Table of Contents

• FABLE

  Mahmoud and Teresa P. Omidsalar

  a kind of story often defined as “an animal tale with a moral"; there is no exact Persian equivalent of the term, but the words afsāna, dāstān, hekāyat, qeṣṣa, and samar are used to refer to such stories.

• FABRITIUS, LUDVIG

  Rudi Matthee

  or LODEWYCK (b. Brazil, 1648; died Stockholm, 1729), Swedish envoy to the Safavid court.

• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN

  Multiple Authors

  This article will deal with the faculties of Agriculture, Fine Arts, Law and Political Science, Letters and Humanities, and Medicine, which are among the oldest and most important secular institutions of higher education in Persia. Other faculties of the University of Tehran and main faculties of other major universities will be treated under individual UNIVERSITIES.

• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN i. Faculty of Agriculture

  MOḤAMMAD-ḤASAN MAHDAWĪ ARDABĪLĪ

  The program was full time for three years, and the students’ expenses were paid by the government. All graduates received the equivalent of bachelors’s degrees in agricultural engineering.

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• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN ii. Faculty of Fine Arts

  MORTAŻĀ MOMAYYEZ

  Like most other faculties of the University of Tehran, the Faculty of Fine Arts was created by integrating already existing institutions.

• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN iii. Faculty of Law and Political Science

  Ahmad Ashraf

  one of the oldest institutions of modern higher education in Persia, founded in 1927 with the merger of the School of Political Science (established in 1899) and the School of Law (established in 1918). 

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• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN iv. Faculty of Letters and Humanities

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  The Faculty of Letters and Humanities (Dāneškada-ye adabīyāt wa ʿolūm-e ensānī), originally named the Faculty of Letters, Philosophy, and Educational Sciences (Dāneškada-ye adabīyāt wa falsafa wa ʿolūm-e tarbīatī), was one of the six faculties of the University of Tehran when it was founded in February 1935.

• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN v. Faculty of Medicine

  YŪNOS KARĀMATĪ and EIr

  (Dāneškada-ye pezeškī), the pioneering academic institution of modern medicine in Persia, one of the six main faculties of the new University of Tehran in 1934. It was the successor to the Dār al-fonūn Department of Medicine, established in 1851, which had become the School of Medicine (Madrasa-ye ṭebb) in 1919.

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• FADĀʾIĀN-E ḴALQ

  Peyman Vahabzadeh

  a Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla group arising from the student movement and the urban middle-class intellectuals and influenced by the Latin American revolutionary discourse, its objective was to instigate, and eventually lead, a popular movement against the Iranian monarchy.

• FĀDŪSBĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀDŪSPĀN.

• FĀʾEQ ḴĀṢṢA, ABU’L-ḤASAN

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (d. Khorasan 999), Turkish eunuch and slave commander of the Samanid army in Transoxania and Khorasan during the closing decades of that dynasty’s power.

• FAḠĀNĪ, BĀBĀ

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀBĀ FAḠĀNĪ.

• FAGERGREN, CONRAD GUSTAF

  Bo Utas

  (b. Stockholm, 1818; d. Shiraz, 1879), Swedish physician in Shiraz, 1848-79.

• FAHHĀD, FARĪD-AL-DĪN ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ

  David Pingree

  the most prolific producer of astronomical tables in the Islamic world. He is credited with a total of six tables, all of which are lost. There are three lists of these tables, given by Moḥammad b. Abū Bakr Fāresī, Šams Monajjem Wābeknavī, and Ḥājī Ḵalīfa.

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• FAHLABAḎ

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀRBAD.

• FAHLAVĪYĀT

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  an appellation given especially to the quatrains and by extension to the poetry in general composed in the old dialects of the Pahla/Fahla regions.

• FAHLĪĀN

  Jamšīd Ṣadāqat-Ḵīš

  a rural district (dehestān) situated 12 km northwest of Nūrābād in the Mamassanī šahrestān.

• FAHRAJ

  Rezazadeh Langarudi

  subdistrict (dehestān) and town in the Persian province of Yazd.

• FAḴR-AL-DĪN ĀḎARĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See under BAHMANID DYNASTY.

• FAḴR-AL-DĪN ASʿAD

  Cross-Reference

  See GORGĀNĪ, FAḴR-AL-DĪN ASʿADĪ.

• FAḴR-AL-DĪN ʿERĀQĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿERĀQI, FAḴR-AL-DIN.

• FAḴR-AL-DĪN HAMADĀNĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿABD-AL-ṢAMAD HAMADĀNĪ.

• FAḴR-al-DĪNZARRĀDĪ, MAWLĀNĀ

  Sharif Husain Qasemi

  a 14th century spiritual leader of the Češtī Sufi order in India.

• FAḴR-AL-MOLK ARDALĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See ABU’L-ḤASAN KHAN ARDALĀN.

• FAḴR-AL-MOLK, ABU’L-FATḤ MOẒAFFAR

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  b. Neẓām al-Molk (1043-1106/7), eldest son of the great Saljuq vizier and himself vizier to the Saljuq sultans Barkīāroq (1092-1105) and Moḥammad b. Malekšāh (1105-18).

• FAḴR-AL-ZAMĀNĪ QAZVĪNĪ, ʿABD-AL-NABĪ

  Cross-reference

  See ʿABD-AL-NABĪ QAZVĪNĪ.

• FAḴR-E MODABBER

  EIr

  pen-name of Moḥammad b. Manṣūr b. Saʿīd, entitled Mobārakšāh, author of two prose works in Persian written in India in the late 12th and early 13th century, a book on genealogy with no formal title and the famous Ādāb al-ḥarb wa’l-šajāʿa.

• FAḴRĀʾĪ, EBRĀHĪM REŻĀZĀDA

  Moḥammad-Taqī Pūr Aḥmad Jaktājī

  (b. Rašt, 1899; d. Tehran, 1988), educator, journalist, lawyer, and scholar.

• FAḴRĪ BANĀKATĪ

  Cross-reference

  See BANĀKATĪ.

• FAḴRĪ HERAVĪ, SOLṬĀN-MOḤAMMAD

  Sharif Husain Qasemi

  b. Moḥammad Amīr Khan (or Solṭān) Amīrī Heravī (b. Herat, ca. 1497, d. probably in Agra, after 1566), poet, scholar, and Sufi who wrote on various aspects of the poetic art.

• FĀḴTA

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  an obsolete Persian name for a columbine bird, most probably the so-called “collared turtle dove."

• FĀḴTAʾĪ, ḤOSAYN QAWĀMĪ

  Cross-Reference

  a master vocalist of Persia in the second half of the 20th century. See QAWĀMI, ḤOSAYN.

• FĀL

  Cross-reference

  See DIVINATION.

• FĀL-ASĪRĪ, Ḥājj Sayyed ʿALĪ-AKBAR

  Manṣūr Rastgār FASāʾī

  prominent mojtahed of Shiraz (1840-1901). He led the prayer at Wakīl Mosque, where he regularly preached, and for years he wielded great influence in the religious, political, and social affairs of the city. He was an active opponent of the tobacco concession and instigated a riot against it.

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• FĀL-NĀMA

  Īraj Afšār

  a book of presages and omens. The narrower and more common use of the term, equivalent to “bibliomancy,” is confined to texts used as material for divination by the reader directly or through a fortune-teller.

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• FALAK

  Cross-Reference

  Arabic word for "sphere" (pl. aflāk). In Persian works of literature it is often referred to as being responsible for determining people's destiny. See ASTROLOGY AND ASTRONOMY IN IRAN; COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY.

• FALAKA

  Mahmoud Omidsalar

  also falak, čūb o falak; one of the most common instruments of corporal punishment in Persia.

• FALĀḴAN

  Parviz Mohebbi

  a sling.

• FALAKĪ ŠARVĀNĪ, Abu’l-Neẓām Moḥammad

  François de Blois

  or ŠERVĀNĪ, a Persian poet of the first half of the 12th century.

• FALĀṬŪRĪ, ʿABD-AL-JAWĀD

  Judith Pfeiffer

  (b. Isfahan, 1926; d. Berlin, 30 December 1996), professor of Islamic studies at Cologne University (1974-96).

• FALCONS AND FALCONRY

  Cross-reference

  See BĀZ; BĀZDĀRĪ.

• FALLĀḤ, REŻĀ

  Bāqer ʿĀqelī and EIr

  (b. Kāšān, 1910; d. London, 1981), deputy manager of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC; Šerkat-e mellī-e naft-e Īrān), in charge of international relations and marketing.

• FALSAFA

  Mansour Shaki

  philosophy in the pre-Islamic period. For philosophy in the Islamic period, see also articles under individual authors and schools, e.g., AVICENNA, FĀRĀBĪ, ILLUMINATIONISM, ISFAHAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, and MOLLĀ ṢADRĀ.

• FALSAFĪ, NAṢR–ALLĀH

  Manouchehr Parsadoust

  (b. Tehran, 1901; d. 1981), Persian historian, educator, journalist, translator, and poet.

• FALUDY, György

  ANDRÁS BODROGLIGETI

  (1910-2006), Hungarian poet, translator, and publicist.  

• FĀMĪ

  Cross-reference

  See ABU NAṢR FĀMI.

• FAMILY LAW

  Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mansour Shaki, Jeanette Wakin

  legal prescriptions dealing with marriage, divorce, the status of children, inheritance, and related matters.

• FAMILY OF THE PROPHET

  Cross-Reference

  See  ĀL-E ʿABĀ, lit. “Family of the cloak.”

• FAMILY PLANNING

  Mehdi Amani, Nancy Hatch Dupree

  a term for programs to regulate family size that came into use in the West in the 1930s. Although it originally encompassed efforts both to promote and to curtail fertility, explosive population growth in the developing countries since mid-century has narrowed its meaning to control of fertility.

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• FAMINES

  Xavier de Planhol

  in Persia.

• FANĀ ḴOSROW

  Cross-reference

  See ʿAŻOD-AL-DAWLA, FANĀ ḴOSROW.

• FANĀʾĪĀN, Mīrzā FARAJ-ALLĀH JONŪN

  Vahid Rafati

  b. Loṭf-ʿAlī b. Moḥammad-Reżā (b. Sangsar, 1873), poet.

• FANĀRŪZĪ, ḴᵛĀJA ʿAMĪD ABU’L-FAWĀRES

  cross-reference

  See SENDBĀD-NĀMA.

• FANĪ KAŠMĪRĪ

  Sharif Husain Qasemi

  pen name of Shaikh MOḤAMMAD-MOḤSEN b. Ḥasan KAŠMĪRĪ (d. 1670/71), Indo-Persian scholar and poet.

• FĀNŪS

  Cross-reference

  lanterns. See ČERĀḠ.

• FAQĪR DEHLAVĪ, MĪR ŠAMS-AL-DĪN

  Munibur Rahman

  or Maftūn (fl. 18th century), Persian poet from the Indian sub-continent.

• FAQĪR-ALLĀH JALĀLĀBĀDĪ

  Cross-reference

  See AFGHANISTAN xii. LITERATURE.

• FĀRĀB

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  a small district on the middle Syr Darya in Transoxania, at the confluence of that river with its right-bank tributary, the Arys, which flows down from Esfījāb, and also the name of a small town within it.

• FĀRĀBĪ

  Multiple Authors

  Muslim philosopher of the 10th century.

• FĀRĀBĪ i. Biography

  Dimitri Gutas

  No one among Fārābī’s successors and their followers, or even unrelated scholars, undertook to write his full biography.

• FĀRĀBĪ ii. Logic

  Deborah L. Black

  Many of his writings take the form of commentaries on, or summaries of, the Aristotelian Organon, which, following the tradition of the Alexandrian commentators of late antiquity, included Porphyry’s Isagoge as well as Aristotle’sRhetoric and Poetics.

• FĀRĀBĪ iii. Metaphysics

  Thérèse-Anne Druart

  His metaphysics scillates between two main projects: (1) a study of what is common to all beings, i.e., being as such and other universal notions such as oneness, and (2) a study of the ultimate causes, i.e., God and other immaterial beings. 

