Table of Contents

• AMA

  M. Boyce

  a minor Zoroastrian divinity, the hypostasis of strength, who appears in the Avestan hymn to Vərəθraγna (Yt. 14).

• AʿMĀ

  I. Abbas

  7th-8th century poet from Azerbaijan who wrote in Arabic.

• AMAHRASPAND

  Cross-Reference

  See AMƎŠA SPƎNTA.

• AMAL AL-ĀMEL

  J. van Ess

  biographical dictionary of Shiʿite (Etnāʿašarī) scholars originating from the Jabal ʿĀmel in south Lebanon, composed by Moḥammad b. Ḥasan b. ʿAlī Mašḡarī, known as Ḥorr-e ʿĀmelī (1033-1104/1624-1693).

• ʿAMALA

  P. Oberling

  (literally: workers, retainers), the retinue of a tribal chief, and the name of a number of tribes.

• AMĀMA

  Abu’l-Qāsem Tafażżolī

  (also ʿAmāma), a village in the Lavāsān district at a distance of 39 km north of Tehran, located in a mountainous area 2,230 m above sea level.

• ʿAMĀMA

  H. Algar

  (or ʿAMMĀMA, Arabic ʿEMĀMA), the turban. Imbued with symbolic significance, the turban was once the almost universal headgear of adult male Muslims. 

• AMĀN-E AFḠĀN

  I. V. Pourhadi

  newspaper of Afghanistan during the reign of King Amānallāh (1337-48/1919-29). 

• AMĀNALLĀH

  L. B. Poullada

  (1892-1961), ruler of Afghanistan (1919-29), first with the title of amir and from 1926 on with that of shah.  

• AMĀNAT

  M. Baqir

  12th/18th century poet in Persian who imitated the style of his teacher, Mīrzā ʿAbd-al-Qāder Bīdel.

• AMĀNAT KHAN ŠĪRĀZĪ

  W. E. Begley

  (d. 1054-55/ 1644-45), designer of the calligraphy on the Tāǰ Maḥall. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• AMĀNI

  Fabrizio Speziale

  pen name of Amān-Allāh Khan, Ḵān-e Zamān, an Indo-Muslim physician and author of works on medicine (d. 1637).

• ʿAMʿAQ BOḴARĀʾĪ

  J. Matīnī

  Having attained a degree of literary prowess in his home of Bokhara he went to the Qarakhanid court in Samarkand in 460/1068.

• ĀMĀR

  Cross-Reference

  See DEMOGRAPHY.

• AMAR NĀTH

  B. Ahmad

  Persian writer and poet of the Punjab under the Sikhs (1822-67).

• ʿAMĀRA MARVAZĪ

  J. Matīnī

  Persian poet of the late Samanid/early Ghaznavid periods.

• AMARANTH

  Cross-Reference

  See BOSTĀNAFRŪZ.

• ĀMĀRGAR

  D. N. MacKenzie, M. L. Chaumont

  a Middle and New Persian word designating a person holding a particular administrative post.

• AʿMAŠ, ABŪ MOḤAMMAD

  E. Kohlberg

  SOLAYMĀN B. MEḤRĀN ASADĪ (in some sources, erroneously, Azdī) KĀHELĪ KŪFĪ, 1st-2nd/7th-8th century Shiʿite scholar, traditionist, and Koran reader.

• AMASYA, PEACE OF

  M. Köhbach

  (8 Raǰab 962/29 May 1555), treaty signed between Iran and the Ottomans and observed for some twenty years.

• AMATUNI

  C. Toumanoff

  Armenian dynastic house, known historically after the 4th century CE.

• AMAZONS

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  designation of a fabulous race of female warriors in Greek beliefs, writings, and art, fancifully explained as a-mazos (breastless or full-breasted).

• ĀMED

  Cross-Reference

  See AMIDA.

• ĀMEDĪ

  E. Kohlberg

  6th/12th century traditionist.

• ʿĀMEL

  C. E. Bosworth

  the holder of an administrative office in the pre-modern Islamic world.

• ʿĀMELĪ EṢFAHĀNĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See AḤMAD ʿALAWĪ.

• ʿĀMELĪ EṢFAHĀNĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN

  H. Corbin

  Shiʿite theologian and author (d. Najaf, 1138/1726). 

• ʿĀMELĪ, ʿABD-AL-MONʿEM

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿABD-AL-MONʿEM ʿĀMELĪ.

• ʿĀMELĪ, BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN

  Cross-Reference

  See BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN ʿĀMELĪ.

• AMƎRƎTĀT

  Cross-Reference

  See AMURDĀD.

• ʿĀMERĪ NĪŠĀPŪRĪ

  H. Corbin

  (d. 381/992), important philosopher from Khorasan between Fārābī and Avicenna. 

• AMƎŠA SPƎNTA

  M. Boyce

  an Avestan term for beneficent divinity, meaning literally “Holy/Bounteous Immortal” (Pahl. Amešāspand, [A]mahraspand).

• AMESTRIS

  R. Schmitt

  Greek form of an Old Persian female proper name.

• ʿAMĪD, ABŪ ʿABDALLĀH

  C. E. Bosworth

  known as Kolah (said to be an opprobrious term), secretary and official in northern Persia and Transoxania during the 4th/10th century.

• ʿAMĪD-AL-DĪN ASʿAD

  Cross-Reference

  See ABZARĪ.

• ʿAMĪD-AL-DĪN SANĀMĪ

  M. U. Memon

  Persian poet of India, panegyrist of Nāṣer-al-dīn Maḥmūd (r. 644-64/1246-66) and perhaps of Ḡīāṯ-al-dīn Balban (7th/13th century).

• ʿAMĪD-AL-MOLK

  Cross-Reference

  See ABŪ BAKR QOHESTĀNĪ.

• ʿAMĪD-AL-MOLK ABŪ ḠĀNEM

  Cross-Reference

  See ABZARĪ.

• AMIDA

  D. Sellwood and EIr

  Pers. Āmed (modern Dīārbakr), town situated on a plateau dominating the west bank of the upper Tigris.

• AMĪN AḤMAD RĀZĪ

  M. U. Memon

  better known as AMĪN RĀZĪ, 10th-11th/16th-17th century author of the Haft eqlīm, a famous geographical and biographical encyclopedia.

• AMĪN BALYĀNĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See BALYĀNĪ, AMĪN-AL-DĪN.

• AMĪN ḤAŻRAT

  J. Calmard

  eldest son of Āqā Ebrāhīm Amīn-al-solṭān who succeeded his father as Head of the royal pantry (ābdār-bašī), which allowed him to accompany Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah in all his travels in Iran and abroad.

• AMĪN ḤOŻŪR

  J. Calmard

  (Trustee in Presence), an official title under Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah whose successive administrative reorganizations after 1858 led to a multiplication of offices, particularly in the royal household.

• AMĪN ḴALWAT

  F. Gaffary

  (Trustee of the Shah’s private household or court), an office and title in the late Qajar period held by members of the Ḡaffārī family.

• AMĪN LAŠKAR

  J. Calmard

  (Trustee of the Army), Qajar title held by Mīrzā ʿEnāyatallāh and Mīrzā Qahramān under Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah.

• AMĪN LAŠKAR, MĪRZĀ QAHRAMĀN

  A. Amanat

  (1244-1310/1828-92), a middle rank Qajar official during the rule of Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah.

• AMĪN, ḤĀJJĪ

  M. Momen

  name given successively to two Bahaʾis who were trustees of the Bahaʾi system of religious taxation, the Ḥoqūq Allāh.

• AMĪN-AL-DAWLA, ʿABDALLĀH KHAN

  A. Amanat

  ṢADR EṢFAHĀNĪ (1779-1847), chief revenue accountant and later prime minister under Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (1797-1834).

• AMĪN-AL-DAWLA, ʿALĪ EBRĀHĪM KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿALĪ EBRĀHĪM KHAN.

• AMĪN-AL-DAWLA, FARROḴ KHAN ḠAFFĀRĪ

  F. Gaffary

  (1227-88/1812-71), a high ranking Qajar official.

• AMĪN-AL-DAWLA, MĪRZĀ ʿALĪ KHAN

  H. F. Farmayan

  (1844-1904), high ranking official in the service of the Qajar king Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah (r. 1848-96) and grand vizier under Moẓaffar-al-dīn Shah (r. 1896-1907).

• AMĪN-AL-DAWLA, MOḤAMMAD-ḤOSAYN KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See MOḤAMMAD-ḤOSAYN KHAN (forthcoming).

• AMĪN-AL-DAWLA, MOḤAMMAD-ṢĀDEQ KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See MOḤAMMAD-ṢĀDEQ KHAN MOSTAWFĪ (forthcoming).

• AMĪN-AL-DAWLA, MOḤSEN KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  MOʿĪN-AL-MOLK. See MOḤSEN KHAN.

• AMĪN-AL-MOLK

  Cross-Reference

  See PĀŠĀ KHAN.

• AMĪN-AL-MOLK, MĪRZĀ ESMĀʿĪL

  A. Amanat

  (1867-98), a high-ranking official towards the end of Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah’s reign.

• AMĪN-AL-SOLṬĀN, ʿALĪ-AṢḠAR KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See ATĀBAK-E AʿẒAM.

• AMĪN-AL-SOLṬĀN, ĀQĀ EBRĀHĪM

  A. Amanat

  (d. 1300/1882-83), influential court minister of Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah and father of ʿAlī-Aṣḡar Khan Amīn-al-solṭān.

• AMĪN-AL-ŻARB, ḤĀJJ MOḤAMMAD-ḤASAN

  A. Enayat

  (AMĪN-AL-ŻARB), custodian of the state mint under Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah, regarded as the most successful Iranian entrepreneur of his time (1253-1316/1837-98).

• AMĪN-AL-ŻARB, ḤAJJ MOḤAMMAD-ḤOSAYN

  A. Enayat

  (1289-1351/1872-1932), Persian businessman and vice-president of the first Maǰles. 

• AMĪN-E ELĀHĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ARDAKĀNĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN.

• AMĪN-E ŠŪRĀ

  Cross-Reference

  See PĀŠĀ KHAN.

