Ali Asghar Seyed-Gohrab, Ph.D. (2001) in Persian literature and mysticism, is associate Professor of Persian literature and culture at Leiden University. He has published extensively on classical and modern Persian poetry, mysticism, poetic metaphors, and Iran-Iraq war poetry. He is the author of Laylī and Majnūn. Love, Madness and Mystic Longing in Niẓāmī's Epic Romance, (Brill, 2003).