Table of Contents

• ṢABĀ, ABU’l-ḤASAN

  Hormoz Farhat

  Born into an aristocratic and affluent family, Abu’l-Ḥasan had the good fortune of being raised in an environment fostering love of music and arts. He descended from a long line of court physicians, known for their artistic talents.

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• SABALĀN MOUNTAIN

  Eckart Ehlers

  Kuh-e-Sabalān; 4,740 m), the highest and spatially most extended volcano in northwestern Iran.

• ṢĀBER

  Hasan Javadi

  (1862-1911), MIRZĀ ʿALI-AKBAR ṬĀHERZĀDA, famous Azerbaijani satirist and poet.

• SABET, HABIB

  Moojan Momen

  (1903-1990), Bahai entrepreneur and industrialist, who rose from humble beginnings to become one of the wealthiest and most influential men in Iran in the late Pahlavi period.

• SABKŠENĀSI

  Matthew Smith

  the title of a book by Malek al-Šoʿarā Moḥammad Taqi Bahār first published in 1942.

• ŠĀBUHRAGĀN

  Christiane Reck

  (Šāpurāḵān, Šāburāḵān, Šāburḵān), one of the books written by Mani (216-274/7 CE), founder of the Manichean religion, in which he summarized his teaching systematically.

• ṢĀBUN

  Cross-Reference

  "soap." See SOAP.

• SACRED BOOKS OF THE EAST

  Carlo G. Cereti

  general title of a set of 50 volumes published between 1879 and 1910, all translated into English by some of the leading scholars of the time under the supervision of Friederich Max Müller.

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• SACRIFICE i. IN ZOROASTRIANISM

  William W. Malandra

  At least since the publication of the seminal essay by Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss much of the discussion has been devoted to a search for what essentially defines sacrifice.

• SADA FESTIVAL

  Anna Krasnowolska

  the most important Iranian winter festival, celebrated by kindling fires.

• ṢADĀ-YE EṢFAHĀN

  Nassereddin Parvin

  weekly newspaper published in Isfahan (6 March 1921 to April/May 1944, with lengthy interruptions). 

• SADEQI, BAHRAM

  Saeed Honarmand

  Sadeqi started writing poetry and prose at a young age and was still in high school when his poems, under the pseudonym “Ṣahbā Meqdāri,” appeared in literary journals of the period. Although well-versed in classical Persian literature and familiar with Persian prosody, he adhered to a free and independent mode of expression.

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• SAʿDI

  Paul Losensky

  Persian poet and prose writer (b. Shiraz, ca. 1210; d. Shiraz, d. 1291 or 1292), widely recognized as one of the greatest masters of the classical literary tradition.

• ṢADR

  Willem Floor

  Arabic term used in the Iranian lands mainly to denote an outstanding person (scholar or otherwise); hence it was also applied as a personal title.

• SADR, BEHJAT

  Hengameh Fouladvand

  pioneer modernist painter and educator, notable in the development of Iranian modern art movement.

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• ṢADR-AL-DIN ŠIRĀZI

  Cross-Reference

  See MOLLĀ ṢADRĀ ŠIRĀZI.

• ṢĀʾEB TABRIZI

  Paul E. Losensky

  (ca. 1592-1676), MIRZĀ M0ḤAMMAD ʿALI, celebrated Persian poet of the later Safavid period, was born in Tabriz and died in Isfahan.

• SA'EDI, Gholam-Hosayn

  Faridoun Farrokh and Houra Yavari

  (1936-1985), writer, editor, and dramatist; an influential figure in popularizing the theater as an art form, as well as a medium of political and social expression in contemporary Iran.

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• ŠAFAQ

  Nasserddin Parvin

  a newspaper published in Tabriz, 3 October 1910 to 18 December 1911. It was an organ of the Democrat Party (Ḥezb-e demokrāt), with a strong nationalist orientation.

• SAFAVID DYNASTY

  Rudi Matthee

  Originating from a mystical order at the turn of the 14th century, the Safavids ruled Persia from 1501 to 1722. 

• SAFAVID DYNASTY (cont.)

  Rudi Matthee

  Annotated bibliography.

• SAFFARIDS

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  a dynasty of medieval Islamic eastern Iran which ruled from 247/861 to 393/1003.  From a base in their home province of Sistān, the first Saffarids built up a vast if transient military empire, at one point invading Iraq and threatening Baghdad.  