• FĀRĀBĪ iv. Fārābī and Greek Philosophy

  Dimitri Gutas

  Fārābī’s philosophical moorings and direct affiliation lie in the Greek neo-Aristotelian school of Ammonius in Alexandria, in the form in which it survived and was revived after the Islamic conquest among Syriac Christian clerics and intellectuals in the centers of Eastern Christianity in the Fertile Crescent.

• FĀRĀBĪ v. Music

  George Sawa

  In the history of Middle Eastern music Fārābī remains unequalled as a theorist, but this aspect of his manifold achievements has been obscured by his more widely known writings on philosophy.

• FĀRĀBĪ vi. Political Philosophy

  Muhsin Mahdi

  The central theme of Fārābī’s political writings is the virtuous regime, the political order whose guiding principle is the realization of human excellence by virtue. 

• FARĀH

  Daniel Balland

  Farāh has retained practically the same name since the first millennium B.C.E. At the end of the first century B.C.E, the “very great city” of Phra in Aria was reckoned as a major stage on the overland route between the Levant and India.

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• FARAḤĀBĀD

  Wolfram Kleiss

  common place name throughout Persia, without any cultural or historical significance. The three best-known locales with this name are a city quarter of Tehran, the remains of a palace complext near Isfahan, and an Abbasid pleasure palace on the Caspian sea.

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• FARĀHĀN

  Reżā Reżāzāda Langarūdī

  a district (baḵš) in Tafreš subprovince (šahrestān) of the Central (Markazī) province.

• FARĀHĀNĪ, MĪRZĀ MOḤAMMAD-ḤOSAYN

  Hafez Farmayan

  (1847-1913) Persian diplomat and author of a travelogue (safar-nāma) intended to show how a Shiʿite pilgrim could successfully undertake the journey to Mecca. In it one learns much about Arabia, the Ottoman empire, and the Sunnis in general.

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• FARĀHĀNĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ṢĀDEQ

  Cross-Reference

  See ADĪB-AL-MAMĀLEK FARĀHĀNĪ.

• FARĀHĪ, ABŪ NAṢR BADR-al-DĪN MASʿŪD

  Moḥammad Dabīrsīāqī

  or Moḥammad, Maḥmūd; b. Abī Bakr b. Ḥosayn b. Jaʿfar Farāhī (fl. 13th century), poet and litterateur.

• FARĀHRŪD

  Daniel Balland

  river in southwestern Afghanistan, rising at about 3,300 meters above sea level in the Band-e Bayān, and, after a course of 712 km in a south-western direction, ending in the Hāmūn-e Ṣāberī (Sīstān) at an altitude of 475 m.

• FARAHVAŠI, Bahrām

  Mahnaz Moazami

  Bahrām Farahvaši was born into a family with a long tradition of literary and scholarly pursuits.  His father, ʿAli Moḥammad Farahvaši (1875-1968), was one of the pioneers of education reform in the early 20th century and established modern schools in Tehran, Zanjan, and Azerbaijan.

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• FARAJ-E BAʿD AZ ŠEDDAT

  Cross-Reference

  See DEHESTĀNI, ḤOSAYN.

• FARĀLĀVĪ

  François de Blois

  the conventional reading of the name of an early Persian poet.

• FARĀMARZ

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  son of Iran’s national hero Rostam, and himself a renowned hero of the Iranian national epic whose adventures were very popular, especially during the 10th and 11th centuries.

• FARĀMARZ, ABŪ MANṢŪR

  Cross-Reference

  See ABŪ MANṢŪR FARĀMARZ.

• FARĀMARZ-NĀMA

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  a Persian epic recounting the adventures of the hero Farāmarz.

• FARĀMARZĪ, ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN

  Mohammad Zarnegar

  (b. Gačūya, 1897; d. Tehran, 1972), an outspoken journalist, writer, educator, Majles deputy, and poet.

• FARĀMŪŠ-ḴĀNA

  Cross-Reference

  See FREEMASONRY.

• FARĀNAK

  Cross-reference

  according to the Šāh-nāma, the mother of Ferēdūn; also the name of a wife of Bahrām V Gōr.

• FARANG, FARANGĪ

  Forthcoming

  Forthcoming online.

• FARANGĪ MAḤALL

  Muhammad Wali-ul-Haq Ansari

  or FERANGĪ MAḤAL; family of Indian Muslim teachers, Hanafite scholars, and mystics active over the last 300 years.

• FARANGĪS

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  eldest daughter of Afrāsīāb and wife of Sīāvaḵš.

• FARAS-NĀMA

  Īraj Afšār

  a category of books and manuals dealing with horses and horsemanship. Topics treated in this literary genre include horse-breeding, grazing, dressage, veterinary advice, horseracing and betting, and the art of divination based on the mien and movements of horses.

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• FARĀVA

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  or Parau, a small medieval town in eastern Persia, lying east of the Caspian Sea and just beyond the northern edge of the Kopet-Dag range facing the Kara Kum desert.

• FARDIN, Moḥammad ʿAli

  Jamsheed Akrami

  Fardin’s 23-year film career blossomed late, after a short stint in the theater, and it suffered an early demise in 1981 when the Islamic Republic of Iran banned him from filmmaking in a wholesale purge of the major entertainers of the pre-revolution era.

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• FĀRES

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  the Arabic term for “rider on a horse, cavalryman,” connected with the verb farasa/farosa “to be knowledgeable about horses, be a skillful horseman” and the noun faras “horse."

• FĀRESĪ, ABŪ ʿALĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ABŪ ʿALĪ FĀRESĪ.

• FĀRESĪ, KAMĀL-AL-DĪN ABU’L-ḤASAN MOḤAMMAD

  Gül A. Russell

  (d. 1320), the most significant figure in optics after Ebn al-Hayṯam (Alhazen; 965-1040). The two names have been linked due to his critical revision of Ebn al-Hayṯam’s Ketāb al-manāẓer, which represents a watershed in the scientific understanding of light and vision.

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• FĀRESĪYĀT

  Aḥmad Mahdawī Dāmḡānī

  a literary term used in Arabic literature to refer to poems in Arabic which contain some Persian words or even phrases in their original form, the most notable example being the Fāresīyāt of Abū Nowās.

• FARḠĀNA

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  valley of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) river extending ca. 300 km between the Farḡāna mountains in the east and the first sharp bend of the river’s course to the north.

• FARḠĀNĪ, AḤMAD

  David Pingree

  b. Moḥammad b. Kaṯīr (fl. ca. 950 C.E.), Muslim astronomer.

• FARḠĀNĪ, EMĀM-AL-ḤARAMAYN SERĀJ-Al-DĪN ABU’L-MOḤAMMAD ʿALĪ

  Sayyāra Mahīnfar

  b. ʿOṯmān Ūšī or Ūsī (d. 1173), oṣūlī jurist (faqīh), traditionist, and author.

• FARḠĀNĪ, SAʿĪD-AL-DĪN MOHAMMAD

  William C. Chittick

  b. Ahmad (d. 1300), Sufi author from the town of Kāsān in Farḡān.

• FARḠĀNĪ, SAYF-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

  Sayyāra Mahīnfar

  thirteenth century Persian poet and Sufi of Farḡāna.

• FARHĀD (1)

  Heshmat Moayyad

  romantic figure in Persian legend and literature, best known from the poetry of Neẓāmī Ganjavī as a rival with the Sasanian king Ḵosrow II Parvēz (r. 591-628) for the love of the beautiful Armenian princess Šīrīn.

• FARHĀD (2)

  Cross-Reference

  name of a number of Parthian kings. See PHRAATES.

• FARHĀD KHAN QARAMĀNLŪ, ROKN-AL-SALṬANA

  Rudi Matthee

  military commander of Shah ʿAbbās I, executed at the Shah’s orders in 1598.

• FARHĀD MĪRZĀ MOʿTAMAD-AL-DAWLA

  Kambiz Eslami

  (1818-1888), Qajar prince-governor and bibliophile. Holding highly conservative religious views, he viewed Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah's reformist vizier as an obliterator of the “foundation of the Muslim šarīʿa,” who was guilty of spreading the word “liberty” among the people.

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• FARHANG

  Nassereddin Parvin

  the title of five newspapers and magazines printed in Persia and Europe.

• FARHANG Ī OĪM

  Cross-Reference

  See FRAHANG Ī OĪM.

• FARHANG Ī PAHLAVIG

  Cross-reference

  See FRAHANG Ī PAHLAWĪG.

• FARHANG O ZENDAGĪ

  Nasserddin Parvin

  a periodical published in 28 issues from winter 1969 to spring 1978 by the Secretariat of the High Council of Culture and Art (Dabīr-ḵāna-ye Šūrā-ye ʿalī-e farhang o honar).

• FARHANG, MĪRZĀ ABU’L-QĀSEM ŠĪRĀZĪ

  Moḥammad Dabīrsīāqī

  (b. Shiraz, 1827; d. Shiraz, 1891), poet, scholar, and calligrapher.

• FARHANG-E ĀNANDRĀJ

  Solomon Baevskiĭ

  a dictionary of the Persian language named in honor of the maharaja Ānand Gajapatī Rāj, the nineteenth century ruler of Vijayanagar in South India.

• FARHANG-E ASADĪ

  Cross-reference

  an alternative title for the dictionary Loḡat-e fors. See undeer the author, ASĀDĪ TŪSĪ.

• FARHANG-E EBRĀHĪMĪ

  Solomon Bayevsky

  Persian-language dictionary compiled by the well-known fifteenth century poet Ebrāhīm Qewām-al-Dīn Fārūqī.

• FARHANG-E HAYĪM

  Cross-Reference

  See HAYĪM, SOLAYMĀN.

• FARHANG-E ĪRĀN-ZAMĪN

  Nasserddin Parvin

  a research quarterly first published in Tehran in March 1953.

• FARHANG-E JAHĀNGĪRĪ

  Solomon Bayevsky

  It took Ḥosayn Enjū twelve years to complete his dictionary (1005-17/1595-1608), which he named in honor of Jahāngīr. He produced a second edition in 1032/1622. The dictionary lists 9,830 words: 8,960 Persian; 630 Arabic; 140 Indian; and about a hundred entries of Turkic and Greek origin as well as words from various dialects.

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• FARHANG-E MOʿĪN

  Kamran Talattof and EIr

  an important Persian encyclopaedic dictionary published in six volumes in Tehran between 1963 and 1973.

• FARHANG-E NĀFĪSĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See NĀẒEM-AL-AṬEBBĀʾ.

• FARHANG-E NEẒĀM

  Cross-reference

  See DĀʿĪ-AL-ESLĀM.

• FARHANG-E QAWWĀS

  Solomon Bayevsky

  a Persian dictionary compiled probably no later than 1315 by the founder of Persian lexicography in India, the poet and writer Faḵr-al-Dīn Mobārakšāh Qawwās Ḡaznavī, or Faḵr-e Qawwās, known also as Kamāngar.

• FARHANG-E RAŠĪDĪ

  Solomon Bayevsky

  Persian dictionary compiled in India in 1654 by the poet and scholar ʿAbd-al- Rašīd b. ʿAbd-al-Ḡafūr Ḥosaynī Tattavī.

• FARHANG-E SORŪRĪ

  Solomon Bayevsky

  a dictionary of the Persian language, also known as Majmaʿ al-fors and Loḡat-e Sorūrī, compiled by the Persian poet Moḥammad-Qāsem Sorūrī.

• FARHANG-E TĀRĪḴĪ-E ZABĀN-E FĀRSĪ

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  a comprehensive historical dictionary of the Persian language, of which only one volume has been published so far.

• FARHANG-E WAFĀʾI

  Solomon Bayevsky

  or Resāla-ye Wafāʾi; a Persian lexicon of some 2,425 mainly literary terms, compiled by Ḥosayn Wafāʾi in 1527 and dedicated to the Safavid Shah Ṭahmāsb I.

