Table of Contents
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DOLDOL
Aḥmad Mahdawī Dāmḡānī
or Doldūl, in Ar. lit., “large porcupine”; name of a female mule that Moqawqes, governor of Egypt, sent to the Prophet Moḥammad as a gift.
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DOLGORUKOV MEMOIRS
Moojan Momen
document published under the title Eʿterāfāt-e sīāsī yā yāddāšthā-ye Kenyāz Dolqorūkī (Political confessions or memoirs of Prince Dolgorukov) in the historical portion of the “Khorasan yearbook,” issued in Mašhad in 1943.
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DOLICHĒ
Erich Kettenhofen
city in the Roman province of Syria conquered together with the surrounding area by Šāpūr I during his second campaign against Rome in 252 or 253.
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DOLMA
M. R. Ghanoonparvar
or dūlma; Turkish term for stuffed vegetable or fruit dishes common in the Middle East and in Mediterranean countries.
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DOLOMITAE
Cross-Reference
See DEYLAMITES i.
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DOMAN
Erich Kettenhofen
city in the Roman province of Cappadocia, conquered along with the surrounding area by the Sasanian Šāpūr I (240-70) during his second campaign against Rome.
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DOMES
Bernard O’Kane
circular vaulted roofs or ceilings. The variety of forms and decoration of Persian domes is unrivaled. Domes on squinches first appeared in Persia in the Sasanian period in the palace at Fīrūzābād in Fārs and at nearby Qalʿa-ye Doḵtar, both erected by Ardašir I (r. 224-40).
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DOMESTIC ANIMALS
Daniel Balland and Jean-Pierre Digard
This article is devoted to the principal characteristics of the predominant systems of domestication in Afghanistan and Persia, what they owe to neighboring or preceding systems, how they have departed from them, and whether or not it is possible to speak of a typically Iranian system of domestication.
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DONALDSON, BESS ALLEN
Peter Avery
(1879-1974) and DWIGHT MARTIN (1884-1976), American Presbyterian missionaries and writers about Persia.
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DONBA
M. R. Ghanoonparvar
the fatty part of the sheep’s tail, traditionally used as a cooking fat, sometimes in melted form, or as an inexpensive meat substitute.
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DONBAK
Cross-Reference
See TONBAK.
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DONBĀVAND
Cross-Reference
See DAMĀVAND.
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DONBOLĪ
ʿALĪ ĀL-E DĀWŪD and Pierre Oberling
name of a turkicized Kurdish tribe in the Ḵoy and Salmās regions of northwestern Azerbaijan and of the leading family of Ḵoy since the 16th century.
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DONBOLĪ, ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ BEG
Cross-Reference
See ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ BEG.
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DONKEY
Multiple Authors
i. In Persian tradition and folk belief. ii. Domestication in Iran.
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DONKEY i. In Persian tradition and folk belief
Mahmoud Omidsalar and Teresa P. Omidsalar
domesticated species descended from the wild ass, probably first bred in captivity in Egypt and western Asia, where by 2500 B.C.E. the domesticated donkey was in use as a beast of burden.
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DONKEY ii. Domestication in Iran
Daniel T. Potts
The Tol-e Nurābād sherd raises many questions about the locus of donkey domestication in the Old World, particularly since the Zagros highlands, where it was discovered, have been considered well to the east of the original range of Equid africanus.
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DONYĀ
Nassereddin Parvin
lit., “The world”; name of several Persian journals and newspapers.
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DONYĀ-YE EMRŪZ
Nassereddin Parvin
lit. "Today’s world"; name of a weekly magazine published in Tehran and two weekly newspapers founded in Qazvīn and Isfahan, respectively.
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DOORS AND DOOR FRAMES
Sheila Blair, Mortażā Momayyez
in Persian architecture major foci of decoration, varying in size and elaboration with the function and importance of the building and the location of the entrance in relation to the total composition.
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DŌRĪ
Daniel Balland
river in southern Afghanistan, the main tributary of the Arḡandā.
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DORN, JOHANNES ALBRECHT BERNHARD
N. L. Luzhetskaya
(1805-1881), pioneer in many areas of Iranian studies in Russia. He never visited Afghanistan, but he nevertheless established the scientific basis for Afghan studies, particularly the first systematic description of Pashto.