• SAFIDRUD

  Eckart Ehlers

  With a length of 670 km the Safidrud is the second largest river of Iran.  Its headwaters are located in the Zagros ranges of northwestern Iran in the province of Kordestān.  Originating in the mountain range of the Kuh-e Čehel Čašma, the headwater region is moist and rainy.

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• SAFINA-YE ḴOŠGU

  Stefano Pello

  An important Indo-Persian taḏkera (collection of biographical notices of poets with anthologies of their verse) of the 18th century, by Bindrāban Dās Ḵošgu.

• SAFINE-YE SOLAYMANI

  M. Ismail Marcinkowski

  (“Ship of Solayman”), a Persian travel account of an embassy sent by the Safavid ruler Shah Solayman (r. 1666-94) to Siam in the year 1685.

• ṢAFJĀHĪ DYNASTY

  Cross-Reference

  See DECCAN.

• ŠAFT

  Marcel Bazin

  district and small town in southwestern Gilān.

• SAGDID

  Cross-Reference

  in Zoroastrian practice, a purificatory ritual, involving a dog, before a body is carried away to be exposed; see DOG ii. In Zoroastrianism.

• ŠĀH ḴALIL-ALLĀH

  Farhad Daftary

  the forty-fifth imam of the Qāsemšāhi branch of Nezāri Ismaʿilis in the 18th century.

• ŠĀH ṬĀHER ḤOSAYNI DAKKANI

  Farhad Daftary

  (1480-90s-1549), thirty-first and the most famous imam of the Moḥammadšāhi (or Moʾmeni) branch of the Nezāri Ismaʿilis. A resident of Deccan, Šāh Ṭāher was a learned theologian, poet, literary stylist, and an accomplished diplomat who rendered valuable services to the Neẓāmšāhi dynasty of Aḥmadnagar.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA iv. Illustrations

  Marianna Shreve Simpson

  It is within the medieval arts of the object, and particularly on portable ceramic and metalwork vessels made in Persia and neighboring regions during the 12th and 13th centuries, that the early history and iconography of Šāh-nāma imagery can be most fully appreciated.

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• ŠĀH-NĀMA v. ARABIC WORDS

  John Perry

  Moïnfar calculates that the Šāh-nāma contains 706 words of Arabic origin, occurring a total of 8,938 times. The 100 words occurring most frequently account for 60 percent of all occurrences.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA — EXCURSUS

  Amin Banani

  Essay: “Reflections on Re-reading the Iliad and the Shahnameh” by Amin Banani.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA vi. The Šāh-nāma as a Source for Popular Narratives

  Julia Rubanovich

  Šāh-nāma has been the source for different versions of the stories, such as the ones published in Eskandar-nāma and Dārāb-nāma, narrated by storytellers in public. The voluminous works with branching plots, relate the heroic-romantic adventures of their eponymous heroes, often with a religious, Islamic emphasis.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS i. INTO TURKISH

  Osman G. Özgüdenli

  Turks have been influenced by the Šāh-nāma since the advent of the Saljuqs in Persia. Their last prince in Persia, Ṭoḡrel III, recited verses from the Šāh-nāma while swinging his mace in battle.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS ii. INTO GEORGIAN

  Jamshid Sh. Giunashvili

  was translated, not only to satisfy the literary and aesthetic needs of readers and listeners, but also to inspire the young with the spirit of heroism and Georgian patriotism.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS iii. INTO ENGLISH

  Parvin Loloi

  Ferdowsi’s epic, the Šāh-nāma, was first introduced to English readers by Sir William Jones, who in his many essays on Oriental poetry, compared Ferdowsi to Homer.

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• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xiii. INTO POLISH

  Anna Krasnowolska

  The first, brief mention of Ferdowsi in Polish was made by Ignacy Krasicki (1735-1801) in his work on poets and poetry, and he included in his collection of Oriental tales two passages originating from the Šāh-nāma.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xiv. INTO RUSSIAN

  Natalia Chalisova

  The first translation of the Šāh-nāma into Russian dates from 1849, when V. Zhukovski (d. 1852) wrote his poem Rustem and Zorab.

• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xv. INTO JAPANESE

  Hashem Rajabzadeh

  After ʿOmar Ḵayyām, whose Robāʿiyāt was introduced to Japanese readers around the turn of the 20th century, Ferdowsi was the first Persian poet to attract the attention of Japanese writers.

