Iraj Bashiri

Iraj Bashiri (born July 31, 1940) is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, USA and one of the leading scholars in the fields of Central Asian Studies and Iranian Studies. Fluent in English, Persian/Tajik and several Turkic languages, Bashiri has been able to study and translate works otherwise inaccessible to the mostly Russian-speaking Central Asian studies community. Bashiri career focus started on Persia then shifted to the Tajik identity and the relations between Tajiks and the Turkic people of Central Asia, namely the Uzbeks.