Table of Contents

  • 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.  

  • 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 the rhymes and meters of classical Persian prosody and the modernists straining to free themselves from those constricting rules (1928-1990).

    This Article Has Images/Tables.

  • 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

    an important urban oasis on the Silk Road where Buddhism flourished during antiquity.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.

  • 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).

  • AḴTAR-E KĀVĪĀN

    Cross-Reference

    See DERAFŠ-E KĀVĪĀN.

  • ĀḴŪND

    H. Algar

    (or ĀḴᵛOND), a word of uncertain etymology with the general meaning of religious scholar. Various Persian origins have been proposed for the word.

  • AḴŪND ḴORĀSĀNĪ

    A. Hairi, S. Murata

    (1255-1329/1839-1911), Shiʿite religious leader.

  • ĀḴŪND, ḤĀJJ

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿALĪ AKBAR ŠAHMĪRZĀDĪ.

  • ĀḴŪNDZĀDA

    H. Algar

    (in Soviet usage, AKHUNDOV), Azerbaijani playwright and propagator of alphabet reform (1812-78).

  • AKVĀN-E DĪV

    DJ. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    the demon Akvān, who was killed by Rostam in the Šāh-nāma.

  • ĀḴᵛOND

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀḴŪND.

  • AḴYĀR

    H. Algar

    “the chosen” (Persian, bargozīdagān), a category sometimes encountered in accounts given by Sufi writers of the unseen hierarchy known as reǰāl al-ḡayb (“men of the unseen”).

  • ĀL

    A. Šāmlū and J. R. Russell

    a folkloric being that personifies puerperal fever; the name apparently derives from Iranian āl “red.”

  • ĀL TAMḠĀ

    G. Doerfer

    “red seal,” Turkish term for the supreme seal of the Mongol Il-Khans of Iran.

  • ĀL-E ʿABĀ

    H. Algar

    “The Family of the Cloak,” i.e., the Prophet Moḥammad, his daughter Fāṭema, his cousin and son-in-law ʿAlī, and his grandsons Ḥasan and Ḥosayn.

  • ĀL-E AFRĀSĪĀB (1)

    C. E. Bosworth

    a minor Iranian Shiʿite dynasty of Māzandarān in the Caspian coastlands that flourished in the late medieval, pre-Safavid period.

  • ĀL-E AFRĪḠ

    C. E. Bosworth

    (Afrighid dynasty), the name given by the Khwarazmian scholar Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī to the dynasty of rulers in his country, with the ancient title of Ḵᵛārazmšāh.

  • ĀL-E AḤMAD, JALĀL

    J. W. Clinton

    (1923-69), well-known writer and social critic.