Explore Iranica

PLANETS In antiquity, only five planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) were known, because these were visible to the naked eye; in many early traditions, and also in some Iranian contexts, the two so-called “luminaries,” the Sun and the Moon, were added to their number. For this reason, some sources…

PLATTS, JOHN THOMPSON (b. Calcutta, India, 1 August 1830; d. London, 21 September 1904), scholar and teacher of Persian at the University of Oxford. He wrote a widely used Persian grammar and published an edition and an English translation of Saʿdi’s Golestān.  Platts was the second son of Robert Platts….

POLAK, Jakob Eduard (b. 12 November 1818 in Mořina (Groβ Morzin), Czech Republic; d. 8 October 1891 in Vienna), Austrian physician and writer who was instrumental in establishing modern medicine in Iran (FIGURE 1, FIGURE 2). From 1851 to 1860, he taught medicine at the Dār al-fonun, and from 1855…

POLAND iii. Iranian Studies in Poland The development of Iranian studies in Poland was preceded by some nonscholarly interest in Persian language and culture. For almost three centuries (15th-18th cent.) Ottoman Turkey was the neighbor and common foe of both Poland and Persia; hence Poland’s interest in Persia was mainly…

POLAND ii. PERSIAN ART AND ARTIFACTS IN POLISH COLLECTIONS Persian art has been present in Poland since medieval times. Interest and fascination in it resulted in the fact that many orders were made for both works of Persian art and Persian artistic craft products. Among the objects—bought or brought back…

POLEMICS i. BETWEEN SHIʿITES AND JEWS Twelver (Eṯnā ʿAšari Emāmi) Shiʿite polemics refer here to arguments gleaned from compositions written by Shiʿites; they do not usually have original and specifically Shiʿite characteristics that separate them from their Sunni counterparts. Polemical arguments are scattered in commentaries on the Qurʾān, in the…

POLO, MARCO, Venetian merchant and traveler (b. Venice or Curzola, 1254; d. Venice, 8 January 1324), whose travel accounts gained worldwide fame and whose description of the countries he visited between 1271 and 1298 represents a primary geographical and historical source concerning Asia during the Mongol domination. On a previous…

PONTUS, a Greek word meaning “sea,” generally taken in the ancient world to refer to the Black Sea, Pontos Euxeinos, or Axeinos (Strabo 1.2.10 C21). It also came to be applied more specifically to the Hellenistic kingdom of the Mithridatid rulers that emerged in northern Asia Minor at the end…

POPE, ARTHUR UPHAM (1881-1969), American educator, author, and ardent advocate of Persian art and architecture. From the 1920s until his death in 1969 Pope introduced and promoted Persian art and culture through publications, exhibitions, congresses, lectures and graduate-level courses. His best-known work is A Survey of Persian Art (q.v.), published…

PORTUGAL i. RELATIONS WITH PERSIA IN THE EARLY MODERN AGE (1500-1750) Portuguese-Persian relations in the early Modern Age (1500-1750) surpassed Persia’s geographical boundaries, as both countries interacted officially and informally in the Middle East, in the Persian Gulf, in the Indian Ocean, and in India. To Portugal, Persia mattered for…