Table of Contents

• PADERY, ETIENNE

  Anne-Marie Touzard

  (b. 1674; fl 1714-1725), Ottoman Greek who served as a translator to the French embassy at Istanbul, and as a French consul at Shiraz.

• PĀDŠĀH ḴĀTUN

  Karin Quade-Reutter

  (1256-1295), ruler of Kerman during the Il-Khanids, the youngest daughter of Qoṭb-al-Din Moḥammad and Qotloḡ Tarkān Ḵātun, grew up under the tutelage of her mother, also a ruler in Kerman.

• PĀDYĀB

  Ramiyar P. Karanjia

  a Pahlavi word meaning “ritually clean.”

• PAHLAVI PAPYRI

  Dieter Weber

  documents written exclusively in Egypt during the Persian (Sasanian) occupation under Ḵosrow II between 619 and 629 CE.

• PAHLAVI PSALTER

  Philippe Gignoux

  name given to a fragment, consisting of twelve pages written on both sides, of a Middle Persian translation of the Syriac Psalter. It was discovered, with a mass of other documents, at Bulayiq, near Turfan, in eastern Turkistan (present-day Xinjiang, China) by one of the four German expeditions to Central Asia.

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• PAIKULI

  Cross-Reference

  name of a pass in Iraq, west of the Iranian border at Qaṣr-e Širin. It is the site of a Sasanian monument with inscription. See NARSEH  and HERZFELD, ERNST iv. Herzfeld and the Paikuli Inscription. (For the site, see Helmut Humbach, The Sassanian Inscription of Paikuli, Part 1. Supplement to Herzfeld’s Paikuli, Wiesbaden and Tehran, 1978, p. 5; map, fig. 116.)

• PAIRIKĀ

  Siamak Adhami

  a class of female demonic beings in the Avesta, often translated “sorceress, witch, or enchantress.”

• PALACE ARCHITECTURE

  Dietrich Huff

  The abundant variety of styles in Iranian domestic architecture conceals a basic functional system that has remained unchanged since the Achaemenid period.

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• PALEOLITHIC AGE IN IRAN

  Frank Hole

  The Paleolithic or ‘Old Stone Age’ begins with the first stone tools some 2.5million years ago in Africa, and it ends with the Neolithic or ‘New Stone Age,’ essentially at the beginnings of agriculture.

• PALM READING

  Mahmoud Omidsalar

  (chiromancy or palmistry; Pers. Kaf-bini), a form of physiognomy that deduces personal characteristics from the form of the lines on the subject’s palm.

• PANDIYĀT-E JAVĀNMARDI

  Farhad Daftary

  a Nezāri Ismaʿili book originally written in Persian and containing the sermons or religious admonitions to the true believers, seeking exemplary standards of ethical behavior and spiritual chivalry.

• PANJIKANT

  Boris I. Marshak

  Sogdian city, the ruins of which are located south of present-day Panjakent in western Tajikistan. Archeological excavations show that this city, situated on the rim of a high terrace overlooking a well irrigated valley, was founded in the 5th century C.E. and was inhabited until the 770s.

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• PAPER

  Multiple Authors

  writing material invented in China that spread throughout Asia and to Iran in the pre-Islamic period.

• PAPER i. Paper in the Iranian World Prior to Printing

  Jonathan Bloom

  its use in Iran prior to the introduction of printing.

• PAPER ii. Paper and Papermaking

  Willem Floor

  In the 16th and 17th centuries, paper production took place in Persia in Isfahan, Yazd, and Kerman, and in the 18th century probably in Rasht. In the 19th century it is known to have taken place in Tehran, Isfahan, Kerman, and Mashad.

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• PARI

  Cross-Reference

  “fairy.” See  PAIRIKĀ.

• PARIḴĀN ḴĀNOM

  Manučehr Pārsādust

  (1548-1578), the second daughter of Shah Ṭahmāsp I, a politically influential and colorful figure at the Safavid court.

• PARMENIO

  Ernst Badian

  (b. ca. 400 BCE, d. 330 BCE); probably from mountainous Upper Macedonia, he became Philip II’s most successful general.

