| Shah Rukh | |
|---|---|
| Gender | Male |
| Origin | |
| Word/Name | Persian |
| Other names | |
| Related names | ShahRokh |
Shahrokh, Shahrukh, or Shah Rukh (Persian: شاهرخ ) is the name of a mythological bird in Iranian literature. It is built of two parts: Shah meaning a king, and Rukh (or Rogh, or Rokh), who is the greatest bird on the earth as big as a cloud. In the One Thousand and One Nights stories, Rukh helps Sinbad escape from a dangerous island. Its Indo-European root is the same as the English word "rook."
Shah Rukh, therefore, means king of the Rokh. It may also be written as Shaahinrokh or Avestan Saeenrokh. (E.g., Iranian city of Shaahindezh or Saeendezh and also city of Sannadazh). This has been converted to saeem-rokh, then seem-rokh, seem-rogh and vulgarised as see-morgh. Seemorgh is also known in mystics’ ideas as the king of birds or God. People have mistaken the word with See (thirty) and morgh (bird) and believed it means Thirty-Bird.
In chess there is a King (shah) and a Rokh (or Rukh) (tower or rook in English; in some older versions of chess, the tower did not exist the piece instead represented as a large bird or as a bird placed over a tower). When castling the Shah and Rokh are both moved in the same turn, the word Shahrokh has, therefore, found the meaning of "great opportunity" or "great gamble" as we see in Hāfez's poetry: "nazadee Shahrokh o foet shod emkaan Hafez - che konam? baazieh ayyaam maraa ghaafel kard", meaning "Hafez! You did not take advantage (of life) and you lost that great opportunity. What else could you do? You were busy playing chess with Chronos who cheats man by chicanery, (and no one can hide the king of life from him by a Shahrokh double move)."
Soleiman Haim in his Persian-English Dictionary has translated Shahrokh as "The Great Rook" and according to "A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary"[1] Shahrokh means "The horn of a rhinoceros; the rooks in chess; a title given to the sons of the nobility; name of a son of Timure."
| This page or section lists people that share the same given name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change that link to point directly to the intended article. |