Table of Contents

  • ĀFĪ, ALLĀHYĀR KHAN

    Z. Ahmad

    Poet, son of Nawwāb Amīr-al-dawla, the founder of the state of Tonk (b. 1233/1817-18, d. 21 Ramażān 1278/22 March 1861).

  • ʿAFĪF

    N. H. Zaidi

    (d. ca. 1399), author of Tārīḵ-e Fīrūzšāhī, a Persian life of Fīrūz Shah Toḡloq (r. 1351-88).

  • AFIFI, RAḤIM

    Jalal Matini

    (d. 1996), scholar and author of lexical guides and handbooks of mythology. 

  • AFLĀKĪ

    T. Yazici

    author of texts on the virtues of Jalāl-al-dīn Rūmī and his disciples (13th-14th centuries).

  • AFNĀN

    M. Momen

    (“twigs” or “branches”), term used in the Bahaʾi faith (initially by Bahāʾallāh) to designate certain lines of descent in the maternal family of the Bāb.

  • AFRĀ

    A. Parsa

    Persian term for the maple tree (genus Acer), also embracing a few shrubs of the family Aceraceae.

  • AFRAHĀṬ

    J. P. Asmussen

    name attested in Syriac (ʾfrhṭ) of a number of Iranian Christian churchmen.

  • AFRAHĀṬ, YAʿQŪB

    J. P. Asmussen

    Persian bishop of the mid-4th century CE, author in Syriac.

  • AFRĀSĪĀB

    E. Yarshater

    By far the most prominent of Turanian kings, Afrāsīāb is depicted in Iranian tradition as a formidable warrior and skillful general; an agent of Ahriman, he is endowed with magical powers and bent on the destruction of Iranian lands.

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  • AFRĀSĪĀB i. The Archeological Site

    G. A. Pugachenkova and Ī. V. Rtveladze

    the ruined site of ancient and medieval Samarqand in the northern part of the modern town.

  • AFRĀSIĀB ii. Wall Paintings

    Matteo Compareti

    The Afrāsiāb wall paintings refer to 7th-century Sogdian murals, discovered in 1965 in the residential part of ancient Samarqand (Samarkand).

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  • AFRĀSĪĀBIDS

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀL-E AFRĀSĪĀB (1).

  • AFRASIYABIDS

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀL-E AFRĀSĪĀB (1).

  • AFRĀŠTA, MOḤAMMAD-ʿALĪ

    B. Sholevar and H. Javadi

    poet, writer and satirist (1908-1959).

  • ĀFRĪD

    J. P. Asmussen

    5th-century Christian bishop of Sagastān.

  • AFRĪDĪ

    C. M. Kieffer

    (singular -ay), designation of a major Paṧtūn tribe in northwest Pakistan, with a few members in Afghanistan.

  • AFRIGHID DYNASTY

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀL-E AFRĪḠ.

  • AFRIḠIDS

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀL-E AFRIḠ.

  • ĀFRĪN

    F. M. Kotwal and J. W. Boyd

    “blessing,” benedictory prayers said at the conclusion of every Zoroastrian ceremony of blessings (āfrinagān).

  • ĀFRĪNAGĀN

    M. F. Kanga

    a term for one of the outer Zoroastrian liturgical services.

  • AFŠĀN

    P. P. Soucek

    (“sprinkling”), the decoration of paper with flecks of gold and silver, sometimes called zarafšān “gold sprinkling.”

  • AFŠĀR

    P. Oberling

    one of the 24 original Ḡuz Turkic tribes.

  • AFŠĀR, AḤMAD SOLṬĀN

    Cross-Reference

    See AḤMAD SOLṬĀN.

  • AFŠĀR, ḤĀJJĪ BĀBĀ

    Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī

    court physician under Moḥammad Shah Qāǰār.

  • AFŠĀRĪ

    H. Farhat

    one of the twelve dastgāhs or modal systems of classical Iranian music. In the contemporary tradition, Afšārī is customarily classified as a derivative of the dastgāh Šūr. In fact, however, Afšārī is quite independent and possesses its own modal characteristics as well as its own forūd (cadence) pattern.

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  • AFSHARIDS

    J. R. Perry

    actual power was exercised for most of this sixty years not by the nominal ruler but by military leaders or other court factions, and for a brief time by Solaymān II, whose reign was an attempted Safavid restoration. The remaining parts of Nāder’s empire were now the sphere of the Zand dynasty in western Iran.

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  • AFŠĪN

    C. E. Bosworth

    princely title of the rulers of Ošrūsana at the time of the Muslim conquest, the most famous of whom was Ḵeyḏār (Ḥaydar) b. Kāvūs, d. Šaʿbān, 226/May-June, 841.

