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(Pahlavi, Frēdun; ancient Iranian, Thraētaona), the son of Abtiyān or Abtīn, one of the early kings of Īrān. The most complete text on the subject is the account of his reign by Firdawsī, in verse; some of the sources for it will be found in pre-Islamic texts. §§ 130-8 of the Yasht s of the Avesta reveal the names of the first kings of Īrān in their original order (the first being Yima [see d̲j̲ams̲h̲īd ]), whose conqueror and murderer, Azhī-Dahāka, was overthrown in his turn and put to death by Thraētaona; the latter was rewarded by a share of the aureole of glory ( hvareno ) …

This poetical name ( tak̲h̲alluṣ ) is probably that of two poets born at Ṭūs (Ḵh̲urāsān): abū naṣr aḥmad b. manṣūr al-ṭūsī and his son ʿali b. aḥmad . According to the extremely doubtful statement of Dawlats̲h̲āh, the father was the pupil of Firdūsī (born ca. 320-2/932-4), while the epic composed by ʿAlī b. Aḥmad is precisely dated 458/1066; H. Ethé concludes from this that it is impossible to attribute to the same author the works placed under the name of Asadī. Thus Abū Naṣr, about whom it is only known that he died during the rule of Masʿūd al-G̲h̲aznawī. becomes the author of the Munāẓarāt …

, Arabic form of the surname of Chosroës I (al-Ṭabarī, I, 862) [see kisrā], in Pahlawi anos̲h̲ag̲h̲-ruvān , in Pazand anos̲h̲-ruān “possessed of an immortal soul”, then in Persian Nūs̲h̲īravān (Nūs̲h̲īrvān), which is popularly explained as nūs̲h̲īn-ravān “possessed of sweet soul” ( Burhān-i Ḳāṭiʿ ). Several persons in Islam bore this name (Zambaur mentions four), particularly a son of Manūčihr and of a daughter of Maḥmūd al-G̲h̲aznawī, who was amīr of Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ān from 420/1029 to 434/1042 (Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, IX, 262), and Anūs̲h̲arwān b. Ḵh̲āli…

, s̲h̲ams al-dīn muḥammad , Persian poet, born in Tabrīz, died in 779 or in 784/1382-3; he was one of the panegyrists of the prince Uways [ q.v.] and is chiefly known for his poem Mihr u Mus̲h̲tarī , at the end of which he gives the date of its completion (10 S̲h̲awwāl 778/1377); this poem consists of 5,120 distichs and was later translated into Turkish. In the words of Ethé ( Gr. I. Phil.), it is "the story of a love, free from every frailty and pure from every sensual lust, between Mihr, the son of S̲h̲ābūrs̲h̲āh, and the comely stripling Mus̲h̲tarī". (H. Massé) Bibliography Von Hammer. Gesch. d. sch…

, Fakhr al-Dīn Asʿad , author of the first known courtly romance in Persian: Wīs and Rāmīn . In the opinion of Z. Safa (ii, 361) his achievement is to have introduced a literary genre which is now represented by a series of works, several of which are worthy of note. What is known of his life is limited to the little that he reveals in his poem. The accounts given by his biographers are negligible but agree in attributing to him the authorship of the poem (with the exception of Dawlat S̲h̲āh, who erroneously att…

, Aḥmad b. ʿUmar b. ʿAlī , took the tak̲h̲alluṣ of Niẓāmī and the honorific Nad̲j̲m al-Dīn (or Niẓām al-Dīn); he was usually called ʿArūḍī (the “prosodist”) to distinguish him from other Niẓāmīs (particularly the great Niẓāmī of Gand̲j̲a [ q.v.], cf. the anecdote quoted by E.G. Browne, Lit . hist . ofPers., ii, 339). According to Browne, Niẓāmī is one of the most interesting and remarkable Persian writers of prose: “one of those who throw most light on the intimate life of Persian and Central Asian Courts in the twelfth century of our era”. He was a court poet who served faithfully the G̲h̲ūrid [ q.…

, Iranian author of a geography written in Arabic, who lived in the 3rd/9th century. Nothing is known of his life and only one of his works survives, in an abridged form. De Goeje introduced his edition of this work with an authoritative preface in which he reproduced the information, of varying reliability, which Ibn al-Nadīm and the geographer al-Muḳaddasī provide on Ibn al-Faḳīh. According to the Fihrist of the former (154), “he produced a Kitāb al-Buldān of a thousand folios, a compilation from various works, in particular that of al-D̲j̲ayhānī…