• FARHANG-E ZABĀN-E TĀJĪKĪ

  Habib Borjian

  (Farhangi zaboni tojikī, Tajik Language Dictionary), a descriptive dictionary of classical Persian in two volumes (1,900 pages).

• FARHANG-E ZAFĀNGŪYĀ WA JAHĀNPŪYĀ

  Cross-reference

  See BADR-AL-DĪN EBRĀHĪM.

• FARHANGESTĀN

  M. A. Jazayeri

  a term for “academy” which gained currency in the 20th century to denote an association of scholars.

• FARHANGI ZABONI TOJIKĪ

  Cross-reference

  See FARHANG-E ZABĀN-E TĀJĪKĪ.

• FARĪBORZ

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  son of Key Kāvūs.

• FARĪBORZ

  Cross-Reference

  b. Salār. See ŠARVĀNŠĀH.

• FARĪD

  EIr

  b. Shaikh Maʿrūf BHAKKARĪ, 16-17th century author of an important biographical dictionary in Persian of Mughal notables, the Ḏaḵīrat al-ḵawanīn.

• FARĪD ESFARĀYENĪ, Malek-al-Šoʿarāʾ Ḵᵛāja FARĪD-AL-DĪN AḤWAL

  Ḏabīḥ-Allāh Ṣafā

  or Eṣfahānī (d. after 1264), 13th-century Persian poet.

• FARĪD KĀTEB

  Sheila S. Blair

  scribe active in Shiraz in the 16th century.

• FARĪD-AL-DĪN GANJ-E ŠAKAR

  Cross-Reference

  See GANJ-E ŠAKAR.

• FARĪD-AL-DĪN, ABŪ’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ ŠARVĀNĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See FAHHĀD.

• FARĪDAN

  Mīnū Yūsofnežād

  a county (šahrestān) located at the foot of the Zagros mountains in the western part of Isfahan province, bordered on the north by Ḵᵛānsār, on the northwest by Alīgūdarz (in Lorestān province), on the west by the county of Farīdūn-æahr, on the east by Najafābād, and on the south by Šahr-e Kord and Fārsān.

• FARĪDŪN

  Cross-Reference

  See FERĒDŪN.

• FARIGHUNIDS

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀL-E FARĪḠŪN.

• FARĪḠŪNIDS

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀL-E FARĪḠŪN.

• FARĪZANDĪ

  Cross-reference

  See CENTRAL DIALECTS; see also NAṬANZĪ.

• FARḴĀR

  Erwin F. Grötzbach

  river, valley, and administrative district (woloswālī), in Taḵār province, northeastern Afghanistan.

• FARMĀN

  Bert G. Fragner

  “decree, command, order, judgement.” The term often denotes a royal or governmental decree, that is a public and legislative document promulgated in the name of the ruler or another person  holding elements of sovereignty.

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• FARMĀNFARMĀ

  Ahmad Ashraf

  lit. “giver of an order,” i.e., ruler, commander; an epithet with three usages in the Safavid and Qajar periods.

• FARMĀNFARMĀ, ʿABD-AL-ḤOSAYN MĪRZĀ

  Cyrus Mir and EIr

  (1858-1939), Qajar prince-governor, military commander, skillful politician, head of various ministries, and prime minister. He managed to sail successfully the stormy sea of Persian politics for several decades while the entire social and political landscape was undergoing dramatic change.

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• FARMĀNFARMĀ, FEREYDŪN MĪRZĀ

  ʿABD-AL-ḤOSAYN NAVĀʾĪ

  (d. Mašhad, 1854), fifth son of the Qajar prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā and elder brother of Solṭān Morād Mīrzā Ḥosām-al-Salṭana.

• FARMĀNFARMĀ, FĪRŪZ MĪRZĀ NOṢRAT-AL-DAWLA

  Shireen Mahdavi

  (1817-1886), sixteenth son of ʿAbbās Mīrzā and grandson of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah. His political and military career flourished in the reigns of his brother Moḥammad Shah (834-48) and his nephew Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah (1848-96).

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• FARMĀNFARMĀ, ḤOSAYN-ʿALĪ MĪRZĀ

  Gavin R. G. Hambly

  (1789-1835), the fifth son of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, long-time governor of Fārs, and briefly the self-styled king of Persia.

• FARMĀNFARMĀ, MAḤMŪD KHAN NĀṢER-AL-MOLK

  ʿABD-AL-ḤOSAYN NAVĀʿĪ

  (b. ca. 1828-29; d. Tehran, 1887), high-ranking official in the reign of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah (1848-96).

• FARMING

  Mohammad-Said Nouri Naini

  in Persia. In the mid-1990s Persian agriculture accounted for over 25 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 25 percent of employment, and 33 percent of non-oil exports. It also met 75 percent of domestic food requirements and 90 percent of the needs of agricultural industries in the country.

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• FARNAH

  Cross-reference

  See FARR(AH).

• FARNŪDSĀR

  Cross-Reference

  See NAẒEM-AL-AṬEBBĀʾ.

• FARŌḴŠI

  Mary Boyce and Firoze Kotwal

  the name of a Zoroastrian ceremony for departed souls, also called Farošīn, in Irani Zoroastrian dialect Parošīn.

• FARR(AH)

  Gherardo Gnoli

  Avestan Xᵛarənah, lit. “glory,” according to the most likely etymology and the semantic function reconstructed from its occurrence in various contexts and phases of the Iranian languages.

• FARR(AH) ii. ICONOGRAPHY OF FARR(AH)/XᵛARƎNAH

  Abolala Soudavar

  The core myth that reveals the characteristics of farr is the myth of Jamšid  in the Avesta. Empowered by his farr, Jamšid rules the world, but loses it when he strays from the righteous path.

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• FARRANT, FRANCIS

  Denis Wright

  (1803?-1868), Colonel, British soldier and diplomat.

• FARRĀŠ

  Cross-Reference

  See CITIES iii.

• FARROḴ KHAN KĀŠĪ, AMĪN-AL-MOLK

  Cross-Reference

  See AMĪN-AL-DAWLA, ABŪ ṬĀLEB FARROḴ KHAN.

• FARROḴ, Sayyed MAḤMŪD

  Jalal Matini

  (b. Mašhad, 1896; d. Mašhad, 1981), litterateur, poet, Majles deputy, and executive.

• FARROḴĀN-E BOZORG

  Cross-Reference

  See DĀBŪYĪDS.

• FARROḴĀN-E KŪČAK

  Cross-Reference

  See DĀBŪYĪDS.

• FARROḴI

  Habib Borjian

  a township on the southern edge of the Great Desert, in Ḵur-Biābānak Sub-province, Isfahan Province.

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• FARROḴĪ SĪSTĀNĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  b. Jūlūḡ, eleventh century Persian court poet.

• FARROḴĪ YAZDĪ

  Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak

  (1889-1939), journalist and poet and an early advocate of socialist revolution in Persia.

• FARROḴZĀD

  Cross-Reference

  son of Ḵosrow II, ruled briefly in 630/631. See SASANIAN DYNASTY.

• FARROḴZĀD, ABŪ ŠOJĀʿ

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  b. Masʿūd b. Maḥmūd, Ghaznavid sultan of Afghanistan and northern India (r. 1052-59).

• FARROḴZĀD, FORŪḠ-ZAMĀN

  Farzaneh Milani

  (b. Tehran, 1935; d. Tehran, 1967), usually known as Forūḡ, Persian poet.

• FARROXMARD

  Cross-Reference

  See MĀDAYĀN-Ī HAZĀR DĀDISTĀN.

• FĀRS

  Multiple Authors

  province in southern Persia.

• FĀRS i. Geography

  Xavier de Planhol

  comprised of the highland basins. East of the meridian of Bušehr and Isfahan, the Zagros mountain chains, which gradually decrease in altitude toward the southeast but still mostly remain above 2,000 and sometimes 3,000 m.

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• FĀRS ii. History in the Pre-Islamic Period

  Josef Wiesehöfer

  The history of early pre-Islamic Fārs is most closely interwoven with that of its eastern and western neighbors. Agrarian settlements had been established (by immigrants?) in the Muški phase in the Kor basin, a widely and well researched area, before 5,500 B.C.E.

• FĀRS iii. History in the Islamic Period

  A. K. S. Lambton

  Although the Arabs did not take over the Sasanian system of quadrants, they kept the division of Fārs into five kūras, a division which continued until the 6th/12th century. Shiraz, a continuously inhabited site which may go back to Sasanian or even earlier times, became and has remained the provincial capital.

• FĀRS iv. History in the Qajar and Pahlavi Periods

  Ahmad Ashraf

  The Qajar period (1794-1921) was marked in Fārs by rule of dozens of prince-governors; Britain’s influence; division of the Qašqāʾī and Ḵamsa tribal confederacies; continued local autonomy of tribal khans and influential landowners; and the increasing political role of the ʿolamāʾ.

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• FĀRS v. Monuments

  Dietrich Huff

  The founder of the Sasanian empire, Ardašīr I (224-40), shifted the seat of power to the newly founded Ardašīr Ḵorra (Fīrūzābād), a circular city with palaces that are still preserved. His successor, Šāpūr I, built Bīšāpūr as his capital. Nevertheless, Eṣṭaḵr remained the most important city of Fārs until Shiraz surpassed it after the Islamic conquest in the 7th century.

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• FĀRS vi. Population

  Habib Zanjani

  The province of Fārs is the largest and the most populous province in the south of Persia. In the  national census of 1996, it was composed of 16 counties (šahrestāns), comprising a total of 60 districts (baḵš), 48 towns (šahr), and 185 village clusters (dehestān).

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• FĀRS vii. Ethnography

  Pierre Oberling

  The largest part of the population of Fārs is of Iranian stock, but since the rise of Islam in the 7th century there has been substantial immigration of peoples of other ethnic origins into the province.

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• FĀRS viii. Dialects

  Gernot Windfuhr

  Local variants of Persian are found in most cities and towns and their vicinities, and, rurally, mainly in the northeastern parts of the region, all of which tend to reflect a good deal of the vocabulary and idiomatic features of the earlier non-Persian dialects.

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• FĀRS ix. PREHISTORIC SEQUENCE

  Abbas Alizadeh

  Six archeological sites—Tall-e Muški, Tall-e Jari A and B, Tall-e Gap, and Tall-e Bākun A and B—in the Persepolis plain of the Marvdašt area are the primary sources for the study of the prehistoric cultural development in Fārs.

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• FĀRS NEWSPAPER

  Nassereddin Parvin

  name of two newspapers published in Shiraz.

• FĀRS-NĀMA-YE EBN-E BALḴĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See EBN AL-BALḴĪ.

• FĀRS-NĀMA-YE NĀṢERĪ

  Heribert Busse; Ahmad Ashraf and Ali Banuazizi

  a history and geography of the province of Fārs, with maps and illustrations, by Mīrzā Ḥasan Fasāʾī (1821-1898). Part two includes topics such as the climate of Fārs, its flora and fauna, agricultural products, the position of Fārs according to longitude and latitude, the problem of cartographic projection.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FARSANG

  Cross-Reference

  See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

• FARŠĒDVARD

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  a Kayanian prince in the Iranian legendary history, son of Goštāsp and brother of Esfandīār.

• FĀRSĪ, ABŪ NAṢR ḤEBBAT-ALLĀH

  Cross-reference

  Official, soldier and poet of the Ghaznavid empire, flourished in the second half of the 5th/11th century during the reigns of the sultans Ebrāhīm b. Masʿūd I and Masʿūd III b. Ebrāhīm. See ABŪ NAṢR FĀRSĪ.

• FĀRSI, KAMĀL-AL-DIN

  Cross-Reference

  (d. 1320), the most significant figure in optics after Ebn al-Hayṯam. See FĀRESĪ, KAMĀL-AL-DĪN ABU’L-ḤASAN MOḤAMMAD.

• FĀRSĪMADĀN

  Pierre Oberling

  one of the most important tribes of the Qašqāʾī tribal confederacy.

