Said Reza Huseini specialises in Turko-Indo-Persianate and Islamic history in the connected regions of Central Asia and North India over the longue durée, from Late Antiquity to the early modern era. His research is based on a wide range of documentary and literary sources in Bactrian, Sogdian Middle Persian, Persian and Arabic. He takes a connected historical approach to understanding these milieus and is interested in uncovering long-term patterns of intellectual and cultural exchange in the Turko-Indo-Persianate ecumene. Reza is originally from Balkh, a region in modern Afghanistan. He graduated from Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi), where he studied the history of medieval Central Asia and Early Modern India. He continued his research at Leiden University, where he learned Dutch, completed his second MA and wrote a thesis on Millennialism in Mughal India. He then joined the European Research Council project “Embedding Conquests” and completed his PhD Dissertation on the eighth century Arab Conquests in Bactria (currently under book contract with Edinburgh University Press). Afterward, he joined King’s College, University of Cambridge as a Research Fellow. There, he worked as part of King’s Silk Roads Project and organised seminar series and workshops on various aspects of the Silk Roads, including contemporary issues such as regional security and local governance in Central Asia. Reza currently teaches a course on Central Asia at Princeton University and is working on a monograph entitled The Mongols in Persian Discourse: Continuity and Change, 1252-1582. He has published various articles on socio-political history, rebellions, slavery, and familial laws in medieval Central Asia, and has co-authored several articles on kingship in Islam and Mughal political ideology in various peer-reviewed journals.
Publications
Book Projects
The Arab Conquests of Bactria: Local Power Politics and Arab Domination (651–750 CE) Under Contract with Edinburgh University Press. Expected, September 2025
The Mongols of Mughal History: Imagining World Empire in Sixteenth-Century India
Edited Volume or Journal Special Issue (peer reviewed)
2023 With Jelle Bruning, eds., “Textual Sources and Geographies of Slavery in the Early-Islamic Empire, ca. 600–1000 CE.” Journal of Slavery & Abolition Special Issue (136 manuscript pages.)
Articles and Book Chapters (peer reviewed)
2025 “The Rebellion of Fāʾiq-i Khāṣṣa in Samanid Khurasan.” In How Rebellion Ends: Conflict Resolution in the Late Antique and Early Islamicate World, 500-1000 CE, special Issue, Journal of Late Antique, Islamic and Byzantine Studiesedited by Hannah-Lena Hagemann. Forthcoming.
2025 “Local Administration in the Late Antique Bactria: Documentary Evidence.” In State Documents Colloquium, edited by Arezou Azad. Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming.
2025 “From Shadow to Light: Transition of Chinggisid Sacred Kingship under Ghazan Khan and its Revival under Akbar.” In The Ethics of Idolatry: Sun and Cosmos Worship in Judaism and Islam, edited by Azfar Moin and Jonathan Schofer. Columbia University Press, forthcoming.
2024 “The pre-Mongol city of Balkh as seen by its residents: a report from the Fadaʾil-i Balkh.” In UNESCO Thematic Collection of Cultural Exchanges along the Silk Roads: Architecture, Monuments and Urbanism, edited by Elena Paskaleva and Michael Turner. UNESCO, Paris, forthcoming.
2024 With Jos Gommans. “New Dawn in Mughal India: Longue Durée Neoplatonism in the Making of Akbar’s Sun Project.” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Series 3 (2024): 1–22.
2024 “Between the Arabs and the Turks: Household, Conversion and Power Dynamics in early Islamic Bactria (700–772 CE).” In Mechanisms of Social Dependency in the Early Islamic Empire, edited by Edmund Hayes and Petra M. Sijpesteijn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2023 “Slavery Represented in Bactrian Documents.” In Textual Sources and Geographies of Slavery in the Early-Islamic Empire, ca. 600–1000 CE, edited by Jelle Bruning and Said Reza Huseini, Special Issue, Journal of Slavery & Abolition 44, no. 4 (2023): 682–696.
2022 “Thinking in Arabic, writing in Sogdian: Arab Sogdian Diplomatic Relation in the early eighth-century.” In From the Ruler of Samarqand to the Andalusian “Law of the Muslims”: Sogdian, Greek and Arabic Documents and Manuscripts from the Islamicate World and Beyond, edited by Andreas Kaplony and Matt Malczycki, 67–87. Leiden: Brill.
2022 “The Rebellion of Ḥārith b. Surayj (116–128/734–746): A Local Perspective.” Al-ʿUsur al-Wusṭā 30 (2022): 516–53.
2022 With Jos Gommans. “Neoplatonic Kingship in the Islamic World: Akbar’s Millennial History.” In Sacred Kingship in World History: Between Immanence and Transcendence, edited by Azfar Moin and Alan Strathern, 192–222. Columbia University Press.
2022 With Jos Gommans. “Neoplatonism and the Pax Mongolica in the Making of Ṣulḥ-i Kull: A View from Akbar’s Millennial History.” Modern Asian Studies 56 (2022): 870–901.
2021“The Muqaddam Represented in the pre-Mongol Persian Documents from Ghur.” AFGHANISTAN 4, no. 2 (2021): 91–113.
2021“Acts of Protection represented in Bactrian Documents.” Annales Islamologiques 54 (2021): 107–124.
2020 “The Idea and Practice of Justice Represented in Bactrian Documents.” Association for Iranian Studies, Newsletter 41, no. 2 (2020): 28–31.
2013 “Medieval Tibet in Perso-Islamic Sources.” Journal of Himalayan and Central Asian Studies 18, no. 4, CHINA SPECIAL (2013): 251–283.
2012 “Destruction of Bamiyan Buddha: Taliban Iconoclasm and Hazara Response.” Journal of Himalayan and Central Asian Studies 16, no. 2, BAMIYAN SPECIAL (2012): 15–50.
2012 “Discovery of Bactro-Achaemenid Site in Northern Afghanistan.” Yavanika: India Society for Greek and Roman Studies 14 (Rohilkhand University, May 2012).
Invited Comments and Opinion Essays (not peer-reviewed)
2020 “The Mughal Experiment with Islamic Extremism: A Sixteenth-Century Lesson for Today.” Leiden Islam Blog, Leiden University, available online.
2018 “Bactrian Documents: New Source for the early Islamic history of Tukharistan.” Humanities Common, available online.
2021 “Women in late Antique Bactrian Documents.” Leidenmedievalistsblog, available online.
2021 “Thumbnail impression on clay sealings from early Islamic Bactria,” Material Cultures III, Humanities Common, available online.
2020 “Ownership notes in imperial Mughal codices.” Muse & Manuscripts: Lessons in codicology and Paleography, available online.