My Father's Notebook

Glossary

Allahu akbar. La ilaha illa Allah: God is great. There is no God but Allah.

ankahtu wa zawagtu: the words recited during the wedding ceremony that officially declare the couple to be man and wife.

Baba Taher: a mystic poet of the first half of the eleventh century. Every Persian can recite a few of his quatrains about love and death.

Eqra be-asme rabbeka alazi khalaqa … el-qalam: “Read! In the name of thy Lord and Cherisher, Who created, created man out of a mere clot of congealed blood…. He who taught the use of the pen.” This is the first sura of the Koran to be revealed to Muhammad. Gabriel brought it down to him from Heaven, and even though Muhammad was illiterate, Gabriel asked him to read the text. Once he had read it, Muhammad’s mission had officially begun.

Hafez: medieval Persian poet (1326–90), whose poetry is cited as a sacred text and learned by heart. No Persian household is complete without a volume of his poetry.

hekaya: ancient Persian stories.

ibn: son of.

jawid shah: long live the shah.

Jomah Mosque: The so-called Friday Mosque, one of the oldest mosques in Iran.

Kahaf: a well-known story in the Koran. A number of men who are being persecuted for their beliefs seek shelter in the kahf, or cave. Exhausted, they fall asleep. When they awake, they see that their hair and beards have aged. It seems they’ve slept for three hundred years.

Kazem Khan: Kazem is the name of one of Muhammad’s successors; a khan is a nobleman.

Khata: The Persian name for Northern China, the region from which Iran’s Mongol conquerors came. “Moon-faced,” or Mongolian, beauty became an archetype in Persian poetry. But the women of khata’ (with an almost identical pronunciation) are women of sin.

Khatun: Mrs.

Khayyam: Omar Khayyam (1048–1122) is known in the West mainly as the author of the Rubaiyat and numerous quatrains.

Lalehzar Mountain: named after the wild red tulips that grow on the mountain slopes.

Mahdi: the promised one.

Naqsh-e-Jahan Square: the oldest square in Iran.

Sa’di: medieval writer and poet (1213–93) whose hekayas represent the apogee of Persian language and literature. His book The Rose Garden can be found, like that of Hafez, in every Persian household.

Saffron Mountain: named after the red and yellow flowers that cover the mountainside in the autumn.

Sayyid: Sire, Mr (a term of address accorded to descendants of Muhammad).

Sheikh Lotfallah Mosque: one of the most beautiful mosques in Isfahan.

sigeh: under Shiite law, a man may have a maximum of four wives. In addition, he’s allowed an unlimited number of temporary wives, who make a marriage contract for a period ranging anywhere from one hour to 99 years. These sigeh have no inheritance rights.