Table of Contents

  • 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.