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.