Written by Afsheen Sharifzadeh, a graduate of Tufts University focusing on Iran and the Caucasus. The present article delves into historic commercial and religious contacts between West Asia and the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago from the 9th to the 18th centuries AD. While one might anticipate a significant presence of Arabic loanwords in Malay related to maritime activities and commerce, the analysis surprisingly reveals that such loans predominantly originate from Persian rather than Arabic, pointing to a misattribution of influence. The author argues that a Persian-speaking merchant network played a central role in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea, shedding light on historical linguistic dynamics and questioning the presumed dominance of Arabic in certain domains.

(1) Papan Tinggi cemetery complex at Barus, on the west coast of Sumatra, Indonesia (2) The gravestone of one Shaykh Maḥmūd (1426 CE). The headstone is inscribed with a couplet from the Shāhnāmah (Book of Kings) of Ferdowsī (d. c. 1020 CE) addressing the subject of mortality and the impermanence of “worldly life”: جهان یادگارست و ما رفتنى/ ز مرد نماند به جز مردمى “The world is a perpetual remembrance and we all leave it in the end; people will leave nothing behind but their good deeds.”

Background
In examining commercial contacts between West Asia and the Malay-Indonesian archipelago between the 9^th and 18^th centuries AD, the term “Arabian” is often invoked to describe the ethnolinguistic affiliation of the foreign merchants involved in such exchanges across modern English, Malay and Indonesian language sources. We might therefore expect Malay, and the other Austronesian languages of Sumatra and Java such as Acehnese, Minangkabau, Javanese and Sundanese, to contain a considerable number of vernacular Arabic loans relating to seafaring and trade, and to the dealings of daily life. Closer scrutiny shows instead that the loans in these domains derive almost exclusively from Persian. This agrees with what is known elsewhere. Linguistic evidence shows that Persians, not Arabs, formed the leading Muslim community in China¹ and at Ayutthaya in Siam², and genetic evidence points the same way on the Swahili coast of Africa³. The label “Arab” is thus in many cases a broad misattribution, repeated for reasons discussed below. The question is further complicated by the place of Persian in India, where from the 13^th century it was the official language in Delhi and Bengal for nearly six hundred years, and the common language of administration and trade in much of the rest of the subcontinent before English. Few of the authors who have written on the subject appear, however, to have examined the vocabulary with due discipline, and the repetition of the same assumptions about Arab involvement has obscured a genuine channel of contact, one now largely forgotten among the Malay-Indonesians and among Persian speakers themselves. Observe the following Persian loanwords in Classical Malay for important nautical terms (many now obsolete or archaic), including ‘merchant’, ‘sailor’, ‘captain’, ‘harbor master’, ‘port’, ‘warrant officer’:

Classical Malay	Persian	English
Anjiman	انجمن anjuman “association”	An East Indiaman; a large transport or trading vessel belonging to the East India Company
Awar	آوار āvār	Damage of ship or load
Bad	باد bād	Wind
Balabad	بالا باد bālā bād	High wind, land breeze
Bam	بام bām “ceiling”	Crosspiece (a bar or timber connecting two knightheads or two bitts on a ship)
Bandar	بندر bandar	Port, harbor
Gaz	گز gaz	A Persian unit of length, ranging from 24 to 41 inches
Gusi	گشا gušā	mizzen sail; gaff mainsail
Jangkar	لنگر langar	Anchor
Kelasi	خلاشى xalāši (from خلاش “rudder”)	Sailor
Khoja	خواجه xʷāja	Merchant
Nakhoda	ناخدا nākhodā	Captain, shipmaster
Persangga	فرسنگ farsang	A Persian measure of distance, equivalent to about four miles
Saudagar	سوداگر sowdāgar	Merchant
Serang	سرهنگ sarhang	The officer (or warrant officer) in charge of sails, rigging, anchors, cables etc. and all work on deck of a sailing ship
Syabandar	شاه بندر šāh bandar	Harbormaster
Takhta rawan	تخت روان takht ravān	Palanquin, the moving throne

At the time of writing, the only Malay nautical terms of Arabic extraction known to this author are farsakh “an ancient Persian unit of distance, equivalent to about 4 miles” (doublet of persangga; from Persian فرسنگ farsang via Arabic فرسخ farsakh, also reborrowed into Persian as farsakh) and bahar “sea” (from Arabic بحر baḥr). Since both words were also current in Persian, the route by which they reached Malay is uncertain. Had the principal participants in this maritime trade been Arab merchants from the Ḥaḍramawt, the southern coast of the Arabian Peninsula, with Persian speakers in a secondary role, Malay would have taken its nautical vocabulary from Arabic. The near absence of Arabic nautical loanwords in Malay cannot be reconciled with that account. Why would Malay sailors have borrowed their words for port, captain, sailor and harbormaster from the language of a minority?

