ii. IRANIAN MATERIAL IN THE FEHREST The Fehrest gives ample testimony to the knowledge of pre-Islamic Persia and its literature…

BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN viii. History of Religions Bīrūnī is one of the most important Muslim authorities on the history of…

FARĀLĀVĪ, the conventional reading of the name of an early Persian poet. Our sole biographical source is Moḥammad ʿAwfī’s Lobāb…

FALAKĪ ŠARVĀNĪ (ŠERVĀNĪ), Abu’l-Neẓām Moḥammad, a Persian poet of the first half of the 6th/12th century. The only ruler mentioned…

ESKANDAR-NĀMA OF NEẒĀMĪ, the poetical version of the life of Alexander by the great 12th century narrative poet Neẓāmī Ganjavī…

EPICS,narrative poems of legendary and heroic content. Classical Persian literary theory did not recognize the epic as a distinct genre…

ELEPHANT (Pers. pīl, fīl). i. IN THE NEAR EAST Although elephants are normally associated with the humid tropical regions of…

EFTEḴĀRĪĀN, a family of officials and poets from Qazvīn, reputed descendants of the caliph Abū Bakr, who flourished under the…

DĪVĀN, archive, register, chancery, government office; also, collected works, especially of a poet. i. The term. ii. Government office. iii….

DAHAE i. The name. ii. The people.   i. The Name Already in 1912 the Old Persian ethnonym Daha­- (Gk….

ḤANẒALA BĀDḠISI, one of the earliest (possibly the earliest) Persian poets of whom we have any rec-ord. Neẓāmi ʿArużi (Čahār…

HAFT PEYKAR, a famous romantic epic by Nezami of Ganja (Neẓāmi Ganjavi) from the last decade of the 6th/12th century….

ḠAŻĀʾERĪ RĀZĪ (ḠAŻĀYERĪ RĀZĪ), ABŪ ZAYD MOḤAMMAD, b. ʿAlī, Persian poet of the early 5th/11th century. His nesba identifies him…

GARŠĀSP-NĀMA (or Karšāsp-nāma), a long heroic epic by Asadī Ṭūsī (d. ca. 465/1072-73; q.v.). The poem was completed, as the…

FOUCHER, ALFRED (1865-1952), the first head of the French Archaeological Mission in Afghanistan (see DÉLÉGATIONS ARCHÉOLOGIQUES FRANÇAISES, ii.) and a…