Distant Lands, Close Ties The Case of Cultural and Civilizational Relations between Iran and Spain

Iran and Spain, two countries of rich civilization and effective contributors to the world history, have maintained significant political and cultural relations since ancient times. During the first Islamic centuries the Arab world bridged the gap between Iran, on the easternmost extremes of the Islamic Caliphate, and Spain, on the westernmost stretches of the Roman Empire, thus facilitating the flow of cultural and intellectual exchange. Iran-Spain relations in this era bore upon bureaucracy, music, literature, art and architecture. Since the early modern centuries, and also from the early XVI century during which sovereign national rules were consolidated in the two countries, their bilateral ties developed exponentially and, as a result, more intense exchange of political and trade delegations between the two and drove the relations to its zenith in the first quarter of the XVII century. The impact of these relations from antiquity to present have been so intense that it is safe to assume that, despite their geographical distance, Iran and Spain remain the two Asian and European countries that bear the most cultural and civilizational resemblance to each other. The current research draws upon archival and library sources to review cultural and historical relations between the two countries and study its implications for their present day relations.