Category: Middle East Mythology

The Hittites were an ancient people from Anatolia who spoke an Indo-European language. They established a kingdom centred at Hattusha in north-central Anatolia from the…

Since the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians and others all shared essentially the same pantheon and belief systems, these articles are all combined under the Mesopotamian…

Masnavi, The (Mathnawi, Mathnwi-iMa’nawi, Mesnevi) (couplets) Persian mystical poem in 27,000 couplets, divided into six books, written in the 13th century by Rumi, a Sufi…

Gulistan, The (rose garden) A collection of didactic fables in rhymed prose with interspersed verses by the Persian poet Sadi, written in 1258. The Gulistan…

(The Arabian Nights) English translation of the Arabic collection of tales, Alf Laylah wa-laylah, which is based on a Persian collection, compiled between 988 and…