Table of Contents

  • CHALAVID DYNASTY

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀL-E AFRĀSĪĀB.

  • CHALCOLITHIC ERA

    Elizabeth F. Henrickson

    in Persia; chalcolithic is a term adopted for the Near East early in this century as part of an attempt to refine the framework of cultural developmental “stages” (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron Ages) and used by students of western European prehistory.

  • CHALDEANS

    Muhammad Dandamayev

    (Kaldu), West Semitic tribes of southern Babylonia attested in Assyrian texts from the early 9th century B.C.

  • CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, INDUSTRIES, AND MINES OF PERSIA

    Ahmad Ashraf

    a national federation of local chambers and syndicates created in Esfand 1348 Š./March 1970 through the merger of various local chambers of commerce and the national chamber of industries and mines of Iran.

  • CHAMBER of GUILDS

    Ahmad Ashraf

    (Oṭāq-e aṣnāf), a federation of various guilds formed in 1350 Š./1971 under the “guild-organization act” (Qānūn-e neẓām-e ṣenfī) in most urban centers.

  • CHAMBERLAIN

    Cross-Reference

    See ḤĀJEB.

  • CHAMPION, JOSEPH

    Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak and Estelle Whelan

    (1750-ca. 1813), English poet and translator. His three books devoted to Persian litera­ture were all first published in India. The earliest contains English odes in imitation of the poems of Ḥāfeẓ, mostly on the theme of wine and drinking.

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  • CHĀNGĀ ĀSĀ

    Mary Boyce and Firoze M. Kotwal

    an eminent Parsi layman who lived in the 15th-16th centuries A.D. at Navsari in Gujarat.

  • CHARACENE and CHARAX

    John Hansman

    (Spasinou) in pre-Islamic times; Characene is the name Pliny gives for the later region of Mesene (called Mēšān or Mēšūn in Middle Persian, Maysān/Mayšān in Syriac, and Maysān in Arabic) in southernmost Mesopotamia, which formed a political district of that name in the Seleucid, Parthian, and Sasanian periods.

  • CHARAX

    A. Shapur Shahbazi

    town in the Seleucid and Parthian province of Rhagiana, the area around modern Ray.

  • CHARCOAL

    Willem Floor

    car­bonized wood and other vegetal material, an important household and industrial fuel in Persia and Afghanistan.

  • CHARDIN, Sir JOHN

    John Emerson

    (born Paris, 16 November 1643, died Chiswick, London? 5 January 1713), an Huguenot jeweler who traveled extensively in Asia and wrote the most detailed foreign account of the Persia of his time.

  • CHARES of MITYLENE

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    Greek historiographer, who participated in Alexander’s expedition and wrote “Stories about Alexander” (Perì Aléxandron historíai), of which fragments remain.

  • CHARIOT

    William W. Malandra

    chariots in ancient Iran were light horse-drawn, two-wheeled vehicles designed for speed and maneuverability in battle and races.

  • CHARITABLE FOUNDATIONS

    Maria Macuch; John R. Hinnells, Mary Boyce, and Shahrokh Shahrokh

    (MPers. ruwānagān lit. “relating to the soul”), pious endow­ments to benefit the souls of the dead, as specified by the individual founders.  i. In the Sasanian period.  ii. Among Zoroastrians in Islamic times.

  • CHARMS

    Mahmoud Omidsalar

    originally verbal formulas recited to prevent or ward off potential harm by magical power but now also denoting written and even talismanic magic.

  • CHARON OF LAMPSACUS

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    Greek historiographer, son of Pytho­cles or Pythes.

  • CHARPENTIER, JARL

    Bo Utas

    (Hellen Robert Toussaint; b. 17 December 1884, d. 5 July 1935), Swedish Indologist, Indo-Europeanist, and Iranist, born in Gothenburg as the son of an army officer.

  • CHASE

    Cross-Reference

    See HUNTING IN IRAN.

  • CHASE, THORNTON

    Moojan Momen

    (b. Springfield, Mass., 22 February 1847), regarded by Bahais as the first Amer­ican Bahai and the first Bahai of the West.