• AMĪNĀ

  A. Netzer

  pen name of BENYĀMĪN B. MĪŠĀʾĪL KĀŠĀNĪ, an outstanding Jewish poet of Iran.

• AMĪNA AQDAS

  G. Nashat

  or AMĪN-E AQDAS (d. 1311/1893), one of Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah’s most powerful wives.  

• AMĪNĀ QAZVĪNĪ

  Hameed ud-Din

  also known as MĪRZĀ AMĪNA or AMĪNA-YE MONŠĪ, Mughal historian and poet of Shah Jahān’s reign.

• AMĪNĪ, SHAIKH ʿABD-AL-ḤOSAYN

  H. Algar

  also known as ʿAllāma-ye Amīnī (1320-90/1902-70), Shiʿite scholar and author of the encyclopedic al-Ḡadīr fi’l-ketāb wa’l-sonna wa’l-adab.

• AMĪNJĪ

  I. Poonawala

  eminent Ṭayyebī Ismaʿili jurist from Ahmadabad in India (d. 1567).

• AMĪR

  C. E. Bosworth

  “commander, governor, prince” in Arabic. The term seems to be basically Islamic; although it does not occur in the Koran, we do find there the related concept of the “holders of authority.”

• AMĪR ARSALĀN

  W. L. Hanaway, Jr.

  a prose romance of the genre dāstānhā-ye ʿammīāna, “popular tales,” composed by Mīrzā Moḥammad ʿAlī Naqīb-al-mamālek, the chief storyteller of Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah (r. 1848-96).

• AMĪR AṢLĀN KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See MAJD-AL-DAWLA.

• AMĪR BAHĀDOR, ḤOSAYN PĀŠĀ KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See ḤOSAYN PĀŠĀ KHAN.

• AMĪR ḤARAS

  C. E. Bosworth

  (AMĪR-E ḤARAS) “commander of the guard,” the official at the court of the ʿAbbasid caliphs and at certain of its provincial successor states who was directly responsible for policing the palace and for carrying out the caliph’s wishes.

• AMĪR ḤASAN DEHLAVĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See INDIA xiv. Persian Literature in India.

• AMIR KABIR PUBLISHERS

  EIr

  Major Persian publishing house active from 1949 to 1979.

• AMĪR KABĪR, MĪRZĀ TAQĪ KHAN

  H. Algar

  (1222-68/1807-52),  also known by the titles of Atābak and Amīr-e Neẓām; chief minister to Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah for the first four years of his reign and one of the most capable and innovative figures to appear in the whole Qajar period.

• AMĪR ḴORD

  K. A. Nizami

  Indo-Muslim author of the Sīar al-awlīāʾ  (8th/14th century).

• AMĪR ḴOSROW DEHLAVĪ

  A. Schimmel

  (651-725/1253-1325), the “Parrot of India,” the greatest Persian-writing poet of medieval India.

• AMĪR LAŠKAR

  J. Calmard

  (AMĪR-E LAŠKAR) military rank equivalent to general granted during Reżā Khan’s rise to power.

• AMĪR MOFAḴḴAM BAḴTĪĀRĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See BAḴTĪĀRĪ.

• AMĪR MOḤAMMAD AFŻAL KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See AFŻAL KHAN.

• AMĪR NEẒĀM

  A. Amanat

  (AMĪR-E NEẒĀM), the holder of the military and administrative office of emārat-e neẓām in the Qajar period.

• AMĪR NEẒĀM GARRŪSĪ

  A. Amanat

  known also as Sālār-e Laškar (1236-1317/1820-1900), officer, diplomat, statesman, and literary figure of the Qajar period. 

• AMĪR NEẒĀM, MOḤAMMAD-RAḤĪM KHAN

  Cross-reference

  (d. 1299/1882), notable of the Qajar tribe and holder of high offices under Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah. See ʿALĀʾ-DAWLA.

• AMĪR PĀDEŠĀH

  Cross-Reference

  See MOḤAMMAD AMĪR B. MAḤMŪD.

• AMIR PĀZVĀRI

  Habib Borjian and Maryam Borjian

  semi-legendary poet of Māzandarān.

• AMĪR ŠAHĪD

  Cross-Reference

  (AMĪR-E ŠAHĪD). See ABŪ NAṢR AḤMAD.

• AMĪR SAYYED ʿALĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿALĪ AL-AʿLĀ.

• AMĪR TŪMĀN

  J. Calmard

  (AMĪR-E TŪMĀN) commander of 10,000 men, a military rank originally used by the Il-khanids in the 7th/13th century.

• AMĪR-AL-MOʾMENĪN

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿALĪ B. ABĪ ṬĀLEB.

• AMĪR-AL-OMARĀʾ

  C. E. Bosworth, R. M. Savory

  literally, “commander of commanders,” hence “supreme commander,” a military title found from the early 4th/10th century onwards, first in Iraq and then in the Iranian lands.

• AMIR-AʿLAM

  Bāqer ʿĀqeli

  (1861-1961), university professor, representative and deputy speaker of the Majles, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, senator, minister, and founder of the Red Lion and Sun, an organization corresponding to the Red Cross.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• AMIR-ṬAHMĀSEBI, ʿAbd-Allāh

  Bāqer ʿĀqeli

  (1881-1928), Major General, Army Commander and Governor of Azerbaijan, Minister of War, Minister of Public Utilities and Commerce.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• AMĪRAK BALʿAMĪ

  Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

  name given to ABŪ ʿALĪ MOḤAMMAD, vizier of the Samanids.

• AMĪRAK BAYHAQĪ

  C. E. Bosworth

  (d. 448/1056), intelligence officer in Khorasan under the early Ghaznavids.

• AMĪRAK ṬŪSĪ

  Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

  4th/10th century notable of the ʿAbd-al-Razzāqī family of Ṭūs.

• AMIRDOVLATʿ AMASIATSʿI

  Avedis K. Sanjian

  (b. Amasya ca. 1420/25; d. Bursa, 1496), Armenian physician at the Ottoman court and author of Angitats Anpet, an encyclopedic polyglot in six languages including Persian.

• AMIRI, YUSOF

  ANDRÁS BODROGLIGETI

  Persian-Chaghatay poet of the first half of the 15th century. 

• AMĪRḴĪZĪ, ESMĀʿĪL

  Ī. Afshar

  Iranian man of letters, poet, and political activist, born in the Amīrḵīz quarter of Tabrīz in December 1877.

• AMITĀYUS

  R. E. Emmerick

  Sanskrit name of one of the transcendental Buddhas, the so-called Dhyāni-Buddhas, of later Buddhism. 

• AMLĀK

  E. Hooglund

  (plural of melk), privately owned agricultural estates; the term (of Arabic origin) designates a form of rural land tenure pattern that existed simultaneously in Iran with various other types of land holdings over several centuries. 

• AMLĀK-E ḴĀṢṢA

  Cross-Reference

  See ḴĀLEṢA.

• AMLAŠ

  Multiple Authors

  i. Geography.  ii. Excavations.

• AMLAŠ ii. Excavations

  R. H. Dyson

  small village in southeastern Gilān which, since 1959, has given its name to a large assortment of archeological artifacts derived from illegal, clandestine excavations in the nearby valleys of the Alborz range.

• AMLAŠ i. Geography

  Marcel Bazin

  small town and district in the southeastern part of Gilān Province.

• ʿĀMMA

  E. Kohlberg

  (pl. ʿawāmm), a common Emāmī Shiʿite appellation for the Sunnites. 

• ʿAMMĀRA

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿAMĀRA.

• ʿAMMĀRLŪ

  P. Oberling

  a Kurdish tribe of Gīlān and Khorasan. 

• AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS

  M. L. Chaumont

  historian who provides important information on the Sasanians (b. ca. 330-35).

• AMMITMANYA

  M. Mayrhoffer

  an Iranian, to whom were entrusted 215 (?) BAR of grain provided for provisions at Tukraš.

• AMMŌ, MĀR

  J. P. Asmussen

  Manichean apostle, outstanding figure in the missionary history of Manicheism during the 3rd century CE.

• AMOGHAPĀŚAHṚDAYA

  R. E. Emmerick

  “the heart or essence of the Amoghapāśa ritual,” the name of a Buddhist text belonging to the Mahayanist Tantric tradition. 

• ĀMOL

  C. E. Bosworth, S. Blair, E. Ehlers

  a town on the Caspian shore in the southwest of the modern province of Māzandarān, medieval Ṭabarestān.

• ĀMOL (ĀMŪYA)

  C. E. Bosworth

   town situated three miles from the left bank of the Oxus river (Āmū Daryā).

• AMOL WARE

  Y. Crowe

  a type of incised pottery apparently dating from the 12th-13th centuries.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ĀMOLI

  David O. Morgan

  Shiʿite scholar and author, died at Shiraz in 1352-53, when it was under the control of the Inju ruler Abu Esḥāq Jamāl-al-Din.

• ĀMOLĪ, SAYYED BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN

  E. Kohlberg

  early representative of Imamite theosophy (b. 720/1320, or perhaps 719/1319).

• ĀMORAʾĪ

  P. Lecoq

   the dialect spoken in Āmora, a village in the šahrestān of Tafreš.

• AMORDĀD

  Cross-Reference

  See AMURDĀD.

• AMORGES

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Greek form of the name of several notable Iranians of the Achaemenid period.

• AMPELIUS, LUCIUS

  Philip Huyse

  author of a short encyclopaedic work Liber memorialis in fifty chapters covering such diverse subjects as cosmography (and astronomy), geography and ethnography, theology and especially history.

• AMPHIBIANS

  S. C. Anderson

  Twenty species occur in Iran: six salamanders in three genera in two families and fourteen frogs and toads in four genera in four families. The amphibian fauna is most diverse in the northwestern provinces, which have the greatest rainfall and running water throughout the year. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ʿAMR B. LAYṮ

  C. E. Bosworth

  ṢAFFĀRĪ, military commander and second ruler of the Saffarid dynasty of Sīstān (r. 879-900).

• ʿAMR B. ʿOBAYD

  J. van Ess

  early Muʿtazilite theologian and traditionist (d. probably 144/761).

• ʿAMR B. YAʿQŪB

  C. E. Bosworth

  great-grandson of the co-founder of the Saffarid dynasty and ephemeral boy amir in Sīstān, 299-301/912-13.