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DORNĀ
Cross-Reference
See CRANE.
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DORR
Cross-Reference
See PEARL i. Pre-Islamic Period and PEARL ii. Islamic Period.
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DORRĀNĪ
Daniel Balland
probably the most numerous Pashtun tribal confederation, from which all Afghan dynasties since 1747 have come. The Dorrānī confederation is a political grouping of ten Pashtun tribes of various sizes, which are further organized in two leagues of five tribes each.
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DORRĀNĪ DYNASTY
Cross-Reference
See AFGHANISTAN x.
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DORRĀNĪ, AḤMAD SHAH
Cross-Reference
See AFGHANISTAN x.
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ḎORRAT
Hūšang Aʿlam
maize or (Indian) corn, Zea mays L. (fam. Gramineae), with many varieties and hybrids.
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DORRAT AL-NAJAF
Nassereddin Parvin
lit. "Pearl of Najaf"; monthly religious journal published in Persian at Najaf in southern Iraq at the end of the first decade of the 20th century.
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DORRAT-AL-MAʿĀLĪ
Afsaneh Najmabadi
(b. Tehran, 1873, d. Tehran, Šahrīvar 1924), pioneer in female education in Persia.
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DORRI EFENDI
Cross-Reference
See DÜRRI EFENDI.
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DORŪD
ʿALĪ ĀL-E DĀWŪD
a town in Lorestān province, situated at the foot of Oštorānkūh, at an altitude of 1,460 m on the route from Tehran to Ḵorramābād at the confluence of the rivers Tīra and Mārbara.
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DŌŠĪ
Daniel Balland
small town and district on the northern slope of the central Hindu Kush in Afghanistan.
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DOŠMANZĪĀRĪ
Pierre Oberling
name of two Lor tribes in southern Persia, the Došmanzīārī-e Mamasanī and the Došmanzīārī-e Kūhgīlūya.
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DŌST MOḤAMMAD KHAN
Amin H. Tarzi
(b. Qandahār December 1792, d. Herat, 9 June 1863), first ruler of the Bārakzay/Moḥammadzay dynasty of Afghanistan. He was the first to bring the region that today constitutes Afghanistan under the control, occasionally tenuous, of a single central government.
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DOTĀR
Jean During
long-necked lute of the tanbūr family, usually with two strings (do tār). The principal feature is the pear-shaped sound box attached to a neck that is longer than the box and faced with a wooden soundboard. Dotārs can be classified in several different types.
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DOZĀLA
Jean During
kind of flute consisting of two parallel pipes pierced with holes and fitted with a removable vibrating mouthpiece made by cutting a U-shaped incision into a thin reed.
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DOZDĀB
Cross-Reference
See ZĀHEDĀN.
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DOZY, REINHARD PETRUS ANNE
J. T. P. de Bruijn
(b. Leiden, 21 February 1820, d. Leiden, 29 April 1883), Dutch orientalist renowned especially as a lexicographer of Arabic and a historian of Muslim Andalusia.
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DRAGON
Cross-Reference
See AŽDAHĀ.
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DRAINAGE
Eckart Ehlers
the carrying away of excess surface water through runoff in permanent or intermittent streams. Persia can be divided into four main drainage regions: the Caspian region, the Lake Urmia region, the Persian Gulf region, and the interior. Most of it is characterized by endorheic basins, that is, by interior drainage.
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DRAMA
M. R. Ghanoonparvar
in formal Western terms a relatively new art form in Persia, though various types of dramatic performance, including religious plays and humorous satirical skits, have long been a part of Persian religious and folk tradition.
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DRANGIANA
R. Schmitt
or Zarangiana; territory around Lake Hāmūn and the Helmand river in modern Sīstān.
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DRÁPSAKA
Frantz Grenet
Greek name of a Bactrian city in northern Afghanistan, the first town captured by Alexander the Great after crossing the Hindu Kush.
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DRAWING
M. L. Swietochowski
an art form primarily dependent on expressive line. The high quality of Persian drawings maintained from the late 13th to the early 20th century provides a clear indication that this art form was appreciated by the Persian cultural elite.
