Table of Contents

• COMPUTERS in Persia

  Moḥammad-Reżā Moḥammadīfar

  electronic data-processing equipment, in Persia.

• CONCESSIONS

  Willem Floor, Mansoureh Ettehadieh [neẓām māfī]

  (emtīāzāt), grants by a state to citizens, aliens, or other states of rights to carry out specific economic activities and of capitulatory rights on its territory.

• CONCOBAR

  Cross-Reference

  See KANGĀVAR.

• CONFEDERATION OF IRANIAN STUDENTS, NATIONAL UNION

  Afshin Matin-Asgari

  (Konfederāsīūn-e jahānī-e moḥaṣṣelīn wa dānešjūyān-e īrānī etteḥādīya-ye mellī), an organization purporting to be the political and corporate (ṣenfī) representative of Persian students abroad, as well as in Persia, during the 1960s and 1970s.

• CONFEDERATIONS, TRIBAL

  Richard Tapper

  tribal groups commonly comprise several levels of organization, from a nomad camp to (sometimes) a nation-state, with different criteria defining membership of groups at each level.

• CONFESSIONS

  Jes P. Asmussen

  i. In the Zoroastrian faith. ii. In Manicheism.

• CONGRATULATIONS

  Žāla Āmūzgār

  the custom of conveying congratulations on such happy occasions as the birth of a child, a birthday anniversary, a marriage, a coronation, or a national or religious festival.

• CONIFERAE

  Cross-Reference

  See DERAḴT.

• CONJUNCTIONS

  Cross-Reference

  See QERĀN.

• CONON OF ATHENS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (b. before 444 BCE., d. after 392 BCE),  a leading Athenian admiral during the Peloponnesian and Corinthian wars.

• CONSERVATION

  Cross-Reference

  See ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION.

• CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION OF PERSIAN MONUMENTS

  Eugenio Galdieri and Kerāmat-Allāh Afsar

  in almost every historical period some restoration of Persian monuments has been undertaken either by state authorities or through the efforts of charitable individuals.

• CONSPIRACY THEORIES

  Ahmad Ashraf

  a complex of beliefs attributing the course of Persian history and politics to the machinations of hostile foreign powers and secret organizations.

• CONSTANTIUS II

  Cross-reference

  See SHAPUR II.

• CONSTELLATIONS

  D. N. MacKenzie

  Nowhere in the Gathas of Zoroaster or the Old Persian inscriptions of the Achaemenids are even individual stars mentioned. The first and only two constellations to be named in Old Iranian sources are Ursa Major and the Pleiades, in the Younger Avesta. The next possible mentions of constellations are of two kinds, both dating from late Middle Persian times but only actually attested in works or manuscripts from the Islamic period.

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• CONSTITUTION OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC

  Said Amir Arjomand

  After the overthrow of the Pahlavi monarchy in 1979, Persia was declared an Islamic republic. Until that time there had been virtually no discussion, outside religious circles, of the conception of welāyat-e faqīh (lit. “mandate of the jurist”) propounded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. During the revolutionary turmoil of 1978-79, only the vaguer notion of “Islamic government” was current.

• CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF AFGHANISTAN

  M. Ḥassan Kākaṛ

  When Amir ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Khan (r. 1297-1319/1880-1901) acceded to power, he established a centralized monarchy in Afghanistan for the first time.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION

  Multiple Authors

  (Enqelāb-e mašrūṭa) of 1323-29/1905-11, during which a parliament and constitutional monarchy were established in Persia.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION i. Intellectual background

  Abbas Amanat

  The establishment of a constitutional regime in Persia was the chief objective of the Revolution of 1323-29/1905-11.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION ii. Events

  Vanessa Martin

  After 1308/1890 the Persian government found itself in increasing financial difficulties, as inflation produced a sharp decline in the value of the land tax and the silver qerān lost value against the pound sterling with the rapid fall of international silver prices at the end of the 19th century.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION iii. The Constitution

  Said Amir Arjomand

  The term for “constitution” in Persia, qānūn-e asāsī (lit. “fundamental law”), was borrowed from the Ottoman empire in the 19th century. 

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION iv. The aftermath

  Mansoureh Ettehadieh

  In the decade 1329-39/1911-21, from the Russian ultimatum and the dissolution of the Second Majles until the coup d’etat of 1299 Š./1921 (q.v.), the Constitution was put to a series of crucial tests.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION v. Political parties of the constitutional period

  Mansoureh Ettehadieh

  Political parties were first officially organized after Moḥammad-ʿAlī Shah was forced to abdicate in 1327/1909, at about the time elections for the Second Majles were beginning.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION vi. The press

  ʿAlī-Akabr Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

  There are no statistics on literacy in Qajar Persia, but it can be conjectured that the literate population was very small. Until the beginning of the Pahlavi era there were people who could “read” the Koran and prayer books, for teaching in religious schools consisted of memorizing koranic passages.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION vii. The constitutional movement in literature

  Sorour Soroudi

  “constitutional literature” refers here to literature produced from the late 19th century until 1339=1300 Š./1921, under the impact of aspirations for reform and the constitutional movement.

• CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES in Persian architecture

  Wolfram Kleiss

  The most frequent building material in Iranian cultural areas has always been mud, which is available everywhere. When wet, it can simply be plastered on walls without shaping. Alternatively, it can be tempered and formed into large blocks with more or less rectangular sides.

• CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS INDUSTRY

  Willem Floor

  to sustain its economic development Iran requires construction materials of all kinds; these include cement, lime, plaster, asbestos (products), and decorative stones, which are discussed in this article.

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• CONSUMERS AND CONSUMPTION

  Cross-Reference

  See ECONOMY.

• CONTARINI, AMBROGIO

  Filippo Bertotti

  (1429-99), Venetian merchant and diplomat, author of a noteworthy report on Persia under the Āq Qoyunlū Uzun Ḥasan.

• CONTI, NICOLO` DE’

  Paola Orsatti

  (1395-ca. 1469), Venetian merchant who traveled in the east from 1414 until 1438.

• CONTINENTS

  Cross-Reference

  See KEŠVAR.

• CONTRACTS

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev, Mansour Shaki, EIr

  (usually ʿaqd), legally enforceable undertakings between two or more consenting parties.

• CONVERSION

  Multiple Authors

  the act of adopting another religion.

• CONVERSION i. Of Iranians to the Zoroastrian faith

  Gherardo Gnoli

  Although modern Zoroastrians question whether their religion even allows conversion, Zoroastrianism, as an ethical and essentially monotheistic religion based on a historical figure, originally had pronounced missionary characteristics, as is clear from the extent of its dissemination.

• CONVERSION ii. Of Iranians to Islam

  Elton L. Daniel

  Iranians were among the very earliest converts to Islam, and their conversion in significant numbers began as soon as the Arab armies reached and overran the Persian plateau.

• CONVERSION iii. To Imami Shiʿism in India

  Juan Cole

  South Asians adopted Imami, or Twelver, Shiʿism in great numbers, mostly after the Safavid conquest of Persia in the first decade of the 16th century. 

• CONVERSION iv. Of Persian Jews to other religions

  Amnon Netzer

  In the Achaemenid, Seleucid, and Parthian periods relations between the Jews and the Persian authorities were friendly, and there is no evidence of forced or voluntary conversion of Jews to Zoroastrianism.

• CONVERSION v. To Babism and the Bahai faith

  Juan R. I. Cole

  In 1279/1863 the prominent Babi Bahāʾ-Allāh, while in exile in Baghdad, had declared himself to a very small group of close disciples and relatives as the messianic figure (man yoẓheroho ʾllāh) whose advent had been pre­dicted by Sayyed ʿAlī-Moḥammad Šīrāzī, the Bāb.

• CONVERSION vi. To Protestant Christianity in Persia

  Paul S. Seto

  The conversion of Armenians, Assyrians, Jews, Muslims, and Zoroastrians in Persia to Protestantism as the result of missionary activity by foreign societies and national churches is discussed here.

• CONVERSION vii. To the Zoroastrian faith in the modern period

  Pargol Saati

  Modern Zoroastrians disagree on whether it is permissible for outsiders to enter their religion. Now scattered in small minority communities in Persia, India, Europe, and North America and without a reli­gious hierarchy, the Zoroastrians are governed by councils and high priests whose authority is only local. 

• COOKBOOKS

  Mohammad R. Ghanoonparvar

  classical, in Persian; relatively few books in Persian exclusively devoted to the prepa­ration of food are known, even though references to a highly developed cuisine in Persia in premodern times are found in medical, religious, historical, and poetic texts.

• COOKIES

  Ṣoḡrā Bāzargān

  (kolūča, nān-e kolūča, kolīča) in Persia; in this article the cookies most frequently made in major Persian cities today, both traditional types and those reflecting foreign influence, will be described.

• COOKING

  Multiple Authors

  i. In ancient Iran. ii. In Pahlavi literature. iii. Principles and ingredients of modern Persian cooking. iv. In Afghanistan.

• COON, CARLETON STEVENS

  Robert H. Dyson, Jr.

  (b. Wakefield, Massa­chusetts, 23 June 1904, d. Gloucester, Massachusetts, 4 June 1981), American anthropologist and educator.

• COOPERATIVES

  Amir I. Ajami

  (šerkat-e taʿāwonī), economic organizations owned jointly by and operated for the benefit of groups of individuals. Such cooperatives were first introduced and recognized in Persia under the Commercial code (Qānūn-e tejārat) of 1303 Š./1924, which provided for both production (tawlīd) and consumer (maṣraf) cooperatives.

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• ČOPOQ

  Willem Floor

  or ČEPOQ, a long-stemmed pipe with a small bowl for smoking tobacco, distinct from the ḡ/qalyān, or water pipe.

• COPPER i. In Islamic Persia

  James W. Allan and Willem Floor

  the metallic element Cu.

• Copper ii. Copper resources in Iran

  Manṣur Qorbāni and Anuširavān Kani

  With the advancement of the knowledge of metallurgy in the Achaemenid era, finely crafted copper and bronze objects were created, continuing on through ancient times. The medieval Arab traveler Abu Dolaf wrote about the Nišāpur copper mine, but the extent of the deposits in Iran became known only from accounts of European travelers from the Safavid period onwards.

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• COPRATES

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀB-E DEZ.

• COPTIC MANICHEAN TEXTS

  Aloïs van Tongerloo

  primary source text fragments, written in previously undeciphered or little-known languages and scripts which considerably changed the interpretation and apprecia­tion of Manicheism.