This issue of Iranian Studies includes six articles from a variety of disciplinary orientations. Shahla Farghadani offers new insights into how Persian rhetoricians adapted and reframed Arabic models to craft a distinctly Perian rhetorical tradition; Shahrouz Khanjari analyzes Niẓāmī Ganjavī’s innovative use of conceptual metaphor; Lurii Aleksandrovich Demin draws on Russian archival sources to delineate the attempts by the Bolsheviks and Communist International to forge alliances with Iranian communists between 1922 and the early 1930s; Alireza Sayyad and Javad Nematollahi explore the phenomenon of window-shopping in Goli Taraghi’s depictions of modernized urban Tehran; Arash Ahmadzadeh studies the intersection of music, ideology, and youth in the example of a state-sponsored song, “Salām Farmāndeh”; and Elham Etemadi provides an analysis of the Iranian art scene in light of the establishment of Tehran Auction in 2012.

Also included in this issue is a special section, edited by Sacha Alsancakli, which offers new insights into the Ottoman Safavid War of 1578–90. The four contributors to this special section offer rich archival explorations of Ottoman interaction with local populations as well as Russian and Italian relations with the Safavids.

I invite you to explore the articles and the special section.