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, or Dāstān-i Ḳahramān , a popular romance in prose, several versions of which are known in both Persian and Turkish. It belongs to a series of prose works which develop themes from the Iranian epic tradition, embellishing them with fabulous touches borrowed from folk literature. Like the Hūs̲h̲ang-nāma , the Ṭahmūrat̲h̲-nāma and the Ḳiṣṣa-i Ḏj̲ams̲h̲īd . the story takes place in the earliest period of the legendary history of Iran, the times of the pis̲h̲dādīyān . The central hero is Kahramān, nicknamed Ḳātil, “the slayer”. His name is in fact a c…

, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Mad̲j̲d al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Bisṭāmī (or al-Harawī), Persian scholar and theologian, was born in 803/1400-1 at S̲h̲āhrūd near Bisṭām as a descendant of the famous theologian Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn al-Rāzī [ q.v.]. The nickname muṣannifak (“the little writer”) was probably given to him “in allusion to his youthful productivity as a writer” (Storey). He studied at Harāt and continued to live in Eastern Persia until 848/1444 when he travelled to Anatolia. While he was teaching at Ḳonya, his hearing d…

, Ḥamīd al-Dīn Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh , was a prominent dāʿī of the Fāṭimids during the reign of al-Ḥākim bi-amr Allāh (386-411/996-1021) as well as the author of many works on the theory of the Imāmate and on Ismāʿīlī philosophy. The life of al-Kirmānī is known only in its main outlines, which can be traced on the basis of statements contained in his own works. Some other details can be derived from unpublished Ismāʿīlī sources, as has been done notably by Muṣṭafā G̲h̲ālib ( op. cit., 41 f.) who, however, does not specify these sources. His nisba points to his origin fro…

, Mad̲j̲dūd b. Ādam al-G̲h̲aznawī, Persian poet. In early sources already the kunya Abu ’l-Mad̲j̲d is sometimes added to his name. As a pen name he used Sanāʾī, only rarely Mad̲j̲dūd or Mad̲j̲dūd Sanaʾī. The former name could have been derived from Sanāʾ al-Milla, one of the laḳabs of the G̲h̲aznawid sultan Masʿūd III, but the poet’s actual relationship to this ruler is unclear, because no panegyrics directly addressed to him by Sanāʾī have been preserved. As a matter of fact, no reliable biographical data outside the p…

(a.), poetry. 1. In Arabic. (a) The pre-modern period. It is the supreme ornament of Arab culture and its most authentically representative form of discourse. The ideas articulated by poetry and the emotional resonances which it conveys earn it, even in the present day, where numerous new literary forms are in competition with it, the approval of scholars and the populace alike. Despite the phonetic resemblance, s̲h̲iʿr is totally unconnected with the Hebrew s̲h̲īr , the ʿayn is a “hard” consonant which persists in the roots common to the two langu…

, muḥammad s̲h̲arīf b. s̲h̲ams al-dīn al-s̲h̲īrāzī ( ca. 1001/1592-after 1063/1653), a Persian prosewriter and poet with the tak̲h̲alluṣ Kās̲h̲if (the forms Kās̲h̲if-i Kumayt, cf. Rosen, loc. cit., and S̲h̲arīfā Kās̲h̲if, cf. Tad̲h̲kira-i Naṣrābādī in the synopsis by A. Sprenger, Cat. Oudh , 91, are also mentioned). He lived in Iṣfahān and later in Ray, where he was a ḳāḍī for 15 years. His brothers Ismāʿīl Munṣif and Muḳīma were also known as poets. Only two works by Kās̲h̲if seem to have survived. Both deal with ethical questions…

(p.), the Indian style, is the third term of a classification of Persian literature into three stylistic periods. The other terms, sabk-i Ḵh̲urāsānī (initially also called sabk-i Turkistānī ) and sabk-i ʿIrāḳī , refer respectively to the eastern and the western parts of mediaeval Persia. The assumption underlying this geographical terminology is that the shifts of the centre of literary activity from one area to another, which took place repeatedly since the 4th/10th century, were paralleled by a stylisti…

(the most probable interpretation of the consonants mhsty , for which other forms, like Mahistī, Mahsitī or Mihistī, have been proposed as well; cf. Meier, 43 ff.) a Persian female poet whose historical personality is difficult to ascertain. She must have lived at some time between the early 5th/11th and the middle of the 6th/12th century. The earliest sources situate her alternatively in the environment of Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna, of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ Sultan Sand̲j̲ar, or of a legendary king of Gand̲j̲a in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. The qualification dabīr or dabīra is often …

, or Nūr al-Dīn Muḥammad al-S̲h̲āhd̲j̲ahānābādī, a traditionist and historiographer of Mug̲h̲al India who flourished in the 11th/17th century. The nickname “al Turk al-Buk̲h̲ārī” points to his origin from Central Asia. As a poet he adopted the pen name “Mas̲h̲riḳī”. He was the son of the scholar ʿAbd al-Ḥaḳḳ [ q.v.] al-Dihlawī, a well-known s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ of the Ḳādiriyya order. Nūr al-Ḥaḳḳ succeeded his father as a religious teacher and was appointed a judge at Agra under S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān. His death at Dihlī occurred in 1073/1662. In Zubdat al-tawārīk̲h̲ , Nūr al-Ḥaḳḳ enlarged the Tārīk̲h̲-…

, the pen-name of a Persian poet who lived at the end of the 4th/11th and the beginning of the 5th/12th century. His personal name as well as almost any other particulars of his life are unknown. The Tard̲j̲umān al-balāg̲h̲a has preserved an elegy by Labībī on the death of Farruk̲h̲ī [ q.v.], which means that the former was probably still alive in 429/1037-8. A ḳaṣīda attributed to him by ʿAwfī is addressed to a mamdūḥ by the name of Abu ’l-Muẓaffar, who in that source is identified with a younger brother of the G̲h̲aznavid Sultan Maḥmūd. But it i…

