The Shahnameh, also transliterated Shahnama, is a long epic poem written by the Persian poet Ferdowsi between c. 977 and 1010 CE and is the national epic of Greater Iran. Consisting of some 50,000 distichs or couplets, the Shahnameh is one of the world's longest epic poems, and the longest epic poem created by a single author. It tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Muslim conquest in the seventh century. Iran, Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and the greater region influenced by Persian culture such as Armenia, Dagestan, Georgia, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan celebrate this national epic.
Abū Ḥāmid bin Abū Bakr Ibrāhīm, better known by his pen-names Farīd ud-Dīn (فریدالدین) and ʿAṭṭār of Nishapur, was an Iranian poet, theoretician of Sufism, and hagiographer from Nishapur who had an immense and lasting influence on Persian poetry and Sufism. He wrote a collection of lyrical poems and number of long poems in the philosophical tradition of Islamic mysticism, as well as a prose work with biographies and sayings of famous Muslim mystics. The Conference of the Birds, Book of the Divine, and Memorial of the Saints are among his best known works.
Abu Muslim Abd al-Rahman ibn Muslim al-Khurasani was a Persian general who led the Abbasid Revolution that toppled the Umayyad dynasty, leading to the establishment of the Abbasid Caliphate.
Nizami Ganjavi, Nizami Ganje'i, Nizami, or Nezāmi, whose formal name was Jamal ad-Dīn Abū Muḥammad Ilyās ibn-Yūsuf ibn-Zakkī, was a 12th-century Muslim poet. Nizami is considered the greatest romantic epic poet in Persian literature, who brought a colloquial and realistic style to the Persian epic. His heritage is widely appreciated in Afghanistan, Republic of Azerbaijan, Iran, the Kurdistan region and Tajikistan.
The Tahirid dynasty was an Arabized Sunni Muslim dynasty of Persian dehqan origin that ruled as governors of Khorasan from 821 to 873 as well as serving as military and security commanders in Abbasid Baghdad until 891. The dynasty was founded by Tahir ibn Husayn, a leading general in the service of the Abbasid caliph al-Ma'mun. For his support of al-Ma'mun in the Fourth Fitna, he was granted the governance of Khorasan.
Abu Nasr Ali ibn Ahmad Asadi Tusi was a Persian poet, linguist and author. He was born at the beginning of the 11th century in Tus, Iran, in the province of Khorasan, and died in the late 1080s in Tabriz. Asadi Tusi is considered an important Persian poet of the Iranian national epics. His best-known work is Garshaspnameh, written in the style of the Shahnameh.
Rudaki was a poet, singer, and musician who is regarded as the first major poet to write in New Persian. A court poet under the Samanids, he reportedly composed more than 180,000 verses, yet 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.
A Persianate society is a society that is based on or strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature, art and/or identity.
The Qarmatians were a militant Isma'ili Shia movement centred in Al-Ahsa in Eastern Arabia, where they established a religious—and, as some scholars have claimed, proto-socialist or utopian socialist—state in 899 CE. Its members were part of a movement that adhered to a syncretic branch of Sevener Ismaili Shia Islam, and were ruled by a dynasty founded by Abu Sa'id al-Jannabi, a Persian from Jannaba in coastal Fars. They rejected the claim of Fatimid Caliph Abdallah al-Mahdi Billah to imamate and clung to their belief in the coming of the Mahdi, and they revolted against the Fatimid and Abbasid Caliphates.
The Muslim conquest of Persia, also called the Muslim conquest of Iran, the Arab conquest of Persia, or the Arab conquest of Iran, was a major military campaign undertaken by the Rashidun Caliphate between 632 and 654. As part of the early Muslim conquests, which had begun under Muhammad in 622, it led to the fall of the Sasanian Empire and the eventual decline of Zoroastrianism, which had been predominant throughout Persia as the nation's official religion. The persecution of Zoroastrians by the early Muslims during and after this conflict prompted many of them to flee eastward to India, where they were granted refuge by various kings.
Greater Khorasan is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau in West and Central Asia that encompasses western and northern Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, the eastern halves of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, western Tajikistan, and portions of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
Football Club Abu Muslim, commonly known as Abu Muslim, is an Iranian football club based in Mashhad, Razavi Khorasan, that competes in the League 3. The club was founded in 1970 and is named after Abbasid-era Persian general Abu Muslim, who led the Abbasid Revolution that toppled the Umayyad dynasty.
Khwaju Kermani was a famous Persian poet and Sufi mystic from Iran.
Taher is a name meaning "pure" or "virtuous". The origin of this name is Arabic. There are several Semitic variations that include connotations given in Africa, Asia, and Europe. It is traditionally a given name in Muslim and Jewish communities originating from the Middle East and Africa.
The Muslim conquest of the Levant, or Arab conquest of Syria, was a 634–638 CE invasion of Byzantine Syria by the Rashidun Caliphate. A part of the wider Arab-Byzantine Wars, the Levant was brought under Arab Muslim rule and developed into the provincial region of Bilad al-Sham. Clashes between the Arabs and Byzantines on the southern Levantine borders of the Byzantine Empire had occurred during the lifetime of Muhammad, with the Battle of Muʿtah in 629 CE. However, the actual conquest did not begin until 634, two years after Muhammad's death. It was led by the first two Rashidun caliphs who succeeded Muhammad: Abu Bakr and Umar ibn al-Khattab. During this time, Khalid ibn al-Walid was the most important leader of the Rashidun army.
Iranian folklore encompasses the folk traditions that have evolved in Greater Iran.
The Darab-nama is a Persian prose romance, written by the 12th-century writer Abu Tahir Tarsusi, in which the adventures of the Kayanid Iranian King Darab are recounted.
Qalaat al-Madiq is a town and medieval fortress in northwestern Syria, administratively part of the Hama Governorate, located northeast of Hama. It is situated in the al-Ghab plain, on the eastern bank of the Orontes River. Nearby localities include the district center al-Suqaylabiyah to the south, Bureij and Karnaz to the southeast, Kafr Nabudah to the east, al-Huwash to the north, Huwayjah al-Sallah and Shathah to the northwest and Al-Tuwayni and Ennab to the west. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Qalaat al-Madiq had a population of 12,925 in the 2004 census. It is the administrative center and second largest locality in the Qalaat al-Madiq nahiyah ("subdistrict") which consisted of 40 localities with a collective population of 85,597 in 2004. The town's inhabitants are predominantly Sunni Muslims.
Hakim Iranshah ibn Abi al-Khayr, commonly known as Iranshah, was a Persian poet who lived in the Seljuk Empire in the 11th and 12th centuries.
Dara II or Darab II was the last king of the mythological Kayanian dynasty, ruling between 14 and 16 years. He is generally identified with Darius III, the last king of the Achaemenid Empire. In Middle Persian literature and Islamic chronicles, he is generally known as "Dara", while he is known as "Darab" in the New Persian proses Darab-nama and Iskandar-nama. He was the son and successor of Dara I.