• AMR BE MAʿRŪF

  W. Madelung

  Arabic al-amr be’l-maʿrūf wa’l-nahy ʿan al-monkar “enjoining what is proper or good and forbidding what is reprehensible or evil,” one of the principle religious duties in Islam.  

• AMRANLU

  P. Oberling

  a small Turkic tribe which has settled down in the village of Galūgāh in Māzandarān.  

• AMRĪ ŠĪRĀZĪ

  I. K. Poonawala

  (d. 999/1590-91 [?], poet and Sufi from Kūhpāya, a village near Isfahan.

• AMṚTAPRABHADHĀRAṆĪ

  R. E. Emmerick

  name given by H. W. Bailey to a fifty-line text in Late Khotanese.

• ĀMŪ DARYĀ

  B. Spuler

  river about 2,500 km long, regarded in ancient times as the boundary between Iran and Tūrān.

• ʿAMŪOḠLĪ, ḤAYDAR KAN

  Cross-reference

  (ʿAMOḠLĪ). See ḤAYDAR KHAN ʿAMŪOḠLĪ.

• AMURDĀD

  M. Boyce

  one of the seven great Aməša Spəntas of Zoroastrianism, the hypostasis of the concept of “not dying,” that is Long Life on this earth or Immortality in the hereafter.

• ĀMŪYA

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀMOL.

• AMYRTAEUS (II)

  E. Bresciani

  “The God Ammon has given him”, King of Egypt, 404-398 B.C., the only member of Manetho’s 29th dynasty.

• AMYTIS

  R. Schmitt

  Median and Persian female name.

• AN LU-SHAN

  E. G. Pulleyblank

  frontier general of mixed Sogdian and Turkish ancestry who rose to high rank during the latter part of the reign of Hsüan-tsung (713-56).

• AN SHIH-KAO

  E. G. Pulleyblank

  or An Ch’ing, the earliest known translator of Buddhist texts into Chinese. 

• AN-HSI

  E. G. Pulleyblank

  name by which the Parthian empire was known to the Chinese, a transcription of Aršak-, the name of the Parthian ruling house.

• ANABASIS

  R. Schmitt

   title of ancient campaign accounts stylistically influenced by the so-called Periplus books.

• ANĀHĪD

  M. Boyce, M. L. Chaumont, C. Bier

  Mid. Pers. form of the name of the Iranian goddess Anāhitā.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ANĀMAKA

  R. Schmitt

  name of the tenth month (December-January) of the Old Persian calendar.

• ANAND RAM MOKLES

  B. Ahmad

  Chronicler, lexicographer, and poet of the later Mughal period (1111-64/1699-1750.

• ĀNANDRĀJ, FARHANG-E

  Cross-Reference

  Persian dictionary by Monšī Moḥammad Bādšāh, completed in 1306/1888. See FARHANG-E ĀNANDRĀJ.

• ANANTAMUKHANIRHĀRADHĀRAṆĪ

  R. E. Emmerick

  the name of a Buddhist text belonging to the Mahayanist Tantric tradition. 

• ANAPHAS

  R. Schmitt

  Persian male name.

• ANĀRAK

  C. E. Bosworth

  a baḵš and its town on the southern fringes of the Dašt-e Kavīr.

• ANĀRAKI

  G. L. Windfuhr

  the dialect of Anārak, a town with 2,100 inhabitants in the Bīābānak region northeast of the city of Nāʾīn.

• ANATOLIA

  Cross-Reference

  and its relations with Iran: see Asia Minor.

• ANAW

  T. C. Young, Jr., G. A. Pugachenkova

  village and archeological site at the foot of the Kopet-Dag mountains east of Ashkhabad in Soviet Turkestan.

• ANA’L-ḤAQQ

  A. Schimmel

  “I am the Truth,” the most famous of the Sufi šaṭḥīyāt (ecstatic utterances, or paradoxes).

• ʿANBAR

  Ž. Mottaḥedīn

  (ambergris), a waxy, aromatic substance produced in the intestines of stomach of the sperm whale and used in perfumery.

• ANBĀR

  M. Morony

  (Pers. term meaning granary), a town on the left bank of the Euphrates five km northwest of Fallūǰa and sixty-two km west of Baghdad. 

• ANBAR

  C. E. Bosworth

  (or ANBĪR), a town of the medieval Islamic province of Gūzgān or Jūzǰān in northern Afghanistan, probably to be identified with the modern Sar-e Pol.  

• ʿANBARĀN

  Marcel Bazin

  a township and district (baḵš) in the Namin sub-provincial district (šahrestān) of Ardabil Province.

• ANBARĀNĪ Dialect

  Cross-Reference

  See ṬĀLEŠĪ.

• ʿANBARĪ, ABU’L-ʿABBĀS

  C. E. Bosworth

  4th-5th/10th-11th century poet and prose stylist of Khorasan and statesman in the service of the Qarakhanids.

• ANBARĪĀN FAMILY

  C. E. Bosworth

  a distinguished family of officials, littérateurs, ʿolamāʾ, and traditionists from Bayhaq (modern Sabzavār).

• ANBARIN QALAM, ‘ABD-AL-RAḤĪM

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿABD-AL-RAḤĪM ʿANBARĪN QALAM.

• ANCIENT LETTERS

  N. Sims-Williams

  Sogdian paper documents discovered in 1907 by Sir Aurel Stein.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ʿANDALIB, NĀṢER MOḤAMMAD

  A. Schimmel

  Sufi writer (b. in Delhi 1105/1693-94, d. 1172/1759).

• ANDĀMEŠ

  Cross-Reference

  See ANDĪMEŠK; DEZFŪL.

• ANDARĀB

  C. E. Bosworth

  or ANDARĀBA, the name of a river and a town situated upon it in northern Afghanistan.

• ANDARĪMĀN

  Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

  the name of a number of Turanian heroes in the Šāh-nāma.

• ANDARUN

  M. A. Djamalzadeh

  or ANDARŪNĪ (inside), the private quarters of well-to-do houses in contrast to bīrūnī. the public rooms usually reserved for men.

• ANDARWAYWAZĪG

  C. J. Brunner

  Middle Persian term for “acrobat, tumbler” (lit. “one who plays in the air”).

• ANDARZ

  S. Shaked, Z. Safa

  “precept, instruction, advice”: the literary genre in pre-Islamic and New Persian literatures.

• ANDARZBAD

  M. L. Chaumont

  Sasanian administrative title meaning “chief advisor” for a city.

• ANDARZGAR

  J. P. Asmussen

  Mid. Pers. term, “counselor, teacher.”

• ANDEJĀN

  C. E. Bosworth

  town in in the medieval Islamic province of Farḡāna, modern Russian Andizhan, in the easternmost part of the in the easternmost part of Uzbekistan.

• ANDIJAN UPRISING

  Anke von Kuegelgen

  On the night of 9 Muḥarram 1316/30 May 1898, a group of about 2,000 poorly armed men attacked the 4th and 5th Russian Companies on the outskirts of Andijan under the leadership of the Naqšbandi Sufi Shaykh Dukči Išān (Muḥammad ʿAli Madali, ca. 1856-1898). 

• ANDĪMEŠK

  X. De Planhol

  (also ANDĀMEŠ, ANDĀLMEŠK), the name of medieval Dezfūl.

• ANDḴŪY

  D. N. Wilber

  a commercial town in northwestern Afghanistan.

• ANDRAGORAS

  R. N. Frye

  Seleucid satrap of Parthia and Hyrcania, known primarily from his coins.

• ANDREAS, FRIEDRICH CARL

  W. Lentz, D. N. MacKenzie, B. Schlerath

  German Iranologist (1846-1930).

• ANĒRĀN

  Ph. Gignoux

  “non-Iran,” Middle Persian ethno-linguistic term generally used pejoratively to denote a political and religious enemy of Iran and Zoroastrianism.  

• ANGAJĪ, ḤĀJJ MĪRZĀ ABŪ’L-ḤASAN

  H. Algar

  (1282-1357/1865-1939), a leading moǰtahed of Tabrīz, politically active during both the Constitutional Revolution and the reign of Reżā Shah.

• ANGALYŪN

  J. P. Asmussen

  Persian rendering of the title of the Gospel of Mani.

• ANGIOLELLO , GIOVANNI MARIA

  A. M. Piemontese

  (or DEGLI ANGIOLELLO) (1451-ca. 1525), Venetian adventurer, merchant, and author of an important historical report on the Aq Qoyunlū and early Safavid Persia.

• ANGLO-AFGHAN RELATIONS

  J. A. Norris

  a survey from the earliest times to the death of the last Bārakzay ruler in 1357 Š./1978.

• ANGLO-AFGHAN TREATY OF 1905

  J. A. Norris

  an agreement pertaining to British control of Afghan foreign policy and related matters.

• ANGLO-AFGHAN TREATY OF 1921

  L. W. Adamec

  the outcome of peace negotiations following the Third Anglo-Afghan War. 

• ANGLO-AFGHAN WARS

  J. A. Norris, L. W. Adamec

  First Anglo-Afghan War (1838-42), Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-80),  Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919).

• ANGLO-IRANIAN AGREEMENT

  Cross-Reference

  See ANGLO-PERSIAN AGREEMENT.

• ANGLO-IRANIAN RELATIONS

  Multiple Authors

  This series of articles covers relations between England and Iran from the Safavid to the Pahlavi periods. 

• ANGLO-IRANIAN RELATIONS i. Safavid to Zand Periods

  R. W. Ferrier

  English interest in Persia during this period is almost exclusively concerned with trade and has almost nothing to do with political relations. Relations arose as the result of a failure to trade eastwards through Russia and Central Asia in the mid-16th century by merchants of the Russia Company, which, though formed in London on 26 February 1555, had already dispatched their first voyage of three ships by the northeastern route round Russia on 18 May 1553.

• ANGLO-IRANIAN RELATIONS ii. Qajar period

  F. Kazemzadeh

  Before the 19th century Anglo-Iranian relations were sporadic. Periods of engagement alternated with decades of disengagement. After the death of Karīm Khan Zand (1193/1779) contacts between Britain and Iran diminished and were maintained with regularity only in the Persian Gulf as the center of government authority moved north.

