FACTS ABOUT PERSIA

Iran , officially Islamic Republic of Iran, republic (2005 est. pop. 68,018,000), 636,290 sq
mi (1,648,000 sq km), SW Asia. The country's name was changed from Persia to Iran in
1935. Iran is bordered on the north by Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, and the
Caspian Sea; on the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan; on the south by the Persian Gulf
and the Gulf of Oman; and on the west by Turkey and Iraq. The Shatt al Arab forms part
of the Iran-Iraq border. Tehran is the capital, largest city and the political, cultural,
commercial, and industrial center of the nation.

PERSIASN LITERATURE

Persian literature spans two-and-a-half millennia, though much of the pre-Islamic

material has been lost. Its sources have been within historical Persia including present-
day Iran as well as regions of Central Asia where the Persian language has historically
been the national language. For instance, Rumi, one of Persia's best-loved poets, born in
Balkh (in what is now Afghanistan), wrote in Persian, and lived in Konya then the capital
of the Seljuks. The Ghaznavids conquered large territories in Central and South Asia and
adopted Persian as their court language. There is thus Persian literature from Iran,
Afghanistan and other parts of Central Asia. Not all this literature is written in Persian, as
some consider works written by ethnic Persians in other languages, such as Greek and
Arabic, to be included.

Described as one of the great literatures of mankind, Persian literature has its roots in
surviving works of Middle Persian and Old Persian, the latter of which date back as far as
522 BCE (the date of the earliest surviving Achaemenid inscription, the Behistun
Inscription). The bulk of the surviving Persian literature, however, comes from the times
following the Islamic conquest of Persia circa 650 CE. After the Abbasids came to power
(750 CE), the Persians became the scribes and bureaucrats of the Islamic empire and,
increasingly, also its writers and poets.

Persians wrote both in Persian and Arabic; Persian predominated in later literary circles.
Persian poets such as Ferdowsi , Sa'di, Hafiz, Rumi and Omar Khayyam are well known
in the world and have influenced the literature of many countries.

Pre-Islamic and Early Islamic Literature

Pre-Islamic Persian literature consists of religious texts, the most notable of which is the
Avesta, a collection of liturgic fragments, and the later Pahlavi writing of the Sassanid
period. The Islamic conquest of Iran in the 7th cent. was accompanied by a linguistic
infusion: one century later, approximately 50% of the Persian literary lexicon consisted
of Arabic terms. As Islam became the dominant theme, Arabic became the literary
language, until the emergence of local dynasties in the 10th cent. The first extant Islamic
Persian poetry dates to the Samanid state (874-999); the first famous representative of
this literature was the poet Rudaki (d. 940 or 944). To Rudaki are attributed a lost
mathnawi (epic poem with rhyming couplets) version of the fables of the kalila wa dimna
as well as a few qasidahs (panegyrics). Other major figures of this period are Abu Shukur
of Balkh, who is credited with the introduction of rubaiyyat, Persian poetic quatrains;
Daqiqi, a Samanid court poet and a precursor of Firdawsi; and Baba Tahir Uryan, author
of rubaiyyat expressive of pain.

Literary Flowering and the Golden Age

The first group of major Persian poets gathered in the court of Mahmud of Ghazna and
included Unsuri (d. 1040 or 1049), Farrukhi (d. 1038), Minuchihri (d. 1041), Asadi (d.
c.1030/1041), and Firdausi. The first four wrote Diwans (collections of poetry that
included qasidas, long poems dealing with pre-established themes, such as spring, or
long-lost loves). Asadi was a pioneer of the munazara genre-staged disputations between
opposing characters or concepts. The major Persian national epic, the Shah-nama, the
Book of Kings, was written by Firdawsi to celebrate the mythic pre-Islamic history of
Iran, in a style that attempted to exclude usages and expressions of Arabic origin.

This formative period of Persian literature also witnessed the modest beginnings of
Persian prose and the establishment of rubaiyyat and mathnawi as classical literary
genres. The travelogue of Nasir-i Khusraw (d. 1088), Safar-nama, in which he relates his
pilgrimage to Mecca and his travels in Syria, Egypt, and Arabia, represents the
maturation of Persian prose. One of the masters of rubaiyyat was Omar Khayyam, whose
reputation in the West is largely due to Edward FitzGerald's nonliteral adaptation of his
quatrains. Khayyam's poetry belongs to the mystical and didactic genres that were
developed by Sanai in his Hadiqat al-Haqiqa, Garden of the Truth, and that found their
culmination in the work of Farid ad-Din Attar. The 11th cent. also witnessed the
blossoming of the great romantic epics in Persian under masters such as Nizami (d.
c.1209), who is famous for his Khamseh or quintet.

Panegyric poetry developed in the Ghaznavid court with Masud bin Sad (d. 1131), and in
the Seljuq court with Azraqi (d. c.1130) and Amir Muizzi (d. 1147). The most prominent
of panegyric poets were, however, Anwari (d. c.1190), court poet of prince Sanjar of
Balkh, and Khaqani (d. 1199), whose poetry is reputed for its complexity. Both the
political treatise Siyasat-nama of Nizam al-Mulk (d. 1092), and the ethical didactic work
Qabus-nama of the Ziyarid prince Kay Kaus are representative of the more colorful style
of rejuvenated Persian prose. A most important work in prose was the Chahar Maqala,
Four Treatises, by Nizami Arudi (d. 1174) of Samarkand, which discusses the crafts of
scribes, poets, astrologers, and astronomers.

At the heart of the Golden Age of Persian literature were the mystic and didactic works of
Sadi and Jalal ad-Din Rumi. Also worth noting are Iraqi (d. c.1288), author of the
Lamaat, a mystic compendium of prose and poetry with pantheistic inclinations, and
Amir Khusraw (1253-1324), a Persian-speaking Indian poet. The culmination of the
Golden Age comes with the work of the poet Hafiz. While mysticism was the dominant
strain of Persian poetry, Persian learning was emerging in philosophical, historical, and
scientific writings. Persian also began to be used as a scholarly and court language in
India, which subsequently attracted many immigrant Persian poets. The prominent
scholars of the era include Nasir ad-Din Tusi (d. 1274), Juwayni (d. 1283), Rashid ad-Din
fadl Allah (d. 1318), and Mustawfi (d. 1349).

The Silver Age and Later Works

The 15th cent. period of the second Turko-Tartar invasion and the establishment of the
Timurid dynasty is considered the Silver Age, or the last episode, of classical Persian
literature. This period is characterized by imitations of and commentaries on the works of
the Golden Age. Among the notable literary figures were Jami, Saib of Tabriz (d. 1677),
Mirza Bedil (d. 1720), an Indian writer who achieved great renown in Afghanistan and
central Asia, and Ali Hazin (d. 1766), who was exiled to India. The religious and political
turmoil of the 19th cent., together with the model set by European literature, led to
substantial changes in form and content. Nationalist and social themes were introduced,
while classical genres were reformed and challenged. Modern poets include Iradj, Abid e-
Pishawari, Parwin, and Nima. Recent Persian experimentation in fiction includes that of
S. Hedayet and M. M. Hejazi.