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ʿISĀ B. ṢAHĀRBOḴT, medical author of the third/ninth century, from Gondēšāpur (q.v.). ʿIsā was, as is shown by his own name and that of his father, a descendant of an apparently Nestorian Christian Syro-Persian family of Gondēšāpur. His father was a medical author as well; he in fact dedicated a…

ʿISĀ B. YAḤYĀ MASIḤI JORJĀNI, Abu Sahl, physician, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer (d. after 925). Little is securely known about the life of this Christian scholar, since the surviving biographies and anecdotes are inconsistent and contradictory. Ẓahir-al-Din Bayhaqi (q.v.; Tatemmat Ṣewān al-ḥekma, pp. 90-91), for instance, claims that he was…

ʿOBAYD ZĀKĀNI, Ḵᵛāja Neẓām-al-Din ʿObayd-Allāh Zākāni of Qazvin, a Persian poet from the Mongol period (d. ca. 770/1370), renowned above all for his satirical poems which inaugurated the passage from invective ad personam sparked by personal motives, a clear example of which can be found in the work of Suzani…

ʿOLAMĀ-YE ESLĀM “The Doctors of Islam,” title given to two medieval Zoroastrian polemical treatises written in Modern Persian. More precisely, the title of the second treatise is “Another Version of the Doctors of Islam” (Pers. ʿOlamā-ye Eslām be-digar raveš). The Bibliothéque National de France houses a manuscript (No. 1022/7) which…

ʿONṢORI, Abu’l-Qāsem Ḥasan b. Aḥmad (b. Balkh, ca. 961; d. Ḡazna, 1039), celebrated Persian poet of the early Ghaznavid period. He was the poet laureate (malek-al-šoʿarāʾ, amir-al-šoʿarāʾ) at the court of the Ghaznavid Sultan Maḥmud (r. 998-1030) and has been particularly noted and praised for his panegyric odes (qaṣidas), in…

ʿORFI ŠIRAZI, Persian poet of the latter half of the 16th century (b. Shiraz, 1555; d. Lahore, Aug. 1591). His name is given as Jamāl-al-Din Moḥammad Sidi (or Sayyedi) in the early sources. His father, Zeyn-al-Din ʿAli Balawi, was a prominent official of the provincial administration whose dealings with customary…

ʿOTBI, the family name of two viziers of the Samanids of Transoxiana and Khorasan. 1. Abu Jaʿfar b. Moḥammad b. al-Ḥosayn (thus in Gardizi; the sources are, however, uncertain about his names and nasab), vizier in the first place to the Amir ʿAbd-al-Malek b. Nuḥ (I) from 344/956 to 348/959….

ʿOTBI, Abu Naṣr Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-al-Jabbār (ca. 961?-1036 or 1040), secretary, courtier, and author of the Arabic Al-Kitāb al-Yamini, an important dynastic history of the Ghaznavids. Life. The primary sources for his life are the Yamini and a short biography in ʿAbd-al-Malek b. Moḥammad Ṯaʿālebi’s Yatimat al-dahr. ʿOtbi was probably…

‘Āref – Namidānam title ‘Āref – Namidānam genre/topic Dastgāh-e Māhur language   performer ‘Abdollāh Davāmi instrument voice composer   author/poet Āref Qazvini first line of poem First line of poem: Namidānam če dar peymaneh kardi recorded by   place of recording   date of recording   duration 2:26 source Qajar…

‘Erāq, Nahib, Moḥāyyer, Ašur-āvand, Esfahānak, Ḥazin, Kerešma, Zangule title ‘Erāq, Nahib, Moḥāyyer, Ašur-āvand, Esfahānak, Ḥazin, Kerešma, Zangule genre/topic Radif for Tār and Setār, Dastgāh-e Māhur, guša ‘Erāq language performer Nur ‘Ali Borumand instrument Tār composer Mirzā ‘Abdollāh, Radif author/poet first line of poem recorded by place of recording date of…