Table of Contents

• ṢABĀ, ABU’l-ḤASAN

  Hormoz Farhat

  Persian musician and music educator. He excelled as a performer and teacher of the violin, setār, santur, and tombak (tonbak; see IRAN xi. MUSIC, DRUMS).

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• SABALĀN MOUNTAIN

  Eckart Ehlers

  Kuh-e-Sabalān; 4,740 m), the highest and spatially most extended volcano in northwestern Iran.

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• ṢĀBER

  Hasan Javadi

  , MIRZĀ ʿALI-AKBAR ṬĀHERZĀDA (b. Šamāḵi [Shemakha], 30 May 1862; d. Šamāḵi, 12 July 1911), famous Azerbaijani satirist and poet.

• SABKŠENĀSI

  Matthew Smith

  the title of a book by Malek al-Šoʿarā Moḥammad Taqi Bahār first published in 1942.

• ŠĀBUHRAGĀN

  Christiane Reck

  (Šāpurāḵān, Šāburāḵān, Šāburḵān), one of the books written by Mani (216-274/7 CE), founder of the Manichean religion, in which he summarized his teaching systematically.

• ṢĀBUN

  Cross-Reference

  "soap." See SOAP.

• SACRIFICE i. IN ZOROASTRIANISM

  William W. Malandra

  At least since the publication of the seminal essay by Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss much of the discussion has been devoted to a search for what essentially defines sacrifice.

• SADA FESTIVAL

  Anna Krasnowolska

  the most important Iranian winter festival, celebrated by kindling fires.

• ṢADĀ-YE EṢFAHĀN

  Nassereddin Parvin

  weekly newspaper published in Isfahan (6 March 1921 to April/May 1944, with lengthy interruptions). 

• SADEQI, BAHRAM

  Saeed Honarmand

  poet and noted modernist fiction writer of the 20th century, who explored new literary techniques with almost each piece he wrote.

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• SAʿDI

  Paul Losensky

  Persian poet and prose writer (b. Shiraz, ca. 1210; d. Shiraz, d. 1291 or 1292), widely recognized as one of the greatest masters of the classical literary tradition.

• ṢADR

  Willem Floor

  Arabic term used in the Iranian lands mainly to denote an outstanding person (scholar or otherwise); hence it was also applied as a personal title.

• ṢĀʾEB TABRIZI

  Paul E. Losensky

  , MIRZĀ M0ḤAMMAD ʿALI (b. Tabriz, ca. 1000/1592; d. Isfahan, 1086-87/1676), celebrated Persian poet of the later Safavid period.

• SA'EDI, Gholam-Hosayn

  Faridoun Farrokh and Houra Yavari

  (1936-1985), writer, editor, and dramatist; an influential figure in popularizing the theater as an art form, as well as a medium of political and social expression in contemporary Iran.

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• ŠAFAQ

  Nasserddin Parvin

  a newspaper published in Tabriz, 3 October 1910 to 18 December 1911. It was an organ of the Democrat Party (Ḥezb-e demokrāt), with a strong nationalist orientation.

• SAFAVID DYNASTY

  Rudi Matthee

  Originating from a mystical order at the turn of the 14th century, the Safavids ruled Persia from 1501 to 1722. 

• SAFAVID DYNASTY (cont.)

  Rudi Matthee

  Annotated bibliography.

• SAFFARIDS

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  a dynasty of mediaeval Islamic eastern Iran which ruled from 247/861 to 393/1003.  From a base in their home province of Sistān, the first Saffarids built up a vast if transient military empire, at one point invading Iraq and threatening Baghdad.  

• SAFIDRUD

  Eckart Ehlers

  (lit. White River), the Amardos of the Classical sources, the largest Iranian river discharging into the Caspian Sea, which it reaches in Gilan Province after flowingthrough the southeastern part of Azerbaijan.

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• SAFINA-YE ḴOŠGU

  Stefano Pello

  An important Indo-Persian taḏkera (collection of biographical notices of poets with anthologies of their verse) of the 18th century, by Bindrāban Dās Ḵošgu.

• SAFINE-YE SOLAYMANI

  M. Ismail Marcinkowski

  (“Ship of Solayman”), a Persian travel account of an embassy sent by the Safavid ruler Shah Solayman (r. 1666-94) to Siam in the year 1685.

• ṢAFJĀHĪ DYNASTY

  Cross-Reference

  See DECCAN.