• FĀRŪQĪ DYNASTY

  Carl W. Ernst

  of Khandesh, lit. "land of the khans" in present-day Madhya Pradesh (1370-1601). The prosperity of Khandesh depended upon trade and the production of fine textiles. Patronage of Češtī Sufism also was an important element of Fārūqī state policy.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FĀRŪQĪ EBRĀHĪM

  Cross-Reference

  See FARHANG-E EBRĀHĪMĪ.

• FĀRŪQĪ, MOLLĀ MAḤMŪD

  Cross-reference

  See Supplement.

• FARVI DIALECT

  Habib Borjian

  Farvi or Farvigi is the native dialect of Farroḵi, a township in the sub-province of Ḵur o Biābānak on the edge of the Great Persian Desert.

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• FĀRYĀB

  Daniel Balland

  by the 10th century, one of the towns of the Farighunid princes of Gūzgān, vassals of the Samanids. The medieval name was revived when the high governorate (ḥokūmat-e ʿalā) of Maymana was elevated to the rank of province (welāyat). Its cities, besides Maymana, are Andḵūy and Dawlatābād.

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• FĀRYĀBĪ, ẒAHĪR-AL-DĪN ABU’L-FAŻL ṬĀHER

  J.T.P. de Bruijn

  b. Moḥammad, twelfth century Persian poet who used Ẓahīr as his pen name.

• FARYĀD

  Nassereddin Parvin

  the title of seven publications in Persian.

• FARYŪMAD

  Chahryar Adle

  (modern FARŪMAD), MONUMENTS OF.

• FARYŪMADĪ, YAMĪN-AL-DĪN

  Cross-Reference

  See EBN YAMĪN.

• FARZĀD, MASʿŪD

  Ahmad Karimi Hakkak

  Throughout this period, Farzād wrote poetry, mostly within the classical tradition. In 1942 he published a selection of his poems in a volume entitled Waqtī ke šāʿer būdam (When I was a poet). He had also begun work on a new edition of Ḥāfeẓ’s Dīvān, a task which became a life-long labor.

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• FARZĀN, Sayyed Moḥammad

  EIr

  (b. near Birjand, 1894; d. Bābolsar, 1970), an eminent scholar of classical literature.

• FASĀ

  Multiple Authors

  a sub-province and a city in Fārs.

• FASĀ i. Geography and History

  MĪNŪ YŪSOFNEŽĀD and JUDITH LERNER

  The sub-province (šahrestān) of Fasā, with an area of ca. 3,820 km2, is bounded to the north by the šahrestāns of Eṣṭahbān/Estahbān and Shiraz, to the east by Eṣṭahbān and Dārāb, to the south by Dārāb and Jahrom, and to the west by Jahrom and Shiraz. 

• FASĀ ii. Tall-e Żaḥḥāk

  JOHN F. HANSMAN

  a tell or artificial mound, lying within a still broader archeological zone, built up by successive layers of human occupation from prehistoric to medieval times; it is located 130 km south of Shiraz and 3 km southeast of Fasā.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FASĀʾĪ, ḤĀJJ MĪRZĀ ḤASAN ḤOSAYNĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See FĀRS-NĀMA-YE NĀṢERĪ.

• FAṢD

  Cross-Reference

  See BLOODLETTING.

• FASIH, Esma’il

  Ali Ferdowsi

  Fasih left Iran in 1956, and eventually ended up in Montana State College in Bozeman, Montana. Beginning with his junior year at the college, he transferred to the University of Montana in Missoula where he earned a BS in Chemistry and a BA in English.

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• FAṢĪḤĪ HERAVĪ, MĪRZĀ FAṢĪḤ-AL-DĪN

  ḎABĪḤ-ĀLLĀH ṢAFĀ

  b. Abu’l-Makārem b. Mawlānā Mīrjān Anṣārī (1579-1639), poet of the 11th/17th century.

• FASMER, RICHARD RICHARDOVICH

  Anatol Ivanov

  or VASMER (1858-1938), eminent Russian numismatist.

• FASTING

  Denise Soufi

  in Persia. Both individually and communally, fasting is typically a religious exercise—employed by devotees as means of supplication to the will of God, preparation for rites of devotion, worship of divinity, purification of the body so that spiritual issues can be better comprehended, penitence for transgressions against religious codes, and mourning for deceased persons.  OVERVIEW of entry: i. Among Zoroastrians, Manicheans, and Bahais. ii. In Sunni and Shiʿite Islam.

• FATALISM

  Based on a longer article by ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Zarrīnkūb

  in the Islamic period. The concept of fatalism as commonly used in Islamic philosophy and Persian literature denotes the belief in the pre-ordained Decree of God (qażā wa qadar), according to which whatever happens to human beings or in the whole universe has been pre-determined by the will and knowledge of the Almighty, and that no changes or transformations in it can be made through the agency of the human will.

• FATĀWĪ-E ʿĀLAMGĪRĪ

  S. H. Qasemi

  abridged Persian translation by Qāżī Najm-al-Dīn Khan Kākorī of a six-volume Arabic work on Hanafite law (ed. Būlāq, 1859) considered the authoritative compendium of religious law, policy, and practice in India.

• FATE

  Cross-Reference

  See BAḴT; FATALISM; FREE WILL.

• FĀTEḤ, MOṢṬAFĀ

  Bāqer ʿĀqelī

  (b. Isfahan, 1896; d. London, 1978), a deputy director-general of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and banker.

• FĀṬEMA

  Jean Calmard

  daughter of the Prophet Moḥammad.

• FĀṬEMA-SOLṬĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See ANĪS-AL-DAWLA.

• FĀṬEMĪ, ḤOSAYN

  Fakhreddin Azimi

  Fāṭemī protested against the government rigging of the elections for the Sixteenth Majles with Moṣaddeq, helped to mobilize support, and in October 1949 was one of a delegation selected to accompany Moṣaddeq in a sit-in (bast) at the royal palace protesting the conduct of the elections.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FATḤ

  EIr

  b. ḴĀQĀN (d. 861), famous bibliophile, author, courtier, and official in ʿAbbasid times.

• FATḤ JANG

  Mehrdad Shokoohy

  or Mīrzā Ebrāhīm (d. 1623-24), a Mughal official. 

• FATḤ-ʿALĪ ĀḴŪNDZĀDA

  Cross-Reference

  See AḴŪNDZĀDA.

• FATḤ-ʿALĪ KHAN AFŠAR ARAŠLŪ

  Cross-Reference

  See AFŠĀR.

• FATḤ-ʿALĪ KHAN QĀJĀR

  ʿABD-AL-ḤOSAYN NAVĀʾĪ

  chief of the Ašāqa-bāš division of the Qajar tribes at Astarābād at the time of the demise of the Safavid dynasty.

• FATḤ-ʿALĪ SHAH QĀJĀR

  Abbas Amanat

  (1769-1834), second ruler of the Qajar dynasty. He transformed a largely Turkic tribal khanship into a centralized and stable monarchy on the old imperial model which brought to the Guarded Domains of Persia (mamālek-e maḥrūsa-ye Īrān) a period of relative calm and prosperity, secured a state-religious symbiosis, and fostered a period of cultural and artistic revival.

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• FATḤ-ALLĀH ŠĪRĀZĪ, SAYYED MĪR

  Sharif Husain Qasemi

  a famous sixteenth century Sufi, an official in Mughal India, and one of the most learned men of his time.

• FATḤ-NĀMA

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  Arabic-Persian term used to denote proclamations and letters announcing victories in battle or the successful conclusion of military campaigns.

• FATIMIDS

  Farhad Daftary

  relations with Persia. A major Ismaʿili Shiʿite dynasty, the Fatimids founded their own caliphate, in rivalry with the ʿAbbasids, and ruled over different parts of the Islamic world, from North Africa and Sicily to Palestine and Syria.

• FATTĀḤĪ NĪŠĀBŪRĪ, MOḤAMMAD

  Tahsın Yazici

  b. Yaḥyā Sībak (d. 1448), Persian poet of the Timurid era, born in Nīšāpūr (hence his nesba Nīšābūrī) at an unknown date.

• FATWĀ

  Hamid Algar

  the authoritative ruling of a religious scholar on questions of Islamic jurisprudence that are either dubious or obscure in nature or which have newly arisen without known precedent.

• FAUNA i. FAUNA OF PERSIA

  Steven Anderson

  the assemblage of animal species, generally excluding domestic animals, living within a defined geographical area or ecological zone.

• FAUNA ii, iii. FAUNA OF CENTRAL ASIA

  O. L. Kryzhanovskiĭ

  the assemblage of animal species, generally excluding domestic animals, living within a defined geographical area or ecological zone. OVERVIEW of the entry: i. Fauna of Persia. ii. Fauna of Afghanistan. iii. Fauna of Central Asia.

• FAUSTUS

  James R. Russell

  fifth-century author of the Patmutʿiwn Hayocʿ (History of the Armenians) or Buzandaran.

• FAVA BEANS

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀQELĀ.

• FAWZĪ MOSTĀRĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See FEVZİ MOSTĀRĪ.

• FAWZĪ, MOḤAMMAD

  Cross-Reference

  See FEVZI EFENDI.

• FAYYĀŻ LĀHĪJĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ LĀHĪJĪ.

• FAYYĀŻ, ʿALĪ-AKBAR MAJĪDĪ

  Jalāl Matīnī

  Fayyāż remained an indefatigable scholar all his life, combining his profound knowledge of traditional Islamic sciences and Persian literature with modern methodology in scholarship and literary criticism.

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• FAYŻ MOḤAMMAD KĀTEB

  R. D. McChesney and A. H. Tarzi

  Afghan court chronicler and secretary to the amir Ḥabīb–Allāh Khan (r. 1901-19).

• FAYŻ-E KĀŠĀNĪ, MOLLĀ MOḤSEN-MOḤAMMAD

  Hamid Algar

  b. Šāh Mortażā b. Šāh Maḥmūd (b. 1598-9, d. 1679), prolific and versatile scholar of the Safavid period, celebrated chiefly for his Sufi inclinations.

• FAYŻĀBĀD

  Daniel Balland

  a toponym of auspicious meaning (“blessed abode”) which enjoys great popularity throughout the Iranian world.

• FAYŻĪ, ABU’L-FAYŻ

  Munibur Rahman

  (b. Agra, 1547; d. Lahore, 1595), Mughal court poet, also known as Fayżī Fayyāżī, who wrote mainly in Persian.

• FAYŻĪ, ABU’L-QĀSEM

  Moojan Momen

  (1906-1980), Bahai teacher, missionary, and author.

• FAŻĀʾEL-E BALḴ

  Arezou Azad

  13th-century local history from Balḵ in eastern Khorasan, with a collection of biographies of Balḵ’s early Islamic scholars and mystics. It differs from many other local histories of medieval Islamic cities in that it comprises a mix of historical, topographical, and prosopographical information.

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• FĀŻEL KHAN GARRŪSĪ, MOḤAMMAD

  Īraj Afšār

  (1784-1843), poet, litterateur, and secretary during the reigns of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (1797-1834) and Moḥammad Shah Qājār (1834-48).

• FĀŻEL MĀZANDARĀNĪ, MĪRZĀ ASAD-ALLĀH

  Moojan Momen

  (b. Bābol, 1881; d. Ḵorramšahr, 1957), Bahai scholar and missionary.

• FĀŻEL TŪNĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ḤOSAYN

  Hūšang Etteḥād

  From the beginning of 1934, Mohammad-Hosayn taught Arabic language and literature and Islamic philosophy at the University of Tehran; he retired in 1958. He was known for his memory, his sense of humor, and his ability to form friendships with colleagues from different disciplines.

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• FAZEL, JAVAD

  Ḥasan Mirʿābedini

  (1914-1961), noted serial writer, and a pioneering figure in simplifying and popularizing religious texts.

• FAŻL NAYRĪZĪ

  David Pingree

  (fl. 900 C.E.), ABU’L ʿABBĀS b. Ḥātem, mathematician and astronomer. His family originated from Nayrīz/Nīrīz, a small town near Shiraz. Almost nothing is known of his personal life. 

