Table of Contents

  • 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).

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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.