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, long poème narratif en persan de Fak̲h̲r al-dīn Asʿad Gurgānī [ q.v.], écrit peu après 441 /1050 et dédié à Abū Naṣr b. Manṣūr, gouverneur d’Iṣfahān au nom des Sald̲j̲ūḳides. Le conte, qui se passe dans un passé lointain non précisé, traite de l’histoire d’amour entre Wīs, femme du Roi Mōbad de Merv, et Rāmīn, le jeune frère de son mari. Il raconte comment les deux amants se rencontrent, comment ils sont découverts par la suite, et comment Rāmīn se rebelle contre son frère, s’emparant finalement du trône …

, les 12e et 13e lettres de l’alphabet arabe. Les deux lettres ont la même forme ( rasm), qui dérive de celle de la lettre araméenne s̲h̲īn, et ne se distinguent que par le diacritisme : le s̲h̲īn a trois points au-dessus, tandis que le sīn est en principe non-ponctué ( muhmal). Toutefois, dans des manuscrits soignés, il peut se distinguer par un chevron au-dessus, ou encore par trois points au-dessous. Dans la forme orientale de l’ abd̲j̲ad [ q.v.], le sīn occupe la position du semkat̲h̲ araméen et, comme lui, possède la valeur numérique 60; le s̲h̲īn a pour sa part la position du s̲h̲īn araméen (…

(p.), nom d’un oiseau mythique. Deux passages de l’ Avesta font allusion à l’«oiseau Saēna-» ( marayō saēnō; Yaišt, 14/41) ou à l’«arbre de Saēna-» ( vanam yam saēnahe; Yašt, 12:17). Ce dernier passage spécifie que cet arbre se tient au milieu du lac Vourukasa, que son nom est «Tous-remèdes» et qu’il porte les semences de toutes les plantes. Le mot saēna- est étymologiquement identique au sanskrit śyēiá-, «aigle, faucon». Mais il ne ressort pas clairement des deux passages avestiques qu’il désigne une espèce déterminée d’oiseau (encore que Saēnaapparaisse ailleurs dans l’ Avesta comme …

, poète persan de la première moitié du VIe/XIIe siècle. Son dīwān, qui a été publié deux fois (éd. ʿAlī Ḳawira, Téhéran 1331 S̲h̲./1952-3, et éd. M. ʿA. Nāṣiḥ, Téhéran 1343, S̲h̲./1964…

, 27e lettre de l’alphabet arabe (ou 26e, si le hāʾ est placé après le wāw), ayant pour valeur numérique 6. Il a deux fonctions principales dans l’orthographe de l’arabe, représentant soit la semi-voyelle w soit la voyelle longue ū. La grammaire arabe traditionnelle réduit ces deux fonctions à une seule en analysant le ū comme un u bref ( ḍamma) plus un wāw. Le wāw sert également (comme le alif et le yāʾ) de «support» au hamza [ q.v.] médian ou final, ce qui reflète la situation, selon l’avis le plus communément admis, dans l’ancien dialecte de La Mecque, où le ʾ semble être devenu un w dans certaine…

, troisième et seizième lettres de l’alphabet arabe, avec les valeurs numériques dans le système d’ a…

(a.), ou Ṣābī, pl. Ṣābiʾūn, Ṣābiʾa, Ṣāba, les Sabéens (ne pas confondre avec le peuple portant le même nom en français, ci-dessus s.v. Sabaʾ). Nom appliqué en arabe à au moins trois communautés religieuses entièrement distinctes: (1) Les Ṣābiʾūn qui apparaissent trois fois dans le Ḳurʾān (II, 62; V, 609; XXII, 17) associés aux Chrétiens et aux Juifs. Leur identité, très controversée chez les commentateurs musulmans comme chez les orientalistes modernes, était de toute évidence déjà incertaine peu après l’époque de Muḥammad, et le re…

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“king of kings”, two royal titles in Persian.…

, the 12th and 13th letters of the Arabic alphabet. Both letters have the same form ( rasm ), which derives from that of the Aramaic letter s̲h̲īn , and are distinguished only by diacritics, s̲h̲īn having three dots above, while sīn is in principle unpointed ( muhmal ), though in carefully written manuscripts it can be distinguished by a V-shaped sign above the letter, or else by three dots below. In the Eastern form of the abd̲j̲ad [ q.v.], sīn occupies the position of Aramaic semkat̲h̲ and, like this, has the numerical value 60, while s̲h̲īn has the position of Aramaic s̲h̲īn ( = 300), but in th…

(or perhaps better, S̲h̲uhayd) b. al-Ḥusayn al-Balk̲h̲ī al-Warrāḳ al-Mutakallim, Abu ’l-Ḥasan, a philosopher and a poet in Persian and Arabic, died (according to Yāḳūt, followed by al-Ṣafadī) in 315/927. He was a contemporary and close friend of the polymath Abū Zayd al-Balk̲h̲ī and of the Muʿtazilī theologian Abu ’l-Ḳāsim al-Balk̲h̲ī (see al-balk̲h̲ī ; the three Balk̲h̲īs were the subject of a joint biography, used by Yāḳūt) and a bitter rival of the famous philosopher Abū Bakr al-Rāzī [ q.v.]; the latter wrote a polemic against S̲h̲ahīd on the subject of pleasure ( al-lad̲h̲d̲h̲a …