  • AFŠĪN B. DĪVDĀD

    ʿA. Kārang and F. R. C. Bagley

    founder of the semi-independent Sajid dynasty in Azerbaijan (r. 276/889-90-317/929).

  • AFSŪS

    M. Baqir

    (AFSŌS), the taḵalloṣ of MĪR ŠĪR-ʿALĪ, late 18th century poet and translator of India.

  • ĀFTĀB

    L. P. Elwell-Sutton

    (“Sun”), name of several Persian periodicals.

  • AFTARĪ

    G. L. Windfuhr

    the dialect of Aftar (population about 1,200), located at lat 35°39′ N, long 53°07′ E in the mountains one kilometer west of the Semnān-Fīrūzkūh road to Māzandarān. Historical phonology shows Aftarī as a Northwest (i.e. non-Perside) dialect of Iranian.

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  • AFTĪMŪN

    A. Parsa

    a medicinal herb.

  • ĀFURIŠN

    W. Sundermann

    “blessing, praise,” a technical, literary term for a category of Manichean hymns. 

  • AFUŠTAʾI NAṬANZI, MAḤMUD

    Kioumars Ghereghlou

    (d. after 1599), poet and historian of the Safavid period, author of the chronicle Noqāwat al-āṯār.

  • AFYŪN

    S. Shahnavaz

    "opium," its production and commerce in Iran.

  • AFŻAL AL-ḤOSAYNĪ

    P. P. Soucek

    painter active during the reign of Shah ʿAbbās II (1052-77/1642-66).

  • AFŻAL AL-TAWĀRIK

    Charles Melville

    title of a chronicle of the Safavid dynasty, composed by Fażli b. Zayn-al-ʿĀbedin b. Ḵᵛāja Ruḥ-Allāh Ḵuzāni Eṣfahāni.

  • AFŻAL BEG QĀQŠĀL

    W. Kirmani

    South Indian taḏkera writer.

  • AFŻAL KHAN

    W. E. Begley

    title of MOLLĀ ŠOKRALLĀH ŠĪRĀZĪ, Mughal court official (ca. 978-1048/1570-1639). 

  • AFŻAL KHAN ḴAṬAK

    J. Enevoldsen

    (b. 1075/1664-65), chief of the Ḵaṭak tribe, Pashto poet, and author ofTārīḵ-emoraṣṣaʿ.

  • AFŻAL KHAN, AMIR MOḤAMMAD

    ʿA. Ḥabībī

    (1220-84/1814-67), governor of Balḵ and for a short time ruler of Afghanistan.

  • AFŻAL-AL-DĪN KĀŠĀNĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See BĀBĀ AFŻAL.

  • AFŻAL-AL-DĪN KERMĀNĪ

    M. E. Bāstānī Pārīzī

    writer, poet, and physician of Kermān in the 6th and early 7th/12th and early 13th centuries.

  • AFŻAL-AL-DĪN TORKA

    R. Quiring-Zoche

    name of three figures from Isfahan.

  • AFŻAL-AL-MOLK KERMĀNI, ḠOLĀM-ḤOSAYN

    James M. Gustafson

    ḠOLĀM-ḤOSAYN (1862-1929), Persian historian, bureaucrat, and poet.

  • AFZARĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ABZARĪ, ḴᵛĀJA ʿAMĪD-AL-DĪN.

  • ĀḠĀ BOZORG TEHRĀNĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀQĀ BOZORG TEHRĀNĪ.

  • ĀḠĀ MOḤAMMAD KHAN QĀJĀR

    J. R. Perry

    (r. 1789-97), founder of the Qajar dynasty.

  • AḠĀČ ERĪ

    P. Oberling

    a tribe of mixed ethnic origin living in eastern Ḵūzestān.

  • ĀḠĀJĀRĪ

    J. Qāʾem-Maqāmī

    town in Ḵūzestān and district (bakš) in the county (šahrestān) of Behbahān, situated seventy-eight km to the northwest of the city of Behbahān.

  • ĀḠĀJĪ

    ʿA. Zaryāb

    title of a court official in the administrations of the Ghaznavids and Saljuqs.

  • ĀḠĀJĪ BOḴĀRĪ

    ʿA. Zaryāb

    Samanid amir and poet.

  • AḠĀNĪ, KETĀB AL-

    K. Abu-Deeb

    (“The Book of Songs”), the major work of Abu’l-Faraǰ Eṣfahānī (284-356/897-967).

  • ĀḠĀSĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀQĀSĪ.

  • AGATHANGELOS

    R. W. Thomson

    (Greek for “messenger of good news”), the supposed author of a History of the Armenians, which describes the conversion of King Trdat of Armenia to Christianity at the beginning of the 4th century CE.