• PARSI COMMUNITIES i. EARLY HISTORY

  John R. Hinnells

  The creation of a Parsi settlement in India was the outcome of the migration of Zoroastrian refugees from their original homeland in medieval Islamic Persia.

• PARSI COMMUNITIES ii. IN CALCUTTA

  Jesse S. Palsetia

  Calcutta became a center of Parsi settlement from the 18th century. Dadabhoy Behramji Banaji is recorded as the first Parsi to have come to Calcutta from Surat in western India in 1767.

• PARTHIAN(S)

  Cross-Reference

  See ARSACID DYNASTY.

• PASARGADAE

  David Stronach and Hilary Gopnik

  capital city and last resting place of Cyrus the Great (r. 559-530 BCE), located in northern Fārs in the fertile and well-watered Dasht-i Murghab (Dašt-e morḡāb), the site stands 1,900 m above sea level at 30°15’ N and 53°14’ E.

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• PASHTO LANGUAGE

  Cross-Reference

  See AFGHANISTAN vi. PAŠTO.

• PASTEUR INSTITUTE

  Cross-Reference

  See INSTITUT PASTEUR.

• PAUL THE PERSIAN

  Byard Bennett

  writer at the time of the Nestorian Patriarch Ezekiel (567-580 C.E.). Bar Hebraeus attributes to Paul “an admirable introduction to the dialectics (of Aristotle).” He also appears as a literary figure in an early Byzantine Greek anti-Manichean work, the Debate of Photinus the Manichean and Paul the Persian.

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• PAVRY, BAPSY CURSETJI

  JENNY ROSE

   (1902-1995), daughter of Parsi Zoroastrian Dastur Cursetji Erachji Pavry.

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• PAYĀM-E MAŠREQ

  David Matthews

  Title of a collection of Persian verse by Muhammad Iqbal.

• PAYANDEH, ABU’L-QASEM

  Ṣafdar Taqizāda

  (1908/1911-1984), journalist, translator, and fiction writer.

• PEARL i. PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD

  Brigitte Musche

  i. PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD The oldest find of pearls in Persia comes from Tepe Giyan in Luristan, from levels dated to the mid-second millennium BCE.

• PEARL ii. ISLAMIC PERIOD

  Daniel T. Potts

  ii. ISLAMIC PERIOD In the Islamic era pearls have been widely used—strung to make necklaces or sewn onto textiles, used to decorate hats, crowns, daggers, and scabbards.

• PEJMAN-E BAKHTIARI, HOSAYN

  Soheila Saremi

  (1900-1974) poet, lyricist, writer and  translator, who composed highly acclaimed ḡazals, and also played an instrumental role in editing and annotating Neẓāmi Ganjavi’s Panj Ganj or Ḵamseh.

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• PELLIOT, PAUL

  Samuel Lieu

  (1878-1945), French orientalist who particularly contributed to the study of the languages and  history of the diverse religions and cultures of Central Asia.

• PEPPER

  Cross-Reference

  See FELFEL.

• PERICLES

  Ernst Badian

  (ca. 495-429 BCE), Athenian politician and commander in the period after the major victories over the forces of Xerxes I.

• PERIKHANIAN, ANAHIT

  Arthur Ambartsumian

  (1928-2012), scholar of Iranian studies, specializing in Sasanian jurisprudence, history, and society. 

  
  
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• PĒRŌZ

  Cross-Reference

  Sasanian king (r. 459-84). See FIRUZ.

• PERROT, JEAN

  Rémy Boucharlat

  (1920-2012), French archeologist and the last director of the Délégation Archéologique Française en Iran (1968-83).

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• PERSEPOLIS

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  ruined monuments of the acropolis of the city of Pārsa, the dynastic center of the Achaemenid Persian kings, located in the plain of Marvdašt, some 57 km northeast of Shiraz.

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• PERSEPOLIS ADMINISTRATIVE ARCHIVES

  Annalisa Azzoni, Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre, Mark B. Garrison, Wouter F. M. Henkelman, Charles E. Jones, and Matthew W. Stolper

  two groups of clay tablets, fragments, and sealings produced and stored by administrative agencies based at Persepolis.

