Table of Contents

  • 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.