Table of Contents

• AZERBAIJAN iii. Pre-Islamic History

  K. Schippmann

  the northwestern province of Azerbaijan can look back on a long history. For the earliest periods, however, archeological research has barely begun.

• AZERBAIJAN iv. Islamic History to 1941

  C. E. Bosworth

  Background. Azerbaijan formed a separate province of the early Islamic caliphate, but its precise borders varied in different periods.

• AZERBAIJAN v. History from 1941 to 1947

  B. Kuniholm

  occupation reasons for which included creation of a supply route from the Persian Gulf to Russia and protection of allied interests from the threat posed by the Germans.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• AZERBAIJAN vi. Population and its Occupations and Culture

  R. Tapper

  tribalism is no longer of great social relevance for most Azerbaijanis, but most have a recent history of tribal allegiances, whether Turkish or Kurdish.

• AZERBAIJAN vii. The Iranian Language of Azerbaijan

  E. Yarshater

  Āḏarī (Ar. al-āḏarīya) was the Iranian language of Azerbaijan before the spread of the Turkish language, commonly called Azeri, in the region.

• AZERBAIJAN viii. Azeri Turkish

  G. Doerfer

  Oghuz languages were earlier grouped into Turkish (of Turkey), Azeri, and Turkmen, but recent research has modified this simple picture.

• AZERBAIJAN ix. Iranian Elements in Azeri Turkish

  L. Johanson

  perhaps after Uzbek, the Turkic language upon which Iranian has exerted the strongest impact—mainly in phonology, syntax and vocabulary, less in morphology.

• AZERBAIJAN x. Azeri Turkish Literature

  H. Javadi and K. Burrill

  Due to bilingualism among the educated Turkic-speaking people of the area the use of Azeri prose was widespread until the reign of Reżā Shah Pahlavi (r. 1925-41).

• AZERBAIJAN xi. Music of Azerbaijan

  J. During

  connected with the Irano-Arabo-Turkish art of the maqām; the Iranian elements in the development of the Azeri tradition were numerous.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• AZERBAIJAN xii. MONUMENTS

  Wolfram Kleiss

  The Iranian provinces of Azerbaijan, both West and East, possess a large number of monuments from all periods of history.

• AZES

  D. W. Mac Dowell

  the name of two Indo-Scythian kings of the major dynasty ruling an empire based on the Punjab and Indus valley from about 50 B.C. to A.D. 30.

• AẒFARĪ GŪRGĀNĪ

  M. Baqir

  18th-century Indo-Persian poet and lexicographer.

• AZHAR-E ḴAR

  L. P. Smirnova

  “Azhar the ass,” nickname of AZHAR B. YAḤYĀ B. ZOHAYR B. FARQAD, third cousin, and military commander of the Saffarid amirs Yaʿqūb and ʿAmr b. Layṯ.

• AŽI

  Cross-Reference

  (DAHĀKA). See AŽDAHĀ.

• AZILISES

  D. W. MacDowall

  Indo-Scythian king of the dynasty of Azes in the Indus valley about the beginning of the Christian era.  

• ʿAẒĪM NAVĀZ KHAN BAHĀDOR

  M. Baqir

  author of a Sunni account in Persian of the martyrdom of Imam Ḥosayn and superintendent of the compilation of a political and natural history of the Carnatic and of India in general. (fl. 1859).

• ʿAẒĪMĀBĀD

  Q. Ahmad

  (Patna), ancient Pataliputra, present capital of Bihar state in northeast India.

• ĀZĪN JOŠNAS

  A. Tafażżolī

  (ĀḎĪN JOŠNAS), a military commander of the Sasanian Hormazd IV (r. 579-90), killed in Hamadān on his way to fight the rebellious general Bahrām Čōbin.

• ĀŽĪR

  N. Parvīn

  “Alarm bell,” a radical leftist Persian newspaper, printed at Tehran, May 1943 to June, 1945.

• AZIŠMĀND

  M. Shaki

  “obstructed or hampered justice," one of the few Middle Persian exclusively legal terms.