Table of Contents

  • DE MORGAN, Jacques

    Pierre Amiet

    (1857-1924), French archeologist and prehistorian. He came from an exceptionally gifted family, in which cultivation of humane learning was combined with scientific rigor. It seems clear that he was less interested in Elamite history than in the overall prehistory of the East.

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  • 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.

  • DEBEVOISE, NEILSON CAREL

    M. J. Olbrycht and V. P. Nikonorov

    (1903-1992), American archeologist and scholar of the history and culture of ancient Mesopotamia and Iran.

  • 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.

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  • DECORATIONS

    Yaḥyā Šahīdī

    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, 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.

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  • DEDE BEG ḎU’L-QADAR

    Cross-Reference

    See ABDĀL BEG.

  • DEDE ʿOMAR RŪŠANĪ

    Tahsın Yazici

    (b. Güzel Ḥeṣār, Aydın province, in western Anatolia, at an indeterminate date; d. Tabrīz, 1487), Turkish Sufi who wrote poetry in both Persian and Turkish.

  • DEDE YŪSOF SĪNAČĀK

    Tahsın Yazici

    (b. Yenice on the Vardar in Ottoman Māqadūnīā [modern Macedonia] at an indeterminate date, d. Istanbul, 1546), Mawlawī Sufi shaikh, poet, and author.

  • DĒDMARĪ, ḴᵛĀJA MOḤAMMAD-AʿẒAM

    Shamsuddin Ahmad

    (1691-1765), historian, poet, and Sufi of Kashmir.

  • DEER

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀHŪ, RED DEER.

  • DEFRÉMERY, Charles-François

    Francis Richard

    (b. Cambray, France, 18 December 1822, d. St.-Valéry-en Caux, France, 18 August 1883), French orientalist and scholar.

  • DEH

    Daniel Balland and Marcel Bazin

    village, in Persia and Afghanistan.

  • DEH MORĀSĪ ḠONDAY

    Jim G. Shaffer

    a Bronze Age archeological site located at 34° 90’ N, 65° 30’ E, adjacent to the village of Deh Morāsī, approximately 27 km southwest of Qandahār and 6.5 km east-southeast of Pahjwāʾī in southeastern Afghanistan.

  • DEH-BOKRĪ

    Pierre Oberling

    Kurdish tribe of Kurdistan.

  • DEH-E NOW

    Hubertus von Gall

    site of a group of four rock-cut tombs of the 4th-3rd centuries BCE, located about 25 km south of Bīsotūn in Kermānšāhān. It is possible that at least the two smaller tombs were astōdāns.

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  • DEHBĪD

    Sayyed ʿAlī Āl-e Dāwūd

    town in the šahrestān of Ābāda, Fārs (30° 37’ N, 53° 12’ E), situated on the Shiraz-Isfahan road in a plain 191 km northeast of Shiraz.

  • DEHDĀR ŠIRĀZI, ʿEMĀD-al-DIN

    Matthew Melvin-Koushki

    with pen name taḵalloṣ ʿEyāni, the most prolific Persian author on lettrism in the 10th/16th century; has long been overshadowed by both his father , an astronomer-philosopher and his son, a mystical-philosopher.

  • DEHESTĀN

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    (in modern Persian administrative usage a rural district consisting of a number of villages), the name of a region in medieval Gorgān and a town in Bādḡīs and another in Kermān.

  • DEHESTĀNĪ , AʿAZZ-AL-MOLKNEẒĀM-AL-DĪN ABU’L-MAḤĀSEN ʿABD-AL-JALĪL

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    b. ʿAlī, twice vizier to the Saljuq sultan Barkīāroq (1094-1105).

  • DEHESTĀNĪ, ḤOSAYN

    Moḥammad Dabīrsīāqī

    b. Asʿad b. Ḥosayn Moʾayyadī, Persian translator of the Arabic work al-Faraj baʿd al-šedda by Abū ʿAlī Moḥassen (939-94), a collection of poems, anecdotes, sayings, and didactic remarks arranged in thirteen chapters on the general theme of joy following hardship.

  • DEHḴODĀ, MĪRZĀ ʿALĪ-AKBAR QAZVĪNĪ

    ʿA.-A. SAʿĪDĪ SĪRJĀNĪ

    (ca. 1879–1956), scholar, poet, and social critic. In all his writing Dehḵodā was a perfectionist and a meticulous craftsman. He was a nationalist, outspoken in his convictions, indifferent to the wrath of powerful men, and a firm believer in Persian culture.

