Table of Contents

• FABLE

  Mahmoud and Teresa P. Omidsalar

  a kind of story often defined as “an animal tale with a moral"; there is no exact Persian equivalent of the term, but the words afsāna, dāstān, hekāyat, qeṣṣa, and samar are used to refer to such stories.

• FABRITIUS, LUDVIG

  Rudi Matthee

  or LODEWYCK (b. Brazil, 1648; died Stockholm, 1729), Swedish envoy to the Safavid court.

• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN

  Multiple Authors

  This article will deal with the faculties of Agriculture, Fine Arts, Law and Political Science, Letters and Humanities, and Medicine, which are among the oldest and most important secular institutions of higher education in Persia. Other faculties of the University of Tehran and main faculties of other major universities will be treated under individual UNIVERSITIES.

• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN i. Faculty of Agriculture

  MOḤAMMAD-ḤASAN MAHDAWĪ ARDABĪLĪ

  The program was full time for three years, and the students’ expenses were paid by the government. All graduates received the equivalent of bachelors’s degrees in agricultural engineering.

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• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN ii. Faculty of Fine Arts

  MORTAŻĀ MOMAYYEZ

  Like most other faculties of the University of Tehran, the Faculty of Fine Arts was created by integrating already existing institutions.

• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN iii. Faculty of Law and Political Science

  Ahmad Ashraf

  one of the oldest institutions of modern higher education in Persia, founded in 1927 with the merger of the School of Political Science (established in 1899) and the School of Law (established in 1918). 

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• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN iv. Faculty of Letters and Humanities

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  The Faculty of Letters and Humanities (Dāneškada-ye adabīyāt wa ʿolūm-e ensānī), originally named the Faculty of Letters, Philosophy, and Educational Sciences (Dāneškada-ye adabīyāt wa falsafa wa ʿolūm-e tarbīatī), was one of the six faculties of the University of Tehran when it was founded in February 1935.

• FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN v. Faculty of Medicine

  YŪNOS KARĀMATĪ and EIr

  (Dāneškada-ye pezeškī), the pioneering academic institution of modern medicine in Persia, one of the six main faculties of the new University of Tehran in 1934. It was the successor to the Dār al-fonūn Department of Medicine, established in 1851, which had become the School of Medicine (Madrasa-ye ṭebb) in 1919.

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• FADĀʾIĀN-E ḴALQ

  Peyman Vahabzadeh

  a Marxist-Leninist urban guerrilla group arising from the student movement and the urban middle-class intellectuals and influenced by the Latin American revolutionary discourse, its objective was to instigate, and eventually lead, a popular movement against the Iranian monarchy.

• FĀDŪSBĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀDŪSPĀN.

• FĀʾEQ ḴĀṢṢA, ABU’L-ḤASAN

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (d. Khorasan 999), Turkish eunuch and slave commander of the Samanid army in Transoxania and Khorasan during the closing decades of that dynasty’s power.

• FAḠĀNĪ, BĀBĀ

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀBĀ FAḠĀNĪ.

• FAGERGREN, CONRAD GUSTAF

  Bo Utas

  (b. Stockholm, 1818; d. Shiraz, 1879), Swedish physician in Shiraz, 1848-79.

• FAHHĀD, FARĪD-AL-DĪN ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ

  David Pingree

  the most prolific producer of astronomical tables in the Islamic world. He is credited with a total of six tables, all of which are lost. There are three lists of these tables, given by Moḥammad b. Abū Bakr Fāresī, Šams Monajjem Wābeknavī, and Ḥājī Ḵalīfa.

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• FAHLABAḎ

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀRBAD.

• FAHLAVĪYĀT

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  an appellation given especially to the quatrains and by extension to the poetry in general composed in the old dialects of the Pahla/Fahla regions.

• FAHLĪĀN

  Jamšīd Ṣadāqat-Ḵīš

  a rural district (dehestān) situated 12 km northwest of Nūrābād in the Mamassanī šahrestān.

• FAHRAJ

  Rezazadeh Langarudi

  subdistrict (dehestān) and town in the Persian province of Yazd.

• FAḴR-AL-DĪN ĀḎARĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See under BAHMANID DYNASTY.

