SANĀʾI, Majdud b. Ādam Ḡaznavi, Persian poet, celebrated especially on account of his homiletic poetry and his great influence on…

COURTS AND COURTIERS x. Court poetry Until modern times there were strong incentives to patronize poets and other writers wherever…

BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES i. In the West Catalogues of manuscripts and bibliographies of printed works on Iran compiled by scholars…

FICTION. i. TRADITIONAL FORMS This article deals with all kinds of stories written for specifically literary purposes up to the…

FARROḴĪ SĪSTĀNĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ b. Jūlūḡ, Persian court poet. According to the earliest notice on his life, contained in the…

ETHÉ, CARL HERMANN (b. Stralsund, Prussia, 13 February 1844, d. Bristol, England, 7 June 1917; Figure 1), German orientalist best…

ESKĀFI, ABŪ ḤANĪFA, Persian poet, mentioned among the court poets of Ḡazna (Čahār maqāla, ed. Qazvīnī, text, p. 44). Contemporary…

EPIGRAM, originally a Greek word meaning “inscription” and denoting in Western literatures a genre of short poems characterized by their…

EMĀMĪ HERĀVĪ, RAŻĪ-AL-DĪN ABŪ ʿABD-ALLĀH MOḤAMMAD b. Abī Bakr b. ʿOṯmān, Persian poet of the Mongol period, also noted for…

ʿEMĀD-AL-DĪN ʿALĪ FAQĪH KERMĀNĪ, mystic and poet of the 8th/14th century who used ʿEmād or, more rarely, ʿEmād-e Faqīh, as…

ELEGY (Ar. marṯīa, Pers. mūya), poetry of mourning in Persian literature. The Western term elegy covers a wider range of…

DOZY, REINHARD PETRUS ANNE (b. Leiden, 21 February 1820, d. Leiden, 29 April 1883), Dutch orientalist renowned especially as a…

DAQĀYEQĪ MARVAZĪ, ŠAMS-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD b. ʿAlī , the supposed author of a version of the Baḵtīār­-nāma, who lived from the…

CHRONOGRAMS, Pers. mādda(-ye) tārīḵ, dates incorporated into Persian texts in disguised form, espe­cially those in which the letters of the…

the CHESTER BEATTY LIBRARY, a collection of manuscripts, printed works, and artifacts, predominantly Oriental, assembled by Alfred Chester Beatty and…

CANDLE (Pers.-Ar. šamʿ). The Arabic word (Ar. also šamaʿ) literally means “beeswax” (Ebn Manẓūr; Dehḵodā), for which Persian uses mūm…

BLOCHMANN, HEINRICH (Henry) FERDINAND, a German Orientalist and scholar of Persian language and literature who spent most of his career…

BELOVED (maʿšūq in Arabic and Persian) belongs, together with Lover (ʿāšeq) and Love (ʿešq), to the three concepts that dominate…

BAYĀN, a noun common to Arabic and Persian meaning “statement,” “exposition,” “explanation.” From an early date onward, it also encompassed…

BALĀḠAT (Arabic balāḡa), one of the most general terms to denote eloquence in speech and writing. Its etymology is usually…

BADĪʿ, rhetorical embellishment. The Arabic word badīʿ refers in general to the concept of novelty. In the Koran the Creator…

ANWARĪ, AWḤAD-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD (or ʿALĪ), poet at the court of the Saljuqs in the 6th/12th century. His first name and…

JAHN, KARL EMIL OSKAR (b. Brno, 26 March 1906; d. Utrecht, 7 November 1985), Czech Orientalist who specialized in Central-Asian…

HUMOR. To make jokes and enjoy them is a universal human characteristic manifesting itself in all cultures and in many…

HINDU (Hendu), denotes in Persian an inhabitant of the Indian Subcontinent as well as a follower of Hinduism. During almost…

HAMMER-PURGSTALL, JOSEPH FREIHERR von, prolific Austrian Orientalist, among whose many works is the first ever complete translation of the Divān…

HAJW and its synonym hejā are two of the many terms which denote types of humorous writing or light verse…

HAFEZ iii. HAFEZ’S POETIC ART The text of the Divān. Perhaps the greatest progress in research on Hafez during the…

GOLIUS, JACOBUS (latinized form of the Dutch name Jacob Gool), Dutch orientalist (b. The Hague, 1596; d. Leiden, 28 September…

ḠAZAL i. HISTORY The word ḡazal (غزل) is of Arabic origin. The basic meaning of its root is “spinning.” At a…

ḴᵛĀJU KERMĀNI, Abu’l-ʿAṭā Kamāl-al-Din Maḥmud b. ʿAli b. Maḥmud Moršedi, Persian poet and mystic (b. Kermān, 24 December 1290; d….

KESĀʾI MARVAZI (also vocalized Kasāʾi) (b. Marv, 27 Šawwāl 341/6 March 953), Persian poet of the second half of the…

ĀZĀD TABRIZI, MIRZĀ ḤOSAYN (also spelled Hocéne-Azad; “Ḥasan” in Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana, p. 207, is a misprint), physician, anthologist, and translator (b….