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  • DEHḴᵛĀRAQĀN

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀẔARŠAHR.

  • DEHLAVĪ, ŠĀH WALĪ-ALLĀH QOṬB-AL-DĪN AḤMAD ABU’L-FAYYĀŻ

    Marcia K. Hermansen

    (1703-62), leading Muslim intellectual of India and writer on a wide range of Islamic topics in Arabic and Persian; more than thirty-five of his works are extant.

  • DEHLĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See DELHI SULTANATE.

  • DEHLORĀN

    Frank Hole

    (Deh Lorān), the name of a šahrestān (subprovince) in Īlām province in southwestern Persia, and of the main town.

  • DEHQĀN

    Aḥmad Tafażżolī

    arabicized form of Syriac dhgnʾ, borrowed from Pahlavi dehgān (older form dahīgān).

  • DEIOCES

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    (Gk. Dēïókēs), name of a Median king.

  • DEIPNOSOPHISTAÍ

    Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

    lit. "Banquet of the Sophists"; a miscellany in the form of dialogues ostensibly conducted at table, including approximately one hundred passages pertaining to Persia.

  • DEITY

    Cross-Reference

    See under ACHAEMENID RELIGION; AHRIMAN; AHURA MAZDĀ; MANICHEISM ii. The Manichean Pantheon; ZOROASTRIANISM; SHIʿITE DOCTRINE.

  • DEJLA

    Cross-Reference

    See ARVAND-RŪD; TIGRIS.

  • ḎEKR

    Gerhard Böwering, Moojan Momen

    lit., “remembrance”; the act of reminding oneself of God.

  • ḎEKRĪS

    Cross-Reference

    See BALUCHISTAN i.

  • DELĀRESTĀQ

    Bernard Hourcade

    also Delārostāq, Dīlārostāq; dehestān (administrative district) in the šahrestān of Āmol (Lārījān baḵš), on the northeastern slope of Mount Damāvand in Māzandarān.

  • DELBARJĪN

    Paul Bernard

    urban site 40 km northwest of Balḵ, on the northern limit of an oasis irrigated by the Balḵāb, near a defensive wall built during the Greek period (ca 329-130 BCE) to protect the oasis. The earliest stage of the citadel may date from the Achaemenid period.

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  • DELDĀR,YŪNES MELA RAʾŪF

    Joyce Blau

    (b. in the sanjaq of Ḵoy in the Ottoman empire, 20 February 1918; d. Erbīl, Iraq, 12 October 1948), Kurdish poet and humanist.

  • DELDĀR-ʿALĪ

    Juan R. I. Cole

    b. Moḥammad-Moʿīn NAṢĪRĀBĀDĪ, Sayyed Ḡofrān-maʾāb (b. Naṣīrābād near Lucknow, 1753, d. Lucknow ca. 1820), Shiʿite cleric of northern India who helped to establish the Shiʿite form of Friday prayers and propagated the rationalist Oṣūlī school of jurisprudence in the Avadh region.

  • DÉLÉGATIONS ARCHÉOLOGIQUES FRANÇAISES

    Francine Tissot

    bodies established by the French government to conduct archeological investigations in Persia and Afghanistan respectively.

  • DELHI SULTANATE

    Gavin R. G. Hambly, Catherine B. Asher

    Muslim kingdom established in northern India by Central Asian Turkish warlords at the turn of the 13th century and continuing in an increasingly persianized milieu until its conquest by Bābor in 1526. The political style of the rulers of Delhi reflected traditional concepts of Persian kingship.

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  • DELĪKĀNLŪ

    Pierre Oberling

    tribe of the Ḵalḵāl region in eastern Persian Azerbaijan.

  • DELKAŠ

    Erik Nakjavani

    stage name of ʿEṣmat Bāqerpur Panbaforuš (b. Bābol, Māzandarān, 1924; d. Tehran, 2004) popular Persian singer and actress of the mid-20th century.

  • DELKAŠ (1)

    Cathérine Poujol

    (b. Bukhara at an indeterminate date, d. Bukhara, 1902), Tajik poet and musician known and revered for melodies performed on the tanbūr.

  • DELKAŠ (2)

    Jean During

    an important modal unit (šāh gūša) linked to the dastgāh Māhūr, constituting one of its four main modulations, perhaps the most important in expressive function, which contrasts strongly with that of Māhūr itself.