• FAḴR-AL-DĪN ASʿAD

  Cross-Reference

  See GORGĀNĪ, FAḴR-AL-DĪN ASʿADĪ.

• FAḴR-AL-DĪN ʿERĀQĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿERĀQI, FAḴR-AL-DIN.

• FAḴR-AL-DĪN HAMADĀNĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿABD-AL-ṢAMAD HAMADĀNĪ.

• FAḴR-al-DĪNZARRĀDĪ, MAWLĀNĀ

  Sharif Husain Qasemi

  a 14th century spiritual leader of the Češtī Sufi order in India.

• FAḴR-AL-MOLK ARDALĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See ABU’L-ḤASAN KHAN ARDALĀN.

• FAḴR-AL-MOLK, ABU’L-FATḤ MOẒAFFAR

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  b. Neẓām al-Molk (1043-1106/7), eldest son of the great Saljuq vizier and himself vizier to the Saljuq sultans Barkīāroq (1092-1105) and Moḥammad b. Malekšāh (1105-18).

• FAḴR-AL-ZAMĀNĪ QAZVĪNĪ, ʿABD-AL-NABĪ

  Cross-reference

  See ʿABD-AL-NABĪ QAZVĪNĪ.

• FAḴR-E MODABBER

  EIr

  pen-name of Moḥammad b. Manṣūr b. Saʿīd, entitled Mobārakšāh, author of two prose works in Persian written in India in the late 12th and early 13th century, a book on genealogy with no formal title and the famous Ādāb al-ḥarb wa’l-šajāʿa.

• FAḴRĀʾĪ, EBRĀHĪM REŻĀZĀDA

  Moḥammad-Taqī Pūr Aḥmad Jaktājī

  (b. Rašt, 1899; d. Tehran, 1988), educator, journalist, lawyer, and scholar.

• FAḴRĪ BANĀKATĪ

  Cross-reference

  See BANĀKATĪ.

• FAḴRĪ HERAVĪ, SOLṬĀN-MOḤAMMAD

  Sharif Husain Qasemi

  b. Moḥammad Amīr Khan (or Solṭān) Amīrī Heravī (b. Herat, ca. 1497, d. probably in Agra, after 1566), poet, scholar, and Sufi who wrote on various aspects of the poetic art.

• FĀḴTA

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  an obsolete Persian name for a columbine bird, most probably the so-called “collared turtle dove."

• FĀḴTAʾĪ, ḤOSAYN QAWĀMĪ

  Cross-Reference

  a master vocalist of Persia in the second half of the 20th century. See QAWĀMI, ḤOSAYN.

• FĀL

  Cross-reference

  See DIVINATION.

• FĀL-ASĪRĪ, Ḥājj Sayyed ʿALĪ-AKBAR

  Manṣūr Rastgār FASāʾī

  prominent mojtahed of Shiraz (1840-1901). He led the prayer at Wakīl Mosque, where he regularly preached, and for years he wielded great influence in the religious, political, and social affairs of the city. He was an active opponent of the tobacco concession and instigated a riot against it.

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• FĀL-NĀMA

  Īraj Afšār

  a book of presages and omens. The narrower and more common use of the term, equivalent to “bibliomancy,” is confined to texts used as material for divination by the reader directly or through a fortune-teller.

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• FALAK

  Cross-Reference

  Arabic word for "sphere" (pl. aflāk). In Persian works of literature it is often referred to as being responsible for determining people's destiny. See ASTROLOGY AND ASTRONOMY IN IRAN; COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY.

• FALAKA

  Mahmoud Omidsalar

  also falak, čūb o falak; one of the most common instruments of corporal punishment in Persia.

• FALĀḴAN

  Parviz Mohebbi

  a sling.

• FALAKĪ ŠARVĀNĪ, Abu’l-Neẓām Moḥammad

  François de Blois

  or ŠERVĀNĪ, a Persian poet of the first half of the 12th century.

• FALĀṬŪRĪ, ʿABD-AL-JAWĀD

  Judith Pfeiffer

  (b. Isfahan, 1926; d. Berlin, 30 December 1996), professor of Islamic studies at Cologne University (1974-96).

