Back in London, Ali Tavakolli was my first Persian teacher and gave me a wonderful introduction to the language and culture of Iran. I’m also grateful to Will Shield, Sami Aziz, Shahin Bekhradnia, Tom Wellsford, Daniel Metcalfe, Ardashir Vakil, Aasiya Lodhi, Charles Melville, Mahnaz Badihian, and Eugene Schoulgin for their advice and many kind deeds, and would like to thank the staff of the British Library. Professor Edmund Bosworth was invaluable on the history of the Ghaznavid era, while Bahbak Miremadi was amazingly helpful, as well as a brilliant sounding board, throughout the course of this project. Along with Bahbak and Professor Bosworth, I’m also grateful to Nick Brealey, Arkady Hodge, and Edmund Hayes for their editorial comments and suggestions; to Sally Maltby for designing the beautiful map; and to my family and friends for their support during the long period of time it took me to complete this book.
My agent, Maggie Noach, died soon after I returned from Iran, and I will always cherish the short time I knew this remarkable woman. Jill Hughes and Josie Stapleton stepped into her shoes to sell the manuscript, under difficult circumstances, and for this (along with their editorial advice) I’m very grateful. Jonathan Crowe at Da Capo has been a delight to work with on the publishing side, and I thank him and his colleagues for bringing the book to the shelves.
Finally, and most of all, thank you to Poppy, chief “that”—remover and much, much more—for everything.
Glossary
Ahura Mazda: the supreme god of the ancient Iranians, whose cult was propagated by the prophet Zoroaster.
alam: a standard carried in Shia Muslim processions, used especially in Mohurram ceremonies.
amin: Central Asian custom, similar to the Christian sign of the cross, in which people stroke their hands through the air as a blessing and confirmation of prayer.
ashoura: the tenth day of the Islamic month of Mohurram, when the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, Imam Hossain, was killed along with his family and supporters on the plains of Kerbala.
Avesta: the Zoroastrian scriptures, compiled mostly between 800 and 200 BCE (although they include many texts composed in earlier times). Among them are the Gathas, seventeen hymns that are traditionally attributed to the prophet Zoroaster.
azan: the Muslim call to prayer.
barbari: a type of Iranian flatbread, typically crisp on the outside and soft on the inside, with deep ridges and speckled with sesame seeds.
basiji: the brown-shirts of the ayatollahs’ Iran, commonly seen on motorbikes tearing down the highways, known for their moral policing and their often violent tactics (not the kind of people to bump into if you’re at a demonstration). These paramilitary volunteers belong to the Mobilization Resistance Force, under the authority of the Supreme Leader and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and they have a group in every Iranian city.
caliph: often called the “pope” of Islam. Originally the official “successor” to the Prophet Mohammed, the caliph ruled the Islamic community by the sharia. In Ferdowsi’s day, the caliph was based in Baghdad.
camancheh: stringed Iranian musical instrument about the size of a viola, made of wood and played with a horsehair bow.
caravanserai: literally a “caravan palace,” a roadside inn where travelers took their rest. Usually the caravanserai had high walls built around a central courtyard, with a single large gateway and separate stalls for animals.
chador: literally a “tent.” A woman’s covering, wrapped around her body and covering her head, sometimes kept in place by gripping its ends between her teeth. chapan: padded coat worn especially in Central Asia.
Dari: the name for the dialects of Persian spoken both by the Zoroastrians of Yazd and the Tajik Afghans, although there are differences between their respective dialects. It comes from the old word for “courtly.”
dehkan: originally the head of a village and member of the lesser feudal nobility, who traditionally acted as the middleman between the king and the peasants. After the Arab conquest, dehkans continued to be responsible for local administration and largely retained their lands. By Ferdowsi’s day, however, their position and influence was in decline. Nowadays, the term is used in Central Asia to denote an individual or family farm.
div: the monsters that appear in the Book of Kings, with cloven hooves, sharp teeth, and furry hides. Still used to denote monsters in popular culture today (for example, in the Persian-language version of Shrek, the title character is described as a “div”), it is also the root of the Persian word for “mad.”
diwan: a book or collection of poetry (although the word can also refer to a register or a governmental office).
dotar: literally “two strings,” a plucked instrument like a mandolin.
dhoti: a rectangle of unstitched cloth, wrapped around the waist and legs, traditionally worn in India.
dugh: a popular drink in Iran and Central Asia, consisting of yogurt and water.
duhul: a very big traditional drum, covered in goat hide and beaten on both sides.
faravahar: the iconic image of Zoroastrianism—a winged man with a ring around his waist, holding another ring in his hand. There is debate as to its precise meaning, but it is generally taken to represent the human soul, turning away from evil and toward good.
gabillin: large hand-woven rug common in Central Asia.
hadith: an account of what the Prophet Mohammed said or did, or of his approval of something said or done in his presence; widely considered to be second in authority to the Quran.
