Table of Contents

• ASTWIHĀD

  M. F. Kanga

  the demon of death in the Avesta and later Zoroastrian texts.

• ASTYAGES

  R. Schmitt

  the last Median king.

• ʿĀŠŪRĀʾ

  M. Ayoub

  tenth day of Moḥarram, the first month of the Islamic calendar; for Sunnis it is a day on which fasting is recommended, and for Shiʿites a day of mourning for the martyrdom of Imam Ḥosayn.

• ĀŠŪRĀDA

  J. Qāʾem-Maqāmī

  (or Āšūrʾāda, ʿAšūrʾāda), formerly (until ca. 1308-09 Š./1930) three adjacent islands, now part of the end of the Mīānkāla peninsula of Māzandarān, at the southeast corner of the Caspian Sea.

• ASWĀR

  P. O. Skjærvø

  (Middle Persian) “horseman.” In Old Persian asabāra designated the horseman as opposed to the foot-soldier.

• ASYLUM

  Cross-Reference

  religious, secular, and extraterritorial. See BAST.

• ʿAṬĀʾ SAMARQANDĪ

  D. Pingree

  author of a set of astronomical tables for an unidentified prince of the Yuan dynasty of China, 1362-63.

• ATĀBAK

  C. Cahen

  Turkish atabeg, lit. “father-chief,” a Turkish title of rank which first appears, at least under this name, with the early Saljuqs.

• ATĀBAK-E AʿẒAM, AMĪN-AL-SOLṬĀN

  J. Calmard

  grand vizier under the last three Qajar kings.

• ATĀBAKĀN-E ĀḎARBĀYJĀN

  K. A. Luther

  an influential family of military slave origin, also called Ildegozids, ruled parts of Arrān and Azerbaijan from about 530/1135-36 to 622/1225.