- Ruhollah Khomeini
Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Ruhollah Mustafavi Khomeini (Persian: روح الله موسوی خمینی "Rūollāh Mūsavī Khomeynī" (September 21 1902 – June 3 1989) was a Shi`i Muslim cleric, philosopher and "marja" (religious authority), and the political leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. - Coleman Barks
Coleman Barks (b. 1937) is an American poet and world-renowned translator of Rumi and other mystic poets of Persia. - Hossein Derakhshan
Hossein Derakhshan, also known as Hoder, is an Iranian journalist and weblogger based in Toronto. His weblog, which is blocked in Iran by the government, is among the most-read weblogs in Persian. He is also credited with starting the blogging revolution in Iran while getting funds from the Iranian regime. He is also seen going in and out of the Iranian embassy in Paris and London. and is called by many journalists as the father of Persian blogging. - Rudaki
Abdullah Jafar Ibn Mohammad Rudaki (Tajik Абӯабдуллоҳ Ҷафар Ибн Муҳаммад Рӯдакӣ, Persian ابوعبدالله جعفربن محمدبن حکیمبن عبدالرحمنبن آدم رودکی), also written as Rudagi or Rudhagi, (859-"c".941) was a Persian ("Tājīk") poet, and the first great literary genius of modern Persian language, … - Ehsan Yarshater
Ehsan Yarshater (born April 3, 1920, Hamadan, Iran) is the Director of The Center for Iranian Studies and Hagop Kevorkian Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Columbia University. He is famous for editing the monumental Encyclopedia Iranica along with 40 other editors and 300 authors from various academic institutions throughout the United States, Europe, and Asia. He is also famous for editing the third volume of the Cambridge History of Iran, … - Juan Cole
John "Juan" Ricardo I. Cole (born October 1952 in Albuquerque, New Mexico) is an American professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on television, and testified before the United States Senate. He has published several peer-reviewed books on the modern Middle East and is a translator of both Arabic and Persian. - William Jones
Sir William Jones (September 28, 1746 - April 27, 1794) was an English philologist and student of ancient India, particularly known for his proposition of the existence of a relationship among Indo-European languages. - Shah Jahan
Shahbuddin Mohammed Shah Jahan, January 5, 1592 - January 22, 1666) was the ruler of the Mughal Empire in the Indian Subcontinent from 1628 until 1658. The name Shah Jahan comes from Persian meaning "King of the World." He was the fifth Mughal ruler after Babur, Humayun, Akbar, and Jahangir. After revolting against his father Jahangir, as the latter had revolted against Akbar, he succeeded to the throne upon his father's death in 1627. - Omar Khayyám
Ghiyās al-Dīn Abu al-Fath Omār ibn Ibrāhīm Khayyām Nishābūrī or Omar Khayyam (b. May 18, 1048 Nishapur, (Persia) - d. December 4, 1131), was a Persian poet, mathematician, philosopher and astronomer who lived in Persia. His name is also given as Omar al-Khayyami. He is best known for his poetry, and outside Iran, for the quatrains ("rubaiyaa"s) in "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam", … - Sadeq Hedayat
Sadegh (or Sadeq) Hedayat (in Persian: صادق هدایت; February 17 1903, Tehran - 4 April, 1951, Paris, France) was Iran's foremost modern writer of prose fiction and short stories. His complete works have been banned in Iran since November 2006. - Hafez
Khwajeh Shams al-Din Muhammad Hafez-e Shirazi was a Persian mystic and poet. He was born sometime between the years 1310 and 1337 in Shiraz, Persia (Iran), son of a certain Baha-ud-Din. His lyrical poems, ghazals are noted for their beauty and bring to fruition the love, mysticism, and early Sufi themes that had long pervaded Persian poetry. Moreover, his poetry possessed elements of modern surrealism. - Iraj Bashiri
Iraj Bashiri is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota, USA and one of the leading scholars in the fields of Central Asian Studies and Iranian Studies. Fluent in English, Persian, Tajik, and several Turkic languages, Bashiri has been able to study and translate works otherwise inaccessible to the mostly Russian-speaking Central Asian studies community. - Samad Behrangi
Samad Behrangi (June 24, 1939 - August 31, 1967) was an Iranian Azeri socialist and writer. He is famous for his book for children, "The Little Black Fish" (ماهی سیاه کوچولو). Born in Tabriz, Behrangi started teaching in village schools in Iranian Azerbaijan in 1957 which he continued for eleven years. Behrangi also has stories in the Azerbaijani language and a few Azerbaijani translations from Persian poems by Ahmad Shamlou, Forough Farrokhzad, … - Richard Nelson Frye
Richard Nelson Frye (c. 1920) is an American scholar of Iranian and Central Asian Studies, and Aga Khan Professor Emeritus of Iranian Studies at Harvard University. His professional areas of interest are Iranian philology, and the history of Iran and Central Asia before 1000 CE. Born in Birmingham, Alabama to a family of immigrants from Sweden, "Freij" has four children, his second marriage being to an Assyrian scholar, Dr. Eden Naby, … - Ahmad Shamlou