(Pahlawī: čūbikān ; other forms: čūygān (attested in Ibn Yamīn); čūlgān (cf. čūl , in Vullers, Lexicon persico-latinum ; compare Arabic sawlad̲j̲an ); Greek: τξυκάνιον, French: chicane ), stick used in polo ( bolo : Tibetan‘ ball ’, introduced into England around 1871); used in a wider sense for the game itself, ( gūy-u ) čawgān bāzī , "game of (ball and) čawgān "; also used for any stick with the end bent back, particularly those for beating drums. The čawgān is not the same as the mall ( malleum ), which is a hardwood sledge-hammer. According to Quatremère ( Mamluks , i, 123), the sawlad̲j̲ān …

, the tak̲h̲alluṣ of several Indian poets. The Riyāḍ al-wifāḳ of D̲h̲u ’l-Fiḳār ʿAlī, biographies of Indian poets who wrote in Persian, and the Tad̲h̲kira of Yūsuf ʿAlī K̲h̲ān (analysed by Sprenger, A catalogue of the Arabic, Persian and Hindustan mss… of the King of Oudh , i, 168, 280) mention five of them. The first, a native of Kas̲h̲mīr, lived in Dihlī in the reign of Muḥammad S̲h̲āh (1719-48): his g̲h̲azal s were sung by the dancing-girls.—The most celebrated, however, was Saʿādat Yār K̲h̲ān of Dihlī. His father, Ṭahmāsp Beg K̲h̲ān Tūrānī,…

, zayn al-dīn abū bakr b. ismāʿīl al-warrāḳ , Persian poet who, according to Ethé, died in 527/1132-33 or in 524/1130; but Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḳazwīnī has shown ( Čahār Maḳāla , 175 ff.) that he died certainly before 465/1072-3. He wrote a Dīwān which, among other poems, contains panegyrics on Ṭug̲h̲āns̲h̲āh b. Alp Arslan, the governor of Harāt (not, as is often stated, of Nīs̲h̲āpūr), and on Amīrāns̲h̲āh, the son of Ḳāwurd [ q.v.], the first Sald̲j̲ūḳid sultan of Kirmān. His verses comprise outstanding ḳaṣīdas and ḳiṭʿas ; he excels in descriptive poetry but is s…

( Ṭarṭūsī , Ṭūsī ) Muḥammad b. Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Mūsā , a person otherwise unknown, said to be the author of several novels in prose, prolix in style and of great length, a confused mixture of Arab and Persian legendary traditions, written in Persian and afterwards translated into Turkish. These include Ḳahramān-nāma (about Ḳahramān, a hero from the epoch of Hūs̲h̲ang, semi-mythical king of Īrān), Ḳirān-i Ḥabas̲h̲ī (the story of a hero from the time of the Kayānid king Kay Ḳubād), Dārāb-nāma (history of Darius and Alexander). (H. Massé) Bibliography Firdawsī, Livre des des rois, ed. and tra…

Muḥammad b. ʿUbayd Allāh , Persian writer. His sixth ancestor was Ḥusayn al-Aṣg̲h̲ar, traditionist and son of the Imām Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. His family lived for a long time in Balk̲h̲. He was a contemporary of Nāṣir-i Ḵh̲usraw, whom he may have known and about whom he gives us the earliest information available. ¶ From two passages of his only work Ch. Schefer assumed that he was at the court of the G̲h̲aznawid Sultan Masʿūd III when he composed his Bayān al-Adyān , dated 485/1092, the earliest known work on religions in the Persian language. The first two …

, Ḥamīd al-Dīn Abū Bakr ʿUmar b. Maḥmūd , born in Balk̲h̲, died in 559/1164, a ḳāḍī who in 551/1156 began to compile his collection of twenty-three Ḥamīdian sessions (or scenes) ( maḳāmāt-i Ḥamīdī ) to serve as a pendant in the Persian language to the celebrated Arabic Maḳāmāt of al-Hamad̲h̲ānī and al-Ḥarīrī, as he states in his preface. Like these authors, he subordinated matter to form, above all endeavouring in his writings to show himself as a consummate stylist. For the most part, his maḳāmāt describe some episode in his adventures or travels; others d…