• ANGLO-IRANIAN RELATIONS iii. Pahlavi period

  R. W. Ferrier

  For most of the 20th century relations have been dominated politically by the modernization and revival of Iran under the stimulus of Reżā Shah and his son and successor Moḥammad Reżā Shah, strategically by Iran’s proximity to the Soviet Union, and economically by Iranian oil.

• ANGLO-IRANIAN WAR

  Cross-Reference

  See ANGLO-PERSIAN WAR.

• ANGLO-PERSIAN AGREEMENT OF 1919

  N. S. Fatemi

  provisional agreement made between the British and the Persian governments which, if ratified, would have granted the British a paramount position of control over the financial and military affairs of Iran. 

• ANGLO-PERSIAN OIL COMPANY

  F. Kazemi

  (ŠERKAT-E NAFT-E ENGELĪS O IRAN), a British company formed to extract and market oil in the oil fields of southwestern Iran.  

• ANGLO-PERSIAN WAR (1856-57)

  J. Calmard

  Following their defeat in the Russo-Persian wars of 1219-28/1804-13 and 1242-44/1826-28, the Qajars, tried to compensate for their losses by reasserting Persia’s control over western Afghanistan.

• ANGLO-RUSSIAN AGREEMENT OF 1873

  J. A. Norris

  an attempt by the Foreign Offices of London and St. Petersburg to define the northern boundary of Afghanistan.

• ANGLO-RUSSIAN CONVENTION OF 1907

  F. Kazemzadeh

  an agreement relating to Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet.

• ANGRA MAINYU

  Cross-Reference

  See AHRIMAN.

• AṄGULIMĀLĪYA-SŪTRA

  R. E. Emmerick

  a Buddhist text concerning the conversion to Buddhism of a robber called Aṅgulimāla.

• ANGŪR

  M. Bazin, X. de Planhol, W. L. Hanaway, Jr

  "grapes."   The grape-vine is probably the oldest and best known of the cultivated fruit plants grown in Iran.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ANHALT CARPET

  M. H. Beattie

  a medallion rug possibly made in Tabrīz.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ANIMAL HUSBANDRY

  Cross-Reference

  See DĀM DĀRĪ. 

• ANĪRĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See ANĒRĀN.

• ANĪS

  L. Pourhadi

  a daily Kabul newspaper, in Darī (Persian), with some articles in Pashto.  

• ANĪS AL-ʿOŠŠĀQ

  G. M. Wickens

  a small handbook of the imagery traditionally used in Persian love poetry, by Ḥasan b. Moḥammad Šaraf-al-din Rāmi (sometimes Zāmi), d. 795/1393.

• ANĪS AL-ṬĀLEBĪN WA ʿODDAT AL-SĀLEKĪN

  H. Algar

  one of the most important sources extant for the life and dicta of Bahāʾ-al-dīn Naqšband, eponymous founder of the Naqšbandī Sufi order.

• ANĪS-AL-DAWLA

  G. Nashat

  (d. 1314/1896-97), the most important wife of Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah Qāǰār.

• ANJEDĀN

  F. Daftary

  village located 37 km east of Arāk (former Solṭānābād) in Markazī province.

• ANJOMAN (Newspaper)

  L. P. Elwell-Sutton

  a newspaper published in Tabrīz in February-March 1907 by the Anǰoman-e Mellī of Tabrīz, which had previously published Rūz-nāma-ye mellī and Jarīda-ye mellī.

• ANJOMAN (Organization)

  M. Bayat, H. Algar, W. L. Hanaway, Jr.

  (“gathering, association, society”), general designation of many private and public associations.

• ANJOMAN-E ĀṮĀR-E MELLĪ

  ʿĪ. Ṣadīq

  (AAM), The National Monuments Council of Iran, established in 1301 Š./1922 to promote interest in and to preserve Iran’s cultural heritage.  

• ANJOMAN-E EṢFAHĀN

  L P. Elwell-Sutton

   a weekly paper founded in Isfahan on 21 Ḏu’l-qaʿda 1324/6 January 1906.

• ANJOMAN-E ESMĀʿĪLI

  F. Daftary

  (Ismaʿili Society), a research institution founded on 16 February 1946 in Bombay, India, under the patronage of the third Aqa Khan.

• ANJOMAN-E EYĀLĀTI-E TABRIZ

  Mansoureh Ettehadieh

  the provincial council (anjoman) of Tabriz organized during the early phase of the Constitutional Revolution, in 1324/1906.

• ANJOMAN-E FALSAFA WA ʿOLŪM-E ENSĀNĪ

  EIr

  (Iranian Society for Philosophy and Humanistic Sciences), formed in 1949 as a regional branch of the International Council of Philosophy and Humanistic Sciences, a UNESCO affiliate.

• ANJOMAN-E KALĪMĪĀN

  A. Netzer

  (JEWISH ASSOCIATION), name given to the Jewish Association of Tehran in the 1930s, and to the Jewish Association of Iran since 1974.

• ANJOMAN-E KETĀB

  I. Afshar

  (the Book Society of Iran), founded in 1957 in Tehran by Ehsan Yarshater  in collaboration with Iraj Afshar (Īraǰ Afšār), ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Zarrīnkūb, and a number of concerned scholars, to foster interest in good publications.

• ANJOMAN-E MAʿĀREF

  ʿA. Anwār

  (Society or Council of Education), a society founded in Šawwāl, 1315/February-March, 1898 under the patronage of the then prime minister Ḥāǰǰ Mīrzā ʿAlī Khan Amīn-al-dawla in order to promote the cause of Western-type education in Iran.

• ANJOMAN-E OḴOWWAT

  ʿA. Anwār and EIr

  (or OḴŪWAT) “The Society of Brotherhood,” a non-political Sufi-type society officially founded on 15 Šabʿān 1317/21 December 1899 by Mīrzā ʿAlī Khan Ẓahīr-al-dawla to promote the ideals of equity and brotherhood in Iran.

• ANJOMAN-E SAʿĀDAT

  H. Algar

  (The Association of Felicity), an organization of Iranians resident in Istanbul, devoted to furthering the cause of the Iranian constitution between 1908 and 1912.  

• ANJOMAN-E TABLĪḠĀT-E ESLAMĪ

  H. Algar

  (The Society of Islamic Propagation), an Islamic cultural and educational society established in 1941 by ʿAṭāʾallāh Šehābpūr. 

• ANJOMAN-E TĀRĪḴ-E AFḠĀNESTĀN

  R. Farhādī

  (Historical Society of Afghanistan), founded in 1942  to disseminate information about the history of Afghanistan by conducting research, promoting scholarship, and publishing scholarly works.

• ANJOMAN-E VELĀYATI

  ʿAli Reżā Abtaḥi

  (Provincial Council) of Isfahan, set up subsequent to the establishment of the Parliament (majles) to secure the aims of the Constitutional Revolution.

• ANJOMAN-E ZARTOŠTĪĀN

  M. Kasheff

  (Society of Zoroastrians), the designation of formally instituted Zoroastrian associations in Iran.

• ANJOMANĀRĀ, FARHANG-E

  R. ʿAfīfī

  Persian-language dictionary compiled by Reżā-qolī Khan Hedāyat (1215-88/1800-71) known as Lala-bāšī.

• ʿANKABŪTĪĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See ARACHNIDS.

• ANKLESARIA, BAHRAMGORE TAHMURAS

  K. M. JamaspAsa and M. Boyce

  (1873-1944), Parsi scholar, son of Tahmuras Dinshah Anklesaria, born and educated in Bombay.

• ANKLESARIA, PESHOTAN KAVASHAH

  K. M JamaspAsa and M. Boyce

  (1928-69), Parsi priest and scholar born at Broach.  

• ANKLESARIA, TAHMURAS DINSHAH

  K. M. Jamaspasa and M. Boyce

  (1842-1903), Parsi priest and scholar.

• ʿANNAZIDS

  K. M. Aḥmad

  (BANŪ ʿANNĀZ), a Kurdish dynasty (r. ca. 380-510/990-1117).

• ANŌŠAG-RUWĀN

  C. J. Brunner

  "of immortal soul", originally a respectful euphemism, becoming in the Islamic period an aristocratic proper name.

• ANŌŠAZĀD

  Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

  (in the Šāh-nāma, Nōšzād; the name means “son of the immortal”), a son of Ḵosrow I Anōšīravān and leader of a revolt in ca. 550 CE.

• ANŌŠĪRAVĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See ḴOSROW I.

• ANQARAVĪ, ROSŪḴ-AL-DĪN

  H. Algar

  (also known as Rosūḵī Dede; d. 1041/1631), a shaikh in the Mawlawī order and author of the most important traditional commentary on theMaṯnawī of Jalāl-al-dīn Rūmī.

• ANQUETIL-DUPERRON

  J. Duchesne-Guillemin

  (1731-1805), French orientalist, born in Paris on 7 December 1731. In June, 1759, he was able to send news to Paris that he had completed (in three months) a translation of that Vendidad.

• ANṢARĪ, ʿALĪ-QOLĪ KHAN

  M. Kasheff

  MOŠĀWER-AL-MAMĀLEK (1868-1940), a career diplomat under the late Qajars. 

• ANṢĀRĪ, ḴᵛĀJA ʿABDALLĀH

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿABDALLĀH ANṢĀRĪ.

• ANṢĀRĪ, MĪRZĀ SAʿĪD KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  MOʾTAMEN-AL-MOLK. See MOʾTAMEN-AL-MOLK.

• ANṢĀRĪ, SHAIKH MORTAŻĀ

  S. Murata

  B. MOḤAMMAD AMĪN (1799-1864), 1799-1864), important author of works on feqh.

• ANSHAN

  J. Hansman

  (or ANZAN), the name of an important Elamite region in western Fārs and of its chief city.

• ANṬĀKĪYA

  Cross-Reference

  See ANTIOCH.

• ANTHROPOLOGY

  B. Spooner

  (Persian mardomšenāsī), social and cultural, in Iran and Afghanistan.

• ANTHROPOMORPHISM

  J. Duchesne-Guillemin

  in Iranian religions. Ahura Mazdā in the Gāthās was conceived of, although invisible and immortal, as of human form, with eyes, hands, and tongue; but he was of gigantic size. 