  • DELLA VALLE, PIETRO

    John Gurney

    (b. Rome, 11 April 1586, d. Rome, 21 April 1652), one of the most remarkable travelers of the Renaissance, whose Viaggi is the best contemporary account of the lands between Istanbul and Goa in the early 17th century.

  • DELOUGAZ

    Ezat O. Negahban

    (b. Ukraine, 16 July 1901, d. Čoḡā Mīš, Persia, 29 March 1975), archeologist and excavator of the ancient site of Čoḡā Mīš in Persia.

  • DELŠĀD BARNĀ

    Evelin Grassi

    (1800-1905), Tajik educator, historian, and poetess bilingual in Persian and Chaghatay Turkish.

  • DELŠĀD ḴĀTŪN

    Charles Melville

    eldest daughter of the Chobanid Demašq Ḵᵛāja and Tūrsīn Ḵātūn, granddaughter of the Il-khanid sultan Aḥmad Takūdār.

  • DEMARATUS

    RÜDIGER SCHMITT

    king of Sparta (from at least as early as 510 B.C.E.) who took refuge with Darius I.

  • DEMAŠQ ḴᵛĀJA

    Charles Melville

    third son of the amir Čobān, possibly born in 1300, when his father was on campaign in Damascus.

  • DEMETRIUS

    A. D. H. Bivar

    name of two Greco-Bactrian kings.

  • DEMOCEDES

    RÜDIGER SCHMITT

    (Gk. Dēmokḗdēs), Greek physician attached to the court of Darius I and praised as “the most skillful physician of his time” by Herodotus.

  • DEMOCRACY

    Cross-Reference

    See ANJOMAN; CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION i-v; ELECTIONS.

  • DEMOCRAT PARTY

    Cross-Reference

    See CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION v.

  • DEMOGRAPHY

    Bernard Hourcade, Daniel Balland

    the statistical study of characteristics of human populations. Since World War II Persia, formerly a rural and tribal country dominated by elderly notables and with low population growth, has come to have a majority of young urban dwellers, mostly literate and multiplying rapidly. 

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  • DEMOTIC CHRONICLE

    Edda Bresciani

    Egyptian papyrus document of the early 2nd century B.C.E. in which anti-Persian themes, especially focused on Cambyses, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes III, were elaborated in Ptolemaic Egyptian sacerdotal and intellectual surroundings.

  • DEMOTTE ŠĀH-NĀMA

    Priscilla P. Soucek

    illustrated manuscript, now dispersed, of Ferdowsī’s epic poem, often identified by the name of a former owner, the Paris dealer Georges Demotte (active ca. 1900-23). It is generally believed to have been produced for a patron associated with the Il-khanid court and is renowned for the  quality of its paintings.

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  • DĒN

    Mansour Shaki

    theological and metaphysical term with a variety of meanings:  “the sum of man’s spiritual attributes and individuality, vision, inner self, conscience, religion.”

  • DĒN YAŠT

    Jean Kellens

    a relatively short text, consisting for the most part of repetitive or formulaic sentences.

  • DĒN-DIBĪRĪH

    Cross-Reference

    See DABĪRE, DABĪRĪ.

  • DĒNAG

    Philippe Gignoux

    name of several Sasanian queens; it was not feminine by derivation but was clearly reserved for feminine prosopography.

  • DENIKE

    Anatol Ivanov

    (b. Kazan, 15 January 1885, d. Moscow, 13 October 1941), the first Russian historian of the medieval art of the Near and Far East.

  • DENḴA TEPE

    Oscar White Muscarella

    a Bronze and Iron Age site situated in the Ošnū valley of Azerbaijan, southwest of Lake Urmia, and 15 miles west of the major Iron Age site of Hasanlu (Ḥasanlū) in the Soldūz valley.

  • DĒNKARD

    Philippe Gignoux

    lit., “Acts of the religion”; written in Pahlavi, a summary of 10th-century knowledge of the Mazdean religion; the editor, Ādurbād Ēmēdān, entitled the final version “The Dēnkard of one thousand chapters.”

  • DENMARK

    Fereydun Vahman, Jes P. Asmussen

    : relations with Persia. Danish-Persian relations have been concentrated in three main areas: politics and diplomacy; trade and other economic relations; and Iranian studies in Denmark, including collections of Persian art in Danish museums.

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  • DENŠAPUH

    James Russell

    short form of Vehdenšapuh; Sasanian hambārakapet (quartermaster) involved in the campaign of Yazdagerd II (438-57) to force Christian Armenians to abjure their faith and return to Zoroastrianism; a gem bearing his name is preserved in the British Museum in London.

