istian by religion. The Persians and Turks speak of her as the
emperor's daughter. [W. H. S.] Khusru Parviz (Eberwiz), or Khusru II,
reigned as King of Persia from A.D. 591 to 628. In the course of his
wars he took Jerusalem, and reduced Egypt, and a large part of
northern Africa, extending for a time the bounds of the Persian
empire to the Aegean and the Nile. Khusru I, surnamed Naushirvan, or
(more correctly) Anushirvan, reigned from A.D. 531 to 579. His
successful wars with the Romans and his vigorous internal
administration captivated the Oriental imagination, and he is
generally spoken of as Adil, or The Just. His name has become
proverbial, and to describe a superior as rivalling Naushirvan in
justice is a commonplace of flattery. The prophet Muhammad was born
during his reign, and was proud of the fact. The alleged expedition
of Naushirvan into India is discredited by the best modern writers.
Gibbon tells the story of the wars between the two Khusrus and the
Romans in his forty-sixth chapter, and a critical history of the
reigns of both Khusru (Khosrau) I and Khusru II will be found in
Professor Rawlinson's _Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy_ (London,
1876). European authors have, until recently, generally written the
name Khusru in its Greek form as Chosroes. The name of Shirin is also
written Sira.

'With the name of Shirin and the rock of Bahistun the Persians have
associated one of those poetic romances so dear to the national
genius. Ferhad, the most famous sculptor of his time, who was very
likely employed by Chosroes II to execute these bas-reliefs, is said
in the legend to have fallen madly in love with Shirin, and to have
received a promise of her from the king, if he would cut through the
rock of Behistun, and divert a stream to the Kermanshah plain. The
lover set to work, and had all but completed his gigantic enterprise
(of which the remains, however interpreted, are still to be seen),
when he was falsely informed by an emissary from the king of his
lady's death. In despair he leaped from the rock, and was dashed to
pieces. The legend of the unhappy lover is familiar throughout the
East, and is used to explain many traces of rock-cutting or
excavation as far east as Beluchistan' (_Persia and the Persian
Question_, by the Hon. George N. Curzon, M.P. (London, 1892), vol. i,
p. 562, note. See also Malcolm, _History of Persia_, vol. i, p. 129).

8. _Kaukab_ in Arabic means 'a star'. Steingass (_Persian
D