Table of Contents

• 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.

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• 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.

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• 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 (q.v.; d. 949/1543), known as Maḵdūm-e Aʿẓam, ruled over Chinese Turkestan between 1089/1678 and 1173/1759.

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• 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.