Table of Contents

• CABBAGE

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  (Pers. kalam).Many medicinal properties and uses have been attributed in the Islamic period to the leaves and seeds of the karanb, most of which can be traced to the writings of the Greek masters Dioscorides, Galen,snd others.

• ČĀČ

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (Ar. Šāš), the name of a district and of a town in medieval Transoxania; the name of the town was gradually supplanted by that of Tashkent from late Saljuq and Mongol times onwards.

• ČAČ-NĀMA

  D. N. MacLean

  Persian translation of an early anonymous Arabic history of Sind compiled at Arōr in the 3rd/9th century.

• CADMAN, JOHN

  Kamran Eqbal

  Director and later chairman of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) during the reign of Reżā Shah (b. Silverdale, Staffordshire, England, 7 September 1877, d. Bletchley, Buckingham, 31 May 1941).

• ČĀDOR (1)

  Cross-Reference

  A portable dwelling characteristic of certain nomad groups. It consists of a canopy of cloth or skin supported by upright posts and anchored to the ground by means of pegs and ropes. See TENTS.

• ČĀDOR (2)

  Bijan Gheiby, James R. Russell, Hamid Algar

  A loose female garment covering the body, sometimes also the face.

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• CADUSII

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  an Iranian tribe settled between the Caspian and the Black sea.

• ČAGĀD Ī DĀITĪ

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  (or Dāityā), lit. “summit of the law," a peak of the mythical mountain Harburz, located in Ērānwēǰ in the middle of the world.

• ČAḠADĀY

  Cross-reference

  second son of Čengīz Khan. See CHAGHATAYID DYNASTY.

• ČAḠĀNA

  Ḥosayn ʿAlī Mallāḥ

  The name given to four types of musical instruments.

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• ČAḠANĪ, ṬĀHER

  Moḥammad Dabīrsīāqī

  b. Abi’l-ʿAbbās Fażl b. Abī Bakr Moḥammad b. Abī Saʿd Moẓaffar b. Moḥtāj, prince and poet of the ancient Iranian Āl-e Moḥtāj, ruler of Čaḡānīān (Čaḡān Ḵodāt).

• ČAḠĀNĪĀN

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  Middle Pers. form Čagīnīgān, Arabic rendering Ṣaḡānīān, with the common rendering of Iranian č as ṣ.

• ČAḠĀNĪĀN, Chaghanids

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀL-E MOḤTĀJ.

• ČAḠĀNRŪD

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  Čaḡānīrūd in Farroḵī, the seventh and last right-bank tributary of the Oxus or Amu Darya.

• ČAḠATĀY

  Cross-Reference

  See CHAGHATAY LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE and CHAGHATAYID DYNASTY.

• ČAḠČARĀN

  Daniel Balland

  Principal town and administrative capital of the province of Ḡōr, in the mountains of central Afghanistan.

• ČAḠRĪ BEG DĀWŪD

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  b. Mīḵāʾīl b. Saljūq, Abū Solaymān, a member of the Saljuqs, the leading family of the Oghuz Turks, who with his brother Ṭoḡrel (Ṭoḡrïl) Beg founded the Great Saljuq dynasty in Persia in the 5th/11th century.

• ČAḠRĪ KHAN ʿALĪ

  Cross-reference

  See ILAK-KHANIDS.

• ČĀH

  Marcel Bazin

  Well. Together with the well-known qanāt (subterranean water canals), wells (čāh) play a great part in the mobilization of the groundwater resources of Persia.

• ČĀH-BAHĀR

  Eckart Ehlers

  Name of a town and bay on the Makrān coast of Persian Baluchistan facing the coast of Oman.

• ČAHĀR AYMĀQ

  Cross-Reference

  See AYMĀQ.

• ČAHĀR BĀḠ

  Cross-Reference

  See ČAHĀRBĀḠ.

• ČAHĀR DOWLĪ

  Pierre Oberling

  (Davālī), or ČĀR DOWLĪ, a tribe of western Iran.

• ČAHĀR LANG

  cross-reference

  (ČĀR LANG). See BAḴTĪĀRĪ TRIBE i.

• ČAHĀR MAḤĀ(L) WA BAḴTĪĀRĪ

  Eckart Ehlers and Hūšang Kešāvarz

  second smallest province (ostān) of Persia in area, located in the Zagros mountains of southwestern Persia.

• ČAHĀR MAQĀLA

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  persian prose work written in the 6th/12th century by Abu’l-Ḥasan Neẓām-al-­Dīn (or Najm-al-Dīn) Aḥmad b. ʿOmar b. ʿAlī Neẓāmī ʿArūżī Samarqandī, originally entitled Majmaʿ al-nawāder.

• ČAHĀR ONṢOR

  Sharif Husain Qasemi

  (Four elements), an autobiographical work in prose by the poet and Sufi Abu’l-Maʿānī Mīrzā ʿAbd-al-Qāder Bīdel.

• ČAHĀR-BAYTI

  Cross-Reference

  See DO-BAYTI.

• ČAHĀRBĀḠ

  David Stronach

  lit. “four gardens,” a rectangular garden divided by paths or waterways into four symmetrical sections.

• ČAHĀRBĀḠ-E EṢFAHĀN

  Roger M. Savory

  the name of a broad avenue which was a key feature of the city of Isfahan as replanned by Shah ʿAbbās I after he had designated the city the new capital of the Safavid state in 1006/1597-98.

• ČAHĀRBĀḠ-E GARRŪS

  Moḥammad Dabīrsīāqī

  (ČĀRBĀḠ-E GARRŪS), a park no longer in existence in the south of the town of Bījār, center of Garrūs šahrestān in Persian Kurdistan.

• ČAHĀRBĀḠ-E MAŠHAD

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  name of a royal garden and palace at Mašhad; under the Qajars and up to the present time it has been the name of an old quarter in the city.

• ČAHĀRDAH MAʿṢŪM

  Hamid Algar

  the fourteen inerrant or immaculate personages venerated by Twelver Shiʿites, i.e., the Prophet Moḥammad, his daughter Fāṭema, and the twelve imams.

• ČAHĀRGĀH

  Bruno Nettl

  the name of one of the twelve dastgāhs (modes) of traditional Persian music in the 14th/20th century.

• ČAHĀRJŪY

  Cross-reference

  See ĀMOL.

• ČAHĀRMEŻRĀB

  Jean During

  a genre of traditional rhythmic instrumental music.

• ČAHĀRŠANBA-SŪRĪ

  Manouchehr Kasheff and ʿAlī-Akbar Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

  (usually pronounced Čāršamba-sūrī), the last Wednesday of the Persian solar year, the eve of which is marked by special customs and rituals, most notably jumping over fire.

• ČAHĀRṬĀQ

  Dietrich Huff, Bernard O’Kane

  literally “four arches,” a modern term for an equilateral architectural unit consisting of four arches or short barrel vaults between four corner piers, with a dome on squinches over the central square. this unit became the most prominent element in traditional Iranian architecture after the ayvān.

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• ČAHĀRTĀR

  Jean During

  (lit. four-strings), a musical instrument belonging to the family of long-necked lutes.

• ČAHRĪQ

  Amir Hassanpour, Juan R. I. Cole

  a dehestān, village, and fortress in Salmās (Šāhpūr in the Pahlavi period) šahrestān in Azerbaijan between Ḵᵛoy and Urmia.

• ČAIŠPIŠ

  Cross-Reference

  See ČIŠPIŠ.

• CAITYAPRADAKṢIṆĀGĀTHĀ

  Ronald E. Emmerick

  lit. “the song (Skt. gāthā) about circumambulating (Skt. pradakṣiṇā) a holy place (Skt. caitya),” the title of a Buddhist text, a Khotanese version of which is extant.

• ČAK

  Willem Floor

  legal document, testament, money draft, check.

• ČAḴĀNSŪR

  Daniel Balland

  principal town of the large Ḵāšrūd delta oasis in northeastern Sīstān.

• ČĀKAR

  Etienne de la Vaissiere

  personal soldier-retainer of the nobility in pre-Islamic Central Asia.

• ČAKAR

  Mansour Shaki

  a Middle Persian legal term denoting a widow who at the death of her “authorized” (pādixšāyīhā) husband without issue was obliged to enter into a levirate marriage (čakarīh) in order to provide him with male offspring (frazand).

• ČAKĀVAK

  Hūšang Aʿlam, Hūšang Aʿlam

  (Mid. Pers. čakōk). i. The lark. ii. A melody in Persian music.

• ČAKZĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ACƎKZĪ.

• ČĀL

  Ehsan Yarshater

  (Šāl), a village in the Qazvīn province, where the Čāli subdialect of Southern Tati is spoken.

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• ČĀL TARḴĀN

  Jens Kröger

  (Čāl Tarḵān-ʿEšqābād), a site about 20 km southeast of Ray with remains from the late Sasanian and early Islamic periods.

• ČALABĪ, ʿĀREF

  Cross-Reference

  See ČELEBĪ, ʿĀREF.

• ČALABĪĀNLŪ

  Pierre Oberling

  a Turkicized tribe dwelling, for the most part, in the dehestān of Garmādūz in Aras­bārān region of northern Azerbaijan.

• ČĀLDERĀN

  Michael J. McCaffrey

  battle of, an engagement fought near Ḵᵛoy in northwestern Azerbaijan on 23 August 1514, resulting in a decisive victory for the Ottoman forces under Sultan Salīm I over the Safavids led by Shah Esmāʿīl I. No single event prompted Salīm’s decision to wage war. It was the direct and inevitable result of the establishment of the Safavid state.

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• CALENDARS

  Antonio Panaino, Reza Abdollahy, Daniel Balland

  i. Pre-Islamic calendars. ii. In the Islamic period. iii. Afghan calendars. iv. Other modern calendars. Although evidence of calendrical traditions in Iran can be traced back to the 2nd millennium B.C., before the lifetime of Zoroaster, the earliest calendar that is fully preserved dates from the Achaemenid period. The Old Persian calendar was lunisolar, like that of the Babylonians, with twelve months of thirty days each.

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• ČĀLI

  Cross-Reference

  See ČĀL.

• CALIPHS AND THE CALIPHATE

  Hamid Algar

  as viewed by the Shiʿites of Persia.

• CALLIAS, PEACE OF

  Ernst Badian

  peace made by Xerxes and/or Artaxerxes I with Athens and her confederacy in the 5th century B.C.

• CALLIGRAPHY

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  (ḵaṭṭāṭī, ḵᵛošnevīsī), the writing system in use in Persia since early Islamic times, which grew out of the Arabic alphabet. Comparison of some of the scripts that developed on Persian ground, particularly Persian-style Kufic, with the Pahlavi and Avestan scripts reveals a number of similarities between them.

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• CALLIGRAPHY (continued)

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  VII. Calligraphy outside Persia. This article treats regional styles of calligraphy as found in Afghanistan, India and Pakistan, Asia Minor and Turkey, Transoxiana and Turkey, and Caucasia.

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• CALLISTHENES

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  the name of a Greek historian of the period of Alexander the Great.

• CALMEYER, Peter

  W. Kleiss and A. Shapur Shahbazi

  German archaeologist and Iranologist (b. 5 September 1930 in Halle, d. 22 November 1995 in Berlin).

• ČĀLŪS

  Bernard Hourcade

  a small town in western Māzandarān (šahrestān of Nowšahr, baḵš of Čālūs) located about 8 km from the Caspian coast at an elevation of 7 m.

• CAMA ORIENTAL INSTITUTE

  M. F. Kanga, Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa

  (K. R. Cama Oriental Institute), a research institute in Bombay established in memory of the Parsi orientalist, teacher, and social reformer Kharshedji Rustomji Cama, inaugurated 18 December 1916.

• CAMA, KHARSHEDJI RUSTAMH

  James R. Russell

  (1831-1909), Parsi Zoroastrian scholar and community leader. Cama worked for the organization of Parsi madres­sas (madrasas), and his consultation was sought also in the establishment of Hindu and Muslim schools. He was associated with the University of Bombay and helped establish the courses in Avestan and Pahlavi. He wrote extensively in Gujarati on Zoroastrianism.

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• CAMBADENE

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  the name of a region (dahyāuš) in ancient Media and present Persian Kurdistan.

• CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF IRAN

  Hubert S. G. Darke

  a survey of the history and historical geography of the land which is present-day Iran, as well as other territories inhabited by peoples of Iranian descent, from prehistoric times up to the present in seven volumes (vol. III being a double volume), of which the first volume was published in 1968 and the last in 1989.

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• CAMBYSENE

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  name of a region mentioned for the first time in Strabo’s Geography as one of the northernmost provinces of Armenia, bordering on the Caucasus mountains, and also as a rugged and waterless region through which a road connecting Albania and Iberia passed.

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• CAMBYSES

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

  (OPers. Kambūǰiya-, Elamite Kanbuziya, Akkadian Kambuziya, Aram. Knbwzy), the name of two kings of the Achaemenid dynasty.

• ČAMČAMĀL

  Abdollah Mardukh

  (Kurdish čam “river” and Čamāl/Jamāl, personal name; in the sources also writ­ten Jamjamāl), a fertile dehestān of Ṣaḥna baḵš in Kermānšāhān (Bāḵtarān) province located to the south and west of Ṣaḥna on the Kermānšāh-Hamadān road and watered by Gāmāsb and Dīnavar rivers.

• CAMEL

  Richard W. Bulliet, Moḥammad-Nāṣer Ḡolāmreżaʾī, Eqbāl Yaḡmāʾī, Mahmoud Omidsalar

  (šotor). Artifacts from ancient Iran indicate that only the Bactrian camel was part of the native fauna of greater Iran, though it was probably not numerous. Possibly the earliest evidence is a painted image on a ceramic shard from Tepe Sialk, probably datable between 3000 and 2500 B.C.

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• CAMEL THORN

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  (Alhagi Adans. spp.), common name for wild thorny suffrutescent plants of the Papilionaceae family, called šotor-ḵār and ḵār-e šotor (lit. “camel’s thorn”) in Persian.

• CAMERON, GEORGE GLENN

  Gernot L. Windfuhr

  philologist and his­torian, b. 30 July 1905 in Washington, Pennsylvania, d. 14 September 1979 in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

• CAMPBELL, JOHN

  Kamran Ekbal

  (1799-1870), British envoy to Persia, 1830-35.

• CAMPHOR

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  a strong-smelling volatile white solid essential oil obtained from two genera of the camphor tree and used from ancient times in Persia as an aromatic with antiseptic and insect-repelling properties.

• ČAMRŪŠ

  Alan V. Williams

  a mythical bird that in the Pahlavi books, of all birds of land and sky, is second only to the Sēn bird in worth.

• CANADA i. Iranian Studies in

  Colin Paul Mitchell

  several factors in the last half-century have led to a rapid expansion of Iranian studies in Canada in the fields of history, literature, language, philosophy, religion, art history, and archaeology.

• CANADA v. Iranian Community in Canada

  M. Mannani, N. Rahimieh, K. Sheibani

  Canada remains among the most popular destinations for Iranians seeking to emigrate, and Iranian immigrants to Canada are the fifth most numerous of any nationality.

• ČANDARBHĀN BARAHMAN

  Cross-Reference

  See ČANDRA BHĀN BARAHMAN.

• CANDLE

  Mahmoud Omidsalar, J. T. P. de Bruijn

  (Pers.-Ar. šamʿ); the Arabic word literally means “beeswax."

• CANDLESTICKS

  Linda Komaroff

  from the late 6th/12th through the early 10th/16th century one of the most common types of implement produced as a luxury metalware in Iran. Their form, decoration, and epigraphic program reflect contemporary trends in Iranian metalwork.

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• ČANDRA BHĀN

  Sharif Husain Qāsemī

  (or Čandarbhān Barahman), Indian poet and writer in Persian (b. Lahore, date unknown, d. Lahore 1073/1662-63).

• ČANDŪ LAʿL ŠĀDĀN

  Sharif Husain Qasemi

  Maharaja, states­man and poet in Persian and Urdu (b. 1175/1761-62, d. 7 Rabīʿ II 1261/15 April 1845 at Hyderabad).