• ANTI-ALBORZ

  B. Hourcade

  the highland between Tehran and Semnān on the southern flank of the central Alborz range.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ANTIA, EDULJI KERSASPJI

  K. M. JamaspAsa and M. Boyce

  (1842-1913/1212-83 yazdegerdi), Parsi scholar, born of priestly stock in Navsari in Gujarat.

• ANTIOCH (1)

  M. L. Chaumont

  town in northern Syria founded in 300 B.C. by Seleucus I Nicator. It was the capital of the Seleucids and became one of the main centers of caravan traffic.

• ANTIOCH (2)

  J. Hansman

  city name given to a number of Seleucid foundations.

• ANTIOCHUS

  J. Sievers

  name of thirteen kings of the Seleucid dynasty, several of whom were active in Iran.

• ANTIOCHUS OF COMMAGENE

  G. Widengren

  (full title: Theos Dikaios Epiphanes Philoromaios Philhellen, Theos signifying his divinity), 1st-century BC Seleucid ruler.

• ANTONY, MARK

  M. L. Chaumont

  Roman general (ca. 82-30 B.C.) who led a campaign in Armenia during the Parthian period.

• ANŪŠA MOḤAMMAD

  G. L. Penrose

  B. ABU’L-ḠĀZĪ, ABU’L-MOẒAFFAR, Khan of Ḵīva 1663-87.

• ANUŠAWAN

  J. R. Russell

  grandson of Ara, legendary king of Armenia, called sawsanuēr “devoted to the plane tree.”

• ANŪŠERVĀN

  C. E. Bosworth

  B. MANŪČEHR B. QĀBŪS, ruler of the Daylamī dynasty of the Ziyarids in Ṭabarestān and Gorgān during the early 11th century.

• ANŪŠERVĀN KĀŠĀNĪ

  C. E. Bosworth

  , ABŪ NAṢR ŠARAF-AL-DĪN, high official who served the Great Saljuq sultans and the ʿAbbasid caliph during the first half of the 6th/12th century.

• ANŪŠTIGIN ḠARČAʾĪ

  C. E. Bosworth

  Turkish slave commander of the Saljuqs; in the late 11th century, he bore the traditional title of Ḵᵛārazmšāh.

• ANWĀR, SHAH QĀSEM

  Cross-Reference

  SHAH QĀSEM. See QĀSEM-E ANWĀR.

• ANWĀR-E SOHAYLĪ

  G. M. Wickens

  a collection of fables by the Timurid prose-stylist Ḥosayn Wāʿeẓ Kāšefī.  

• ANWARI

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  , AWḤAD-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD (or ʿALĪ), poet at the court of the Saljuqs in the 12th century.

• ANZALĪ

  Marcel Bazin

  town in Gīlān at the mouth of the lagoon (mordāb) bearing the same name.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ANZAN

  Cross-Reference

  The name of an important Elamite region in western Fārs and of its chief city. See ANSHAN.

• AOGƎMADAĒČĀ

  J. Duchesne-Guillemin

  A small prayer and meditation on death, made up of 29 Avestan quotations (one of them Gathic) embedded in a sermon in Pārsī (Pahlavi in Arabic script).

• APADĀNA

  R. Schmitt, D. Stronach

  Old Pers. term referring to audience halls, now specifically to the audience hall in Persepolis.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• APĄM NAPĀT

  M. Boyce

  (Son of the Waters), Zoroastrian divinity of mysterious character whose true identity, like that of his Vedic counterpart, Apām Napāt, has been much debated.

• APAMA

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  name of several noble women of the Achaemenid and Hellenistic periods, probably related to the Av. apama- “the latest,” hence “the youngest [child], nestling.”

• APARIMITĀYUḤ-SŪTRA

  R. E. Emmerick

  a Buddhist text belonging to the Mahāyāna tradition. It is concerned with the merit obtained by recalling the Buddha called Aparimitāyurjñānasuviniścitarāja.

• APARNA

  P. Lecoq

  (Gk. Aparnoi/Parnoi, Lat. Aparni or Parni), an east Iranian tribe established on the Ochos (modern Taǰen, Teǰend) and one of the three tribes in the confederation of the Dahae.

• APASIACAE

  R. Schmitt

  name of a nomadic tribe belonging to the Scythian Massagetae, not attested in Iranian sources.

• APHORISM

  P. Sprachman

  “short sentences drawn from long experience” to Cervantes, “the wisdom of many, the wit of one” to Lord Russell, the terms proverb, aphorism, maxim have evaded strict definition and demarcation.

• APOCALYPTIC

  M. Boyce, I. K. Poonawala

  (that which has been revealed). The use of the term apocalyptic to define a particular type of prophetic utterance is a development of Judaeo-Christian studies, in which a need was felt to mark a distinction between the ancient prophets and the pseudonymous ones who flourished mainly in the intertestamental period.

• APOLLODORUS OF ARTIMITA

  M. L. Chaumont

  historian of the 1st century B.C. or later, author of a Parthian History.

• APOPHTHEGMATA PATRUM

  N. Sims-Williams

  (Maxims of the fathers), Graeco-Latin name customarily used to refer to a species of Christian literature consisting of sayings and edifying anecdotes of the monks and solitary ascetics who inhabited the deserts of Egypt during the early centuries of the Christian era.

• APŌŠ

  C. J. Brunner

  Middle Persian for Av. Apaoša, the demon of drought.  

• APOSTOLIC CANONS

  N. Sims-Williams

  fragmentary Christian Sogdian text.

• APPIANUS

  M. L. Chaumont

  (APPIAN) OF ALEXANDRIA, historian, born probably toward the end of the 1st century CE.

• AQ EVLI

  P. Oberling

  a small Turkic tribe of Fārs. According to legend, the ancestors of the present-day Āq Evlīs were forced to migrate from Azerbaijan to Khorasan in Safavid times.

• AQ QOYUNLŪ

  R. Quiring-Zoche

  or WHITE SHEEP, a confederation of Turkman tribes who ruled in eastern Anatolia and western Iran until the Safavid conquest in 1501.

• ʿĀQ-E WĀLEDAYN

  J. Calmard

  (ʿĀQQ-E WĀLEDAYN), Ar. “[the son] disobedient to [his] parents,” a theme in popular Shiʿite literature.

• AQA

  D. O. Morgan

  Mongolian title, essentially meaning “elder brother” and by extension “senior member of the family.”

• ĀQĀ BĀLĀ KHAN SARDĀR

  Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī

  , MOḤAMMAD-ʿALĪ KHAN, Qajar official in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

• AQA BOZORG QĀʾEM-MAQĀM

  cross-reference

  See QĀʾEM-MAQĀM.

• ĀQĀ BOZORG ṬEHRĀNĪ

  H. Algar

   (1293-1389/1876-1970), Shiʿite scholar and bibliographer.

• ĀQĀ KHAN

  H. Algar

  title of the imams of the Nezārī Ismaʿilis since early 19th century.

• ĀQĀ KHAN KERMĀNĪ

  M. Bayat

  (1270-1314/1854-55 to 1896), Iranian writer and intellectual, and an outstanding example of a first-generation secular nationalist. 

• ĀQĀ KHAN NŪRĪ

  Cross-Reference

  (1807-1865), prime minister (ṣadr-e aʿẓam) of Persia (1851-58) under Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah Qajar. See EʿTEMĀD-AL-DAWLA, ĀQĀ KHAN NURI.

• ĀQĀ MĪRAK

  P. P. Soucek

  prominent painter of the 10th/16th century in the workshop of the Safavid Shah Ṭahmāsp (r. 930-84/1524-76).

• ĀQĀ MOḤAMMAD KHAN QĀJĀR

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀḠĀ MOḤAMMAD KHAN.

• ĀQĀ NAJAFĪ EṢFAHĀNĪ

  A.-H. Hairi

  (1262-1332/1846-1914), prominent religious leader involved with a number of important political events of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

• ĀQĀ NAJAFĪ QŪČĀNI

  A.-H. Hairi

  (1295-1362/1878-1943), religious authority and constitutionalist.

• ĀQĀ REŻĀ HERAVĪ

  P. P. Soucek

  a painter closely associated with Prince Salīm, the later Emperor Jahāngīr, during the latter’s residence in Allahabad (1008-13/1599-1605). 

• ĀQĀ TABRĪZĪ

  Hasan Javadi and Farrokh Gaffary

  , MĪRZĀ, 19th-century civil servant and writer.

• ĀQĀ ZANJĀNĪ

  P. P. Soucek

  , MĪRZĀ, also known as Ḵamsaʾī, a calligrapher active between 1869-70 and 1890.

• ĀQĀSĪ

  A. Amanat

  , ḤĀJJĪ MĪRZĀ ABBĀS ĪRAVĀNĪ (ca. 1198-1265/1783-1848), grand vizier of Moḥammad Shah Qāǰār (r. 1834-48),  1835-48.

• ĀQČA

  D. Balland

  (or AQČA), a small market town in north Afghanistan, situated on the western edge of the great piedmont oasis of the Balḵāb river.

• AQD

  A. H. Betteridge and H. Javadi

  marriage contract, marriage contract ceremony.

• ʿAQD-NĀMA

  L. S. Diba

  contract, now specifically marriage contract.

• ʿAQDĀ

  C. E. Bosworth

  a small settlement and subdistrict (dehestān) in the district (baḵš) of Ardakān-e Yazd.

• AQDAS

  A. Bausani

  more fully al-Ketāb al-aqdas (Pers. Ketāb-e aqdas), “The Most Holy Book,” written in Arabic by Bahāʾallāh, the founder of the Bahāʾī religion.

• ʿĀQEL KHAN RĀZĪ

  S. Maqbul Ahmad

  Indo-Muslim man of letters, historian, and mystic (d. 1108/1696).

• ʿĀQEL, MIRZA MOḤAMMAD

  M. Baqir

   Kashmiri poet and courtier who flourished in the first half of the 12th/18th century.

• ʿĀQEL, MOḤAMMAD

  M. L. Siddiqui

  entitled Korīǰa, mystic of the Panjab (d. 1229/1814). 

• ĀQEVLI, FARAJ-ALLĀH

  Bāqer ʿĀqeli

  (1887-1974), director of Anjoman-e Āṯār-e Melli (The National Monuments Council of Iran) who also held important posts in the gendarmerie and in civilian life.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ʿAQL

  F. Rahman, W. C. Chittick

   “intellect, intelligence, reason”.