• FAŻL, b. AḤMAD ESFARĀʾENĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ESFARĀʾENĪ, FAŻL B. AḤMAD.

• FAŻL, b. Šāḏān NĪŠĀPŪRĪ AZDĪ, ABŪ MOḤAMMAD

  Etan Kohlberg

  (d. 873), Imami traditionalist, theologian, and jurisprudent.

• FAŻL, b. SAHL b. Zādānfarrūḵ

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (d. 818), high official of the early ʿAbbasids and vizier to the caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 813-33).

• FAŻL-ALLĀH ḤORŪFĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ASTARĀBĀDĪ, FAŻLALLĀH.

• FAŻL-ALLĀH NŪRĪ, SHAIKH

  Cross-reference

  See NŪRĪ, FAŻL-ALLĀH.

• FAŻLĪ NAMANGĀNĪ, ʿABD-AL-KARĪM

  Michael Zand

  (d. after 1822), Central Asian bilingual poet (Persian and Chaghatay), taḏkera compiler, and historian.

• FAŻLĪ, MEḤMED

  Tahsın Yazici

  (b. Istanbul; d. Kütahya, 1563), Moḥammad or ʿAlī ÇAĞDAŞLAN; Turkish poet, known also as Qara Fażlī.

• FAŻLŪYA DYNASTY

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀL-E FAŻLŪYA.

• FAŻLŪYA, Amir ABU’L-ʿABBĀS FAŻL

  ʿAbd-Allāh Mardūḵ

  known also as Neẓām-al-Dīn Fażl-Allāh, chief of the Šabānkāra Kurds in Fārs during the 11th century.

• FEDĀʾĪ

  Farhad Daftary

  or fedāwī; devotee, a person who offers his life for others or in the service of a particular cause.

• FEDĀʾĪ ḴORĀSĀNĪ, MOḤAMMAD

  Farhad Daftary

  b. Zayn-al-ʿĀbedīn b. Karbalāʾī Dāwūd (b. ca. 1850; d. 1923), foremost Persian Nezārī Ismaʿili author and poet of modern times, who is referred to as Ḥājī Āḵūnd in the Persian Nezārī community.

• FEDĀʾĪĀN-E ESLĀM

  FARHAD KAZEMI

  a Shiʿite fundamentalist group with a strong activist political orientation founded in 1945 by a charismatic figure, Sayyed Mojtabā Mīrlawḥī (1923-55).

• FEHİM SÜLEYMAN EFENDİ

  Tahsın Yazici

  or FAHĪM SOLAYMĀN (b. Istanbul, 1789; d. 1846), a Persian teacher and poet of Turkish origin.

• FEHREST

  Rudolf Sellheim and Mohsen Zakeri, François de Blois, Werner Sundermann

  or Ketāb al-fehrest; a celebrated catalogue of books in Arabic, drafted in 987 by Ebn al-Nadīm. Some scholars regard him as a Persian, but this is not certain. However, his choice of a rather rare Persian word for the title of a handbook on Arabic literature is noteworthy.

• FEKETE, Lajos

  ANDRÁS BODROGLIGETI

  (1891-1969), Hungarian historian and specialist of Turkish-Persian paleography.

• FELĀḤAT-E MOẒAFFARĪ

  Nassereddin Parvin

  the first monthly magazine in Persia dealing with agricultural issues published from August 1900 to Noveber 1907; the official publication of the General Agricultural Office of Persia.

• FELFEL

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  modern Persian term designating the fruits and/or berries of two botanically different groups of plants: the pepper proper and the capsicum peppers.

• FELT

  Daniel Balland and Jean-Pierre Digard

  (namad), material produced by process of felting, the entanglement of animal fiber in all directions, done to form a soft and homogeneous mass. The technique was originally devised in nomadic communities of Central Asia (Pazyryk, 5th to 3rd centuries BCE).

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FEMINIST MOVEMENTS i. INTRODUCTION, ii. IN THE LATE QAJAR PERIOD

  EIr, Janet Afary

  Persia of the 20th century saw a number of popular, often small and short-lived, women’s rights activities which had been mobilized in the 1900s-1920s and again in the 1940s-50s.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FEMINIST MOVEMENTS iii. IN THE PAHLAVI PERIOD

  Hamideh Sedghi

  in the Pahlavi Period. The fundamental political, socio-cultural, and economic changes which Persia underwent in the Pahlavi era (1921-78) had drastic repercussions on the women’s rights movement and the condition of women.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FEMINIST MOVEMENTS iv. IN THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC

  Ziba Mir-Hosseini

  After the Revolution of 1978-79, “feminism,” because of its associations with the West and its appropriation by the previous regime, soon became viewed by the ruling clerics as synonymous with decadence.

• FENDERESK

  Mīnū Yūsofnežād

  a rural district (dehestān) of the county (šahrestān) of Gonbad-e Qābūs and situated north of the Alborz range in the eastern part of Māzandarān.

• FENDERESKĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See MĪR FENDERESKI, ABU’L-QĀSEM.

• FENNEL

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  the aromatic sweetish potherb and medicinal plant Foeniculum vulgare Mill. (= Anethum foeniculum L., etc.; fam. Umbelliferae).

• FEQH

  Norman Calder

  lit. "jurisprudence"; term used to designate the processes of exposition, analysis, and argument which constitute human effort to express God’s law (šarīʿa).

• FERDAWS AL-MORŠEDĪYA FĪ ASRĀR AL-ṢAMADĪYA

  Īraj Afšār

  a major hagiography of Abū Esḥāq Kāzarūnī (963-1033), a famous Sufi and founder of a selsela variously referred to as Kāzarūnīya, Esḥāqīya, or Moršedīya.

• FERDOWS

  Baqer Parham

  šahrestān in Khorasan consisting of three administrative districts: the city of Ferdows and its immediate suburbs, Bošrūya and Sarāyān.

• FERDOWSĪ MAGAZINE

  Esmail Nooriala

  the name of two periodicals, a bi-monthly and a weekly magazine published in Tehran.

• FERDOWSI, ABU'L-QĀSEM

  Multiple Authors

  (940-1019 or 1025), one of the greatest epic poets and author of the Šāh-nāma, the national epic of Persia.

• FERDOWSI, ABU'L-QĀSEM i. Life

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  Apart from his patronymic (konya), Abu’l-Qāsem, and his pen name (taḵallosá), Ferdowsī, nothing is known with any certainty about his names or the identity of his family.

• FERDOWSI, ABU’L-QĀSEM ii. Hajw-nāma

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  Hajw-nāma is the title of a verse lampoon of Sultan Maḥmūd of Ḡazna attributed to Ferdowsī. According to Neẓāmī ʿArūżī, after Ferdowsī presented his Šāh-nāma, the sultan used the pretext of the poet’s alleged Muʿtazilite and Shiʿite orientation to give him only twenty thousand dirhams as the reward for the epic.

• FERDOWSI, ABU’L-QĀSEM iii. MAUSOLEUM

  A. Shahpur Shahbazi

  The rise of nationalism in Persia early this century motivated scholars and dignitaries to urge the government to build a suitable mausoleum for the poet who had done so much to preserve Iranian identity and history. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FERDOWSI, ABU’L-QĀSEM iv. MILLENARY CELEBRATION

  A. Shahpur Shahbazi

  Already in 1922 Moḥammad-Taqī Bahār, the most influential poet of the time and a politician-journalist, urged Reżā Khan (later Reżā Shah), who had recently seized power, to prove his asserted nationalism by celebrating Ferdowsī.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FERDOWSI, ABU’L-QĀSEM v. HOMAGES TO FERDOWSI

  EIr

  Ever since the appearance of the Šāh-nāma, Ferdowsī has been held in high esteem, and many poets have referred to him and his work, the best known being Saʿdī’s tribute in the Būstān to “Ferdowsī-ye pāk-zād.” 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FERİDUN AḤMED BEG, ʿABD-AL-QĀDER

  Rudolf Vesel

  or FEREYDŪN AḤMAD BAYG (d. 1583), Ottoman secretary, administrator, head of the chancery, and author.

• FERĒDŪN

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  Iranian mythic hero.

• FEREŠTA

  Cross-Reference

  angels in Islam and Persian folklore. See Supplement, ANGELS.

• FEREŠTA, MOḤAMMAD-QĀSEM

  Cross-Reference

  See FEREŠTA, TĀRĪḴ-E.

• FEREŠTA,TĀRĪḴ-E

  Gavin R. G. Hambly

  popular title of Golšan-e ebrāhīmī, a general history of Muslim India by Moḥammad-Qāsem Hendušāh Astarābādī (b. Astarābād ca. 1570), the celebrated historian of the Deccan known by the pen name (taḵalloṣ) of Ferešta.

• FEREYDŪN

  Cross-reference

  (Faridun, Fereydoun, Fereydoon) Iranian mythic hero. See FERĒDŪN.

• FERŌD

  Cross-Reference

  See FORŪD.

• FERQA-YE DEMOKRĀT-E ĀḎARBĀYJĀN

  Forthcoming

  Democratic Party of Azerbaijan; the dominant political party in Azarbayjan during the Pīšavarī period. See Supplement.

• FERRIER, JOSEPH PHILIPPE

  Jacqueline Calmard-Compas

  (1811-1886), French soldier in the Persian service (1839-42, 1846-50).

• FERRIER, JOSEPHE-PIERRE

  Gavin R. G. Hambly

  19th-century French traveler and intrepid explorer in Afghanistan.

• FERTILITY AND MORTALITY

  Mehdi Amani

  in Persia. Up to 1986 the Persian birthrate was high (as high as 48-49 per 1,000), compared to the world rate but had dropped from 1966, as a result of official policies on family planning.  In 1994 the Persian birthrate equaled the average for Asia and Central America.

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• FESANJĀN

  Etrat Elahi

  (fesenjūn, fasūjan), a well known Persian dish (ḵoreš, a kind of stew) made of walnut or almond, poultry (usually duck) or small meat balls (kalla gonješkī) and pomegranate sauce or juice.

• FESTIVALS

  Multiple Authors

  This article discusses religious or communal festivals and commemorations, ancient and modern, of diverse communities in Persia and Afghanistan.

• FESTIVALS i. ZOROASTRIAN

  Mary Boyce

  fall into two broad categories. There are the seven feasts of obligation, that is, No Rōz (Nowrūz) and the six gāhānbārs, which formed the framework of the religious year, and which it was a sin not to keep; and others, which it was a merit, not a duty, to observe.

• FESTIVALS ii. MANICHEAN

  Werner Sundermann

  The Manichean calendar of holidays proves independence from that of the Zoroastrians. Even if the heptavalent number of the Manichean Yimkis was correlated to the Zoroastrian gāhānbār and Nowrūz

• FESTIVALS iii, iv, v

  Anne H. Betteridge and EIr, Philip G. Kreyenbroek, Keith Hitchins

  iii. SHI'ITE, iv. YAZIDI AND AHL-E HAQQ, v. KURDISH (SUNNI).

• FESTIVALS vi, vii, viii

  Moojan Momen, Amnon Netzer, A. Arkun

  vi. BAHAI, vii. JEWISH, viii. ARMENIAN.

• FESTIVALS ix. Assyrian

  WILLIAM PIROYAN and EDEN NABY

  The adoption of Christianity by the Assyrians in the latter part of the 1st century led to the harmonization of older community celebrations and commemorations with Christian doctrine as well as the introduction of specifically Christian religious holidays.

• FESTIVALS x. IN AFGHANISTAN

  NANCY HATCH DUPREE

  Festive ceremonies in Afghanistan mark special religious days and major events in individual life cycles. Few are formally organized, being celebrated primarily to keep family bonds strong and community ties congenial.

• FEṬR

  Cross-Reference

  See FESTIVALS iii.

• FEṬRAT ZARDŪZ SAMARQANDĪ, SAYYED KAMĀL

  Michael Zand

  (1660-1699), Tajik poet.

• FEṬRAT, ʿABD-AL-RAʾŪF BOḴĀRĪ

  Habib Borjian

  (b. Bukhara, ca. 1886; d. Tashkent, 1938), teacher, man of letters, and the most important thinker of the Jadid movement of modern Central Asia.