Hajji: an honorary title for someone who has performed the hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca.
Haram: an Islamic sacred compound, coming from the same root as the word for “forbidden.”
hijab: literally “cover.” A general term referring to a Muslim woman’s veil or head covering. For many Muslims, the importance of female modesty is sanctioned in the twenty-fourth chapter of the Quran: “And say to the believing women that they cast down their looks and guard their private parts, and display not their ornaments, except those which are outside; and let them pull their kerchiefs over their bosoms and not display their ornaments.”
herbad: a Zoroastrian priest who has undergone the first stage of initiation into the priesthood.
iwan: a large vaulted hall or space, walled on three sides, with one end entirely open.
joob: narrow streetside channels common throughout Iran, which carry water down from the mountains.
Ka’aba: the most famous sanctuary of Islam, located in the great mosque of Mecca, toward which Muslims throughout the world direct their prayers and around which pilgrims make ritual circuits on the hajj. The Ka’aba is a fifty-feet-high stone cube set on a marble base and covered in a curtain. According to the Quran, its foundations were laid by Ibrahim and Ismail.
karnai: a long brass horn with a flared nozzle, played at weddings and other ceremonial occasions in Central Asia.
korymbos: a globe traditionally worn on the crowns of Sassanian kings.
koshti: a plaited cord worn by Zoroastrians, similar to Jewish tzitzis.
mahout: an elephant driver.
marshrutnoe: a minivan used as public transport in Central Asia.
mobed: a Zoroastrian priest.
Mohurram: the first month in the Islamic calendar, in which Imam Hossain was killed at Kerbala.
mujahid: literally “one who fights jihad.” The plural is mujahideen.
mullah: a Muslim educated in Islamic theology and jurisprudence, able to lead prayers in mosques and perform ceremonies such as birth and funeral rites. The term is usually applied to low-level clerics in Iran, Pakistan, and Central Asia.
nas: tobacco used in Central Asia, usually cut with spices or lime and chewed inside the cheek.
neyanban: the Iranian bagpipes, an inflated goatskin with a mouthpiece at one end and a reed-pipe for finger placement at the other.
Nowruz: Persian New Year, usually falling on March 21, or the spring equinox.
pahlavan: the name given to the knights or warriors of the ancient Irania
n legends, and more recently to the sportsmen at Iranian strength houses.
pishtaq: the screen that rises up in front of the dome in some Islamic buildings, especially prominent in Uzbekistan.
qanun: musical instrument like a zither, played with two plectra on a trapezoidal box.
Qanun: literally “Code”; the name of the medical encyclopedia written by Ibn Sina.
Quran: the holy book of Islam, which according to tradition is the direct word of God, passed down to Mohammed by the Angel Gabriel over the course of twenty-three years.
rawi: a reciter and transmitter of poetry and narrative traditions.
salavat: Islamic blessing, invoking the Prophet Mohammed.
samovar: a metal container for heating and boiling water, used especially for tea.
Savak: the Iranian secret police in the time of the Pahlavi shahs.
Shahnameh-khwan: a “reader of the Book of Kings,” men who recite verses from the Shahnameh, often by heart.
shalwar qameez: literally “trousers shirt.” The long shirt and baggy drawstring trousers worn by most Afghan men.
taarof: literally “offer.” The custom of humbling oneself as an act of politeness, which is characterized by the tradition of refusing something three times before finally accepting. Practiced widely throughout Persian-speaking society.
zurkhaneh: “strength house,” the traditional Iranian gymnasiums, in which men practice sports associated with ancient battles.
Bibliography
Firuza Abdullaeva and Charles Melville, The Persian Book of Kings (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2008).