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• PERSEPOLIS ELAMITE TABLETS

  Muhammad Dandamayev

  administrative records in Elamite inscribed on clay tablets. Parts of two archives of such tablets were discovered in Persepolis in 1933-34 and 1936-38.

• PERSEPOLIS GRAFFITI: FOREIGN VISITORS

  St. John Simpson

  These represent another phase in the transformation of the monuments from living palaces to evocative ruined memorials of the past, alongside the earlier systematic iconoclastic defacement of exposed human faces, the addition of Sasanian and Buyid drawings and inscriptions.

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• PERSIAN AUTHORS OF ASIA MINOR PART 1

  Tahsin Yazıcı (prep. Osman G. Özgüdenlı)

  Several Saljuqs of Rum (Anatolia) chose Iranian names such as Kaykāvus and Kayḵosrov and even made Persian the official language of state and court.

• PERSIAN AUTHORS OF ASIA MINOR PART 2

  Tahsin Yazıcı (prep. Osman G. Özgüdenlı)

  bibliography of major Persian authors of Asia Minor.

• PERSIAN LANGUAGE i. Early New Persian

  Ludwig Paul

  Early New Persian is the first phase (8th-12th centuries CE) of the Persian language after the Islamic conquest of Iran.

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• PERSIAN MANUSCRIPTS i. IN OTTOMAN AND MODERN TURKISH LIBRARIES

  Osman G. Özgüdenli

  These are from four sources: (1) those written, translated, and copied in Anatolia; (2) those brought into Anatolia by immigrant scholars; (3) those brought by traders; 4) those brought as war booty.

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• PERSIS, KINGS OF

  Joseph Wiesehöfer

  the Persian dynasts who between the 2nd century BCE and 3rd century CE ruled as Parthian representatives in Persis, southwestern Iran.

• PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN i. PRE-ISLAMIC NAMES: GENERAL

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  The system of formation of personal names attested in the Iranian languages to a great extent agrees with that known from most of the other Indo-European languages.

• PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN ii. AVESTAN NAMES

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  In the Avesta at least 400 personal names are attested. The bulk of these names is found in the second part of the Fravardīn Yašt in a litany-like enumeration.

• PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN iii. ACHAEMENID PERIOD

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  Evidence from the Achaemenid period is considerable, but in authentic sources, the inscriptions of the kings themselves, fewer than fifty names are documented in their Old Persian form.

• PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN iv. PARTHIAN PERIOD

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  For the Parthian period there is no super-abundance of primary sources written in the official (Middle) Parthian administrative language.

• PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN v. SASANIAN PERIOD

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  For Sasanian times, priority treatment must be given to the names attested in non-literary, that is, epigraphic sources (in the broadest sense of the word).

• PERSONAL NAMES, IRANIAN vi. ARMENIAN NAMES OF IRANIAN ORIGIN

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  Linguistic research has documented that the majority of Iranian lexical and other borrowings in Armenian originated in the Parthian language.

• PERSONAL NAMES, SOGDIAN i. IN CHINESE SOURCES

  Y. Yoshida

  Especially during some hundred years before the An Lushan’s rebellion (755-63 C.E.), when Tang controlled Central Asia, a great many Sogdians were encountered in northern China.

• PESTS, AGRICULTURAL

  Cyrus Abivardi

  “Pest” refers to any animal or plant causing harm or damage to people or their animals, crops, or possessions, even if it only causes annoyance.

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• PESYĀN, MOḤAMMAD-TAQI KHAN

  Stephanie Cronin

  (1892-1920), military officer with strong nationalist sentiments who served in the Government Gendarmerie from its inception until he was killed in a skirmish by Kurdish tribal forces.

• PEUCESTAS

  Ernst Badian

  officer under Alexander the Great on his campaign in Asia.

• PEYK-E SAʿĀDAT-E NESWĀN

  Nassereddin Parvin

  women's magazine published in Rašt , 1927-30.

• PEYMĀN

  Nassereddin Parvin

  periodical published (1933-42) in Tehran by Aḥmad Kasravi, historian of the Constitutional Revolution.

• PHILATELY i. The Postage Stamps of Iran

  Roman Siebertz

  Postage stamps, which were introduced to Iran in 1868, have from the outset served as an object of utility as well as an instrument of official self-representation.