• FETYĀN

  Cross-reference

  See ʿAYYĀR; JAVĀNMARDI.

• FEUDALISM

  Cross-Reference

  European term sometimes applied to medieval Persia; see EQṬĀʿ.

• FEUVRIER, JEAN-BAPTISTE

  Jean Calmard

  (1842-1926), Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah’s personal physician (1889-1892), author of Trois ans à la cour de Perse, with engravings from photographs in the collections of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah and his retinue, Feuvrier’s own drawings, and Persian contemporary paintings. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FEVZİ EFENDİ, MEḤMED

  Tahsın Yazici

  or FAWZĪ (b. Denizli, 1826; d. Istanbul, 1900), Ottoman author who wrote some books in Persian.

• FEVZİ MOSTĀRĪ

  Hamid Algar

  or FAWZĪ (d. 1747), author of the Bolbolestān, an imitation of Saʿdī’s Golestān, the only prose work written in Persian known to be by a Bosnian author.

• FEYLĪ

  Pierre Oberling

  group of Lor tribes located mainly in Luristan.

• FEYLĪ DIALECT

  Cross-Reference

  See LORĪ.

• FICTION

  Multiple Authors

  i. Traditional Forms. ii. Modern Fiction. ii(a). Historical Background. ii(b). The Novel. ii(c). The Short Story. ii(d). The Post-Revolutionary Short Story. ii(e). Post-Revolutionary Fiction Abroad. ii(f). By Persians in Non-Persian Languages. ii(g). In Afghanistan. ii(h). In Tajikistan.

• FICTION, i

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  OVERVIEW of the entry: i. TRADITIONAL FORMS. This article deals with all kinds of stories written for specifically literary purposes up to the time when narrative prose in the modern style, derived from the West, was introduced in Persia.

• FICTION, ii(a)

  SĪMĪN BEHBAHĀNĪ and EIr

  ii(a). HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF MODERN FICTION.  The long reign of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah (1848-96) and the Constitutional Revolution a decade after his death witnessed the gradual emergence of modern fiction in Persia.

• FICTION, ii(b)

  Houra Yavari

  ii(b). THE NOVEL.

• FICTION, ii(c)

  Jamāl Mīrṣādeqī

  ii(c). THE SHORT STORY. Historically, the modern Persian short story has undergone three stages of development: a formative period, a period of consolidation and growth, and a period of diversity.

• FICTION, ii(d)

  Houra Yavari

  ii(d). THE POST-REVOLUTIONARY SHORT STORY. The post-revolutionary short story is marked by its formal sophistication and has carved out a distinct and experimental space of its own in fiction.

• FICTION, ii(e)

  Houra Yavari

  ii(e). POST-REVOLUTIONARY FICTION ABROAD. Not only were the novel and short story imported genres, the very first works of Persian fiction were either written or first published outside Persia.

• FICTION, ii(f)

  Houra Yavari

  ii(f). BY PERSIANS IN NON-PERSIAN LANGUAGES. Persian fiction is not limited to works written in the Persian language, or to works written within the geographical boundaries of Persia herself.

• FICTION, ii(g)

  Shahwali Ahmadi

  ii(g). IN AFGHANISTAN. The introduction of modern fiction in Afghanistan was concomitant with the institution of new educational and literary organizations, namely the Ḥabībīya School and Anjoman-e adabī, and the publication of the bi-weekly Serāj al-aḵbār-e afḡānīya, edited by Maḥmūd Ṭarzī, in the early twentieth century.

• FICTION, ii(h)

  Keith Hitchins

  ii(h). IN TAJIKISTAN. Tajik fiction in the 20th century has drawn from a variety of sources.

• FIEF

  Cross-Reference

  See EQṬĀʿ; LAND TENURE.

• FIG

  Hušang Aʿlam

  the “fruit” of several species and subspecies of Ficus L. (fam. Moraceae) in the geobotanical area covered by K. H. Rechinger’s Flora Iranica.

• FIGUEROA, GARCÍA DE SILVA Y

  Michele Bernardini

  (b. Zafra, 1550; d. at sea returning from Persia, 1624), Spanish diplomat and traveler.

• FIGURES OF SPEECH

  Cross-reference

  See BADIʿ (1).

• FĪL

  Cross-Reference

  See ELEPHANT.

• FILBERT

  Cross-Reference

  See HAZELNUT.

• FILIPPI, FILIPPO DE

  Anna Vanzan

  (1814-1867), a professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at Turin University.

• FILM PRODUCTION

  Cross-Reference

  See Supplement; see also CINEMA.

• FĪN

  Cross-Reference

  strict and spring near Kāšān. See BĀḠ-E FĪN.

• FINKENSTEIN, TREATY OF

  Cross-Reference

  See FRANCE iii; GARDANE MISSION.

• FIRE

  Cross-reference

  See ĀDUR, ĀTAŠ, ĀTAŠKADA.

• FIRE ALTARS

  Mark Garrison

  a structure used to to hold fire for urposes of veneration, probably contained within a metal or clay bowl. The term should probably be restricted to those structures which have a clear Zoroastrian religious context.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FIRE TEMPLES

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀTAŠKADA.

• FIRE WORSHIP

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀTAŠ.

• FIREARMS i. HISTORY

  Rudi Matthee

  in Persia. This article surveys the history and production of various firearms and artillery in Persia from their introduction to the 19th century.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FIREARMS ii. PRODUCTION OF CANNON AND MUSKETS

  Parviz Mohebbi

  By the last quarter of the 16th century, cannon-making was so common that cannons were constructed even on the spot during siege operations.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FIRMAN

  Cross-Reference

  See FARMĀN.

• FIRST DASTUR MEHERJIRANA LIBRARY, THE

  Miguel Ángel Andrés-Toledo

  the second Parsi library founded in India, established in 1872 CE in Navsari (India) by the Meherjirana family and celebrated since the 12th century CE for its religious relevance for in Gujarat.

• FĪRŪZ

  Klaus Schippmann

  (PĒRŌZ) Sasanian king (r. 459-84), son of Yazdegerd II (r. 439-57). 

• FĪRŪZ BAHRĀM

  Fariborz Majīdī and Hūšang Etteḥād

  one of Tehran’s oldest high schools, founded by Parsi philanthropist Bahramji Bikaji as a memorial to his son Fīrūz, who was lost at sea in the Mediterranean in 1915. Bikaji’s initial plan was to build an elementary school in

• FĪRŪZ MAŠREQĪ

  Aḥmad Edāračī Gīlānī

  (or Pīrūz; not Mošrefī as in Majmaʿ al-foṣaḥāʾ, p. 946), poet at the court of the Saffarids Yaʿqūb b. Layṯ (r. 867-78) and his brother ʿAmr b. Layṯ.

• FĪRŪZ MĪRZA

  Cross-reference

  (1817-1886), sixteenth son of ʿAbbās Mīrzā and grandson of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah. See FARMĀNFARMĀ, FĪRŪZ MĪRZĀ.

• FĪRŪZ ŠĀPŪR

  Cross-reference

  name of a town on the left bank of the Euphrates five km north-west of Fallūǰa and sixty-two km west of Baghdad. See ANBĀR.

• FIRUZ, MARYAM

  Maziar Behrooz

  Firuz was born into the royal Qajar family.  Her father was ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Mirzā Farmānfarmā, the second son of Firuz Mirzā Noṣrat-al-Dawla Farmānfarmā, the sixteenth son of ʿAbbās Mirzā, son and the crown prince of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah, the second Qajar king.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FĪRŪZA

  Cross-reference

  See TURQUOISE.

• FĪRŪZĀBĀD

  Dietrich Huff

  The plain of Fīrūzābād has been inhabited since prehistoric times, with a major Chalcolithic site, Tall-e Rīgī, in the south. Surrounded bys mountains with few access roads, it was chosen by Ardašīr-e Bābakān as the key stronghold in his revolt against the last Parthian king.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FĪRŪZĀBĀDĪ, ABŪ ṬĀHER MOḤAMMAD

  Cross-reference

  See Supplement.

• FĪRŪZKŪH

  Bernard Hourcade

  name of two towns: (1) a fortified city in the medieval Islamic province of Ḡūr in Central Afghanistan, which was the capital of the senior branch of the Ghurid sultans (see GHURIDS) for some sixty years in the later 6th/12th and 7th/13th centuries; (2) fortress and surrounding settlement in the Damāvand region of the Alborz mountains in northern Persia.

• FĪRŪZŠĀH-NĀMA

  William L. Hanaway

  pre-Safavid prose romance, the hero of which is Fīrūzšāh, son of Dārāb of the Kayanid house. 

• FISCAL SYSTEM

  Multiple Authors

  i. Achaemenid Period. ii. Sasanian Period. iii. Islamic Period. iv. Safavid and Qajar Periods. v. Pahlavi Period. vi. Islamic Republic..

• FISCAL SYSTEM i. ACHAEMENID, ii. SASANIAN

  Mohammad A. Dandamayev, Rika Gyselen

  There probably was no clear distinction between state and royal incomes in the Achaemenid empire. All state receipts were considered royal property, as was the income from the king’s estates. 

• FISCAL SYSTEM iii. ISLAMIC PERIOD

  JÜRGEN PAUL

  iii. ISLAMIC PERIOD Such a system can be studied in at least three aspects: First, its relationship to the ruler or the government; second, its relationship to those groups in the population who serve as sources of revenue (“taxpayers”);

• FISCAL SYSTEM iv. SAFAVID AND QAJAR PERIODS

  Willem Floor

  iv. SAFAVID AND QAJAR PERIODS The Safavid shah’s fiscal prerogatives were expressed by terms like bājgoḏār, bājsetān, and jezyagoḏār (tax assessor or tax taker).

• FISCAL SYSTEM v. PAHLAVI PERIOD

  MASSOUD KARSHENAS

  The first attempts at setting up a modern fiscal system in Persian began after the Constitutional Revolution.

• FISCAL SYSTEM vi. ISLAMIC REPUBLIC

  Adnan Mazarei

  The receipt of large revenues from oil exports and their expenditure for developing various sectors of the economy, improving infrastructure, and providing social services have made the government’s fiscal policies a major determinant of the overall economic incentives, structure and level of economic activity.

• FISCHEL, WALTER JOSEPH

  David Yeroushalmi

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

• FISH

  Multiple Authors

  in Persia. 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FISH ii. SALT WATER FISHES

  Hušang Aʿlam

  Except for occasional short reports by foreign researchers on some individual fish species from the Sea of Oman and the Persian Gulf, there was no comprehensive scientific study of the ichthyofauna of the region until the Danish H. Blegvad and B. Løppenthin’s systematic survey.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FISH iii. IN PRE-ISLAMIC PERSIAN LORE

  Hušang Aʿlam

  The Bundahišn 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FLANDIN AND COSTE

  Jean Calmard

  Eugène Flandin was the son of Jean-Baptiste Flandin, an intendant in Napoléon’s armies. Little is known about his mother Marie-Agnès Durand. Eugène’s early years were linked with his father’s tumultuous career. He was only two years old when his family returned from Naples, where his father had been assigned since 1807, serving with Murat.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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

• FLORENCE

  Cross-Reference

  See ŠAH-NĀMA MANUSCRIPTS.

• FLOWERS

  Cross-Reference

  See GOL.

• FLOYER, ERNEST AYSCOGHE

  Josef Elfenbein

  Floyer became the first station chief at Jāsk in 1870, although he was only seventeen, and served until 1877. Goldsmid encouraged his station and substation staff to explore their surroundings, and Floyer was one of those who responded, taking a long leave of absence in 1876-77.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FLÜGEL, GUSTAV LEBERECHT

  Gerd Gropp

  (b. 18 February 1802, Bautzen; d. 5 July 1870, Dresden), German orientalist.

