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, 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 poet’s own works are available. However, the many references to the historical context to be found in his poetry, including dedications to a great number of patrons, make it possible to reconstruct his life, at least in its…

, 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 vocalisati…

(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 ("veritat…

(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 ( …

, 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.…

(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 …

, or Taḳī al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī al-Awḥadī, Persian anthologist, lexi…

, 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 A…

, 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. K̲h̲…

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, Ḥakīm Saʿd al-Dīn b. S̲h̲ams al-Dīn b. Muḥammad, Persian poet, born 645/1247-8 in Bīrd̲j̲and [ q.v.], where he died in 720/1320-1. The name Nizārī was not only his nomde-guerre as a poet, but also seems to indicate the loyalty of his family to Nizār [ q.v.], the pretender to the Fāṭimid imāmate in the late 5th/11th century whose claim was supported by most Persian Ismāʿilīs. Reliable facts concerning his life can only be deduced from his own works. According to Borodin, followed by Rypka, he would have been attached to the court of the Kart [ …

(also known in the Arabicised form Marzubān-nāma ), a work in Persian prose containing a variety of short stories used as moral examples and bound together by one major and several minor framework stories. It is essentially extant in two versions written in elegant Persian with many verses and phrases in Arabic. They were made from a lost original in the Ṭabarī dialect independently of each other in the early 13th century. The oldest version, entitled Rawḍat al-ʿuḳūl…

, the tak̲h̲alluṣ or pen-name of a Turkish translator and commentator of Persian literary works who flourished in the second half of the 10th/16th century. In his own works and in most of the biographical sources only this name is mentioned. B. Dorn, referring to “two manuscripts” of Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa, asserted that he was properly called Muṣṭafā Darwīs̲h̲. Even more uncertain is the name S̲h̲emʿ-Allāh Perzennī which Bursali̊ Meḥmed Ṭāhir attributed to him; this was based perhaps on the confusion with another S̲h̲emʿī, a Ṣūfī poet from the town of Prizren [ q.v.], or Perzerīn, who be…

, 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,…

, 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 deteriorated so much that he had to give up this occupation. He went to live in Istanbul on a pension granted by Sultan Meḥemmed II. In 867/1463 he accompanied the sultan during the Ottoman invasion of Bosnia. A …

, 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 and were written in the ornate style current in the Ṣafawid period. …

(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 stylistic development, especially in poetry. Broadly speaking, this amounted to a gradual change fro…