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Shahid Balkhi
Shahid Balkhi (or Shuhayd; fa, شهید بلخی, Shahīd-e Balkhī; died 927) was a scribe, philosopher and poet active in the Chaghaniyan and Samanid courts. He is notable being for one of the first composers of New Persian poetry. Life The modern historian Francois de Blois has argued that the name of "Shahid" is a misrepresentation of chronicles, stating that during that period the name was only used as a posthumous title for Muslims that had been killed in battle, and thus using it for a living person "would seem ludicrous and indeed sacrilegious." He instead suggests that the proper transliteration is "Shuhayd", a name that has in few occasions been attested, and is a diminutive of ''shahd'' (honeycomb). Shahid was born in Jakhudanak, a village near the city of Balkh, where his father later moved and raised him. Of Persian stock, Shahid was bilingual in his mother tongue as well as Arabic. Little is known about him. He was close friends with the polymath Abu Zayd al-Balkhi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chaghaniyan
Chaghaniyan (Middle Persian: ''Chagīnīgān''; fa, چغانیان ''Chaghāniyān''), known as al-Saghaniyan in Arabic sources, was a medieval region and principality located on the right bank of the Oxus River, to the south of Samarkand. History Hephthalite rule Chaganian was an " Hephthalite buffer principality" located between Denov and Termez, and became a sanctuary for the Hephthalites following their defeat against the Sasanian Empire and the First Turkic Khaganate in 563-567 CE. They resettled in Chaganian and other territories of Tokharistan, under their new king Faganish, who established a dynasty. Soon, the new Hephthalite territories north of the Oxus, to which Chaganian belonged, fell under Western Turk suzerainty, while the territories south of the Oxus were nominally controlled by the Sasanian Empire. The territories under the Turks rebelled in 581 CE. Their coinage in Chaganian was an imitation of the Sasanian coins of Khusrau I, with sometimes the addition ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vizier
A vizier (; ar, وزير, wazīr; fa, وزیر, vazīr), or wazir, is a high-ranking political advisor or minister in the near east. The Abbasid caliphs gave the title ''wazir'' to a minister formerly called ''katib'' (secretary), who was at first merely a helper but afterwards became the representative and successor of the ''dapir'' (official scribe or secretary) of the Sassanian kings. In modern usage, the term has been used for government ministers in much of the Middle East and beyond. Several alternative spellings are used in English, such as ''vizir'', ''wazir'', and ''vezir''. Etymology Vizier is suggested to be an Iranian word, from the Pahlavi root of ''vičir'', which originally had the meaning of a ''decree'', ''mandate'', and ''command'', but later as its use in Dinkard also suggests, came to mean ''judge'' or ''magistrate''. Arthur Jeffery considers the word to be a "good Iranian" word, as has a well-established root in Avestan language. The Pahlavi ''viči ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mathnawi
Mathnawi ( ar, مثنوي ''mathnawī'') or masnavi ( fa, مثنوی) is a kind of poem written in rhyming couplets, or more specifically "a poem based on independent, internally rhyming lines". Most mathnawī poems follow a meter of eleven, or occasionally ten, syllables, but had no limit in their length. Typical mathnawi poems consist of an indefinite number of couplets, with the rhyme scheme aa/bb/cc. Mathnawī poems have been written in Persian, Arabic, Turkish, Kurdish and Urdu cultures. Certain Persian mat̲h̲nawī poems, such as Rumi’s '' Masnavi-e Ma’navi'', have had a special religious significance in Sufism. Arabic mat̲h̲nawī Arabic mathnawi poetry, also known as ''muzdawidj'' ( ar, مزدوج, literally "doubled," referring to the internal rhyme scheme of the lines), emerged and was popularized during the Abbasid era. Unlike the older poetic styles in Arabic, mathnawi verses are not monorhymes. Instead, they include an internal rhyme scheme within each bayt wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elegy
