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abu ’l-ḳāsim , Persian revolutionary poet and satirist, was born in Ḳazwīn ca. 1880, and after studying Persian, Arabic, calligraphy and music, became a rawḍak̲h̲ w ān , an occupation that he abandoned after his father’s death. ¶ At 17 he married a young girl against her parents’ wishes, and two years later was obliged to divorce her; he never married again. Leaving for Tehran, he took service at the court of Muẓaffar al-Dīn S̲h̲āh, where his singing attracted the attention of the sovereign and leading courtiers. Court life, howeve…

, lit. “tea-house”, a term covering a range of establishments in Iran serving tea and light refreshments, and patronised mainly by the working and lower middle classes. The term ḳahwa-k̲h̲āna , “coffee-house”, is used almost synonymously, though coffee is never served. This latter name, however, tells us something of the history of this institution, for most of which we have to rely ¶ on the accounts of the European travellers. One of the earliest references occurs in Chardin’s Voyages (ii, 321), where in his description of Iṣfahān in about 1670 he s…

, one of the names for gipsies in Persia; parallel forms are: in Persian, lūrī , lōrī ( Farhang-i D̲j̲ahāngīrī ); in Balūčī, lōṛī (Denys Bray, Census of Baluchistan , 1911, iv, 143, gives the popular etymology from lōṛ = “lot, share”). The name lūlī is first found in a legend relating to the reign of Bahrām Gūr (420-38 A.D.). At the request of this Sāsānid King, who wished to amuse his subjects, the Indian king S̲h̲angal (?) sent to Persia 4,000 (12,000) Indian musicians. Ḥamza (350/961), ed. Berlin-Kaviani, 38, calls them al-Zuṭṭ [ q.v.], Firdawsī (Mohl, vi, 76-7), Lūriyān; T̲h̲aʿālibī, G̲h̲ur…

, mīrzā muḥammad ṣādiḳ adīb al-mamālik , Persian poet and journalist, was born at Kāzarān near Sulṭānābād (mod. Arāk) in 1860. On his father’s side he was directly descended from Mīrzā Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Ḳāʾimmaḳām Farāhānī, statesman and writer of the early 19th century, while his mother was a member of the same family. After his father’s death in 1874 the family was in serious financial difficulties, until in 1890 Mīrzā Ṣādiḳ took service with Amīr-i Niẓām Garrūsī, whom he accompanied to Tabriz, Kirmāns̲h̲āh and Tehran. During this period he acquired the titles Amīr al-S̲h̲uʿarāʾ (whence his t…

, Persian journalist and poet, was born in Ras̲h̲t in 1871. He completed his early studies in Ḳazwīn, and from 1883 to 1888 was a theological student in Nad̲j̲af. Returning to Ras̲h̲t, he earned his living as a letter-writer until the Revolution of 1906, when he began the publication of Nasīm-i S̲h̲imāl (a name that he also sometimes used as his tak̲h̲allūṣ ). This weekly journal was suppressed after the counterrevolution of Muḥammad ʿAlī S̲h̲āh in 1908, but the following years As̲h̲raf accompanied the Constitutionalist forces on thei…

(a.), pl. ḳiṣaṣ , the term which, after a long evolution, is now generally employed in Arabic for the novel, whilst its diminutive uḳṣūṣa , pl. aḳāṣīṣ , has sometimes been adopted, notably by Maḥmūd Taymūr [ q.v.] as the equivalent of “novella, short story”, before being ineptly replaced by a calque from the English “short story”, ḳiṣṣa ḳaṣīra . The sections of the following article are largely devoted to these literary genres as they are cultivated in the various Islamic literatures, even if the word ḳiṣṣa is not itself used by them. Although some Berber tongues use the Arabic term ( Iḳiṣṣt …

, sayyid aḥmad , Persian poet, was born ca. 1844 in the district of Pīs̲h̲āwar (Peshawar) in north-west India to a clan of nomadic sayyids who traced their spiritual lineage back to S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Suhrawardī. While he was still a boy, his father and most of his male relatives were killed in fighting against the British government. He himself escaped to Kābul, and after spending several years in G̲h̲aznīn, Harāt and Turbat-i S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ D̲j̲am, settled in Mas̲h̲had, where he studied under a number …

(also Lāṭī, Lawāṭa-kār), in current Persian strictly speaking an itinerant entertainer accompanied by a monkey, bear or goat, which dances to the sound of a drum and coarse songs. This however appears to have been a late restriction of the meaning of the term, deriving perhaps from its ¶ earlier use to describe a jester attached to a royal or princely court. In other contexts, it is equivalent to a loose liver, gambler, wine-bibber, and more especially, a pederast. The last meaning lends colour to the generally accepted derivation, through Arabic lūṭī , lawwāṭ , fro…

( Lenkoran ), the chief town of the district of the same name in the region of Bākū. Lenkoran is the Russian pronunciation of the name, which was at one time written Langarkunān (“anchorage”), or perhaps Langar-kanān (“place which pulls out the anchors”), which is pronounced Länkarän in Persian and Lankon in Tālis̲h̲ī. The ships of the Bākū-Enzelī [ q.v.] line used formerly to call at Lankoran, which has an open roadstead, but at 8 miles north-east of the town is the island of Sara, which has an excellent roadstead which shelters the ships in bad weather. In the district of Lankoran, de Mor…

“the animal kingdom”, Arabic word derived from a Semitic root (cf. Hebrew ) implying a notion of life ( ḥayāt [ q.v.]). It is attested only once in the Ḳurʾān (XXIX, 64), where it means “the true life” and is used of the other world; the dictionaries state that a spring of Paradise is also called by this name, but the most usual meaning of ḥayawān , used as a singular or a collective, is an animal or animals in general, including man, who is more precisely called al-ḥayawān al-nāṭiḳ . 1. Lexicography. The fauna of the Arabian peninsula has been covered under al-ʿarab , d̲j̲azīrat …

, Fāṭima Umm Salmā , also known as D̲h̲akīya, Zarrīn-tād̲j̲, Ṭāhira (see below), Persian poetess and Bābī martyr, was born in Ḳazwīn in 1231/1814, the eldest daughter of a famous mud̲j̲tahid , Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ Mullā Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Barag̲h̲ānī. She was educated in Ḳazwīn, and became proficient in the Islamic sciences. She was married to Mullā Muḥammad, the son of her uncle Mullā Muḥammad Taḳī, by whom she had three sons, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Ismāʿīl, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Ibrāhīm and S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Isḥāḳ, and one daughter. While staying with him in Karbalā, she j…