• FLURY, SAMUEL

  Jens Kröger

  (1874-1935) pioneer of Islamic paleographical studies. Although Flury was primarily interested in problems of the development of Kufic script, much of his specific research was focused on monuments in Persia.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FOʾĀDI BOŠRUʾI, ḤASAN

  Fereydun Vahman

  (1899-1936), historian, philologist, educator, and head of Bahai schools in Iran and Turkmenistan.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FOḠĀN

  Cross-reference

  See AŠRAF-ʿALĪ KHAN FOḠĀN.

• FŌLĀDĪ

  Cross-Reference

  Buddhist cave site in Afghanistan. See AFGHANISTAN viii.

• FOLK POETRY

  Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  in Iranian languages. The term ‘folk poetry’ can be properly used for texts which have some characteristics marking them as poetry and belong to the tradition of the common people, as against the dominant ‘polite’ literary cult

• FOLKLORE STUDIES

  Multiple Authors

  aims to provide a summary of folklore studies made in or about the Iranian world. It encompasses a wide field of varying notions, ranging from popular beliefs and customs to myths, legends and other genres of oral literature.

• FOLKLORE STUDIES i. OF PERSIA

  Ulrich Marzolph

  The term folklore denotes, in a very broad sense, the traditional cultural expression of any notable group of people, not necessarily belonging to a specific social stratum.

• FOLKLORE STUDIES ii. OF AFGHANISTAN

  Margaret A. Mills and Abdul Ali Ahrary

  Folklore may be defined as roughly comprising the oral-traditional component of culture, complementary or competitive with an official, canonical “written” culture, but this definition presents certain problems.

• FOLŪS

  Cross-reference

  See CASSIA.

• FONDOQESTĀN

  B. A. Litvinskiĭ

  (FONDUKISTAN), early medieval settlement and Buddhist monastery in Afghanistan, in the province of Parvān (Parwan). The site is usually dated to the 7th century CE on the evidence of artistic style and numismatic finds, the oldest of which is from 689 C.E. However, the shape and the decorations of the stupa suggest that the complex can be even earlier.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FOOD

  Cross-reference

  See COOKING.

• FOOTBALL

  Houchang Chehabi

  (soccer). The game of football was introduced to Persia in the first two decades of the 20th century by British residents and American missionaries. 

• FOQAHA

  Cross-Reference

  plural of faqih “Islamic jurist.” See  FEQH.

• FOQQĀʿ

  Sayyed Mohammad Dabirsiaghi

  Early dictionaries describe foqqāʿ as a kind of barley wine or beer, but the semantic range later expanded to include juices from dried raisins, fruits, honey, and other ingredients.Both Persian and Arabic literature abound with references to foqqāʿ.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FORĀT

  Cross-reference

  See EUPHRATES.

• FORĀT B. EBRĀHĪM

  Meir M. Bar-Asher

  Shiʿite(most probably Imami) Koran commentator and Hadith scholar. The dates of his birth and death are unknown, but the time he flourished can be estimated by the dates of the scholars whom he quoted or who transmitted Hadith on his authority.

• FORĀT MAYSĀN

  Cross-reference

  See BAHMAN ARDAŠĪR.

• FOREIGN AFFAIRS

  Willem Floor

  administration and ministry of foreign affairs.

• FOREIGN EXCHANGE

  Cross-reference

  See ECONOMY.

• FOREIGN POLICY

  Cross-Reference

  See FOREIGN AFFAIRS; ANGLO-IRANIAN RELATIONS; ANGLO-PERSIAN AGREEMENT of 1919; ANGLO-PERSIAN WAR; ANGLO-RUSSIAN CONVENTION of 1907; and under individual countries and treaties.

• FORESTS AND FORESTRY

  Multiple Authors

  i. Forests and Forestry in Persia. ii. Forests and Forestry in Afghanistan.

• FORESTS AND FORESTRY i. In Persia

  Eckart Ehlers

  Less than 2 percent of Persia is covered by forests, while another 8 to 9 percent may be regarded as depleted former forest areas. Altogether, 150-160,000 km² are, or have been, densely forested areas.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FORESTS AND FORESTRY ii. In Afghanistan

  Cross-Reference

  See AFGHANISTAN xiii.

• FORGERIES

  Multiple Authors

  of art objects and manuscripts. i. Introduction. ii. Of Pre-Islamic Art Objects. iii. Of Islamic Art. iv. Of Manuscripts.

• FORGERIES i. INTRODUCTION

  Abolala Soudavar

  Early in the Islamic era, Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī described in his al-Aṯār al-bāqīa how emergent Islamic rulers of Persia had forged their lineage and invented connections with previous dynasties in order to affirm their own legitimacy.

• FORGERIES ii. OF PRE-ISLAMIC ART OBJECTS

  Oscar White Muscarella

  Two kinds of forgeries affect the study of ancient Iranian artifacts: the modern creation of an object falsely presented as an ancient artifact, and the assertion that an unexcavated object comes from a specifically named site, thereby effectively forging its provenience.

• FORGERIES iii. OF ISLAMIC ART

  Sheila S. Blair

  Medieval Arabic and Persian literature contain numerous anecdotes about the forging of manuscripts, but it was only in the late 19th century that forging Persian works of Islamic art became a widespread phenomenon.

• FORGERIES iv. OF ISLAMIC MANUSCRIPTS

  Francis Richard

  Manuscripts in Arabic script have been forged or tampered with to enhance the value of a manuscript and to prove its antiquity.

• FORṢAT-AL-DAWLA

  Manouchehr Kasheff

  (1854-1920), pen name of the poet, scholar, and artist Mīrzā Moḥammad-Naṣīr Ḥosaynī Šīrāzī. In 1908 he was appointed the first director of the Shiraz branch of the Department of Education. In Fārs he arranged for the establishment of modern schools and for the education of tribal children.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FORSTER, GEORGE

  Michael J. Franklin

  (1752-91), an East India Company civil servant, traveller, writer, and diplomatist.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FORTIFICATIONS

  Wolfram Kleiss

  The present article deals with the fortified passages and defenses that are implied under the term bārū. Certain passes in Persia still feature barriers going back to the Achaemenid period. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FORTRESSES

  Cross-reference

  See CASTLES.

• FORŪD (1)

  Jean During

  (lit. descent; Forūvard in Bukharian tradition, Ayaq in Azeri moqām), general designation of the concluding motif of a melodic sequence in Persian music.

• FORŪD (2)

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  or Ferōd; son of Sīāvaḵš and half brother of Kay Ḵosrow.

• FORŪGĪ BESṬĀMĪ, ʿABBĀS

  Heshmat Moayyad

  or BASṬĀMĪ (b. Karbalā, 1798; d. Tehran, 1857), 19th-century poet.

• FORŪGĪ, ABU'L-ḤASAN

  Bagher Agheli

  (b. Isfahan, 1884; d. Tehran, 1960), educator and author.

• FORŪGĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ʿALĪ ḎOKĀʾ-AL-MOLK

  Fakhreddin Azimi, Iraj Afshar

  (1877-1942), statesman, scholar, and man of letters. Forūḡī’s personal integrity and honesty have rarely been disputed, even by his critics. Others have blamed him for helping to bring about Reżā Shah’s regime and continuing to serve it despite its blatant misdeeds.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FORŪGĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ḤOSAYN Khan Ḏokāʾ-al-Molk

  Manouchehr Kasheff

  (b. Isfahan, 1839; d. Tehran, 1907), poet, journalist, literateur, translator, and author.

• FORŪGĪ, MOḤSEN

  Mina Marefat and EIr, Richard N. Frye

  (1907-1983), pioneer of modern architecture in Persia, an influential professor of architecture at the University of Tehran, and a noted collector of Persian art. He was imprisoned in 1979 after the revolution, and his art collection was placed in the Archaeological Museum, Tehran.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FORUTAN, ʿALI-AKBAR

  IRAJ AYMAN

  In Ashkhabad, Forutan had the opportunity to study under the Bahai scholar, Mirzā Mahdi Golpāygāni, and at his bidding gave lectures at Bahai meetings and wrote articles for the Bahai magazines Fekr-e-javān and Ḵoršid-e ḵāvar.  When he was in secondary school, Forutan served as a member of the Bahai Youth Committee in Ashkhabad.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FORUTAN, YŪSOF

  Jean During

  a twentieth century master of Persian music.

• FORUZĀNFAR, Badiʿ-al-Zamān

  Abd-al-Hosayn Zarrinkub

  (1903-1970) Persian literary scholar and critic, professor at the University of Tehran, one of the pioneers of literary studies in modern Persia. A significant part of Forūzānfar’s scholarship was devoted to Rūmī and his associates; other works cover Islamic mysticism and philosophy.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FOTOWWA

  Cross-reference

  See JAVĀNMARDĪ.

• FOTŪḤ AL-SALĀṮĪN

  Cross-reference

  Work by Indo-Muslim poet ʿAbd-al-Malek ʿEṣāmi. See ʿEṢAMI, ʿABD-AL-MALEK.

• FOUCHER, ALFRED

  François de Blois

  (1865-1952), the first head of the French Archaeological Mission in Afghanistan (see DÉLÉGATIONS ARCHÉOLOGIQUES FRANÇAISES, ii.) and a noted scholar on Grœco-Buddhist art.

• FOUNDATIONS

  Cross-reference

  See under individual entries, such as BONYĀD-E FARHANG-E ĪRĀN; BONYĀD-E ŠAHĪD; BONYĀD-E ŠĀH-NĀMA-YE FERDOWSĪ.

• FOWAṬĪ, HEŠĀM

  Josef van Ess

  b. ʿAMR (d. Baghdad, ca. 845), Muʿtazilite theologian of Basran affiliation and student of Abu’l-Hoḏayl.

• FOX i. NATURAL HISTORY

  Steven C. Anderson

  small member of the dog family (Canidae). They occur throughout most of the world, with four species in Iran and Afghanistan, i. NATURAL HISTORY.

• FOX ii. IN PERSIA

  Mahmoud and Teresa Omidsalar

  In pre-Islamic Iran, the fox was considered as one of the ten varieties of dog, created against a demon called xabag dēw. In Islam, although consuming fox flesh is forbidden by most schools of law, medicinal use of various parts of the fox’s body is allowed for treatment of a variety of conditions.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FOŻŪLĪ, MOḤAMMAD

  Eir

  b. Solaymān (ca. 1480-1556), widely regarded as the greatest lyric poet in Azerbayjani Turkish, who also wrote extensively in Arabic and Persian.

• FRĀDA

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

  a sixth century Margian leader.

• FRAHANG Ī OĪM

  William W. Malandra

  an Avestan-Pahlavi glossary so named after its first entry, Av. oīm glossed by Pahl. ēwag, though the work is introduced with the lengthy title: “On the understanding of the speech and words of the Avesta, namely, what and how its zand is.”

• FRAHANG Ī PAHLAWĪG

  D. N. MacKenzie

  lit. “a Pahlavi dictionary,” is rather a description than the title of an anonymous glossary of some five hundred mostly Aramaic heterograms (ideograms), in the form used by Zoroastrians in writing Middle Persian (Book Pahlavi), each explained by a “phonetic” writing of the corresponding Persian word.

• FRAMADĀR

  Marie-Louise Chaumont

  or FRAMĀTĀR; a Sasanian administrative title.

• FRANCE

  Multiple Authors

  Relations with Iran.

• FRANCE i. Introduction

  Jean Calmard

  Compared to the long-standing history of Persian civilization, France emerged as a powerful entity endowed with its own distinctive culture only in the 13th century C.E., i.e. the great century of Christianity.

• FRANCE ii. RELATIONS WITH PERSIA TO 1789

  Jean Calmard

  In the early Middle Ages, Persia was perceived by the French mostly through biblical, Greek, and Latin sources.

• FRANCE iii. RELATIONS WITH PERSIA 1789-1918

  Florence Hellot-Bellier

  After more than sixty years of half-hearted diplomatic maneuverings, permanent relations were finally established between the France and Persia in 1855.

• FRANCE iv. RELATIONS WITH PERSIA SINCE 1918

  Marie-Louise Chaumont

  During the First World War, France, unlike England, Russia, Germany, and the Ottoman Empire, had no direct strategic interests in Persia.

