Table of Contents

• 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, MICHAİL 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.

• DE MORGAN, Jacques

  Pierre Amiet

  (b. Huisseau-sur-Cosson, near Blois, 3 June 1857, d. Marseilles, 14 June 1924), French archeologist and prehistorian.

• DEAD SEA SCROLLS

  Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

  parchment and papyrus scrolls written in Hebrew, mainly of the 1st centuries B.C.E. and C.E., found in caves around Qomrān on the northwest coast of the Dead Sea and considered to represent a sect of Judaism.

• DEATH (1)

  Mary Boyce

  AMONG ZOROASTRIANS

• DEATH (2)

  Cross-Reference

  IN RELIGIONS OTHER THAN ZOROASTRIANISM. See CORPSE and BURIAL.

• DECCAN

  Carl W. Ernst, Priscilla P. Soucek

  or Dakhan, Pers. Dakan; the south-central plateau of India, bounded on the north by the Narbada river, on the west by the Sea of Oman, on the east by the Bay of Bengal, and on the south by the Tungabhadra river.

• DECORATION

  Priscilla P. Soucek

  , the use of consciously designed patterns to embellish building surfaces and objects for aesthetic effect. Despite progress in identifying or classifying the features of Persian decorative patterns, few scholars have attempted to explain why particular designs were used in specific periods, regions, or circumstances, even though it can be observed that in a given area or epoch the form and character of ornament are often consistent within a particular craft or different media.

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• DECORATIONS

  Yaḥyā Šahīdī

  , honors granted by the Persian government. In Persia there were no orders in the Western sense, but only decorations and medals. The practice of awarding such honors was initiated by Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah (r. 1797-1834), who introduced the Lion and sun (nešān-e šīr o ḵoršīd) in 1808, apparently inspired by the Red Crescent adopted by the Ottoman sultan Salīm III (r. 1789-1807).

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