PERSIAN GULF 



6072 



PERSIUS 



were successful, she would merely 

 make a road for Russia to the 

 country S. of the Hindu Kush. 

 They therefore addressed them- 

 selves to the task of keeping 

 Afghanistan outside the spheres of 

 influence of both Russia and Persia. 

 This led to misunderstandings be- 

 tween Great Britain and Persia, 

 and to the Anglo-Afghan alliance 

 of 1855. Reluctantly Great Britain 

 declared war against Persia in 1856, 

 and peace was concluded in the 

 following year, the shah agreeing 

 to recognize the independence of 

 Afghanistan. 



Russia now began to advance in 

 Central Asia with giant strides. In 

 1849 she had occupied the valley of 

 the Syr Dana, in 1876 she annexed 

 the khanate of Kokhand, and by 

 1873 had conquered Khiva. In 

 1881 the Turcomans were crushed 

 by Skobeleff at Geok Tepe. This 

 state of affairs was not improved 

 by the question of the boundary of 

 Seistan which arose between Persia 

 and Afghanistan in 1863, and which 

 was not settled until 1872. In 1905, 

 owing to popular discontent, a con- 

 stitution was granted to the people. 



In 1907 an Anglo-Russian treaty 

 defined the respective spheres of 

 influence of the two powers in 

 Persia. In 1915 the country became 

 a war theatre. German officers 

 were sent there in that year and, 

 supported by Turkish troops.began 

 a campaign for driving out the 

 British and Russian colonies. To 

 restore the authority of the Persian 

 government and to protect British 

 interests, Sir Percy Sykes (q.v.) 

 landed at Bander Abbas in 1916. 

 He raised a force to replace the local 

 police who had joined the Germans. 

 Meantime, Russian troops had 

 arrived in Persia and helped to 

 save the capital and the shah. 



In 1919 an agreement was con- 

 cluded between Great Britain and 

 Persia reiterating past under- 

 takings to respect the independence 

 and integrity of the latter. This 

 was denounced by Persia in 1921, 

 in which year Persian- Afghan and 

 Persian-Russian treaties were con- 

 cluded. 



Language and Literature 



The language of Persia is connected 

 with the great Indo-European lin- 

 guistic system, of which, indeed, it 

 is one of the oldest exemplars. It 

 is written in the Arabic alphabet. 

 Persian literature takes a high 

 place among the literatures of the 

 world. The old Persian inscriptions 

 and the Zend Avesta take us back 

 to the sixth century B.C. and pos- 

 sibly earlier. The Pehlevi tongue 

 belongs to the Sassanian period 

 from the third to the sixth century 

 A.D. Persian in its modern form is 

 perhaps a thousand years old. It 



was really a renaissance of the old 

 national feeling in the country 

 which brought it into being a cen- 

 tury or two after the Arab con- 

 quest, and it was responsible for the 

 brilliant outpourings of Firdausi, 

 Sadi, Mali/, and Omar Khayyam. 

 Among the greatest writers are the 

 romantic poet Nizami (d. c. 1203), 

 the dervish Jelal-ul-din Rumi (1207 

 -73), and the mystic Jami (d. 1492). 



The poetry of this richly endowed 

 and imaginative people surpassed 

 in bold and extravagant hyperbole, 

 fantastic imagery, and emotional 

 appeal. The Persian poet heaped 

 metaphor upon metaphor. He 

 was incapable of seeing that what 

 was intrinsically beautiful in itself 

 might appear superfluous and lack- 

 ing in taste when combined with 

 equally graceful but discordant 

 elements. But there is no doubt 

 as to his eminent ability to coin 

 beautiful phrases, and the mystic 

 and philosophical spirit in which 

 these are couched has perhaps 

 never been surpassed. 



Influence of Suflsm 



Among the most famous poets of 

 Persia were the Sufis or mystics, 

 whose spirit has permeated Persian 

 literature and the Persian mind to 

 a remarkable extent. Sufism has 

 been called the offspring of Neo- 

 Platonism, but it has more pro- 

 bably been sophisticated by Brah- 

 manic or Buddhist influences. It 

 commenced to flourish towards the 

 end of the 10th century, and re- 

 garded God not only as the sole 

 source of good, but of being and 

 beauty as well. The great Sufi 

 poet is Jelal-ud-Din, whose work, 

 theMasnavi.hasinfluenced thought 

 in Persia and Turkey. 