• ʿAQL-E SORḴ

  H. Corbin

  “The Crimsoned Archangel” (lit., “The Red Intellect”), one of the visionary recitals or treatises on spiritual initiation of Sohravardī (d. 1191)

• ĀQSŪ (1)

  R. E. Emmerick

  town in eastern Turkestan, modern Chinese Sinkiang, about six km to the north of the river Āqsū. It lies on the caravan route between Maralbāšī and Kučā.

• ĀQSŪ (2)

  C. Naumann

  a river in the Āmū Daryā system. The upper course, called the Morḡāb in the Soviet Union, finds its source in the Little Pamir, the eastern part of Afghanistan’s Waḵān-Pāmīr mountains.

• ARA THE BEAUTIFUL

  J. R. Russell

  son of Aram, mythical king of Armenia.  

• ĀRĀʾ WA’L-DĪĀNĀT

  J. van Ess

  doxographical work, famous especially for its information about non-Islamic religions and Greek philosophy, written by Ḥasan b. Mūsā al-Nawbaḵtī (d. between 300/912 and 310/922).

• ʿARAB

  Multiple Authors

  As two of the most prominent ethnic elements in the Middle East, Arabs and Iranians have been in contact with each other, and at times have had their fortunes intertwined, for some three millennia. 

• ʿARAB i. Arabs and Iran in the pre-Islamic period

  C. E. Bosworth

  Centuries of contacts between the Arabs and Persians should have left behind some legacy in the fields of thought and culture, but such a legacy is not easy to quantify or to evaluate.

• ʿARAB ii. Arab conquest of Iran

  M. Morony

  During the first two centuries of the Muslim era (7th-8th centuries A.D.) the Sasanian state and much of the east Iranian region in Central Asia were conquered by the mostly Arab armies of the early Islamic state. 

• ʿARAB iii. Arab settlements in Iran

  E. L. Daniel

  Arab settlements were critical in making the effects of the conquest long term, rather than transitory, and in facilitating the symbiosis of Iranian and Arab cultures within a mutual Islamic context.

• ʿARAB iv. Arab tribes of Iran

  P. Oberling and B. Hourcade

  Estimates of the Arabic-speaking population of Iran range from 200,000 (1957) to 650,000 (1960). In present-day Iran there are still many families and tribes whose Arab origin can be traced.

• ʿARAB v. Arab-Iranian relations in modern times

  R. K. Ramazani

  The military coup of Reżā Khan (1921) and his accession to the throne (1925) resulted in sufficient governmental capacity to conduct foreign affairs effectively. Reżā Shah’s good-neighbor policy addressed three major problems with Iraq.

• ʿARAB MĪŠMAST

  P. Oberling

  an Arab tribe of Fārs, Tehran, and Khorasan.  

• ʿARAB MOḤAMMAD B. ḤĀJJĪ

  G. L. Penrose

  khan of Ḵīva 1013-32/1602-23 (?).

• ARAB-SASANIAN COINS

  M. Bates

  Arab-Sasanian is a term applied to several different coinages of early Islamic Iran which were issued under Arab authority using the design and inscriptions of the preceding Sasanian coinage.

• ʿARABESTĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See ḴŪZESTĀN.

• ARABIA

  M. Dandamayev, Daniel T. Potts

  i. The Achaemenid province Arabāya. ii. The Sasanians and Arabia.

• ARABIA i. THE ACHAEMENID PROVINCE ARABĀYA

  M. Dandamayev

  In the Bīsotūn and other Old Persian inscriptions that list provinces of the Achaemenid empire in a geographical sequence, Arabāya is placed after Babylonia and Assyria (i.e., Syria) and before Egypt.

• ARABIA ii. The Sasanians and Arabia

  Daniel T. Potts

  Within a few years after the commencement of Ardašir I’s (r. ca. 224-242) program of conquest, the Sasanians undertook military engagements in both northeastern Arabia and Oman.

• ARABIAN NIGHTS

  Cross-Reference

  See ALF LAYLA WA LAYLA.

• ARABIAN SEA

  Cross-Reference

  See OMAN, SEA OF.

• ARABIC LANGUAGE

  Multiple Authors

  The profound influence of Arabic in Iran can be traced to its social, religious, and political significance in the wake of the Muslim conquest, when it became the language of the dominant class, the language of religion and government administration, and by extension, the language of science, literature, and Koranic studies.

• ARABIC LANGUAGE i. Arabic elements in Persian

  A. A. Ṣādeqī

  The proportion of Arabic words in Persian was about thirty percent in the 4th/10th century and reached some fifty percent in the 6th/12th. 

• ARABIC LANGUAGE ii. Iranian loanwords in Arabic

  A.Tafażżolī

  Loanwords in Arabic, traditionally called moʿarrab (arabicized) or daḵīl (foreign words), include a considerable number of Iranian elements.

• ARABIC LANGUAGE iii. Arabic influences in Persian literature

  L. P. Elwell-Sutton

  any inquiry into the early development of Islamic Persian language and literature is faced with the same problem—the absence of contemporary material.

• ARABIC LANGUAGE iv. Arabic literature in Iran

  V. Danner

  comprises the works of the early Arab conquerors and those of the Persians who wrote in Arabic. The latter, by far more numerous, ensured Iran a major role in the development of Arabic letters.

• ARABIC LANGUAGE v. Arabic Elements in Persian

  John R. Perry

  The following will survey the topic under the following rubrics: Lexical statistics; Phonology and orthography; Loanword classes; Grammatical elements; Semantics; History and evolution.

• ʿARABŠĀH, ʿEMĀD-AL-DĪN

  Z. Safa

  a poet and mystic of the 8th/14th century.

• ʿARABŠĀHĪ

  Y. Bregel

  a dynasty of Chingisid origin that ruled in Ḵᵛārazm from the beginning of the 10th/16th century.

• ARACHNIDS

  ʿA, Aḥmadī and R. G. Tuck, Jr.

  or ARACHNIDA, Pers. ʿankabūtīān,  the largest chelicerate class of the invertebrate phylum Arthropoda. Zoogeographically, the Iranian arachnid fauna differs little from that of adjacent regions. General behavior and life history information available from authoritative entomology and invertebrate zoology texts applies to Iranian representatives as well.

• ARACHOSIA

  R. Schmitt

  province in the eastern part of the Achaemenid empire around modern Kandahār, which was inhabited by the Iranian Arachosians or Arachoti. 

• ARĀK

  X. de Planhol

  Arāk was originally the popular name of Solṭānābād, a town in western Iran, but is now the official name as well.

• ARAKADRI

  W. Eilers

  name of uncertain meaning given in Darius I’s inscription (DB 1.37) to a mountain in the region of Pišiyāuvādā.

• AṘAKʿEL OF TABRĪZ

  A. K. Sanjian

   Armenian historian, born at Tabrīz in the 1590s, died at Etchmiadzin in Armenia in 1670.

• ARAL SEA

  B. Spuler

  Daryā(ča)-ye Ḵᵛārazm, inland sea in western Turkestan, bounded since 1924 and 1936 by Karakalpaqistan (part of the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan) in the south and Kazakhstan in the north.

• ARAMAIC

  F. Rosenthal, J. C. Greenfield, S. Shaked

  Aramaic is the comprehensive name for numerous dialects of a Northwest Semitic language closely related to Hebrew and Arabic, first attested in inscriptions dating from the ninth to eighth centuries B. C., and still spoken today.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ARAMAZD

  cross-reference

  Armenian form of AHURA MAZDĀ.

• ARĀN (1)

  cross-reference

  or ALĀN, Inscr. Mid. Pers. ʾlʾn-, Inscr. Parth. ʾrdʾn, ʾln-. See ALANS, ALBANIA, ARRĀN.

• ARĀN (2)

  cross-reference

  See ḤOLVĀN.

• ĀRĀN (3)

  ʿA. N. Rażawī

  a small town about 10 km north of Kāšān.

• ARANG

  C. J. Brunner

  a river in ancient Iranian tradition.

• ARĀNĪ, TAQĪ

  E. Abrahamian, B. Alavi

  (1902-1940), Iranian Marxist and intellectual initiator of the communist Tudeh Party.

• ARARAT

  X. de Planhol

  extinct volcano in the northeastern extremity of Turkey close to the Iran-Soviet frontiers.  

• ARAŠ

  Cross-Reference

  Old Persian arašni-, Avestan araθni-) “cubit.” See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

• ĀRAŠ

  A. Tafażżolī, W. L. Hanaway, Jr.

  Avestan Ǝrəxša, Middle Persian Ēraš, a heroic archer in Iranian legend. The Avesta (Yašt 8.6) refers to what was apparently a familiar episode in the epic tradition.

• ĀRAŠ, KAY

  A. Tafażżolī

  Avestan KAVI ARŠAN, a member of the Kayanid dynasty in Iranian legend. 

• ARASBĀRĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See AHAR.

• ARAŠK

  Cross-Reference

  or AREŠK (Pahlavi), Avestan araska-, Persian rašk “envy,” in Middle Persian sometimes personified as a demon. See RAŠK (pending).

• ARAXA

  M. A. Dandamayev

  Old Persian form of the name of a leader of a Babylonian rebellion against Darius I.

• ARAXES RIVER

  W. B. Fisher, C. E. Bosworth

  The Araxes river forms the international boundary between northwest Iran and the former USSR from a point east of Mount Ararat (which lies very close to the river).

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ʿARAŻ

  F. Rahman

  a term of philosophy meaning “accident.” 

• ARBĀB

  Š. Rāseḵ

  the plural of the Arabic noun rabb “owner, master, the Lord,” used in Persian to signify any sort of owner or master.

• ARBĀB KAY-ḴOSROW-E ŠĀHROḴ

  Cross-Reference

  See ŠĀHROḴ.

• ARBĀB ROSTAM GĪV

  Cross-Reference

  See GĪV.

• ARBĀB, MOḤAMMAD-MAHDĪ

  S. Okazaki

  a prominent merchant and scholar of Isfahan (fl. ca. 1818-1896/97).

• ARBACES

  M. A. Dandamayev

  Greek form of an Old Iranian proper name.

