Table of Contents

• IRAN vii. NON-IRANIAN LANGUAGES (10). Aramaic

  Gernot Windfuhr

  Speakers of North-Eastern Aramaic have been in contact with Iranian languages in the western regions of the plateau and on the western side of the Zagros for some 3,000 years -- with Jewish settlement from Mesopotamia documented since the eighth century BCE, Christian emigration begun during the Parthian period, and the Mandaeans, settled in southeastern Mesopotamia and adjacent Khuzestan  by the 3rd century CE. 

• IRAN viii. PERSIAN LITERATURE (1) Pre-Islamic

  Philip Huyse

  Iranian “literature” was for a long time essentially of oral nature as far as composition, performance, and transmission are concerned.

• IRAN viii. PERSIAN LITERATURE (2) Classical

  CHARLES-HENRI DE FOUCHÉCOUR

  We will pay special attention to the early formation and origins of different literary genres in Persian works, even though the very notion of literary genres is somewhat arbitrary and a subject of continuing debate.

• IRAN viii. PERSIAN LITERATURE (3) Modern

  Cross-Reference

  See FICTION.

• IRAN ix. RELIGIONS IN IRAN (1) Pre-Islamic (1.1) Overview

  Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  From the 2nd millennium BCE until Islam became dominant in Iran, a remarkable number of religious traditions existed there.

• IRAN ix. RELIGIONS IN IRAN (1) Pre-Islamic (1.2) Manicheism

  Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst and Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  Called after the founding prophet Mani (216-74 or 277), Manicheism was a syncretistic religion that, combining elements of the various religions current in Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau at the time, claimed to be the ultimate religion.

• IRAN ix. RELIGIONS IN IRAN (2) Islam in Iran (2.1) The Advent of Islam

  Hamid Algar

  Persian acquaintance with Islam began already in the time of the Prophet. Well known is the case of Salmān-e Fārsi, the Persian companion of the Prophet around whom many legends have been spun.

• IRAN ix. RELIGIONS IN IRAN (2) Islam in Iran (2.2) Mongol and Timurid Periods

  Hamid Algar

  It is sometimes assumed that the general predominance of Sunnism in Persia was significantly weakened by the destruction of the ʿAbbasid caliphate by the Mongols in 1258.

• IRAN ix. RELIGIONS IN IRAN (2) Islam in Iran (2.3) Shiʿism in Iran Since the Safavids

  Hamid Algar

  The Safavids originated as a hereditary lineage of Sufi shaikhs centered on Ardabil, Shafeʿite in school and probably Kurdish in origin. Their immediate following was concentrated in Azerbaijan.

• IRAN xi. MUSIC

  Bruno Nettl