Abdolhossein Zarinkoob He was born on March 19, 1923, in Borujerd, Iran, received his PhD from Tehran University in 1955 under the supervision of Badiozzaman Forouzanfar, and held faculty positions at universities such as Oxford University, Sorbonne, and Princeton University, among many others.
Because of his pioneering works on Iranian literature, literary criticism and comparative literature, he is considered the father of modern Persian literature.
This is an oustanding book: [relatively]Un-Biased, Well-Researched and Well-Presented. It would help a reader to have a good command of Arabic, for there are numerous Arabic sentences and phrases throughout the text.
Upon reading this book, I kinda wish I could convince myself to become an "Unconditional Submitter", but... (oh well, maybe when I get older and/or wiser)