Peter Avery

Imagine a Sunday morning a year or so ago, a book-lined study in an old university, where an elderly academic long past retirement age sits at his desk. Around him are about a dozen students, or rather seekers of knowledge - men and women of different backgrounds and nationalities, some on chairs and others on the floor. The knowledge they seek is an understanding of the lyrics of Hafiz (1325-90), whom many regard as the finest poet in the Persian language. The teacher is Peter Avery, his room in a corner of the Gibbs building, a few yards from the chapel of King's College, Cambridge. As one of the participants observed, these gatherings surely represented one of the ideals of a great university.

Another scene: Tehran, 1957. The British embassy has invited some Iranians and expatriates to meet the Oxford historian Hugh Trevor-Roper. One of the expats was Avery, then an adviser to the construction company Mowlem, who had won an important but ill-fated contract to build roads. After talking to Avery for several minutes, Trevor-Roper exclaimed: "You should come and join us!" [university teachers in Britain]. In 1958 he did so, becoming the lecturer in Persian language, literature and history at Cambridge. Over the next 50 years, Avery, who has died aged 85, became a distinguished orientalist and world expert on the history and literature of Iran. His published output was considerable and his enthusiasm as a teacher unflagging.

Avery was born in Derby, the son of a merchant navy officer on the White Star line. His father died young, leaving his mother a cottage in Staffordshire, but little money. The boy's higher education in Liverpool was cut short by the second world war. He volunteered to serve in India and was commissioned into the Royal Indian Navy, where he began to learn Persian. From 1946 to 1949, he read Arabic and Persian at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (Soas). He then did a variety of jobs in Iraq and Iran until Trevor-Roper set him on his path through life.