Search

b. Moḥammad, twelfth century Persian poet who used Ẓahīr as his pen name. This article is available in print. Volume IX, Fascicle 4, pp. 382-383 FĀRYĀBĪ, ẒAHĪR-AL-DĪN ABU’L-FAŻL ṬĀHER,b. Moḥammad, Persian poet who used Ẓahīr as his pen name. He was born at Fāryāb, modern Dawlatābād, in the province of Jūzjān near Balḵ (qq.v.), probably about 550/1156, or in 1160 according to Kuliyev (Rypka, Hist. Iran. Lit., p. 209; Kuliyev, pp. 145-46); the occurrence of Turkish words in his poetry gave rise to the incorrect assumption that he was of Turkish origin (Rypka, Camb. Hist. Iran, p. 577). Ẓahī…

b. Jūlūḡ, eleventh century Persian court poet. This article is available in print. Volume IX, Fascicle 3, pp. 321-322 FARROḴĪ SĪSTĀNĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ b. Jūlūḡ, Persian court poet. According to the earliest notice on his life, contained in the second essay of Neẓāmī ʿArūżī’s Čahār maqāla (ed. Qazvīnī, pp. 58–65), his father Jūlūḡ was a military slave ( ḡolām) of Amir Aḥmad Ḵalaf-e Bānū, the Saffarid ruler of Sīstān (r. 352-93/ 963–1003). As a youth, Farroḵī served a dehqān (q.v.), but—disappointed by the answer to his request for an increase in his salary—he left his hom…

a collection of manuscripts, printed works, and artifacts, predominantly Oriental, assembled by Alfred Chester Beatty and opened to the public in Dublin in 1954. This article is available in print. Volume V, Fascicle 4, pp. 397-400 i. The Library and Its Founder Alfred Chester Beatty (b. New York City, 7 February 1875, d. Monaco, 19 January 1968) was the son of a prosperous banker and stockbroker (Kennedy, p. 22) and was educated at private schools and Princeton University before transferring to Columbia University in New York. In 1898 …

(Pers.-Ar. šamʿ); the Arabic word literally means “beeswax." This article is available in print. Volume IV, Fascicle 7, pp. 748-751 i. Making and Uses Candles are a relatively late invention in human history. Egyptologists sometimes refer to candles and candlesticks, but the candles they describe are more properly torches or torch holders or lamps (Robins, pp. 16, 20). Similarly, the seven-branched candlestick of the Old Testament was not a candleholder but a group of lamps using olive oil for fuel (Robins, p. 16; Ginz…

( maʿšūq in Arabic and Persian), together with Lover ( ʿāšeq) and Love ( ʿešq), making the three concepts that dominate the semantic field of eroticism in Persian literature and mysticism. This article is available in print. Volume IV, Fascicle 2, pp. 128-129 BELOVED ( maʿšūq in Arabic and Persian) belongs, together with Lover ( ʿāšeq) and Love ( ʿešq), to the three concepts that dominate the semantic field of eroticism in Persian literature and mysticism. The interrelation among these concepts makes it almost impossible to treat any one of the concepts…

(Ar. marṯīa, Pers. mūya), poetry of mourning in Persian literature. This article is available in print. Volume VIII, Fascicle 4, pp. 255-357 ELEGY (Ar. marṯīa, Pers. mūya), poetry of mourning in Persian literature. The Western term elegy covers a wider range of themes, most of which are represented in the Persian tradition. The frequent complaints of the transience of life and the cruelty of fate, of disasters or of personal grievances (the so-called šakwīyāt) are elegiacal in this broad sense, but they are not included in the present article, which is restricted to …

i. In the West. ii. In Iran. This series of articles covers the catalogues of manuscripts and bibliographies of printed works on Iran compiled by scholars in Iran, Europe (including Russia) and North America. This article is available in print. Volume IV, Fascicle 2, pp. 214 BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES i. In the West Catalogues of manuscripts and bibliographies of printed works on Iran compiled by scholars in Europe (including Russia) and North America are the focus here. Description by others of Iranian materials in Western collections or publi…

(also Henry), a German orientalist and scholar of Persian language and literature who spent most of his career in India (1838-1878). This article is available in print. Volume IV, Fascicle 3, pp. 314-315 BLOCHMANN, HEINRICH (Henry) FERDINAND, a German Orientalist and scholar of Persian language and literature who spent most of his career in India. He was born on 8 January 1838 in Dresden, the son of the owner of a printing workshop. From 1855 to 1857 he studied Oriental languages at the University of Leipzig with H. L. Fleische…

i. Traditional Forms. ii. Modern Fiction. ii(a). Historical Background. ii(b). The Novel. ii(c). The Short Story. ii(d). The Post-Revolutionary Short Story. ii(e). Post-Revolutionary Fiction Abroad. ii(f). By Persians in Non-Persian Languages. ii(g). In Afghanistan. ii(h). In Tajikistan. This article is available in print. Volume IX, Fascicle 6, pp. 572-610 FICTION, i. TRADITIONAL FORMS This article deals with all kinds of stories written for specifically literary purposes up to the time when narrative prose in the modern style, derived from the W…

dates incorporated into Persian texts in disguised form, espeꏂcially those in which the letters of the alphabet have numerical value. This article is available in print. Volume V, Fascicle 5, pp. 550-551 CHRONOGRAMS, Pers. mādda(-ye) tārīḵ, dates incorporated into Persian texts in disguised form, especially those in which the letters of the alphabet have numerical value. The indication of dates in this way can be found in Persian poetry from the very beginning. Only in the 9th/15th century did the construction of chronograms beco…