• ŠAFT

  Marcel Bazin

  district and small town in southwestern Gilān.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA iv. Illustrations

  Marianna Shreve Simpson

  Among the many works of classical literature that form the extensive corpus of Persian manuscript illustration, Ferdowsi’s Šāh-nāma occupies pride of place.

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• ŠĀH-NĀMA v. ARABIC WORDS

  John Perry

  Moïnfar calculates that the Šāh-nāma contains 706 words of Arabic origin, occurring a total of 8,938 times. The 100 words occurring most frequently account for 60 percent of all occurrences.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA — EXCURSUS

  Amin Banani

  Essay: “Reflections on Re-reading the Iliad and the Shahnameh” by Amin Banani.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS i. INTO TURKISH

  Osman G. Özgüdenli

  Turks have been influenced by the Šāh-nāma since the advent of the Saljuqs in Persia. Their last prince in Persia, Ṭoḡrel III, recited verses from the Šāh-nāma while swinging his mace in battle.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS ii. INTO GEORGIAN

  Jamshid Sh. Giunshvili

  was translated, not only to satisfy the literary and aesthetic needs of readers and listeners, but also to inspire the young with the spirit of heroism and Georgian patriotism.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xiii. INTO POLISH

  Anna Krasnowolska

  The first, brief mention of Ferdowsi in Polish was made by Ignacy Krasicki (1735-1801) in his work on poets and poetry, and he included in his collection of Oriental tales two passages originating from the Šāh-nāma.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xiv. INTO RUSSIAN

  Natalia Chalisova

  The first translation of the Šāh-nāma into Russian dates from 1849, when V. Zhukovski (d. 1852) wrote his poem Rustem and Zorab.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xv. INTO JAPANESE

  Hashem Rajabzadeh

  After ʿOmar Ḵayyām, whose Robāʿiyāt was introduced to Japanese readers around the turn of the 20th century, Ferdowsi was the first Persian poet to attract the attention of Japanese writers.

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• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xvi. INTO SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES

  Claus V. Pedersen

  among the works of classical Persian literature, Ferdowsi’s Šāh-nāma is the one best known in the Scandinavian countries.

• SAḤĀB, ʿAbbās

  Firouz Firooznia

  founder of Sahab Geographic and Drafting Institute (SGDI); considered by many as the father of modern Persian cartography.

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• ŠAHNĀZI, ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn

  Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi

  (1905-1948) musician and performer of the tār (a plucked long-necked lute).

• ŠAHNĀZI, ʿAli Akbar

  Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi

  (1897-1984) master musician, renowned teacher, and composer of Persian classical music.

• ŠAHRBĀNU

  Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi

  (lit. “Lady of the Land,” i.e., of Persia), said to be the daughter of Yazdegerd III (r. 632-51), the last Sasanian king.

• ŠAHRESTĀNĪHĀ Ī ĒRĀNŠAHR

  Touraj Daryaee

  (The Provincial Capitals of Iran), the only major surviving Middle Persian text on geography.

• SAIFPOUR FATEMI

  Lotfali Khonji

  journalist, political figure, and university professor.

• SAIIDO NASAFI, MIROBID

  Keith Hitchins

  (Mir ʿĀbed Sayyedā Nasafi), Tajik poet (d. Bukhara, between 1707 and 1711).

• ŠAKKI

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  a district of eastern Transcaucasia, now within the northwesternmost part of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan, where the modern town of Sheki or Shaki.

• SALAMIS

  Christopher Tuplin

  island west of Athens and site of a major naval battle in 480 BCE between the Greeks and the Persian fleet of Xerxes I. Salamis was the second of five battles of the Greco-Persian War of 480-79.

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• SALEMANN, Carl Hermann

  D. Durkin-Meisterernst

  (in Russian: Zaleman, Karl Germanovitsh), a leading Iranist scholar of his time, specializing in Middle and early Modern Persian (1849-1916).

• SALJUQS iii. SALJUQS OF RUM

  Andrew Peacock

  dynasty of Turkish origin that ruled much of Anatolia (Rum), ca. 1081-1308.

• SALJUQS v. SALJUQID LITERATURE

  Daniela Meneghini

  The term ‘Saljuqid literature’is used here to refer to literary works in Persian produced between 432/1040 and 617/1220.

