Table of Contents

  • AHMADNAGAR

    Z. A. Desai

    major city and province in the state of Maharashtra in western India, founded about 900/1495 by Malek Aḥmad Neẓām-al-molk, a Bahmanī governor, on the site where he had earlier won a battle against his sovereign’s forces.

  • AḤMADNAGARĪ, ʿABD-AL-NABĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-NABĪ.

  • AḤMADPURĪ, GOL MOḤAMMAD

    K. A. Nizami

    (d. 1243/1827), a Panjabi saint and Češtī hagiographer.

  • AḤMADZĪ

    C. M. Kieffer

    “descendants of Aḥmad” (sing. Aḥmadzay), a Paṧtō clan and tribal name.

  • AḤRĀR

    C. E. Bosworth

    (or BANU’L-AḤRĀR), in Arabic literally “the free ones,” a name applied by the Arabs at the time of the Islamic conquests to their Persian foes in Iraq and Iran.

  • AḤRĀR, ḴᵛĀJA ʿOBAYDALLĀH

    J. M. Rogers

    (806-96/1404-90), influential Naqšbandī of Transoxania.

  • AHRIMAN

    J. Duchesne-Guillemin

    "demon," God’s adversary in the Zoroastrian religion.

  • AHRIŠWANG

    B. Schlerath

    a learned transcription of the Avestan nominative Ašiš vaŋuhī, the goddess “Good Recompense.”

  • AḤSĀʾĪ, SHAIKH AḤMAD

    D. M. MacEoin

    (1753-1826), Shiʿite ʿālem and philosopher and unintending originator of the Šayḵī school of Shiʿism in Iran and Iraq.

  • AḤSAN AL-TAQĀSĪM

    C. E. Bosworth

    a celebrated geographical work in Arabic written towards the end of the 4th/10th century.

  • AḤSAN AL-TAWĀRĪḴ

    ʿA. Navāʾī

    a chronological history of Iran and the neighboring countries written by Ḥasan Beg Rūmlū (b. 937/1530-31), a qūṛčī in the service of the Safavid Shah Ṭahmāsb.

  • AHU

    B. Schlerath

    two homonymous Avestan terms: (1) “Existence, life” in a range of religious phrases, (2) “Lord, overlord,” linked with ratu- “lord, judge.”

  • ĀHŪ

    B. P. O’Regan, H. Javadi

    Two species of gazelle occur in Iran, Gazella sub-gutturosa and G. dorcas.

  • AHUNWAR

    C. J. Brunner

    Middle Persian form of Avestan Ahuna Vairya, name of the most sacred of the Gathic prayers.

  • AHURA

    F. B. J. Kuiper

    designation of a type of deity inherited by Zoroastrianism from the prehistoric Indo-Iranian religion.

  • AHURA MAZDĀ

    M. Boyce

    the Avestan name with title of a great divinity of the Old Iranian religion, who was subsequently proclaimed by Zoroaster as God.

  • AHURA.ṰKAĒŠA

    M. Boyce

    an infrequent Avestan adjective meaning “following the Ahuric doctrine.”

  • AHURĀNĪ

    B. Schlerath

    feminine deity of the waters.

  • AHVĀZ

    Multiple Authors

    city of southwestern Iran, located in the province of Ḵūzestān on the Kārun river.

  • AHVĀZ i. History

    C. E. Bosworth

    Ahvāz was apparently a flourishing town in pre-Islamic times. When the Arabs invaded Ḵūzestān in the later 630s, after the overrunning of Iraq, the general ʿOtba b. Ḡazwān destroyed the administrative half of the town of Ahvāz but preserved the commercial one.