Ahmad Shamlou (December 12, 1925 — July 24, 2000) was a Persian poet, writer, and journalist. His poetry was initially very much influenced by and was in the tradition of Nima Youshij. Shamlou's poetry is complex. Yet his imagery, which contributes significantly to the intensity of his poems, is simple. As the base, he uses the traditional imagery familiar to his Iranian audience through the works of Persian masters like Hafez and Omar Khayyám. - Ryan Crocker
U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker , admittedly worn out from years on the intense diplomatic front lines since September 11, 2001, gave his last press conference to the Baghdad Western press corps today. He reiterated that America needs to stick with the effort in Iraq lest the country slide back into turmoil. - Sean McCormack
Sean McCormack is a U.S. Assistant Secretary of State. He was sworn in as Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Department Spokesman on June 2 2005. Immediately prior to returning to the State Department, McCormack was Special Assistant to the President, Spokesman for the National Security Council, and Deputy White House Press Secretary for Foreign Policy. McCormack began his career in the Foreign Service in 1995. - Khosrau I
Khosrau I or Khosrow I (Chosroes I in classical sources, most commonly known in Persian as Anushirvan, Persian: انوشيروان meaning "the immortal soul"), also known as Anushiravan the Just (انوشیروان عادل, "Anushiravan-e-ādel") (ruled 531-579), was the favourite son and successor of Kavadh I (488-531), twentieth Sassanid King of Persia, … - Reynold A. Nicholson
Reynold Alleyne Nicholson (or RA Nicholson; 1868-1945), was an eminent orientalist who is widely regarded as the greatest Rumi scholar in the English language. He was born in Keighley, Yorkshire, U.K., and died in 1945, inChester, Cheshire). He was a lecturer in Persian language and Sir Thomas Adams's Professor of Arabic at Cambridge University. - Simin Daneshvar
Simin Dāneshvar (born 1921 in Shiraz, Iran) is an Iranian academic, novelist and translator of literary works from English, German, Italian and Russian into Persian. - Rashid Al-Din
Rashid al-Din Tabib also Rashid ad-Din Fadhlullah Hamadani, was a Persian physician, writer and historian, who wrote an enormous Islamic history volume, the "Jami al-Tawarikh", in the Persian language. He was from a Jewish family but converted to Islam. - Fateh Ali Khan
Fateh Ali Khan was born in 1901 at Lyallpur, Punjab. Ustad Fateh Ali Khan was the father of legendary Qawwali musician and singer Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Their family (originally from Afghanistan) has an unbroken tradition of Qawwali for over 600 years. Ustad Fateh Ali Khan was trained in classical music and Qawwali as a young boy, by his father, Maula Baksh, and he soon distinguished himself as a skilled musicologist, vocalist and instrumentalist. - Mirza Ghalib
Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, pen-name Ghalib and Asad (27 December 1796 — 15 February 1869), was a renowned classical Urdu and Persian poet of the subcontinent. Most notably, he wrote several ghazals during his life, which have since been interpreted and sung in many different ways by different people. He is considered to be the most dominating poet of the Urdu language. - Mumtaz Mahal
Mumtāz Mahal is the common nickname of Arjumand Banu Begum, who was born in April, 1593 in Agra, India. Her father was the Persian noble Abdul Hasan Asaf Khan, the brother of Nur Jehan who subsequently became the wife of the emperor Jahangir, and she was religiously a Muslim. She was married at the age of 19, on May 10, 1612, to Prince Khurram, who would later ascend the Peacock Throne as Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I. She was his second wife, and became his favorite. - Edward Granville Browne
Edward Granville Browne (1862-1926) born in Stouts Hill, Uley, Gloucestershire, England, was a British orientalist who published numerous articles and books of academic value, mainly in the areas of history and literature. His works are respected for their scholarship, uniqueness, and style. The scholarly value of his works was acknowledged both during his lifetime and even more, after his passing. He gained a professorship at Cambridge University. - Asadi Tusi
Abu Mansur Ali ibn Ahmad Asadi Tusi is arguably the second most important Persian poet of Iranian national epics, after Ferdowsi who also happens to come from the same town of Tus. Asadi's most significant work is "Garshasp-nama" [The Book (or Epic) of Garshasp]. His other important contribution was a lexicon of the Modern Persian language (فرهنگ لغت فرس). During Asadi's time, and for some time after, … - Khosrau II
Khosrau II or Khosrow II (Chosroes II in classical sources, sometimes called "Parvez", "the ever Victorious" – in Persian: خسرو پرویز) was the twenty-second Sassanid King of Persia from 590 to 628. He was the son of Hormizd IV (579-590) and grandson of Khosrau I (531-579). - Khwaja Abdullah Ansari
Abu Ismaïl Abdullah ibn Abi-Mansour Mohammad or Khwajah Abdullah Ansari was a famous Persian poet and Sufi. He was born and died in Herat (then Khorasan, now one of the cities of Afghanistan), and that is why he is known as Pious of Herat. He is also known as "Shaikul Mashayekh" [Master of (Sufi) Masters] and his title was "Shaikhul Islam". He was the disciple of Shaikh Abul Hassan Kharaqani. He had deep respect and faith for him, … - Baba Taher
