By Salam Aleik | ( GlobalVoices.org) | – – How might someone in Tajikistan, the only Persian-speaking republic in the former Soviet Union, describe a beautiful and lively night spent in the company of family and friends? Perhaps he or she would use the word dilafruz, which literally means ‘firing the heart’. Azerbaijani folk art […]
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Omar Khayyam
Informed Comment Fundraiser: Support Independent Journalism!
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Exciting news, folks: Informed Comment is in the midst of a major redesign and aims at becoming a magazine. The redesign is not cheap, and neither will be our plans to attract more writers for the site. And, we undertake this endeavor at a time when […]
Painting of the Day: Girl w/ Wine Cup, Isfahan, Iran, 1650
British Museum | Persian Watercolor in style of Muhammad Qasim | – – “Girl with a wine cup Style of Muhammad Qasim Safavid Iran, Isfahan, 1640-50 Ink and opaque watercolour on paper By 1650 drawings of young men or women holding wine cups in the countryside had become standard rather than hackneyed fare in Persian […]
Garden Party, 1640: Iranian Lady entertains European Gentleman
Metropolitian Museum of Art | Isfahan Tile | – – “At the center of this scene, a lady leans on a bolster pillow and languidly holds out a filled cup. Making somewhat immodest eye contact with the viewer, she displays burn marks, associated with mystics and lovers, on her lower arms. A male figure in […]
Image of the Day: “Jonah and the Whale” (Persian Miniature)
Metropolitan Museum of Art | (Persian Miniature Painting) | – – “Jonah and the Whale”, Folio from a Jami al-Tavarikh (Compendium of Chronicles [A medieval World History]) Inscription: In Persian, on the arms of Jonah: “The sun’s disk went into darkness, Jonah went into the mouth of the fish.” The story of Jonah and the […]
Love and Wine (Poem of the Day: Abu Nuwas of Baghdad)
Abū Nuwas al-Hasan ibn Hanī al-Hakamī (756–814) | Love and Wine | – – Ho! a cup, and fill it up, and tell me it is wine, For never will I drink in shade if I can drink in shine. Curst and poor is every hour that sober I must go, But rich am I […]
Saadi on Impatient Love (Poem of the Day)
By Muslih al-Din “Saadi” Mushrif ibn Abdullah Shirazi | Trans. Reynold A. Nicholson | – – The heart that loves with patience — a stone ’tis, not a heart; Nay, love and patience dwell of old a thousand leagues apart. O brethren of the mystic path, leave blame and me alone! Repentance in the way […]
Omar Khayyam (497): “You’re beast and demon, angel, human being”
You who distill within you the whole world, attend to this voice from the realm beyond: You’re beast, and demon, angel, human being; whatever you show forth, you are that thing. Translated by Juan Cole from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 497
Omar Khayyam (162) “Be happy, since once you’re upset it goes on forever”
Be happy, since once you’re upset it goes on forever– as stars move into conjunction in the sky, it will go on. The brick they will one day mold from your clay will be lodged in the portico of someone else’s palace. Translated by Juan Cole from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 162
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