Table of Contents

  • AIRYAMAN

    M. Boyce

    an ancient Iranian divinity and a yazata of the Zoroastrian pantheon, known in Manichean Middle Persian as Aryaman, in Pahlavi as Ērmān.

  • AIRYAMAN IŠYA

    C. J. Brunner

    Gathic Avestan prayer.

  • AIWYǠŊHANA

    M. F. Kanga

    Avestan term “wrapping round, girdle”: (1)  a strip from a date-palm leaf used to tie bundle of wires which constitute the barsom, (2) the kusti or sacred girdle.

  • ʿAJABŠĪR

    ʿA. Kārang

    a town and baḵš in East Azerbaijan. 

  • ʿAJĀʾEB AL-DONYĀ

    L. P. Smirnova

    (“Wonders of the world” or “Wonderful things”), title of a Persian geography.

  • ʿAJĀʾEB AL-MAḴLŪQĀT

    C. E. Bosworth, I. Afshar

    (“The marvels of created things”), the name of a genre of classical Islamic literature and, in particular, of a work by Zakarīyāʾ b. Moḥammad Qazvīnī.

  • ʿAJĀʾEB AL-MAQDŪR

    U. Nashashibi

    (“The wondrous turns of fate in the vicissitudes of Tīmūr”), a history of the life and conquests of Tīmūr (1336-1405).

  • ʿAJAM

    C. E. Bosworth

    the name given in medieval Arabic literature to the non-Arabs of the Islamic empire, but applied especially to the Persians.

  • ʿAJAMĪ

    A. A. Kalantarian

    6th/12th century architect under the Eldigüzid atabegs, founder of the Nakhchevan architectural school.

  • ʿAJEZ, NARAYAN KAUL

    A. Mattoo

    Kashmiri Brahman of the 17th-18th centuries, a poet and compiler of Moḵtaṣar-e tārīḵ-e Kašmīr (1710-11).

  • ĀJĪ ČĀY

    E. Ehlers

    (Talḵa-rūd, “Bitter river”), a river some 200 km in length which flows into Lake Urumia. Due to the mountain origins of many of its source rivers and tributaries, the flow of the river shows marked seasonal variations.

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  • ʿAJIB MĀZANDARĀNI

    M. Dabirsiāqi

    19th-century poet of the Qajar court.

  • ĀJĪL

    M. Kasheff

    an assortment of nuts, roasted chickpeas and seeds such as watermelon, pumpkin, and pear, and raisins and other dried fruits.

  • AJINA TEPE

    B. A. Litvinskiĭ

    the present-day name of the mound covering the ruins of an early medieval Buddhist monastery.

  • AJMER

    F. Lehmann

    (Aǰmēr, from Skt. Ajayameru), a city in Rajasthan, western India, of great strategic, commercial, and cultural importance from the 6th/12th to the 12th/18th centuries.

  • ĀJOR

    Cross-Reference

    See BRICK.

  • ĀJŪDĀN-BĀŠĪ

    Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī

    a Persian term translating the French military title adjudant-en-chef; aide and deputy to the army commander during the Qajar period.

  • ĀKAUFAČIYĀ

    R. Schmitt

    name of a tribe resident in the southeastern part of the Achaemenid empire.

  • AḴAWAYNĪ BOḴĀRĪ

    H. H. Biesterfeldt

    4th/10th century physician who worked in Bukhara.

  • AḴBĀR AL-AḴYĀR

    B. Lawrence

    The most reliable taḏkera of early Indian Sufis, by Shaikh ʿAbd-al-Ḥaqq Moḥaddeṯ Dehlavī (d. 1052/1642).

  • AḴBĀR AL-DAWLAT AL-SALJŪQĪYA

    C. E. Bosworth

    An Arabic chronicle on the history of the Great Saljuq dynasty in Iran and Iraq.

  • AḴBĀR AL-ṬEWĀL, KETĀB AL-

    C. E. Bosworth

    (“The book of the long historical narratives”), title of a historical work by the Persian writer of ʿAbbasid times Abū Ḥanīfa Aḥmad b. Dāwūd b. Wanand Dīnavarī.

  • AKBAR FATḤALLĀH

    Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī

    prime minister of Iran from Ābān, 1299 Š./October, 1920 to Esfand, 1299 Š./February, 1921.  

  • AKBAR I

    F. Lehmann

    (949-1014/1542-1605), third and greatest of the Mughal emperors of India. 

  • AKBAR KHAN ZAND

    J. R. Perry

    (d. 1196/1782), youngest son of Zakī Khan Zand.  