• CANDYS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  name probably of Iranian origin used by Greek authors for a Persian garment.

• ČANG

  Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Mallāḥ

  “harp," a musical instrument of the free-stringed family.

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• ČANGRANGHĀČA-NĀMA

  Žāla Āmūzgār

  a narrative work in Persian verse by Zartošt or Zarātošt, son of Bahrām-e Paždū, a poet of the 7th/13th century.

• CANNIZZARO, FRANCESCO ADOLFO

  Antonio Panaino

  (b. Messina, 13 July 1867; d. Rome, 24 April 1914), Italian autodidact of Oriental languages and translator of the Vidēvdād.

• ČĀP

  Willem Floor

  “print, printing,” a Persian word probably derived from Hindi chāpnā, “to print.”

• ČĀPĀR

  Willem Floor

  (or čapar < Turk. čapmak “to gallop”), post rider.

• CAPITAL CITIES

  A. Shapur Shahbazi, C. Edmund Bosworth

  these centers played important diplomatic and administrative roles in Iranian history, closely linked to the fortunes of the ruling families.

• CAPITALS

  Wolfram Kleiss

  in architectural terminology, tran­sitional elements between weight-bearing supports (see COLUMNS) and the roofs or vaults supported. The development of the capital began in Assyria, when a tree trunk was inserted in the earth with another trunk or branch laid in the fork to carry the roof construction.

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• CAPPADOCIA

  Michael Weiskopf

  Anatolian Achaemenid satrapy, Hellenistic-era Iranian kingdom, and imperial Roman province. A rolling plateau cut by mountains, Cappadocia in the east contains bare central highlands, in the west a nearly treeless land­scape, and in the north mountainous tracts marked by fertile valleys, especially on the lower Halys river.

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• CAPUCHINS IN PERSIA

  Francis Richard

  from 1626 onward the French Capuchins established a number of missionary posts in the Near East.

• ČĀR BAKR

  G. A. Pugachenkova

  (lit. “four Bakrs”), family necropolis of the powerful Jūybāri shaikhs near the village of Sumitan.

• CARACAL

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  (Felis caracal Schreber = Lynx caracal, Caracal caracal), also called “desert lynx” or “Persian lynx”; in Persian, sīāhgūš, lit. “black-eared.”

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• CARACALLA

  Erich Kettenhofen

  the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, known as Caracalla because of his hooded robe (b. 188, d. 217), who conducted a campaign against the Parthians.

• CARAKA

  Ronald E. Emmerick

  the name of an Indian physician associated with one of the major works on Indian medicine (the Carakasaṃhitā), as well as the name of King Kaniṣka’s physician.

• ČARAND PARAND

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  (Čarand o parand), literally “fiddle-faddle,” the title of satirical pieces of social and political criticism in the form of short narratives, brief announcements, telegrams, news reports, etc., by ʿAlī-Akbar Dehḵodā.

• CARAVAN

  Bert G. Fragner

  a form of collective transport of men and goods.

• CARAVANSARY

  Moḥammad-Yūsuf Kīānī and Wolfram Kleiss

  a building that served as the inn of the Orient, providing accommodation for commercial, pilgrim, postal, and especially official travelers. The term kārvān-sarā was commonly used in Iran and is preserved in several place names. The normal caravansary consisted of a square or rectangular plan centered around a courtyard with only one entrance and arrangements for defense if necessary.

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• CARD GAMES

  Mahdi Roschanzamir

  (ganjafa-bāzī, waraq-bāzī), card games were invented in China in the 7th-8th centuries and via India were brought to Persia, whence they reached the Arab world and Europe.

• CARDAMOM

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  hel in modern Persian (from Skt. elā), the aromatic seeds of several plants of the family Zingiberaceae.

• CARDINAL POINTS

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀḴTAR.

• CARDUCHI

  Muhammad Dandamayev

  warlike tribes that in antiquity occupied the hilly country along the upper Tigris near the Assyrian and Median borders, in present-day western Kurdistan.

• ČARḠ

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀZ.

• CARIA

  Michael Weiskopf

  in the area of southwestern Turkey, under Achaemenid rule first as a part of the satrapy of Sparda (Lydia; 540s-390s B.C.), then as a separate satrapy (390s-30s B.C.) under the Hecatomnid family, whose prominence and self-promotion created a number of mostly Greek epigraphic documents detailing the development of 4th-century Caria.

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• ČĀRĪKĀR

  Daniel Balland

  main town of Kōhdāman and the administrative capital of the Afghan province of Parwān, located about 63 km north of Kabul. Throughout history there has been an important urban center at the northern end of the long Kōhdāman depression.

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• ČĀRJŪY

  Cross-reference

  See ĀMOL.

• ČARḴ

  Daniel Balland

  a common toponym all over the Iranian world.

• ČARḴ-E ČĀH

  Nāṣer Ḡolām-Reżāʾī

  (lit. “well wheel”),  a device for drawing water from a well or river or for removing soil during the excavation of a well. It is a type of windlass, consisting of a hollow horizontal cylinder around which a rope is coiled or uncoiled to raise or lower a bucket attached to the end. Formerly they were common features of Iranian gardens and courtyards in regions where the absence of qanāts and running water made wells indispensable.

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• ČARKAS

  Beatrice Manz, Masashi Haneda

  (Cherkes), term used in Persian, Arabic, and Turkic for the Circassian people of the northwest Caucasus who call themselves Adygeĭ and speak a language of the Abazgo-Circassian branch of Caucasian (see caucasian languages).

• ČARḴĪ, Mawlānā Yaʿqūb

  Hamid Algar

  an early shaikh of the Naqšbandī order and author of several works in Persian (d. 851/1447).

• ČARM

  Willem M. Floor

  (Av. čarəman-, OPers. čarman-, Khot. tcārman-, etc.), skin, hide, and leather, which have had a variety of uses in Persia.

• CARMANIA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  ancient region east of Fārs province, approximately equivalent to modern Kermān. The Old Persian form is attested only once in inscriptions.

• CARMATIANS

  Farhad Daftary

  (Ar. Qarāmeṭa; sing. Qarmaṭī), the name given to the adherents of a branch of the Ismaʿili movement during the 3rd/9th century.

• CARMELITES IN PERSIA

  Francis Richard

  in 1604 Pope Clement VIII, with the support of Sigismund III Vasa of Poland, dispatched a mission of Discalced Carmelite fathers to Persia; the embassy represented the culmination of a policy of seeking alliances against the Ottoman empire that had been initiated by Pius V when he had attempted to formalize relations with Shah Ṭahmāsb.

• ČĀROḠ

  Cross-Reference

  or čāroq, etc. See CLOTHING xx, xxv, xxviii.

• CARPETS

  Multiple Authors

  (qālī; Ar. and Pers. farš), heavy textiles used as coverings for floors, walls, and other large surfaces, as well as for various kinds of furnishing.

• CARPETS i. Introductory survey

  Roger Savory

  the history of Persian carpet manufacture.

• CARPETS ii. Raw materials and dyes

  Jasleen Dhamija

  for centuries Persian carpet weaving has depended primarily on local materials processed by traditional traditional techniques. Such materials include sheep wool, camel hair, goat hair, and natural dyes. This article discusses use and preparation of dyes and materials used to make carpets.

• CARPETS iii. Knotted-pile carpets: Techniques and structures

  Annette Ittig

  The techniques of carpet making are the processes of weaving, knotting, and finishing; structure is the complex of interrelations among the elements of the finished carpet. One of the major problems in carpet studies is the lack of a standard terminology to describe specific techniques, structures, and designs.

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• CARPETS iv. Knotted-pile carpets: Designs, motifs, and patterns

  Annette Ittig

  In this discussion “design” refers to the overall composition of decorative elements on a carpet; the simplest elements in designs are single motifs, which are most frequently combined in more complex units; these units in turn may be arranged in various combinations and sequences to form patterns.

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• CARPETS v. Flat-woven carpets: Techniques and structures

  Sarah B. Sherrill

  Most of the structures in Persian flat-woven carpets belong to the category called “interlacing” by textile specialists; the term designates the most straightforward way in which each thread of a fabric passes under or over threads that cross its path.

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• CARPETS vi. Pre-Islamic Carpets

  Karen S. Rubinson

  Evidence for textiles of all kinds in pre-Islamic Iran is very sparse. It is necessary to supplement the few remains of actual textiles with examination of representations in art and other kinds of indirect evidence of production, for example preserved impressions and pseudomorphs from excavations.

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• CARPETS vii. Islamic Persia to the Mongols

  Barbara Schimtz

  Because of the scarcity of surviving materials it is difficult to separate the history of carpet making in Iran from that of the rest of the Islamic world before the Mongol invasion (656/1258). Furthermore, the kind of rigid distinction between carpet and other textile designs that characterizes later production probably did not exist in the early Islamic period.

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• CARPETS viii. The Il-khanid and Timurid Periods

  Eleanor Sims

  Persian carpets that can be indisputably identified a having been produced in the 8-9th/14-15th centuries are virtually nonexistent. That carpets were used and produced in Persia  has  been inferred from written sources, both contemporary and slightly earlier. The existence of carpets and weavings from contemporary Anatolia and the Turkman tribal confederations, and possibly also from Egypt and even Spain, also permits the inference.

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• CARPETS ix. Safavid Period

  Daniel Walker

  The high point in Persian carpet design and manufacture was attained under the Safavid dynasty (1501-1739). It was the result of a unique conjunction of historical factors—royal patronage, the influence of court designers at all levels of artistic production, the wide availability of locally produced and imported materials and dyes, and commercial acceptance, particularly in foreign markets.

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• CARPETS x. Afsharid and Zand Periods

  Layla S. Diba

  Although it is probable that magnificent silk-and-brocade rugs in the style of the Safavid court manufactories were no longer produced in significant quantities, it seems reasonable to assume that production of less luxurious wool rugs continued in many traditional centers, even though on a smaller scale and mainly for domestic consumption.

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• CARPETS xi. Qajar Period

  Annette Ittig

  During the Qajar period there were dramatic alterations in the traditional organization and orientation of the Persian carpet industry and, consequently, in Persian carpets themselves. Particularly significant was the substantial increase both in the number of looms and in the volume of carpet exports from the 1870s to World War I.

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• CARPETS xii. Pahlavi Period

  Willem Floor

  Throughout the 14th/20th century carpet manufacturing has been, from the point of view of both employment and domestic and foreign market demand, by far the most important Persian industry after oil refining.

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• CARPETS xiii. Post-Pahlavi Period

  P. R. Ford

  In the period immediately following the shah’s flight from the country in 1358 Š./1979 the prices for Persian carpets reached record highs on Western markets.

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• CARPETS xiv. Tribal Carpets

  Siawosch Azadi

  In Persia rural carpets have been made in nearly every possible technical variation and for a wide range of uses. Yet there are many nomadic groups whose works are absolutely unknown, and the weavings of other groups have been only very imperfectly studied and described. For that reason there are still many objects of which the function is obscure.

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• CARPETS xv. Caucasian Carpets

  Richard E. Wright

  The oldest surviving rugs produced in the Caucasus may be a group with representations of dragons and phoenixes in combat. There is, however, no evidence to permit attribution to the Caucasus. A group of carpets from the 18th century does include patterns and motifs that persisted in subsequent productions; they are predominantly long rugs with bold repeat patterns and have been found primarily in mosques in Turkey.

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• CARPETS xvi. Central Asian Carpets

  Walter Denny

  Central Asian carpets, broadly defined, include those woven by various peoples in what were formerly the Turkmen, Uzbek, Tajik, Karakalpak Autonomous, Kirgiz, and Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republics (Tzareva, pp. 5-6); in extreme northern and northeastern Persia; in Afghanistan; and in the Turkic (Uighur) areas of Sinkiang (Xinjiang) in western China.

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• CARRHAE

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  (Ḥarrān), town in Mesopotamia where in May 53 B.C. a decisive battle was fought between the Parthians commanded by a member of the Sūrēn family and the Romans under the triumvir M. Licinius Crassus.

• CARROT

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  the taproot of Daucus L. subspp., etc. (family Umbelliferae), traditionally called gazar (arabicized as jazar) or zardak (lit. “the little yellow one”), and later also havīj in Persian.

• ČARS

  Cross-Reference

  See BANG.

• CARTER ADMINISTRATION

  Richard W. Cottam

  (1977-81): POLICY TOWARD PERSIA. When the administration of President Jimmy Carter took office in January 1977, United States foreign relations overall were remarkably stable. A modus vivendi had been established with the Soviet Union, and the Soviet-American cold war, the primary source of disturbance of world tranquility, was on what would prove to be a temporary hold.

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• CARUS

  Fridrik Thordarson

  Imperator Caesar MARCUS AURELIUS (Augustus), Roman emperor (r. 282-83).

• ČARZA

  Ehsan Yarshater

  village in the mountainous area of the Upper Ṭārom district (baḵš) in the šahrestān of Zanjān, at 49°1′ E, 36°52′ N, 42 km north of the district center, Sīrdān. It is one of the few villages in Ṭārom where Iranian Tati dialects have not yet given way to Turkish.

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• CASARTELLI, LOIS CHARLES

  Antonio Panaino

  (b. Manchester, 14 November 1852, to a Lombard family settled in England; d. Manchester, 18 January 1925), scholar of ancient Iranian languages and religions and particularly of Pahlavi literature.

• CASES

  Gernot L. Windfuhr

  their forms and uses in Iranian languages and dialects. The term "case" is used on at least three linguistic levels: 1. the semantic role of a noun (phrase), such as agent, patient, experiencer, and possessor; 2. the syntactic function, such as subject, direct object, and indirect object; 3. the morphological means, such as nominative, accusative, dative, and genitive.

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• ČAŠM-PEZEŠKĪ

  Ṣādeq Sajjādī

  ophthalmology.

• ČAŠM-ZAḴM

  Ebrāhīm Šakūrzāda and Mahmoud Omidsalar

  (lit. “a blow by the eye”), the evil eye: the supposed power of an individual to cause harm, even illness or death, to another person (or animals and other possessions) merely by looking at him or complimenting him.

• ČAŠMA

  Eckart Ehlers

  “spring.”  Iran and Afghanistan, as well as wide parts of Central Asia, have a great variety of natural springs, especially in mountainous areas and along tectonic thrusts. A very general classification divides all springs into (1) those produced by gravity acting on the groundwater and (2) those that have their origins in tectonic volcanic forces within the earth’s crust.

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• ČAŠMA(-YE) ʿALĪ

  Abbas Alizadeh

  lit. “fountain of ʿAlī,” the name for various natural springs in Iran, the two best-known of which are located near Dāmḡān and Ray respectively.

• ČAŠMHĀYAŠ

  Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar

  (1952; tr. by John O’Kane as Her Eyes, 1989), a novel considered by many critics as the most important contribution of the noted Persian novelist Bozorg Alavi.

• ČĀŠNĪGĪR

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  literally “taster” (Pers. čāšnī “taste”), the official who at the court of Turkish dynasties in Iran and elsewhere, from the Saljuq period onwards, had the responsibility of tasting the ruler’s food and drink in order to ensure that it was not poisoned.

• CASPIAN DIALECTS

  cross-reference

  Iranian dialects spoken along the Caspian littoral, including Ṭāleši, Gīlakī, Māzandarāni, and related subdialects, and the extinct dialect of Ṭabarestān. See individual entries.

• CASPIAN GATES

  John H. Hansman

  an ancient toponym identifying a ground-level pass that runs east and west through a southern spur of the Alborz Mountains in north central Iran.

• CASPIAN SEA

  Multiple Authors

  actually a lake, the largest in the world (estimated surface area in 1986: 378,400 km², volume 78,600 km³; approx. between lat 37° and 47° N, long 46° and 54° E); it is bounded on the south by Persia.

