The aim of the Isfahan Anthology Project is to create an inventory of, collect, and digitize all extant anthologies produced in seventeenth-century Isfahan. Thousands of majmuʿa were authored and assembled in Isfahan. Presently, we are working together with our graduate students at the University of Isfahan and the University of Michigan in a collaboration that intends to train a new generation of Safavid historians who will continue this digital project into the future. We have begun the vast project of collecting and generating tables of contents for anthologies housed in the capital's most prominent public libraries—Tehran University Library, Majlis Library, Malik Library, and the National (Milli) Library of Iran—to begin our analysis of their anthology collections. Adapting our work to include reconnaissance, we have taken careful account of the content and organization of these anthologies so that we can create a digital and searchable database of Isfahan's anthologies that allows fellow scholars and graduate students across the world to freely have access to these rich Persianate-world sources.

The Safavids evolved from a Sufi order (1301) into a messianic movement (1447) before they finally established their imperium with world-conquering aspirations (1501). Isma'il, the first pīr (spiritual guide) of the Safavid order to assume the political role of shah, claimed to be the reincarnation of a host of prophets and kingly heroes from Iran's cultural past. “Prostrate thyself! Pander not to Satan! Adam has put on new clothes, God has come,” writes Isma'il in his poetry (Divan), composed as he, together with his adepts, the Qizilbash (Redheads), conquered Iran and Iraq (1501-13).