Explore Iranica

SPAIN: RELATIONS WITH PERSIA IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES Despite Spain’s remoteness from Persia, Spanish-Persian relations trace back to al-Andalos (a geographical term used in Islamic sources in reference to the area of Spain and Portugal), when the presence of people and cultural materials from Persia reached its highest level….

SPEAR in Eastern Iran. Spear (Av. aršti- ‘spear,’ OPers. aršti ‘throwing weapon’ or ‘javelin’) is mentioned in the Avesta several times (AirWb., col. 205). It also occupies the first place in the list of weapons given in Vid. 14.9. Spears are sometimes provided with the epithet “long” (Yt. 10.102 and…

SPIEGEL, FRIEDRICH (von) (b. 11 July 1820 in Kitzingen am Main, d. 15 December 1905 in Munich), German orientalist and scholar of Iranian studies. Devoting most of his life to Old Iranian and Zoroastrian studies, he became one of the most prolific authors of his time and, as a pioneer,…

SPULER, Bertold (b. Karlsruhe, Germany, 5 December 1911; d. Hamburg, 6 March 1990), scholar of East European history and Oriental studies (FIGURE 1). Among his many publications are important works on the history of the Iranian lands from the 7th century CE onwards. Spuler spent his childhood and youth in…

SRAOŠA (MPers. Srōš) a major deity (yazata) in Zoroastrianism, whose great popularity reserved a place for him in Iranian Islam as the angel Surōš.  In Avestan, s(ə)raoša- occurs both as common noun and as a proper name. It is derived from an s-extension of √sraw-/sru- “to hear.”  Both finite forms…

STANZAIC POETRY. Three different forms of stanzaic poetry can be discerned in Persian classical poetry: the tarjiʿ-band (or tarjiʿ), the tarkib-band (or tarkib) and the mosammaṭ. The mostazād might be seen as a related verse form. A tarjiʿ-band consists of several stanzas built up by a number of couplets (bayt),…

STARK, FREYA Madeline (b. Paris, 31 January 1893; d. Asolo, Italy, 9 May 1993), British travel-writer.  Her 1934 book The Valley of the Assassins and Other Persian Travels belongs to the canon of English travel literature. She was born to parents who divided their lives between England and Italy. She…

STATEIRA, name attested for several royal women of the Achaemenid period. 1.  Stateira, daughter of Hydarnes, descended from one of the men who had put Darius I on the throne (DB 4.84-85: Vidarna), and sister of (inter aliis) Tissaphernes and Terituchmes (Ctesias, 53-55).  She was married to the later Artaxerxes II…

STEEL INDUSTRY IN IRAN. In 1927, plans were drawn up to establish smelting works in the north of the country to produce rail tracks domestically. This action was in connection with the go-ahead given by the parliament (Majles) to start the construction of a railway between Ḵor Musā and Moḥammara….

STEIN, Sir (Marc) Aurel, Hungarian–British archeologist and explorer (b. in Pest, Hungary, 26 November 1862; d. Kabul, 28 October 1943). In the words of a younger contemporary, Stein was “the most prodigious combination of scholar, explorer, archaeologist and geographer of his generation” (Owen Lattimore, quoted in Mirsky, 1998, p. ix.)…

STERN, SAMUEL MIKLOS (b. Tab, 22 November 1920; d. Oxford, 29 October 1969), Hungarian-British orientalist and a leading scholar of modern Ismaʿili studies. He was born in Tab, a small town in Hungary, and was the only son of his orthodox Jewish parents.  Stern’s father died when he was three years…

STOREY, Charles Ambrose, British orientalist, author of the bio-bibliographical survey of Persian literature (b. Blackhill, Durham, England, 21 August 1888, d. Hove, England, 24 April 1968). Storey was educated at Rossall School (Lancashire) and then at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he studied Classics and Oriental languages (especially Arabic under A….