Table of Contents

• FISCHEL, WALTER JOSEPH

  David Yeroushalmi

  (b. 12 November 1902; d. 14 July 1973), a scholar of Oriental Jewry and Islamic civilization.

• FISH

  Multiple Authors

  With about 1,800 km of coastline along the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, and about 990 km on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, plus some inland fresh waters, Persia has a great variety of aquatic fauna: mollusks, crustaceans, chelonians, mammals (dolphins, whales, seals), and particularly, fishes. Thus the country has rich aquatic resources and considerable potential for fishing and aquaculture.

• FISH i. FRESHWATER FISHES

  Brian W. Coad

  With about 1,800 km of coastline along the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman, and about 990 km on the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, plus some inland fresh waters, Persia has a great variety of aquatic fauna: mollusks, crustaceans, chelonians, mammals, and especially fishes.

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• FISH ii. SALT WATER FISHES

  Hušang Aʿlam

  This article deals mainly with the most economically important or otherwise remarkable fishes (except the caviar-yielding Acipenseridae, for which see CAVIAR).

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• FISH iii. IN PRE-ISLAMIC PERSIAN LORE

  Hušang Aʿlam

  The Bundahišn (q.v.) contains interesting pseudo-scientific, mythical, and sometimes inconsistent information about fishes.

• FISH iv. FISH AS FOOD

  NAJMIEH BATMANGLIJ

  Although fish is the main source of animal protein along the northern and southern coasts of Persia, it is not much eaten in the rest of the country but in a smoked form as a delicacy traditionally served with rice and fresh herbs on the first day of the new year at the end of the zodiacal month of Pisces.

• FISHERIES

  Houshang Alam

  There was no real fishing organization in Persia until the second half of the 19th century when Russian subjects, encouraged and backed by the Tsarist Russia’s expansionist policy, becameinncreasingly involved in coastal and fluvial fishing activities in the Caspian provinces of Persia.

• FITZGERALD, EDWARD

  Dick Davis

  (1809-1883),  British translator of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (by far the most famous translation ever made from Persian verse into English), as well as Jāmī’s Salāmān o Absāl and ʿAṭṭār’s Manṭeq al-ṭayr.

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• FLAGS

  Multiple Authors

  This article is meant to supplement earlier entries on Iranian vexillology (see ʿALAM VA ʿALĀMAT, BANNERS, and DERAFŠ).

• FLAGS i. Of Persia

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  The earliest-known representation of lion and sun as a banner device is a miniature painting illustrating a copy, dated 1423, of the Šāh-nāma of Šams-al-Dīn Kāšānī—an epic composition on the Mongol conquest. A similar early depiction is on a large, double-paged miniature dated ca. 1460.

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• FLAGS ii. Of Afghanistan

  Habib Borjian

  Nāder Shah’s (1929-33) policy of moderate reforms was reflected in the flag he reportedly used when he seized power—the tricolor flag introduced by Amān-Allāh; it was soon modified as a bound sheaf of wheat circling a stylized mosque, which recalls the mausoleum of Aḥmad Shah Dorrānī.

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• FLAGS iii. of Tajikistan

  Habib Borjian

  On 28 April 1929, the constitution of the Tajik ASSR adopted a state arms and flag. The arms consisted of a hammer (bālḡa) and local sickle (dās) symbol against a star, which depicts a blue sky brightened by golden rays of sun rising above snowy mountains. The star is encircled on each side by wreaths of wheat and cotton.

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• FLANDIN AND COSTE

  Jean Calmard

  a French painter and an architect renowned for their outstanding illustrated account of their travels in Persia during 1839-41. Coste took responsibility for the architectural renderings and monumental plans; Flandin, the representation of architectural details, large tomb reliefs, and picturesque views.

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• FLANDIN, Eugène Napoléon Jean-Baptiste

  Cross-Reference

  (1809-1889), French orientalist, painter, archeologist, and politician, famous for the illustrated account of his travels in Persia. See FLANDIN AND COSTE.

• FLOODS

  Eckart Ehlers, Charles Melville

  (sayl, sayl-āb) in Persia. i. Geographical survey. ii. Historical survey. Surplus or deficit of water, mainly caused by Persia’s topography, undergoes seasonal variations with decisively stronger precipitation during the winter months, which explains why floods occur predominantly during these periods.

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• FLORA

  Multiple Authors

  i. Historical Background. ii. In Persia. iii. In Afghanistan

• FLORA i. Historical Background

  Karl Hummel

  The indigenous knowledge of plants in Persia had a long standing tradition before the country’s flora was explored by Europeans, who were eventually joined in modern scientific botany by Persian botanists.

• FLORA ii. IN PERSIA

  Wolfgang Frey, Harald Kürschner, Wilfried Probst

  With approximately six thousand recorded species of ferns and flowering plants, Persia harbors one of the richest floras of the Near Eastern countries, ranging from subtropical forests to dry-adapted woodlands, dwarf shrubs and thorn cushion formations, and semidesert shrublands.

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• FLORA iii. In Afghanistan

  Cross-Reference

  See AFGHANISTAN ii. Flora.

• FLORA IRANICA

  Wolfgang Frey

  a monumental work on the plants of Persia. Edited by Karl Heinz Rechinger of Vienna since 1963, Flora Iranica now consists of some 172 fascicles and is nearly complete. Only two spermatophyte families, the Cyperaceae and the Rubiaceae, are as yet lacking