• SALJUQS vi. ART AND ARCHITECTURE

  Lorenz Korn

  The naming of an art-historical period for the Saljuq dynasty, and its demarcation according to dynastic terms, has justly been debated. Nevertheless, a notion of Saljuq art has been shaped by the constant use of this term in the literature of the past decades

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• SAMĀʿI, Ḥabib

  Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi and EIr

  (1905-1946), an outstanding player of the santur (a kind of dulcimer).

• SAMAK-E ʿAYYĀR

  Marina Gaillard

  a prose narrative originating in the milieu of professional storytellers, transmitted orally and written down around the 12th century.

• SAMARQAND i. HISTORY AND ARCHEOLOGY

  Frantz Grenet

  Since the publication of the entry Afrāsiāb in 1984 new information has been brought to light on this archeological site and, consequently, on the history of pre-Mongol Samarqand.

• SAMFONI-e MORDAGĀN

  Houra Yavari

  first novel (1989) by Abbas Maroufi, fiction writer and the founder and editor of the periodical Gardun. 

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• SANĀʾI

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  (d. ca. 1130), Persian poet of the later Ghaznavid era, celebrated particularly for his homiletic poetry and his great influence on the development of mystical literature in general.

• SAN‘ATIZADEH KERMANI, Homayun

  Cyrus Alinejad

  (1925-2009), entrepreneur, man of letters, publisher, and founding manager of Moʾassasa-ye entešārāt-e Ferānklin, who played an instrumental role in the introduction of modern publishing industries in Iran.

• SANCISI-WEERDENBURG, HELEEN

  Amélie Kuhrt

  (1944-2000), Dutch ancient historian, specializing in classical Greek and Achaemenid history.

• SAND GROUSE

  Eskandar Firouz

  a family (Pteroclididae) of game birds of which seven species are found in Persia, characteristic of Persia’s vast deserts and steppes. They have no affinity with true grouse and are included in the same order as pigeons (Columbiformes).

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• ŠĀNDARMAN

  Cross-Reference

  one of the five traditional Ṭāleš khanates (Ḵamsa-ye Ṭavāleš) in western Gilān, between Ṭāleš Dulāb and Māsāl.

• SANG-E CHAKHMAQ

  Christopher P. Thornton

  a Neolithic site near Šāhrud in northeastern Iran, important for having an unbroken archeological sequence from the 7th to the early 5th millennium BCE.

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• SANG-E ṢABUR

  Ali Ferdowsi

  (1966, tr. by Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar, as The Patient Stone, 1989), the last, and arguably, the most critically acclaimed work of fiction by Sadeq Chubak.

• SANGLĀḴ, MOḤAMMAD-ʿALI

  Maryam Ekhtiar

  (b. Qučān, Khorasan, date unknown; d. Tabriz, 3 March 1877), celebrated calligrapher and stone carver, as well as poet and author. He lived as a dervish and spent much of his time traveling, with long sojourns in the Ottoman empire and Egypt.

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• SANJANA, Darab Dastur Peshotan

  Michael Stausberg

  (1857-1931), Zoroastrian head-priest and scholar.

• SANJAR, Aḥmad b. Malekšāh

  Deborah G. Tor

  Abu’l-Ḥārith, Moʿezz-al-donyā-wa’l-din, Borhān Amir-al-Moʾmenin, first subordinate sultan of Khorasan and then Great Sultan of the Great Saljuq empire.

• SĀQI-NĀMA

  Paul Losensky

  (Book of the Cupbearer), a poetic genre in which the speaker, seeking relief from his hardships, losses, and disappointments, repeatedly summons the sāqi or cupbearer to bring him wine.

• SAQQĀ-ḴĀNA i. HISTORY

  Willem Floor

  Saqqā-ḵāna is a term referring to public water dispensers, which were, and in some places still are, a feature of some large institutional buildings in Iran, typically mosques, shrines, and bazaars.

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• SAQQĀ-ḴĀNA ii. SCHOOL OF ART

  Hamid Keshmirshekan

  The term saqqā-ḵāna was first used to refer to a contemporary art movement in Iran in 1962. It was initially applied to painting and sculpture which used existing elements from votive Shiʿite art. It gradually came to be applied more widely to art works that used traditional-decorative elements.

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• ŠARAFĀBĀD

  Robert M. Schacht and Henry T. Wright III

  the name of a village and an adjacent ancient settlement called Tepe Šarafābād in Southwest Iran.

