Table of Contents

• AΘURĀ

  Cross-Reference

  Achaemenid province. See ASSYRIA.

• ĀΘVIYA

  cross-reference

  in the Avestan Hōm Yast (Y. 9.7) the second mortal to press the haoma and the father of Θraētaona (Ferīdūn).

• AUBERGINE

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀDENJĀN.

• AUDH

  Cross-Reference

  See AVADH.

• AUGUSTINE

  G. Widengren

  prominent Christian theologian and philosopher, born 354 in Thagaste, Numidia.

• AURELIUS VICTOR

  M. L. Chaumont

  born in Africa ca. 325/330, held high positions under Julian and Theodosius.

• AUSTRIA

  Helmut Slaby

  Diplomatic and commercial relations between Austria and Persia have a long history, stretching back to the sixteenth century.

• AUSTRIA ii. IRANIAN STUDIES IN

  X. Tremblay and N. Rastegar

  The present entry is intended as a synthetic history of the organization of Iranian studies (1) up to 1918 in all the Habsburg “hereditary countries,” which included the present Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia, also parts of Poland, Romania, and Ukraine, and (2) since 1918 in the Republic of Austria exclusively.

• AUTIYĀRA

  R. Schmitt

  name of a district of the satrapy Armina of the Achaemenid empire.

• AUTOPHRADATES

  M. A. Dandamayev

  name of several Achaemenid officials, especially the satrap of Lydia under the  Artaxerxes II, from 391 B.C. until the late 350s.

• AVA

  C. E. Bosworth

  the basic modern form of the name of two small towns of northern Persia, normally written Āba in medieval Islamic sources.

• AVADĀNA

  R. E. Emmerick

  Sanskrit term for a category of Buddhist narrative literature.

• AVADH

  R. B. Barnett

  an ancient cultural and administrative region lying between the Himalayas and the Ganges in North India, named after Ayodhyā, the setting of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana.

• AVALOKITEŚVARA-DHĀRAṆĪ

  R. E. Emmerick

  name given by H. W. Bailey to a Buddhist text written in archaizing Late Khotanese, ending with a dhāraṇī (Skt. “spell, sacred formula”) preceded by homage to the bodhisattvas.

• AVARAYR

  R. Hewsen

  a village in Armenia in the principality of Artaz southeast of the Iranian town of Mākū.

• ĀVĀZ

  G. Tsuge

  in modern Persian “song” (of any kind) or, more broadly, “music.”

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• AVERY, PETER

  David Blow

  (1923-2008), British scholar of Persian literature and history.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• AVESTA

  J. Kellens

  the holy book of the Zoroastrians.

• AVESTAN GEOGRAPHY

  G. Gnoli

  Geographical references in the Avesta are limited to the regions on the eastern Iranian plateau and on the Indo-Iranian border.

• AVESTAN LANGUAGE I-III

  K. Hoffmann

  the Old Iranian language of the Avesta. i. The Avestan script. ii. The phonology of Avestan. iii. The grammar of Avestan.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• AVESTAN LANGUAGE iv. AVESTAN SYNTAX

  Jean Kellens

  The only complete syntax of Avestan which is still usable today is H. Reichelt’sAwestisches Elementarbuch.

• AVESTAN PEOPLE

  M. Boyce

  The term Avestan people is used here to include both Zoroaster’s own tribe, with that of his patron, Kavi Vištāspa, and those peoples settled in Eastern Iran.

• AVIATION

  Abbas Atrvash

  i. The Formation of the Iranian Air Force (1923-27). ii. Junkers Airline in Iran (1927-32). iii. Iranian State Airlines of the Ministry of Post and Telegram (1938-46). iv. Privately Owned Commercial Airlines (1945-62). v. State Owned Commercial Airline (1962-79). vi. Multiple Commercial Airlines (1979-2007).

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• AVICENNA

  Multiple Authors

  celebrated philosopher and physician philosopher (d. 1037).

• AVICENNA i. Introductory note

  M. Mahdi

  philosopher who began a movement away from explicitness about the central question of the relation between philosophy and religion.

• AVICENNA ii. Biography

  D. Gutas

  philosopher whose biography presents the paradox that although more material is available for its study than is average for a Muslim scholar of his caliber, it has received little critical attention.

