Table of Contents

  • ALAMŪT

    B. Hourcade

    a high, isolated valley in the Alborz 35 km northeast of Qazvīn, the center of an autonomous Ismaʿili state.

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  • ALAMŪT DIALECTS

    Cross-Reference

    See QAZVĪN DIALECTS.

  • ALANS

    V. I. Abaev, H. W. Bailey

    an ancient Iranian tribe of the northern (Scythian, Saka, Sarmatian, Massagete) group, known to classical writers from the first centuries CE.

  • ĀLĀT

    F. M. Kotwal and J. W. Boyd

    “utensils,” for Parsis the “sacred apparatus” employed in Zoroastrian rituals. 

  • ALAVI, BOZORG

    Ḥasan Mirʿābedini

    (1904-1997), leftist writer and one of the most noted Persian novelists of the 20th century, whose works were banned in Iran from 1953 to 1979.

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  • ʿALAWAYH

    D. M. Dunlop

    AL-AʿSAR (“the Left-handed”), a noted singer at the ʿAbbasid court under Hārūn al-Rašīd and his successors, ca. 184-230/800-54.

  • ʿALAWĪ

    W. Kadi

    the nesba used to denote descendants, political states, or sects connected with one or another ʿAli; more particularly, it is employed to refer to a Shiʿite sect centered today in Syria.

  • ʿALAWĪ, ABD-AL-KARĪM

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-KARĪM ʿALAVĪ.

  • ʿALAWĪ, AḤMAD

    Cross-Reference

    See AḤMAD ʿALAWĪ.

  • ʿALAWĪS

    Cross-Reference

    OF ṬABARESTĀN, DAYLAMĀN, AND GĪLĀN. See ʿALIDS.

  • ʿALAWĪYAT AL-AʿSAR

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿALAWAYH.

  • ĀLBĀLŪ

    A. Parsa

    (or ĀLŪBĀLŪ), sour cherry (Cerasus vulgaris), a tree of western Asia and eastern Europe.

  • ALBANIA

    M. L. Chaumont

    an ancient country in the Caucasus (for Albania in Islamic times, see Arrān). 

  • ALBORZ

    Multiple Authors

    modern Persian name for the east-west massif in northern Iran, lying south of the Caspian districts.

  • ALBORZ i. The Name

    W. Eilers

    etymology and meaning.

  • ALBORZ ii. In Myth and Legend

    M. Boyce

    stories about the Alborz mountains in Iran and Zorastrianism.

  • ALBORZ iii. Geography

    M. Bazin, E. Ehlers, B. Hourcade

    physical relief, geology, geomorphology, climate, flora, demography and economy of the Alborz massif.

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  • ALBORZ COLLEGE

    Y. Armajani

    an American Presbyterian missionary institution in Tehran; starting as a grade school in 1873, it grew to a junior college in 1924 and an accredited liberal arts college by 1928. In 1940 it was closed and its property bought by the government of Iran.

  • ALBUQUERQUE, ALFONSO DE

    J. Aubin

    (ca. 1460-1515), admiral in the Indian Ocean (1504, 1506-08), second governor of Portuguese India (1509-15), a great conqueror, and the real founder of the Portuguese empire in the Orient.

  • ALCHASAI

    J. P. Asmussen

    a sectarian in the early Christian Church, 1st-2nd centuries CE, in the time of Trajan.