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• ŠĀH-NĀMA TRANSLATIONS xvi. INTO SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES

  Claus V. Pedersen

  among the works of classical Persian literature, Ferdowsi’s Šāh-nāma is the one best known in the Scandinavian countries.

• SAḤĀB, ʿAbbās

  Firouz Firooznia

  Saḥāb made about seven hundred maps and atlases, many hand-drafted, originals of which are kept in the SGDI’s library. He closely supervised every project from the start to the end. Saḥāb’s devotion to his work and his love for the field made him travel to hundreds of settlement of Iran, sometimes on foot, to collect data.

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• SAHAND MOUNTAIN

  Eckart Ehlers

  (Kuh-e Sahand), With 3710 m the third of the great volcanoes in the volcano province of Eastern Anatolia and Northwestern Iran, the other two being Ararat and Sabalān.

• ṢĀḤEB EBN ʿABBĀD, ESMĀʿIL

  Maurice Pomerantz

  vizier and belletrist.

• ṢAḤIFA AL-SAJJĀDIYA, AL-

  Louis Medoff

  celebrated collection of supplicatory prayers attributed to Imam Sajjād, the fourth Imam of the Imami Shiʿites; an important source of Shiʿite piety, its prestige is reflected in its honorific titles.

• ŠĀHIN

  Evelin Grassi

  Šams-al-Din Maḵdum (b. Bukhara, 1859; d. Qarši 1894), Bukharan Tajik poet and satirist.

• ŠAHNĀZI, ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn

  Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi

  (1905-1948) musician and performer of the tār (a plucked long-necked lute).

• ŠAHNĀZI, ʿAli Akbar

  Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi

  (1897-1984), master musician, renowned teacher, and composer of Persian classical music.

• ŠAHRBĀNU

  Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi

  (lit. “Lady of the Land,” i.e., of Persia), said to be the daughter of Yazdegerd III (r. 632-51), the last Sasanian king.

• ŠAHRESTĀN YAZDEGERD

  Murtazali Gadjiev

  a Sasanian city-fortress built by Yazdegerd II (r. 439-57 CE).

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• ŠAHRESTĀNĪHĀ Ī ĒRĀNŠAHR

  Touraj Daryaee

  (The Provincial Capitals of Iran), the only major surviving Middle Persian text on geography.

• ŠAHREWAR

  William W. Malandra

  name of one of the Amahraspandān in Zoroastrianism. This is the Middle Persian form of the name deriving from Av. Xšaθra Vairya, meaning literally “dominion to be chosen” and more freely “choice/desirable/best dominion.”

• SAIFPOUR FATEMI

  Lotfali Khonji

  journalist, political figure, and university professor.

• SAIIDO NASAFI, MIROBID

  Keith Hitchins

  (Mir ʿĀbed Sayyedā Nasafi), Tajik poet (d. Bukhara, between 1707 and 1711).

• SAKAS: IN AFGHANISTAN

  Pierfrancesco Callieri

  from the large family of Iranian nomads called Scythians who moved southwards towards the territories of present-day Afghanistan from their realms in the Central Asian plains, about the mid-second century BCE.

• ŠAKKI

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  a district of eastern Transcaucasia, now within the northwesternmost part of the present-day Republic of Azerbaijan, where the modern town of Sheki or Shaki.

• SALAMIS

  Christopher Tuplin

  island west of Athens and site of a major naval battle in 480 BCE between the Greeks and the Persian fleet of Xerxes I. Salamis was the second of five battles of the Greco-Persian War of 480-79.

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• SALEMANN, Carl Hermann

  D. Durkin-Meisterernst

  (1849-1916, a leading Iranist scholar of his time, specializing in Middle and early Modern Persian. His tenacity and willingness to publish his results quickly contributed greatly to the advancement of the study of the newly found texts from Central Asia.

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• SALJUQS iii. SALJUQS OF RUM

  Andrew Peacock

  dynasty of Turkish origin that ruled much of Anatolia (Rum), ca. 1081-1308.

• SALJUQS v. SALJUQID LITERATURE

  Daniela Meneghini

  The term ‘Saljuqid literature’is used here to refer to literary works in Persian produced between 432/1040 and 617/1220.

• SALJUQS vi. ART AND ARCHITECTURE

  Lorenz Korn

  The Saljuq period can be regarded as an epoch in which Islamic art and architecture in Persia reached maturity, i.e., in which techniques were developed and formal solutions were established that lasted for centuries to come.