, surname of the Persian historian G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn who was born ca. 880/1475 into a family of high officials and scholars. His father, K̲h̲wād̲j̲a Humām al-Dīn Muḥammad b. K̲h̲wād̲j̲a D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. K̲h̲wad̲j̲a Burhān al-Dīn Muḥammad S̲h̲īrāzī, was for many years the minister of Sulṭān Maḥmūd b. Abī Saʿīd, who at the end of his political career became the Tīmūrid ruler of Samarḳand from 899-900/1494-5. The historian Mirkhwānd [ q.v.] was his maternal uncle and took an important part in his primary education. It is, therefore, likely that K̲h̲wāndamīr was actually bor…

(p.), a word applied in Persian with a contemptuous connotation to “a knave, a rogue, a drunkard” or “a debauchee”; in the terminology of poets and mystics it acquired the positive meaning of “one whose exterior is liable to censure, but who at heart is sound” (Steingass, s.v., after the Burhān-i ḳāṭiʿ ). The etymology of rind is unclear. It is not an Arabic loanword, in spite of the existence of the broken plural runūd , a learned form used next to the regular Persian plural rindān . The abstract noun rindī denotes the characteristic behaviour of a person thus qualified. Mediaeval historians r…

, 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)…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Aḥmad , Persian mystic who died on the 10th Muḥarram 425/5th December 1033 at the age of 73. The nisba refers to the village of K̲h̲araḳān situated in the mountains to the north of Bisṭām on the road to Astarābād (modern Gurgān). There are several variants for the vocalisation of this place-name even in the early sources for the life of this mystic. This confusion may very well be the result of the existence of other place names with the same consonant outline, such as K̲h̲a…

(A.), a term in rhetoric, means "trope" and, more generally, the use of a word ¶ deviating from its original meaning and use, its opposite being ḥaḳīḳa ("veritative expression"). In Arabic literature. The different modes of expression labelled as mad̲j̲āz by the Arabic theorists were divided into twelve categories by Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210) without, however, following a consistent system of criteria (cf. al-Suyūṭī, Muzhir , ed. Cairo 1282, i, 171). A more refined and detailed version of this classifying system was put forward by al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) ( Itḳān …

(a.), the name of apoem written in rhyming couplets. 1. In Arabic literature, see muzdawid̲j̲ . 2. In Persian. According to the prosodist S̲h̲ams-i-Ḳays (7th/13th ¶ century), the name refers to “a poem based on independent, internally rhyming lines ( abyāt-i mustaḳill-i muṣarraʿ ). The Persians call it mat̲h̲nawī because each line requires two rhyming letters— This kind ( nawʿ ) is used in extensive narratives and long stories which cannot easily be treated of in poems with one specific rhyming letter” ( al-Muʿd̲j̲am , ed. Tehran 1338/1959, 418f.). The fir…

, a popular story in mediaeval Islamic literature. 1. In Persian literature. The Biblical story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, who later received the name of Zulayk̲h̲ā, entered into Persian literature mainly through Arabic sources, consisting first of Sūrat Yūsuf (XII) of the Ḳurʾān, and then of commentaries on this “most beautiful of stories” and traditions on the lives of ancient Prophets ( ḳiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ [ q.v.]). The many additions to the story as it was told in the holy scriptures were derived from the Hebrew Midrash and Christian works in Syriac (cf. …

(a.), literally, “freeing oneself, escaping from (something)”, a technical term of literary usage. 1. In literary form. Here, it is the transition from the introduction [see nasīb ] of the polythematic ḳaṣīda [ q.v.] to subsequent themes, esp. the panegyric section. Often called k̲h̲urūd̲j̲ “exit”, it may be abrupt, without any attempt at preparing what follows, or effected brusquely with formulas such as daʿ d̲h̲ā “leave this (and speak on something else)”. From ʿAbbāsid times onwards, poets and critics favoured t…

(a.), “scene”, increasingly employed as “theatre” (in the same sense as “Bühne” in German); frequently synonymous with tiyātrō (from the Italian). 1. In the Arab East. Primarily an artistic and literary phenomenon of the last two centuries, the Arab theatre has its roots in local performances of passion plays [see taʿziya ], marionette and shadow plays [see ḳaragöz ], mimicry and other popular farces, and was affected by the then contemporary (rather than the classical) foreign theatre as well. Although some popular o…

, or Taḳī al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī al-Awḥadī, Persian anthologist, lexicographer and poet. He was born at Iṣfahān on 3 Muḥarram 973/31 January 1565, into a family with a Ṣūfī tradition from Balyān in Fārs. One of his paternal ancestors was the 5th/11th-century S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Abū ʿAlī al-Daḳḳāḳ. During his adolescence he studied in S̲h̲īrāz, where he presented his early poems to a circle of poets and was encouraged by ʿUrfī [ q.v.]. Returning to Iṣfahān, he attracted the attention of the young S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās I and joined his entourage. In 1003/1594-5, Taḳī retired for six years to the ʿatabāt , the holy cities of the S̲h̲īʿīs in ʿIrāḳ. Like many Persian literati of his times, he left Persia, in Rad̲j̲ab 1015/November 1606, to seek a career at the Indian courts. After a short stay in Lahore, he went to the court of D̲j̲ahāngīr [ q.v.] at Āgra, but he also lived for many years at Aḥmadābād in Gud̲j̲arāt. The date of his death is not on record. He must have survived at least till 104…