Table of Contents

• ALĀFRANK

  D. O. Morgan

  or ALA-FIRENG, the eldest son of the Il-khan Geiḵatu (r. 690-94/1291-95).

• ALAK-DOLAK

  H. Javadi

  the game of tipcat, played for centuries in Iran, Afghanistan, and surrounding countries.

• ʿĀLAM II, SHAH

  S. S. Alvi

  Mughal emperor (1173-1253/1759-1806).

• ʿALAM KHAN

  J. R. Perry

  viceroy of the Afsharid state of Khorasan, 1161-68/1748-54.  

• ʿALAM VA ʿALĀMAT

  J. Calmard, J. W. Allan

  banner; more particularly, the banners carried in religious processions.

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• ʿALAM, Moḥammad Ebrāhim

  Hormoz Davarpanah

  (1881-1944), one of the most eminent local magnates and landowners of the late Qajar and early Pahlavi period.

• AʿLAM, MOẒAFFAR

  Baqer Aqeli

  Sardār Enteṣār (1882-1973), provincial governor, minister of foreign affairs, military minister plenipotentiary. 

• AʿLAM-AL-DAWLA

  cross reference

  See ṮAQAFĪ, ḴALĪL KHAN.

• ʿALAM-AL-HODĀ

  W. Madelung

  leading Imamite scholar, man of letters, and naqīb (syndic) of the Talibids in Baghdad.

• ʿĀLAM-E NESVĀN

  L. P. Elwell-Sutton

  a magazine founded in Mīzān 1299 Š./September 1920, one of the earliest periodicals published by and for women.

• ʿĀLAMĀRĀ-YE ʿABBĀSĪ

  R. M. Savory

  a Safavid chronicle written by Eskandar Beg Monšī (1560-1632). 

• ʿĀLAMĀRĀ-YE ŠĀH ESMĀʿĪL

  R. McChesney

  an anonymous narrative of the life of Shah Esmāʿīl (r. 907-30/1501-24), the founder of the Safavid dynasty in Iran.

• ʿALĀMĀT-E ŻOHŪR

  Cross-Reference

  See APOCALYPTIC.

• 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), noted Persian novelist.

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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

  W. Eilers, M. Boyce, M. Bazin, E. Ehlers, B. Hourcade

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

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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. 

• ĀLČĪ

  D. O. Morgan

  (“sealer”), a Turkish term (from āl “red seal”) designating an il-khanid chancery official.

• ALDANMIŠ KÄVAKEB

  S. Soucek

  Azeri Turkish title of a narrative by Āḵūndzāda (1812-78).

• ʿĀLEMPUR, Moḥyi-al-Din

  Habib Borjian

  (Muhiddin Olimpur/Olimov), Tajik journalist, photographer, and intellectual figure who was instrumental in strengthening cultural ties among Persianate societies (1945-1995).

• ALESSANDRI

  A. M. Piemontese

  (d. after 1595), Venetian secretary and diplomat, author of an important report on Safavid Persia.

• ALEXANDER OF LYCOPOLIS

  G. Widengren

  apparently a Neoplatonic philosopher living in Egypt about 300 CE.

• ALEXANDER THE GREAT

  P. Briant

  (356-323 B.C.). Ascending the throne of Macedonia on the assassination of his father Philip II in 336, Alexander quickly took up Philip’s grand scheme to land an army in Asia and “liberate the Greek cities from the Achaemenid yoke;” but from the first his territorial ambitions appear to have reached beyond the Mediterranean horizon.

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• ALEXANDER THE GREAT ii. In Zoroastrian Tradition

  F. M. Kotwal and P. G. Kreyenbroek

  heritage of the Sasanian period includes two widely divergent storylines about Alexander, both of which were presumably transmitted by Zoroastrians and can therefore be labelled “Zoroastrian.”

• ALEXANDER, PRINCE

  G. Bournoutian

  (known in Persian as ESKANDAR MĪRZĀ), pro-Persian member of the royal family of Georgia (b. 1770, d. after 1830).

• ALEXANDRIA

  P. Leriche

  general designation of cities whose foundation is credited to Alexander the Great (356-23 B.C.).

• ALEXANDROPOLIS

  P. Leriche

  name of a number of cities. According to certain historians, these cities were founded after Alexander’s death; others call some of these same cities Alexandria.

• ALF LAYLA WA LAYLA

  Ch. Pellat

  “One thousand nights and one night,” Arabic title of the world-famous collection of tales known in English as The Arabian Nights. 

• ALFARIC, PROSPER

  H. C. Puech

  (1876-1955), French historian of religions.  

• ALFĪYA VA ŠALFĪYA

  Cross-Reference

  name given to illustrated books, in particular one by Azraqī, describing various kinds of sexual relationships between men and women. See AZRAQI.

• ʿALĪ TABRĪZĪ (calligrapher)

  P. P. Soucek

  (or MĪR ʿALĪ TABRĪZĪ), 8th/14th century calligrapher who is often credited with the invention of the nastaʿlīq script.

• ʿALĪ ʿAJAMĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿALĪ, ḴᵛĀJA.

• ʿALĪ AKBAR

  J. Calmard

  Imam Ḥosayn’s eldest son, killed at the age of 18, 19, or 25 at the battle of Karbalā on the day of ʿĀšūrā (10 Moḥarram 61/10 October 680).

• ʿALĪ AKBAR ḤOSAYNĪ ARDESTĀNĪ

  K. A. Nizami

  Indo-Muslim taḏkera writer, remembered solely for his unpublished Maǰmaʿ al-awlīāʾ, an encyclopedia of Sufi saints compiled in 1043/1633-34 and dedicated to the Mughal emperor Shah Jahān (1037-68/1628-58).

• ʿALĪ AKBAR ḴEṬĀʾĪ

  T. Yazici

  (15th-16th centuries), author of the Persian Ḵeṭāy-nāma or “Book of Cathay,” i.e., of China.

• ʿALĪ AKBAR ŠAHMĪRZĀDĪ

  M. Momen

  known as Ḥāǰǰ Āḵund, a prominent Iranian Bahāʾī (b. 1842).

• ʿALĪ AL-AʿLĀ

  H. Algar

  (d. 822/1419), also known as Amīr Sayyed ʿAlī, principal successor of Fażlallāh Astarābādī, founder of the Ḥorūfī sect.