Bibliography. Five Great Mon- 

 archies of the Ancient Eastern 

 World, G. Rawlinson, 2nd ed. 1871 ; 

 General Sketch of the History of 

 Persia, C. R. Markham, 1874 ; The 

 Land of the Lion and the Sun, C. 

 J. Wills, 1883 ; Persia and the Per- 

 sian Question, Lord Curzon, 1892 ; 

 Early Adventures in Persia, H. A. 

 Layard, new ed. 1894 ; Mission 

 Scientiftque en Perse, 5 vols., J. de 

 Morgan, 1894-1905 ; Literary His- 

 tory of Persia, E. G. Browne, 1902-- 

 6 ; Middle Eastern Question, Sir 

 V. Chirol, 1904 ; Persia Past and 

 Present, A. V. Jackson, 1906 ; Per- 

 sia and its People, E. C. Sykes, 1910; 

 The Strangling of Persia, W. Mor- 

 gan Shuster, 1912 ; A History of 

 Persia, P. M. Sykes, new ed. 1921. 



Persian Gulf. Arm of the 

 Indian Ocean, the ancient Persicus 

 Sinus. It stretches N.W. from the 

 Gulf of Oman on the S. to the Shatt- 

 el-Arab and the adjacent regions 

 on the N., is more than 500 m. 

 long, and has an area of 75,000 sq. 

 m. It is bounded S. and W. by 

 Arabia, N.W. by Lower Mesopo- 

 tamia, and N. and E. by Persia. 



For the most part its shores, 

 flat on the W. and rising into 

 headlands and heights on the E., are 

 sterile. Its one great river is the 

 Shatt-el-Arab. Its chief islands are 

 the Bahrein group on the W., 

 Babian (Bubiyan) and Abadan on 

 the N., and Kishm on the E. Its 

 harbours are Koweit, Bushire, Lin- 

 gah, and Bander Abbas, but Basra 

 may now be included. 



In the 17th century the British 

 and the Portuguese contended for 

 the mastery of the gulf. Early in 

 1622 the British captured a Portu- 

 guese fort on Kishm, and after- 

 wards, in union with a Persian 

 force, captured and destroyed 

 Hormuz, the headquarters of the 

 Portuguese. During the Great 

 War the British made much -use of 

 this area, which strategically is the 

 key to almost the whole of the 

 Middle East. See Basra ; Fao ; 

 Mesopotamia. 



Persigny, JEAN GILBERT VICTOR 

 FIALIN, Duo DE (1808-72). French 

 statesman. Born Jan. 11, 1808, 

 he entered the 

 army, and es- 

 p o u s e d the 

 Bonaparte 

 cause. He 

 planned the 

 attempts a t 

 Strasbourg, 

 1836, and Bou- 

 logne, 1840, 

 and took a 

 prominent part 

 in the revolu- 

 tion of 1848, and the coup d'etat of 

 1851. Minister of the ulterior, 1852, 

 and ambassador to England, 1854- 

 60, the enmity of Eugenie caused 

 his fall in 1863. He died Jan. 11, 

 1872. 



Persimmon OR VIRGINIAN DATE- 

 PLUM (Diospyros virginiana). Small 

 tree of the natural order Eben- 

 aceae, native of N. America. It 

 has rather thick, oval-oblong, al- 

 ternate leaves and pale yellow, 

 bell-shaped flowers. The yellow 

 fruits are plum-like ; after expo- 

 sure to frost they become sweet 

 and edible. The wood is very hard 

 and blackish. See Ebony. 



Persius (A.D. . 34-62). Roman 

 satiric poet, whose full name was 

 Aulus Persius Flaccus. Born .of a 

 noble family at Volaterrae, in 

 Etruria, Dec. 4, A.D. 34, he studied 

 Stoic philosophy in Rome under 

 Cornutus, and died Nov. 24, 62. He 

 left six Satires, consisting of 650 

 hexameter lines which display 

 original genius, in spite of their 

 immaturity, excess of literary 

 allusion, and obscure style. The 

 Satires have been edited, with a 

 prose translation, by J. Conington, 

 1872, and there are verse trans- 

 lations by Dryden and Gifford. 



Due de Persigny, 

 Frencb statesman 