originally a Greek word meaning “inscription” and denoting in Western literatures a genre of short poems characterized by their contents and style rather than by a specific prosodic form. This article is available in print. Volume VIII, Fascicle 5, pp. 477-478 EPIGRAM, originally a Greek word meaning “inscription” and denoting in Western literatures a genre of short poems characterized by their contents and style rather than by a specific prosodic form. The term epigram is most often used for satire and light verse, but it has also bee…

b. Abī Bakr b. ʿOṯmān (b. in Herat; d. in Isfahan, 1287), Persian poet of the Mongol period also noted for his learning. This article is available in print. Volume VIII, Fascicle 4, pp. 393 EMĀMĪ HERĀVĪ, RAŻĪ-AL-DĪN ABŪ ʿABD-ALLĀH MOḤAMMAD b. Abī Bakr b. ʿOṯmān, Persian poet of the Mongol period, also noted for his learning (b. in Herat; d. in Isfahan in 686/1287). During the decade 650-60/1250-60 he wrote panegyrics for the Qara Khitai rulers of Kermān and their officials. His residence in Kermān more or less coincided with the reign…

Initially Ethé worked as an assistant librarian at the Bodleian, on leave of absence from the University of Munich. In 1874 he abandoned his lectureship in Germany and settled down in Great Britain. The motivation for this move may have been political, at least in part, because Ethé is described as “a German radical, . . . a persona ingrata with absolutist governments” This article is available in print. Volume IX, Fascicle 1, pp. 1-3 ETHÉ, CARL HERMANN (b. Stralsund, Prussia, 13 February 1844, d. Bristol, England, 7 June 1917; Figure 1), German orientalist best known fo…

b. ʿAlī, the supposed author of a version of the Baḵtīārꏂnāma, who lived from the late 12th to the 13th century. This article is available in print. Volume VI, Fascicle 6, pp. 660-661 DAQĀYEQĪ MARVAZĪ, ŠAMS-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD b. ʿAlī , the supposed author of a version of the Baḵtīār-nāma, who lived from the late 12th to the 13th century. All that is known about him is a brief passage by Moḥammad ʿAwfī (d. ca. 630/1232), who spent his early years in Bukhara and recollected that he had probably seen him there ( Lobāb I, pp. 212-15). He described Daqāyeqī as a man of letters who preached in …

(b. Leiden, 21 February 1820, d. Leiden, 29 April 1883), Dutch orientalist renowned especially as a lexicographer of Arabic and a historian of Muslim Andalusia. This article is available in print. Volume VII, Fascicle 5, pp. 526 DOZY, REINHARD PETRUS ANNE (b. Leiden, 21 February 1820, d. Leiden, 29 April 1883), Dutch orientalist renowned especially as a lexicographer of Arabic and a historian of Muslim Andalusia. He began his studies at Leiden University in 1834 with H. E. Weijers (1804-40), who introduced him to Arabic philology thro…

(Ar. balāḡa), one of the most general terms to denote eloquence in speech and writing. The branches of literary criticism which developed within Muslim civilization became known collectively as the science ( ʿelm) or art ( ṣenāʿa) of balāḡat. This article is available in print. Volume III, Fascicle 6, pp. 571-572 BALĀḠAT (Arabic balāḡa), one of the most general terms to denote eloquence in speech and writing. Its etymology is usually based on the meaning “to reach” of the verb balaḡa. Therefore baloḡa “to be eloquent” is taken to mean: to be able “to convey” the intended mean…

rhetorical embellishment. During the early Islamic period the word developed into a technical term through its use in discussions about Arabic poetry and ornate prose. This article is available in print. Volume III, Fascicle 4, pp. 372-376 BADĪʿ, rhetorical embellishment. The Arabic word badīʿ refers in general to the concept of novelty. In the Koran the Creator is named badīʿ al-samawāt wa’l-arż (2:117; 6:101), which implies that the act of creation was without precedent and not dependent on any model. As an adjective with a passive meaning, the word may…

Courts and courtiers i. In the Median and Achaemenid periods, ii. In the Parthian and Sasanian periods, iii. In the Islamic period to the Mongol conquest, iv. Under the Mongols, v. Under the Timurid and Turkman dynasties, vi. In the Safavid period, vii. In the Qajar period, viii. In the reign of Reżā Shah Pahlavī, ix. In the reign of Moḥammad-Reżā Shah. See SUPPLEMENT, x. Court poetry This article is available in print. Volume VI, Fascicle 4, pp. 356-388 COURTS AND COURTIERS i. In the Median and Achaemenid periods Available information on the Median and Achaemenid imperial courts is…

mystic and poet of the 14th century who used ʿEmād or, more rarely, ʿEmād-e Faqīh, as a pen name. This article is available in print. Volume VIII, Fascicle 4, pp. 378-379 ʿEMĀD-AL-DĪN ʿALĪ FAQĪH KERMĀNĪ, mystic and poet of the 8th/14th century who used ʿEmād or, more rarely, ʿEmād-e Faqīh, as a pen name. He was born in Kermān toward the end of the 7th/13th century. Both his father, Maḥmūd Faqīh, and ʿEmād-al-Dīn were religious scholars and mystics whose spiritual pedigree reached back, through the teacher Neẓām-al-Dīn Maḥmūd, to…

(b. Vlissingen, Flushing, April 7, 1590; d. Leiden, Dec. 23, 1642), Dutch orientalist. This article is available in print. Volume VII, Fascicle 4, pp. 397-398 DIEU, LOUIS (LUDOVICUS) DE, Dutch Orientalist (b. Vlissingen, Flushing, April 7, 1590; d. Leiden, Dec. 23, 1642). His father Daniel de Dieu (1540-1607) was a Calvinist minister at Brussels, who in 1585 fled from the Spanish army to Flushing in the Protestant province of Zeeland. Louis studied theology and Oriental languages (Hebrew, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic) i…