, mythical king of Iran who appears in several of the Yas̲h̲t of the Avesta; the first lawful king and the protégé of the gods, he reigned over the seven climes of the world, over the demons and the sorcerers; according to these texts, he resided in the countries situated to the south of the Caspian Sea. His place in the series of the mythical kings (Pīs̲h̲dādiyān) is vague: sometimes he is the contemporary of Ṭahmūrat̲h̲ [ q.v.], sometimes his successor; sometimes Gayumard comes before both of them. The Pahlavi texts add little to the Avestan texts. The Arabic texts, wh…

, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn Saʿīd Iṣfāhānī, an Iranian philologist, author of the Miʿyār-i D̲j̲amālī va-miftāḥ-i Bū Isḥāḳī (“The bird-trap offered to D̲j̲amāl and the key entrusted to Abu Isḥāḳ”), written in Iṣfahān, after residing in S̲h̲īrāz, and dedicated in 745/1344 to D̲j̲amāl al-Dīn Abū Isḥāḳ Muḥammad, the last prince of the Ind̲j̲ū dynasty [ q.v.]. The work consists of four sections: prosody ( ʿarūḍ ), knowledge of rhyme ( ḳawāfī ), rhetorical devices ( badāʾiʿ al-sanāʾiʿ ), a lexicon intermingled with verses in praise of the pr…

Aḥmad , sayyid of the line of Ḥusayn; his family, natives of Urdubād (Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān), in the time of the Ṣafawids settled in Iṣfahān, where he was born. He was the most notable poet under the dynasties of the Afs̲h̲arīs and the Zand. He divided his time between his native town, Ḳumm and Kās̲h̲ān. He was a man of erudition and a physician, and had a knowledge of Arabic, in which language he wrote some poems; in Persian he was the author of an important collection consisting of ḳaṣidas , g̲h̲azals , rubāʿīs and other short works, in which the influence of Saʿdī …

, Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn Ibrāhīm ʿIrāḳī Hamadānī , eminent Iranian poet and mystic. In spite of its lack of precision, the best source of information on this author, who gives very few autobiographical details in his own works, is an anonymous muḳaddima (introduction), composed in the manner and style of ʿIrāḳī’s own period (the end of the 7th/13th century) or the beginning of the following period. D̲j̲āmī ( Nafaḥāt al-uns ) and Mir K̲h̲wānd ( Ḥabīb al-siyar ) have obtained their information on ʿIrāḳī from this introduction. According to Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī Kazwini, who wrote his Tārīk̲h̲-i guzīd…

b. muḥammad hādī b. ismāʿīl kamāl , Persian scholar and man of letters, “l’un des hommes les plus spirituels et les plus aimables que j’aie rencontrés dans aucune partie du monde” (Gobineau). A descendant of the poet Kamāl K̲h̲ud̲j̲andī [ q.v.], the grandfather of Riḍā Ḳulī, chief of the notables of Čarda Kilāta (district of Dāmg̲h̲ān), was put to death by the partisans of Karīm K̲h̲ān Zand against whom he supported the Ḳād̲j̲ārs (cf. Relation de l’ambassade au Kharezm , tr. Schefer, 203). His father became one of the dignitaries of the court of the Ḳ…

, book of divination. In the Muslim East (especially in Iranian and Turkish countries), in order to know if not the future, at least the signs or circumstances that are auspicious for some decision, recourse is still sometimes made to certain procedures (cf. Massé, Croyances , ch. XI: divination), among others to two kinds of books: 1. collections of poems ( dīwān of Ḥāfiẓ); 2. special works ( fāl-nāma). Consulting the dīwān, an act within the reach of everyone, consists in opening the book at random and interpreting the text which first strikes the eye (for details, see Massé, op. cit., 244-5…

, Iranian personal name (arabicised form Buzurd̲j̲mihr) which according to a tradition transmitted by Iranian and Arab writers, was given to a man endowed with every ability and virtue who was the minister of Ḵh̲usraw I Anūs̲h̲arawān ¶ (6th century A.D.). The earliest authorities who were acquainted with the Pahlawī Ḵh̲vad̲h̲āynāmāg̲h̲ (“Book of Sovereigns”), written towards the end of the Sāsānid period (7th century), the source of the oldest accounts of pre-Islamic Iranian history penned by Arab writers (al-Ṭabarī, Ibn Ḳ…