Table of Contents

• 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

• ʿARAB ii. Arab conquest of Iran

  M. Morony

• ʿARAB iii. Arab settlements in Iran

  E. L. Daniel

• ʿARAB iv. Arab tribes of Iran

  P. Oberling and B. Hourcade

• ʿARAB v. Arab-Iranian relations in modern times

  R. K. Ramazani

• 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 ii. The Sasanians and Arabia

  Daniel T. Potts

• 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.

• 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

• 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

• ARABIC LANGUAGE iv. Arabic literature in Iran

  V. Danner

• 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.

• 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).