An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometimes used as a catch-all to denominate texts of a somber or pessimistic tone, sometimes as a marker for textual monumentalizing, and sometimes strictly as a sign of a lament for the dead". History The Greek term ἐλεγείᾱ (''elegeíā''; from , , ‘lament’) originally referred to any verse written in elegiac couplets and covering a wide range of subject matter (death, love, war). The term also included epitaphs, sad and mournful songs, and commemorative verses. The Latin elegy of ancient Roman literature was most often erotic or mythological in nature. Because of its structural potential for rhetorical effects, the elegiac couplet was also used by both Greek and Roman poets for witty, humorous, and satirical subject matter. Oth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rudaki
Rudaki (also spelled Rodaki; fa, رودکی; 858 – 940/41) was a Persian poet, singer and musician, who served as a court poet under the Samanids. He is regarded as the first major poet to write in New Persian. Said to have composed more than 180,000 verses, only a small portion of his work has survived, most notably a small part of his versification of the ''Kalila wa-Dimna'', a collection of Indian fables. Born in the village of Panjrudak (then a suburb of Samarqand), the most important part of Rudaki's career was spent at the court of the Samanids. While biographical information connects him to the Samanid ''amir'' (ruler) Nasr II (), he may have already joined the court under the latter's predecessor, Ahmad Samani (). Rudaki's success was largely due to the support of his primary patron, the vizier Abu'l-Fadl al-Bal'ami (died 940), who played an important role in the blooming of New Persian literature in the 10th-century. Following the downfall of Bal'ami in 937, Rudaki's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Manichaeism
Manichaeism (; in New Persian ; ) is a former major religionR. van den Broek, Wouter J. Hanegraaff ''Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times''SUNY Press, 1998 p. 37 founded in the 3rd century AD by the Parthian Empire, Parthian prophet Mani (prophet), Mani (AD 216–274), in the Sasanian Empire. Manichaeism teaches an elaborate dualistic cosmology describing the conflict between good and evil, struggle between a goodness and value theory, good, spirituality, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process that takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light, whence it came. Its beliefs are based on local Mesopotamian religious movements and Gnosticism. It reveres Mani as the final prophet after Zoroaster, Gautama Buddha, and Jesus. Manichaeism was quickly successful and spread far through the Aramaic language, Aramaic-speaking regions. It thrived be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gnomic Poetry
: ''For the map projection see Gnomonic projection; for the game, see Nomic; for the mythological being, see Gnome.'' Gnomic poetry consists of meaningful sayings put into verse to aid the memory. They were known by the Greeks as gnomes (c.f. the Greek adjective γνωμικός (''gnomikos'') "appertaining to an opinion or aphorism"). A ''gnome'' was defined by the Elizabethan critic Henry Peacham as "a saying pertaining to the manners and common practices of men, which declareth, with an apt brevity, what in this our life ought to be done, or not done". It belongs to the broad family of wisdom literature, which expresses general truths about the world. Topics range over the divine and secular, from moral aphorisms to hierarchical social relationships. Ancient Greek gnomic literature The gnomic poets of Greece, who flourished in the 6th century BC, were those who arranged series of sententious maxims in verse. These were collected in the 4th century, by Lobon of Argos, an orat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Couplet
A couplet is a pair of successive lines of metre in poetry. A couplet usually consists of two successive lines that rhyme and have the same metre. A couplet may be formal (closed) or run-on (open). In a formal (or closed) couplet, each of the two lines is end-stopped, implying that there is a grammatical pause at the end of a line of verse. In a run-on (or open) couplet, the meaning of the first line continues to the second. Background The word "couplet" comes from the French word meaning "two pieces of iron riveted or hinged together". The term "couplet" was first used to describe successive lines of verse in Sir P. Sidney's '' Arcadia '' in 1590: "In singing some short coplets, whereto the one halfe beginning, the other halfe should answere." While couplets traditionally rhyme, not all do. Poems may use white space to mark out couplets if they do not rhyme. Couplets in iambic pentameter are called ''heroic couplets''. John Dryden in the 17th century and Alexander Pope in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nasr II