• FALCONS AND FALCONRY

  Cross-reference

  See BĀZ; BĀZDĀRĪ.

• FALLĀḤ, REŻĀ

  Bāqer ʿĀqelī and EIr

  (b. Kāšān, 1910; d. London, 1981), deputy manager of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC; Šerkat-e mellī-e naft-e Īrān), in charge of international relations and marketing.

• FALSAFA

  Mansour Shaki

  philosophy in the pre-Islamic period. For philosophy in the Islamic period, see also articles under individual authors and schools, e.g., AVICENNA, FĀRĀBĪ, ILLUMINATIONISM, ISFAHAN SCHOOL OF PHILOSOPHY, and MOLLĀ ṢADRĀ.

• FALSAFĪ, NAṢR–ALLĀH

  Manouchehr Parsadoust

  (b. Tehran, 1901; d. 1981), Persian historian, educator, journalist, translator, and poet.

• FALUDY, György

  ANDRÁS BODROGLIGETI

  (1910-2006), Hungarian poet, translator, and publicist.  

• FĀMĪ

  Cross-reference

  See ABU NAṢR FĀMI.

• FAMILY LAW

  Ziba Mir-Hosseini, Mansour Shaki, Jeanette Wakin

  legal prescriptions dealing with marriage, divorce, the status of children, inheritance, and related matters.

• FAMILY OF THE PROPHET

  Cross-Reference

  See  ĀL-E ʿABĀ, lit. “Family of the cloak.”

• FAMILY PLANNING

  Mehdi Amani, Nancy Hatch Dupree

  a term for programs to regulate family size that came into use in the West in the 1930s. Although it originally encompassed efforts both to promote and to curtail fertility, explosive population growth in the developing countries since mid-century has narrowed its meaning to control of fertility.

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• FAMINES

  Xavier de Planhol

  in Persia.

• FANĀ ḴOSROW

  Cross-reference

  See ʿAŻOD-AL-DAWLA, FANĀ ḴOSROW.

• FANĀʾĪĀN, Mīrzā FARAJ-ALLĀH JONŪN

  Vahid Rafati

  b. Loṭf-ʿAlī b. Moḥammad-Reżā (b. Sangsar, 1873), poet.

• FANĀRŪZĪ, ḴᵛĀJA ʿAMĪD ABU’L-FAWĀRES

  cross-reference

  See SENDBĀD-NĀMA.

• FANĪ KAŠMĪRĪ

  Sharif Husain Qasemi

  pen name of Shaikh MOḤAMMAD-MOḤSEN b. Ḥasan KAŠMĪRĪ (d. 1670/71), Indo-Persian scholar and poet.

• FĀNŪS

  Cross-reference

  lanterns. See ČERĀḠ.

• FAQĪR DEHLAVĪ, MĪR ŠAMS-AL-DĪN

  Munibur Rahman

  or Maftūn (fl. 18th century), Persian poet from the Indian sub-continent.

• FAQĪR-ALLĀH JALĀLĀBĀDĪ

  Cross-reference

  See AFGHANISTAN xii. LITERATURE.

• FĀRĀB

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  a small district on the middle Syr Darya in Transoxania, at the confluence of that river with its right-bank tributary, the Arys, which flows down from Esfījāb, and also the name of a small town within it.

• FĀRĀBĪ

  Multiple Authors

  Muslim philosopher of the 10th century.

• FĀRĀBĪ i. Biography

  Dimitri Gutas

  No one among Fārābī’s successors and their followers, or even unrelated scholars, undertook to write his full biography.

• FĀRĀBĪ ii. Logic

  Deborah L. Black

  Many of his writings take the form of commentaries on, or summaries of, the Aristotelian Organon, which, following the tradition of the Alexandrian commentators of late antiquity, included Porphyry’s Isagoge as well as Aristotle’sRhetoric and Poetics.

• FĀRĀBĪ iii. Metaphysics

  Thérèse-Anne Druart

  His metaphysics scillates between two main projects: (1) a study of what is common to all beings, i.e., being as such and other universal notions such as oneness, and (2) a study of the ultimate causes, i.e., God and other immaterial beings. 

