Table of Contents

• ARDAŠĪR II

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Sasanian king of kings, A.D. 379-83; he was deposed by the nobles in favor of Šāpūr III.

• ARDAŠĪR III

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Sasanian king (r. September, 628-29 April, 629). His father Šērōyē (Kawād II) murdered most of the Sasanian princes and died after only a brief reign.

• ARDAŠĪR MĪRZĀ

  Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī

  ROKN-AL-DAWLA, the ninth son of the crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā, b. ca.1805-06, d. 1866.

• ARDAŠĪR SAKĀNŠĀH

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  a vassal king of the first Sasanian king of kings, Ardašīr I.

• ARDAŠĪR-ḴORRA

  C. E. Bosworth

  one of the five administrative divisions (kūra) of Fārs, in Sasanian and early Islamic times.

• ARDAŠĪR-NAMA

  A. Netzer

  a matnawī of six thousand couplets in Persian by Šāhīn Šīrāzī, a Jewish Persian poet of the 8th/14th century.

• ARDAVĀN

  Cross-Reference

  (ARDAWĀN). See ARTABANUS.

• ARDERIKKA

  R. Schmitt

  name of two ancient villages.

• ARDESTĀN

  X. De Planhol, R. Hillenbrand

  a town of central Iran between Kāšān and Nāʾīn.

• ARDESTĀNI

  P. Lecoq

  the dialect spoken in the small town of Ardestān.

• ARDESTĀNĪ, ʿALĪ-AKBAR ḤOSAYNĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿALĪ AKBAR ḤOSAYNĪ ARDESTĀNĪ.

• ARDUMANIŠ

  P. Lecoq

  a Persian, son of Vahauka.

• ARDWAHIŠT

  M. Boyce

  one of the six great Aməša Spəntas who, with Ahura Mazdā and/or his Holy Spirit, make up the Zoroastrian Heptad. Of the six, Aša has the clearest pre-Zoroastrian antecedents.

• ARDWAHIŠT YAŠT

  M. Boyce

  (ORDĪBEHEŠT YAŠT), the third in the series of Avestan hymns addressed to individual divinities. It is devoted to one of the greatest of the Zoroastrian Aməša Spəntas, Aša Vahišta.

• ARDWĪSŪR

  Cross-Reference

  See ANĀHĪD.

• ARDWĪSŪR YAŠT

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀBĀN YAŠT.

• ARƎDVĪ SŪRĀ

  Cross-Reference

  See ANĀHĪD.

• ʿĀREF QAZVĪNĪ

  J. Matīnī, M. Caton

  ABU’L-QĀSEM (ca. 1300-1352/1882-1934), poet, musician, and singer during and after the Constitutional Revolution. 

• ʿĀREFĪ HERAVĪ

  Z. Safa

  a poet of the 9th/15th century contemporary with the Timurid Šāhroḵ.

• AREIA

  Cross-Reference

  See HERAT ii. HISTORY, PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD.

• ARƎJAṰ.ASPA

  cross-reference

  See ARJĀSP.

• ʿĀREŻ

  C. E. Bosworth

  the official in medieval eastern Islamic states who had charge of the administrative side of the military forces, being especially concerned with payment, recruitment, training, and inspection.

• ARFAʿ, ḤASAN

  F. Azimi

  Iranian general, born in Tiflis in 1895, the eldest son of the veteran diplomat Prince Reżā Arfaʿ.

• ARG

  J. R. Perry

  Its etymology is obscure: the term appears in Middle Persian only in the compound argbed a military rank and, though evidently in use, does not occur frequently in New Persian before the early 17th century. It is used also by Persian writers of Central Asia and northern India to designate the fortress of a city.

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• ARG-E ʿALĪŠĀH

  K. Afsar

  the remains of the Masǰed-e ʿAlīšāh, a colossal mosque built in Tabrīz.

• ARG-E KARĪM KHAN

  K. Afsar

  citadel built by the Zand ruler Karīm Khan (1163-93/1750-79).

• ARG-E TEHRĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See TEHRAN.