The material evidence suggests the answer: Persian speakers held these routes from an early date. The remains of a shipwreck in Phanom Surin, Samut Sakhon province, Thailand, dating to before the advent of Islam, carry an inscription in Middle Persian naming its presumed owner, Yazd-bōzēd. A gold finger ring set with a garnet, found at Palembang in Sumatra and dated to the seventh to ninth centuries, is engraved in Pahlavi script with the Middle Persian word āfrīn “blessing.” These finds belong to the sea route to China, in which Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Christian and Jewish Iranian communities had long been established. On the Malabar Coast of southwest India, copper plates of the mid-ninth century granting state privileges to a merchant community bear the signatures of witnesses in Pahlavi and in Judeo-Persian, confirming the wider network in which these objects’ discoveries must be seen. By the 15^th century, according to the historian Ismail Marcinkowski, “…Persian was the lingua franca in the Indian Ocean trading world and a Persian-speaking merchant community was present in Malacca. The office with the Persian title of Šāhbandar (شاه بندر “harbor master”), known in many of the Indian Ocean trade ports as well as in several parts of the Ottoman Empire, was also established in Malacca.”⁴ The evidence points to a long-lived commercial network across the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea, led by Persian-speaking merchants, which in the medieval period included Persian-speaking Gujaratis and Bengalis and counted Arabs, too, among its members.

Foreign travelers further attest to influential resident communities of Persian-speaking merchants in Zaiton (泉州 Quánzhōu) in the 14th century and in the Siamese capital of Ayutthaya in the 16th. From the 15th century, Western mariners and travelers around the rim of the Indian Ocean knew Ayutthaya by a Persian name, Scierno, from Šahr-e nāv “City of Boats.” Descendants of some of its original Persian traders, members of the aristocratic Thai-Persian Bunnag, Siphen and Singhseni families, held positions close to the Thai throne into the 20th century. The popular massaman curry (แกงมัสมั่น kǣng mát-sà-màn), whose name derives from Persian مسلمان mosalmān “Muslim,” is traditionally attributed to the 17th-century Persian community of Ayutthaya and associated with Sheikh Ahmad of Qom (ca. 1543–1631), patriarch of the Bunnag family.

(1) Tomb of the Persian-born merchant Sheikh Ahmad of Qom (ca. 1543–1631), in Ayutthaya, Thailand. He became a powerful official in the Siamese court, where he was given the title of Châophráya Boworn Râtcháyók (Thai: เจ้าพระยาบวรราชนายก). He was the ancestor of the powerful Thai-Persian Bunnag family (2) Massaman curry paste (มัสมั่น mát-sà-màn, from Persian mosalmān مسلمان “Muslim”), created by the prosperous 17^th century Persian community of Ayutthaya, consists of cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, star anise, clove, cardamom, mace (all brought by traders, including Persians, from the Malay-Indonesian archipelago to Siam) and the decidedly un-Thai flourish of raisins and bay leaves (from Iranian cuisine) combined with ingredients more commonly used in Thai cuisine such as coriander, lemongrass, galangal, white pepper, shrimp paste, shallots, and garlic. This dish, along with others inspired by Persian dishes, is among the recipes in the funeral cookbooks of the Bunnag family⁵

Crucially, these loans do not imply that every merchant who carried them was Iranian. From the thirteenth century Persian was the language of government in Delhi, and later in Bengal and Gujarat, so the Indian merchants who traded eastward used it in their business whatever language they spoke at home. The lascar crews of the Indian Ocean, recruited from all its shores, worked their ships in a vocabulary that drew heavily on Persian; nakhoda and serang belong to it. The Portuguese apothecary Tomé Pires, who lived at Malacca between 1512 and 1515, found Gujaratis the most numerous foreign traders in the port, with merchants from Hormuz and Persia among them. He records that Malacca had four šāhbandars, each responsible for a group of foreign merchants: one for the Gujaratis, one for the other traders of India, Pegu and Pasai, one for those of Java and the eastern islands, and one for those of China and Champa. A Persian title was thus held by officials who dealt mostly with merchants who were not Persian. Some of the loans in this article probably reached Malay through Indian speakers of Persian rather than from Iranians directly. Persians themselves are well attested, at Barus and at Ayutthaya, but the argument concerns the language of Indian Ocean trade, which was used far beyond them, much as English is used today far beyond England.