Baba Taher, also spelled as Baba Tahir was a Persian poet who lived in the 11th century. - Khalilullah Khalili
<u>Kh</u>alilullāh <u>Kh</u>alīlī was Afghanistan's foremost 20th Century poet as well as a noted historian, university professor, diplomat and royal confidant. He was the last of the great classical Persian poets and among the first to introduce modern Persian poetry and Nimai style to Afghanistan. He had also expertise in "Khorasani" style and was a follower of Farrukhi Sistani. - Omid Memarian
Omid Memarian is a progressive Iranian journalist and social activist. He was awarded the Golden pen at the National Press Festival in Iran at 2001. He has been blogging since 2001, in English and Persian. He used to work with Hayat-e No (New Life), Yas-e-no (New Jasmin), Vaqaye-e Ettefaqiyeh (Occurring Events) and Sharq (or Shargh = East) daily newspapers in Iran. Omid is Editor in Chief of Volunteer Actors Quarterly which deals with civil society issues. - Parvin E'Tesami
Parvin E'tesami also "Parvin Etesami" was one of the most prominent Persian poets of 20th century. Parvin was the daughter of Yusuf E’tesami Ashtiani (a.k.a E’tesam ol-Molk). Born in 1907 in Tabriz, she studied at an American Girls College in Iran. She is considered the greatest Iranian poetess ever. Although she had a short life, she became famous after her works were published. She died in 1941 by typhus at the age of 35, and was buried in Qom, Iran. - Peter Avery
Peter Avery OBE is an eminent British scholar of Persian and a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. After gaining a BA at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and serving in the Royal Indian Navy towards the end of the Second World War, he became principal language teaching officer at the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. He has contributed to English language work on Persian history and literature, … - Burhanuddin Rabbani
Burhanuddin Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik, is a former President of Afghanistan. Burhanuddin Rabbani is the leader of Jamiat-e Islami Afghanistan (Islamic Society of Afghanistan). He also served as the political head of the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (UIFSA), an alliance of various political groups who fought against Taliban rule in Afghanistan. - Mahsati
Mahsati Ganjavi was a 12th century Persian poetess. A beautiful and talented composer of quatrains, she originated from Ganja, Azerbaijan, and is said to have associated with both Omar Khayyám and Nizami. She is also said to have been the companion of Sultan Sanjar. Her alleged free way of living and peddled verses have stamped her as a Persian Madame Sans-Gêne. Her purported love affairs are recounted in the works of "Jauhari of Bukhara". - Homam Tabrizi
Homam-e Tabrizi or Homamiddin ibni Ala-e Tabrizi was an Iranian poet. He was a follower of Saadi and his poetry was mostly in form of ghazal. He was born in Tabreez and was a minister for a while in Azarbaijan. Homam wrote poems in Persian and Arabic languages. His divan has almost two thousand of bayts. He tried to follow Saadi Shirazi and had correspondence with him. According to memories, when Saadi was in Azerbaijan he visited Homam. - Abusaeid Abolkheir
Abusaeid Abolkheyr (December 7,967 - January 12, 1049 / Muharram ul Haram,1 ,357 - Sha'aban,4 ,440 AH), also known as Sheikh Abusaeid or "Abu Sa'eed", was a famous Persian Sufi who contributed extensively to the evolution of Sufi tradition. The majority of what is known from his life comes from the book Asrar al-Tawhid اسرارالتوحید(The Mysteries of Unification) by Mohammad Ibn Monavvar one of his grandsons, written 130 years after his death. - Dara Shikoh
Dara Shikoh was the eldest son of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan and his wife Mumtaz Mahal. His name is from Persian داراشكوه meaning "The possessor of Glory". He was favoured as a successor by his father and his sister Jahanara Begum, but was defeated by his younger brother Aurangzeb in a bitter struggle for the Mughal throne. In 1657, the illness of emperor Shah Jahan triggered a fierce and desperate battle for power among the four Mughal princes, … - Ebrahim Poordavood
Ebrahim Poordavood (February 9, 1885 - November 17, 1968), was born in Rasht, Iran, to a mother who was the daughter of a clergyman and a father who was a reputable merchant and landlord. He is one of the most formidable scholars of Iran during the 20th century. Poordavood translated Avesta into Persian in six volumes. He made in addition many other significant contributions to the Iranian studies. At 20 Poordavood moved to Tehran to study traditional medicine, … - Iraj Pezeshkzad
Iraj Pezeshkzad born 1928 in Tehran, is an Iranian writer and author of the famous Persian novel "Dai Jan Napoleon"(My Uncle Napoleon) published in the early 1970s. Iraj Pezeshkzad was educated in Iran and France where he received his degree in Law. He served as a judge in the Iranian Judiciary for five years prior to joining the Iranian Foreign Service.
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