• FĀRĀBĪ iv. Fārābī and Greek Philosophy

  Dimitri Gutas

  Fārābī’s philosophical moorings and direct affiliation lie in the Greek neo-Aristotelian school of Ammonius in Alexandria, in the form in which it survived and was revived after the Islamic conquest among Syriac Christian clerics and intellectuals in the centers of Eastern Christianity in the Fertile Crescent.

• FĀRĀBĪ v. Music

  George Sawa

  In the history of Middle Eastern music Fārābī remains unequalled as a theorist, but this aspect of his manifold achievements has been obscured by his more widely known writings on philosophy.

• FĀRĀBĪ vi. Political Philosophy

  Muhsin Mahdi

  The central theme of Fārābī’s political writings is the virtuous regime, the political order whose guiding principle is the realization of human excellence by virtue. 

• FARĀH

  Daniel Balland

  Farāh has retained practically the same name since the first millennium B.C.E. At the end of the first century B.C.E, the “very great city” of Phra in Aria was reckoned as a major stage on the overland route between the Levant and India.

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• FARAḤĀBĀD

  Wolfram Kleiss

  common place name throughout Persia, without any cultural or historical significance. The three best-known locales with this name are a city quarter of Tehran, the remains of a palace complext near Isfahan, and an Abbasid pleasure palace on the Caspian sea.

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• FARĀHĀN

  Reżā Reżāzāda Langarūdī

  a district (baḵš) in Tafreš subprovince (šahrestān) of the Central (Markazī) province.

• FARĀHĀNĪ, MĪRZĀ MOḤAMMAD-ḤOSAYN

  Hafez Farmayan

  (1847-1913) Persian diplomat and author of a travelogue (safar-nāma) intended to show how a Shiʿite pilgrim could successfully undertake the journey to Mecca. In it one learns much about Arabia, the Ottoman empire, and the Sunnis in general.

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• FARĀHĀNĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ṢĀDEQ

  Cross-Reference

  See ADĪB-AL-MAMĀLEK FARĀHĀNĪ.

• FARĀHĪ, ABŪ NAṢR BADR-al-DĪN MASʿŪD

  Moḥammad Dabīrsīāqī

  or Moḥammad, Maḥmūd; b. Abī Bakr b. Ḥosayn b. Jaʿfar Farāhī (fl. 13th century), poet and litterateur.

• FARĀHRŪD

  Daniel Balland

  river in southwestern Afghanistan, rising at about 3,300 meters above sea level in the Band-e Bayān, and, after a course of 712 km in a south-western direction, ending in the Hāmūn-e Ṣāberī (Sīstān) at an altitude of 475 m.

• FARAHVAŠI, Bahrām

  Mahnaz Moazami

  Bahrām Farahvaši was born into a family with a long tradition of literary and scholarly pursuits.  His father, ʿAli Moḥammad Farahvaši (1875-1968), was one of the pioneers of education reform in the early 20th century and established modern schools in Tehran, Zanjan, and Azerbaijan.

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• FARAJ-E BAʿD AZ ŠEDDAT

  Cross-Reference

  See DEHESTĀNI, ḤOSAYN.

• FARĀLĀVĪ

  François de Blois

  the conventional reading of the name of an early Persian poet.

• FARĀMARZ

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  son of Iran’s national hero Rostam, and himself a renowned hero of the Iranian national epic whose adventures were very popular, especially during the 10th and 11th centuries.

• FARĀMARZ, ABŪ MANṢŪR

  Cross-Reference

  See ABŪ MANṢŪR FARĀMARZ.

• FARĀMARZ-NĀMA

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  a Persian epic recounting the adventures of the hero Farāmarz.

• FARĀMARZĪ, ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN

  Mohammad Zarnegar

  (b. Gačūya, 1897; d. Tehran, 1972), an outspoken journalist, writer, educator, Majles deputy, and poet.

• FARĀMŪŠ-ḴĀNA

  Cross-Reference

  See FREEMASONRY.

• FARĀNAK

  Cross-reference

  according to the Šāh-nāma, the mother of Ferēdūn; also the name of a wife of Bahrām V Gōr.