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• ŠARḤ-e TAʿARROF

  Nasrollah Pourjavady

  an extensive commentary in Persian on Abu Bakr Moḥammad Kalābāḏi’s Sufi manual Ketāb al-Taʿarrof le-maḏhab ahl al-taṣawwuf.

• ŠARIF KHAN, Moḥammad

  Fabrizio Speziale

  (d. ca. 1807), physician at the court of the Mughal emperor, Shah ʿĀlam II (r. 1760-1806), author, and the eponymous founder of the Šarifi family of physicians.

• ŠARQ

  Nasserddin Parvin

  a literary journal published occasionally in Tehran between 1924 and 1932.

• SASANIAN COINAGE

  Nikolaus Schindel

  The coinage of the Sasanian empire (ca. 224-651 CE) is not only the most important primary source for its monetary and economic history, but is also of greatest importance for history and art history.

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• SASANIAN DYNASTY

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  The Sasanian dynasty represented the last Persian lineage of rulers to achieve hegemony over much of Western Asia before Islam, ruled 224 CE–650 CE.

• SASANIAN ROCK RELIEFS

  G. Herrmann and V. S. Curtis

  one of the primary sources for documentation of the Sasanian period.

• SASANIAN TEXTILES

  Matteo Compareti

  Classical, Islamic, and Chinese sources celebrate Sasanian textiles as a very precious commodity, but no specific descriptions of them are given. Most studies of Sasanian textile art are originally based on these sources and on examining the reliefs of the larger grotto at Tāq-e Bostān.

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• SASANIAN WALL PAINTING

  An De Waele

  Murals found on sites within the territory of the Sasanian empire (224- 650 CE) are considered Sasanian. While their main function is decorative, their secondary function can be derived from location, theme, and dimension, and is important because it reflects a world-view.

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• SATTĀR KHAN

  Anja Pistor-Hatam

  (1868-1914), defender of Tabriz during the Qajar “Lesser Autocracy” in 1908-09—an example of a mythical personage, and as a long-lasting focal point of collective memory and identity, whose symbolic function has an impact until this very day.

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• ṢAWMAʿA SARĀ

  Marcel Bazin

  city and district in western Gilān.  The city is located at lat 37°17′ N, long 29°19′ E, in the Fumanāt plain, at a distance of 25 km to the west of Rašt, the center of the province.

• SAYYED AJALL

  George Lane

  governor of the Dali province in China during the Mongol period.

• SCERIMAN FAMILY

  Sebouh Aslanian and Houri Berberian

  a wealthy Persian-Armenian merchant family.

• SCHEFER, Charles-Henri-Auguste

  Nader Nasiri-Moghaddam

  (1820-1898), orientalist and academic administrator, as well as minister plenipotentiary and bibliophile.

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• SCHEIL, Jean-Vincent

  Nader Nasiri-Moghaddam

  , Father (1858-1940), French philologist and archeologist.

• SE QAṬRA ḴUN

  SOHILA SAREMI

  short story by Ṣādeq Hedāyat in a collection with the same title.
  

• SEALS AND SEALINGS

  Pierfrancesco Callieri

  IN THE EASTERN IRANIAN LANDS  The bulk of the material known at present is of antiquarian origin and was gathered between the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries when European and Russian scholars and collectors turned their attention to these previously unexplored regions.

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• SEBÜKTEGIN

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  a slave commander of the Samanids and the founder of the Ghaznavid dynasty in eastern Afghanistan.

• SEFIDRUD

  Cross-Reference

  See Safidrud.

• SEMINO, Barthélémy

  Shireen Mahdavi

  French general, engineer, and linguist in the service of the Qajars in Persia.

• SEPEHRI, Sohrab

  Houman Sarshar

  (1928-1980), notable Iranian poet and painter.

• SERĀJ AL-AḴBĀR-E AFḠĀNIYA

  May Schinasi

  “Torch of the news of Afghanistan,” bi-monthly Persian language newspaper published in Kabul during the second decade of the reign of Amir Ḥabib-Allāh (r. 1901-19).

• ŠERVĀN

  C. E. Bosworth

  (ŠIRVĀN, ŠARVĀN), a region of Eastern Transcaucasia, known by this name in both early Islamic and more recent times, and now (since 1994) substantially within the independent Azerbaijan Republic.