  • AGATHIAS

    M.-L. Chaumont

    (b. 536/ 537-d. about 580), Byzantine historian. Among other matters, Agathias’s History treats the war which was fought between Justinian and Xusraw I (Chosroes) in Lazica in 552-56. The work contains much information of interest on the Persians in general and the Sasanians in particular.

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  • AGIARY

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀTAŠKADA.

  • ĀḠKAND

    R. Schnyder

    This ware was made by local workshops in the time of the Eldigüzids. Nothing indicates that the production survived the Mongol invasions of Azerbaijan, though similar pottery continued to be produced in the 7th/13th century in east Anatolia and north Syria.

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  • ĀḠOŠ VEHĀḎĀN

    A. Tafażżolī

    (Āḡoš son of Vehāḏ), king of Gīlān at the time of Kay Ḵosrow, the Kayanid king, and one of the commanders of his armies.

  • AGRA

    G. Hambly

    City and district center in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India, situated on the west bank of the river Jumna (Yamonā) approximately 125 miles south of Delhi.

  • AḠRĒRAṮ

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    (Av. Aγraēraθa), Turanian warrior and brother of Afrāsīāb in the Avestan yašts and in the the Šāh-nāma.

  • AGRICULTURE in Iran

    E. Ehlers

    The tendency to possess not certain, regionally fixed parts of the land but shares of the total, is made possible by the custom of splitting each property or any part of it into “ideal” or “imaginary” shares or allotments.

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  • ĀHAK

    E. Ehlers, T. S. Kawami

    “lime,” a solid, white substance consisting essentially of calcium oxide.

  • ĀHAN

    V. C. Pigott

    With the Tartar conquest of Syria, Tamerlane is said to have deported to Iran the skilled craftsmen he captured. It is suggested that from this point onward Iran supplied itself as well as India and the west with the finest damascene arms and armor, though the steel ingots still originated in India.

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  • AHAR

    ʿA. ʿA. Kārang

    the name of a county (šahrestān) and town in Azerbaijan.

  • AHAR RIVER

    ʿA. ʿA. Kārang

    Originating in the mountains of Eškanbar, Sārī Čaman and Qarāǰa-dāḡ, the Ahar river runs from east to west.

  • AHARĪ

    İ. Aka

    (8th/14th cent.), author of Tārīḵ-e Šāh Oways, dedicated to the Jalayerid ruler Oways (757-76/1356-74).

  • AHASUREUS

    W. S. McCullough

    name of a Persian king in pre-Christian Jewish tradition; it appears in the biblical books of Esther (1.1 et passim), Ezra (4.6), and Daniel (9.1) and in the apocryphal book of Tobit (14.15).

  • AḤDĀṮ, WOJŪH-E

    R. M. Savory

    fines collected in Safavid times by the officers of the night watch (aḥdāṯ), who were under the supervision of the dārūḡa.

  • ĀHĪ JOḠATĀʾĪ

    ʿA. ʿA. Rajāʾī

    Chaghatay amir, poet, and companion of Ḡarīb Mīrzā, a son of the Timurid sultan, Ḥosayn Bāyqarā.

  • ĀHI, MAJID

    Bāqer ʿĀqeli

    (b. Tehran, 1265 Š./1886; d. 22 Šahrivar 1325 Š./12 September 1946), judge, governor of Fārs, minister of justice, and ambassador to the Soviet Union.

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  • AHL-E BAYT

    I. K. A. Howard

    (Ahl al-Bayt), the “family of the house” or “household,” i.e., of the Prophet. 

  • AHL-E ḠARQ

    Nasrin Raḥimieh

    (The drowned, 1990), best-known novel of Moniru Ravanipur.

  • AHL-E ḤAQQ

    H. Halm

    “People of (the absolute) Truth,” a sect found in western Persia and some regions of northeastern Iraq; the name has also been adopted by other Islamic sects (Noṣayrīs, Ḥorūfīs) and appears to be rooted in the tradition of the extremist Shiʿites (ḡolāt).

  • AHL-E ḤAQQ ii. INITIATION RITUAL

    M. Reza Fariborz Hamzeh’ee

    The initiation ritual is one of the most important institutions in the tradition of Ahl-e Ḥaqq.

  • AHLAW

    Ph. Gignoux

    (Ahlav; written ʾhlwb), a middle Persian term which plays a fundamental role in Mazdean soteriology and which is usually translated as “just.”

  • AHLĪ ŠĪRĀZĪ

    W. Thackston

    poet (858/1454?-942/1535).

