Table of Contents

  • AVICENNA xi. Persian Works

    M. Achena

    only two works in Persian have come down to us: a short book Andar dāneš-e rag (On the science of the pulse), and a treatise on philosophy.

  • AVICENNA xii. The impact of Avicenna’s philosophical works on the West

    S. Van Riet

    Western European acquaintance with Avicenna began when Latin versions of some of his Arabic works came out in the mid-12th to late 13th centuries.

  • AVICENNA xiii. The influence of Avicenna on medical studies in the West

    U. Weisser

    From the early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth century Avicenna held a high place in Western European medical studies.

  • ĀVĪŠAN

    R. A. Parsa

    wild thyme. Varieties in Iran are carminative, stomachic, diuretic, digestive, and flatulent. They may be used for liver and respiratory disorders.

  • AVROMAN

    D. N. MacKenzie

    a mountainous region on the western frontier of Persian Kurdistan.

  • AVROMAN DOCUMENTS

    D. N. MacKenzie

    three parchments found in a cave in the Kūh-e Sālān.

  • AVROMANI

    D. N. MacKenzie

    the dialect of Avroman, properly Hawrāmi, the most archaic of the Gōrāni group.

  • AWĀʾEL AL-MAQĀLĀT

    M. J. McDermott

    a Shiʿite doctrinal work written in Baghdad.

  • AWAN

    M. W. Stolper

    name of a place in ancient western Iran, the nominal dynastic seat of Elamite rulers in the late third millennium B.C.

  • ʿAWĀREF AL-MAʿĀREF

    W. C. Chittick

    a classic work on Sufism by Šehāb-al-dīn Sohravardī (1145-1234)

  • ʿAWĀREŻ

    W. Floor

    term used since 4th/10th century to denote extraordinary imposts of various kinds, the nature of which differed per area and historic period.

  • ʿAWFĪ, SADĪD-AL-DĪN

    J. Matīnī

    an important Persian writer of the late 6th/12th and early 7th/13th centuries.

  • AWḤAD-AL-DĪN KERMĀNĪ

    Z. Safa

    a famous mystic of the 6th/12th century.

  • AWḤADĪ MARĀḠAʾĪ

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    (born ca. 673/1274-75 in Marāḡa and died there in 738/1338), a poet who flourished in the reign of Abū Saʿīd Bahādor Khan (r. 716/1316-736/1335).

  • AWLĪĀʾ

    H. Algar

    a term commonly translated in European languages as “saints” or the equivalent.

  • AWLĪĀʾALLĀH ĀMOLĪ

    W. Madelung

    the author of the history of Rūyān, Tārīḵ-e Rūyān, written about 760/1359.

  • AWQĀF

    Cross-Reference

    See WAQF (pending).

    See also AMLĀKḴĀṢṢA.

  • AWRANGĀBĀDĪ, ʿABD-AL-ḤAYY

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-ḤAYY AWRANGĀBĀDĪ.

  • AWRANGĀBĀDĪ, ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ AWRANGĀBĀDĪ.

  • AWRANGĀBĀDĪ, SHAH NEẒĀM-AL-DĪN

    M. L. Siddiqui

    the celebrated Češtī saint said to be a descendant of Abū Bakr, the first caliph, in the line of Šehāb-al-dīn Sohravardī.

  • AWRANGZĒB

    Cross-Reference

    See Supplement.

  • AWRŌMĀN

    Cross-Reference

    or AWRŌMĀNI, See AVROMAN; AVROMANI.

  • AWṢĀF AL-AŠRĀF

    G. M. Wickens

    a short mystical-ethical work in Persian by Naṣīr-al-dīn Ṭūsī, written late in life, ca. 670/1271-72.

  • AWTĀD

    Cross-Reference

    See ABDĀL; AWLĪĀʾ.

  • AXSE

    M. L. Chaumont

    name of a Parthian hostage in Rome, inscribed in the dedication of an epitaph engraved on a marble plaque and discovered at the Forum Boarium in Rome.

  • ĀXŠTI

    B. Schlerath

    (Avestan) “Peace, contract of peace.”

  • AXT

    M. F. Kanga

    a sorcerer and, according to Zoroastrian tradition, a vehement, early opponent of the Religion.

  • AXTAR

    W. Eilers

    (Middle and New Persian) “star” or “constellation.”

  • AXTARMĀR

    A. Tafażżolī

    “astronomer.” The astronomers were included in the category of the third of the four Sasanian social classes, i.e., the class of the scribes, together with the physicians and poets.