• ARḠANDĀB

  D. Balland

  the name of two non-contiguous administrative districts (woloswālī) in Afghanistan.

• ARḠANDĀB RIVER

  D. Balland

  a river in the south of Afghanistan, the biggest tributary of the Helmand. The present name, in the form Āb-e Arḡand, is attested from the 7th/13th century.

• ARGBED

  M. L. Chaumont

  a high-ranking title in the Parthian and Sasanian period.

• ARḠŪN

  Cross-Reference

  See ABU’L-QĀSEM SOLṬĀN.

• ARḠŪN ĀQĀ

  P. Jackson

  a Mongol administrator in Iran (d. 1275).

• ARḠŪN KHAN

  P. Jackson

  fourth il-khan of Iran (r.683-90/1284-91).

• ARIA

  R. Schmitt

  region in the eastern part of the Persian empire.

• ARIABIGNES

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  an Achaemenid prince.

• ARIAEUS

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  military commander in the army of Cyrus the Younger.

• ARIARAMNEIA

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  a city in Cappadocia mentioned in an inscription.

• ARIARAMNES

  Cross-Reference

  See ARIYĀRAMNA.

• ARIARATUS

  C. J. Brunner

  one of the three sons of the Achaemenid King Artaxerxes II.

• ARIMANIUS

  Cross-Reference

  Latin form of AHRIMAN.

• ARIOBARZANES

  M. A. Dandamayev, A. Sh. Shahbazi, P. Lecoq

  Old Iranian proper name *Ārya-bṛzāna-, perhaps signifying “exalting the Aryans.”

• ARISTAGORAS

  P. Tozzi

  tyrant of Miletus (late 6th-early 5th centuries B.C.).

• ARIUS

  Cross-Reference

  See HARĪ-RŪD

• ARIYĀRAMNA

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Old Persian proper name.

• ARIZANTOI

  C. J. Brunner

  one of the six tribes of the Median nation as listed by Herodotus.

• ʿARĪŻĪ, ABŪ ṬĀLEB ḤOSAYNĪ

  Cross-Reference

  Mughal scholar chiefly famous for his alleged discovery of Malfūẓāt-e Tīmūrī or Wāqeʿāt-e Tīmūrī, an autobiographical account of Tīmūr from the 7th to the 74th year of his life. See ABŪ ṬĀLEB ḤOSAYNĪ ʿARĪŻĪ.

• ARJĀN TOMB

  Javier Alvarez-Mon

  the late Neo-Elamite elite burial near Behbahan in southwestern Iran contains a coffin and a few artifacts and may shed new light on the discussion of Persian heritage as related to the Elamites.

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• ARJĀSP

  A. Tafażżolī

  a chief of the Iranian tribe of the Xyōns and an enemy of Kay Goštāsp, patron of Zoroaster.

• ARJOMAND, Ḵalil

  Rava Azeredo da Silveira

  At the age of 21, in Grenoble, Kalil Arjomand devised an innovative mechanism for graded motorcar acceleration. This achievement, which prefigures his later creativity, was singled out by Esmaʿil Merʾāt, then supervisor of the Iranian students in France and later Minister of Education, in his reports to Iranian authorities.

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• ARLEZ

  J. Russell

  Armenian term for a supernatural creature.

• ARMAḠĀN

  L. P. Elwell-Sutton

  a monthly literary magazine founded in 1919.

• ARMĀʾĪL

  Jes P. Asmussen

  legendary figure in the myth of Ẓaḥḥāk.

• ARMAITI

  M. Boyce

  one of the six great Aməša Spəntas in Zoroastrianism.

• ARMAVIR

  R. H. Hewsen

  one of the capitals of ancient Armenia.

• ARMAZI

  D. M. Lang

  (or ARMAZ-TSIKHE), an important royal city of Georgia.

• ARMENIA i. IMAGE OF PERSIANS IN

  Robert Thomson

  In the Sasanian period Armenians developed a self-awareness as Christians against the background of their earlier Iranian social and religious culture.