• FRANCE v. ADMINISTRATIVE AND MILITARY CONTACTS WITH PERSIA

  Massoud Farnoud

  The motives for Franco-Persian administrative and military contacts between the French Revolution of 1789 and the Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1906, their implementation and their impact on Persia will be examined here.

• FRANCE vi. PERSIA AND THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

  Mohammad Tavakoli-Targhi

  Persians saw the French Revolution as sedition (fetna), corruption (fesād), a general disturbance by the populace (balwā-ye ʿāmm), insurrection (šūreš), the great revolution (enqelāb-e ʿaẓīm), and the great revolution (enqelāb-e kabīr).

• FRANCE vii. FRENCH TRAVELERS IN PERSIA, 1600-1730

  Anne-Marie Touzard

  While the Italian cities and Spain entered into diplomatic relations with Persia at an early date, this was not true of France, despite an abortive attempt—the dispatch in 1626 of Louis Deshayes de Courmenin to the court of Shah ʿAbbās I. The early 17th century also witnessed the great missionary upsurge in France.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FRANCE viii. TRAVELOGUES OF THE 18TH-20TH CENTURIES

  Nader Nasiri-Moghaddam

  On the reign of Nāder Shah (1736-1747), accounts by missionaries, notably those by the Jesuit Père Louis Bazin, chief physician to Nāder Shah from 1746 until the latter’s assassination, form useful complements to the Persian sources.

• FRANCE ix. IMAGE OF PERSIA AND PERSIAN LITERATURE AMONG FRENCH AUTHORS

  J. Duchesne-Guillemin

  France used Persia as a means of social, political, and religious self-criticism, and they were interested in Zoroastrianism as “the most ancient religion."

• FRANCE x. FRENCH LITERATURE IN PERSIA

  Christophe Balay

  The new trends in Persian literature in the beginning of the 20th century are closely related to social and political changes which began in Persia under Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah (1848-96), and brought about the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11.

• FRANCE xi. PERSIAN ART AND ART COLLECTIONS IN FRANCE

  Yves Porter

  French collections, both public and private, contain hundreds of Persian works of art. Some of these reached France during the Middle Ages, notably after the Crusades, but most of the great collections containing Persian art were created during the second half of the 19th century.

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• FRANCE xii(a). IRANIAN STUDIES IN FRANCE: OVERVIEW

  Vincent Hachard and Bernard Hourcade

  The genuine beginning of Persian studies in France began with the foundation in Istanbul and Smyrna (Izmir) of a “School of languages for the young” in 1669 to train translators of Ottoman Turkish for French consulates.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FRANCE xii(b). IRANIAN STUDIES IN FRANCE: PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD

  Philippe Gignoux

  The French contribution to pre-Islamic Iranian studies, both in philological studies and archeology, has been considerable.

• FRANCE xii(c). IRANIAN STUDIES IN FRANCE: SOCIAL SCIENCES AND MODERN PERSIA

  Bernard Hourcade

  The history of French scholarship on modern Persia particularly in the field of social sciences was shaped by major external factors including the overall political relationship between the two countries and the radical changes which took place in the French university system and the organization of its scholarly missions to Persia in the latter half of this century.

• FRANCE xiii. INSTITUT FRANÇAIS DE RECHERCHE EN IRAN

  R. Boucharlat

  The Institut français de recherche en Iran (IFRI) was established in its present form and under the above name in l983, although in Persia it is usually referred to as Anjoman-e īrān-šenāsī-e farānsa dar Īrān.

• FRANCE xiv. FRENCH ARCHAEOLOGICAL MISSION

  Cross-reference

  See DÉLÉGATIONS ARCHÉOLOGIQUES FRANÇAISES i.

• FRANCE xv. FRENCH SCHOOLS IN PERSIA

  Djavad Hadidi

  French schools in Persia had more varied roots than other foreign schools, originating from three distinct sources: Catholic, Jewish, and secular. Catholic schools were established by Lazarist missionaries, Jewish schools by the Alliance Israélite Universelle, and lay schools by Alliance Française.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FRANCE xvi. LOANWORDS IN PERSIAN

  Guitty Deyhime

  The gradual entry of a large number of loan words into Persian from European languages and most notably from French began in the 19th century and continued through the 20th century as part of the process of modernization of culture and society in Persia.

• FRANCE xvii. Persian Community in France

  Vida Nassehi-Behnam

  The emergence of a Persian community in France can perhaps be traced back to 1272/1855-6, when Farrok Khan Ḡaffārī, Amīn-al-Molk, later Amīn-al-Dawla was sent to Paris as the shah’s envoy (īlcī-e kabīr).

• FRANKLIN BOOK PROGRAM

  Datus C. Smith, Jr.

  (Moʾassasa-ye entešārāt-e Ferānklīn), an American non-profit corporation seeking to aid development of indigenous book publishing in the developing countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The program in Persia (1954-1979, the first after Egypt) was the largest of the seventeen around the world.

• FRANRASYAN

  Cross-reference

  See AFRĀSĪĀB.

• FRĀRĀST

  Cross-reference

  See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

• FRAŠEGERD

  Cross-reference

  See FRAŠŌ.KƎRƎTI.

• FRASER JAMES BAILLIE

  Denis Wright

  (1783-1856), 15th laird of Reelig, traveler, writer, and artist.

• FRAŠŌ.KƎRƎTI

  Almut Hintze

  an eschatological term referring to the final renovation and transfiguration of Ahura Mazdā’s creation after evil has been utterly defeated and driven away.

• FRAŠOŠTAR

  Cross-reference

  See JĀMĀSP.

• FRATARAKA

  Josef Wiesehöfer

  lit. “leader, governor, forerunner”; ancient Persian title.

• FRAVARTISH

  Cross-Reference

  Median rebel against Darius I. See PHRAORTES.

• FRAVAŠI

  Mary Boyce

  the Avestan word for a powerful supernatural being whose concept at an early stage in Zoroastrianism became blended with that of the urvan (the human soul).

• FRAWĀG

  Cross-reference

  See SĪĀMAG.

• FRAWAHR

  Cross-reference

  See FRAVAŠI.

• FRAWARDĪGĀN

  William W. Malandra

  name of the ten-day Zoroastrian festival (gāhānbār) at year’s end in honor of the spirits of the dead.

• FRAWARDĪN

  Cross-reference

  name of the nineteenth day of a month and also the name of the first month of the year in the Zoroastrian calendar. See CALENDARS i.

• FRAWARDĪN YAŠT

  Mary Boyce

  the thirteenth of the Zoroastrian yašt hymns, devoted to the fravašis.

• FRĀXKARD

  Ahmad Tafazzoli

  name of the cosmic ocean in Iranian mythology.

• FREE VERSE

  Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak

  in Persian poetry. The term šeʿr-e āzād, Persian for the French vers libre and English free verse, entered Persia in the 1940s and immediately began to be used in a variety of senses and applied to diverse subspecies of the emerging canon of šeʿr-e now (new poetry), especially to highlight those features in which this body of poetry was felt to differ from classical Persian poetry and the contemporary practice modeled after it.

• FREE WILL

  Multiple Authors

  i. IN TWELVER SHI'ISM, ii. IN ISMA'ILI SHI'ISM.

• FREEMASONRY

  Multiple Authors

  This famous fraternal order, bound by rituals and secret oaths, was introduced to Persia and adopted by Persian notables in the 19th century. It developed in the early 20th century and burgeoned in the period from 1950-78. Its practice still continues among some middle- and upper-class Persians in exile at the turn of the 21st century.  The topic will be treated in five entries.

• FREEMASONRY i. INTRODUCTION

  Hasan Azinfar, M.-T. Eskandari, and Edward Joseph

  The principal officers of the Lodge are the Worshipful Master and the Senior and Junior Wardens. The Worshipful Master is the head and chief of the Lodge, the source of light, of knowledge, and instruction. Dressed formally on a high pedestal, he presides over the formal Masonic sessions.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FREEMASONRY ii. In the Qajar Period

  Hamid Algar

  Persians made their first acquaintance with Freemasonry outside Persia, in India, and more importantly in Europe, and it was not until the first decade of the 20th century that a lodge regularly affiliated to one of the recognized European obediences appeared in the country.

• FREEMASONRY iii. In the Pahlavi Period

  EIr

  There were three distinct phases: (1) dormancy, from 1925-1950 under Reżā Shah and for the decade following his abdication in 1941; (2) revival, and the creation of the Lodge Pahlavi; (3) burgeoning, in the period of 1955-78, when dozens of regular lodges were chartered.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FREEMASONRY iv. The 1979 Revolution

  EIr

  From the onset of the 1978-79 revolutionary upheavals the Persian Freemasons became vulnerable to the anti-Masonic sentiments and threats of the main participants in the revolutionary coalition, including Islamic Fundamentalists, Leftist organizations, and Liberal-Nationalist forces.

• FREEMASONRY v. In Exile

  Hasan Azinfar, M.-T. Eskandari, and Edward Joseph

  Many master Masons managed to leave the country legally or illegally and emigrated to Europe, Canada, and the United States.

• FREĬMAN, Aleksandr Arnol’dovich

  Solomon Bayevsky

  (1879-1968), founder and the head of the Soviet school of the comparative-historical method in Iranian linguistics. For sixty years, Freĭman worked in various areas of Iranian languages. His work on Sogdian, Chorasmian, and Ossetic is especially important.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FRENCH REVOLUTION

  Cross-reference

  and Persia. See FRANCE ii and FRANCE iii.

• FRIDAY PRAYERS

  Cross-Reference

  leader of the congregational prayer performed at midday on Fridays. See EMĀM-E JOMʿA.

• FRIT WARES

  Cross-reference

  See CERAMICS xiv.

• FROGS

  Cross-reference

  See AMPHIBIANS.

• FRONTIERS

  Cross-reference

  See BOUNDARIES.

• FRUIT

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  (mīva). Jean Chardin (1643-1713) reported (p. 24) that “in Persia there were all the same kinds of fruit as in Europe and many others, all incomparatively delicious.” He noted the great variety of melons, cucumbers, grapes, dates, apricots, pomegranates, apples, pears, oranges, quinces, prunes, figs, pistachios, almonds, walnuts, filberts, and olives.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FRYER, JOHN

  Michael J. Franklin

  (b. ca. 1650; d. 1733), British travel-writer and doctor. His writings  display a lively curiosity, which, sharpened by his scientific training, produces accurate observations in geology, meteorology, and all aspects of natural history.

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• FŪLĀD-ZEREH

  Mahmoud Omidsalar

  lit. “[possessing] steel armor,” the name of a hideous demon in the story of Amīr Arsalān.

• FŪMAN

  Marcel Bazin

  town and district in western Gīlān, 21 km west-southwest of Rašt, on the left bank of Gāzrūdbār river. An important town in medieval times, Fūman is again a commercial and administrative center, with a very active Tuesday market and a large tea-processing factory.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• FŪMANĪ, ʿABD-AL-FATTĀḤ

  Sholeh Quinn

  author of the Tārīḵ-e Gīlān, a local history of Gīlān covering the years 1517-1628.

• FUMITORY

  M. H. Bokhari and W. Frey

  or šāhtara; term used for two species of plants of the genus Fumaria in Persia, Fumaria officinalis and Fumaria parviflora.

• FUNERAL CUSTOMS

  Cross-reference

  See BURIAL; CORPSE.

• FŪŠANJ

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  a town of medieval eastern Khorasan, situated just to the south of the Harīrūd River, and variously described in the sources as being between six and ten farsaḵs to the west-southwest of Herat.

• FŪŠANJĪ HERAVĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ,

  Gerhard Böwering

  correctly BŪŠANJĪ; b. Aḥmad b. Sahl (d. 958/959), an important exponent of the fetyān (javān-mardān) of Khorasan.

• Fadāye Roḳsār - Dekr Qāderieh

  music sample

• Falak-e Matam

  music sample

• F~ CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  Cross-Reference

  list of all the figure and plate images in the letter F entries.