Nameh Farhangestan
Year:2000 | Volume:4 | Issue:4 (16)|Papers Count:21

Mansūr  Šakk ī, Professor Emeritus of Modern and Middle Persian at the University of Prague, passed away on 22 March 2000. He was 82. His loss will be long felt in the field of Middle Persian studies. Dr.  Šakk ī's early life was spent in the study of physics, first at Birmingham and later, after his departure from Iran for political reasons, at Prague. Shortly afterwards he was afflicted with a serious pulmonary disease which prevented him from pursuing an active career in physics; he turned instead to teaching Persian at the School of Orientalism in Prague University.In the 1960's he turned his attention to Middle Persian and a serious study of religion and law in the Sassanian period. So much so that he became an authority in these two fields, and contributed many academic papers on these subjects to scholarly journals such as Archív   Orientální, to Encyclopaedia Iranica, and to a number of festschrifts and denkschifts. His published works include three books, namely:- A Modern Persian Phrase-Book, Prague, 1963, 991 p.-- A Study of Nominal Compounds in Neo-Persian, Prague, 1964, 115 p.-- Principles of Persian Bound Phraseology, Prague, 1967, 118 p.

Qavāmī-ye Rāzī (of the city of Rey) is a 6th century AH. poet of Shiite faith whose poems had remained unpublished until recently, when the edition prepared by the late scholar, Sayyed Jalāl aI-Dī n Mohaddes Ormavī  (of the city of  Ūrū mīya in Azarbaijan) was finally printed (1995). Very little is known of Badr aI-Dīn Qavāmī 's life, except that he was a baker and that his nom de plume, Qavāmī , was chosen in deference to Qavām  aI-Dīn Togrā ī ,a vizier of Rey, who was the poet's patron.Only a few lines of Qavāmī's poetry have found their way into literary compendiums, but an old manuscript containing a collection of his poems, albeit an incomplete one, was discovered in London by the eminent scholar Mojtabā   Mīnavī the 1940's, in the archives of the British Museum, dated 732 AH./1331-32 c.E. and bearing the registration number or 6464. Mīnavī had the MS copied on microfilm and subsequently brought the copy back with him to Iran. The microfilm, which is now stored in the Central Library of Tehran University, has served as the basis for Mopaddes. Ormavī 's edition, and since this has been a unique source, the editor has had only his own literary judgement, and the advice of his elders, such as Mīnavī  and Abdol-Azīm Kān-e Qarīb to guide him in overcoming the textual difficulties that he has encountered.And it is these "analogical" corrections that provide the subject of the present paper, which was originally presented in Ūrū mīya , Western Azarbaijan in 1999, in a gathering of scholars to honour the memory of the late scholar-editor. The author praises the painstaking work of the editor in preparing the text, and also in researching Qavāmī's times, which are elaborately described in the introduction. But at the same time, the author finds fault with a number of the editor's readings or interpretations. And he carefully sets out to list these instances (more than 90 in number), giving first the editor's reading, and then adding his own comments supported by textual evidence from other sources.

The author sets out in this paper to investigate the significance of a Middle Persian (Pahlav ī ) title that appears on coins minted by eight Sassanian kings, starting with those of Ardašī r  I, the founder of the dynasty. The title in question, which may be transcribed as  čihr az Yazadān, is found also in some Sassanian inscriptions, and the author gives us first a linguistic analysis of the words.The first element, čihr , the author's investigation in Old Persian, Avestan and Sanskrit texts reveals, may be taken to mean "face", "seed or sperm" or "generation". The second element is Yazadān and the pertinent question here is whether to take this word as singular (a God) or plural (gods). The author opts for the singular form, seeking support for his choice from some Syriac texts. Thus, the whole phrase would mean "descended from God". But which God?Such a claim, the author continues, was never made by Achaemenid kings, but it was made by Alexander, who in turn was emulating some Egyptian kings. So when Alexander invaded Iran, this title remained in Fars, and the Sassanian kings who were originally from that region continued the tradition. The author concludes his paper with the suggestion that Sāsān was an Iranian god (of whom we know little), and the Sassanian kings considered themselves as the descendants of this deity, and hence the name for the dynasty.

