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PERSEPOLIS GRAFFITI: FOREIGN VISITORS Graffiti usually carry pejorative connotations of vandalism, defacement, and furtiveness when applied to the present; they are usually assumed to be transitory and ephemeral, but to their authors they are public statements or memorials commemorating their visit and ownership of space. They usually give the name…

PERSIAN AUTHORS OF ASIA MINOR (PĀRSINEVISĀN-E ĀSIĀ-YE SAḠIR) Introduction. After converting to Islam the Turks grew familiar with the Persian language and culture, and formed a closer relationship with Muslim Iranians. It is symbolic of this close relationship that several Saljuqs of Rum (Anatolia) chose Iranian names such as Kaykāvus…

—ŠŠŠ— [Şakir Ağa, Aḥmed (Šāker Āḡā, Aḥmad), (d. 1199/1785). The author of the Taqwim-e sāl-e 1185-1186 (OALT, I, pp. 499-500; DAF, VI, p. 494)]. Şakir, [Seyyid] Mehmed (Šāker, Sayyid Moḥammad), (d. 1252/1836). The commentator of Jāmi’s Bahārestān [under the title of Hadiyya al-ʿerfān]and the translator of Mawlānā Jalāl-al-Din Rumi’s Maṯnawi-ye…

PERSIAN LANGUAGE i. Early New Persian Early New Persian is the first phase (8th-12th centuries CE) of the Persian language after the Islamic conquest of Iran. This sub-entry is organized into these sections: Introduction, Historical background, Dialectology, Evolution of Early New Persian, Sources, The Grammar of Early New Persian. INTRODUCTION…

PERSIAN MANUSCRIPTS i. IN OTTOMAN AND MODERN TURKISH LIBRARIES Historical background. Turkish libraries today possess the richest and most valuable collection of Islamic manuscripts (henceforth MSS) in the world. They were collected over a long period of time. The Persian MSS in the libraries of Istanbul and Anatolia today were…

PERSIS, KINGS OF, the Persian dynasts who between the 2nd century BCE and 3rd century CE ruled as Parthian representatives in Persis, southwestern Iran (TABLE 1). The sources for Persis between about 140 BCE and 224 CE are scant, and it is very difficult to write its history. The archeological…

PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN i. Pre-Islamic names: general. ii. Avestan names. iii. The Achaemenid period. iv. The Parthian period. v. The Sasanian period. vi. Armenian names of Iranian origin. i. PRE-ISLAMIC NAMES: GENERAL The system of the formation of personal names (anthroponyms), as it is attested in the Iranian languages from…

PERSONAL NAMES, IRANAN ii. AVESTAN NAMES In the Avesta at least 400 personal names are attested. The bulk of these names is found in the second part of the Fravardīn Yašt (Yt. 13.95–142) (q.v.) in a litany-like enumeration of the frauuaṧis (see FRAVAŠI) of Zarathustra’s first disciples and followers in the…

PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN iii. ACHAEMENID PERIOD Evidence of personal names belonging to the Achaemenid period is considerable, but in authentic sources, i.e., in the Old Persian inscriptions of the Achaemenid kings themselves, fewer than fifty names are documented in their Old Persian form (see Mayrhofer, 1979). Among these are the…

PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN iv. PARTHIAN PERIOD For the Parthian period there is no super-abundance of primary sources written in the official (Middle) Parthian administrative language. Such as do exist, however, are far more relevant to the anthroponymy of that time than the other sources for this language, which are of…

PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN v. SASANIAN PERIOD In the examination of the anthroponomastic situation of Sasanian times, priority treatment must be given to the names attested in non-literary, i.e., epigraphic sources (in the broadest sense of the word). The main reason for this is that only a small part of the…

PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN vi. ARMENIAN NAMES OF IRANIAN ORIGIN For many centuries Armenian life and culture has been influenced in a distinctive manner by Iran because of Armenia’s great political dependence on Iran’s powerful rulers. This influence was most intensive under the auspicious conditions of the Parthian period, when the…

PERSONAL NAMES, SOGDIAN i. IN CHINESE SOURCES Sogdians were famous as traders along the Silk Road before the Islamization of Central Asia (see SOGDIAN TRADE at iranica.com). The earliest Sogdian record of their activities are the so-called Ancient Letters (s.v.) of the early 4th century discovered some 90 km west…

PESTS, AGRICULTURAL. “Pest” refers to any animal or plant causing harm or damage to people or their animals, crops, or possessions, even if it only causes annoyance (see Hill, 1983, p. 6). Pests belong to a broad spectrum of organisms including insects, mites, ticks (and other arthropods), mice, rats, and…

PESYĀN, MOḤAMMAD-TAQI KHAN (محمد تقی خان پسیان, b. Tabriz, 1309/1892; d. Quchan, Ṣafar 1340/October 1920), military officer with strong nationalist sentiments who served in the Government Gendarmerie from its inception in 1912 until 1921, when he was killed in a skirmish by Kurdish tribal forces (Cronin, 1997a; idem, 2010).  He…