(p.) “province”, “provincial capital”, “[large] town”. The…

, the 28th letter of the Arabic alphabet, with the numerical value 10. It stands for the semivowel y and for the long vowel ī , which the grammarians analyse as short i ( kasra ) plus yāʾ . For the shortening of final -ī before hamzat al-waṣl , see wāw . ϒāʾ is also used, like alif and wāw, as a “support” for medial or final hamza [ q.v.], reflecting presumably the ancient Ḥid̲j̲āzī dialect loss of hamza in certain positions with concomitant glides. In word-final position, alif maḳṣūra (that is to say: long ā not followed by hamza) is written sometimes with alif and sometimes with yāʾ. In the latter c…

(better Sōzanī), Muḥammad b. ʿAlī (or Masʿūd?) al-Samarḳandī, Persian satirical poet of the 6th/12th century. A native of Nasaf (Nak̲h̲s̲h̲ab), he eulogised several of the Ḳarak̲h̲ānid rulers of Samarḳand, from Arslān S̲h̲āh Muḥammad II (495- …

(a.), or, with the usual weakening of final hamza , Ṣābī , plural Ṣābiʾūn , Ṣābiʾa , Ṣāba , in English “Sabian” (preferably not “Sabaean”, which renders Sabaʾ [ q.v.]), a name applied in Arabic to at least three entirely different religious communities: (1) the Ṣābiʾūn who are mentioned three times in the Ḳurʾān (II 62, V 69, XXII 17) together with the Christians and Jews. Their identity, which has been much debated both by the Muslim commentators and by modern orientalists, was evidently uncertain already shortly after the time of Muḥamma…

, Kitāb , “the Letter of Tansar”, a political treatise from Sāsānid Persia, known in the Islamic world through an Arabic translation, probably by Ibn al-Muḳaffaʿ [ q.v.], from a lost original in Pahlavi. It was ostensibly written by “Tansar” (a misreading, in Pahlavi script, for Tusar, perhaps an abbreviation of * Tus-artēs̲h̲tār , Avestan Tusa-raθaēštar- “T. the warrior”), the chief priest of the first Sāsānid king, Ardas̲h̲īr I ( ca. 224-40), to Gus̲h̲tāsp, the king of Ṭabaristān, encouraging him to submit to Ardas̲h̲īr and, more generally, justifying the Sāsāni…

a Persian poet of the first half of the 6th/12th century. His dīwān , which has been published twice (ed. ʿAlī Ḳawīm, Tehran 1331 S̲h̲ ./1952-3, and ed. M.ʿA. Nāṣiḥ, Tehran 1343 S̲h̲./1964), consists almost entirely of panegyrics praising the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan Sand̲j̲ar (511-52/1118-57), the Ḵh̲wārazms̲h̲āh Atsi̊z (521-68/1127-72) and various persons at their respective courts, in particular Sand̲j̲ar’s raʾīs-i Ḵh̲urāsān , Mad̲j̲d al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Musawī, the poet’s principal patron. The rivalry between his two royal master…

, the pen-name of several Persian poets of various periods, among them the author of the Saʿādat-nāma , a collection of moral precepts in some 300 verses, wrongly ascribed, in mss. and in the printed editions, to the famous 5th/11th-century Ismāʿīlī poet Nāṣir-i K̲h̲usraw [ q.v.]. This poem was first published by E. Fagnan, together with a (rather inadequate) French translation, from a Paris manuscript in ZDMG, xxxiv (1880), 643-74, reprinted (from Fagnan, with some emendations) in the appendix to the edition of Nāṣir’s Safar-nāma published in Berlin, Kavi…

, the 27th letter of the Arabic alphabet (or the 26th, if hāʾ is placed after wāw ), with the numerical value 6. It has two principal functions in Arabic orthography, standing either for the semivowel w or for the long vowel ū . Traditional Arabic grammar reduces these two functions to one by analysing ū as short u ( ḍamma ) plus wāw. Wāw also serves (like alif and yāʾ ) as a “support” for medial or final hamza [ q.v.], reflecting, according to the most commonly held view, the situation in the ancient dialect of Mecca, where ʾ appears to have shifted to w in certain positions. In the words ulāʾika and ulū , w…

(properly Rōd̲h̲akī, arabicised as al-Rūd̲h̲akī) the leading Persian poet during the first half of the 4th/10th century and author of the earliest substantial surviving fragments of Persian verse. Al-Samʿānī gives his name as Abū ʿAbd Allāh D̲j̲aʿfar b. Muḥammad b. Ḥakīm b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Ādam al-Rūd̲h̲akī al-S̲h̲āʿir al-Samarḳandī, says that he was born in Rōd̲h̲ak, a suburb of Samarḳand, and that he als…