• CASPIAN SEA i. GEOGRAPHY

  Xavier de Planhol

  The Caspian “sea” consists of three distinct basins, each characterized by different features. hese differences are reflected in the levels of salinity. 

• CASPIAN SEA ii. DIPLOMATIC HISTORY IN MODERN TIMES

  Guive Mirfendereski

  A new area of sub-systemic studies in international relations, which encompasses the Caspian basin and its immediate surroundings, emerged in the post-Soviet Union era.

• CASPIAN SEAL

  Eskandar Firouz

  (Phoca caspica), the only mammal in the Caspian Sea. It is a relict species, endemic to the Caspian Sea and the deltas of rivers that discharge into it—the region where its ancestors lived when the sea was still connected to the oceans.

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• CASPIANS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  name of an ancient people dwelling along the southwestern shore of the Caspian Sea, whether north or south of the river Kura is not clear.

• CASSANDANE

  Muhammad Dandamayev

  wife of Cyrus II, an Achaemenian, sister of Otanes and daughter of Pharnaspes.

• CASSIA

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  a genus of shrubs and trees of the family Leguminosae (or Caesalpiniaceae in some classifications).

• CASSIODORUS, Magnus Aurelius

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  (b. ca. 485, d. after A.D. 580), Latin author of three historical works containing material on Iran.

• CASTLES

  Wolfram Kleiss

  primarily fortified country manors but also permanently inhabited defensive installations, maintained by the authorities along important land routes, and urban citadels, which functioned as administrative centers and places of refuge for inhabitants under siege, particularly in prehistoric and early historic times.

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• CASTOLUS

  Michael Weiskopf

  a plain east of Sardis, site of the mustering of troops from the satrapy of Sparda (Lydia) during Achaemenid times.

• CASTOREUM

  cross-reference

  See BEAVER.

• CASTRATION

  Lutz Richter-Bernburg

  (of men; ḵaṣī kardan, ḵāya kešīdan, ḵᵛāja kardan), discussion of castration in Islamic medical literature, on its legal status, and on its historical attestation in Islamic Persia.

• CAT I. In Mythology and Folklore

  Mahmud Omidsalar

  Cats are not mentioned in literary Persian sources until late Sasanian times. In Zoroastrian mythology the cat (gurbag) is said to have been created by the Evil Spirit, and in the Pahlavi texts it is classed in the much despised “wolf species.” 

• CAT II. Persian Cat

  Jean-Pierre Digard

  In western Europe and in North America, what are called “Persian cats” are a breed of longhaired domestic cats with a massive body, measuring 40 to 50 cm in length, and up to 30 cm in the height of their withers. According to the standards, these cats must present a strong bone structure, important muscular masses, and short, straight paws.

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• CATALOGUES

  Cross-reference

  See BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES.

• CATECHISMS

  G. Kreyenbroek

  treatises for instruction in the fundamental tenets of a religious faith, cast in the form of questions and answers.

• CATHARS, ALBIGENSIANS, and BOGOMILS

  J. L M. van Schaik

  Manichaeism is said to have been passed via the Paulicians and the Bogomils to re-emerge in the European Cathars but this supposed historical transmission is difficult to demonstrate.

• ČATR

  Eleanor Sims

  parasol or umbrella, an attribute of royalty in Iran.

• CATTLE

  Jean-Pierre Digard, Mary Boyce

  the word “cattle” has no precise equivalent in Iranian languages, in which bovines are commonly designated by the words for “cow,” “bull,” and “calf."

• CAUCASUS AND IRAN

  Multiple Authors

  CAUCASUS AND IRAN. The Iranian world is bordered in the northwest by the high mountain barrier of the Caucasus, which separates it from the vast Russian plains beyond. In relief, structure, and ecology the Caucasus constitutes a clear frontier between eastern Europe and western Asia, though it is more closely related to the latter.

• CAUCASUS i. Physical Geography, Population, and Economy.

  Pierre Thorez

  The Caucasus range (the Great Caucasus in Russian terminology) is about 1,100 km long, extending from the vicinity of the Taman (or Anapa) peninsula to the Apsheron peninsula, on an axis oriented west-northwest to east-southeast.

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• CAUCASUS ii. Language contact

  Fridrik Thordarson

  Languages of the Caucasus. Including Caucasian (or Ibero-Caucasian), Turkic, Indo-European, Iranian languages, Kurdish, Tati, Ṭāleši, Ossetic, and others.
  

• CAUCASUS, iii. ACHAEMENID RULE IN

  Bruno Jacobs

  Achaemenid rule in the Caucasus region was established, at the latest, in the course of the Scythian campaign of Darius I in 513-12 BCE.

• CAUTES AND CAUTOPATES

  William W. Malandra

  the two dadophoroi or torch bearers who often flank Mithras in the bull-slaying scene and who are sometimes shown in the birth scenes of Mithras.

• ČĀV

  Peter Jackson

  paper currency issued in Mongol Iran in 693/1294.

• CAVALRY

  Cross-Reference

  See ASB; ASB-SAVĀRĪ.

• CAVES OF THE THOUSAND BUDDHAS

  Xin-jiang Rong

  Ch’ien Fo Tung (Qianfodong), a large group of grottoes and cave temples carved out of Ming-sha hill in the southeastern Tun-huang (Dunhuang) district of Kansu (Gansu) province, China.

• CAVIAR

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  ḵāvīar in Persian, the processed non-fertilized roe of sturgeons and some other large fishes, highly valued as a gourmet delicacy.  In Iran the roe for caviar is obtained mainly from three species of sturgeon (family Acipenseridae) caught in the southern littoral or fluvial waters of the Caspian Sea.

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• ČĀVOŠ

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  or ČĀVŪŠ, used in classical Persian texts with the meanings of 1. army commander; 2. master of ceremony or person in charge of the servants; 3. caravan leader; or, more specifically, 4. a guide on the road to Mecca or holy shrines.

• ČAXRĀ

  Cross-Reference

  town mentioned in the Avesta. See ČARḴ.

• ČĀY

  Daniel Balland and Marcel Bazin

  shrub of the genus Camellia and beverage made from its leaves, probably the most popular drink throughout the Iranian world. It is not known when Persians first became acquainted with the beverage. Bīrūnī,  in his Ketāb al-ṣaydana, written in the first half of the 11th century, gave some details about the plant čāy and its use as a beverage in China and Tibet.

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• ČĒČAST

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  a mythical lake in eastern Iran, later identified in the Pahlavi and Persian sources with Lake Urmia in Azerbaijan.

• CEDRENUS, GEORGIUS

  James R. Russell

  twelfth-century Byzantine historian who edited the Synopsis Historiōn of John Skylitzēs.

• ČEGEL

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  (Jekel), name of a Turkish people in Central Asia known in Persian poetry for the extraordinary beauty of their youths.

• ČEGĪNĪ

  Pierre Oberling

  or Čeganī, a tribe that originated in northwestern Persia but is now scattered in Luristan, the Qazvīn region, and Fārs.

• ČEHEL SOTŪN, ISFAHAN

  Ingeborg Luschey-Schmeisser

  Safavid royal palace used for coronations and the reception of foreign embassies. It stands in the center of a large garden between the Meydān-e Šāh and the Čahārbāḡ. The layout of these gardens, with three walks shaded by plane trees, dates from the period of Shah ʿAbbās I (r. 1588-1629).

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• ČEHEL SOTŪN, KABUL

  Nancy H. Dupree

  palace on a small, terraced hill rising at the southern end of a 30-acre walled garden about six miles south of the city center. According to a commemorative marble plaque at the base of the hill the cornerstone of the palace was laid in 1888, and the palace was completed as a seat for Prince Ḥabīb-Allāh three years later.

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• ČEHEL SOTŪN, QAZVIN

  Wolfram Kleiss

  a Safavid pavilion that stands amid gardens in the central meydān (square) of the old city and in which the Qazvīn museum is installed.

• ČEHEL TANĀN

  Kerāmat-Allāh Afsar

  (“the forty dervishes,” popularly called Čeltan), a minor takīya (monastery) situated in the northeastern section of Shiraz, a short distance north of the tomb of Ḥāfeẓ and south of Haft Tanān (“the seven dervishes”).

• ČEHEL ṬŪṬĪ

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  (forty parrot [stories]), the designation of collections of entertaining stories about the wife of a merchant and a pair of parrots, several versions of which are current in Persia and which are derived from older collections called ṭūṭī-nāmas (book of the parrots).

• ČEHR

  Bruce Lincoln

  two homographic neuter substantives čiθra- in Avestan, one meaning “face, appearance,” which is translated in Pahlavi as paydāg, and another rendered in Pahlavi as tōhmag and denoting “origin, lineage,” as well as “seed,” although the latter sense is attested only in compounds.

• ČEHRANEMĀ

  Nassereddin Parvin

  (lit. “mirror”), the name of an illustrated Persian newspaper and periodical published in Egypt (1322-1338 Š./1904-59, with interruptions).

• ČELEBĪ, ʿĀREF

  Tahsin Yazici

  (670-719/1272-1320), the son of Bahāʾ-al-Dīn Solṭān Walad and the grand­son of Mawlānā Jalāl-al-Dīn Moḥammad Rūmī.

• ČELEBĪ, FATḤ-ALLĀH ʿĀREF

  Tahsin Yazici

  10th/16th-century poet and author of a Šāh-nāma (Solaymān-nāma) extolling the Ottoman rulers.

• ČELLA

  Mahmoud Omidsalar, Hamid Algar

  term referring to any forty-day period. i. In Persian folklore. ii. In Sufism.

• ČELOW-KABĀB

  Ṣoḡrā Bāzargān

  a popular Persian dish which consists of cooked rice (čelow; see berenj) and a variety of broiled (kabāb, see below) mutton or veal (though less popular) and is served with butter, egg yolk, powdered sumac, raw onions, broiled tomatoes, and fresh sweet basil.

• CEMETERIES

  Mahmoud Omidsalar

  (qabrestān, gūrestān) in Persian folklore; cemeteries are found both inside and outside cities and villages, usually close to a holy shrine, or emāmzāda, in order to partake of its blessing.

• ČEMĪKENT

  Cross-Reference

  See ASFĪJĀB.

• ČENĀR

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  the “Oriental plane (tree),” Platanus orientalis L. (fam. Platanaceae). This species is indigenous from southeastern Europe to the Iranian plateau. In Persia proper, spontaneous planes have been observed by botanists. The popularity and wide distribution of cultivated planes as ornamental or shade trees in Persia, especially in gardens and along city streets, are due to several features.

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• ČENGĪZ KHAN

  David O. Morgan

  (Mong. Chinggis), probably born in 1167 in northeastern Mongolia, d. 1227, founder of the Mongol empire, the most extensive land empire known to history. Čengīz’s achievement, though hardly positive from the point of view of Persia, was by no means wholly a military and a destructive one. In the 1250s, a relatively coherent Mongol kingdom, the Il-khanate, was set up under Čengīz’s grandson Hülegü.

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• CENSORING AN IRANIAN LOVE STORY

  Sara Khalili

  the first novel published in English by noted modernist writer Shahriar Mandanipour.

• CENSORSHIP

  Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak

  (sānsūr) in Persia; censorship has been exercised in most societies, including Persia, by the religious establishment, by the political authority, and by unofficial groups.

• CENSUS

  Firuz Tawfiq, Daniel Balland

  (Pers. sar-šomārī). No census for the purpose of ascertaining the population and acquiring statistical data was taken in Persia until the present century.

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• CENSUS i. In Iran

  Fīrūz Tawfīq

  No census for the purpose of ascertaining the popu­lation and acquiring statistical data was taken in Persia until the present century, but information about num­bers of persons or families was sometimes collected for the purpose of fixing tax dues or conscript quotas. The introduction of systematic census taking in Persia is attributed to Mīrzā Ḥosayn Khan Sepahsālār, the grand vizier from 1871 to 1873 and his enactment of the Reforms Council.

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• CENSUS ii. In Afghanistan

  Daniel Balland

  The first national census of Afghanistan was not conducted until 1979, but the idea of such a survey had  already taken root  in the reign of Šēr-ʿAlī Khan (r. 1868-79), when gradual suppression of tax farming in favor of direct collection of taxes by government officials made it imperative for the administration to know the number of taxable households.

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• CENTRAL ASIA

  Multiple Authors

  This series of articles covers Central Asia. 

• CENTRAL ASIA i. Geographical Survey

  EIr

  The central expanse of the Asian continent, the land mass situated approximately between 55° and 115° E and 25° and 50° N, comprises two geographically distinct areas.

• CENTRAL ASIA ii. Demography

  Richard H. Rowland

  The combined population of the Uzbek, Kirgiz, Tajik, and Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republics totals more than 30 million people, one tenth of the population of the Soviet Union.

• CENTRAL ASIA iii. In Pre-Islamic Times

  Richard N. Frye

  The main evidence for the history of Central Asia before the coming of Islam comes from archeological excavations, while written sources con­tain little information.

• CENTRAL ASIA iv. In the Islamic Period up to the Mongols

  C. E. Bosworth

  In early Islamic times Persians tended to identify all the lands to the northeast of Khorasan and lying beyond the Oxus with the region of Turan, which in the Šāh-nāma of Ferdowsī is regarded as the land allotted to Ferēdūn’s son Tūr.

• CENTRAL ASIA v. In the Mongol and Timurid Periods

  Bertold Spuler

  At the death of Čengīz (Chinggis) Khan in 624/1227 the territory he had conquered was divided between his sons.

• CENTRAL ASIA vi. In the 16th-18th Centuries

  Robert D. McChesney

  In the 16th-17th centuries Central Asia, includ­ing Transoxania, Greater Balḵ, and Ḵᵛārazm, witnessed a neo-Chingizid (Jochid) political revival, spearheaded by the ʿArabshahid/Shibanid (Shaibanid) lineage in Ḵᵛārazm and the Abulkhairid/Shibanid and Toqay-Timurid lines in Transoxania and Greater Balḵ. In the main, political life was shaped by the neo-Chingizid appanage system of state and its internal dynamic.

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• CENTRAL ASIA vii. In the 18th-19th Centuries

  Yuri Bregel

  By the beginning of the 12th/18th century Central Asia was in a state of a deepening political and economic crisis.

• CENTRAL ASIA viii. Relations with Persia in the 19th Century

  Abbas Amanat

  The question of Central Asia in the 13th/19th century, from the Persian point of view, was a promi­nent one not only because of Persian territorial claims over Marv, Ḵīva, Saraḵs, and other peripheral regions, but also because of the threat of the Turkmen frontier tribes of Tekka, Yomūt, and Gūklān to the security of Khorasan, Astarābād, and Māzandarān.

• CENTRAL ASIA ix. In the 20th Century

  Edward Allworth

  Technology brought by the Russian military and the colonial administration from Europe included advanced arms and material, as well as railroad, telegraph/telephone, and printed com­munication.

• CENTRAL ASIA x. Economy Before the Timurids

  Peter B. Golden

  Climate and geography have, of course, in large measure determined economic pursuits in pre-industrial times.

• CENTRAL ASIA xi. Economy from the Timurids until the 18th Century

  Robert D. McChesney

  The economy of Central Asia after the fall of Central Asia to the descendants of Čengīz Khan and during their rule was centered on agriculture, but with important contributions from pastoralism, especially the breeding and export of horses.

• CENTRAL ASIA xii. Economy in the 19th-20th Centuries

  Ian Matley

  When the Russians arrived in Central Asia in the 1860s they found a predominantly agrarian economy. The main grain crops were wheat, barley, and sorghum.

• CENTRAL ASIA xiii. Iranian Languages

  Ivan M. Steblin-Kamenskij

  Central Asia was the ancient homeland of the Iranians and therefore also of the Iranian languages.

