Table of Contents

• 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.