• ŠERVĀNŠAHS

  C. E. Bosworth

  (Šarvānšāhs), the various lines of rulers, originally Arab in ethnos but speedily Persianized within their culturally Persian environment, who ruled in the eastern Caucasian region of Šervān from mid-ʿAbbasid times until the age of the Safavids.

• SEVRUGUIN, ANTOIN

  Aphrodite Désirée Navab

  Armenian–Iranian photographer (b. Tehran, late 1830s; d. Tehran, 1933). Sevruguin’s reputation as a portrait photographer soon came to the attention of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah (r. 1848-1896), who appointed him as one of the official court photographers. Of the more than 7,000 glass-plate negatives that Sevruguin made, only 696 have survived.

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• Šeydā

  Margaret Caton

  the pen name of Mirzā ʿAli-Akbar Širāzi (b. Shiraz, 1259/1843; d. Tehran at the Ṣafi ʿAlišāh ḵānaqāh, 1324/1906), a Persian musician regarded as the most important composer of the lyrical popular song (taṣnif) in the late Qajar period.

• SHADDADIDS

  Andrew Peacock

  Caucasian dynasty of Kurdish origin reigning from about 950 until 1200, first in Dvin and Ganja, later in Ani.

• SHADMAN, Sayyed Fakhr-al-Din

  Ali Gheissari

  (1907-1967), cultural critic and writer of fiction, professor of history, civil servant, and cabinet minister.

• SHAH ABBAS I

  Cross-Reference

  Safavid king of Iran (996-1038/1588-1629). Styled "Shah ʿAbbās the Great," he was the third son and successor of Solṭān Moḥammad Shah. See ʿABBĀS I.

• SHAHBAZ, Hasan

  Ḡafur Mirzāʾi

  (1921-2007), writer, journalist, and translator, who founded the Los-Angeles-based quarterly Rahavard.

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• SHAHID SALESS, Sohrab

  Pardis Minuchehr

  Iranian cinematographer and award-winning filmmaker.

• SHAHSEVAN

  Richard Tapper

  (Šāhsevan), name of a number of tribal groups in various parts of northwestern Iran, notably in the Moḡān and Ardabil districts of eastern Azerbaijan and in the Ḵaraqān and Ḵamsa districts between Zanjān and Qazvin.

• SHAMANISM

  Philippe Gignoux

  AND ITS CONNECTION TO IRAN. Archeological and ethnological sources in Iran do not lead to confirmation of the existence of shamanic practices there, whether ancient or modern. Yet some scholars have tried to find traces of them.

• SHAPUR

  Multiple Authors

  Three Sasanian king of kings and a number of notables of the Sasanian and later periods were called “Shapur.”

• SHAPUR I i. History

  Shapur Shahbazi

  second Sasanian king of kings (r. 239-70), and author of several rock-reliefs and the trilingual inscription on the walls of the so-called Kaʿba-ye Zardošt.

• SHAPUR I ii. The Great Statue

  G. R. GAROSI

  the great statue of Shapur (Šāpūr) I stands in the so-called cave of Shapur, a huge limestone cave in southern Iran, about 6 km from the ancient city of Bišāpur.

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• SHAPUR II

  Touraj Daryaee

  (r. 309-79 CE), longest reigning monarch of the Sasanian dynasty.

• SHATT AL-ARAB

  D. T. Potts

  (ŠAṬṬ AL-ʿARAB), combined effluent of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.

• SHEEP

  Cross-Reference

  See GUSFAND.

• SHIELD in Eastern Iran

  Boris A. Litvinsky

  In Lurestan, a round bronze shield was found, which has a skirting along the edge, an umbo in the center, and relief depictions of fantastic creatures.

• SHIʿITE DOCTRINE

  Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi

  Shiʿite doctrine is usually considered to be based on five principles. However, to articulate matters of faith in such a manner seems reductionist and late.

• SHIʿITE DOCTRINE ii. Hierarchy in the Imamiyya

  Rainer Brunner

  The distinction between believers and ulema (ʿolemāʾ “religious scholars”) is known to both Sunnites and Shiʿites, and forms the starting point for internal ranking systems among their ulema.

• SHIʿITE DOCTRINE iii. Imamite-Sunnite Relations since the Late 19th Century

  Rainer Brunner

  Since the 20th century, sectarian relations have reflected a growing number of attempts to reach, at least to some degree, an understanding and a rapprochement of each other’s views (taqrib, rarely taqārob).

• SHIʿITES IN ARABIA

  Werner Ende

  survey of the Arabian peninsula including Persian Gulf regions.