• 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. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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.). 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

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

  Peder Mortensen

  Present knowledge of the development of Neolithic ceramics in Luristan and Kurdistan, covering a period from the late 8th millennium to the middle of the 6th millennium B.C.E. 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CERAMICS iv. The Chalcolithic Period in the Zagros Highlands

  Elizabeth F. Henrickson

  The Zagros Chalcolithic, spanning more than two millennia (ca. 5500-3300 cal. B.C.E.), is characterized by diverse ceramic assemblages, of which the distri­bution and interrelations are still imperfectly understood.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CERAMICS v. The Chalcolithic Period in Southern Persia

  Thomas W. Beale

  The evolution of ceramics in southern Persia between 5000 and 3300 B.C.E., reflects an increasingly distinct regional culture and evolving economic interaction with other parts of Persia.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CERAMICS vi. Uruk, Proto-Elamite, and Early Bronze Age in Southern Persia

  William M. Sumner

  local pro­duction in Fārs province from approximately 4000 to 1600 B.C.E., divided into four chronological groups: Lapui ware (ca. 4000-3500 B.C.E.), Banesh ware (ca. 3500-2800 B.C.E.), Jalyan ware (ca. 2800-2400 B.C.E.?), and Kaftari ware (ca. 2200-1600 B.C.E.). 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CERAMICS vii. The Bronze Age in Northwestern, Western, and Southwestern Persia

  Robert C. Henrickson

  During the 3rd millennium B.C.E. there were two major ceramic traditions in northwestern Persia, a shifting mosaic of ceramic traditions in central western Persia, and polychrome ware was made in the piedmont valleys of northern Susiana.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CERAMICS viii. The Early Bronze Age in Southwestern and Southern Persia

  Elizabeth Carter

  Knowl­edge of the ceramic sequence of southwestern Persia between 2000 and 1000 B.C.E. is based primarily on excavated material from the Ville Royale at Susa, the Susiana sites of Haft Tepe, Sharafabad, and Chogha Zanbil, which are dated to the 2nd millennium B.C.E. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CERAMICS ix. The Bronze Age in Northeastern Persia

  Serge Cleuziou

  Archeologists have traditionally linked the ap­pearance of burnished gray wares at Tepe Hissar (Ḥeṣār) and Tureng (Tūrang) Tepe in Gorgān during the second half of the 4th millennium b.c., and their possible diffusion westward in the first half of the 2nd millennium.

• CERAMICS x. The Iron Age

  Robert C. Henrickson

  The pottery of Iron Age Persia presents a vast array of problems, not least the huge area and long span of time that must be taken into consideration.

• CERAMICS xi. The Achaemenid Period

  Remy Boucharlat and Ernie Haerinck

  Although information on architecture and sculpture at major Achaemenid sites in Persia is plentiful, knowl­edge of the pottery of this period is almost totally lacking.

• CERAMICS xii. The Parthian and Sasanian Periods

  Remy Boucharlat and Ernie Haerinck

  the distribution pattern of pottery characterized by a wide range of different techniques and styles was quite complex, probably owing to diverse environments that have traditionally been reflected in major differences in the material culture of Persia.

• CERAMICS xiii. The Early Islamic Period, 7th-11th Centuries

  David Whitehouse

  Early Islamic pottery has been found in two main regions of Persia: Ḵūzestān and the Persian Gulf and the Persian plateau, including Khorasan. Study of all Islamic pottery of the first four hundred years has been dominated by the finds from Sāmarrā in Meso­potamia.

• CERAMICS xiv. The Islamic Period, 11th-15th centuries

  Ernst J. Grube

  Saljuq and post-Saljuq periods including earthenware and fritwares.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CERAMICS xv. The Islamic Period, 16th-19th centuries

  Yolande Crowe

  ceramics from the Zand, Qajar, and Safavid periods. Although several European travelers to Persia in the 17th century reported active potteries at Shiraz, Mašhad, Yazd, Zarand, and especially Kermān, there are no detailed records that would assist in attributing specific pieces surviving from the rule of the Safavid dynasty (1501­-1732) to any one of them.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CEREALS

  Cross-Reference

  See under individual cereals.

• ČERĪK

  Willem Floor

  (also jerīk, from Mongol tserig “warrior[s]”), originally troops sent by an individual or camp (yort) to serve in the royal army.

• ČERKES

  Cross-Reference

  See ČARKAS.

• CERULLI, Enrico

  Filippo Bertotti

  (born Naples, 15 February 1898; died 1988), Italian orientalist and diplomat.

• CERVIDAE

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀHŪ.

• CEŠT

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  a small settlement on the north bank of the Harirud and to the south of the Paropamisus range in northwestern Afghanistan, lying approximately 100 miles upstream from Herat in the easternmost part of the modern Herat welāyat or province.

• ČEŠTĪYA

  Gerhard Böwering

  the name of an influential Sufi order in India, derived from the name of the village of Češt.

• CHAARENE

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (Gk. Chaarēnḗ), in Achaemenid times one of the easternmost Iranian provinces and the one closest to India.

• CHAGHATAY LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

  Gerhard Doerfer

  Chaghatay is the common designation for a language belonging to the Western Uighur, or Eastern Turkic, language group, the easternmost of the three.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHAGHATAYID DYNASTY

  Peter Jackson

  name given to the descendants of Čengīz Khan’s second son Čaḡatai, who reigned in Transoxania until ca. 771/1370 and in parts of Turkestan down to the 11th/17th century.

• 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, ESQ.

  Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak and Estelle Whelan

  (b. London? ca. 1750, d. London? ca. 1813), English poet and translator of selections from the Šāh-nāma and other Persian poetry.

• 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.

• CHAVANNES, EMMANUEL-ÉDOUARD

  Werner Sundermann

  (b. Lyons, France, 5 October 1865, d. Fontenay-aux-Roses, 29 January 1918), French sinologist who also contributed to the study of Iranian history and religions.

• CHEESE

  Daniel Balland

  (Pers. panīr), with milk and other dairy products a significant part of the diet in Persia and Afghanistan.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHEMISTRY

  Cross-Reference

  See KĪMĪĀ.

• CHESS

  Bo Utas, Moḥammad Dabīrsīāqī

  a board game.

• CHESTER BEATTY LIBRARY

  Wilfrid Lockwood, J. T. P. de Bruijn, Michel Tardieu

  a collection of manuscripts, printed works, and artifacts, predominantly Oriental, assembled by Alfred Chester Beatty and opened to the public in Dublin in 1954.

• CHILAS

  Karl Jettmar

  township in the upper Indus valley in Pakistani-controlled Jammu and Kashmir, almost directly south of Gilgit and located on the new Karakorum high­way between Pakistan and China.

• CHILDREN

  Multiple Authors

  This series of articles covers children and child-rearing in Iran and Iranian lands.

• CHILDREN i. Childbirth in Zoroastrianism

  Jenny Rose

  The Zoroastrian community has traditionally regarded marriage as having a threefold function: to propagate the human race, to spread the Zoroastrian faith, and to contribute to the victory of the good cause. The birth of a child furthers each of these objec­tives.

• CHILDREN ii. In Modern Persian Folklore

  Mahmoud Omidsalar

  Childbirth (zāymān, formal ważʿ-e ḥaml) in traditional Persian society, as in many other cultures, has generally been associated with magical practices and superstitions.

• CHILDREN iii. Legal Rights of Children in the Sasanian Period

  Mansour Shaki

  Although the corpus of Sasanian civil law was designed primarily to regulate matters among the lower classes, that is, the common people and slaves, the portions on adop­tion, inheritance, guardianship, and the like were equally applicable to the upper classes.

• CHILDREN iv. Legal Rights of Children in Modern Persia

  Shirin Ebadi

  A person is consid­ered a minor (ṣaḡīr) until he or she has attained the physical and psychological growth necessary for full participation in society. When a child has reached the age of maturity (bolūḡ) determined by the law he ir she is consid­ered mature (bāleḡ).

• CHILDREN v. Child Rearing in Modern Persia

  Erika Friedl

  The topic of child rearing (from birth to social adulthood in the mid-teens) is largely neglected in systematic research; there are no comparative studies of child-rearing practices among different ethnic and cultural groups in the country and only a few specialized studies.

• CHILDREN vi. Child Rearing Among Zoroastrians in Modern Persia

  Janet Kestenberg Amighi

  In the first half of the 13th/20th century most children were born at home with the assistance of the midwife. Immediately after birth the infant was bathed to cleanse it of polluting substances and wrapped in pieces of cloth called landog.

• CHILDREN vii. Children's Literature

  EIr

  Children’s literature is a genre employing themes, language, and illustrations geared to the developmental levels of children, introduced in Persia in the 13th/19th century.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHILIARCH

  Philippe Gignoux

  Greek title of one of the chief offices of state in Achaemenid Persia, presumably translated from Old Persian hazārapati-, attested in Greek as azarapateîs, explained as eisaggeleîs, that is, announcers or ushers.

• CHINESE TURKESTAN

  EIr, Victor Mair and Prods Oktor Skjærvø

  (Sinkiang, Xinjiang), IRANIAN ELEMENTS IN.

• CHINESE TURKESTAN i. Geographical Overview

  EIr

  The eastern portion of the Central Asian land mass (see central asia i. geography), between 70° and 100° E and 25° and 45° N, encompasses Chinese Turkestan, now Sinkiang (Xin-jiang) Uighur Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China.

• CHINESE TURKESTAN ii. In Pre-Islamic Times

  Victor Mair and Prods Oktor Skjærvø

  In antiquity the Tarim and Dzungar (Zungar, Jungar) basins lay at the crossroads of three main Eurasian routes including the Southern Silk Road, the Northern Silk Road, and a northern route passing between the Bogdo-ola (Bo-ko-tuo) range and the Tien Shans.

• CHINESE TURKESTAN iii. From the Advent of Islam to the Mongols

  Isenbike Togan

  Chinese influence in the Tarim basin began to wane after the battle of Talas (Ṭarāz) in 134/751, though Islam did not gain a permanent foothold there until much later.

• CHINESE TURKESTAN iv. In the Mongol Period

  Morris Rossabi

  On the eve of the Mongol conquests the eastern oases were inhabited by the Uighur Turks. The eastern oases south of the Takla Makan were controlled by the Tangut. The western portion of the Tarim basin was inhabited by a mixture of Turkic and Iranian peoples, many of whom were Muslims.

• CHINESE TURKESTAN v. Under the Khojas

  Isenbike Togan

  The Khojas (Ḵᵛājas, Ḵᵛājagān), descendants of the Naqšbandī Sufi Aḥmad Ḵᵛājagī Kāsānī (d. 949/1543), known as Maḵdūm-e Aʿẓam, ruled over Chinese Turkestan between 1089/1678 and 1173/1759.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHINESE TURKESTAN vi. Iranian Groups in Sinkiang since the 1750s

  Kim Ho-Dong

  Between the late 17th and 19th centuries many Iranian-speaking peoples from Šeḡnān (Shughnan) and Wāḵān (Wakhan) migrated to the region of the eastern Pamirs around Lake Zorkul, and mingled with the nomadic groups of Iranian descent already established there.

• CHINESE TURKESTAN vii. Manicheism in Chinese Turkestan and China

  Samuel Lieu

  Manicheism was probably introduced into Inner Asia by Sogdian (Hu) merchants, though the process of its diffusion there is entirely obscure.

• CHINESE TURKESTAN viii. Turkish-Iranian Language Contacts

  Gerhard Doerfer

  Contacts between the Iranian peoples and the Turks occurred at least as early as 552 C.E., when the Turks spread from their northern settlements and established an empire extending from the Greater Khingan mountains to the Aral Sea and Sogdians farther west.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS

  Multiple Authors

  This series of articles deals with Chinese-Iranian relations spanning from Pre-Islamic times to the Constitutional Revolution in Iran.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS i. In Pre-Islamic Times

  Edwin G. Pulleyblank

  Contact between China and Iran was initiated toward the end of the 2nd century B.C.E. by the envoy Chang Ch’ien (Zhang Qian), who searched for the Yüeh-chih (Yue-zhi), a people that had migrated from the borders of China after having been defeated by the Hsiung-nu (Xiongnu).

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS ii. Islamic Period to the Mongols

  J. M. Rogers

  Ṣīn in Arabic sources referred not only to China but also to eastern Turkestan and the Far East as a whole, whereas Chinese texts rarely distinguished among Persian, Central Asian, and Arab Muslims. 

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS iii. In the Mongol Period

  Liu Yingsheng and Peter Jackson

  The incorporation of Persia into a vast empire that extended as far as China, following the conquests of Čengīz (Chinggis) Khan (602-24/1206-27) and his grandson Hülegü (Hūlāgū; 654-63/1256-65), inaugurated an era of intense contact between Persia and China. 

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS iv. The Safavid Period, 1501-1732

  J. M. Rogers

  In the Safavid period relations with China were, unsurprisingly, indirect. In eastern Khorasan the Uzbeks and their successors blocked the land route to northwest­ern China through Transoxania.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS v. Diplomatic and Commercial Relations, 1949-90

  Parviz Mohajer

  There were three distinct periods in Chinese-Persian diplomatic relations: 1328-49 Š./1949-70, 1350-57 Š./ 1971-78, and 1358-69 Š./1979-90.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS vi. Relations with Afghanistan in the Modern Period

  Daniel Balland

  Throughout history China and Afghanistan shared a certain amount of trade, mostly tea and fruit, via the direct caravan route from Chinese Turkestan across the high passes of the Pamirs and the Wāḵān corridor to northern Afghanistan.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS vii. Persian Settlements in Southeastern China during the T’ang, Sung, and Yuan Dynasties

  Chen Da-Sheng

  The ports along the southeastern coast of China had a long history of trade with Persia before the coming of Islam. In addition, there is considerable evidence for the settlement of early Muslims, including Persians, in China.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS viii. Persian Language and Literature in China

  EIr

  The earliest Persian inscription in China is the tombstone of the Zoroastrian Ma (Pahl. *Māhnūš), wife of General Su-liang (Pahl. Farroxzād; Humbach), inscribed in both Pahlavi and Chinese and dated 874, has been discovered at Xi-an, the capital of Shan-xi province.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS ix. Persian Language Teaching in Modern China

  EIr

  Persian has been taught in Muslim schools in China since the 1920s.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS x. China in Medieval Persian Literature

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  In medieval writings Čīn may mean either China proper or eastern Turkestan; when it refers to the latter China proper is sometimes called Māčīn (contraction of Skt. Mahāčīna “great China”).

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS xi. Mutual Influence of Chinese and Persian Ceramics

  Oliver Watson

  Chinese ceramics were the single most important stimulus to the development of fine pottery in the Islamic world, arriving first in the 3rd/9th century.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS xii. Mutual Influences in Painting

  Toh Sugimura

  In the Chinese cultural sphere Persian artistic influence was at its peak under the Tang dynasty (618-906 c.e.), contemporary with the end of the Sasanian period (30/651) and the first centuries after the Islamic conquest.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS xiii. Eastern Iranian Migrations to China

  Étienne de la Vaissière

  There are two different stages in the history of Eastern Iranian migrations to China: the first, still extremely obscure, is dominated by Bactrian immigrants, coming from Bactriana and the Kushan empire, and the second, from the fourth to the ninth century CE is dominated by Sogdians.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS xiv. The Influence of Eastern Iranian Art

  M. L. Carter

  The output of Chinese artisanship, especially in bronze, jade, ceramics, and silk textiles is unparalleled in Asia, and influences from non-Chinese sources were quickly assimilated and often transformed into an aesthetic vocabulary beyond easy recognition of their origin.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS xv. THE LAST SASANIANS IN CHINA

  Matteo Compareti

  Information on those Sasanians who avoided the submission to the Arabs and lived in Central Asia or at the Tang court can be found in the works of Muslim authors and in Chinese sources.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS xvi. Impact of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran

  Yidan Wang

  The Persian Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11 attracted the attention of the Chinese constitutionalists and revolutionaries immediately upon breaking out.

• CHINGGIS KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See ČENGĪZ KHAN.

• CHINKARA

  Khushal Habibi

  or CHIKARA (Gazella bennetti, Indian gazelle), a small antelope of slender build; its tawny coat has poorly marked facial and body stripes.