  • ĀXWARR

    W. Eilers

    Middle Persian term for “manger” or “stall” borrowed into Armenian as axoṙ.

  • ĀXWARRBED

    A. Tafażżolī

    Middle Iranian term for the “Stablemaster, Royal Equerry.”

  • ĀY ḴĀNOM

    Paul Bernard

    or AÏ KHANUM (Tepe), a local Uzbek name designating the site of an important Greek colonial city in northern Afghanistan excavated since 1965 by a French mission and which belonged to a powerful hellenistic state born of Alexander’s conquest in Central Asia (329-27 B.C.)

  • AY TĪMŪR

    J. M. Smith, Jr.

    Sarbadār commander and ruler, “the son of a slave”.

  • ĀYADANA

    J. Duchesne-Guillemin

    “place of cult.” The term occurs once in the Old Persian Bīstūn inscription of Darius I.

  • AYĀDGĀR Ī JĀMĀSPĪG

    M. Boyce

    “Memorial of Jāmāsp,” a short but important Zoroastrian work in Middle Persian, also known as the Jāmāspī and Jāmāsp-nāma.

  • AYĀDGĀR Ī WUZURGMIHR

    S. Shaked

    a popular-religious andarz composition in Pahlavi, attributed to one of the best-known sages of the Sasanian period, Wuzurgmihr (Bozorgmehr) ī Buxtagān, who was active at the court of Ḵosrow I Anōšīravān (531-79 A.D.).

  • AYĀDGĀR Ī ZARĒRĀN

    M. Boyce

    “Memorial of Zarēr,” a short Pahlavi text which is the only surviving specimen in that language of ancient Iranian epic poetry.

  • AYĀDĪ-E AMR ALLĀH

    D. M. MacEoin

    “Hands of the Cause of God”, term used in Bahaʾism to designate the highest rank of the appointed religious hierarchy.

  • AʿYĀN AL-ŠĪʿA

    W. Ende

    a monumental dictionary (56 vols. altogether) of Shiʿite celebrities and learned men compiled by the Shiʿite scholar Sayyed Moḥsen Amīn ʿĀmelī (d. 1952).

  • ĀYANDA

    Ī. Afšār

    Persian journal which began publication in Tīr, 1304 Š./June-July, 1925, under the editorship of its founder, Maḥmūd Afšār (1893-1983).

  • ĀYANDAGĀN

    L. P. Elwell-Sutton and P. Mohajer

    a daily morning newspaper that first appeared in Tehran on 16 December, 1967.

  • ĀYATALLĀH

    H. Algar

    (Sign of God; Engl. Ayatullah, Ayatollah), an honorific title awarded by popular usage to mojtaheds, particularly the foremost among them.

  • ĀYATĪ, ʿABD-AL-ḤOSAYN

    Ī. Afšār

    (b. 1288/1871; d. 1332 Š./1953), son of Mollā Moḥammad-Taqī Āḵūnd Taftī, Bahāʾi missionary, journalist, author, and teacher.

  • AYĀZ, ABU’L-NAJM

    J. Matīnī

    favorite Turkish slave of the Ghaznavid Sultan Maḥmūd, whose passion for Ayāz is a recurrent theme in Persian poetry, where he is also called Ayās or Āyāz.

  • AYBAK

    L. Dupree

    (Uzbek “cave dweller”), now called Samangān, capital of Samangān province, associated with several important archeological sites.

  • AYBAK, QOṬB-AL-DĪN

    N. H. Zaidi

     founder of the Moʿezzī or Slave Dynasty and the first Muslim king of India, also called Ībak (moon chieftain) and Aybak Šel.

  • ĀYENAHĀ-YE DARDĀR

    Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami

    (Mirrors with cover doors, Tehran, 1992), one of the last major works by Hushang Golshiri.

  • AYMĀQ

    A. Janata

    (Turk. Oymaq), a term designating tribal peoples in Khorasan and Afghanistan, mostly semi-nomadic or semi-sedentary, in contrast to the fully sedentary, non-tribal population of the area.

  • ʿAYN-AL-DAWLA, ʿABD-AL-MAJĪD

    J. Calmard

    ATĀBAK-E AʿẒAM (1845-1926) son of Solṭān Aḥmad Mīrzā ʿAżod-al-dawla, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s forty-eighth son and a prominent political figure of Moẓaffar-al-dīn Shah’s reign (1896-1907).

  • ʿAYN-AL-QOŻĀT HAMADĀNĪ

    G. Böwering

    (492/1098-526/1131), brilliant mystic philosopher and Sufi martyr.