Sorabji Resource Site: Transliteration of Persian Names

Transliteration of Persian Names

This page lists the Persian names that appear in Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji’s works and writings, especially those of the poets who have inspired some of his music or whose words he set to music. The names, which are provided with a brief identification, are given bth in the known forms and in the transliterations found in Meyers enzyklopädisches Lexikon (Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut, 1971-1981).

For the Unicode characters needed to represent the letters with diacritics used in the names below, see page Titles of Works Containing Diacritics.

See also a Microsoft Word file listing the names found below, from which they can be copied.

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Name	Source Code
Name	Source Code
al-Nafzawi, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad {transliteration uncertain} Simple form: Sheikh Nefzaoui. Author of the work known in the English translation by Richard Francis Burton (1821-90) as The Perfumed Garden of the Cheikh Nefzaoui, A Manual of Arabian Erotology (XVI. Century) (1st ed., 1866), which inspired Le jardin parfumé: Poem for Piano Solo (1923; 16 pp.)	al-Nafzawi, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad {transliteration uncertain}
Ǧāmī, Mawlānā Nūruʾd-Dīn ʿAbduʾr-Raḥmān; other valid transliteration (with main name being used as the standard form in the catalogue of Sorabji’s works): Jāmī, Nūr-al-Dīn ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Non-scholarly alternative spellings: Djami, Djâmî, Dschami, Jami. Persian poet, mystic, and scholar (1414-92) who inspired Nocturne, “Jāmī” (1928; 28 pp.). His poem Yūsuf and Zuleykhā, in the translation by Edward G. Browne, provided the words for the final movement (“Cantico”) of the Symphony [no. 2], “Jāmī”, for Large Orchestra, Wordless Chorus, and Baritone Solo (1942-51; 826 pp.)	Ǧāmī, Mawlānā Nūruʾd-Dīn ʿAbduʾr-Ramān
Ǧalāluʾd-Dīn Rūmī, Muḥammad Mawlānā Simple form: Rumi. Persian poet and mystic (1207-73). Author of poems read by Ronald Stevenson, in a translation by Reynold Alleyne Nicholson (1868-1945), at Sorabji’s funeral. Also the author of the words set by Karol Szymanowski in his Symphony no. 3, op. 27, “Pieśń o nocy” [Song of the Night] (1914-16)	Ǧalāluʾd-Dīn Rūmī, Muḥammad Mawlānā
Ḥāfiẓ, Šamsuʾd-Dīn Muḥammad [Ḥāfiẓ, Shams-al-Dīn Muḥammad] Persian lyric poet (1325-90). His works were translated into English by John Payne (1842-1916), whose lines “Sine me, liber...” are quoted by Sorabji as a motto in the Toccata [no. 1] for Piano (1928; 66 pp.).	Ḥāfiẓ, Šamsuʾd-Dīn Muḥammad [Ḥāfiẓ, Shams-al-Dīn Muḥammad]
Ḥamzah ʻAbd Ullāh Kār Illustrator of the Rubáiyát by Umar Ḥayyām. Mentioned in Around Music (p. 151).	Ḥamzah ʿAbd Ullāh Kār
Ibrāhīm Mīrzā, Shamsuʾd-Dīn Dates unknown. Author (possibly fictitious) of the text set to music, in a French translation, as Arabesque (1920; 2 pp.).	Ibrāhīm Mīrzā, Shamsuʾd-Dīn
Saʿdī, Abū Abdiʾllah Mušarrifuʾd-Dīn Ibn Muṣliḥud-Dīn Simple forms: Sadi, Saadi. Also known as Saadi of Shiraz. Persian poet (ca. 1200-ca. 1291). Author of Gulistān, which provided the texts of the Trois poèmes du “Gulistān” de Saʿdī (1926, rev. 1930; 16 pp.) and served as inspiration for “Gulistān”—Nocturne for Piano (1940; 28 pp.).	Saʿdī, Abū Abdiʾllah Mušarrifuʾd-Dīn Ibn Muṣliḥud-Dīn
Umar H̱ayyām; actual name: Ḡiyṯuʾd-Dīn Abūʾl-Fatḥ. Alternative spellings: Omar Khayyām (or Khayyam), Omar Kheyyám. Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet (1048-1131). Author of the Rubáiyát [Roubâʾyât, Rubaijat, Rubaʾiyat]), whose translation by Edward FitzGerald (1809-83) Sorabji discusses in Mi contra fa (pp. 66-67).	Umar H̱ayyām; actual name: Ḡiyāṯuʾd-Dīn Abūʾl-Fat&ḥ {The precomposed character that would be known as LATIN CAPITAL LETTER H WITH LINE BELOW, if it existed in Unicode, can be created with a combining macron (U+0331) as H̱. It may not display perfectly in all browsers.}