Table of Contents

  • 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

    The major social classes leading to the revolution in 1979, consisted of professionals, bureaucrats, the bourgeoisie, the traditional middle and lower-middle classes, the heterogeneous working classes, and the agrarian classes.

    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.