• ARMENIA ii. ARMENIAN WOMEN IN THE LATE 19TH- AND EARLY 20TH-CENTURY PERSIA

  Houri Berberian

  In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Iranian Armenians were concentrated in Azerbaijan and Isfahan. When demographic studies included the numbers of women, these were noticeably smaller than those for men, most likely because male heads of families were less apt to report about female family members.

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• ARMENIA AND IRAN

  Multiple Authors

  series of articles that covers Irano-Armenian relations in pre-modern times. 

• ARMENIA and IRAN i. Armina, Achaemenid province

  R. Schmitt

  a province (satrapy) of the Achaemenid empire; the inhabitants are called Arminiya- “Armenian.” 

• ARMENIA AND IRAN ii. The pre-Islamic period

  M. L. Chaumont

  under Darius and Xerxes had much narrower boundaries than the future Armenia of the Artaxiads and the Arsacids.

• ARMENIA AND IRAN iii. Armenian Religion

  J. R. Russell

  In the formative period the Armenians appear to have absorbed Hurrian, Hittite, and Urartian elements in their religious beliefs. Iran, however, was to be the dominant influence in Armenian spiritual culture.

• ARMENIA AND IRAN iv. Iranian influences in Armenian Language

  R. Schmitt, H. W. Bailey

  attested in written sources since the 5th century A.D. and characterized from the very beginning of the literary documentation by a large number of Iranian loanwords.

• ARMENIA and IRAN v. Accounts of Iran in Armenian sources

  M. Van Esbroeck

  Since Armenian writing itself begins only around 430, almost forty years after the disappearance of the Armenian Arsacid empire, the historians who write of Arsacid or earlier events belong to a later era.

• ARMENIA AND IRAN vi. Armeno-Iranian relations in the Islamic period

  H. Papazian

  expansion of Islam in Iran caused a big rift between Armenia, already converted to Christianity, and Iran.

• Armenians in India

  Cross-Reference

  See JULFA v. Armenians in India.

• ARMENIANS OF MODERN IRAN

  A. Amurian and M. Kasheff

  Armenians can be found in almost every major city of Iran.

• ARMENO-IRANIAN RELATIONS in the pre-Islamic period

  Nina Garsoian

  appearance of Armenian literature in the second half of the fifth century CE, in the generation which followed the great revolt of the Armenian nobles in 450 against Yazdgird II’s attempt to re-impose Zoroastrianism on their already Christian country, resulted in its almost total obliteration of Armenia’s ties to the Iranian world.

• ARMIN

  Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

  the fourth son of Kay Qobād in certain texts of the Šāh-nāma.

• ARMINA

  Cross-Reference

  See ARMENIA AND IRAN i.

• ARMOR

  J. W. Allan

  The main evidence for the form of armor used under the Achaemenids comes from Xenophon and Herodotus. Xenophon in his Cyropaedia describes the guard of Cyrus the Great as having bronze breastplates and helmets, while their horses wore bronze chamfrons and poitrels together with shoulder pieces (parameridia) which also protected the rider’s thighs.

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• ARMOR ii. In Eastern Iran

  Boris A. Litvinsky

  By the 6th, or even 7th, century BCE, the Scythian and Northern Caucasian nomads had formed a complete complex of defensive armor.

• ARMY

  Multiple Authors

  a survey from early pre-Islamic times to the mid-20th century.

• ARMY i. Pre-Islamic Iran

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  materials for a study of pre-Islamic Iranian military concerns fall into four categories: textual evidence; archeological finds; documentary representations (on monuments and objects of art); and philological deductions. 

• ARMY ii. Islamic, to the Mongol period

  C. E. Bosworth

  Arab armies which overran Sasanian Iraq and Iran in the middle decades of the 7th century A.D. comprised essentially the levée en masse of the male, free Muslim Arab cavalrymen.

• ARMY iii. Safavid Period

  M. Haneda

  Shah Esmaʿil's army was comprised of tribal units, the majority of which were Turkmen, the remainder Kurds and Čaḡatāy.

• ARMY iv. Afšar and Zand Periods

  J. R. Perry

  Nāder Shah grew up a raider, made his early reputation as a mercenary, and came to power as commander-in-chief of a fugitive Safavid claimant in Afghan-occupied Iran; by force of arms he drove out the Afghans and intimidated the Ottoman Turks and Russians who had sought to partition Iran.

