Table of Contents

  • 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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