  • AHLOMŌG

    C. J. Brunner

    Middle Persian form of Younger Avestan ašəmaoγa- “one who produces confusion of Truth,” a term applied to Iranian priests who deviated from Zoroastrian doctrine.

  • AḤMAD-E ʿABD-AL-ṢAMAD

    Cross-Reference

    See AḤMAD ŠĪRĀZĪ.

  • AḤMAD ʿALAWĪ

    H. Corbin

    philosopher and author in Persian and Arabic (d. between 1054/1644 and 1060/1650). 

  • AḤMAD ʿALĪ HĀŠEMĪ SANDĪLAVĪ

    S. S. Alvi

     Indo-Persian litterateur (b. 1162/1748-49 in Sandila, a town near Lucknow; d. after 1224/1809).

  • AḤMAD B. ʿABDALLĀH

    H. Halm

    (3rd/9th century), son of the supposed founder of Ismaʿili doctrine and grandfather of the first Fatimid caliph, Mahdī.

  • AḤMAD B. ASAD

    C. E. Bosworth

    (d. 250/864), early member of the Samanid family and governor of Farḡāna under the ʿAbbasids and Taherids.

  • AḤMAD B. AYYŪB

    A. A. Kalantarian

    7th-8th/13th-14th Azerbaijani architect, one of the best representatives of the architectural school of Naḵǰavān.

  • AḤMAD B. BAHBAL

    Hameed ud-Din

    Mughal historian and author of a Persian work, Maʿdan-e aḵbār-e Aḥmadī, also known as Maʿdan-e aḵbār-e Jahāngīrī

  • AḤMAD B. FAŻLĀN

    C. E. Bosworth

    author of an extremely important travel narrative written after he had been a member of an embassy in the early 4th/10th century from the ʿAbbasid caliphate to the ruler of the Bulghars on the middle Volga in Russia.

  • AḤMAD B. ḤOSAYN

    İ. Aka

    historian of the 9th/15th century born in Yazd, author of the Tārīḵ-e ǰadīd-e Yazd

  • AḤMAD B. JAʿFAR

    D. M. Dunlop

    poet, man of letters, musician, wit, and bon vivant at the court of several ʿAbbasid caliphs, hence sometimes called al-Nadīm.

  • AḤMAD B. MOḤAMMAD

    C. E. Bosworth

    (r. 311-52/923-63), amir in Sīstān of the Saffarid dynasty (that part of it sometimes called “the second Saffarid dynasty”).

  • AḤMAD B. MOḤAMMAD B. ṬĀHER

    C. E. Bosworth

    governor in Ḵᵛārazm and son of the last Tahirid governor in Khorasan. 

  • AḤMAD B. NEẒĀM-AL-MOLK

    C. E. Bosworth

    (d. 1149-50), son of the well-known Saljuq vizier (d. 485/1092) and himself vizier for the Great Saljuqs and then for the ʿAbbasid caliphs. 

  • AḤMAD B. ʿOMAR B. SORAYJ

    T. Nagel

    Shafeʿite author from Shiraz (249/863-306/918-19)/

  • AḤMAD B. QODĀM

    C. E. Bosworth

    a military adventurer who temporarily held power in Sīstān during the confused years following the collapse of the first Saffarid amirate and the military empire of ʿAmr b. Layṯ in 287/900.

  • AḤMAD B. SAHL B. HĀŠEM

    C. E. Bosworth

    governor in Khorasan during the confused struggles for supremacy there between the Saffarids, Samanids, and various military adventures in the late 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th century, d. 307/920. 

  • AḤMAD ČARMPŪŠ

    S. H. Askari

    (ČERAMPŌŠ), Sohravardī poet-saint of 14th century Bihar (d. 26 Ṣafar 755/22 March 1354).

  • AḤMAD HERAVĪ

    D. Pingree

    one of the many eminent astronomers employed by the Buyids in the 4th/10th century.

  • AḤMAD INALTIGIN

    C. E. Bosworth

    Turkish commander and rebel under the early Ghaznavid sultan Masʿūd I (421-32/1030-41), d. 426/1035.

  • AḤMAD-E JĀM

    H. Moayyad

    a Conservative Sufi with unreserved loyalty to the Šarīʿa (1049 -1141).

  • AḤMAD-E ḴĀNI

    F. Shakely

    (1061-1119/1650-1707), a distinguished Kurdish poet, mystic, scholar, and intellectual who is regarded by some as the founder of Kurdish nationalism.

  • AḤMAD KĀSĀNĪ

    J. Fletcher

    (1461-62—1542-43), known as MAḴDŪM-E AʿẒAM, Sufi, author of about thirty religious treatises, political activist, and founding ancestor of two important saintly lineages of Naqšbandī ḵᵛāǰagān.