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is in the technical language of Persian and Turkish literature a set of five mat̲h̲nawī poems. The term is used, first of all, to designate the five epic poems of Niẓāmī [ q.v.] of Gand̲j̲a which were composed between ca. 570/1174-5 and 600/1203-4. The set contains one didactic poem Mak̲h̲zan al-asrār , in the metre sarīʿ-i maṭwiyy-i mawḳūf ; three romantic poems: Laylā u Mad̲j̲nūn in the metre hazad̲j̲-i musaddas-i maḳbūḍ-i maḥd̲h̲ūf , K̲h̲usraw u S̲h̲īrīn in the metre hazad̲j̲-i musaddas-i maḥd̲h̲ūf , and Haft Paykar in the metre k̲h̲afīf-i mak̲h̲būn-i maḳsūr ; and the Iskandarnāma …

, Sayyid (or Mīr) Muḥammad Ḥusayn , a modern Persian poet. He was born about 1905 at Tabrīz as the son of a lawyer, and belonging to a family of sayyid s in the village of K̲h̲us̲h̲gnāb. In his early work he used the pen name Bahd̲j̲at, which he later changed to S̲h̲ahriyār, a name chosen from the Dīwān of Ḥāfiẓ, who was his great model as a writer of g̲h̲azal s. He read medicine at the Dār al-Funūn in Tehran, but left his studies unfinished to become a government clerk in K̲h̲urāsān. After some time he returned to Tehran, where for many years…

, S̲h̲ams al-S̲h̲uʿarāʾ Kamāl al-Dīn , Persian poet of the early Ṣafawid period, born ca. 1500 in Kās̲h̲ān. According to the most reliable sources, he died in 996/1587-8; a ¶ less likely dating of his death, given by Abū Ṭālib Iṣfahānī in K̲h̲ulāṣat al-afkār (see Storey i/2, 878), is 1000/1591-2. For some time he was a draper ( bazzāz ) like his father, but he abandoned this trade for the more profitable career of a professional poet. His work was appreciated at the Ṣafawid court at Ḳazwīn. He seems to have continued, however, to l…

, or Niẓām al-Dīn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Zākānī, Persian poet of the Mongol period who became especially famous for his satires and parodies. He was born into a family of scholars and state officials descending from Arabs of the Banū Ḵh̲afād̲j̲a [ q.v.] settled in the area of Ḳazwīn since early Islamic times. In 730/1329-30 the historian Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī described him as a talented poet and a writer of learned treatises. A collection of Arabic sayings by prophets and wise men, entitled Nawādir al-amt̲h̲āl , belongs to this early period. When later in the same …

, or K̲h̲ard̲j̲ird, has been the name of at least two different places in northeastern Persia but is at present only current for one of them. 1. K̲h̲argird in the s̲h̲ahristān of Turbat-i Ḥaydariyya, or, more precisely, the dihistān of Rūd-i miyān K̲h̲wāf, is situated at about 6 km. to the southwest of the latter place. It is now a small settlement, the inhabitants of which live on the growing of cereals and cotton as well as on weaving. Archaeological remains point, however, to a much more prosperous past when K̲h̲argird was one of the main urban centres of the district of K̲h̲wāf [ q.v.]. Many m…

(a.), “King of the Poets”, honorific title of a Persian poet laureate, which is also known in other forms. It was the highest distinction which could be given to a poet by a royal patron. Like other honorifics [see laḳab ], it confirmed the status of its holder within his profession and was regarded as a permanent addition to his name which sometimes even became a hereditary title. Corresponding to this on a lower level was the privilege, given occasionally to court poets, of choosing a pen name [see tak̲h̲alluṣ ] based on the name or one of the laḳab s of their patron. Certain responsibilities we…

(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. …

, 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…

(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 , was completed in 598/1202 by Muḥammad b. G̲h̲āzī al-Malaṭyawī (or Malaṭī) and was …

b. Āḳā K̲h̲ān , Persian anthologist and poet, who is also known by his penname Ād̲h̲ar which he adopted after having used the names Wālih and Nak̲h̲at previously. He was descended from a prominent Turcoman family belonging to the Begdīlī tribe of Syria (Begdīlī-i S̲h̲āmlū) which had joined the Ḳi̊zi̊lbās̲h̲ movement [ q.v.] in the 9th/15th century. Afterwards, the family settled down in Iṣfahān. Many of his relatives served the later Ṣafawids and Nādir S̲h̲āh as administrators and diplomats. Luṭf ʿAlī Beg was born on Saturday 20 Rabīʿ II 1134/7 F…