• SHIʿITES IN LEBANON

  Sabrina Mervin

  Shiʿites, that is, Muslims adhering to the Twelver (eṯnāʿašari) or Imamite persuasion of Shiʿism, form the single largest denominational community of Lebanon. Their number is estimated at 1.5 million.

• SHIR-E SHIAN

  Christopher P. Thornton

  (Šir-āšiān), a prehistoric site located 15 km southwest of Damghan in northeastern Iran.  

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• SHIRAZ i. HISTORY TO 1940

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  The city of Shiraz has been the capital of the province of Fārs since the Islamic conquest, succeeding Eṣṭaḵr of the Sasanian period and Persepolis of the Achaemenid days.

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• SHIRVANLU, FIRUZ

  EIr

  (1938-1989), art critic, scholar, and artist, who played an instrumental role in the creation and management of several museums and cultural centers in the 1960s and 1970s.

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• SHOGHI EFFENDI

  Moojan Momen

  Šawqi Rabbāni (1897-1957), eldest grandson and successor of ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ as leader of the Bahai Faith (1921-57). Iranian Bahais usually refer to him as Ḥażrat-e Waliy-e Amrallāh, the title given to him by ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ, usually translated as “the Guardian of the Cause of God, or simply “the Guardian.”

• SIĀH-QALAM

  Bernard O'Kane

  “black pen” (1) the genre of paintings or drawings done in pen and ink; (2) the painters of such drawings.

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• SIĀHKAL

  Marcel Bazin and Christian Bromberger

  small town and sub-provincial district (šahrestān) in the southeastern part of Gilān province.

• SIBERIAN ELM

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀZĀD.

• SĪH-RŌZAG

  Enrico G. Raffaelli

  a text of the Xorda Avesta comprising invocations to Zoroastrian divinities.

• SILK

  Cross-Reference

  Originally from China, silk has been known in Iran since ancient times. See ABRĪŠAM.

• SIMJURIDS

  Luke Treadwell

  a family of Turkish mamluks who over four generations, from the late 9th century to the Qarakhanid conquest (389/999), played a leading role in the Samanid state.

• SIMORḠ

  Hanns-Peter Schmidt

  (Persian), Sēnmurw (Pahlavi), Sīna-Mrū (Pāzand), a fabulous, mythical bird. The name derives from Avestan mərəγō saēnō ‘the bird Saēna’, originally a raptor, either eagle or falcon, as can be deduced from the etymologically identical Sanskrit śyená.

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• SINDHI

  Christopher Shackle

  A language of the Indo-Aryan family. Many of its numerous distinctive features may be attributed to the isolated position in the lower Indus valley of Sindh.

• SINEMĀ WA NEMĀYEŠĀT

  Nassereddin Parvin

  the first Persian magazine entirely devoted to cinematography (1930).

• SIRĀFI, ABU SAʿID ḤASAN

  David Pingree

  10th-century polymath known best for his work as a grammarian.

• ŠIRĀZI, Nur-al-Din Moḥammad ʿAbd-Allāh

  Fabrizio Speziale

  Indo-Muslim physician and one of the main Persian authors of works on medical subjects in India in the 17th century.

• SISTĀN ii. In the Islamic period

  C. E. Bosworth

  It was during the governorship in Khorasan of ʿAbdallāh b. ʿĀmer for the caliph ʿOṯmān that the Arabs first appeared in Sistān, when in 31/652 Zarang surrendered peacefully, although Bost resisted fiercely.

• SLAVES and SLAVERY

  Cross-Reference

  See BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI.

• SMBAT BAGRATUNI

  N. Garsoian

  distinguished Armenian prince and head of the Bagratid house at the turn of the 6th to the 7th century.

• SMOKING IN IRAN

  Esfandyar Batmanghelidj

  Early adopters of cigarettes were the wealthy, who sought to emulate the affectations of European society, and who had regular interactions with the European expatriate community in Iran’s northern cities 

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• SOAP

  Willem Floor

  (Ar. and Pers. ṣābun) was manufactured in Persia from antiquity. In the 10th century, various Persian towns produced soap, among them Bost, Balkh, and Arrajān.

• SOCIETAS IRANOLOGICA EUROPAEA

  Gherardo Gnoli

  (SIE), important international association in the field of Iranian studies.

• SODIQI MUNŠI, Mirzo

  Keith Hitchins

  Tajik poet (d. 1819). Little is known of his life and career.

