ابدال

Persian

Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic أَبْدَال (ʔabdāl), plural of بَدَل (badal, “subsitute”).

Pronunciation

 

Readings
Classical reading? abdāl
Dari reading? abdāl
Iranian reading? abdâl
Tajik reading? abdol

Noun

ابدال • (abdāl / abdâl) (Tajik spelling абдол)

  1. plural of بدل (badal)
  2. (collective, Sufism) saints (often said to be forty) for whose sake God maintains the world
  3. (collective) hermits, ascetics, Sufis
  4. (obsolete) vagabond, dervish
    • c. 1520, Selim I of the Ottoman Empire, edited by Benedek Péri, The Persian Dīvān of Yavuz Sulṭān Selīm, Budapest, Hungary: Research Centre for the Humanities, Eötvös Loránd Research Network, →ISBN, page 139:
      بکوی خود مرا آشفته دید آن حورپیکر گفت
      که این سرگشته بس دیوانه و ابدال می‌گردد
      ba-kō-yi xwad ma-rā āšufta dīd ān hūrpaykar guft
      ki īn sargašta bas dēwāna u abdāl mē-gardad
      The houri-bodied one saw me distraught in her alley and said:
      "This confused person is becoming quite a madman and a vagabond."
      (Classical Persian transliteration)

Further reading

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