Table of Contents

• AGRICULTURE in Iran

  E. Ehlers

  The rural economy, for millennia the economic and social basis for all Persian governments, is characterized by a series of ecological and economic restraints that have hampered its development.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ĀHAK

  E. Ehlers, T. S. Kawami

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

• ĀHAN

  V. C. Pigott

  "iron," from prehistory to the ethnographic present.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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-eŠāh 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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 HAQQ 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 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. AYYŪB ḤĀFEẒ

  A. A. Kalantarian

  7th-8th/13th-14th architect from the city of Naḵǰavān. He constructed in Barda (Bardaʿa) a mausoleum, completed in 722/1322 according to the building inscription. 

• 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 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.

• AḤMAD KHATTŪ

  K. A. Nizami

  famous medieval Gujarati saint whose name is associated with the foundation of the city of Ahmadabad (b. Delhi, 737/1336; d. Sarkhej, 10 Šawwal 849/9 January 1446).

• AḤMAD ḴOJESTĀNĪ

  C. E. Bosworth

  military commander in 3rd/9th century Khorasan, one of several contenders for authority in the region after the collapse of Taherid rule had left a power vacuum, d. 268/882.

• AḤMAD MAYMANDĪ

  Ḡ. Ḥ. Yūsofī

  (d. 424/1032), Ghaznavid vizier, statesman, and foster brother and schoolfellow of Sultan Maḥmūd of Ḡazna (r. 388-421/998-1030).

• AḤMAD MŪSĀ

  P. P. Soucek

  8th/14th century painter. 

• AḤMAD NEHĀVANDĪ

  D. Pingree

  2nd/8th century ʿAbbasid astronomer.  

• AḤMAD QAVĀM

  Cross-Reference

  See QAVĀM-AL-SALṬANA, forthcoming online.

• AḤMAD RODAWLAVĪ

  B. B. Lawrence

  early Muslim saint of the Ṣāberīya Češtīya (d. 837/1434.

• AḤMAD ṢĀḠĀNĪ

  D. Pingree

  one of the many astronomers who worked for the Buyids in Baghdad in the 4th/10th century.

• AḤMAD SERHENDĪ (1)

  Y. Friedmann

  , Shaikh (1564-1624), outstanding Mughal mystic and prolific writer on Sufi themes. 

• AHMAD SERHENDI (2)

  Demetrio Giordani

  , Shaikh (1564-1624), Indian Sufi known as Mojadded-e alf-e Ṯāni, the Renovator of the second millennium (of Islam).

• AḤMAD SHAH DORRĀNĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See AFGHANISTAN X. POLITICAL HISTORY.

• AḤMAD SHAH QĀJĀR

  M. J. Sheikh-ol-Islami

  (r. 1909-1925), the seventh and last ruler of the Qajar dynasty.

• AḤMAD ŠĪRĀZĪ

  C. E. Bosworth

  Ghaznavid official and vizier, d. ca. 434/1043.