Analysis of Persian loanwords in Malay related to the goods these merchants would have brought illuminates the story further:

Classical Malay	Persian	English
Almas	الماس almās	Diamond
Andam	اندام andām	Arrangement
Anggur	انگور angūr	Grapes, wine (Thai: องุ่น à-ngùn)
Anjir	انجير anjir	Fig
Badam	بادام bādām	Almond
Baju	بازو bāzū “arm”	Shirt
Baksis	بخشش baxšiš	Wage, reward
Balur	بلور bolūr	Crystal
Bius	بيهوش bi-hūš	Anesthetic
Bozah	بوزه būze	Fermented drink made from wheat or millet
Cadar	چادر čādar “tent, veil”	Bed cover or tablecloth
Destar	دستار dastār	Headdress
Gandum	گندم gandom	Wheat
Gul	گل gol	Rose
Kaftan	خفتان xaftān	A long Persian tunic
Kahrab	كهربا kahrobā	Amber
Kasa	كاسه kāse	Bowl
Kelebut	كالبد kālbod	Shoemaker’s last
Kismis	كشمش kišmiš	Raisin
Koja	كوزه kūza	Bottlenecked earthenware
Kurma	خرما xormā	Date
Lajak	لچک lačak	Woven fabric from yarn or silk
Mohor	مهر mohr	Stamp, seal
Perca	پارچه pārča	Cloth from remainder fabric
Piala	پياله piāla	Cup, chalice
Picis	پشيز pešiz “small”	Penny (archaic), of small worth
Pinggan	پنگان pengān “bowl”	Dish, plate
Piring	پرنگ parang “copper”	Plate
Pirus	فيروز firuz	Turquoise
Sadir	نشادر nošâdor	Ammonium chloride
Sakar	شكر šakar	Sugar
Syal	شال šāl	Shawl
Tembakau	تمباكو tambāku	Tobacco
Tenggah	تنگه tanga	A piece of gold or silver
Lazuardi	لاجوردى lājevardi	Lapis lazuli
Zamrud	زمرد zomorrod	Emerald

On Arabic Loans in Malay-Indonesian
It is important to note that words with Arabic etymologies exist in high quantities in Malay (and by extension, Indonesian), far exceeding the number of ‘pure’ Persian loans. This is unsurprising since Classical Arabic—the mastery of which is required for proper interpretation of the Quran and Hadith—would have been known across generations of Muslim clergy even in the absence of a significant community of Arabs. Accordingly, the majority of Arabic terms in Malay-Indonesian are either demonstrably (1) learned borrowings of more recent literary provenance, based on their semantic domains and unadapted phonology, rather than the result of regular language contact with a vernacular Arabic variety or (2) adopted through the medium of Persian. The number of Malay words borrowed directly from Arabic in the opinion of this author has been, therefore, considerably overestimated. This extensive misclassification has lent false credence to the idea of a historically robust Arab–Malay relationship, and has obscured the Persians and Persian-speakers, who were, on all the evidence, the culturally hegemonic ‘Muslim’ community of medieval Southeast Asia, whose language named the ports, the ships and the men who sailed them. Furthermore, the tombs of multiple venerated Persian shaykhs in Sumatra, such as that of one Shaykh Maḥmūd from Barus, dating to 1426 CE and inscribed, interestingly, with a couplet from the Shāhnāmah (Book of Kings) of Ferdowsī (d. c. 1020 CE), indicate that Persian Muslims served as a vector of Islamization and thus transmission of Arabic to the region.

