Table of Contents

• DERAFŠ

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  lit. “banner, standard, flag, emblem,” in ancient Iran. In the Avesta Bactria “with tall banners,”  a fluttering “bull banner,” and enemy banners are mentioned. In the Achaemenid period each Persian army division had its own standard (Herodotus, 9.59), and “all officers had banners over their tents"  (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.5.13). 

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• DERAFŠ-E KĀVĪĀN

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  the legendary royal standard of the Sasanian kings.

• DERAḴT

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  tree, shrub.

• DERAḴT-E ANJIR-E MAʿĀBED

  LOQMĀN TADAYON-NEŽĀD

  the last and highly acclaimed work of fiction by Ahmad Mahmud.

• DERĀZ-DAST

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  having long hands.

• DERBEND

  Cross-Reference

  See DARBAND.

• DERHAM

  Cross-Reference

  See DIRHAM.

• DERHAM B. NAŻ

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  or Naṣr or Ḥosayn; commander of ʿayyārs or moṭawweʿa, orthodox Sunni vigilantes against the Kharijites in Sīstān during the period immediately preceding the rise of the Saffarid brothers to supreme power there.

• DEŚANĀ

  Hiroshi Kumamoto

  Khotanese term with two meanings: “showing," that is, “preaching” the law, and “profession” of faith or “confession” of sins.

• DESERT

  Brian Spooner

  bīābān. As throughout most of the arid zone agriculture and settlement depend upon sustained investment, Persians generally expect to find bīābān where ābādī (settled, irrigated agriculture) ends. The term bīābān covers a broad range of different types of desert, from completely barren expanses to plains with significant percentages of vegetation cover.

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