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I. Historical and Ethnographical Survey. (J. H. Kramers) II. Language and Dialects. (H. W. Bailey) III. Modern Persian Literature. (E. Berthels) I. Historical and Ethnographical Survey. Name. The name Persia is of Western origin and probably only in the Middle Ages began to be used for the countries occupying the Iranian plateau (in Plautus Persia is found once instead of Persis). It is derived from the Greek-Roman appellation “Persae” for the Achæmenids, an appellation that goes back to the name of the region of Persis …

, a famous Persian calligrapher, pupil of the celebrated Mīr Saiyid Aḥmad Mas̲h̲hadī and teacher of the ¶ no less famous Mīr ʿImād. His remarkable command of the art of calligraphy, so popular in Persia, brought him the title of honour Mihīn Ustād (greatest master). His father Mīrzā S̲h̲ukrullāh was Mustawfī al-Mamālik to the Ṣafawid Ṭahmāsp I (1521—1576), the master himself, according to the Oriental sources, was vizier to S̲h̲āh Ismāʿīl II (1576—1578) but lost the favour of the sovereign and was forced to fly to India where he remained to his …

(d. 933 = 1526—1527), a Persian writer, author of the famous Futūḥ al-Ḥaramain, a poetical description of the two holy cities, Mecca and Medīna, which also contains a full account of all the rites of the obligatory pilgrimage ( ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲). This book, written in 911 (1506) and dedicated to Muẓaffar b. Maḥmūd S̲h̲āh of Gud̲j̲arāt (917— 932 = 1511—1526), was for a long time wrongly attributed to the celebrated poet ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ḏj̲āmī. Muḥyī Lārī was a pupil of the great philosopher Muḥammad al-Dawānī (d. 907 = 1501) and made use of h…

, a Persian mystic. Amīr Nūr al-Dīn Niʿmat Allāh, son of Mīr ʿAbd Allāh, and a descendant of the fifth imām of the S̲h̲īʿa, Bākir, the founder of the Niʿmat Allāhī order, is highly esteemed in Persia as a great saint and wonder-worker. He was born in Ḥalab in ¶ 730—731 (1329—1330/1), spent his early years in the ʿIrāḳ and went to Mecca at the age of 24 where he became a pupil and k̲h̲alīfa of the famous S̲h̲aik̲h̲ ʿAbd Allāh Yāfiʿī [see yāfiʿī]. After his teacher’s death, he went to Samarḳand, then visited Herāt and Yazd and finally settled in Māhān, 8 farsak̲h̲s from Kirmān, …

, Amīr Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik, one of the most famous of Persian court poets. His place of birth is not exactly known. According to most of the sources he was born in Samarḳand about 440 (1048—1049) but Nasā and Nīs̲h̲āpūr are also mentioned. The son of a little known poet ʿAbd al-Malik Burhānī, who was attached to the court of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ Alp Arslān (1063 —1072), he was introduced to Sulṭān Malik-S̲h̲āh (1072—1092) by Amīr ʿAlī b. Farāmurz, ruler of Yazd (443-488 = 1051/1502—1095), made a favourable impression on the sulṭān and received from him the tak̲h̲alluṣ of Muʿizzī,…

, Muḥammad Riḍā of Ḵh̲abūs̲h̲ān in the vicinity of Mas̲h̲had, a Persian poet. The son of a merchant, in his youth he spent some time in Kās̲h̲ān where he studied under the Mawlānā Muḥtas̲h̲am. Moving to Marw, he became intimate with the Ḥākim Nūr Muḥammad Ḵh̲ān there. Like the majority of Persian poets of the xvith century, however, he was attracted by the brilliant court of the Mog̲h̲uls and went to India where at first he found a patron in the person of Mīrzā Yūsuf Ḵh̲ān Mas̲h̲hadī but soon afterwards entered the service of Ḵh̲ānk̲h̲ānān Mīrzā ʿAb…

whose full name was Muʿīn al-Dīn Muḥammad Amīn b. Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Muḥammad al-Farāhī al-Harawī and whose tak̲h̲alluṣ was Muʿīnī (d. 907=1501—1502), a celebiated traditionist. He studied Ḥadīt̲h̲ for 31 years and throughout this period preached every Friday in the great mosque of Herāt. He was for year ḳāḍī of Herāt but gave up the post by his own request. In 866 (1461—1462) at the request of a friend, he began to write a little book on the life of the Prophet Muḥammad. Out of this little book there grew in time the great biographical work, exceedingly popular in the East, called Maʿārid̲j̲ al-Nubu…

