Table of Contents

  • CENTRAL ASIA xiv. Turkish-Iranian Language Contacts

    Gerhard Doerfer

    Three Turkish languages came together in Central Asia, the territory covered by the modern Turkmen, Uzbek, Kazakh, Kirghiz, and Tajik SSRs, excluding Chinese Turkestan: 1. the Uighur or Eastern Turks, 2. the Oghuz, speaking Khorasani Turkish, 3. and the Kipchaks

  • CENTRAL ASIA xv. Modern Literature

    Keith Hitchins

    Central Asian literatures in the twentieth century have developed under diverse influences. Beside classical and modern Persian literature and the poetic traditions and folklore of the Central Asian peoples themselves, Rus­sian thought and letters have been predominant.

  • CENTRAL ASIA xvi. Music

    Walter Feldman

    In modern times Central Asia as a musicological unit can be defined as the area extending from Afghanistan north of the Hindu Kush, all of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan in the west, Kirgizia and Chinese Turkestan in the east, and Kazakhstan in the north.

  • CENTRAL DIALECTS

    Gernot L. Windfuhr

    designation of a number of Iranian dialects spoken in the center of Persia, roughly between Hamadān, Isfahan, Yazd, and Tehran, that is, the area of ancient Media Major, which constitute the core of the western Iranian dialects.

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  • CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

    Mark J. Gasiorowski

    When the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was established in September 1947, its predecessors had been operating in Persia for a number of years.

  • CENTRAL TREATY ORGANIZATION

    Joseph A. Kechichian

    (CENTO), a mutual defense and economic cooperation pact among Persia, Turkey, and Pakistan, with the participation of the United Kingdom and the United States as associate members.

  • ČERĀḠ

    Mahmoud Omidsalar

    lamps. Various kinds of lamps were used in Persia before the introduction of electric light. The simplest and cheapest was the čerāḡ-e mūšī “mouse lamp,” so called probably because of its small size and poor light.

  • ČERĀḠ KHAN ZĀHEDĪ

    Roger M. Savory

    b. Shaikh Šarīf, a descendant of Shaikh Zāhed Gīlānī, the celebrated moršed (spiritual director) of Shaikh Ṣafī-al-Dīn, the eponymous founder of the Safavid order (Ṣafawīya); hence Čerāḡ Khan was also known as Pīrzāda.

  • ČERĀḠ-ʿALĪ KHAN SERĀJ-AL-MOLK ZANGANA

    Denis M. MacEoin

    (d. after 1281/1864-65), a leading govern­ment official during the early reign of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah.

  • ČERĀḠ-E DEHLĪ

    Sharif Husain Qasemi

    (b. at Avadh, ca. 675/1276-77; d. at Delhi, 18 Ramażān 757/14 September 1356), the title of Shaikh Naṣīr-al-Dīn Maḥmūd, the last of the five great early saints of the Indian Češtī order (see češtīya).

  • ČERĀḠ-E HEDĀYAT

    J. R. Perry

    (“lamp of guidance”), a monolingual Persian dictionary by the Indo-Muslim poet and scholar Serāj-al-Din ʿAli Khan Ārzu.

  • ČERĀḠĀNĪ

    Mahmoud Omidsalar

    (also čerāḡān, čerāḡbānī, čerāḡbārān), the decoration of buildings and open spaces with lights during festivals and on occasions like weddings, coronations, royal birthdays, circumcision ceremonies, and so on.

  • ČERĀḠHĀ RĀ MAN ḴĀMUŠ MIKONAM

    Elham Gheytanchi

    (I turn off the lights, Tehran, 2001), the first and most acclaimed novel by Zoya Pirzad (Zoyā Pirzād, b. Abadan, 1952), and the second to be penned by an Iranian-Armenian writer, after Ālice Ārezumāniān’s Hama az yek (All from one,Tehran, 1963).

  • ČERĀM

    Pierre Oberling

    or ČORŪM, a small tribal confederacy (īl) inhabiting the dehestān of Čerām, in the Kūhgīlūya region, in southwestern Persia.

  • CERAMICS

    Multiple Authors

    Ceramics in Persia from the Neolithic period to the 19th century.

  • CERAMICS i. The Neolithic Period through the Bronze Age in Northeastern and North-central Persia

    Robert H. Dyson

    The ceramic tradition of northeastern Persia devel­oped in parallel but distinct sequences in the Gorgān lowlands and the Dāmḡān highlands, including the parts of the Atrak region adjacent to both. 

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  • CERAMICS ii. The Neolithic Period in Northwestern Persia

    Mary M. Voigt

    The initial occupation of Persian Azerbaijan by farming groups took place in the second half of the 7th millennium B.C.E. The best known site of this period is Hajji Firuz (Ḥājī Fīrūz) Tepe, located in the Ošnū-­Soldūz valley and approximately contemporary with Hasanlu X (ca. 6000-5000 B.C.E.). 

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  • CERAMICS iii. The Neolithic Period in Central and Western Persia

    Peder Mortensen

    Present knowledge is based primarily on evidence from three excavated sites and from surveys carried out southwest of Harsīn, on the Māhī­dašt plain, and in the Holaylān valley.

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  • CERAMICS iv. The Chalcolithic Period in the Zagros Highlands

    Elizabeth F. Henrickson

    The Zagros Chalcolithic may be divided into Early, Middle, and Late subperiods. Within each several distinctive regional assemblages are known in varying arche­ological detail. 

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  • CERAMICS v. The Chalcolithic Period in Southern Persia

    Thomas W. Beale

    The most fully excavated corpus of ceramics from the Chalcolithic of southern Persia comes from Tal-i Iblis and Tepe Yahya. Ex­tensive surface collections by Sir Mark Aurel Stein in Baluchistan and more recently have provided important supplementary material.

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