• ARBAʿĪN

  M. Ayoub

  40th day after ʿĀšūrāʾ. A day of mourning, preferably at the shrine of Imam Ḥosayn, Arbaʿīn forms part of a cycle of days commemorating the burial of the imam and his companions.

• ARBĀYISTĀN

  G. Widengren

  name of a Mesopotamian province in the Sasanian empire.

• ARBELA

  J. F. Hansman

  capital of an ancient northern Mesopotamian province located between the two Zab rivers.  

• ARBERRY, ARTHUR JOHN

  E. P. Elwell-Sutton

  British orientalist (1905-1969).

• ARCHELAUS

  M. Tardieu

  the assumed author of a Christian polemic against the Manicheans composed before 348 CE.

• ARCHEOLOGY

  Multiple Authors

  The history of archeological research in Iran may be divided into two periods, before and after the Second World War. The early period can in turn be subdivided into a first phase of mainly French activity (ca. 1884-1931), and a second phase in which archeology in Iran became a multinational affair (1931-40). The modern period can be subdivided into what might best be called the “quiet phase” (1940-57) and the “explosive phase” (1958-78).

• ARCHEOLOGY i. Pre-Median

  T. C. Young

  As early as the 17th century, a number of European travelers reported with surprise on the remarkable ancient monuments to be seen throughout the countryside. The first scientific and scholarly attempt to deal with one such monument, however, was Rawlinson’s recording of the Bīsotūn (Behistun) inscription (1836-41). 

• ARCHEOLOGY ii. Median and Achaemenid

  D. Stronach

  While the Medes were likely to have been present in Iran well before the Assyrians first encountered them in 835 B.C., it remains unclear how the earliest Medes, let alone the early Iranians as a whole, should be distinguished in the archeological record.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ARCHEOLOGY iii. SELEUCID AND PARTHIAN

  K. Schippmann

  Very few monuments from the Seleucid period have been discovered in Iran, and probably none from the time of Alexander the Great.

• ARCHEOLOGY iv. Sasanian

  D. Huff

  Archeological field work has played a comparatively smaller part in forming the image of Sasanian history and culture than the large number of preserved monuments, buildings, and rock reliefs, collections of coins and objects of art.

• ARCHEOLOGY v. Pre-Islamic Central Asia

  V. M. Masson

  The study of Central Asian archeological remains began on a large scale in the 1920s and 30s with the organization of large archeological expeditions.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ARCHEOLOGY vi. Islamic Iran

  R. Hillenbrand

  From the outset Islamic archeology in Iran was overshadowed by the numerous and splendid sites of earlier periods, and archeological investigation of Islamic sites began appreciably later in the Iranian world than in western Islam and in the Indian subcontinent.

• ARCHEOLOGY vii. Islamic Central Asia

  G. A. Pugachenkova and E. V. Rtveladze

  The study of the archeology of the Islamic period was initiated in Central Asia in the late 19th century by Turkestan amateurs and St. Petersburg scholars, and has been carried on with growing intensity since Soviet times. 

• ARCHEOLOGY viii. REPUBLIC OF AZERBAIJAN

  M. N. Pogrebova

  Archeological sites of northern Azerbaijan (the modern Republic of Azerbaijan) first came to public attention in the mid-19th century, when European travelers became aware that it abounded in ancient ruins.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ARCHITECTURE

  Multiple Authors

  This series of articles covers architecture in Iran from ancient times to the Pahlavi period. 

• ARCHITECTURE i. Seleucid Period

  T. S. Kawami

  The Seleucid architecture of Iran encompasses the buildings constructed during the period of Greek power from 330 B.C. through the 2nd century B.C. 

• ARCHITECTURE ii. Parthian Period

  E. J. Keall

  It seems impossible to use the Iranian homeland of the Parthians as the basis for the definition of Parthian architecture. 

• ARCHITECTURE iii. Sasanian Period

  D. Huff

  Sasanian architecture is characterized by the widespread use of mortar masonry and the associated vaulting techniques.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ARCHITECTURE iv. Central Asian

  G. A. Pugachenkova

  Architecture in Central Asia dates back to the late Neolithic period (6th-5th millennia B.C.).

• ARCHITECTURE v. Islamic, pre-Safavid

  O. Grabar

  The beginnings of an Islamic architecture in Iran are still almost impossible to identify properly. Remaining monuments are few, most of them are very uncertainly dated, and literary information is scanty or difficult to interpret.

• ARCHITECTURE vi. Safavid to Qajar Periods

  R. Hillenbrand

  Iranian architecture from the 16th to the 19th centuries is, not surprisingly, dominated by the Safavids. Though no accurate checklist has been drawn up, it is clear that within the present political borders of Iran several hundred buildings datable between 907/1502 and 1138/1725 survive.

• ARCHITECTURE vii. Pahlavi, before World War II

  D. N. Wilber

  Two features of Reżā Shah’s efforts for the modernization of Iran were related to the architectural construction of the period. One was his reference to the country’s ancient history, which should inspire the present generation to achieve new glories. The other was his desire to adopt aspects of Western civilization in such a fashion that Iran would become equal to the West.

• ARCHITECTURE viii. Pahlavi, after World War II

  N. Ardalān

  Between the close of World War II and the overthrow of the Pahlavi regime in 1979, an ancient and very traditional Iranian culture came fully into contact with contemporary developments, in particular, with the highly scientific and empirical world of the West.

• ARCHIVES i. Turkish archives concerning Iran

  Osman G. Özgüdenli

  Ottoman archive materials are important not only for the history of the Ottoman Empire, but they are also of tremendous significance for the history of all those countries that had relations with the Ottoman Empire.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ARD

  Cross-Reference

  (Pahlavi; Manichean Middle Persian ʾyrd). See AHRIŠWANG, AŠI. 

• ARD YAŠT

  P. O. Skjærvø

  Middle Persian name of the Avestan hymn dedicated to Aši.

• ARDĀ WĪRĀZ

  Ph. Gignoux

  “Wīrāz the just,”  principal character of the Zoroastrian Middle Persian text Ardā Wīrāz-nāmag.

• ARDABĪL

  C. E. Bosworth, X. de Planhol, M. E. Weaver, M. Medley

  town and district in northeastern Azerbaijan.

• ARDABĪL CARPET

  M. Beattie

  Persian carpet acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1893.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ARDABĪLĪ

  W. Madelung

  known as MOQADDAS and MOḤAQQEQ ARDABĪLĪ, Imamite theologian and jurist of the early Safavid age. 

• ARDAHANG

  Cross-Reference

  See ARŽANG.

• ARDAKĀN-E FĀRS

  C. E. Bosworth

  a small upland town of the ostān of Fārs.

• ARDAKĀN-E YAZD

  C. E. Bosworth

  a town of central Persia on the present Yazd-Ardestān-Kāšān road along the southern edge of the Dašt-e Kavīr, forty miles northwest of Yazd.

• ARDAKĀNĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN

  D. MacEoin

  known as Ḥāǰǰī Amīn and Amīn-e Elāhī, one of the four Ayādī-e Amr Allāh appointed by Bahāʾallāh as leaders of the Bahaʾi movement in Iran.

• ARDALĀN, ABU’L-ḤASAN KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See ABU’L-ḤASAN KHAN ARDALĀN.

• ARDAMITRA

  Cross-Reference

  See ARDAŠĪR SAKĀNŠĀH.

• ARDAŠĪR

  Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

  name of several figures in the Šāh-nāma.

• ARDAŠĪR B. DAYLAMSOPĀR

  cross-reference

  See ABU’L-ḤAYJĀ NAJMĪ.

• ARDAŠĪR BĀBAKĀN

  H. Gaube

  Sasanian and early Islamic district (ostān) formed in the early 7th century south of Baghdad and west of the Tigris. Its capital was Weh-Ardašīr (Ar. Bahrasīr).

• ARDAŠĪR I

  Multiple Authors

  (d. 242 CE), the founder of the Sasanian empire. 

• ARDAŠĪR I i. History

  Joseph Wiesehöfer

  by 224 extended his sway over Persis and beyond into Elymais (Ḵūzestān) and Kermān, forcing to submission many local kings and vassals of the Parthians. The extent of his original realm cannot be determined precisely.

• ARDAŠĪR I ii. Rock reliefs

  H. Luschey

  Ardašīr I (r. 224-41) established the Sasanian tradition of rock carving, which flourished until the reign of Šāpūr III (r. 309-88) and made an impressive resurgence under Ḵosrow II (r. 590-628).

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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.

• 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

  (or ARK), the inner fortress or citadel of a walled city.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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.

• 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

  (1910-1944), mechanical and electrical engineer, inventor, and industrialist.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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

  part of a large minority dispersed throughout the Ottoman and Persian empires and concentrated in Anatolia, Azerbaijan, in/near the city of Isfahan.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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 earliest armor fragments yet found in Iran come from the western part of the country and date from the late 2nd and early 1st millennium BCE.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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 a. 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 iv. Afšar and Zand Periods

  J. R. Perry

  The composition of the army, its role in the state, and its effectiveness changed appreciably from late Safavid to early Qajar times. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ARMY v. Pahlavi Period

  M. J. Sheikh-ol-Islami

  the achievement of Reżā Khan in building a modern military force is noteworthy, though the absence of an earlier development of military norms and institutions should not be exaggerated.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ARMY vi. 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. A.D.).

• 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

  A. Sh. Shahbazi, K. Schippmann, M. Alram, M. Boyce, A. Sh. Shahbazi, A. Sh. Shahbazi, C. Toumanoff

   (Persian Aškānīān), Parthian dynasty which ruled Iran from ca. 250 B.C. to ca. 226 A.D.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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 in the region.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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.  

• ARSANJĀNĪ, ḤASAN

  F. Azimi

  journalist and politician (1922-69).

• ARSEN, KOCOYTỊ

  F. Thordarson

  Ossetic author (1872-1944).

• ARSES

  P. LeCoq

  Greek rendering of an Old Persian name, used as a hypocoristic.

• ARSITES

  A. SH. Shahbazi

  Greek rendering of an Old Persian name.

• ARSLĀN B. ṬOḠREL

  Cross-Reference

  See SALJUQS OF IRAQ.