, a Persian poet, born about 1046 (1636—1637), the son of a Ḥusainī Saiyid Mīr Muḥammad Muʾmin of Iṣfahān. Little is known of his life. Only this much is certain, that he, like many other Persian poets of this time, worked in the offices of different Persian dignitaries. For example he was a mustawfī [q. v.] with Ṣadr Mīrzā Ḥabīb Allāh, later occupied the same office in Astarābād and ended his career in 1126 (1714) after being for many years muns̲h̲ī with the Ṣafawid princes S̲h̲āh Sulaimān (1667— 1694) andS̲h̲āh Sulṭān Ḥusain (1694—1722). He owes his fame mainly to alongpoem Gulu-Kus̲h̲tī (“W…

, a Persian poet. Mullā Nāẓim, son of S̲h̲āh Riḍā Sabzawārī, was born in Herāt about 1016 (1607) and spent the greater part of his life there. Little is known of his career, except that he made a journey to India and, after spending several years in Ḏj̲ahāngīrnagar, returned to his native town where he died in 1081 (1670—1671). He was court poet of the Beglerbegīs of Herāt and his greatest work, the Yūsuf u-Zulaik̲h̲ā begun in 1058 (1648) and finished in 1072 (1661—1662), was dedicated to one of these governors, ʿAbbās Ḳūlī Ḵh̲ān S̲h̲āmlū. This, a poem of considerable…

of Sarhind (d. in Dihlī on the 6th Ramaḍān 1108 = March 29, 1697), one of the best of the Persian poets of India, who were by this time very numerous; their productions however are for the most part of little artistic value. Of his life we know only that he travelled a great deal but finally settled in Sarhind were he enjoyed the favour of the governor Saif Ḵh̲ān Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ī and of the Āmir al-Umarāʾ Ḏh̲u ’l-Fiḳār Ḵh̲ān. His principal work is a version of the love story of Madhumalat and Manūhar in P…

Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Wahhāb of Iṣfahān, one of the best Persian poets and stylists of the period of the early Ḳād̲j̲ārs. He was a physician in S̲h̲īrāz and in his native city, devoting his leisure hours to poetry in which he displayed a great facility. He wrote verse in Arabic, Persian and Turkish and was further celebrated for his great skill in s̲h̲ikasta. Rumours of his poetical gifts induced the Kād̲j̲ār Fatḥ ʿAlī S̲h̲āh (1797—1834) to invite him to Ṭeherān as court poet. There Nas̲h̲āṭ soon rose to great honour and in 1809 was appointed Muns̲h̲ī al-Mamālik …

, muns̲h̲iʾ of the Great Moghul Humāyūn (1530—1556), probably identical with Yūsuf b. Muḥammad Yūsufī Harawī, the celebrated physician of Bābur and Humāyūn. He acquired a place in Indian literature with his well-known letter-writer Badāʾiʿ al-Ins̲h̲āʾ, which he composed in 940 (1533—1534) for his son Rafīʿ al-Dīn Ḥusain and several other ṭullāb. The book begins with a muḳaddima on the different ¶ kinds of modes of address which must be regulated by the relation of the correspondents to one another in rank; Yūsufī then divides the different kinds of correspondence ( muḥāwarāt) into thr…

, one of the greatest historians of Persia. Faḍl Allāh Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn b. ʿImād al-Dawla Abu ’l-Ḵh̲air was born in Hamad̲h̲ān about 1247. He began his career in the reign of the Mongol ruler Abāg̲h̲ā Ḵh̲ān (1265—1282) as a practising physician. But as in addition to a remarkable knowledge of medicine he was an exceedingly talented and farseeing statesman, he rose under G̲h̲āzān Ḵh̲ān (1295—1304) from his earlier position to the rank of a ṣadr (and also court historian) which was given him after the execution of Ṣadr-i Ḏj̲ihān Ṣadr al-Dīn Zand̲j̲ānī (May 4, 1298). In 1…