• CHIONITES

  Wolfgang Felix

  a tribe of probable Iranian origin that was prominent in Bactria and Transoxania in late antiquity.

• CHITON

  Cross-Reference

  See CLOTHING i. Median and Achaemenid periods, iii. Sasanian period.

• CHITRAL

  Nigel J. R. Allan, Georg Buddruss

  (Čitrāl), river valley in the upper Indus system.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHLORITE

  Philip Kohl

  a mineral consist­ing of a group of closely related hydrous magnesium aluminum silicates of exceedingly varied chemical com­positions owing to isomorphous substitutions.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHOAMANI

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  name of an eastern Iranian tribe (perhaps located in western Bactria), mentioned only by Pomponius Mela in an enumeration of the inhabitants of the interior lands.

• CHOANA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  the name of two Iranian towns mentioned by Ptolemy.

• CHOARA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  or CHOARENE; a town or village in Parthia mentioned by Ptolemy (6.5.3) and called “the most attractive place of Parthia” by Pliny.

• CHOASPES

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (or Coaspēs), ancient name of three rivers.

• CHOBANIDS

  Charles Melville and ʿAbbās Zaryāb

  a fam­ily of Mongol origin descended from the amir Čobān Noyan.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHODŹKO, ALEKSANDER BOREJKO

  Jean Calmard

  (b. 30 August 1804, in Krzywicze, Poland [now in the Lithuanian S.S.R.], d. Noisy-le-Sec, near Paris, 19 December 1891), Polish poet and diplomat, the first European scholar to work on Persian folklore.

• CHOLERA

  Xavier De Planhol, Daniel Balland

  (Cholera asiatica, Cholera indica), epidemic intestinal disease of Indian origin caused by infectious bacteria.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHORASMIA

  Multiple Authors

  region on the lower reaches of the Oxus (Amu Darya) in western Central Asia.

• CHORASMIA i. Archeology and pre-Islamic history

  Yuri Aleksandrovich Rapoport

  At the turn of the 3rd millennium b.c.e. the Neolithic Kel’teminar culture flourished in the Chorasmian oasis (Vinogradov, 1968; idem, 1981). Remains of the Bronze Age Suyargan.

• CHORASMIA ii. In Islamic times

  C. E. Bosworth

  The Islamic history of Ḵᵛārazm begins with the two invasions of Arab troops under the governor of Khorasan Qotayba b. Moslem Bāhelī in 93/712, who intervened in the region on the pretext of internecine strife among members of the native Afrighid dynasty of ḵᵛārazmšāhs

• CHORASMIA iii. The Chorasmian Language

  D. N. MacKenzie

  Old Chorasmian was written in an indigenous script descended from the Aramaic, brought to the region by the administration of the Achaemenid empire and characterized by heter­ography, that is, the occasional writing of Aramaic words to represent the corresponding Chorasmian.

• CHORASMIAN COINAGE

  B. I. Vainberg

  issued by the rulers of Chorasmia between the 2nd century BCE and the 8th century CE, Chorasmian coins are important primary evidence for the Old Chorasmian language and the region’s post-Achaemenid history because of the paucity of preserved sources for this period.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHORIENES

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  Sogdian nobleman and opponent of Alexander.

• CHRISTENSEN, ARTHUR EMANUEL

  Jes P. Asmussen

  (b. Copenhagen 9 January 1875, d. Copenhagen 31 March 1945), Danish orientalist and scholar of Iranian philology and folklore.

• CHRISTIANITY

  Multiple Authors

  This article treats Christianity in pre-Islamic Persia as seen through literary sources and material remains, in Central Asia, in Christian literature in Middle Iranian languages, in Manicheism, and in Persian literature. It also covers Christina influences in Persian poetry and Christian missions in Persia.

• CHRISTIANITY i. In Pre-Islamic Persia: Literary Sources

  James R. Russell

  In Middle Persian there are three terms used for Christians: KLSTYDʾN and NʾCLʾY in the inscription on the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt of the 3rd-century Zoroastrian high priest Kartir; and tarsāq, Sogdian loan-word trsʾq, New Persian tarsā.

• CHRISTIANITY ii. In Pre-Islamic Persia: Material Remains

  Judith Lerner

  Although Christians may have been among the deportees from Roman Syria who worked on the monuments of Šāpūr I (240-70 c.e.) at Bīšāpūr (q.v.) and the dam at Šūštar, nothing identifiably Christian has been excavated in Persia itself.

• CHRISTIANITY iii. In Central Asia And Chinese Turkestan

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  The main early centers of Syriac-speaking Christians were Edessa and Arbela. By the end of the 3rd century the Syrian church was strongly established also in the western Persian empire, where it was sometimes harshly persecuted during the following centuries under Sasanian rule.

• CHRISTIANITY iv. Christian Literature in Middle Iranian Languages

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  In Persia itself Syriac eventually regained its status as the sole literary and liturgical language of the church, with the result that none of this Christian Persian literature survived, apart from a few texts preserved in Syriac translation, such as two legal works by the metropolitans Išoʿbōḵt and Simon.

• CHRISTIANITY v. Christ in Manicheism

  Werner Sundermann

  In Manicheism, as in earlier gnostic systems, the terms Christ (Gk. “the anointed”) and Jesus Christ were used in various ways, though less commonly than the name Jesus alone.

• CHRISTIANITY vi. In Persian Literature

  Qamar Āryān

  Christian beliefs and institutions are frequently mentioned in various genres (lyric, epic, didactic, mystic), and many works contain allusions to legends of Christian saints, martyrs, and ascetics.

• CHRISTIANITY vii. Christian Influences in Persian Poetry

  Annemarie Schimmel

  Persian poetry contains a good number of allusions to Jesus Christ (ʿĪsā Masīḥ), Mary (Maryam), and Christians (naṣārā, tarsā) in general. Most of the images and ideas expressed in poetry are elaborations of the Koranic data about Jesus and his virgin mother, though sometimes developed very ingeniously.

• CHRISTIANITY viii. Christian Missions in Persia

  Yahya Armajani

  Christianity was introduced in Persia in the Parthian period, and several bishoprics were established there. That the Persian church was itself active in proselytizing abroad at the end of the Sasanian period (224-651) and immediately after is clear from remains in India and China.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHRISTIE, CHARLES

  Kamran Ekbal

  Captain (d. 1812), of the Bombay Regiment, an Anglo-Indian officer under the command of Sir John Malcolm.

• CHROMITE

  Raḥmat-Allāh Ostovār

  FeCr2O4, a dark-brown or black mineral from which chromium is refined.

• CHRONICLE OF ARBELA

  Peter Kawerau

  a Syriac church history of Adiabene, written in the 6th century by Mĕšīḥā-Zĕḵā under the title Kĕtaḇā ḏ-ĕqlisyastīqī ḏă-Mĕšīḥā-Zĕḵā, chosen in conscious imitation of the Ekklēsiastikḕ historía by Eusebius of Caesarea.

• CHRONICLE OF EDESSA

  Sebastian P. Brock

  a short local history of Edessa (modern Urfa), written in Syriac by an anonymous author and covering chiefly the period from 201-540 C.E.

• CHRONOGRAMS

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  dates incorporated into Persian texts in disguised form, espe­cially those in which the letters of the alphabet have numerical value.

• CHRONOLOGY

  Cross-Reference

  See CALENDARS.

• CHUBAK, Sadeq

  Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar

  (1916-1998), one of most acclaimed Persian short story writers and novelists of the 20th century.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CHUPANIDS

  Cross-Reference

  See CHOBANIDS.

• CHURCH OF ENGLAND IN PERSIA

  Cross-reference

  IN PERSIA. See ENGLAND, CHURCH OF, IN PERSIA.

• CHURNS AND CHURNING

  Marcel Bazin and Christian Bromberger

  de­vices and associated techniques for processing milk into butter.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CH’IEN HAN SHU

  Edwin G. Pulleyblank

  (Qian Han shu) “History of the Former Han Dynasty,” a historical work which includes information on Iran.

• CH’ÜAN-CHOU

  Cross-reference

  (Quan-zhou, formerly Jin-jiang; in Islamic sources Zaytūn), Chinese city in southeastern Fu-jian (Fukien) province on the lower reaches of the Jin-jiang river. See CHINA VIII. PERSIAN SETTLEMENTS IN SOUTHEASTERN CHINA.

• CIA

  Cross-Reference

  See CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY (CIA) IN PERSIA.

• ČIÇANTAXMA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  an Iranian personal name signifying “brave in lineage.”

• CICAST

  Cross-Reference

  See ČĒČAST.

• CICERO

  Michael Weiskopf

  as a source for Parthian history; letters written by Roman statesman and political philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 b.c.e.) preserve a virtually unique con­temporary extra-Iranian source on Parthian military and diplomatic activities and the Roman response to them, particularly during the military-campaign season of 51­-50 b.c.e.

• ČĪDAG ANDARZ Ī PŌRYŌTKĒŠĀN

  Mansour Shaki

  (Selected precepts of the ancient sages), a post-Sasanian compendium of apothegms intended to instruct every Zoroastrian male, upon his attaining the age of fifteen years, in fundamental religious and ethical principles, as well as in the daily duties incumbent upon him.

• CIGARETTES

  Cross-Reference

  See DOḴĀNĪYĀT.

• ČIHRDĀD NASK

  D. N. MacKenzie

  one of the lost nasks of the Avesta.

• CILICIA

  Michael Weiskopf

  the southeastern portion of the present Turkish coast, a satrapy of the Achaemenid empire (6th-4th centuries b.c.e.), subsequently incorporated into the Macedonian and Roman empires.

• ČĪM Ī DRŌN

  Cross-Reference

  See DRŌN.

• ČĪM Ī KUSTĪG

  Cross-Reference

  See KUSTĪG.

• CIMMERIANS

  Sergei R. Tokhtas’ev

  a nomadic people, most likely of Iranian origin, who flourished in the 8th-7th centuries B.C.

• ČĪN TĪMŪR

  Peter Jackson

  the first governor of Khorasan and Māzandarān on behalf of the Mongols.

• CINEMA

  Multiple Authors

  This series of articles treats the history of cinema in Persia, Persian feature film, Persian documentary films, film censorship in Persia, and filmography in Persia.

• CINEMA i. History of Cinema in Persia

  Farrokh Gaffary

  The shah ordered his chief photographer, Mīrzā Ebrāhīm ʿAkkās-bāšī, to purchase a Gaumont camera, and footage that he shot at a flower festival in Ostend, Belgium, was probably the first film ever shot by a Persian camera­man.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CINEMA ii. Feature Films

  Jamsheed Akrami

  Feature-film production in Persia spans six decades and can be divided into four distinct periods, each reflecting contemporary social, cultural, and political realities.

• CINEMA iii. Documentary Films

  Hamid Naficy

  Be­fore World War I most Persian documentaries were sponsored and viewed only by the Qajar ruling family and the upper classes. They were apparently technically primitive and in a simple narrative format, consisting of footage of news events, topics of current interest, and spectacles, usually filmed in long shot.

• CINEMA iv. Film Censorship

  Jamsheed Akrami

  Persian cinema has been subject from its beginnings to official censorship responding to the concerns of the government, religious establishments, professional groups, and even film distributors.

• CINEMA v. Filmography

  EIr

  A list of films discussed in i-iv above, listed here by year of release and alphabetically within each year. When the information is available producers are listed after the translated titles.

• ČĪNĪ

  John Carswell

  (lit. “Chinese”; borrowed in Arabic as ṣīnī), generic term for Chinese ceramic wares, including porcelain, a translucent, white-bodied ware fired at very high temperatures.

• CINNAMON

  Cross-reference

  See DĀRČĪNĪ.

• CINNAMUS

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  putative rival of Artabanus II (12-38) as king of the Arsacids.

• CINTĀMAṆI

  Priscilla Soucek

  the “wish-fulfilling jewel,” a motif consisting of either a single globe with a pointed extension at the apex or three such globes; either version could be surrounded by a flaming halo.

• ČINWAD PUHL

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  traditionally thought to mean “the bridge of the separator” but recently shown to be “the bridge of the accumulator/collector,” the name of a bridge that, according to a Mazdayasnian/Zoroastrian eschatological myth, leads from this world to the next and must be crossed by the souls of the departed.

• CIRCASSIANS

  Cross-Reference

  See ČARKAS.

• CIRCESIUM

  Joseph Wieseh

  a Roman border fortress in Mesopotamia, on the spit of land formed where the Ḵābūr, the present-day al-Boṣayra, flows into the Euphrates (see maps in Kettenhofen).

• CIRCUMCISION

  Ebrāhīm Šakūrzāda and Mahmoud Omidsalar

  Pers. ḵatna, sonnat (formally also taṭhīr or ḵetān), ḵatnakonān, and sonnatkonān; the last two terms also refer to the festivities associated with the circumcision ritual.

• ČIŠPIŠ

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (ca. 675-640 BCE), the son of Achaemenes, legendary founder of the Achaemenid dynasty and father of Darius’s great-grandfather Ariaramnes.

• CISSIANS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  a name for the Susians, the Elamite inhabitants of Susiana.

• ČISTĀ

  Jean Kellens

  and Čisti; Avestan derivatives of the verb cit “to notice, to understand.”

• ČĪSTĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See RIDDLE.

• ČĪT

  Jennifer M. Scarce

  cotton cloth decorated with block-printed or painted designs in multiple colors.

• CITIES

  Multiple Authors

  i. Geographical introduction. ii. City planning, construction, and architecture. See Supplement. iii. Administration and social organization. iv. Modern urbanization and modernization in Persia. v. Modern urbanization and modernization in Afghanistan.

• CITIES i. Geographical Introduction

  Xavier De Planhol

  There is a long history of settlement on Persian territory, where urban life was firmly established in antiquity, and cities continued to proliferate, though, owing to fluctuations in the population, they were highly unstable.

• CITIES iii. Administration and Social Organization

  Ann K. S. Lambton

  This article on the administration and social organization of Persian cities in the Islamic period discusses the following terms and offices: aḥdāṯ, amīr, amīr al-sūq, beglarbegī, ʿasas, čerāḡčī, dārūḡa, dārūḡa-šāgerd, dārūḡačī, dīvānbegī, farrāš, gazma, goḏaṛčī, ḥākem, kadḵodā, kalāntar, mehmāndār-bāšī, mīr-šab, mīrāb, moḥaṣṣes, moḥtaseb, moqtaʿ, naqīb, naqīb al-ašrāf, raʾīs, ṣāḥeb al-šorṭa, šeḥna, wālī.

• CITIES iv. Modern Urbanization and Modernization in Persia

  Eckart Ehlers

  Over a period of decades the rapidly growing popula­tion of Persia has simultaneously become increasingly urbanized. More and more people live in increasingly larger cities, and the largest cities tend to grow at a rate above the average.

• CITIES v. Modern Urbanization and Modernization in Afghanistan

  Erwin Grötzbach

  Since 1359 Š./1980 the flight of millions of Afghans, not only out of the country but also to relatively secure cities like Kabul and Mazār-e Šarīf, has been reflected in a sharp increase in the level of urbanization.

• CITIZENSHIP

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev, Mansour Shaki, Qajar and Pahlavi Periods, Naser Yeganeh

  the legal, political, and social status of every person who belongs to a state.

• ČIΘRA

  Cross-Reference

  See ČEHR.

• ČIΘRAFARNAH

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  Iranian personal name meaning “with shining splendor.”

• CITRON

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀLANG; CITRUS FRUITS.

• CITRUS FRUITS

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  in Persia, only the citrus trees and fruits of the genus Citrus L. (family Rutaceae, subfamily Aurantioideae) need be considered.

• CITY COUNCILS

  Ḥosayn Farhūdī

  (anjoman-e šahr) in Persia.

• CIVIL CODE

  Naser Yeganeh

  (qānūn-e madanī) of Persia, a series of regulations controlling all civic and social relations between individuals in the various circumstances of their lives.

• CLASS SYSTEM

  Multiple Authors

  (ṭabaqāt-e ejtemāʿī), a generic term referring to various types of social group, including castes, estates, status groups, and occupational categories.