• SOFRA

  Mahmoud Omidslalar

  a piece of cloth that is spread on the floor, and on which dishes of food are placed at meal times.

• SOGDIAN TRADE

  Etienne de la Vaissiere

  The people of Sogdiana were the main caravan merchants of Central Asia from the 5th to the 8th century.

• SOGDIANA iii. HISTORY AND ARCHEOLOGY

  É. de La Vaissière

  an Iranian-speaking region in Central Asia that stretches from the rivers Āmu Daryā in the south to the Syr Daryā in the north, with its heart in the valleys of the Zarafšān and the Kaška Daryā.

• SOGDIANA vi. SOGDIAN ART

  Markus Mode

  The development and apogee of Sogdian art was limited to four or five centuries before and during the Muslim conquest of Transoxania. Sogdian art of the heartlands flourished in the settled areas of the Zeravshan and Kashkadarya valleys, as well as in Ustrushana (Osrušana), north of the Turkestan mountain range.

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• SOLAYMĀNI, Ātajān Peyrow

  Keith Hitchins

  (1899-1933), Tajik poet who blended the classical traditions of Tajik-Persian verse with the social themes of the new Soviet Central Asia of the 1920s and early 1930s.

• SOLṬĀN WALAD

  Cross-Reference

  13th-14th-century Sufi shaikh and poet, son and eventual successor of Mawlānā Jalāl-al-Din Rumi(Mawlawi). See BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN SOLṬĀN WALAD.

• SORUSHIAN, Jamshid

  Carlo G. Cereti

  (1914-1999), a Zoroastrian community leader and author.

• SOUR CHERRY

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀLBĀLŪ.

• SOUR GRAPE jUICE

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀB-ḠŪRA.

• SOUTH PERSIA RIFLES

  Floreeda Safiri

  (SPR), a locally recruited militia, commanded by British officers, and operating in the provinces of Fārs and Kermān from 1916 to 1921.

• SOUTHEAST ASIA i. PERSIAN PRESENCE IN

  M. Ismail Marcinkowski

  Attention will be given to some of the most striking features of the Persian influences on Southeast Asian Islamic culture.

• SOUTHEAST ASIA ii. SHIʿITES IN

  M. Ismail Marchinkowski

  Along with Sufism, Shiʿite elements too entered Malay-Indonesian Islam, certainly by way of southern India, where it was well represented.

• SPĀHBED

  Rika Gyselen

   Sasanian title that denoted a high military rank and meant  ‘chief of an army, general.’

• SPEAR

  Boris A. Litvinsky

  (Av. aršti- ‘spear,’ OPers. aršti ‘throwing weapon’ or ‘javelin’) is mentioned in the Avesta several times.

• SPIEGEL, FRIEDRICH (VON)

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (1820 -1905), German orientalist and scholar of Iranian studies.

• SPULER, Bertold

  Werner Ende, Bert Fragner, Dagmar Riedel

  (1911-1990), German scholar of East European history and Oriental studies.

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• STAMPS

  Cross-Reference

  see PHILATELY. 

• STANZAIC POETRY

  Gabrielle van den Berg

  Stanzaic verse forms have been part of the corpus of classical Persian poetry from the early stage onwards and have continued to play a role until modern times.  Though the quantity of stanzaic poetry in Persian literature is modest in comparison to other verse forms, a few examples of this genre have obtained widespread fame and an iconic value in Persian culture and society.

• STARK, FREYA Madeline

  Malise Ruthven

  British travel-writer.  Her 1934 book The Valley of the Assassins and Other Persian Travels belongs to the canon of English travel literature.

• STEEL INDUSTRY IN IRAN

  Willem Floor

   In 1927, plans were drawn up to establish smelting works in the north of the country to produce rail tracks domestically.

• STEIN, (Marc) Aurel

  Susan Whitfield

  , Sir, Hungarian–British archeologist and explorer (b. Pest, Hungary, 26 November 1862; d. Kabul, 28 October 1943).

• STOREY, Charles Ambrose

  Yuri Bregel

  British orientalist, author of the bio-bibliographical survey of Persian literature (1888-1968).

• STUCCO DECORATION

  Jens Kröger

  IN IRANIAN ARCHITECTURE. This entry focuses on the Parthian and Sasanian periods and hints at the continuity in the Islamic period.