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• SAMĀʿI, ḤABIB

  MORTEZA DEHKORDI and EIr.

  (1905-46), renowned santur player.

• SAMAK-E ʿAYYĀR

  Marina Gaillard

  a prose narrative originating in the milieu of professional storytellers, transmitted orally and written down around the 12th century.

• SAMARQAND i. HISTORY AND ARCHEOLOGY

  Frantz Grenet

  Since the publication of the entry Afrāsiāb in 1984 new information has been brought to light on this archeological site and, consequently, on the history of pre-Mongol Samarqand.

• SAMFONI-e MORDAGĀN

  Houra Yavari

  first novel (1989) by Abbas Maroufi, fiction writer and the founder and editor of the periodical Gardun. 

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• ŠAMS-AL-DIN MOḤAMMAD

  Farhad Daftary

  (1240-1310-11), Nezāri Ismaʿili imam, the sole surviving son of Rokn-al-Din Ḵoršāh, the last lord of Alamut. The youthful Šams-al-Din was taken to a safe place; thus, escaped the tragic fate of his family, who were all murdered by the Mongols.

• SANĀʾI

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  (d. ca. 1130), Persian poet of the later Ghaznavid era, celebrated particularly for his homiletic poetry and his great influence on the development of mystical literature in general.

• SANAI, MAHMOUD

  Ali Gheissari

  professor of psychology, psychoanalyst, educator, writer, translator, and government official.

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• SAN‘ATIZADEH KERMANI, Homayun

  Cyrus Alinejad

  (1925-2009), entrepreneur, man of letters, publisher, and founding manager of Moʾassasa-ye entešārāt-e Ferānklin, who played an instrumental role in the introduction of modern publishing industries in Iran.

• SANCISI-WEERDENBURG, HELEEN

  Amélie Kuhrt

  (1944-2000), Dutch ancient historian, specializing in classical Greek and Achaemenid history.

• SAND GROUSE

  Eskandar Firouz

  a family (Pteroclididae) of game birds of which seven species are found in Persia, characteristic of Persia’s vast deserts and steppes. They have no affinity with true grouse and are included in the same order as pigeons (Columbiformes).

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• ŠĀNDARMAN

  Cross-Reference

  one of the five traditional Ṭāleš khanates (Ḵamsa-ye Ṭavāleš) in western Gilān, between Ṭāleš Dulāb and Māsāl.

• SANG-E CHAKHMAQ

  Christopher P. Thornton

  The Aceramic Neolithic phase spans Levels 2-5 of the Western Tepe. This period is notable for large mud-brick houses with plastered and red-painted floors and well-built fireplaces, some of which appear to have had ritual significance. Amongst these houses there is abundant evidence for lithic tools.

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• SANG-E ṢABUR

  Ali Ferdowsi

  (1966, tr. by Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar, as The Patient Stone, 1989), the last, and arguably, the most critically acclaimed work of fiction by Sadeq Chubak.

• SANGLĀḴ, MOḤAMMAD-ʿALI

  Maryam Ekhtiar

  (b. Qučān, Khorasan, date unknown; d. Tabriz, 3 March 1877), celebrated calligrapher and stone carver, as well as poet and author. He lived as a dervish and spent much of his time traveling, with long sojourns in the Ottoman empire and Egypt.

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• SANJANA, Darab Dastur Peshotan

  Michael Stausberg

  (1857-1931), Zoroastrian head-priest and scholar.

• SANJAR SHAH

  Gerd Gropp

  an archeological site in Tajikistan, discovered by a team of Soviet orientalists in 1947.

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• SANJAR, Aḥmad b. Malekšāh

  Deborah G. Tor

  Abu’l-Ḥārith, Moʿezz-al-donyā-wa’l-din, Borhān Amir-al-Moʾmenin, first subordinate sultan of Khorasan and then Great Sultan of the Great Saljuq empire.

• SAOŠYANT

  William Malandra

  a term in Zoroastrianism sometimes rendered as “savior.” Since the term also occurs frequently in reference to contemporary individuals, a more neutral translation such as “benefactor” or “helper” (Lommel) may be preferred. 

• ŠĀPUR

  Multiple Authors

  Three Sasanian king of kings and a number of notables of the Sasanian and later periods were called “Shapur.”