• CLASS SYSTEM i. In the Avesta

  Prods Oktor Skjærvø

  The evidence for the existence of a highly developed class structure in the community in which the Avestan texts were composed is very slight, and the available information must be culled from sources chronologically as far apart as the Avesta itself and the Pahlavi texts.

• CLASS SYSTEM ii. In the Median and Achaemenid Periods

  Pierre Briant

  There are strong grounds for supposing that, for some purposes at least, Persians still defined their class structure in terms of the ancient Iranian social divisions outlined in parts of the Avesta, where individuals are classified by basic function as priests, warriors, and farmers.

• CLASS SYSTEM iii. In the Parthian and Sasanian Periods

  Mansour Shaki

  The scant and fragmentary information available on the Parthian period does not permit a comprehensive descrip­tion of social structure; in fact, the vast but decentralized empire encompassed a variety of social structures.

• CLASS SYSTEM iv. Classes In Medieval Islamic Persia

  Ahmad Ashraf and Ali Banuazizi

  A new social stratification and conception of inequality seems to have gradually emerged under the influence of: (1) Islamic ideals of equality and merit; (2) pre-Islamic Persian and Arabian ideals and practices of social inequality; and above all (3) rivalries among social groups over wealth, prestige, and power.

• CLASS SYSTEM v. Classes in the Qajar Period

  Ahmad Ashraf and Ali Banuazizi

  During the Qajar period there continued to be a fundamental division between a narrow stratum of courtiers, state officials, tribal leaders, religious notables, landlords and great merchants at the top and the vast majority of peasants, tribespeople, and laborers in agriculture, traditional industries, and services at the bottom.

• CLASS SYSTEM vi. Classes in the Pahlavi Period

  Ahmad Ashraf and Ali Banuazizi

  Under Pahlavi rule (1304-58 Š./1925-79) Persia be­came a powerful centralized state with a sprawling public sector that by 1355 Š./1976 employed one-third of the urban work force.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLAVIJO, RUY GONZÁLEZ DE

  Beatrice Forbes Manz and Margaret L. Dunaway

  (d. 2 April 1412), ambassador from King Henry III of Castile and Leon to Tīmūr in the years 805-08/1403-06 and author of an important travel account.

• CLEANSING

  Multiple Authors

  This article treats cleansing practices in Zoroastrianism and in Islamic Persia.

• CLEANSING i. In Zoroastrianism

  Mary Boyce

  Cleansing is conceived as a cosmic and individual activity is an essential element in Zoroastrianism, which teaches that the assault of the Evil Spirit, Angra Mainyu, brings defilement on all the good creations of Ahura Mazdā and that they, in their struggle for salvation, must ceaselessly strive to rid themselves of it.

• CLEANSING ii. In Islamic Persia

  Hamid Algar

  The identification of unclean objects (najāsāt) and of the factors or agents that, within certain limits, may cleanse them (moṭahherāt) depends more on the interpretation of prophetic tradition and on juristic deduc­tion than it does on clear Koranic injunctions.

• CLEARCHUS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (b. ca. 390 or 410 BCE, the latter date based on Memnon’s report of his age as fifty-eight years at his death in 352), tyrant of Pontic Heracleia (modern Ereğli) in 363-52 BCE.

• CLEARCHUS OF SPARTA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (b. Sparta ca. 450 BCE, d. Babylon 401 BCE), son of Rhamphias, Greek general in the service of Cyrus the Younger.

• CLEITARCHUS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (Gk. Kleítarchos), Greek histo­rian of the 4th century BCE, son of the historian Dinon of Colophon and author of a history of the exploits of Alexander the Great.

• CLEMEN, CARL CHRISTIAN

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (1865-1940), Ger­man Protestant theologian and historian of religions who compiled the classical passages on Iranian reli­gion.

• CLEMENT of Alexandria

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  (Titus Flavius Clemens, probably b. Athens ca. 150 C.E., d. Cappadocia ca. 215), Greek convert to Christianity who became the leading theologian of his time, a polemicist particularly noted for his attempts to reconcile Greco-Roman thought with Christian teachings.

• CLEMENT, PSEUDO-

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  the unknown author of a work of fiction falsely ascribed to Pope Clement I (88-­97 CE) and now generally known as the Pseudo­-Clementines, which contains passages reflecting myths and teachings of Persian origin.

• CLIBANARIUS

  Cross-reference

  in Roman sources a designation for a Parthian armored cavalryman. See ASB; ASB-SAVĀRĪ.

• CLIMATE

  Eckart Ehlers

  both the climate of Persia as a whole and the differences in weather among its various re­gions are determined primarily by its location within the arid belt of the eastern hemisphere.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLIME

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  (kešvar), ancient division of the earth’s surface.

• CLOCKS

  Willem Floor

  devices for measuring and registering time.

• CLOQUET, LOUIS-ANDRÉ-ERNEST

  Lutz Richter-Bernburg

  (1818-1855), French anatomist and French minister to the court at Tehran 1846-55, serving as personal physician to Moḥammad Shah (r. 1834-48) and Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah Qājār (r. 1848-96).

• CLOTHING

  Multiple Authors

  (Ar. and Pers. lebās, Pers. pūšāk, jāma, raḵt). The articles in this series are devoted to clothing of the Iranian peoples in successive historical periods and of various regions and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Iran.

• CLOTHING i. General remarks

  EIr

  Of the twenty-seven subsequent articles in this series eleven are devoted to clothing of the Iranian peoples in successive historical periods and fourteen to modern clothing of various regions and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Persia. The remaining two are compilations of terminology for various types of garment in these settings.

• CLOTHING ii. In the Median and Achaemenid periods

  Shapur Shahbazi

  Information on the dress worn by the peoples of the Median and Achaemenid empires is mainly related to male costume.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING iii. In the Arsacid period

  Trudi Kawami

  The Parthian period (ca. 250 b.c.e.-224 c.e.), when the Arsacid dynasty ruled, or claimed to rule, Persia, was the period in which trousers and sleeved coats became common garb throughout the Near East.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING iv. In the Sasanian period

  Elsie H. Peck

  Investigation of female dress in the Sasanian period (224-651 c.e.) is hampered by the small number of preserved representations of women relative to those of men.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING v. In Pre-Islamic Eastern Iran

  Gerd Gropp

  Modern knowledge of the dress of the eastern Iranian peoples is derived from literary and archeological sources, which can be compared, though with caution. Although there were regional differences, as well as a broad change over time, on the whole the costume remained fairly uniform.

• CLOTHING vi. Of the Sogdians

  Aleksandr Naymark

  The very few representations of Sogdian people that survive from before the 5th century c.e. do not allow any conclusion more specific about their clothing than that it was part of the general historical complex of Middle Eastern dress, specifically the category associ­ated with the Central Asian steppes.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING vii. Of the Iranian Tribes on the Pontic Steppes and in the Caucaus

  S. A. Yatsenko

  The main attention of those who have studied the Iranians of the eastern European steppes has been focused on the headdress and the caftan of the aristoc­racy.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING viii. In Persia from the Arab conquest to the Mongol invasion

  Elsie H. Peck

  Investiga­tion of costume in the Omayyad period is hampered by the scarcity of surviving representations; furthermore, many of those that do survive are purely symbolic and do not reflect what was actually worn.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING ix. In the Mongol and Timurid periods

  Eleanor Sims

  It is difficult to discuss clothing in Persia in the Il-­khanid and Timurid periods with any certainty because very few garments, in fact, very few textiles, actually survive from these periods.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING x. In the Safavid and Qajar periods

  Layla S. Diba

  In the late 15th century the poet Neẓām-al-Dīn Maḥmūd Qārī (Neẓām Qārī) of Yazd devoted an entire collection of poems to the subject of dress, the Dīvān-­e albesa.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xi. In the Pahlavi and post-Pahlavi periods

  ʿAlī-Akbar Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

  The clothing of Persians during the early years of the Pahlavi dynasty was generally similar to that of the Qajar period, reflecting differences among tribes, villages, and regions, as well as among classes.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xiii. Clothing in Afghanistan

  Nancy Hatch Dupree

  Traditional clothing reflects these geographic and residential variations and also serves to express individual and group identity, social and economic status, stages of the life-cycle, and changing sociopolitical trends, which ultimately lead to new styles, as well as to exchanges of clothing types.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xiv. Clothing of the Hazāra tribes

  Klaus Ferdinand

  Much of the information given here is based on the author’s ethnographic work among the Hazāra in 1953-55 and in the Danish National Museum collection in 1948 and 1953-54.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xv. Clothing of Tajikistan

  Guzel’ Maĭtdinova

  The most common traditional garment is a straight dress, widening at the bottom, worn over trousers. The long, full sleeves generally cover the hands, though in some mountain regions sleeves are closely fitted to the wrists.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xvi. Kurdish clothing in Persia

  Shirin Mohseni and Peter Andrews

  Kurds can easily be recognized by their dress, which has quite distinctive features, though there are sig­nificant variations among regions and social classes.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xvii. Clothing of the Kurdish Jews

  Ora Shwartz-Beeri

  The following description of the clothing worn since the beginning of this century by the Jews of Persian and Iraqi Kurdistan is based on field observations and interviews among the immigrant community in Israel and on a visit to northern Persia in 1974-79.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xviii. Clothing of the Baluch in Persia

  Iran Ala Firouz and Mehremonīr Jahānbānī

  This region is particularly noted for a distinctive type of richly embroidered women’s cos­tume. The embroidery, traditionally produced in cottage in­dustries, is even now, despite inevitable changes, particularly in the color combinations of the needle­work, one of the popular handicrafts for which an active market exists.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xix. Clothing of the Baluch in Pakistan and Afghanistan

  Pamela Hunte

  In contrast to the stark landscape of much of Paki­stan and Afghanistan, the clothing of the Baluch is distinguished by colorful embroidery patterns that serve as ethnic markers, helping to differentiate Baluch from Pashtuns (Pathans), Punjabis, Sindhis, and other ethnic groups in these highly pluralistic areas.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xx. Clothing of Khorasan

  Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Beyhaqī

  Owing to different climatic regions and the existence of various tribes in Khorasan, the province is distin­guished by a broad variety of clothing styles, recog­nizable in design, color, and decoration. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xxi. Turkic and Kurdish clothing of Azerbaijan

  P. A. Andrews And M. Andrews

  In Azerbaijan as a whole, including both Persian and Soviet territories, the traditional costume, now worn largely in a tribal context, retains the form of garments much as they were at the end of the 19th century.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xxii. Clothing of the Caspian area

  Christian Bromberger

  In several aspects the traditional dress (Gīlaki lebās; Ṭāleši ḵalā) of Gīlān and Māzandarān bears a struc­tural resemblance to that of other rural regions of Persia. It is constructed in successive layers, often of similar pieces superimposed, like women’s skirts or men’s shirts in winter. 

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xxiii. Clothing of the Persian Gulf area

  R. Shahnaz Nadjmabadi

  The people on the shores of the Persian Gulf are divided among three provinces, each with a distinctive style of dress: Ḵūzestān, Būšehr, and Hormozgān. The last is the main focus here. Women’s clothing consists of four basic parts: head covering, dress, trousers, and shoes. The normal head covering is a rectangular black scarf of thin silk (maknā) wrapped round the head and fastened on top with a metal pin (čollāba).

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xxiv. Clothing of the Qašqāʾī tribes

  Lois Beck

  In the 19-20th centuries the Qašqāʾī constituted a tribal confederacy of people of ethnolinguistically diverse origin; they were predominantly nomadic pastoralists who migrated seasonally between the low­lands and the highlands in the southern Zagros mountains. They created their own distinctive dress from market-derived goods and the work of village and urban craft specialists.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xxv. Clothing of the Baḵtīārīs and other Lori speaking tribes

  Jean-Pierre Digard

  Members of the Lori-speaking ethnic groups, including the Lors themselves, the Baḵtīārīs, and the Boīr-Aḥmadīs are characterized by similar styles of dress, with variations reflecting differences in tribe and social class of the wearer, variations that can have strong symbolic meaning, particularly among the Baḵtīārīs.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xxvi. Clothing and jewelry of the Turkmen

  P. A. Andrews

  Until the 1970s the clothing and jewelry of the Turkmen formed the most elaborate tribal costume still used in Persia. The principal women’s garment is a shift (köynek), formerly of silk, now replaced by synthetic fibers; a raspberry red was common in the hand-woven material, sometimes with shot effects.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CLOTHING xxvii. Historical lexicon of Persian clothing

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  The lexicon has been compiled from personal observations, descriptions in Persian and other sources, and from old paintings, drawings, and photographs.

• CLOTHING xxviii. Concordance of clothing terms among ethnic groups in modern Persia

  EIr

  This concordance has been compiled from xiii-xxvi, above.

• CLOUDS

  Eckart Ehlers

  Large tracts of central Persia and the adjacent arid plateaus of Afghanistan lie under cloudless skies for most of the year, which contributes to typical “conti­nental” climatic conditions.

• CLOVER

  Cross-Reference

  See ŠABDAR.

• CLOWN

  Cross-Reference

  See DALQAK.

• COAL

  Willem M. Floor

  (zoḡāl-e sang). Although Persia and Afghanistan are rich in coal deposits, these deposits have only recently come to be exploited.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• COASTAL REGION

  Cross-Reference

  See BALUCHISTAN, FĀRS.

• COBALT

  Elisabeth West FitzHugh and Willem M. Floor

  a chemical element that imparts a blue color to glass and glazes and to certain pigments.

• ČOBĀN

  Charles Melville

  eponymous founder of the Chobanid dynasty and the leading Mongol amir of the late Il-khanid period.

• ČŌBĪN, BAHRĀM

  Cross-reference

  See BAHRĀM ČŌBĪN.

• COCK

  James R. Russell, Mahmoud Omidsalar

  the male of the subfamily Phasianinae (pheasants), usually having a long, often tectiform tail with fourteen to thirty-two feathers.

• COCKSCOMB

  Cross-Reference

  See BOSTĀNAFRŪZ.

• COCONUT

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  the fruit of the palm Cocos nucifera L., which grows in the East Indies, as well as in most other humid tropical regions.

• CODES

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (romūz, sg. ramz), including the use of secret writing and cryptanalysis, in Persia.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CODEX CUMANICUS

  D. N. MacKenzie

  a manuscript of eighty-two paper leaves, measuring approximately 20 x 14 cm, preserved in the Biblioteca Nazionale of the cathe­dral of San Marco in Venice and comprising princi­pally vocabularies and texts of the Northwest Middle Turkic language of the Cumans, or Komans, recorded in Latin script.

• CODICES HAFNIENSES

  Jes P. Asmussen

  forty-three Avestan and Pahlavi codices acquired by Rasmus Kristian Rask (1787-1832) in Bombay, India, and Niels Ludvig Westergaard (1815-1878) in Persia, all originally de­posited in the library of the University of Copenhagen but later transferred to the Royal Library.

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• CODOMANNUS

  Cross-Reference

  See DARIUS III.

• COFFEE

  ʿAlī Āl-e Dāwūd

  a drink made by steeping in boiling water the dried, roasted, and ground berries of the coffee tree (Coffea arabica).

• COFFEEHOUSE

  ʿAlī Āl-e Dawūd

  a shop and meeting place where coffee is prepared and served.

• COFFEEHOUSE PAINTING

  Cross-Reference

  See PAINTING.

• ČOḠĀ BONUT

  Abbas Alizadeh

  archeological site in lowland Susiana, in the present-day province of Ḵuzestān in southwestern Iran; to date, Čoḡā Bonut has provided evidence of the earliest stages of settled agricultural life in Ḵuzestān.

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• ČOḠĀ MĪŠ

  Helene J. Kantor

  (Chogha Mish), the largest prehistoric and protohistoric site (ca. 17 ha) in the area below the Zagros foothills between Dezfūl and Šūštar.