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• PHILATELY vi. POSTAL HISTORY

  Mano Amarloui

  To stop the spread of certain information, postal matter were, at times, strictly controlled. Not all mail was opened, but special attention was paid to particular senders and addressees. To legitimize censorship, special censor marks were applied on envelopes.

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• PHILOSOPHY

  Cross-Reference

  see under FALSAFA.

• PHOENIX MOSQUE

  George Lane

  Over the centuries, the mosque has been mentioned by a variety of very different names.  It is referred to as the Li Bai Ssŭ on some steles and as Wu-lin Gardens on a 13th-century street map.  The name Li Bai Temple is thought to be the oldest designation. 

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• PHRAORTES

  I. Medvedskaya

  the second king of the Median dynasty. All information about him is from Herodotus.

• PHRATAPHERNES

  Ernst Badian

  a member of the highest Persian aristocracy at the end of the Achaemenid period. He probably belonged to one of the Six Families that had helped Darius I gain the throne.

• PIANO IN PERSIAN MUSIC

  Hormoz Farhat

  The first piano is known to have arrived in Persia as a gift from Napoleon Bonaparte to Fatḥ ʿAli Shah.

• PILARAM, FARAMARZ

  Hengameh Fouladvand

  (1937-1983), a modernist artist, educator and among the founders of the Saqqā-ḵāna School of Art.

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• PIR-E ZAN

  Anna Krasnowolska

  a calendar-related legend about an Old Woman who personifies winter.  

• PIŠ-PARDA

  William O. Beeman

  a short comedy sketch, musical number, or dance performed before the main theatrical performance, or in an intermission between acts of a performance.

• PÎREMÊRD

  Keith Hitchins

  (1867-1950), pen-name of Tawfiq, son of Maḥmud, son of Ḥamza (in Kurdish: Tewfîq kurî MehmûdʿAḡa kurî Hemze ʿAḡa), Kurdish writer, journalist, and public intellectual.

• PLANE TREE

  Cross-Reference

  See ČENĀR.

• PLANETS

  Antonio Panaino

  In antiquity, only five planets, visible to the naked eye (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn) were known; in many early traditions, the Sun and the Moon, were added to their number. Hence, some sources mention both the “five” and the “seven” planets.

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• PLANTAIN

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀRHANG.

• PLATTS, JOHN THOMPSON

  Parvin Loloi

  (1830-1904), scholar and teacher of Persian at the University of Oxford. He wrote a widely used Persian grammar and published an edition and an English translation of Saʿdi’s Golestān.

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• PLUM

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀLŪČA.

• POLAK, Jakob Eduard

  Christoph Werner

  (1818-1891), Austrian physician and writer who was instrumental in establishing modern medicine in Iran. 

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• POLAND ii. PERSIAN ART AND ARTIFACTS IN POLISH COLLECTIONS

  Beata Biedrońska-Słota, Dorota Malarczyk, and Barbara Mękarska

  Persian art has been present in Poland since medieval times. Among the objects—bought or brought back as war booty, like carpets, textiles, tents, richly ornamented weaponry, gold products—illuminated Persian manuscripts were also to be found.

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• POLAND iii. Iranian Studies in Poland

  Anna Krasnowolska

  The development of Iranian studies in Poland was preceded by some nonscholarly interest in Persian language and culture.

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• POLEMICS i. BETWEEN SHIʿITES AND JEWS

  Daniel Tsadik

  Twelver (Eṯnā ʿAšari Emāmi) Shiʿite polemics refer here to arguments gleaned from compositions written by Shiʿites.

• POLL TAX

  Cross-Reference

  See JEZYA.

• POLO, MARCO

  Michele Bernardini

  (1254-1324), Venetian merchant and traveler (b. Venice or Curzola, 1254; d. Venice, 8 January 1324), whose travel accounts gained worldwide fame and whose description of the countries he visited between 1271 and 1298 represents a primary geographical and historical source concerning Asia during the Mongol domination.

• POLOW

  Cross-Reference

  See  BERENJ “rice” i. In Iran, sec. “Rice in the Iranian diet. ”

• PONTUS

  Brian McGing

  Greek “sea,” generally taken in the ancient world to refer to the Black Sea; also applied to the Hellenistic kingdom of the Mithridatid rulers that emerged in northern Asia Minor at the end of the 4th century BCE.