• AVICENNA iii. Logic

  Sh. B. Abed

  philosopher whose works on logic are extant, and most of them have been published. With the exception of two Persian works, Dāneš-nāma-ye ʿalāʾī and Andar dāneš-e rag, all of his works are written in Arabic.

• AVICENNA iv. Metaphysics

  M. E. Marmura

  a philosopher whose metaphysical system is one of the most comprehensive and detailed in the history of philosophy.

• AVICENNA v. Mysticism

  D. Gutas

  a philosopher whose philosophical system, rooted in the Aristotelian tradition, is thoroughly rationalistic and intrinsically alien to the principles of Sufism as it had developed until his time.

• AVICENNA vi. Psychology

  F. Rahman

  a psychology or doctrine of the soul that has an Aristotelian base with a strong Neoplatonic superstructure.

• AVICENNA vii. Practical Sciences

  M. Mahdi

  an account of practical science that is laconic and dispersed in minor tracts and in the opening and closing passages of his comprehensive encyclopedic works.

• AVICENNA viii. Mathematics and Physical Sciences

  G. Saliba

  referred to, in his encyclopedic work the Šefāʾ, as the mathematical sciences; includes both mathematics and astronomy.

• AVICENNA ix. Music

  O. Wright

  from the discussion in his Ketāb al-najāt, Dāneš-nāma-ye ʿalāʾī, and Ketāb al-Šefāʾ. He considers music one of the mathematical sciences (the medieval quadrivium).

• AVICENNA x. Medicine and Biology

  B. Musallam

  at his time natural philosophy and medicine overlapped, sharing a large area of the field that today we call biology.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• AVICENNA xi. Persian Works

  M. Achena

  only two works in Persian have come down to us: a short book Andar dāneš-e rag (On the science of the pulse), and a treatise on philosophy.

• AVICENNA xii. The impact of Avicenna’s philosophical works on the West

  S. Van Riet

  Western European acquaintance with Avicenna began when Latin versions of some of his Arabic works came out in the mid-12th to late 13th centuries.

• AVICENNA xiii. The influence of Avicenna on medical studies in the West

  U. Weisser

  From the early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth century Avicenna held a high place in Western European medical studies.

• ĀVĪŠAN

  R. A. Parsa

  wild thyme. Varieties in Iran are carminative, stomachic, diuretic, digestive, and flatulent. They may be used for liver and respiratory disorders.

• AVROMAN

  D. N. MacKenzie

  a mountainous region on the western frontier of Persian Kurdistan.

• AVROMAN DOCUMENTS

  D. N. MacKenzie

  three parchments found in a cave in the Kūh-e Sālān.

• AVROMANI

  D. N. MacKenzie

  the dialect of Avroman, properly Hawrāmi, the most archaic of the Gōrāni group.

• AWĀʾEL AL-MAQĀLĀT

  M. J. McDermott

  a Shiʿite doctrinal work written in Baghdad.

• AWAN

  M. W. Stolper

  name of a place in ancient western Iran, the nominal dynastic seat of Elamite rulers in the late third millennium B.C.

• ʿAWĀREF AL-MAʿĀREF

  W. C. Chittick

  a classic work on Sufism by Šehāb-al-dīn Sohravardī (1145-1234)

• ʿAWĀREŻ

  W. Floor

  term used since 4th/10th century to denote extraordinary imposts of various kinds, the nature of which differed per area and historic period.

• ʿAWFĪ, SADĪD-AL-DĪN

  J. Matīnī

  an important Persian writer of the late 6th/12th and early 7th/13th centuries.

• AWḤAD-AL-DĪN KERMĀNĪ

  Z. Safa

  a famous mystic of the 6th/12th century.

• AWḤADĪ MARĀḠAʾĪ

  Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

  (born ca. 673/1274-75 in Marāḡa and died there in 738/1338), a poet who flourished in the reign of Abū Saʿīd Bahādor Khan (r. 716/1316-736/1335).

• AWLĪĀʾ

  H. Algar

  a term commonly translated in European languages as “saints” or the equivalent.

• AWLĪĀʾALLĀH ĀMOLĪ

  W. Madelung

  the author of the history of Rūyān, Tārīḵ-e Rūyān, written about 760/1359.