Table of Contents

  • DATIS

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    Iranian personal name.

  • DAULIER DESLANDES

    ANNE KROELL

    (b. Montoire-sur-le-Loir, 1621, d. Paris, 23 October 1715), author of Les Beautez de la Perse ..., a brief but valuable description of Safavid Persia in the years 1075-76/1664-65.

  • DAURISES

    R. Schmitt

    name of a Persian general during the Ionian revolt, a son-in-law of Darius I (522-486 B.C.E.).

  • DAVĀL-PĀ(Y)

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    or dovāl-pā, an imaginary evil anthropoid creature characterized by flexible legs (pā) resembling leather straps, which he uses as tentacles to grip and enslave human beings, who then have to carry him on their shoulders or backs and labor for him until they die of fatigue.

  • DAVALLU

    Cross-Reference

    See QAJAR TRIBES.

  • DAVĀN

    Hamid Mahamedi

    village located 12 km northeast of Kāzerūn in Fārs; a distinctive dialect is spoken there. Arable land is very limited and located mostly in the foothills; dry farming is the prevailing form of agriculture. Products include barley, wheat, and fruits—grapes, figs, pomegranates, and pears.

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  • DAVĀNĪ, JALĀL-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

    Andrew J. Newman

    b. Asʿad Kāzerūnī Ṣeddīqī (b. Davān, q.v., near Kāzerūn in Fārs, 1426-27, d. 1502), often referred to as ʿAllāma Davānī, leading theologian, philosopher, jurist, and poet of late 15th-century Persia.

  • DĀVAR

    Cross-Reference

    See DĀTABARA.

  • DĀVAR, ʿALĪ-AKBAR

    Bāqer ʿĀqelī

    (b. Tehran, 1885, d. Tehran, 10 February 1937), journalist, politician, statesman, and founder of the modern Persian judicial system, as well as of several state enterprises in the time of Reżā Shah.

  • DĀVARĪ ŠĪRĀZĪ, Mīrzā Moḥammad

    ʿAbd-al-Wahhāb Nūrānī Weṣāl

    (b. Shiraz 1822-23, d. Shiraz, 1866), poet, calligrapher, and painter of some renown in Qajar Persia and a contemporary of Moḥammad Shah and Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah.

  • DAVĀZDAH EMĀMĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See SHIʿITE DOCTRINE; IRAN ix. Relgions in Iran (2) Islam in Iran.

  • DAVĀZDAH ROḴ

    Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

    lit. "twelve combats"; designation of a relatively long episode in the Šāh-nāma (2,500 verses), in which a battle takes place on the borders of Tūrān between Iranians under the command of Gūdarz and Turanians under the command of Pīrān.

  • DAVID OF ASHBY

    Peter Jackson

    (fl. 1260-75), Dominican friar and visitor to Il-khanid Persia.

  • DAVID, JACOB

    Eden Naby

    (1873-1967) Assyrian pastor and relief worker. In Urmia, from 1904 to 1918, he assisted Dr. William Shedd (1865-1918) in teaching and administering Maʿrefat, an American school for boys from all ethnic groups. In 1918-21, he served as superintendent of the refugee schools and the Near East Relief Orphanage in Tabriz.

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  • DAWĀ

    Cross-Reference

    See DRUGS.

  • DAʿWA

    Cross-Reference

    “mission,” a term used already by the ʿAbbasids but especially associated with the Ismaʿilis. See DAʿĪ .

  • DAWĀMĪ, ʿABD-ALLĀH

    DĀRYŪŠ ṢAFVAT

    (b. Ṭā near Tafreš, 1891; d. Tehran, 10 January 1981), a master of classical Persian vocal music with a perfect command of the radīf (repertoire), as well as a gifted player of the Persian drum (tonbak) and a virtuoso of rhythmic (żarbī) pieces and songs (taṣnīf).

  • DAWĀNUS

    Dariush Kargar

    the name of a man seen in the other world by Ardā Wirāz, as described in both the Middle Persian and the Zoroastrian Persian versions of the Ardā Wirāz-nāmag.

  • DAWĀT

    LINDA KOMAROFF

    lit. "inkwell"; a utilitarian receptacle that also served as a symbol or metaphor for the instrument of state, with a long history in Islamic Persia. Inkwells were characterized in Persian poetry and historical works from the 10th century on as symbols of royal and by extension ministerial office.

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  • DAʿWAT AL-ESLĀM

    Nassereddin Parvin

    A biweekly Persian journal published in Bombay by Ḥājj Sayyed Moḥammad Dāʿī-al-Eslām from 19 October 1906 until the end of 1909.

  • DAʿWAT-E ESLĀMĪ

    Nassereddin Parvin

    lit. "the Islamic call"; a monthly religious journal published in Kermānšāh from November-December 1927 to June 1936.

  • DAWĀTDĀR

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    lit. “keeper, bearer of [the royal] inkwell or inkstand”; title of various officials in medieval Islamic states.

  • DAWLATĀBĀD

    Daniel Balland

    name of several localities in Afghanistan that have grown up around civil or military government buildings.

  • DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, SAYYED ʿALĪ-MOḤAMMAD

    Cyrus Amir-Mokri

    (b. Dawlatābād, 1868, d. Tehran, Šawwāl May-June 1923), prominent politician and deputy of the Persian parliament.

  • DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, SAYYED YAḤYĀ

    Abbas Amanat

    (b. Dawlatābād. near Isfahan, 8 January 1863, d. Tehran, 26 October 1939), educator, political activist, and memoirist of the constitutional and postconstitutional periods.

  • DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, ṢEDDĪQA

    Mehranguiz Manoutchehrian

    (b. Isfahan, 1883, d. Tehran, 28 July 1961), journalist, educator, and pioneer in the movement to emancipate women in Persia.

  • DAWLATḴĒL

    Daniel Balland

    tribal name common among the eastern Pashtun at various levels of tribal segmentation.

  • DAWLATŠĀH SAMARQANDĪ

    ḎABĪH-ALLĀH ṢAFĀ

    (b. ca. 1438, d. 1494 or 1507), one of the few authors before the 16th century to have devoted a work entirely to poets, arranged more or less chronologically.

  • DAWLATŠĀH, MOḤAMMAD-ʿALĪ MĪRZĀ

    Abbas Amanat

    (1789-1821), eldest son of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah and powerful prince-governor of western provinces of Persia.

  • DAWLATZĪ

    Daniel Balland

    (singular Dawlatzay), ethnic name common among the eastern Pashtun on both sides of the Durand Line.

  • DAWR (1)

    Farhad Daftary

    (Ar. and Pers.), period, era, or cycle of history, a term used by Ismaʿilis in connection with their conceptions of time and the religious history of mankind.

  • DAWR (2)

    Jean During

    (Ar. and Pers. “circle”), term applied to scales and also to rhythmic cycles, both commonly diagramed as circles in classical musicology of Persian, Arab, and Turkish groups. Such diagrams are appropriate for representing both the cyclical nature of the scales and the periodic nature of rhythmic formulas.

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  • DAWRAQ

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    or Dawraq al-Fors; name of a district (kūra), also known as Sorraq, and of a town that was sometimes its chef-lieu in medieval Islamic times.

  • DAWTĀNĪ

    Daniel Balland

    Most Dawtānī nomads wintered in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, in either southern Waziristan or Dērajāt. A minority wintered in southern Afghanistan, mainly in the Qandahār oasis, where some owned houses, or in the middle Helmand valley. 

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  • DĀWŪD

    Fatḥ-Allāh Mojtabāʾī

    or DĀʾŪD; the biblical David, mentioned in a number of passages in the Koran as the hero who fought with and killed Jālūt, the prophet who received the Book of Psalms (Zabūr) from God, and the king who was given the power to rule, enforce justice, and distinguish between truth and falsehood.

  • DĀWŪD B. MOʾMEN

    Cross-Reference

    See JEWISH PERSIAN LITERATURE.

  • DĀWŪD KHAN, MOḤAMMAD

    Barnett Rubin

    (b. Kabul, 1909; d. Kabul, 27 April 1978), prime minister (1953-63) and first president of Afghanistan (1973-78). During his tenure as minister (known as “Dāwūd’s decade”),  he transformed the Afghan state.Throughout his career he combined a strong desire to modernize the country with a close identification with the military.

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  • DAY

    W. W. Malandra

    (Av. daδuuah-, Pahl. day “creator”), an epithet of Ahura Mazdā that became the name of the tenth month, as well as of the eighth, fifteenth, and twenty-third days in each month of the Zoroastrian calendar.

  • DĀYA

    Mahmoud Omidsalar and Theresa Omidsalar

    wet nurse.

  • DĀYA, NAJM-AL-DĪN ABŪ BAKR ʿABD-ALLĀH

    Moḥammad-Amīn Rīāḥī

    b. Moḥammad b. Šāhāvar b. Anūšervān Rāzī (1177–1256), mystic and author.

  • DAYEAKUTʿIWN

    Robert G. Bedrosian

    a form of child rearing practiced in Armenia and other parts of the Caucasus.

  • DĀYERAT AL-MAʿĀREF-E FĀRSĪ

    Dāryūš Āšūrī

    the first general encyclopedia in Persian compiled along modern lines.

  • DAYLAMITES

    Cross-Reference

    people inhabiting a shifting region in northern Persia and adjacent territories, including the Deylamān uplands. See DEYLAMITES; BUYIDS.

  • DAYR

    QAMAR ĀRYĀN

    monastery; in early Islamic Arabic and Persian literature usually a building in which Christian monks (rāheb) lived and worshiped.

  • DAYR AL-ʿĀQŪL

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    lit., “the monastery at the bend in the river”; a medieval town in Iraq situated on the Tigris 15 farsangs (= 80 km) southeast of Baghdad.

  • DAYR-E GAČĪN

    Mehrdad Shokoohy

    lit., “gypsum hospice”;  Sasanian caravansary situated in the desert halfway between Ray and Qom, on the ancient route from Ray to Isfahan. It is recorded in most early Muslim geographies. Over time, it underwent major reconstruction at least twice.

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  • DAYSAM

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    b. Ebrāhīm KORDĪ, ABŪ SĀLEM, Kurdish commander who ruled sporadically in Azerbaijan between 938 and 955 after the period of Sajid domination there.

  • DA’TID BAHRANA

    Eden Naby

    (with the Persian title Āyanda-ye rowšan “Bright future”), Assyrian bilingual periodical published in Tehran in 1951.

  • DE BRUIN, CORNELIS

    Willem Floor

    or de Bruyn, also known as Corneille Le Brun or Le Bruyn (b. The Hague 1652, d. Utrecht 1726 or 1727), Dutch painter and author of two accounts of his travels in Persia and other eastern lands.

  • DE GOEJE, MICHAIL JAN

    A. J. M. Vrolijk

    (b. Dronrijp, Friesland, 18 August 1836, d. Leiden, 17 May 1909), Dutch orientalist and chief editor of Ṭabari’s world history, Taʾriḵ al-rosol wa’l-moluk.