• FARANG, FARANGĪ

  Forthcoming

  Forthcoming online.

• FARANGĪ MAḤALL

  Muhammad Wali-ul-Haq Ansari

  or FERANGĪ MAḤAL; family of Indian Muslim teachers, Hanafite scholars, and mystics active over the last 300 years.

• FARANGĪS

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  eldest daughter of Afrāsīāb and wife of Sīāvaḵš.

• FARAS-NĀMA

  Īraj Afšār

  a category of books and manuals dealing with horses and horsemanship. Topics treated in this literary genre include horse-breeding, grazing, dressage, veterinary advice, horseracing and betting, and the art of divination based on the mien and movements of horses.

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• FARĀVA

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  or Parau, a small medieval town in eastern Persia, lying east of the Caspian Sea and just beyond the northern edge of the Kopet-Dag range facing the Kara Kum desert.

• FARDIN, Moḥammad ʿAli

  Jamsheed Akrami

  Fardin’s 23-year film career blossomed late, after a short stint in the theater, and it suffered an early demise in 1981 when the Islamic Republic of Iran banned him from filmmaking in a wholesale purge of the major entertainers of the pre-revolution era.

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• FĀRES

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  the Arabic term for “rider on a horse, cavalryman,” connected with the verb farasa/farosa “to be knowledgeable about horses, be a skillful horseman” and the noun faras “horse."

• FĀRESĪ, ABŪ ʿALĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ABŪ ʿALĪ FĀRESĪ.

• FĀRESĪ, KAMĀL-AL-DĪN ABU’L-ḤASAN MOḤAMMAD

  Gül A. Russell

  (d. 1320), the most significant figure in optics after Ebn al-Hayṯam (Alhazen; 965-1040). The two names have been linked due to his critical revision of Ebn al-Hayṯam’s Ketāb al-manāẓer, which represents a watershed in the scientific understanding of light and vision.

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• FĀRESĪYĀT

  Aḥmad Mahdawī Dāmḡānī

  a literary term used in Arabic literature to refer to poems in Arabic which contain some Persian words or even phrases in their original form, the most notable example being the Fāresīyāt of Abū Nowās.

• FARḠĀNA

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  valley of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) river extending ca. 300 km between the Farḡāna mountains in the east and the first sharp bend of the river’s course to the north.

• FARḠĀNĪ, AḤMAD

  David Pingree

  b. Moḥammad b. Kaṯīr (fl. ca. 950 C.E.), Muslim astronomer.

• FARḠĀNĪ, EMĀM-AL-ḤARAMAYN SERĀJ-Al-DĪN ABU’L-MOḤAMMAD ʿALĪ

  Sayyāra Mahīnfar

  b. ʿOṯmān Ūšī or Ūsī (d. 1173), oṣūlī jurist (faqīh), traditionist, and author.

• FARḠĀNĪ, SAʿĪD-AL-DĪN MOHAMMAD

  William C. Chittick

  b. Ahmad (d. 1300), Sufi author from the town of Kāsān in Farḡān.

• FARḠĀNĪ, SAYF-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

  Sayyāra Mahīnfar

  thirteenth century Persian poet and Sufi of Farḡāna.

• FARHĀD (1)

  Heshmat Moayyad

  romantic figure in Persian legend and literature, best known from the poetry of Neẓāmī Ganjavī as a rival with the Sasanian king Ḵosrow II Parvēz (r. 591-628) for the love of the beautiful Armenian princess Šīrīn.

• FARHĀD (2)

  Cross-Reference

  name of a number of Parthian kings. See PHRAATES.

• FARHĀD KHAN QARAMĀNLŪ, ROKN-AL-SALṬANA

  Rudi Matthee

  military commander of Shah ʿAbbās I, executed at the Shah’s orders in 1598.

• FARHĀD MĪRZĀ MOʿTAMAD-AL-DAWLA

  Kambiz Eslami

  (1818-1888), Qajar prince-governor and bibliophile. Holding highly conservative religious views, he viewed Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah's reformist vizier as an obliterator of the “foundation of the Muslim šarīʿa,” who was guilty of spreading the word “liberty” among the people.

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