(Pahlavi, Frēdun; ancient Iranian, Thraētaona), the son of Abtiyān or Abtīn, one of the early kings of Īrān. The most complete text on the subject is the account of his reign by Firdawsī, in verse; some of the sources for it will be found in pre-Islamic texts. §§ 130-8 of the Yasht s of the Avesta reveal the names of the first kings of Īrān in their original order (the first being Yima [see d̲j̲ams̲h̲īd ]), whose conqueror and murderer, Azhī-Dahāka, was overthrown in his turn and put to death by Thraētaona; the latter was rewarded by a share of the aureole of glory ( hvareno ) …

[see ferīdūn beg ].

[see farīdūn ].

(Amīr), the name of three notable Kurdish figures, according to M. E. Zakī ( Mas̲h̲āhīr 144): I. A member of the Sulaymāniyya family, amīr of the Mayyāfariḳīn branch, son of Alwand Bey b. S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Aḥmad. He was for a long period in the service of Iskandar Pas̲h̲a, the wālī of Diyārbakr. Subsequently, he was for a time in command of the fortress al-Iskandariyya (between al-Ḥilla and Bag̲h̲dād), and after that the sultan Yawuz Selīm entrusted to him the stronghold of Mayyāfāriḳīn. A man of great personal bravery, he peri…

, the pseudonym of two Persian poets: (1) Abu ’l-Ḳāsim K̲h̲ān, younger son of Fatḥ ʿAlī K̲h̲ān Ṣabā, poet laureate at the court of Fatḥ ʿAlī S̲h̲āh Ḳād̲j̲ār, was regarded as one of the scholars of ¶ his time and had been well educated. He spent some time in Mas̲h̲had in the civil service and, after the crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā had visited the region, he entered his service, principally as a poet. Later he returned to Tehrān where he retired from public life and lived until the end of the 19th century. (2) Muḥammad Mahdī ibn Muḥam…

, a geographical-ethnic term in the S̲h̲āh-nāma . In Firdawsī’s epic, Tūrān refers to the land to the north-east of Īrān, the border between the two countries being the River Oxus (called by Firdawsī the D̲j̲ayhūn). The term is assumed by the poet to derive from that of a son of Farīdūn named Tūr, the area covered by the name being designated as his apanage. The first occurrence of Tūrān in the S̲h̲āh-nāma (apart from a formulary reference in the panegyric to Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna) specifically links Tūr and Tūrān ( digar tūr-rā dād tūrān zamīn ; “then he gave Tūr the la…

, a historicised mythological tyrant of demonic nature who belonged to the Pīs̲h̲dādiyān dynasty of Persian legendary history. (The form Zuhāk, if it exists at all, must be a mispronunciation of Perso-Arabic Ḍaḥḥāk, itself a re-interpretation of Middle Persian Dahāk, Avestan Az̲h̲ī dahāka-, probably “snakeman”; cf. Vedic azi- “snake”.) According to Iranian tradition, recorded in Middle Persian, Persian and Arabic sources, Ḍaḥḥāk, also called Bīwarasp “possessor of a thousand horses”, and a descendant of early Iranian world-kings, was the son …

, a mythical dynasty of ancient Persia, given a considerable role in the national historical tradition of Persia. This tradition was essentially put together in the k̲h̲ w adāy-nāmags of late Sāsānid times and, like most of our information on Sāsānid history, has to be reconstructed from post-Sāsanid, ¶ mainly early Islamic sources. Hence we find information on the Pīs̲h̲dādids in such sources as al-Ṭabarī, al-Masʿūdī, Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī and al-T̲h̲aʿālibī. Ḥamza, ed. Beirut n.d. [ ca. 1961], 13, 16-17, makes the Fīs̲h̲dādiyya the first ṭabaḳa of the kings …

, Muḥammad Falakī, poetastronomer of S̲h̲irwān and pupil of K̲h̲āḳānī, is the author of a lost dīwān of Persian poetry, of which 1512 verses have been recovered and published. Falakī lived 49 years, ca. 501/1108 - ca. 550/1155 and like Abu ’l-ʿAlāʾ and K̲h̲āḳānī was a courtpoet of the S̲h̲irwāns̲h̲āh Abu ’l-Hayd̲j̲ā Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn Minūčihr II, who succeeded his father Farīdūn I on the throne of S̲h̲irwān in 514/1120 and ruled for 37 years until c. 551/1156. The statement of his contemporary K̲h̲āḳānī, that Falakī’s life was short-lived and that Manūčihr II ruled for 30…

, dervish mystic, grandson of Mawlānā D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Rūmī and the third k̲h̲alīfa of the Mawlawiyya order, was born at Konya on 8 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 670/7 June 1272 as a son to Sulṭān Walad and Fāṭima K̲h̲ātūn, the daughter of the goldsmith Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn. His actual name was D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Farīdūn. Mawlānā, who named him thus after his two grandfathers, gave him also the by-name Amīr ʿĀrif, from which the commonly-used Turkish form Ulu ʿĀrif has been derived. An extensive biography with many hagiographie traits is contained in the eighth chapter of the Manāḳib al-ʿārifīn by Aflākī [ q.v.]. Bein…

, S̲h̲arwān S̲h̲āh , the title in mediaeval Islamic times of the rulers of S̲h̲īrwān [ q.v.] in eastern Transcaucasia. The title very probably dates back to pre-Islamic times. Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 17-18, mentions the S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āh as one of the local rulers who received his title from the Sāsānid emperor Ardas̲h̲īr. Al-Balād̲h̲urī mentions the S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āh, together with an adjacent potentate, the Layzān S̲h̲āh, as amongst those encountered by the first Arab raiders into the region; he further records that…

