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A Note On Persian Cats

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Willem Floor
Willem Floor*
Affiliation:
World Bank
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Extract

Jean-Pierre Digard's recent delightful and informative article on the Persian long-haired cat has stimulated me to write this short note to complement his contribution to the feline discussion. Digard and others before him have thrown doubt on the denomination “Persian” of the long-haired cat. Many reasons, all of them quite reasonable, have been adduced to make this point. I would like to offer some additional information, which is not available in Digard's article and will further muddle this issue. Apart from discussing the background of Persian cats—broadly along the lines of Digard's exposé—I will show that long-haired cats, although they may also have been from Kurdistan or Bukhara, were an article of export from Isfahan and other towns in Iran throughout the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Also, the data adduced show that the Persian cat was different from the Angora cat.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 36 , Issue 1 , March 2003 , pp. 27 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Iranian Studies 2003

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References

1. Digard, Jean-Pierre “Chah des Chats, Chat de Chah? Sur les traces du chat persan” in Balland, Daniel, ed., Hommes et Terres d’ Islam. Mélanges offerts à Xavier de Planhol (Tehran, 2000), 321-38Google Scholar.

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11. Jean-Louis Bacqué-Gramont, “Un félidé anatolien oublié,” 339–42.

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13. Cited by Digar, 326.

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30. Rev. Stileman, Charles Harvey The Subjects of the Shah (London: CMS, 1902), 5Google Scholar. Landor, H. Savage Across Coveted Lands, 2 vols. (New York, 1903), 2, 40-41Google Scholar also discusses his intelligent cats, which he purchased, but he did not state whether they were Persian cats.

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39. Iᶜtimad al-Saltana Rūznāmeh, 22.

40. Muᶜayyir al-Mamalik Yād-dāsht-hā-˒ā az zindagānī-yi khuṣūṣī-yi Nāṣir al-Dīn Shāh (Tehran, 1351/1972), 158.

41. Iᶜtimad al-Saltana Rūznāmeh, 22, 147. In the case of Babri Khan, Muᶜayyir al-Mamalik wrote that the shah believed the cat had been instrumental in bringing down a fever he had had and as a consequence became more devoted than ever to the cat, which made its loss so painful.

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43. al-Saltana, Taj Crowning Anguish, ed. Amanat, Abbas, tr. Vanzan, Anna and Neshati, Amin (Washington DC, 1993), 125Google Scholar.

44. Ibid., 127–28.

45. Qahraman Mirza Salur. Rūznāmeh-i Khāṭirāt-i ᶜAyn al-Salṭana, ed. Masᶜud Salur and Iraj Afshar 10 vols. (Tehran, 1374/1995), 1: 869-70. It is of interest to note that Iᶜtimad al-Saltana did not mention this event in his diary at all.

46. al-Saltana, Ihtisham Khāṭirāt, ed. Musavi, Muhammad Mahdi (Tehran, 1366/1987), 501Google Scholar.