Shahram Jalilian
Abstract
Some words or phrases in Middle Persian or Dari Persian languages are occasionally mentioned in Arabic sources of the early Islamic centuries that are of great value for research on ...
Read More
Some words or phrases in Middle Persian or Dari Persian languages are occasionally mentioned in Arabic sources of the early Islamic centuries that are of great value for research on the history of the Persian Language. The precious book Nihāyat al-Arab fī Akhbār al-Furs wa al-Arab is an instance of these sources that the date of its compilation, the names of the author of its Arabic text and the translator of its Persian text are all unknown. The unknown author of this book sometimes used words or phrases in Middle Persian or Persian languages which is a rare action in itself and of course is very useful linguistically and historically, and one of them is the retelling of the Persian inscription on the dirham and dinar coins of Homāy Čehrzād, Kiānian Queen, which states: “Eat O Queen of the World, for a thousand years which pass from Nowrūz and Mihrgān.” Previously, scholars of the history of the Persian language, referring to Homāy Čehrzād as a myth, considered this writing to be one of the syllabic poems of the Sasanian period which was probably composed during the Borān’s reign (630-631 AD), the daughter of Xusrow II (590-628 AD). Taking another look at the report of Nihāyat al-Arab and also at the inscriptions on the Sasanian coins, this research attempts to make a new suggestion about the use of this writing and its meaning and show that it is probably an echo of the inscription on the dinar and dirham coins of Queen Borān.