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• ČOḠĀ SAFĪD

  Frank Hole

  or Chogha Sefid, a prehistoric site on the Dehlorān (Deh Luran) plain in Ḵūzestān, dating back to the 8th millennium B.C.E.

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• ČOḠĀ ZANBĪL

  Elizabeth Carter

  or Chogha Zanbil, a city founded by the Elamite king Untaš Napiriša (ca. 1275-40 B.C.E.) about 40 km southeast of Susa at a strategic point on a main road leading to the highlands. After his death it remained a place of religious pilgrimage and a burial ground until about 1000 B.C.E.

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• ČOḠONDAR

  Cross-Reference

  See BEET.

• ČOḠŪR

  Jean During

  (also čoḡor, čogūr, more commonly called sāz in former Soviet Azerbaijan), is the typical pyriform lute of the ʿāšeq, the professional minstrel of Azerbaijan.

• COINS AND COINAGE

  Stephen Album, Michael L. Bates, and Willem Floor

  During the reign of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (1797-1834) the first steps toward a modern currency were taken. At the Tabrīz and Isfahan mints well-executed silver and gold coins were struck along with the normal, less carefully minted products, with full, even pressure and reeded edges similar to those found on contemporary British Indian coins. It is unclear whether these coins were intended only for presentation or as prototypes for a technically superior circulating coinage,

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• COLCHIS

  Fridrik Thordarson

  ancient Greek name of the region at the eastern end of the Black Sea and south of the Caucasus mountains, corresponding to the Georgian provinces of Imeretia, Mingrelia (Samegrelo), Guria and Ač’ara and the Pontic regions of northeastern Turkey.

• COLETTI, Alessandro

  Adriano Rossi

  (b. Trieste, 1928, d. Rome, 1985), Italian scholar of Iranian languages and general oriental subjects, co-author with his wife, Hanne Grünbaum, of the most comprehensive Persian-Italian dictionary (1978) published in modern times.

• COLLEGE

  Cross-reference

  term used to designate the American College, founded by Presbyterians and later renamed: see ALBORZ COLLEGE.

• COLLEGES

  Cross-reference

  For important individual colleges, see EDUCATION; FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN.

• COLOGNE MANI CODEX

  Werner Sundermann

  or Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis, a lump of parchment fragments the size of a matchbox, containing a portion of the life and teachings of Mani, discovered in 1969 at an indeterminate spot in the area of Asyūṭ (ancient Lycopolis) in upper Egypt, the smallest ancient codex known to date.

• COLOR

  Annemarie Schimmel, Priscilla P. Soucek

  (Pers. rang). i. Color symbolism in Persian literature. ii. Use and importance of color in Persian art. 

• COLUMNS

  Wolfram Kleiss

  one of several kinds of upright, load-bearing architectural members encompassed, along with piers, in the term sotūn. In the Achaemenid palaces at Persepolis and Susa columns, whether plain or fluted, reached a height of 19 m and a diameter up to 1.60 m; they were topped by double-protome capitals, themselves an additional 8 m high.

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• COMISENE

  Cross-Reference

  See KŪMEŠ.

• COMMAGENE

  Michael Weiskopf

  the portion of southwestern Asia Minor (modern Turkey) bordered on the east by the Euphrates river, on the west by the Taurus mountains, and on the south by the plains of northern Syria. It was part of the Achaemenid empire and its successor kingdoms and did not achieve status as an independent kingdom until the mid-2nd century B.C.E.

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• COMMERCE

  Multiple Authors

   within Persia and between Persia and other regions.

• COMMERCE i. In the prehistoric period

  Oscar White Muscarella

  In this early period “commerce” is best defined as the movement or exchange of material or goods between cultures within the present boundaries of Persia and those in other regions.

• COMMERCE ii. In the Achaemenid period

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

  The longest of many caravan routes was the Royal Road, which stretched for nearly 2,400 km from Sardis in Asia Minor through Mesopotamia and down the Tigris to Susa; stations with service facilities were located every 25-30 km along its length.

• COMMERCE iii. In the Parthian and Sasanian periods

  Richard N. Frye

  There are few contemporary sources on commerce in the Parthian period, and no archeological site on the Persian plateau has yielded finds that shed light on the subject.

• COMMERCE iv. Before the Mongol Conquest

  Bertold Spuler

  There were no centers of trade of supraregional importance in either Persia or Central Asia during the Middle Ages. In the Islamic world Baghdad, the seat of the caliphate, was the primary center for the exchange of goods, which arrived overland or by sea through the port of Baṣra at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

• COMMERCE vi. In the Safavid and Qajar periods

  Willem Floor

  The Dutch and English East Indies companies were the first well-capitalized trading partners established in Persia, initially providing a much-needed source of cash for the shahs. In return the companies demanded and obtained treaties (in 1617 and 1623) granting them freedom of trade, exemption from duties and various other charges, and even extraterritorial rights.

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• COMMERCE vii. In the Pahlavi and post-Pahlavi periods

  Vahid Nowshirvani

  A prominent feature of Persian export trade was the steady rise in both the value and volume of oil shipments through almost the entire Pahlavi period until the Revolution, when this trend was reversed. Because of the large increase in price in 1352 Š./1973 the value of Persian oil exports climbed substantially more than the volume in the 1970s. Other exports fared less well.

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• COMMUNICATIONS in Persia

  Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi and ʿAlī Mohammadi

  the growth of post, telegraph, and telephone service in Persia was closely linked with the growth of railway and highway networks and other modern transportation systems; it was thus a central element in the development of a modern infrastructure in Persia.

• COMMUNISM

  Multiple Authors

  Communism i. In Persia to 1941, ii. In Persia from 1941 to 1953, iii. In Persia after 1953, iv. In Afghanistan, v. In Tajikistan (see Supplement).

• COMMUNISM i. In Persia to 1941

  Cosroe Chaqueri

  The Persian communist movement was born among Persian immigrant workers in the Baku oilfields. In the years 1323-25/1905-07 some of them had founded Ferqa-ye ejtemāʿīyūn-e ʿāmmīyūn-e Īrān.

• COMMUNISM ii. In Persia from 1941 to 1953

  Sepehr Zabih

  With the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Persia and the abdication of Reżā Shah on 25 Šahrīvar 1320 Š./16 September 1941, the climate for resumption of political activities was vastly improved.

• COMMUNISM iii. In Persia after 1953

  Torāb Ḥaqšenās

  Whereas in the previous period Persian communism had been embodied primarily in the Tudeh party, which followed the ideological and political dicta of the Soviet Union, after the coup d’etat of 1332 Š./1953 it was characterized by ideological and organizational diversity.

• COMMUNISM iv. In Afghanistan

  Anthony Arnold

  The Afghan Communist party, Ḥezb-e demōkrātīk-e ḵalq-e Afḡānestān (People’s democratic party of Afghanistan, P.D.P.A.) was officially founded in 1344 Š./1965, at a time when political parties were illegal in Afghanistan. Two other durable Afghan Marxist-Leninist groups were active in the same general period.

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• 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.

• COPYRIGHT

  Karīm Emāmī

  (ḥaqq-e moʾallef), a direct translatof the French droit d'auteur; the exclusive right to reproduce, publish, and sell the matter or form of a created work, for example, a novel or musical compo­sition.

• CORAL

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  the skeletal deposit of marine polyps, often treated as a gem material.

• ČORĀS, ŠĀH-MAḤMŪD

  Robert D. McChesney

  b. Mīrzā Fāżel, historian of the 17th-century Chaghatay khanate in Moḡūlestān and hagiographer and staunch supporter of the “Black Mountain” khojas.

• CORBIN, HENRY

  Daryush Shayegan

  (b. Paris 14 April 1903, d. Paris 7 October 1978), French philosopher and orientalist best known as a major interpreter of the Persian role in the development of Islamic thought.

• CORIANDER

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  an herb indigenous to the Mediterranean area, the Caucasus, and Persia and valued for its aromatic leaves and seeds.

• ČORMĀGŪN

  Peter Jackson

  Mongol general and military gov­ernor in Persia, d. ca. 639/1242.

• CORMICK, JOHN

  Kamran Ekbal and Lutz Richter-Bernburg

  one of the first English surgeons to work in Persia and personal physician to the crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā.

• CORMICK, WILLIAM

  Moojan Momen

  (b. Tabrīz 1822, d. Tabrīz 25 Ḏu’l-ḥejja 1294/30 December 1877), a British physician in Tabrīz.

• CORN

  Cross-Reference

  See ḎORRAT.

• CORNELIAN CHERRY

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  the male cornel tree, a dogwood shrub with edible berries.

• CORONATION

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  in ancient Iran, the ceremonial act of investing a ruler with a crown.

• CORPSE

  Mary Boyce

  disposal of, in Zoroastrianism; in Zoroastrianism the corpse of a righteous believer was held to be the greatest source of pollution in the world, as the death of such a one represented a triumph for evil, whose forces were thought to be gathered there in strength.

• CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM IRANICARUM

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  (C.I.I.), an association devoted to the col­lection and publication of Iranian inscriptions and documents.

• CORRESPONDENCE

  Multiple Authors

   

  Correspondence i. In pre-Islamic Persia, ii. In Islamic Persia, iii. Forms of opening and closing, address, and signature, and iv. On the subcontinent of India.

   

• CORRESPONDENCE i. In pre-Islamic Persia

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  There is no information about correspondence in Median times, except for a fictitiously paraphrased letter from Cyrus to Cyaxares that began “Cyrus to Cyaxares, greeting!” 

• CORRESPONDENCE ii. In Islamic Persia

  Fatḥ-Allāh Mojtabāʾī

  In Islamic Persia letter writing (Ar.-Pers. tarassol < Ar. r-s-l “to send”) developed into a genre of great literary, historical, and social importance. 

• CORRESPONDENCE iii. Forms of opening and closing, address, and signature

  Hashem Rajabzadeh

  In this article the parts of the Persian letter are surveyed section by section, with comments on the general features, style, and stock formulas characteris­tic of each from early Islamic times to the present.

• CORRESPONDENCE iv. On the subcontinent of India

  Momin Mohiuddin

  The chancellery of official and diplomatic correspondence was an organ of Indian Muslim political organization. At various times it was known as dīvān-­e resālat,dīvānal-enšāʾ, dīvānal-rasāʾel, or dār al-­enšāʾ. 

• ČORTKA

  Yaḥyā Ḏokāʾ

  (or čortaka, čotka < Russ. schëty “abacus”), an ancient calculation device, a rectangle strung with parallel metal wires along which clay, metal, or wooden beads can be moved.

• ČORŪM

  Cross-Reference

  See ČERĀM.

• CORVÉE

  Cross-Reference

  See BĪGĀR.

• CORVIDAE

  Cross-Reference

  See CROW.

• COSMETICS

  This article is based on information provided by Žāla Mottaḥedīn and Eqbāl Yaḡmāʾī.

  prepara­tions for personal beautification, in Persian tradition used mainly by women on special occasions.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY

  Multiple Authors

  theories of the origins and structure of the universe.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY i. In Zoroastrianism/Mazdaism

  Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  The “orthodox” myth. The extant Avesta contains no systematic exposition of the cosmological beliefs of the people among whom it was composed and who eventually brought Zoroastrianism to western Iran.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY ii. In Mithraism

  Roger Beck

  That Mithraism had an elaborate cosmology, central to its doctrines, is proven first by the structure of its cult shrines (mithraea), which took the form of caves (real or artificial) because, as Porphyry (6) stated, the cave is an “image of the cosmos.” For this reason mithraea were equipped with “symbols of the cosmic elements and climates set at appropriate intervals.”

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• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY iii. In Manicheism

  Werner Sundermann

  Manicheism, like contemporary Zoroastrianism and various gnostic sects, offered a detailed cosmogonic myth, or cosmology.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY iv. In the Mazdakite religion

  Werner Sundermann

  The most important source for modern knowledge of Mazdakite cosmogony is the description of the Mazdakite religion in Ketāb al-melal wa’l-neḥal, writ­ten by Abu’l-Fatḥ Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-al-Karīm Šahrestānī, in 624/1227, several hundred years after the period in which the sect flourished. 

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY v. In Twelver Shiʿism

  Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi

  Imami traditions contain a chaotic abundance of material portraying the origin and structure of the universe. Book XIV, “On the heavens and the earth,” of Moḥammad-Bāqer Majlesī’s Beḥār al-anwār, fills ten volumes (LVII-LXVI) in the most recent edition and contains several thousand traditions.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY vi. In Ismaʿilism

  Wilferd Madelung

  The physical world consists of nine celestial spheres, the highest sphere, the sphere of the fixed stars, the seven spheres of the planets, as well as the sublunar world of generation and corruption.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY vii. In Shaikhism

  Denis M. MacEoin

  It is in some respects redundant to speak of a “Shaikhi cosmology” distinct from that of Imami Shiʿism as a whole. Shaikhi ideas never developed independently of ordinary Shiʿite thought but were either part of it or in dialogue or conflict with it.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY viii. In the Bahai faith

  Moojan Momen

  First, the human mind is strictly finite and limited in knowledge and understanding. Second, no absolute knowledge of God or reality or the cosmos is therefore available to man. Third, from the above it follows that all conceptualizations and attempts by men to portray cosmology are “but a reflection of what has been created within themselves.”

• COSSACK BRIGADE

  Muriel Atkin

  a cavalry unit in the Persian army established in 1879 on the model of Cossack units in the Russian army. The formation of the Cossack Brigade was part of a larger process in which the Persian government, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, engaged various European soldiers to train units of the Persian armed forces.

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• COSSAEANS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  a tribe of mountain people settled in western Iran; their land was called Cossaea/Kossaîa.

• COSTE, Pascal-Xavier

  Cross-Reference

  (1787-1879), French architect, famous for the illustrated account of his travels in Persia. See FLANDIN AND COSTE.

• COTTAM, Richard

  Susan Siavoshi

  political scientist and Iranist (1925-1997).

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• COTTON

  Multiple Authors

  Cotton (panba < Mid. Pers. pambag; katān; in Isfahan kolūza; genus Gossypium), particularly the short-staple species Gossypium herbaceum, is cultivated in almost all parts of Persia, and is of great economic importance both for home consumption and for export.

• COTTON i. Introduction

  Eckart Ehlers and Ahmad Parsa

  Cotton (panba < Mid. Pers. pambag; katān; in Isfa­han kolūza; genusGossypium), particularly the short-staple species Gossypium herbaceum, is cultivated in almost all parts of Persia, and is of great economic importance both for home consumption and for export.

• COTTON ii. Production and Trade in Persia

  Hassan Hakimian

  Cotton was one of the first vegetable fibers used to make textiles, and, despite competition from synthetic fibers in recent times, it remains the most important nonfood agricultural commodity in the world.

• COTTON iii. In Afghanistan

  Daniel Balland

  Two Iranian words, paḵta (< Tajik) and pomba (Pers. panba < Pahl. pambag), are currently used in Afghani­stan to designate raw cotton. Most people use them fairly indiscriminately, but specialists tend to confine the former to unginned, or seed, cotton and the latter to ginned, or fiber, cotton (Pashto mālūǰ/č).

• COUP D’ETAT OF 1299/1921

  Niloofar Shambayati

  the military coup that eventually led to the founding of the Pahlavi dynasty.