Soheil M. Afnan, Avicenna, His Life and Works (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1958).
Nasrin Alavi, ed. and trans., We Are Iran (London: Portobello, 2006).
Ali M. Ansari, Modern Iran Since 1921: The Pahlavis and After (London: Longman, Pearson Education, 2003).
Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, Intimate Conversations, published alongside Ibn ‘ata’illah: The Book of Wisdom, trans. Wheeler M. Thackston (London: SPCK, 1979).
A. J. Arberry, Classical Persian Literature (London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1958).
Zahirridin Nasr Mohammed Awfi, Jami al Hikayat (London: Luzac & Co., 1929).
W. Barthold, Turkestan—Down to the Mongol Invasion (London: Luzac & Co. Ltd., 1968).
Iraj Bashiri, Firdowsi’s Shahname: 1000 Years After (Dushanbe: ALIS, 1994).
Najmeh Batmanglij, New Food of Life: ancient Persian and modern Iranian cooking and ceremonies (Washington DC: Mage Publishers, 1997).
Ibn Battutah, The Travels of Ibn Battutah, ed. Tim Mackintosh-Smith (London: Picador, 2003).
C. E. Biddulph, ed., Afghan Poetry of the Seventeenth Century: Being Selections from the Poems of Khushal Khan Khatak (London: Kegan Paul/ Trench, Trübner & Co., 1890).
Muhammed Ibn al-Bighami, The Firuz Shahnama, trans. William L. Hanaway Jr. (Delmar, New York: Scholars’ Facsimiles & Reprints, 1974).
Isabella Bird, Journeys in Persia and Kurdistan (London: John Murray, 1891).
Abu Raihan Al-Biruni, The Chronology of Ancient Nations, trans. and ed. Dr. C. Edward Sachau (London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1879).
Sheila S. Blair, The Monumental Inscriptions from Early Islamic Iran and Transoxiana (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1992).
Martin Booth, Opium: A History (London: Simon & Schuster Ltd., 1996).
C. E. Bosworth, B. Lewis, E. Van Donzel et al., eds., The Encyclopaedia of Islam (Leiden/London: EJ Brill/Luzac & Co., 1960-2000).
C. E. Bosworth, The Ghaznavids (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1963).
______, Humanism in the Renaissance of Islam—the Cultural Revival during the Buyid Age (Leiden, Joel L. Kraemer, 1986)
______, The Medieval Islamic Underworld (Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1976).
______, Medieval History of Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asia (London: Variorum Reprints, 1977).
______, History of the Saffarids of Sistan and the Maliks of Nimruz (Costa Mesa, CA, and New York: Mazda Publishers, 1994).
Mary Boyce, A Persian Stronghold of Zoroastrianism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977).
Yuri Bregel, The Role of Central Asia in the History of the Muslim East (New York: Asia Society Occasional Papers/Afghanistan Council, 1980).
Edward Granville Browne, A Literary History of Persia (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1906).
______, A Year Amongst the Persians (London: Kegan Paul & Co., 1893).
Richard Burton, Sindh and the Races that Inhabit the Valley of the Indus (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1973).
Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana (London: Macmillan, 1937).
Olaf Caroe, The Pathans (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1958).
Jamsheed K. Chosky, Conflict and Cooperation—Zoroastrian Subalterns and Muslim Elites in Medieval Iranian Society (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997).
Farhad Daftary, Medieval Isma’ili History and Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
Simin Daneshvar, Savushun: a Persian Requiem, trans. Roxane Zand (London: Halban, 1991).
Olga Davidson, Poet and Hero in the Persian Book of Kings (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994).
Dick Davis, Epic and Sedition: Ferdowsi’s Shahnama (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 1992).
R. K. Dikshit, The Candellas of Jejakabhukti (New Delhi: Shakti Malik, 1997).
Louis Dupree, Afghanistan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973).
Nancy Hatch Dupree, An Historical Guide to Afghanistan (Kabul: Afghan Air Authority/Afghan Tourist Organization, 1971).
Henry Miers Elliot, The History of India: As Told by Its Own Historians, ed. John Dowson (Calcutta: S. Gupta, 1952-1961).
Faith Evans, trans. and adapted by, The Daughters of Karl Marx: Family Correspondence 1866-1898 (London: Andre Deutsch, 1982).
