Table of Contents

  • ASTAUENE

    Cross-Reference

    Parthian province to the north of Hyrcania (Gorgān). See OSTOVĀ.

  • ĀŠTĪĀN

    C. E. Bosworth

    the name both of an administrative subdistrict (dehestān) and its chef-lieu in the First Province (ostān).

  • ĀŠTĪĀNI

    E. Yarshater

    the dialect of Āštīān, belongs to the group of “Central” dialects spoken in Kashan and Isfahan provinces and some adjacent areas.

  • ĀŠTĪĀNĪ, ḤASAN

    H. Algar

    (d. 1319/1901), late 19-century moǰtahed who played an important role in the campaign against the tobacco concession of 1309/1891.

  • ĀŠTĪĀNĪ, MAHDĪ

    H. Algar

    known as Mīrzā Kūček (1306-1372/1888-89 to 1952-53), a scholar who excelled in both the traditional (manqūl) and rational (maʿqūl) sciences.

  • AŠTIŠAT

    M. Van Esbroeck

    religious center of pagan Armenia and first official Christian see.

  • ASTŌDĀN

    A. Sh. Shahbazi

    “bone-receptacle, ossuary.” The term has an important place in the vocabulary of ancient Iranian funerary rites.

  • ASṬORLĀB

    D. Pingree

    The altitude of the sun or of the star is determined by an observation through the alidade on the back; the rim of the upper two halves of the back is graduated from 0° to 90° from the horizontal diameter (horizon) to the apex (zenith).

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • ASTRAKHAN

    B. Spuler

    a town (Russian since 1556) on the river Volga.

  • ASTROLABE

    Cross-Reference

    See ASṬORLĀB.

  • ASTROLOGY AND ASTRONOMY IN IRAN

    D. Pingree, C. J. Brunner

    Highly relevant are the subjects Mithraism and Zurvanism. It is here assumed that the exposure of Zoroastrian priests to Near Eastern divination, from the Achaemenid period on, helped foster cosmological speculation; and this developed a body of myth around Zurwān “Time.” 

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • ASTVAṰ.ƎRƎTA

    M. Boyce

    the Avestan name of the Saošyant, the future Savior of Zoroastrianism.

  • 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.

  • ATĀBAKĀN-E FĀRS

    B. Spuler

    princes of the Salghurid dynasty who ruled Fārs in the 6th/12th and 7th/13th centuries.

  • ATĀBAKĀN-E LORESTĀN

    B. Spuler

    rulers of Lorestān, part of the Zagros highlands of southwestern Iran in the later middle ages. Lorestān had a mixed population of Lors, Kurds, and others.

  • ATĀBAKĀN-E MARĀḠA

    K. A. Luther

     a family of local rulers of Marāḡa who ruled from the early 6th/12th century until 605/1208-09.

  • ATĀBAKĀN-E YAZD

    S. C. Fairbanks

    a dynasty which governed Yazd in the 6th/12th century.

  • ATABAKI, PARVIZ

    Farhad Taheri

    (1928 - 2004), a Persian diplomat, literary scholar, translator, and editor.

  • ʿATABĀT

    H. Algar

    “thresholds,” more fully, ʿatabāt-e ʿalīyāt or ʿatabāt-e (or aʿtāb-emoqaddasa “the lofty or sacred thresholds,” the Shiʿite shrine cities of Iraq

  • ATABAY, CYRUS

    Saeid Rezvani

    (1929-1996), Iranian poet and translator who wrote poetry exclusively in German and translated works on Persian literature into German. 

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • ATĀʾĪYA ORDER

    D. DeWeese

    a branch of the Yasavīya Sufi brotherhood especially active in Ḵᵛārazm from the 8th/14th century.

  • ĀṮĀR AL-BĀQĪA

    D. Pingree

     (The Chronology of Ancient Nations), a historical work by Bīrūnī, composed at the age of 27, in 1000 CE.

  • ĀṮĀR AL-BELĀD

    C. E. Bosworth

    the title of a geographical work composed in Arabic during the 7th/13th century by the Persian scholar Abū Yaḥyā Zakarīyāʾ b. Moḥammad Qazvīnī.

  • ĀṮĀR AL-WOZARĀʾ

    M. Dabīrsīāqī

    a biographical work on ministers and other officials, their policies and literary works, by Sayf al-dīn Ḥāǰǰī b. Neẓām ʿAqīlī, written at Herat between 1470-71 and 1486-87.

  • ĀṮĀR-E ʿAJAM

    M. Dabīrsīaqī

    a study of the geographical features and historical monuments of Fārs.

  • ĀTAŠ

    M. Boyce

    “fire” in Zoroastrianism. The hearth fire, providing warmth, light and comfort, was regarded by the ancient Iranians as the visible embodiment of the divinity Ātar, who lived among men as their servant and master. Fire was also present at their religious ceremonies.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • ĀTAŠ Journal

    N. Parvīn

    (Fire), a Persian journal of news and political comment, published in Tehran, 1946-60.

  • ĀTAŠ NIYĀYIŠN

    M. Boyce and F. M. Kotwal

    the fifth in a group of five Zoroastrian prayers, which is addressed to fire and its divinity.

  • ĀTAŠ, AḤMAD

    cross-reference

    See  ATEŞ, AHMED.

  • ĀTAŠ, Ḵᵛāja ʿAlī Ḥaydar

    M. Baqir

    late 18th to early 19th-century Indo-Muslim poet in Persian and Urdu.

  • ĀTAŠ-ZŌHR

    M. Boyce and F. M. Kotwal

    or ātaš-zōr, a Middle Persian term for the Zoroastrian ritual.

  • ĀTAŠDĀN

    M. Boyce

     “place of fire, fire-holder,” designates the altar-like repository for a sacred wood-fire in a Zoroastrian place of worship.

  • ATASHI, MANUCHEHR

    Saeed Rezaei

    Missing the bucolic backdrop of his childhood, Manucher Atashi soon dropped out of school and left the city to live in Čāh-kutāh, a village near Bušehr, where he worked as a shepherd and fell in love with a young girl, who eventually married another man and died at an early age.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • ĀTAŠKADA

    M. Boyce

     “house of fire,” a Zoroastrian term for a consecrated building in which there is an ever-burning sacred fire.

  • ATEŞ, AHMED

    Tahsin Yazici

    (1911-1966), Turkish orientalist and scholar of Persian literature.

  • ATHENAIOS OF NAUCRATIS

    J. Duchesne-Guillemin

    author of the Deipnosophistai, his only extant work, in which in about a hundred passages he deals with things Persian.

  • AṮĪR AḴSĪKATĪ

    Z. Safa

    Poet of the 6th/12th century with a distinctive style.

  • AṮĪR OWMĀNĪ

    Z. Safa

    Poet of the ʿErāqī (western Iranian) school of the 7th/13th century (d. 665/1266).

  • AṮĪR-AL-DĪN ABHARĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ABHARĪ SAMARQANDĪ, AṮĪR-AL-DĪN.

  • ATKINSON, James A.

    A. Karimi-Hakkak

    (1780­-1852), a notable British orientalist, a scholar of the Persian language and literature, and the translator of Persian literature.

  • ATOSSA

    R. Schmitt

    Achaemenid queen.