• COUP D’ETAT OF 1332 Š./1953

  Mark J. Gasiorowski

  the appointment of Moḥammad Moṣaddeq as prime minis­ter of Persia on 9 Ordībehešt 1330 Š./29 April 1951 and the nationalization two days later of Persia’s British-owned oil industry initiated a period of tense confrontation between the Persian and British govern­ments.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS

  Multiple Authors

  Courts and courtiers i. In the Median and Achaemenid periods, ii. In the Parthian and Sasanian periods, iii. In the Islamic period to the Mongol conquest, iv. Under the Mongols, v. Under the Timurid and Turkman dynasties, vi. In the Safavid period, vii. In the Qajar period, viii. In the reign of Reżā Shah Pahlavī, ix. In the reign of Moḥammad-Reżā Shah. See SUPPLEMENT, x. Court poetry

• COURTS AND COURTIERS i. In the Median and Achaemenid periods

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

  From Herodotus’ report of the child Cyrus’ playing at being king it seems that the Median court included bodyguards, messengers, the “king’s eye," and builders, for it is likely that the game was modeled on the existing court.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS ii. In the Parthian and Sasanian periods

  Philippe Gignoux

  In the absence of records, a full picture of court life under the Parthians and Sasanians cannot be pieced together.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS iii. In the Islamic period to the Mongol conquest

  C. E. Bosworth

  In Persia the organization of courts (Pers. bār, bādrgāh, dargāh, darbār; in Arabic, there exists no more precise designation than majles, lit. “session”), including the formation of a circle of courtiers in the early centuries after the Islamic conquest, was directly inspired by the court life of the ʿAbbasid caliphs at Baghdad and Sāmarrāʾ.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS iv. Under the Mongols

  Peter Jackson

  During the early stages of the Mongol presence Persia was ruled, on behalf of the great khan (qaḡan, qaʾan/qāʾān) in Mongolia, by military governors based in Azerbaijan and in Khorasan, but, with the coming of Hülegü (Hūlāgū) in 654/1256 and the establishment of the Il-khanid state, the country was once again the seat of a resident sovereign.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS v. Under the Timurid and Turkman dynasties

  Monika Gronke

  Timurid and Turkman rulers and princes established outside of Samarquand and built them into important political and especially religious and cultural centers.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS vi. In the Safavid period

  Roger M. Savory

  The organization of the court and its administration.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS vii. In the Qajar period

  Abbas Amanat

  The court (darbār, darbār-e aʿẓam, dar(b)-e ḵāna) in the Qajar period was essentially organized on the ancient Perso-Turkish model inherited from the Safavid and Zand courts but with modifications in practice and function largely designed to accommo­date the Qajars’ nomadic habits.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS viii. In the reign of Reżā Shah Pahlavī

  A. Reza Sheikholeslami

  When Reżā Shah (r. 1304-20 Š./1925-1941) acceded to the throne he retained a number of lower officials from the royal court of the Qajars, specifically those who had not been vocal in support of republicanism.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS x. Court poetry

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  Until modern times there were strong incentives to patronize poets and other writers wherever the seat of power was renowned as a center of culture.

• COURTS OF LAW

  Cross-Reference

  See JUDICIAL AND LEGAL SYSTEMS v. Judicial System in the 20th Century.

• ČOVĀRĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See LORESTĀN.

• COW

  Cross-Reference

  See CATTLE.

• COWELL, EDWARD BYLES

  Parvin Loloi

  (1826-1903), polymath, scholar, and translator from Indian languages and Persian.

• ČOWGĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See POLO.

• COX, PERCY ZACHARIAH

  Floreeda Safiri

  , Sir (b. Herongate, near Brentwood, Essex, England, 20 November 1864, d. Bedford, England, 20 February 1937), officer of the political service in the British Indian government who held several diplomatic posts in the Persian Gulf re­gion in 1893-1923 and played a leading role in nego­tiating the Anglo-Persian Agreement of 1919.

• COYAJEE, JEHANGIR COOVERJI

  Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa

  , Sir (b. Bombay, 11 September 1875, d. Bombay, 14 July 1943), Parsi economist and student of ancient Iranian mythology.

• CRAFTS

  compiled from personal observations and reports by Carole Bier, Mehdī Ebrāhīmīān, Iran Ala Firouz, and Jay Gluck.

  Although crafts have always played a predominant role in the artistic history of Persia, in this century new market forces and social currents have interacted with deeply rooted traditions to produce new types of objects, as well as variations on more familiar ones.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• CRANE

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  (kolang), any of the large migratory wading birds of the family Gruidae. The kolang is mentioned in the Bundahišn as one of 110 species of birds. In classi­cal Persian poetry the crane’s ability to fly high and far; its order, discipline, and characteristic whooping sounds in flight are mentioned.

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• CRASSUS

  Cross-Reference

  See CARRHAE.

• CREATION

  Cross-Reference

  See COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY.

• CREMATION

  Cross-Reference

  See BURIAL.

• CRIMINAL LAW

  Cross-Reference

  See JUDICIAL AND LEGAL SYSTEMS v. Judicial System in the 20th Century.

• CRIMINOLOGY

  Parviz Saney

  the study of the causation, prevention, and correction of crime.

• CROCODILE

  S. C. Anderson

  (nahang, Baluchi gandū), Croco­dylus palustris, the marsh crocodile. It inhabits fresh-water marshes, pools, and rivers, and probably the only suitable croco­dile habitat in Persian Baluchistan is along the Sarbāz river. The present intermittent distribution of this species in Pakistan and Persian Baluchistan represents a fragmentation of a once more continuous range during moister climatic regimes in the recent past.

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• CROCUS

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  generic name of a large number of hardy bulbous flowering plants of the family Iridaceae.

• CROESUS

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  last king of Lydia (r. ca. 560-46 B.C.E.) and brother-in-law of Astyages.

• CROSBY, OSCAR TERRY

  Ronald E. Emmerick

  (born Ponchatoula, Loui­siana, 21 April 1861, d. Warrenton, Virginia, 2 Janu­ary 1947), collector of an important group of Khotanese texts.

• CROW

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  a bird of the family Corvidae, represented in Persia and Afghanistan by six genera. Several of their features are more or less reflected in Persian literature and folklore. In poetry the blackness of  the feathers (par[r]-e zāḡ) has often been used in similes to emphasize the blackness or darkness of a lock of hair, a certain night, clouds, and the like.

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• CROWN

  Multiple Authors

  (Pers. and Ar. tāj), royal and divine headdress.

• CROWN i. In the Median and Achaemenid periods

  Peter Calmeyer

  The Old Persian term for such a headdress is not preserved, though it has been suggested that vari­ous contemporary Greek terms—for example, kídaris or kítaris, tiára, and kurbasía—were derived from Persian or other eastern languages.

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• CROWN ii. From the Seleucids to the Islamic conquest

  Elsie H. Peck

  It was under the Sasanian mon­archs that the crown, quintessential symbol of royal power, received its most elaborate and varied forms. From the earliest representations it is clear that new shapes were not adopted immediately; rather, the royal headgear of the conquered enemy was at first contin­ued.

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• CROWN iii. On monuments from the Islamic conquest to the Mongol invasion

  Elsie H. Peck

  Richard Ettinghausen suggested that the Omayyad caliphs, rulers of the first Islamic dynasty (41-132/661-750), wore three kinds of official headdress: the tāj (crown), the emāma, and the qalansowa ṭawīla (tall conical hat).

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• CROWN iv. Of Persian rulers from the Arab conquerors

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  Despite the collapse of the Persian empire in 30/651 and the abhorrence of imperial titles and regalia in early Islamic traditions, Omayyad and ʿAbbasid governors, as well as the rulers of Ṭabarestān, continued to employ on their coins iconography of the coins of the Sasanian rulers, perpetu­ating familiarity with Sasanian imperial crowns for a further two centuries.

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• CROWN v. In the Qajar and Pahlavi periods

  Yaḥyā Ḏokāʾ

  Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834) ordered the cre­ation of a tall, jeweled crown with eight peaks on a red velvet cap, the Kayānī crown. From that time on all Qajar kings wore this crown, which is now kept in the Bānk-e markazī-e Īrān (Central bank of Iran).

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• CROWN JEWELS of Persia

  Patricia Jellicoe

  the assemblage of jewels collected by the kings of Persia, kept now in the Bānk-e markazī-e Īrān (Central bank of Iran) in Tehran.

• CROWN PRINCE

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  the officially recognized heir apparent to the throne.

• CROYANCES ET COUTUMES PERSANES

  Mahmoud Omidsalar

  by the French orientalist Henri Massé (b. Lunéville, France, 2 March 1886, d. Paris, 9 November 1969), published in 1938, one of the most compre­hensive and reliable texts on general Persian folklore in a Western language.

• CRUSADES

  Peter Jackson

  in relation to Persia; the term “crusade” refers to a series of Christian holy wars fought in the Middle Ages against the Muslims in Syria and Palestine and subsequently elsewhere in the Near East and, by extension, to wars against other enemies, both within and outside Christendom, that were put on the same spiritual footing by the popes.

• CRYSTAL

  Layla S. Diba

  originally a type of fine glass developed in England in the 17th century and owing its special clarity and brilliance to the high refractive index of lead oxide in the metal; the term is often applied to fine glass in general.

• CRYSTAL, ROCK

  Brigitte Musche, Jens Kr

  a pure, transparent variety of quartz, usually called “rock crystal” to distinguish it from crystal glass.

• CTESIAS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (Gk. Ktēsías),  Greek physician at the Achaemenid court and author of Persiká (b. perhaps ca. 441 BCE).

• CTESIPHON

  Jens Kröger

  (Ṭīsfūn), ancient city on the Tigris adjacent to the Hellenistic city of Seleucia, ca. 35 km south of the later site of Baghdad.

• ČŪB BĀZĪ

  Robyn C. Friend

  a category of folk dance found all over Persia (Hamada) and distinguished from other types of folk dance by the fact that the dancers carry sticks, which they strike together.

• ČŪB ḴAṬṬ

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yusofi

  a stick 20-30 cm long formerly used by neighborhood shopkeepers, especially butchers and bakers, to keep accounts.

• CUCUMBER

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  Cucumis sativus L. (of the family Cucurbitaceae), in Persia generally called ḵīār (with occasional slight variants), a term that is also em­ployed to designate the fruit of certain other plants.

• CUCURBITAE

  Cross-Reference

  See CUCUMBER.

• CULTURE

  Cross-Reference

  See FARHANG.

• CUMIN

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  an umbelliferous plant of the Old World and its aromatic seeds.

• CUMONT, FRANZ VALÉRY MARIE

  Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

  classical philologist and historian of religions, whose research resulted in a substantial contribution to the understanding of Mithraism and other oriental reli­gions in the Roman empire.

• CUNAXA

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  the Greek form of the name of a village located some 50 miles north of Babylon, where a decisive battle was fought on 3 September 401 B.C.E. between Cyrus the Younger and his brother Artaxerxes II.

• CUNEIFORM SCRIPT

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  the conventional name for a system of writing ultimately derived from the pictographic script developed by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia (Uruk) around 3000 B.C.E. Cuneiform was written with a reed stylus, which left wedge-shaped impressions on soft clay tablets.

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• ČŪPA

  Cross-Reference

  See DANCE.

• ČŪPĀN

  Jean-Pierre Digard

  or čōbān “shepherd” (Mid. Pers. and NPers. šobān); even today the shepherd remains a central figure, in both the technological life and consequently the symbolic life, of all systems of animal husbandry.

• ČUPĀNĪĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See CHOBANIDS; ČOBĀN.

• CUPBEARER

  James R. Russel

  one who fills and distributes cups of wine, as in a royal household.

• CUPPING

  Cross-Reference

  See BLOODLETTING.

• CURTIUS RUFUS, QUINTUS

  Philip Huyse

  (probably fl. 1st century c.e.), author of the only extant Latin mono­graph on Alexander the Great, usually called Historiae Alexandri Magni, in many respects the most complete and liveliest account of Alexander’s exploits in Asia.

• CURZON, GEORGE NATHANIEL

  Denis Wright

  (1859-1925), 1st Marquess of Kedleston, British statesman, traveler, and writer.

• CUSTOMS DUTIES

  Willem Floor

  a tax levied on the movement of trade. A new law ensuring Persian autonomy in establishing tariffs (ḥoqūq-e gomrokī) was enacted on 1 May 1928; it provided for an ad valorem tariff on most goods, with special rates for certain luxuries like gold, silver, and tobacco.

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• CUT PAPER

  Barbara Schmitz

  (qeṭʿa “decoupage,” also monabbat-kārī “filigree work”), a type of applied ornament documented in Persian manuscripts and sometimes on bookbindings from the approximate period 895-1060/1490-1650.

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• CYAXARES

  I. M. Diakonoff

  (Gk. Kyaxárēs) king of Media in the 6th century B.C.E.

• CYLINDER SEALS

  Edith Porada

  CYLINDER SEALS. The seals of ancient Persia correspond in their types and use to those of Mesopotamia, beginning with amuletic pendants, which could also be used as seals, and developing into elaborately engraved seal stones, with a change in the Uruk period from stamp to cylinder seals.

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• CYPRESS

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  (sarv), Cupressus (Tourn.) L. The genus Cupressus is represented in Persia by one spe­cies (sempervirens L.), with three varieties: the cereiform (cereiformis Rehd.), called sarv-e nāz in Shiraz; the more common pyramidal or fastigiate, variously called sarv-e šīrāzī (Shiraz cypress) and sarv-e kāšī (Kāšān cypress); and the horizontal, known popularly by several names but usually referred to as zarbīn by modern Persian botanists.

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• CYPRUS

  Michael Weiskopf

  an island in the eastern Mediterranean off the southern coast of central Anatolia, not men­tioned in any of the Old Persian imperial inscriptions but under Achaemenid control from the reign of Cambyses son of Cyrus (520s B.C.E.) to the reign of Darius III (336-31 B.C.E.).

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• CYPRUS in the Achaemenid Period

  Antigone Zournatzi

  ,in the Achaemenid period. The kings of the southeastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus reportedly submitted willingly to Cyrus II and offered military assistance to the Persians in their campaigns against Caria and Babylon (539 BCE).

• CYRIACUS AND JULITTA, ACTS OF

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  Chris­tian martyrological text.

• CYROPAEDIA

  Heleen Sancisi-Weerdenburg

  (Gr. Kúrou paideía, The educa­tion of Cyrus), a partly fictional biography of Cyrus the Great (559-29 b.c.e.), founder of the Achaemenid empire.

• CYROPOLIS

  Igor V. P’yankov

  (Latin form of Gr. Kuroúpolis), ancient town in Central Asia probably founded by Cyrus the Great (559-30 B.C.E.).

• CYRTIANS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  a tribe dwell­ing mainly in the mountains of Atropatenian Media together with the Cadusii, Amardi (or “Mardi”), Tapyri, and others.

• CYRUS

  Multiple Authors

  a Persian name, most notably of the founder of the Achaemenid empire, Cyrus the Great.

• CYRUS i. The Name

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  Cyrus is a Persian name, most notably of the founder of the Achaemenid empire, Cyrus the Great and of the second son of Darius II.

• CYRUS ii. Cyrus I

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  The evidence on the early Achaemenid king Cyrus I is as follows. Herodotus attested that Cyrus the Great was the son of Cambyses and grandson of Cyrus.

• CYRUS iii. Cyrus II The Great

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

  Cyrus II the Great (also known to the Greeks as Cyrus the Elder; b. ca. 600 B.C.E., d. 530 B.C.E.) was the founder of the Achaemenid empire.

• CYRUS iv. The Cyrus cylinder

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

  The Cyrus cylinder is a fragmentary clay cylinder with an Akkadian inscription of thirty-five lines discovered in a foundation deposit by A. H. Rassam during his excavations at the site of the Marduk temple in Babylon in 1879.

• CYRUS v. The Tomb of Cyrus

  Antigoni Zournatzi

  The tomb of Cyrus is generally identified with a small stone monument approximately 1 km southwest of the palaces of Pasargadae, in the center of the Morḡāb plain. According to Greek sources, the tomb of Cyrus II 559-29 B.C.E.) was located in the royal park at Pasargadae.

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• CYRUS vi. Cyrus the Younger

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (ca. 423-01 b.c.e.),  the second of the four sons of Darius II (ca. 424-05) and Parysatis and a younger brother of Arsaces/Arsicas, later Artaxerxes II (405/4-359/8).

• CYRUS RIVER (1)

  Cross-reference

  River in Fārs. See KOR.

• CYRUS RIVER (2)

  Cross-reference

  River in Central Asia. See KURA.

• C~ CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS

  Cross-Reference

  list of all the figure and plate images in the letter C entries