• SŪDGAR NASK and WARŠTMĀNSR NASK

  Yuhan Sohrab-Dinshaw Vevaina

  the first and second of three commentaries on the Old Avesta, extant in a Pahlavi resume in book nine of the Dēnkard, the third being the Bag nask.

• SUGAR

  Willem Floor

  Cultivation, manufacturing, and processing in Iran. Sugar was already known in Sasanian Persia around 460 CE.

• SUSA i. EXCAVATIONS

  Hermann Gasche

  The excavations of ancient Susa, whose ruins document more than 5,000 years of settlement, themselves have a long history.

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• SUSA ii. HISTORY DURING THE ELAMITE PERIOD

  François Vallat

  This span of almost two thousand years has been divided into three clearly defined phases called paleo-, meso-, and neo-Elamite, each of which presents peculiarities of its own.

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• SUSA iii. THE ACHAEMENID PERIOD

  Remy Boucharlat

  The history of Persia before Cyrus and at the beginning of his reign indicate that Persian elements were present in the plain not far from Susa in the first decades of the 6th century.

• SUSA iv. THE SASANIAN PERIOD

  G. Gropp

  The satrap of Susa (Šuš) had been loyal to the Parthian king Artabanus V, and the city was forcibly conquered by Ardašir (qq.v.) in 224 after his victory over King Šād-Šāpur of Isfahan.

• SUVASHUN

  Masʿud Jaʿfari Jazi

  (Suvašun 1969, tr. M. R. Ghanoonparvar, Savushun, A Novel About Modern Iran, 1990; and Roxane Zand, A Persian Requiem, 1991), the most acclaimed novel of the prominent writer Simin Daneshvar.

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• SUYĀB

  Gregory Semenov

  now called Ak-Beshim, the site of an important city on the Silk Road, located 60 km to the east of the city of Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan.

• SWEDEN

  Multiple Authors

  i. Persian Art Collections, ii. Swedish Officers in Persia, 1911-15, iii. Swedish Archeological Mission to Iran, iv. Iranian Community

• SWEDEN i. PERSIAN ART COLLECTIONS

  Karin Еdahl

  Persian art collections in Sweden contain items from the prehistoric period (3600 BCE) to the 19th century. The first artifacts of possibly Iranian origin were brought by Vikings (or Rus), who traveled to the shores of the Caspian and there met with merchants from Iran. Notably a 9th-century glass beaker and two bronze jugs, finds from Viking burial sites, bear witness to these contacts.

• SWEDEN ii. SWEDISH OFFICERS IN PERSIA, 1911-15

  Mohammad Fazlhashemi

  In October 1910, increasing unrest in southern Persia led the British government to demand that the Persian central government restore order. The Persian government decided to create a highway gendarmerie with the aid of European instructors.

• SWEDEN iii. SWEDISH ARCHEOLOGICAL MISSIONS TO IRAN

  Carl Nylander

  This article provides an overview of Swedish archeological missions to Iran from the beginning of contact between Swedish and Persian culture in the 17th century to present times.

• SWEDEN iv. Iranian Community

  Hassan Hosseini-Kaladjahi and Melissa Kelly

  formation of the Iranian community (immigration), demographic profile and geographic distribution, economic, social, cultural and political life, and finally, return to Iran or emigration to other countries.

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• SYKES, Ella Constance

  Denis Wright

  (1863-1939), traveler and writer about Iran, sister of Percy M. Sykes.

• SYKES, Percy Molesworth

  Denis Wright

  , Sir (1867-1945), soldier, diplomat, traveler, and writer who wrote extensively on Iran. 

• SYNGUÉ SABUR: PIERRE DE PATIENCE

  FARANGUIS HABIBI

  novella in French by Atiq Rahimi (ʿAtiq Raḥimi; b. Kabul, 1962), the Afghan writer and director.

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• SYRIAC LANGUAGE i. IRANIAN LOANWORDS IN SYRIAC

  Claudia A. Ciancaglini

  Syriac, originally the eastern Aramaic dialect of the city of Edessa, became the most important language spoken and written by Christian communities during the Sasanian era from Egypt and Asia Minor to Syria, Iran, and Mesopotamia.

• SYRIAC LANGUAGE ii. SYRIAC WRITINGS ON PRE-ISLAMIC IRAN

  Phillipe Gignoux

  The Syriac works which provide information about pre-Islamic Iran can be divided into several groups, excluding literary works as such.