Nasr ibn Ahmad or Nasr II ( fa, نصر دوم), nicknamed "the Fortunate", was the ruler (''amir'') of Transoxiana and Khurasan as the head of the Samanid dynasty from 914 to 943. His reign marked the high point of the Samanid dynasty's fortunes. He was the son of Ahmad ibn Isma’il. Biography Accession and suppression of revolts Nasr was the son of Ahmad ibn Isma'il (). His father was assassinated on the night of 23 January 914 by his own guards, due to his favouring Arabic-language officials in his court. Nasr thus became emir at the age of eight. Due to his youth, the vizier Abu Abdallah Jayhani undertook the regency. Almost immediately a series of revolts broke out within the state, the most serious being the one led by his great-uncle, Ishaq ibn Ahmad, at Samarkand. Ishaq's sons took part in the rebellion; one son, Abu Salih Mansur, took control of Nishapur and several other cities in Khurasan. Eventually, Ishaq was defeated and surrendered to the general Hamuya ibn Ali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amir
Emir (; ar, أمير ' ), sometimes transliterated amir, amier, or ameer, is a word of Arabic origin that can refer to a male monarch, aristocrat, holder of high-ranking military or political office, or other person possessing actual or ceremonial authority. The title has a long history of use in the Arab World, East Africa, West Africa, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. In the modern era, when used as a formal monarchical title, it is roughly synonymous with "prince", applicable both to a son of a hereditary monarch, and to a reigning monarch of a sovereign principality, namely an emirate. The feminine form is emira ( '), a cognate for "princess". Prior to its use as a monarchical title, the term "emir" was historically used to denote a "commander", "general", or "leader" (for example, Amir al-Mu'min). In contemporary usage, "emir" is also sometimes used as either an honorary or formal title for the head of an Islamic, or Arab (regardless of religion) organisatio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Qasida
The qaṣīda (also spelled ''qaṣīdah''; is originally an Arabic word , plural ''qaṣā’id'', ; that was passed to some other languages such as fa, قصیده or , ''chakameh'', and tr, kaside) is an ancient Arabic word and form of writing poetry, often translated as ode, passed to other cultures after the Arab Muslim expansion. The word ''qasidah'' is still used in its original birthplace, Arabia, and in all Arab countries. Well known ''qasā'id'' include the Seven Mu'allaqat and Qasida Burda ("Poem of the Mantle") by Imam al-Busiri and Ibn Arabi's classic collection "The Interpreter of Desires". The classic form of qasida maintains a single elaborate metre throughout the poem, and every line rhymes on the same sound.Akiko Motoyoshi Sumi, ''Description in Classical Arabic Poetry: ''Waṣf'', Ekphrasis, and Interarts Theory'', Brill Studies in Middle Eastern literatures, 25 (Leiden: Brill, 2004), p. 1. It typically runs from fifteen to eighty lines, and sometimes more th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Khurasan
Greater Khorāsān,Dabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 or Khorāsān ( pal, Xwarāsān; fa, خراسان ), is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau between Western and Central Asia. The name ''Khorāsān'' is Persian and means "where the sun arrives from" or "the Eastern Province".Sykes, M. (1914). "Khorasan: The Eastern Province of Persia". ''Journal of the Royal Society of Arts'', 62(3196), 279-286.A compound of ''khwar'' (meaning "sun") and ''āsān'' (from ''āyān'', literally meaning "to come" or "coming" or "about to come"). Thus the name ''Khorasan'' (or ''Khorāyān'' ) means "sunrise", viz. " Orient, East"Humbach, Helmut, and Djelani Davari, "Nāmé Xorāsān", Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz; Persian translation by Djelani Davari, published in Iranian Languages Studies Website. MacKenzie, D. (1971). ''A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary'' (p. 95). London: Oxford University ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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