Table of Contents

  • PHILOSOPHY

    Cross-Reference

    see under FALSAFA.

  • PHOENIX MOSQUE

    George Lane

    Over the centuries, the mosque has been mentioned by a variety of very different names.  It is referred to as the Li Bai Ssŭ on some steles and as Wu-lin Gardens on a 13th-century street map.  The name Li Bai Temple is thought to be the oldest designation. 

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  • PHRAORTES

    I. Medvedskaya

    the second king of the Median dynasty. All information about him is from Herodotus.

  • PHRATAPHERNES

    Ernst Badian

    a member of the highest Persian aristocracy at the end of the Achaemenid period. He probably belonged to one of the Six Families that had helped Darius I gain the throne.

  • PIANO IN PERSIAN MUSIC

    Hormoz Farhat

    The first piano is known to have arrived in Persia as a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to Fatḥ ʿAli Shah.

  • PILARAM, FARAMARZ

    Hengameh Fouladvand

    (1937-1983), a modernist artist, educator and among the founders of the Saqqā-ḵāna School of Art.

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  • PIR-E ZAN

    Anna Krasnowolska

    a calendar-related legend about an Old Woman who personifies winter.  

  • PIŠ-PARDA

    William O. Beeman

    a short comedy sketch, musical number, or dance performed before the main theatrical performance, or in an intermission between acts of a performance.

  • PÎREMÊRD

    Keith Hitchins

    (1867-1950), pen-name of Tawfiq, son of Maḥmud, son of Ḥamza (in Kurdish: Tewfîq kurî MehmûdʿAḡa kurî Hemze ʿAḡa), Kurdish writer, journalist, and public intellectual.

  • PLANE TREE

    Cross-Reference

    See ČENĀR.

  • PLANETS

    Antonio Panaino

    In antiquity, only five planets, visible to the naked eye (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) were known; in many early traditions, the Sun and the Moon, were added to their number. Hence, some sources mention both the “five” and the “seven” planets.

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  • PLANTAIN

    Cross-Reference

    See BĀRHANG.

  • PLATTS, JOHN THOMPSON

    Parvin Loloi

    (1830-1904), scholar and teacher of Persian at the University of Oxford. He wrote a widely used Persian grammar and published an edition and an English translation of Saʿdi’s Golestān.

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  • PLUM

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀLŪČA.

  • POLAK, Jakob Eduard

    Christoph Werner

    (1818-1891), Austrian physician and writer who was instrumental in establishing modern medicine in Iran. 

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  • POLAND ii. PERSIAN ART AND ARTIFACTS IN POLISH COLLECTIONS

    Beata Biedrońska-Słota, Dorota Malarczyk, and Barbara Mękarska

    Persian art has been present in Poland since medieval times. Among the objects—bought or brought back as war booty, like carpets, textiles, tents, richly ornamented weaponry, gold products—illuminated Persian manuscripts were also to be found.

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  • POLAND iii. Iranian Studies in Poland

    Anna Krasnowolska

    The development of Iranian studies in Poland was preceded by some nonscholarly interest in Persian language and culture.

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  • POLEMICS i. BETWEEN SHIʿITES AND JEWS

    Daniel Tsadik

    Twelver (Eṯnā ʿAšari Emāmi) Shiʿite polemics refer here to arguments gleaned from compositions written by Shiʿites.

  • POLL TAX

    Cross-Reference

    See JEZYA.

  • POLO, MARCO

    Michele Bernardini

    (1254-1324), Venetian merchant and traveler (b. Venice or Curzola, 1254; d. Venice, 8 January 1324), whose travel accounts gained worldwide fame and whose description of the countries he visited between 1271 and 1298 represents a primary geographical and historical source concerning Asia during the Mongol domination.