The fateful meeting of Š ams-e Tabr īz ī with jalāl al-D īn Mohammad Rūm ī in the sugar vendors' market of Qūnīyya (Konia) in the year 642 AH./ 1244 C.E. was a turning point in the former's life, starting off a conflagration that consumed jalāl aI-D īn  Mohammad's whole being and turned him from a respected theologian and preacher to a frenzied lover and mystic. How did Šams bring about this transformation? What kind of spell did he cast on Rūm ī? To answer these questions, the author discards the accounts given by Rūm ī's companions, SepahsāIār, Aflākī and Soltān Valad (Rūm ī's son) because of their contradictions and exaggerations, and turns instead to the poetry of Rūm ī imself. What the author finds from his perusal of the Dīvān-e Š ams, and his harvest of all the tidbits and references to Š ams that he has found in it amount to a great jigsaw-puzzle panorama extending, in the author's own words, "from the earth to the seven vaults of heaven". The picture drawn of Š ams by Rūm īshows him at the start as an ordinary man, as a mere mortal, and then raises him to the level of the Perfect Man, and from there he shows him rising up, further and farther, until eventually he reaches the level of divinity, and annihilates himself in God's being and seeking union with it. The author then delves on the three stages of Šams's progress, and gives us all the appropriate citations as he goes along.

Ahrīman is the symbol of all things evil in the Zoroastrian faith, and anathema to Āhura Mazdā ;  he is called "Aŋra Mainyu" in Avestan, and "Ahreman" in Pahlavi, and he has not been mentioned in any of the Old Persian inscriptions. In Sogdian the word for Ahrīman appears differently in different texts: in Buddhist Sogdian it is written as "tδrmnw"; in Manichaean Sogdian it is found as " šmnw"; in Christian Sogdian it is again written as  " šmnw". But the author has found that in certain Buddhist Sogdian texts the translator of the text has used the Sogdian word "tδrmnw" to render the Chinese word "mo[ma]" and the Sanskrit  "māra".Why the use of a word which is derived from Zoroastrian religious literature for a Buddhist concept? In an effort to explain this the author examines at length the role and function of the goddess Mara in Buddhism and finally arrives at four possible reasons:a) Bearing in mind the similarities of "māra"   in Buddhist literature and Ahrīman in Zoroastrianism, the translator has found the Sogdian word for Ahrīman an apt equivalent.b) The translator may have opted for the Zoroastrian word for Ahrīman because of the influence of Zoroastrian faith and literature on Iranian languages.c) The translator could have possibly been of Zoroastrian faith before embracing Buddhism.d) Perhaps "tδrmnw" has been the only word that the translator has found to express the concept of "māra" in Sogdian.

The author, a prolific scholar originally from Afghanistan, starts his paper with the contention that in former times spoken Persian was often "rhythmical", and to support his argument he cites the existence of numerous manuals and treatises on diverse subjects that have been composed in verse rather than in prose. And furthermore, he contends, the majority of proverbs and aphorisms that have gained currency in the everyday speech of Iranians are found to be rhythmical, with a definite metrical pattern. Many of these sayings have come down to us in the form of half a distich of poetry, which we now attribute to one poet or another. The author believes that these proverbial half distiches reflect some popular saying that the poet has handpicked from everyday speech,embedding it intact in his own composition.And this is a practice, the author continues, that we find in the poetry of jalāl aI-Dī n Mohammad Mowlavī, better known in the West as Rūmī. It is true that JalāI-Dīn immigrated with his father and family from Khorasan to Asia Minor (Rūm) as an adolescent, but he carried with him all the richness of Khorasani Persian, and remained well-versed in it all his life thanks to some companions from "the old country" that he had in Qūnīyya (Konia), and also thanks to his love for the poetry of 'Attar and Sanā'ī . A linguistic analysis of Rūmī's language will clearly demonstrate the presence of many characteristic traits of Khorasani speech in it. And it will also bring to light the abundance of popular sayings with which Rūmī has sprinkled his poetry and his writings.A good collection of Persian proverbs is Alī-Akbar Dehkodā 's four- volume classic, Amsāl va Hekam. The author estimates that there are at least 500 quotations from Rūmī's Masnavī in this treasury of aphorisms and popular sayings, and he thinks the number will rise to 2000 if all the sayings in the Dīvān-e Šams are also identified and included.The author concludes his paper with the specific case of one saying that he has found in the ghazal starting with بی همگان به سر شود بی تو به سر نمی شود. Part of the saying in question is  بی تو به سرنمی شود  which Rūmī has used as the radīf  and has repeated throughout the ghazal. In commenting on the ghazal, one modern scholar has called بی تو به سرنمی شود "a sort of refrain that adds dynamic musicality to the poem". The author is of the opinion that the whole first line is a saying which has been popular in the speech of the people of Transoxiana long before Rūmī , and he has found an instance of its usage in a 6th century AH. text entitled Marta' Al-sālehīn by a certain Borhān -e Qelej. The author says at the end that he is continuing his search for popular sayings in Dīvān-e Šams and in older compilations from the Khorasan and Transoxiana regions.