, S̲h̲araf al-Dīn Ḥasan b. Muḥammad, Persian rhetorician and poet, who ¶ flourished in the middle of the 8th/14th century. Very little is known about his life and the few chronological indications that we possess are either imprecise or unreliable. Dawlats̲h̲āh states that he was the poet laureate ( malik al-s̲h̲uʿarāʾ [ q.v.]) of ʿIrāḳ during the reign of the Muẓaffarid S̲h̲āh Manṣūr (reigned 789-95/1387-93), but dedications in his two most important works prove that he attended the court of Sultan Abu ’l-Fatḥ Uways Bahādur or S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Uways (757-76/1356-74) of the D̲j̲alāyirids [ q.…

, the principal hero of the Iranian epic, especially in the version of Firdawsī [ q.v.]. 1. In Iranian legend. Neither his name nor that of his father Zāl occur in the Avesta. In the Yas̲h̲t s, Kərəsāspa (in Persian, Kars̲h̲āsp or Gars̲h̲āsp) is the most important heroic figure. Marquait conjectured that originally “Rustam” was no more than an epithet of Kərəsāspa, which only by chance was not attested in the extant Avestan texts. The exploits later attributed to Rustam would be the result of a blend of the l…

, Mad̲j̲d al-Dīn Abu ’l-Ḥasan , a Persian poet of the second half of the 4th/10th century. In some later sources his kunya is given as Abū Isḥāḳ, but the form given above can be found already in an early source like the Čahār makāla . The Dumyat al-ḳaṣr by al-Bāk̲h̲arzī contains a reference to the “solitary ascetic” ( al-mud̲j̲tahid al-muḳīm bi-nafsihi ) Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad al-Kisāʾī of Marw who might very well be identical with this poet (cf. A. Ates, giriş to his edition of Kitāb Tarcumān al-balāġa , 97 f.). The pen name Kisāʾī would, according to ʿAw…

b. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, Niẓām al-Dīn Abu ’l-Maʿālī, also known as Naṣr Allāh Muns̲h̲ī, a Persian author and statesman who was born at G̲h̲azna in a family which came from S̲h̲īrāz. He served as a secretary in the dīwān of the G̲h̲aznawids. Under K̲h̲usraw Malik (555-82/1160-86) he rose to the rank of a vizier but he fell into disgrace with this sultan and was executed while in prison (cf. ʿAwfī, Lubāb , i, 92 ff.). Naṣr Allāh Muns̲h̲ī’s fame rests on his version ( Tard̲j̲uma ) of the Indian mirror for princes Kalīla wa Dimna [ q.v.] into Persian prose, which was based on the Arabic of ʿAbd Allā…

(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.), 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…

, “the Madman of Laylā”, or Mad̲j̲nūn Banī ʿĀmir, the name given to the hero of a romantic love story, the original form of which could date back as far as the second half of the 1st/7th Century. 1. In Arabic literature This imaginary character (acknowledged as such even by some Arab critics; see Ag̲h̲ānī , ed. Beirut, ii, 6, 11) has been furnished by the ruwāt with an ism and with a complete genealogy; Ḳays b. al-Mulawwaḥ b. Muzāḥim b. Ḳays b. ʿUdas b. Rabīʿa b. D̲j̲aʿda b. Kaʿb b. Rābīʿa b. ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa, but according to the evidence, …

(p.) or S̲h̲ahrās̲h̲ūb (“upsetting the town”), a genre of short love poems on young craftsmen, often related to the bazaars of specific towns. 1. In Persian In Persian literature, the genre is usually referred to under the latter name. E.J.W. Gibb’s contention that the genre was invented by the Turkish poet Mesīḥī [ q.v.] of Edirne ( HOP, ii, 232), was challenged already by E.G. Browne who, pointing to Persian specimens mentioned by the Ṣafawid anthologist Sām Mīrzā [ q.v.], concluded that “though they were probably written later than Masíḥí’s Turkish S̲h̲ahr-angíz …

(a.), anthology, selection of poetry. 1. In Arabic. Mediaeval tradition holds that the oldest anthology of Arabic poems is the small collection of celebrated pre-Islamic ḳaṣīda s variously known as “the seven long poems”, al-Muʿallaḳāt [ q.v.], al-Sumūṭ , etc. It is probably the oldest in conception. The early ʿAbbāsid period saw the compilation of the celebrated Mufaḍḍaliyyāt [ q.v.]. Al-Aṣmaʿī’s anthology of 92 ḳaṣīdas by 71 poets (44 of them D̲j̲āhilī), the Aṣmaʿiyyāt , received relatively little attention from mediaeval writers. A comment in the Fihrist ,…