As to the words in group (2), the presence of manifestly Persian phonologic and semantic mutations on numerous Arabic terms in Malay shows that these items were adopted through the medium of Persian rather than directly from Arabic. For example, feminine nouns with the final ta marbuta ة are often, but not always, transformed to ta ت in Persian, and this feature is present in numerous Malay words (e.g. Malay selamat “wellbeing” from Arabic سلامة salāma via Persian سلامت salāmat; hakikat “truth” from Arabic حقيقة ḥaqiqa via Persian حقيقت haqiqat). Calques from Persian are also present which have been misattributed to Arabic influence. For example, Indonesian apa khabar? “How are you?” (lit. “what news”?) is in all probability a calque of Persian چه خبر če xabar? If this phrase had been calqued from a vernacular Arabic variety from the Arabian Peninsula, it would have been expected to yield a form like *apa akhbar mu, with the plural noun akhbar and the Malay second person possessive enclitic -mu (cf. a peninsular Arabic vernacular ايش اخبارك ēsh axbārek). Moreover, Arabic-derived terms in Persian that were never actually used in living Arabic must have been borrowed into Malay via Persian. For instance, Malay tamadun “civilization” originates from the Arabic verbal noun تَمَدُّن tamaddun “to become urbanized”, but must have been adopted through Persian تمدن tamaddon “civilization”, since living Arabic instead uses حضارة ḥaḍāra “civilization”, a term unknown in Persian and, by extension, Malay.

The arrival of the British and Dutch East India companies in the 18^th century heralded the end of Persianate commerce and the gradual disappearance of Persian-speakers from the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago. The subsequent introduction of steamships by the Europeans instead facilitated Malay-Indonesian contacts with sacred places and study centers on the Arabian Peninsula and in Egypt, wherefrom returning pilgrims began to spread puritanical ideas, particularly Wahhabism. Thus by the 19th century, the Malay-Indonesian world had decidedly turned its gaze toward Arabia rather than Persia, which was increasingly associated with heresy and deviant thought, especially with Shi’ism, Sufism and an abundance of Zoroastrian customs all flourishing on its soil. This, in turn, gave way to leveling of many Persian words in favor of their Arabic equivalents, as Arabic continued to be actively studied and mastered as the holy language of Islam. Words such as aftab “sun”, which were previously known in Malay, were survived only by their Arabic synonyms (Malay syamsu from Arabic شمس šams). In some cases, under prescriptive influences, Persianized Arabic words with meanings unique to Persian were supplanted by their original Arabic meanings. For example, Classical Malay logat which has the Persianized –at ending and historically held the Persian meaning of “word; dictionary” has now shifted towards the original Arabic meaning of “vernacular”, but retains its Persian phonology. In other cases however, such as sejarah “pedigree; history”, the Persian meaning was retained.

Malay	Persian	Arabic	English
umat	ommat	umma	[Muslim] community
berkat	barekat	baraka	Blessing
tamadun	tamaddon	ḥaḍāra	Civilization
sejarah	šajare “family tree”	šajara “tree”	Family tree, history
akhlak	akhlāq “character, nature”	akhlāq “morals, ethics”	Character, nature
logat	loghat “word”	lugha “idiom”	1. Word; dictionary (archaic) 2. Vernacular, idiom

Commercial and Cultural Loanwords from Persian
Nevertheless, Persian loanwords with frequent occurrence in informal speech paint scenes of close social contact between Persians and the indigenous populations of the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, and Java. This includes both positive instances of intermarriage and occasions of disagreement or quarrel. Note multiple words have undergone significant reshaping, in contrast to Arabic loans, indicating their adoption through normal language contact and transformation through high frequency use. More interesting is the conspicuous absence of Arabic loans in the informal register, including colloquialisms and explicit terms (compare Malay bedebah “damned; fuck it!” from Persian بدبخت badbakht; biadab “rude” from Persian بى ادب biadab; haram jadah from حرام‌زاده harāmzādah “bastard”; syabas from شاباش šābāš “well done!”; etc.), which further casts doubt upon the notion that Arabic was ever used for interethnic communication:

Classical Malay	Persian	English
Acar	آچار āčār	Pickle, marinade
Adat	عادت ādat	Tradition, custom
Badi	بدى badi	Bad influence (obsolete)
Bahari	بهارى bahāri “vernal”	Beautiful (obsolete)
Bakh	بخش baxš	Fortunate, happy (archaic)
Bedebah!	بدبخت badbakht	Damned, infernal; (offensive, vulgar) fuck it!
Betah	بهتر behtar	Comfortable; recovered
Biadab	بى ادب bi-adab	Rude, impolite
Bustan	بستان bōstān	Garden, orchard
Calak	چالاک čālāk	Good, outstanding; talkative
Derji	درزى darzi	Tailor
Dayah	دايه dāya	Foster mother
Dewala	ديوال divāl “wall”	Wall of a city
Dewana	ديوانه devāna	Madly in love
Geman, Gamang	گمان gomān	Afraid, frightened
Geram	گرم garm	Indignant; angry, infuriated
Gusti	كشتى kušti	Wrestling
Haram jadah	حرام‌زاده harāmzādah	Bastard
Honar	هنر honar “craft, ability”	Mischief, commotion
Kanduri	خندورى khanduri	Feast, ceremonial meal
Kawin	كابين kābin	To get married; to have sex
Keskul	كشكول kaškūl	Beggar’s bowl
Kofte	كوفته kōfta، from كوفتن kōftan “to grind”	Various spicy meatball or meatloaf dishes
Nisan	نشان nešān	Tombstone
Panja	پنجه panje	Hand
Pasar	بازار bāzār	Market
Pesona	افسون afsun “spell, incantation”	Enthralling, dazzling
Pirang	فرنگ farang “European”	Blond; of a golden brown color (Thai: ฝรั่ง fá-ràng “foreigner”)
Sanubari	صنوبرى ṣanobari “pine-like; the slender and graceful beloved”	Heart, heartstrings
Serbat	شربت‎ šarbat	A drink prepared from fruits, flower petals
Siuman	هوشمند hūšmand “intelligent, wise”	Conscious, mentally healthy
Syabas	شاباش šābāš	Bravo, well done!
Taman	چمن čaman “lawn, orchard”	Park
Tamasya	تماشا tamāšā “look, watch a spectacle”	Festival; the act of going out and looking at things

Garnet set in a gold finger ring, engraved in Pahlavi script with the Middle Persian word āfrīn, “blessing”. Reportedly found in Palembang, Sumatra (the location of the historic entrepot of Srivijaya), 7th to 9th century. Private collection, Hong Kong

On Persianate Royal Titles in the Malay World
The Islamized Austronesians incorporated Persianate court styles and military culture into their societies, although a few of these terms are today either archaic or have been rendered obsolete. Pahlawan “hero” gained a new life in the Indonesian republic as the word for a “national hero” (Pahlawan Nasional). It entered regional song as well, as in Karatagan Pahlawan, a Sundanese kawih by the composer Mang Koko Koswara from the period of the war of independence:

Classical Malay	Persian	English
Bahadur	بهادر bahādur	Hero
Cambuk	چابک čābok “horsewhip”	Whip
Dewan	ديوان dēwān	Court, council
Firman	فرمان farmān	commandment, e.g. firman Allah “the word of God”
Geta	كت kat	Dais, throne
Jin	زين zin	Saddle
Johan	جهان jahān	World; hero
Khanjar	خنجر khanjar	Dagger (Thai: กั้นหยั่น gân-yàn)
Kiani	كيانى kiāni	Throne
Kulah	كلاه kulāh	A kind of helmet, headgear
Laskar	لشكر laškar	Army, soldier
Pahlawan	پهلوان pahlavān	Hero, brave warrior
Siasat	سياست siāsat	Tactic, politic
Syah Alam	شاه عالم šāh-e ‘ālam “King of the world”	Title of the sultan of Selangor
Tajuk	تاجک tājak	Crown
Takhta	تخت takht	Throne
Tarkas	ترکش‎ tarkaš	Quiver
Zirah	زره zirih	Armor

The borrowing extended to the titles of the rulers themselves insofar as the Malay sultanates modelled their royal style on the Persianate courts. For example, the sultans of Malacca bore regnal names ending in Syah, from Persian شاه šāh: Iskandar Syah, Muzaffar Syah, Mansur Syah and Mahmud Syah. Arabic does not use šāh in its own royal titles, and could not have been the source.