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• POPE, ARTHUR UPHAM

  Noel Siver

  Pope was born on February 7, 1881 in Phenix, Rhode Island where his father Louis Pope was a minister in a local church. He was raised in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Descended from English Puritans who had settled in the Boston area in 1634 Pope remained proud of his New England roots throughout his life.

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• PORTUGAL i. RELATIONS WITH PERSIA IN THE EARLY MODERN AGE (1500-1750)

  Joao Teles e Cunha

  Portuguese-Persian relations had some importance for both countries during the early Modern Age, coinciding with the rise and fall of the Safavids.

• Poseidon: in Bactria

  Frank Holt

  Poseidon in Bactria presents the unusual pairing of an Hellenic sea-god with landlocked Central Asia.

• POŠT-E KUH

  Ernie Haerinck and Bruno Overlaet

  The exploration of Pošt-e Kuh started relatively late in comparison with other regions of Persia and the Near East. Until about 1929, the quasi-autonomous governors (wāli) of Pošt-e Kuh ruled over this region. Major Henry C. Rawlinson was the first European to explore the region.

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• POSTERS

  Christiane Gruber

  in Iran.

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• PREHISTORY OF IRAN: ARTIFICIAL CRANIAL MODIFICATIONS

  Aurelie Daems and Karina Croucher

  Cranial modification is one of the most obvious examples we have from the archaeological record of the active manipulation of the body during life, with implications in terms of the reflection of identity and identity construction.

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• PROCOPIUS

  Henning Börm

  of Caesarea, Greek historian (born ca. 500, died ca. 560). His description of Sasanian internal affairs and Persian-Roman relations is in part highly useful and reliable, and he is a primary source for the way the elite of the Later Roman Empire looked on the Persians.

• PROSODY

  Multiple Authors

  systems, styles, and theories of versification in the Iranian world.

• PROSODY i. Remnants of Proto-Indo-European Poetic Craft in Iranian 

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  reconstructions of a special poetic language assumed for the Proto-Indo-Europeans and their reflections in other ancient Indo-European languages including Iranian.

• PROSODY iii. MIDDLE PERSIAN

  Gilbert Lazard

  There are remnants left of pre-Islamic poetry within western Middle Iranian languages: fragments of Manichean religious hymns, some poems preserved in the literature of Pahlavi, and poetical pieces in New Persian not following the rules of classical versification.

• PROSODY iv. New Persian

  Cross-Reference

  The study of poetic metre and of the art of versification, including rhyme, stanzaic forms, and the quantity and stress of syllables. See ʿARUŻ.

• PROTOTHYES

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  according to Herodotus 1.103.3 the father of the Scythian king Madýēs, who is said to have gone into battle against the Medes.

• PSALMS, BOOK OF

  Cross-Reference

  in Iran and Central Asia. See the following entries:

  BIBLE, with multiple sub-articles on translations into Iranian languages, from pre-Islamic times to the present.

  PAHLAVI PSALTER.

  JUDEO-PERSIAN COMMUNITIES OF IRAN ix. Judeo-Persian Literature.

• PUNJABI

  Christopher Shackle

  Indo-Aryan language of the Punjab with about 26 million speakers in India and more than 60 million in Pakistan.

• PUR BAHĀʾ JĀMI, TĀJ-AL-DIN

  George Lane

  poet, pun master, satirist, and often scathing social commentator.

• PURDĀWUD, EBRĀHIM

  Cross-Reference

  (1885-­1968), pioneer of studies in the religious and cultural history of Iran. See

  HISTORIOGRAPHY ix. Pahlavi Period (2) Specific Topics (b) Purdawud.

• PURSIŠNĪHĀ

  Mahnaz Moazami

  a collection of 59 questions and answers in Avestan and Middle Persian relating to matters of Zoroastrian religion

• PUYANDA, Moḥammad-Jaʿfar

  Jalil Doostkhah

  (1954-1998), scholar and translator of literary texts and sociological studies. He never joined any political organization or party, but was a diligent defender of democracy and freedom of speech and belief.

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