  • DENTISTRY

    Ṣādeq Sajjādī

    (dandān-pezeškī) in Persia.

  • DEOBAND

    Barbara Daly Metcalf

    country town northeast of Delhi in what is now the Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India, where an influential Dār al-ʿolūm was founded by a group of religious scholars in 1867 as an expression of a major religious reform movement partly inspired by British educational models.

  • DEPORTATIONS

    A. Shapur Shahbazi, Erich Kettenhofen, John R. Perry

    forced transfers of population from one region to another.

  • 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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  • DESMAISONS, JEAN-JACQUES-PIERRE

    CATHÉRINE POUJOL

    or Petr Ivanovich Demezon (b. Chambéry, in the kingdom of Sardinia, 1807, d. Paris, 1873) diplomat and compiler of an important Persian-French dictionary.

  • DEUTSCHES ARCHÄOLOGISCHES INSTITUT

    Wolfram Kleiss

    or D.A.I., research institution administered by the German foreign ministry, with a number of branches, including the Abteilung Teheran in Persia.

  • DĒV

    Cross-Reference

    See DAIVA, DĒW, DĪV.

  • DEVECSERI, Gábor

    ANDRÁS BODROGLIGETI

    (1917-1971), Hungarian poet, scholar, and translator. 

  • DEVIL

    Cross-Reference

    See AHRIMAN; DĪV; EBLĪS.

  • DĒW

    A. V. Williams

    lit. "demon" in the Pahlavi books.

  • DĒWĀŠTĪČ

    Boris Marshak

    ruler of Sogdia (706?-22), referred to as “prince of Panč” (Panjīkant) and as “king of Sogdia, ruler of Samarkand” in the portion of his archives discovered at the castle on Mount Mug (Mōḡ), east of Samarkand, on the upper course of the Zarafšān river.

  • DEYHĪM

    Cross-Reference

    See CROWN.

  • DEYLAM, BANDAR-E

    Sayyed ʿAlī Āl-e Dāwūd

    a port on the Persian Gulf (30° 3’ N, 50° 9’ E) in the province of Būšehr at an elevation a little above 1 m.

  • DEYLAM, JOHN OF

    Nicholas Sims-Williams

    or Yoḥannān Daylomāyā (d. 738), Eastern Syrian saint and founder of monasteries in Fārs.

  • DEYLAMĀN (District)

    Ezat O. Negahban

    or Daylamān, district and town in Gīlān.

  • DEYLAMĀN (Melody)

    Jean During

    melody (gūša) incorporated into the radīf of Āvāz-e Daštī by Abu’l-Ḥasan Ṣabā (1957), who borrowed it from the regional repertoire of northern Persia.

  • DEYLAMĪ, ʿABD-AL-RAŠĪD

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-RAŠĪD DAYLAMĪ.

  • DEYLAMĪ, ABŪ MOḤAMMAD ḤASAN

    Etan Kohlberg

    b. Abi’l-Ḥasan (b.) Moḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd-Allāh (or Moḥammad), Shiʿite author and traditionist.

  • DEYLAMĪ, ABUʾL-ḤASAN ʿALĪ

    Gerhard BÖWERING

    b. Moḥammad (fl. 10th century), an obscure yet important author on the early Persian Sufism prevalent in Fārs.

  • DEYLAMĪ, ABU’L-FATḤ NĀṢER

    Wilferd Madelung

    b. Ḥosayn b. Moḥammad b. ʿĪsā b. Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. ʿAlī b. Ḥasan b. Zayd b. Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb, Zaydī imam with the title Nāṣer le-Dīn Allāh (d. 1052-53).

  • DEYLAMĪ, ŠAMS-AL-DĪN ABŪ ṮĀBET MOḤAMMAD

    Gerhard Böwering

    b. ʿAbd-al-Malek ṬŪSĪ (d. ca. 1197), original though obscure Sufi author of the 12th century.

  • DEYLAMITES

    Wolfgang Felix & Wilferd Madelung

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

  • DEYM

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀBYĀRĪ; AGRICULTURE In Iran; BĀRĀN; FARMING.

  • DEZ

    Cross-Reference

    or DEŽ, (fortress, castle; Mid. Pers. diz; OPers. didā- “wall, fortress”; Av. daēz-; Yidgha lizo“fort”). See BĀRŪ; CASTLES.