Table of Contents

  • 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

    O. 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.