  • AḴBĀR-E MOḠOLĀN

    George Lane

    an original and independent source prepared by Qoṭb-al-Dīn Širāzi on the reign of the Il-Khan Hulāgu Khan and his immediate successors, Abaqa and Aḥmad Tegüdār.

  • AKBAR-NĀMA

    R. M. Eaton

    Official history of the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akbar (964-1015/1556-1605), including a statistical gazetteer of sixteenth century North India, compiled by Abu’l-Fażl ʿAllāmī.

  • AḴBĀRĪ, MĪRZĀ MOḤAMMAD

    H. Algar

    A leading exponent of the Aḵbārī school of Islamic jurisprudence (feqh) and a violent polemicist against its opponents (1178-1233/1765-1818).

  • AḴBĀRĪYA

    E. Kohlberg

    A school in Imamite Shiʿism which maintains that the traditions (aḵbār) of the Imams are the main source of religious knowledge, in contrast to the Oṣūlī school.

  • AKES

    M. A. Dandamayev

    (Greek Akēs), a river in Central Asia, the modern Tejen or Harī-rūd (q.v.).

  • AḴESTĀN

    Ż. Sajjādī

    a late 12th-century ruler of the Šervānšāh dynasty, patron of the poet Ḵāqānī Šervānī.

  • AKHAVAN-E SALESS, MEHDI

    Saeid Rezvani

    prominent poet who holds a place of distinction between the followers of classical Persian prosody and the modernists  (1928-1990).

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  • ʿAKKĀS-BĀŠĪ

    F. Gaffary

    photographer and pioneer motion-picture cameraman (1874-1915).

  • AḴLĀQ

    F. Rahman

    “ethics” (plural form of ḵoloq “inborn character, moral character, moral virtue”).

  • AḴLĀQ AL-AŠRĀF

    P. Sprachman

    (“The ethics of the aristocracy”), a satire composed in 740/1340-41, the most important work of ʿObayd Zākānī. 

  • AḴLĀQ-E JALĀLĪ

    G. M. Wickens

    an “ethical” treatise in Persian by Moḥammad b. Asʿad Jalāl-al-dīn Davāni (15th century).

  • AḴLĀQ-E MOḤSENĪ

    G. M. Wickens

    an ostensibly serious treatise on ethics by the prolific prose-stylist Kamāl-al-dīn Ḥosayn Wāʿeẓ Kāšefī, completed in 900/1494-95.

  • AḴLĀQ-E NĀṢERĪ

    G. M. Wickens

    by Ḵᵛāǰa Naṣīr-al-dīn Ṭūsī, the principal treatise in Persian on ethics, economics, and politics, first published according to the author in 633/1235.

  • AḴLĀṬ

    C. E. Bosworth, H. Crane

    a town and medieval Islamic fortress in eastern Anatolia.

  • AḴNŪḴ

    J. P. Asmussen

    Enoch, in Manichean texts. According to the Cologne Mani Codex, the outstanding Greek Mani-vita, the prophet grew up in a Judeo-Christian environment, in the sect founded by Elkhasai in Eastern Syria about 100 CE.

  • AKŌMAN

    J. Duchesne-Guillemin

    “Evil Mind,” a term personified as a demon in Zoroastrianism.

  • AḴORSĀLĀR

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀXWARR.

  • AḴSĪKAṮ

    C. E. Bosworth

    in early medieval times the capital of the then still Iranian province of Farḡāna.

  • AḴSĪKATĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See AṮĪR AḴSĪKATĪ.

  • AḴŠONVĀR

    C. J. Brunner

    The imperfect recording in Arabic of an eastern Middle Iranian term for “king;” it is used as a proper name.

  • AKSU

    Alain Cariou

    Nowadays, Aksu is a town and major oasis of the Northwest Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Located between the southern foot of the Tien Shan Mountains (“Heavenly Mountains”) and the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, the administrative area of the city (18,184 sq km) had a population of 572,700, in 2000.

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  • AḴTĀJĪ

    D. O. Morgan

    a term, Mongolian in origin, derived from aḵtā “gelding” and meaning “groom” or, more specifically in the context of the court, “master of the horse.”

  • AḴTAR newspaper

    L. P. Elwell-Sutton

    a Persian newspaper published in Istanbul, 1876 to 1895-96.

  • AḴTAR “star"

    Cross-Reference

    See AXTAR.

  • AḴTAR, AḤMAD BEG GORJĪ

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    a poet of the era of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qāǰār (1212-50/1797-1834).