Table of Contents

• ABARQOBĀḎ

  C. E. Bosworth

  Ancient town of lower Iraq between Baṣra and Vāseṭ, to the east of the Tigris, in the region adjacent to Ahvāz, known in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times as Mēšūn (Mid. Pers. form) or Maysān/Mayšān (Syriac and Arabic forms).

• ABARQUH

  Multiple Authors

  (or ABARQŪYA), a town in northern Fārs; it was important in medieval times, but, being off the main routes, it is now largely decayed.

• ABARQUH i. History

  C. E. Bosworth

  In present-day Iran, Abarqūh is situated in the tenth ostān, that of Isfahan, and forms a baḵš or district of the šahrestān of Yazd.

• ABARQUH ii. Monuments

  R. Hillenbrand

  Numerous pre-Safavid monuments survive in Abarqūh, but the lack of important later buildings suggests a sharp decline in the city’s wealth.

• ABARŠAHR

  H. Gaube

  Name of Nīšāpūr province in western Khorasan. From the early Sasanian period, Nišāpur, which was founded or rebuilt by Šāpur I in the first years of his reign, was the administrative center of the province.

• ABARSĀM

  E. Yarshater

  (APURSĀM in Middle Persian), a dignitary and high-ranking officeholder of the court of the Sasanian king Ardašīr I (A.D. 226-42).

• ABARSĒN

  C. J. Brunner

  Middle Persian form of the Avestan name Upāiri.saēna, designating the Hindu Kush mountains (Av. iškata; Mid. Pers. kōf, gar) of central and eastern Afghanistan.

• ABASKŪN

  C. E. Bosworth

  (ĀBASKŪN), a port of the medieval period on the southwest shore of the Caspian Sea in Gorgān province.

• ʿABĀʾ

  H. Algar

  (in Arabic, also ʿabāʾa and ʿabāya), a loose outer garment, generally for men, worn widely throughout the Middle East, particularly by Arab nomads. 

• ABBĀ ISAIAH

  N. Sims-Williams

  (i.e., “Father” Isaiah), late 4th century A.D., author of Christian ascetical texts; from these it appears that he was a hermit who lived in the desert of Scete in Egypt, of whom several anecdotes are told in the Apophthegmata patrum.