• ŠĀPUR I: History

  Shapur Shahbazi

  second Sasanian king of kings (r. 239-70) and author of several rock-reliefs and the trilingual inscription on the walls of the so-called Kaʿba-ye Zardošt [ŠKZ].

• ŠĀPUR I: The Great Statue

  G. R. GAROSI

  With a height of about 6.70 m and a width across the shoulders of more than 2 m, the monumental statue of Shapur I can be considered the most impressive extant sculpture dating from the Sasanian period. It is carved out of a huge stalagmite.

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• ŠĀPUR I: ROCK RELIEFS

  Bruno Overlaet

  seven rock reliefs from the time of Šāpur I located in Fārs.

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• ŠĀPUR II

  Touraj Daryaee

  (r. 309-79 CE), longest reigning monarch of the Sasanian dynasty.

• SĀQI-NĀMA

  Paul Losensky

  (Book of the Cupbearer), a poetic genre in which the speaker, seeking relief from his hardships, losses, and disappointments, repeatedly summons the sāqi or cupbearer to bring him wine.

• Sāqi-nāme in Dastgāh Māhur

  music sample

• SAQQĀ-ḴĀNA HISTORY

  Willem Floor

  Saqqā-ḵāna is a term referring to public water dispensers, which were, and in some places still are, a feature of some large institutional buildings in Iran, typically mosques, shrines, and bazaars.

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• SAQQĀ-ḴĀNA SCHOOL OF ART

  Hamid Keshmirshekan

  a contemporary art movement in Iran in 1962. The term was initially applied to painting and sculpture which used existing elements from votive Shiʿite art. It gradually came to be applied more widely to art works that used traditional-decorative elements.

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• SAQQEZ

  Bahram Grami

  a semifluid resin obtained from cuts and cracks of the wild pistachio trees, found in its natural habitats in Iran.

• ŠARAFĀBĀD

  Robert M. Schacht and Henry T. Wright III

  Tepe Šarāfabād was excavated in 1971 by the joint project of the University of Michigan and what was then the Archeological Service of Iran. The staff of the excavation was directed by Henry T. Wright III, and the official representative of the National Research Center for Archeology was Muhammed H.Ḵošābi.

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• SARBEDĀRS

  Denise Aigle

  a religious movement in northern Khorāsān and eastern Māzandarān that led to the establishment of a dynasty of local rulers based in Sabzevār in the district of Bayhaq, northeastern Iran.

• SARGOḎAŠTE-E SAYYEDNĀ

  Farhad Daftary

  title of an anonymous Persian work containing the biography of Ḥasan-e Ṣabbāḥ, the founder of the Nezāri Ismaʿili state of Persia, centered at the mountain fortress of Alamut.

• ŠARḤ-e TAʿARROF

  Nasrollah Pourjavady

  an extensive commentary in Persian on Abu Bakr Moḥammad Kalābāḏi’s Sufi manual Ketāb al-Taʿarrof le-maḏhab ahl al-taṣawwuf.

• ŠARIF KHAN, Moḥammad

  Fabrizio Speziale

  (d. ca. 1807), physician at the court of the Mughal emperor, Shah ʿĀlam II (r. 1760-1806), author, and the eponymous founder of the Šarifi family of physicians.

• ŠARQ

  Nasserddin Parvin

  a literary journal published occasionally in Tehran between 1924 and 1932.

• SASANIAN COINAGE

  Nikolaus Schindel

  The coinage of the Sasanian empire (ca. 224-651 CE) is not only the most important primary source for its monetary and economic history, but is also of greatest importance for history and art history.

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• SASANIAN DYNASTY

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  The Sasanian dynasty represented the last Persian lineage of rulers to achieve hegemony over much of Western Asia before Islam, ruled 224 CE–650 CE.

• SASANIAN ROCK RELIEFS

  G. Herrmann and V. S. Curtis

  one of the primary sources for documentation of the Sasanian period.

• SASANIAN TEXTILES

  Matteo Compareti

  Classical, Islamic, and Chinese sources celebrate Sasanian textiles as a very precious commodity, but no specific descriptions of them are given. Most studies of Sasanian textile art are originally based on these sources and on examining the reliefs of the larger grotto at Tāq-e Bostān.

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• SASANIAN WALL PAINTING

  An De Waele

  Murals found on sites within the territory of the Sasanian empire (224- 650 CE) are considered Sasanian. While their main function is decorative, their secondary function can be derived from location, theme, and dimension, and is important because it reflects a world-view.

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