, legendary king of the Tūrānians according to Iranian tradition. In the Avesta (especially Yas̲h̲t xix) "Frangrasyan the Turian" was an adversary of Kavi Haosrava (> Kay Ḵh̲usraw), having treacherously murdered Kavi Haosrava’s father Syavars̲h̲an (> Siyāwus̲h̲). He vainly desired to secure the hvarna , "the Glory of the Aryans", and was killed, in revenge, by Kavi Haosrava. He may have been originally a historical figure, chief of the Turian tribes (who were probably themselves of Iranian race [cf. tūrān ]). The Pahlavi form of the name is Frāsiyāb. S…

(b. 1794 Gand̲j̲a, d. 1852 Tbilisi). Azerbaijani poet. Born into a family from Tabrīz, at ten years old he lost his father, who was a stonemason, but with the assistance of his relatives he attended a traditional school where he learned literary Persian as well as Arabic. His knowledge of Persian literature introduced him to the works of renowned Persian poets such as Ḥāfiẓ and Niẓāmī. Because of his anti-clerical views, he was expelled from school and began to earn his living both as an accountant and …

transliteration according to the EI rules of the name of a person who is supposed to have played an important rôle in the Iranian epic, in Persian Kāveh< Kāvag̲h̲, in Arabic Kāwah, Kāwī, Kābī. This person was a blacksmith who, after having had his son put to death by the tyrant Zohak (in Arabic, al-Ḍaḥḥāk; see zuhāk ), raised the population of Iṣfahān against the usurper, taking as a banner his leather apron, which as the drafs̲h̲-i Kāwiyān became the Iranian national flag. Having thus brought about the fall of Zohak, he set up Farīdūn [ q.v.] on the throne and was himself nominated comman…

, the highest point in the mountains on the borders of Northern Persia (cf. Alburz ), somewhat below 36° N. Lat. and about 50 miles north-east of Tehran. According to de Morgan it rises out of the plateau of Rēhne to a height of 13,000 feet above it. The various estimates of its height differ: Thomson estimates it at 21,000 feet (certainly too high), de Morgan at 20,260 feet, Houtum Schindler at 19,646, Sven Hedin at 18,187, and in the last edition of Stieler’s Handatlas (1910) it is given as 18,830 feet. Its summit, perpetually snow-clad and almost always…

, legendary ruler of Sīstān [ q.v.] and vassal of the Kayānids, the epic kings of Īrān, was, according to al-T̲h̲aʿālibī and Firdawsī, the son of Narīmān, the father of Zāl-Dastān and the grandfather of Rustam [ q.v.]. This pedigree is the outcome of a long development spanning the entire history of the Iranian epic. In the Avesta, Sāma is the name of a clan to which T̲h̲rīta, “the third man who pressed the Haoma”, belonged as well as his sons Urvāk̲h̲s̲h̲aya and Kərəsāspa (Yasna 9. 10). Kərəsāspa (Persian Kars̲h̲āsp or Gars̲h̲āsp)…

, lit. “tea-house”, a term covering a range of establishments in Iran serving tea and light refreshments, and patronised mainly by the working and lower middle classes. The term ḳahwa-k̲h̲āna , “coffee-house”, is used almost synonymously, though coffee is never served. This latter name, however, tells us something of the history of this institution, for most of which we have to rely ¶ on the accounts of the European travellers. One of the earliest references occurs in Chardin’s Voyages (ii, 321), where in his description of Iṣfahān in about 1670 he s…

, (“great one of the Magians”) a Zoroastrian dynasty which the Arabs found in the region of Dunbāwand (Damāwand [ q.v.]) to the north of Ray. The origins of the Maṣmug̲h̲āns. The dynasty seems to have been an old, though not particularly celebrated, one, as is shown by the legends recorded by Ibn al-Faḳīh, 275-7, and in al-Bīrūnī, Āt̲h̲ār , 227. The title of maṣmug̲h̲ān is said to have been conferred by Farīdūn upon Armāʾīl, Bēwarāsp’s former cook (Zohāk), who had been able to save half the young men destined to perish as food for the t…

( Talibov ), ʿAbd al-Raḥīm , Persian writer and intellectual of the 19th century (b. Tabrīz 1250/1834, d. 1329/1911). At ca. sixteen, he left for Tiflis (Tbilisi) in Transcaucasia, where he learned the Russian language and was exposed to the writings of Russian writers as well as to Western political ideas. Subsequently, he settled in Tamir K̲h̲ān S̲h̲ūra (present-day Buynaksk), capital of Dāg̲h̲istān. In ca. 1306/1888 he joined Sayyid Muḥammad S̲h̲abistarī (afterwards editor of Īrān-i naw ) ¶ in starting in Istanbul the paper S̲h̲āhsawan , of which only on…

( pādusbānids ), minor Caspian dynasty, noteworthy for its longevity (45-1006/665-1599) as well as for that of its princes, some of whom reigned for 50 years. Its power in Ṭabaristān (Māzandarān) extended to Rustamdār, Rūyān, Nūr and Kud̲j̲ūr. Its origins are traced to Gāwbāra who came from Armenia in the time of Yazdigird III, who appointed him governor. He had two sons, Dābūya and Bādūsbān, established respectively in Gīlān and Ṭabaristān, the former being the eponymous anc…