Compounds such as Alam Syah were likewise received whole from Persian rather than assembled from constituent Persian and Arabic elements in Malaya. Persian had long since absorbed Arabic ʿālam “world,” which it uses as freely as native جهان jahān, while دنیا donyā, and شاه عالم šāh-e ʿālam “king of the world” was a standing epithet of Persianate kings, borne as a name by the Mughal emperor Shah Alam II. Titles built on world kingship, such as Jahāngir “world-seizer” and ʿĀlamgir, belong to Persian usage; this author knows of no Arab ruler styled malik al-ʿālam. Selangor’s capital, Shah Alam, is named after Sultan Hisamuddin Alam Shah. Even titles Arabic in grammar reflect this taste: honorifics of the type Tāj al-Dawla and Neẓām al-Molk flourished above all at the Persianate courts of the Ghaznavids and the Seljuks, and the Acehnese queen Tāj al-ʿĀlam Ṣafiyyat al-Dīn Syah (r. 1641–1675), “crown of the world,” closes her title with the Persian Syah.

The Classical Malay literary tradition as well as Islamic scholarship were marked by widespread Persian cultural influences, much like on the nearby Indian subcontinent. The enigmatic Malay Sufi poet, Ḥamza Fanṣuri (of Fanṣur, modern Barus), who flourished under the reigning Sultan ʿAlāʾ al-Din Reʿāyat Šāh (r. 1588-1604), had a thorough knowledge of Arabic and Persian. In some of his works, he quotes from the masters of classical Persian mysticism such as Šabestari, either in Persian, or in Malay translation. Notable representation of the advice genre, or naṣiḥat, also bear clear parallels to classical Persian literature. An exemplary illustration of this link is the Tāj al-Salāṭin composed by Boḵāri al-Jawhari (perhaps a native of Johor in southern Malaya) during the 17th century. This work, translated into Malay from an unidentified Persian source in the Aceh Sultanate of Sumatra, not only bears clear thematic similarities with earlier Persian compositions like Neẓām al-Molk’s Siāsat-nāma, but also incorporates Persian expressions, such as nowruz, to denote the commencement of a new year. Another work is Bustān al-Salāṭin, also composed in Aceh around the mid-17th century, by Nur-al-Din Rāniri, who was born in India and was deeply immersed in the Persian scholarly tradition. The meticulous adherence to Persian models suggests these Malay works are faithful translations. Both compositions explore the theme of the “Just King” as epitomized by Anoshervan, so that the Muslim sultans of Sumatra were instructed in kingship by the example of a Zoroastrian Sasanian shah.

Thus, while Arabic holds for Muslims a place comparable to that of Ecclesiastical Latin among Catholics, as the language of scripture and of learning, the loanwords of Malay show that this standing did not extend to the ordinary business of life. The vocabulary of seafaring and trade, of war and of kingship, is demonstrably drawn from Persian, as are many of the forms and ideas of Malay literature and Sufism, which manifest concepts and styles from Persian antecedents. Arabic furnished the terms of religious practice and law, a borrowing which needed Islamic scholars rather than an Arabic-speaking community, and it appears many of these words reached Malay by way of Persian, as their Persian forms and meanings attest. More interesting is the absence of ‘pure’ Arabic loans in the informal register, where speech between peoples leaves its clearest trace, including explicit terms (compare Malay bedebah “damned; fuck it!” from Persian بدبخت badbakht; biadab “rude” from Persian بى ادب biadab; betah “comfortable; feeling better” from Persian بهتر behtar “better”; haram jadah from حرام‌زاده harāmzādah “bastard”; lahanat “damn!” from Persian لعنت la’nat “curse, damn”; syabas from شاباش šābāš “well done!”; etc.), which raises serious doubt that Arabic was ever used as a language of communication. It seems, therefore, that Persian and not Arabic was the language in which Malays dealt with the foreigners in their ports. Even in the religious sphere, where Arabic might be expected to have prevailed entirely, a few Persian words have kept their place, among them the names for the ritual ablution and the call to prayer, which the Hui Muslims of China likewise retained from their original Persian vernacular. They show that the Islam which reached the archipelago, as it reached China, came in a Persianate form:

Malay	Persian	English
Abdas	آبدست ābdast	Ablution (wudu’); compare Hui Chinese 阿布代斯 ā-bù-dài-sī, also from Persian
Bang	بانگ bāng	Islamic call to prayer (adhan); compare Hui Chinese 邦克 bāng-kè, also from Persian
Dargah	درگاه dargāh	Shrine associated with a Muslim saint
Darwis	درویش‎ darviš	An indigent, ascetic person; a Sufi
Langgar	لنگر langar	A small mosque
Peri	پرى pari	Angel, fairy