The author, a linguist working on the dialects spoken in the Caspian littoral, starts with a review of tense structures in the dialects of Māzandarān (that of Sārī) and Gīlān (those of Rāmsar and Rasht which differ somewhat) before tackling māzī-ye naqlī (the present perfect tense). She finds that one type of this tense is made with the past participle of the main verb and the present tense of the verb dā štan (= to have) as the auxiliary, and she cites examples from all the three dialects. But there is a catch. This verb pattern works only if the main verb is transitive.What happens when the verb is intransitive? In such cases evidently māzī-ye naqlī is not used and in most cases māzī-ye motlaq (the simple past tense) is substituted. And she quotes a number of Iranian and foreign scholars who all have spoken to this effect. But she also notes that a certain verbal pattern is found in the dialect of Māzandarān composed of the past participle of the main verb functioning adjectivally with the present tense of an attributive verb which approximates the māzī-ye naqlī in Modern Persian. And she cites many examples to clarify this point.

Gīve is one of the oldest forms of footwear produced in Iran. It is principally made of cotton, and therefore it is light and cool, and it has been very popular in the arid regions of the country. And sad to say, it is on its way out as factory-made products replace one by one hand-made and hand-crafted articles.Gīve comes in two types: the ordinary gīve, worn mostly by peasants and workers, and gīve-ye malek ī  or just plain malek ī , which was a superior type of footwear in every way, and it was popular with merchants and well-to-do city people.A typical g ī ve is made of three parts, the uppers (which are knit or crocheted from cotton yarn by rural women, called g ī veb āfs), the sole or the takt (which is made of tightly-packed strips of canvas by the gīvekeš ) and the middle section (which holds the top and bottom sections together with the help of a strip of leather, and is the handiwork of the gīvedūz).The author, who has personally observed the making of gīve in the Bakhtiari region of central Iran, then gives a detailed account of how the gīvekeš makes these cotton soles. And he points out that in defining the word gīvekeš many of the Iranian lexicographers have erred, thinking that a gīvekeš  is somebody who carries or steals such shoes (Steingass has made the same error, see under gīvekeš ).

This paper is the second one of a series that its young author is undertaking to write on the question of ellipsis in Persian. The first one dealt with the topic in general (published in the 12th issue of this same journal, pp. 146-166), and the present one deals with ellipsis when it occurs in noun phrases.A noun phrase is usually made up of a noun, which grammarians refer to as head, and one or more elements that precede it (premodifiers) and also of a number of elements that may succeed it (postmodifiers). Ellipsis occurs when a word, usually the head, is omitted without the overall sense of the sentence suffering any loss. The author examines the question in detail and gives us a methodical exposé of the subject, aided by her own research into a number of texts by well-known contemporary Iranian writers. And her conclusion: "Elliptical noun phrases are principally the result of an omission taking place at the end of the structure. These occur mostly from left to right and the pre-modifiers have a stronger tendency to replace the omitted head."

1. Rūze (fasting). At first glance rz ūe appears to be related to the word r ūz (day), but the author says this resemblance is superficial. He then looks around in some other Indo-European languages in search of equivalents of "fasting" and discovers that none of these has anything to do with the concept of "day" or "daylight", but has everything to do with the notion of eating or rather not eating. He is reminded of the Persian word rūzī (one's daily bread) and thinks that the words r ūze and rūzī must be related, and they must have come down from an older word with the meaning of "food". Ultimately he finds this in a Middle Persian Manichaean fragment (M5805) in which the word rōz ag is used with the verb pay-, and from the overall sense of the sentence he surmises that "rō zag pādan" should mean "to watch out for (=abstain from) food". And the author believes that at a later stage the second element (pādan) has been dropped in everyday usage, leaving justrō zag (present-day rūze) with the meaning of fasting. 2. Gowz (walnut). This is an older and alternative form of gerdū/gerdakān and it is found in some compounds such as gowzbon (walnut tree). It has also found its way into Arabic as jowz, which in turn has come back into Modern Persian and created its own compound forms.The author writes that some linguists are of the opinion that the ultimate root of gowz is *gauza- (Northwestern) with the meaning of "covering", and hence gowz would mean "something covered, something inside a shell". The author finds nothing wrong with this derivation phonetically, but the existence of many gow- words in various Iranian dialects with the meaning of something round or roundness has led him to assume the existence of another root-form *gauz with the meaning of "being round or spherical", and thus gowz would mean "something round".