeneutics: The Dialectic of Mystical Experiences and the Qurʾān,” Presented at The Eighth International Conference on Religion and Spirituality in Society, University of California at Berkeley. April 2018.