• ARSLĀN KHAN MOḤAMMAD

  Cross-Reference

  See ILAK-KHANIDS.

• ARSLĀNŠĀH

  C. E. Bosworth

  Ghaznavid sultan (r. 509-11/1116-18).

• ARSLĀNŠĀH B. KERMĀNŠĀH

  Cross-Reference

  See SALJUQS OF KERMĀN.

• ARSLĀNŠAH B. TOḠRELŠĀH

  Cross-Reference

  See SALJUQS OF KERMĀN.

• ARŠTĀT

  Cross-Reference

  See AŠTĀD.

• ART IN IRAN

  Multiple Authors

  The history of art in Iran and Iranian lands.

• ART IN IRAN i. NEOLITHIC TO MEDIAN

  E. Porada

  Topographically Iran is a varied country and its art is regionally diversified. This variation in the artistic products from different areas of the country sets off the art of Iran as a whole

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ART IN IRAN ii. Median Art and Architecture

  P. Calmeyer

  To speak of Median art means, first of all, mentioning the huge gaps in our knowledge of Median history.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ART IN IRAN iii. Achaemenid Art and Architecture

  P. Calmeyer

  no work of architecture or art can be attributed with certainty to an Achaemenid earlier than Cyrus the Great.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ART IN IRAN iv. PARTHIAN Art

  S. B. Downey

  monuments generally included in discussions of Parthian art come from the periphery of the Parthian world—Syria, Mesopotamia, the edges of the Iranian plateau.

• ART IN IRAN v. SASANIAN ART

  P. O. Harper

  There are major remains of many different types: monumental rock reliefs, silver vessels, stucco architectural decoration, and seals.

• ART IN IRAN vi. PRE-ISLAMIC EASTERN IRAN AND CENTRAL ASIA

  G. Azarpay

  The Hellenistic artistic tradition that was transplanted in the Orient in the wake of Alexander’s conquest of the Achaemenid empire provides the common denominator in the earliest monumental works of art from eastern Iran and Bactria. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ART IN IRAN vii. ISLAMIC PRE-SAFAVID

  P. Soucek

  Of especial importance for the development of art in Islamic Iran was the cultural and artistic legacy of the immediate past.

• ART IN IRAN viii. ISLAMIC CENTRAL ASIA

  G. A. Pugachenkova

  Under Islam the sculpture and mural painting previously displayed in Central Asia almost completely disappeared, and ornament took pride of place.

• ART IN IRAN ix. SAFAVID To Qajar Periods

  A. Welch

  The arts of the Safavid period show a far more unitary development than in any other period of Iranian art. 

• ART IN IRAN x. Qajar 1. General

  J. M. Scarce

  now increasingly recognized as a time of significant change in Persian society. Perhaps the most obvious influence was the impact of Western ideas and technology.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ART IN IRAN x. Qajar 2. Painting

  B. W. Robinson

  like the Timurid style centuries before, had its origins outside the historical period from which it derives its name.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ART IN IRAN xi. POST-QAJAR

  K. Emāmī

  About the mid-1950s, Iranian modernists started to receive official encouragement via the Department General of Fine Arts (later to become the Ministry of Arts and Culture).

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ART IN IRAN xii. IRANIAN PRE-ISLAMIC ELEMENTS IN ISLAMIC ART

  Maria Vittoria Fontana

  have contributed significantly to the formation and development of Islamic art, and they can be easily recognized in various contexts, from town-planning to architecture, from the continuity of techniques of both manufacture and decoration to iconography and some of its symbols.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ARTA

  Cross-Reference

  See ARDWAHIŠT and AŠA.

• ARTABANUS (Arsacid kings)

  K. Schippmann

  name borne by several Arsacid kings.

• ARTABANUS (Old Persian proper name)

  M. A. Dandamayev

  Latinized form of an Old Persian proper name.

• ARTABAZANES

  C. J. Brunner

  autonomous ruler of Armenia who submitted to the Seleucid king Antiochus III in 220 B.C., when the latter invaded his country.

• ARTABAZUS

  M. A. Dandamayev

  Old Iranian personal name.

• ARTABĒ

  M. A. Dandamayev

  the Greek form of a Median and Old Persian measure of volume.

• ARTACHAIĒS

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Greek rendering of an Old Iranian name.

• ARTAḪŠAR

  Cross-Reference

  See ARTOXARES.

• ARTAMANIA

  M. Mayrhofer

  prince of Zi-ri-ba-ša-ni, who wrote a letter of devotion to the pharaoh of Egypt.

• ARTAPHRENĒS

  P. Lecoq

  name given by Herodotus for the son of Hystaspes and brother of Darius I, and of various other Persians in Greek literature.

• ARTAŠŠUMARA

  M. Mayrhofer

  a Mitannian king.

• ARTASYRAS

  M. A. Dandamayev

  Old Iranian name *Ṛta-sūra “powerful through Arta”.

• ARTATĀMA

  M. Mayrhofer

  king of Mitanni.

• ARTAVARDIYA

  M. A. Dandamayev

  Old Persian personal name, meaning “doer of Justice.”

• ARTAVASDES

  R. Schmitt

  Old Iranian male personal name.

• ARTAXATA

  R. H. Hewsen

  a city of ancient Armenia founded ca. 176 B.C. by King Artaxias I.A

• ARTAXERXES

  R. Schmitt

  throne name of several Persian kings of the Achaemenid dynasty.

• ARTAXERXES I

  R. Schmitt

  a son of Xerxes I and Amestris.

• ARTAXERXES II

  R. Schmitt

  Achaemenid Great King whose personal name is given as Arsaces.

• ARTAXERXES III

  R. Schmitt

  throne name of Ochus, Achaemenid king (r. 359-58 to 338-37 B.C.).

• ARTAXIAS I

  J. Russell

  reigned 189-160 B.C., founder of the Artaxiad dynasty in Greater Armenia.

• ARTAZOSTRE

  J. Kellens

  a daughter of Darius the Great.

• ARTEMBARĒS

  M. A. Dandamayev

  Old Iranian proper name * Ṛtam-para-, meaning “who encourages the order.”

• ARTEMISIA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  queen of the Achaemenid province of Caria.

• ARTEMITA IN APOLLONIATIS

  M. L. Chaumont

  city of the Parthian period in eastern Iraq.

• ARTĒŠTĀR

  W. Sundermann

  a learned calque on and translation of the Avestan raθaēštā.

• ARTĒŠTĀRĀN SĀLĀR

  W. Sundermann

  “chief of the warriors,” a high-ranking title in Sasanian times. 

• ARTHROPODS

  ʿA. Aḥmadī and R. G. Tuck, Jr.

  or ARTHROPODA, largest and undoubtedly most diverse animal phylum, comprising an estimated seventy-five to eighty percent of all known species in the kingdom; representatives of both major extant subdivisions occur within Iran.

• ARTOXARES

  M. Dandamayev

  a Paphlagonian eunuch at the court of Artaxerxes I and satrap of Armenia.

• ARTSRUNI

  C. Toumanoff

  one of the most important princely families of Armenia, an offshoot of the Orontids, Achaemenian satraps and subsequently kings of Armenia, but claiming descent from Sennacherib of Assyria.

• ARTYPHIOS

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  or ARTYBIOS, Greek rendering of an Old Persian name.

• ARTYSTONE

  R. Schmitt

  Persian female personal name.

• ARUKKU

  M. Dandamayev

  a son of Cyrus I, king of Parsumaš and grandfather of Cyrus the Great.

• ʿARŪSĪ

  A. Betteridge

  the secular wedding celebration which follows the wedding contract ceremony (ʿaqd).

• ʿARŪŻ

  L. P. Elwell-Sutton

  the metrical system used by the Arab poets since pre-Islamic times.

• ʿARŪŻĪ, YŪSOF

  Z. Safa

  rhetorician and poet of the 4th/10th century.

• ARVAND GUŠNASP

  D. M. Lang

  Sasanian marzbān of Georgia under Ḵosrow I.

• ARVAND-RŪD

  M. Kasheff

  name given to the river Tigris in some passages in the Mid. Pers. books.

• ARYA

  H. W. Bailey

  an ethnic epithet in the Achaemenid inscriptions and in the Zoroastrian Avestan tradition.

• ARYAMAN

  Cross-Reference

  See AIRYAMAN.

• ĀRYĀMEHR

  Cross-Reference

  See MOḤAMMAD REŻA SHAH PAHLAVI.

• ĀRYĀNĀ

  ʿA. Ḥabībī

  Bulletin of the Historical Society of Afghanistan.  

• ARYANA VAĒJAH

  Cross-Reference

  See ĒRĀN-WĒZ.

• ARYANDES

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  Achaemenid satrap of Egypt.

• ARYANPUR, AMIR-HOSAYN

  MEHRDAD MASHAYEKHI

  noted engagé intellectual, scholar, and educator of the 20th century Iran.

• ARYANS

  R. Schmitt

  self designation of the peoples of Ancient India and Ancient Iran who spoke Aryan languages. Aryan is thus basically a linguistic concept, denoting the closely related Indo-Aryan and Iranian languages .

• ʿARŻ, DĪVĀN-E

  C. E. Bosworth

  the department of the administration which, in the successor states to the ʿAbbasid caliphate in the Islamic East, looked after military affairs, such as the recruitment and discharge of soldiers, their pay allotments, etc.

• ARZAN

  M. Bazin

  "millet." The main species of millet probably originate from the Far East and seem to have been introduced into Iran from India.

• ARŽANG

  J. P. Asmussen

  an extra-canonical work of Mani.  

• ARZĀNI, MOḤAMMAD AKBAR

  Fabrisio Speziale

  an Indian author of works on medicine.

• ARZENJĀN

  C. E. Bosworth

  or ERZENJĀN, a town of northeastern Anatolia.

• ĀRZŪ

  M. Siddiqi

  Major Indo-Muslim poet, lexicographer and litterateur (b. at Gwalior or Agra 1099/1687-88 or 1101/1689-90).

• ARZŪR

  J. P. Asmussen

  Mid. Pers. form of Avestan Arəzūra-, the name of a demon of unclear origin or function in Zoroastrian tradition. 

• Am~ CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  Cross-Reference

  list of all the figure and plate images in the Am–Ar entries