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• ARMY v. Qajar Period

  Stephanie Cronin

  at the end of the 18th century, the military forces of the first Qajar ruler Āḡā Moḥammad Khan (r. 1789-97) resembled those of preceding dynasties.

• ARMY vi. Pahlavi Period

  M. J. Sheikh-ol-Islami

  While few foreign officers were employed, many cadets were sent abroad, mainly to French military academies. Consequently, the nascent military institutions were highly influenced by the style and organization which were prevalent in France.

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• ARMY vii. In Afghanistan from 1919

  L. Dupree

  Using Turkish advisers, Amānallāh Khan (r. 1919-29)  unsuccessfully tried to create a nationalist-oriented army.

• ARNAVĀZ

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  one of the mythical king Jamšēd’s sisters.

• ARNOLD, THOMAS WALKER

  B. W. Robinson

  Sir (1864-1930), British orientalist.

• ARPA KHAN

  P. Jackson

  10th Il-khan of Iran (r. 736/1335-36).

• ARRAJĀN

  H. Gaube

  medieval city and province in southwestern Iran between Ḵūzestān and Fārs.

• ARRĀN

  C. E. Bosworth

  a region of eastern Transcaucasia.

• ARRIAN

  M. L. Chaumont

  Greek historian (2nd cent. CE).

• ARROWS in Eastern Iran

  Boris A. Litvinsky

  came in use along with the bow, and the two developed in parallel. In the Bronze Age in eastern Iran, metal arrowheads of bronze were widespread, while skillfully made stone arrowheads, inherited from the earlier period, remained in use. 

• ARSACIDS

  Multiple Authors

  (Persian Aškānīān), Parthian dynasty which ruled Iran from about 250 BCE to about 226 CE.

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• ARSACIDS i. Origins

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  The various accounts of the origins of Arsaces, the founder of the dynasty, reflect diverse developments over time in political ideologies.

• ARSACIDS ii. The Arsacid dynasty

  K. Schippmann

  The rise of the Arsacids is closely linked to the history of Seleucids, who lost large parts of their Iranian possessions within a period of roughly fifteen years.

• ARSACIDS iii. Arsacid Coinage

  M. Alram

  Coins minted in Iran under the Arsacids superseded Seleucid currency in the territories successively taken from the Seleucids. In essential denominations, iconography, and script, they are markedly Hellenistic, but they also show Iranian features.

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• ARSACIDS iv. Arsacid religion

  M. Boyce

  It may reasonably be assumed that, at least from the time they seized power, the Arsacids were professed Zoroastrians.

• ARSACIDS v. The “Arsacid” era

  EIr

  As an indication of their imperial aspirations, the Parthians established their own dynastic era, beginning with the vernal equinox. The historicity of this era was proved by a Babylonian tablet equating the Seleucid year 208 with 144 of the Arsacid era.

• ARSACIDS vi. Arsacid chronology in traditional history

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  The Parthian rule lasted 474 years, longer than any dynastic period in Iranian history, but post-Sasanian sources give various figures for the duration of the Arsacid rule.

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• ARSACIDS vii. The Arsacid dynasty of Armenia

  C. Toumanoff

  Third dynasty of Armenia, from the first to the mid-fifth century. Arsacid rule brought about an intensification of the political and cultural influence of Iran in Armenia.

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• ARSACIDS viii. Military Architecture Of Parthia

  Krzysztof Jakubiak

  In the western parts of the Parthian empire, i.e., in the Mesopotamian plain, military and defensive systems and fortifications developed under a clearly strong influence of earlier civilizations that had existed in the region.

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• ARŠAK

  Cross-Reference

  See ARSACIDS.

• ARŠĀMA

  E. Bresciani

  name of several Achaemenid notables.

• ARSAMES

  Cross-Reference

  See ARŠĀMA.

• ARSANES

  Cross-Reference

  See NARSE.

• ARSANJĀN

  C. E. Bosworth

  a small town in Fārs on the northeastern fringes of the Zagros mountain massif.