Hakim Abu’l Qasim Ferdowsi, Shahnama, on the Basis of the Edition of the Copy Known as the Moscow Edition (Tehran: Ilm Publisher, 1384/2005).
Abolqasem Ferdowsi, Shahnameh: the Persian Book of Kings, trans. Dick Davis (New York: Viking Penguin, 2006).
Ferdowsi, The Shahnama of Firdausi, trans. Arthur George Warner, MA, and Edmond Warner, BA, 9 vols. (London: Kegan Paul & Co., 1905-1925).
Abool Kasim Firdousee, The Shahnameh: An Heroic Poem. Containing the History of Persia from Kioomurs to Yesdejird, collated by Turner Macan (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1829).
Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert in Egypt (New York: Penguin Books, 1996).
Richard N. Frye, Bukhara—the Medieval Achievement (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1965).
______, The Heritage of Central Asia (Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publications, 1996).
______, The Heritage of Persia (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1962).
Nizami Ganjavi, Dastan-Khusraw va Shirin (Tehran: Mu’assasah’i Intisharat-i Franklin, 1974).
Al-Ghazzali, Book of Counsel for Kings, trans. F. R. C. Bagley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964).
R. Ghirshman, Iran: From the Earliest Times to the Islamic Conquest (London: Penguin, 1954).
Milton Gold, trans., Tarikh e Sistan (Rome: Istituto Italiano Per Il Medio Ed Estremo Oriente, 1976).
O. Cameron Gruner, The Canon of Medicine of Avicenna (London: Luzac & Co., 1930).
Mohammed Habib, Sultan Mahmud of Ghaznin (Aligarh: Cosmopolitan Publishers, 1951).
Hafez, The Divan of Hafez, trans. Reza Saberi (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2002).
Lt. Col. Sir Wolseley Haig, ed., Cambridge History of India Vol. 3 Turks and Afghans (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928).
Badi al-Zaman al-Hamadhani, The Maqamat, trans. W. J. Prendergast (London: Curzon Press, 1915).
Gavin Hambly, ed., Women in the Medieval Islamic World (Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000).
Ibn Hawkal, The Oriental Geography of Ebn Haukal, trans. Sir William Ouseley (London: Oriental Press/Wilson & Co., 1800).
M. M. Hejazi, Historical Buildings of Iran: Their Architect
ure and Structure (Southampton, UK: Computational Mechanics Publications, 1997).
Herodotus, The Histories, trans. Walter Blanco and Jennifer Tolbert Roberts (New York and London: Norton, 1992).
Robert Hillenbrand, Shahnama: The Visual Language of the Persian Book of Kings (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2004).
Tom Holland, Persian Fire (London: Little, Brown, 2005).
Kathleen Hopkirk, A Traveller’s Companion to Central Asia (London: John Murray, 1993).
Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (London: John Murray, 1990).
Human Rights Watch, Iran: Religious and Ethnic Minorities (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1997).
Ibn Ishaq, The Life of Muhammad, trans. Alfred Guillaume (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 1967).
Al-Jahiz, Epistle on Singing Girls, trans. A. Beeston (London: Aris & Philips, 1980).
Jane’s Strategic Weapons Systems (Internet publication, August 2009).
Yvonne Kapp, Eleanor Marx: Family Life 1855-1883 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1972)
Ryszard Kapuscinski, Shah of Shahs (London: Quartet Books, 1985).
Hugh Kennedy, The Court of the Caliphs (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004).
Mehdi Khansari, The Persian Garden (Washington DC: Mage Publishers, 1998).
Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (Hoboken, NJ: J. Wiley & Sons, 2003).
Edgar Knobloch, Monuments of Central Asia: A Guide to the Archaeology, Art and Architecture of Turkestan (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001).
Paul Kriwaczek, In Search of Zarathustra (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002).
Amelie Kuhrt, The Persian Empire (New York: Routledge, 2007).
Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger, The Year 1000: what life was like at the turn of the first millennium (Boston: Little, Brown, 1999).
Christina Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat: My Afghan Years (London: HarperCollins, 2002).
Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (London: Penguin Books, 1986).
Doris Lessing, The Wind Blows away our Words (London: Picador, 1987).
G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1905).
Drinking Arak Off an Ayatollah's Beard Page 31