, thirteenth son of the celebrated Rohilla leader Ḥāfiẓ al-Mulk Ḥāfiẓ Raḥmat-Ḵh̲ān (1707-1774) and author of a biography of his father, which he wrote in Persian under the title Gulistān-i Raḥmat. Ḥāfiẓ Raḥmat-Ḵh̲ān, who was an Afg̲h̲ān of the tribe of Yūsuf-zāi by descent, had been since 1748 a chief in Rohilk̲h̲and (Katehr) and throughout his life waged a bitter warfare with the Mahrātās. He fell in 1774 in a fight at Mīrānpūr Katra where he was fighting against the combined forces of the Nawāb of Oudh S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ al-Mulk …

Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Muḳīm al-Harawī, a Persian historian, author of the celebrated Ṭabaḳāt-i Akbars̲h̲āhī. He was a descendant of the famous s̲h̲aik̲h̲ of Harāt, ʿAbd Allāh Anṣārī. His father Ḵh̲ōd̲j̲a Muḳīm Harawī was major-domo to Sulṭān Bäbur(1526—1530) and later vizier to the governor of Gud̲j̲arāt Mīrzā ʿAskarī. Niẓām al-Dīn himself held several high military offices under the Great Mog̲h̲ul Akbar and became in 1585 Bak̲h̲s̲h̲ī of Gud̲j̲arāt and in 1593 even Bak̲h̲s̲h̲ī of the whole empire. According to Badāʾūnī (ii. 397), he died on the 23rd Ṣafar 1003 (Oct. 18, 1594) aged 4…

, Sirād̲j̲ al-Dīn ʿUt̲h̲mān b. Muḥammad al-Muk̲h̲tārī al-G̲h̲aznawī, court poet of the later G̲h̲aznawids Ibrāhīm b. Masʿūd II (1059—1099) and Masʿūd III b. Ibrāhīm (1099—1114). He lived for a considerable period in Kirmān, where he wrote panegyrics on the Sald̲j̲ūḳ Arslān-S̲h̲āh b. Kirmānshāh (1101-1141). The great poet Mad̲j̲d al-Dīn Sanāʾī showed him the greatest reverence and celebrated him in a long ḳaṣīda as the best poet of his time. He could not bave been Sanāʾī’s teacher, as the Bankipore Catalogue (i. 32) says, since he must have been only a yea…

, whose full name was Ḥasan b. Muḥammad S̲h̲araf al-Dīn, a Persian stylist. No details of his life are known; even the few chronological references that we possess are rather vague. His importance lies in his well known work Anīs al-ʿUs̲h̲s̲h̲āḳ, a treatise on the most common poetical figures for describing the different parts of the human body. According to his own statement, the author made up his mind to compile this work while he was in Marāg̲h̲a on a visit to the observatory of the famous Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī. The book is dedicated …

, the founder of the order of the Kubrawīya or Ḏh̲ahabīya, is one of the most striking personalities among the Persian Ṣūfīs of the xiith—xiiith century a. d. A large number of popular legends are associated with his name, many of which are not yet forgotten at the present day in Central Asia. His importance for the development of Ṣūfism is very considerable and in the long series of his pupils we find many distinguished representatives of Ṣūfī ¶ teaching. Nad̲j̲m al-Dīn, whose full name was Aḥmad b, ʿUmar Abu ’l-Ḏj̲annāb Nad̲j̲m al-Dīn al-Kubrā al-Ḵh̲īwaḳī al-Ḵh̲wārizmī with the honorifi…

b. Ḳāḍī Mubārak, known as Ḵh̲alīl Ṣūfī, author of a Persian-Turkish Dictionary, entitled Lug̲h̲at-i Niʿmat Allāh. Born in Sofia, where as an enameller he made a reputation as an artist, he moved to Constantinople and there entered the Naḳs̲h̲bandī order. Association with the Naḳs̲h̲bandī dervishes made him more closely acquainted with literature and ¶ especially with Persian poetry. Niʿmat Allāh decided to make accessible to others the knowledge he had acquired by an ardent study of Persian literature and thus arose his lexicographical work which …

( ca. 1016-81/1607-70), a Persian poet. Mullā Nāẓim, son of S̲h̲āh Riḍā Sabzawārī, was born in Harāt about 1016/1607 and spent the greater part of his life there. Little is known of his career, except that he made a journey to India and, after spending several years in D̲j̲ahāngīrnagar, returned to his native town where he died in 1081/1670-71. He was court poet of the Beglerbegis of Harāt and his greatest work, the Yūsuf ¶ u Zulayk̲h̲ā , begun in 1058/1648 and finished in 1072/1661-2, was dedicated to one of these governors, ʿAbbās Ḳūlī K̲h̲ān S̲h̲…