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FRYER, JOHN (b. ca. 1650; d. London, 31 March 1733), British travel-writer and doctor, the eldest son of William Fryer of London (FIGURE 1). He matriculated at Trinity College in Cambridge on 13 July 1664 and graduated Bachelor of Medicine in 1671, transferring on 23 July of that year to…

FŪLĀD-ZEREH “[possessing]steel armor,” is the name of a hideous demon in the story of Amīr Arsalān (q.v.). This name was probably borrowed by the author of the story from an older prose epic, Romūz-e Ḥamza (see Mahjūb’s introduction in Naqīb-al-Mamālek, p. lxi). Fūlād-zereh was a huge horned afreet (ʿefrīt) of…

FŪMAN, a town and district in western Gīlān (Figure 1). The town of Fūman is located 21 km to the west-southwest of Rašt, on the left bank of Gāzrūdbār River close to the piedmont of Ṭāleš highlands. Fūman was the residence of the Dabuyids (q.v.) between 660 and 761. During…

FŪMANĪ, ʿABD-AL-FATTĀḤ, author of the Tārīḵ-e Gīlān, a local history of Gīlān covering the years 923-1038/1517-1628. In 1018-19/1609-10, he was in the company of Behzād Beg Astarābādī, the vizier of Gīlān, in the village of Lašta-nešā. Behzād Beg ran into difficulties when Ḵvāja Moḥammad-Reżā, known as Sārū Ḵvāja, (Blonde Ḵᵛāja),…

FUMITORY (šāhtara), term used for two species of plants of the genus Fumaria in Persia, Fumaria officinalis and Fumaria parviflora. Fumaria parviflora is distributed from Europe and North Africa through the Near and Middle East to Central Asia. The annual, wild herb is very often found in Persia and Afghanistan….

FŪŠANJ (arabicizedform Būšanj; Mid. Pers. Pūšang [Markwart, Provincial Capitals, p. 11], also reflected in the Būšang of the Ḥodūd al-ʿālam, tr. Minorsky, pp. 64, 104), a town of medieval eastern Khorasan, situated just to the south of the Harīrūd River, and variously described in the sources as being between six…

FŪŠANJĪ (correctly BŪŠANJĪ) HERAVĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ, b. Aḥmad b. Sahl (d. 347/958 or 348/959), an important exponent of the fetyān (javān-mardān) of Khorasan. He came from Būšanj (Mid. Pers. Pūšang, also Arabized as Fūšanj, q.v.), a village seven farsakòs from Herat. Fūšanjī studied with Abū ʿAlī Ḥosayn b. Edrīs Anṣārī…

F ENTRIES: CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS   online entry caption text FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN v. Faculty of Medicine Figure 1. Faculty and students of the Faculty of Medicine, 1319 Š./1940 The members of the faculty, seated in the front row, include (from left to right): (1) Ebrāhim Neʿmat-Allāhī,…

GABAE (Gk. Gábai), the name of two places in Persia and Sogdiana. 1. A town in Persis with the name Gábai, which apparently is derived from an unattested stem, OPers. *Gaba- (for an etymological hypothesis see Henning), is mentioned by Strabo (15.3.3) as being situated “somewhere in the upper (i.e.,…

GABAIN, ANNEMARIE VON, (b. 7 April 1901, d. 15 January 1993; FIGURE 1), German scholar who worked in the field of Central Asian (primarily Turkic) studies, first as a linguist but later as an art historian. After completing a dissertation in Sinology, von Gabain studied Turcology with Johann Wilhelm Bang…

GABBA (gava in Kurdish and Lori, Īzadpanāh, s.v.; ḵersak in Baḵtīārī, Digard, pp. 128-31), a hand-woven pile rug of coarse quality and medium size (90 x 150 cm or larger) characterized by an abstract design that relies upon open fields of color and a playfulness with geometry. This kind of…

GABR (gabrak, gawr, gaur “Zoroastrian”; gabrī, gabrakī “Zoroastrianism”), a New Persian term deriving, in all likelihood, from Aramaic GBRʾ/gabrā (lit. man), which in the Sasanian period was used to indicate the free peasants in the region of Mesopotamia (Stayermanova, II, 25.2.1). The term is used in all stages of New…