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DRAXT Ī ĀSŪRĪG
Aḥmad Tafażżolī
lit. "The Babylonian tree"; a versified contest over precedence between a goat and a palm tree, composed in the Parthian language, written in Book Pahlavi script, and consisting of about 120 verses.
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DREAMS AND DREAM INTERPRETATION
Hossein Ziai
i. In pre-Islamic Persia. ii. In the Persian tradition.
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DRESDEN, MARK JAN
Hiroshi Kumamoto
(b. Amsterdam, 26 April 1911; d. Philadelphia, 16 August 1986), professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught Persian, then various Old and Middle Iranian languages from 1949 until his retirement in 1977. He worked especially on Khotanese literary texts.
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DREYFUS-BARNEY
Shapour Rassekh
joint surname adopted by two leading Bahai figures of the 20th century.
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DRIWAY
Jean Kellens
(or Driβi-), Younger Avestan noun from the Vidēvdād; the word probably referred either to a skin disease or to drooling.
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DRIYŌŠĀN JĀDAG-GŌW UD DĀDWAR
Philippe Gignoux
Middle Persian title of a Sasanian official, “intercessor and judge of the poor.”
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DṚNABĀJIŠ
RÜDIGER SCHMITT
name of the fifth month (July-August) of the Old Persian calendar, equivalent to Akkadian Ābu and Elamite Zillatam.
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DRŌN
Jamsheed K. Choksy
Zoroastrian ritual term originally meaning “sacred portion” and designating a ritual offering to divine beings.
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DRUGS
ṢĀDEQ SAJJĀDĪ
in medieval Muslim literature any vegetable, mineral, or animal substance that acts on the human body, whether as a medicament, a poison, or an antidote.
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DRUJ-
Jean Kellens
Avestan feminine noun defining the concept opposed to that of aṧa-.
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DRUMS
Jean During
large group of percussion instruments.
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DRUSTBED
Aḥmad Tafażżolī
chief physician in the Sasanian period.
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DRVĀSPĀ
Jean Kellens
or Drwāspā, Druuāspā, lit., “with solid horses”; Avestan goddess.
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DRYPETIS
RÜDIGER SCHMITT
(Gk. Drýpĕtis [Arrian] or Drypêtis [Diodorus]), daughter of Darius III Codomannus and younger sister of Stateira; in the collective wedding arranged by Alexander the Great at Susa in 324 B.C.E. she was given in marriage to Hephaestion.
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DU MANS, RAPHAEL
Francis Richard
(d. 1696), FATHER, author of important descriptions of Persia.
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ḎŪ QĀR
Ella Landau-Tasseron
watering place near Kūfa in Iraq where a battle was fought between Arab tribesmen and Persian forces in the early 7th century.
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ḎŪ-BAḤRAYN
Sīrūs Šamīsā
a term in Persian and Arabic prosody designating a poem that can be scanned according to two or more different meters (baḥr).
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DUALISM
Gherardo Gnoli
feature peculiar to Iranian religion in ancient and medieval times.
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DUBAI
Sussan Siavoshi
(Dobayy), second largest of the seven emirates constituting the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf.
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DUCHESNE-GUILLEMIN, JACQUES
Pierre Lecoq
(1910-2012), distinguished scholar of classical philology and Indo-Iranian studies.
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DUCK
Hūšang Aʿlam
technically any species of the family Anatidae but in Persian popular usage including similar waterfowl from other families, particularly some geese and grebes.
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DŪḠ
M. R. Ghanoonparvar
beverage made of yogurt and plain or carbonated water and often served chilled as a refreshing summer drink or with meals, especially with kebabs or čelow-kabāb.
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DŪḠ-E WAḤDAT
Mahmoud Omidsalar
lit. “beverage of unity”; concoction made from adding hashish extract (jowhar-e ḥaīš) to diluted yogurt.
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DUGDŌW
D. N. MacKenzie
the name of Zoroaster’s mother, which appears in several different spellings in the Pahlavi texts, mostly more or less corrupted from an original attempt at representing the Avestan form.
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ḎU’L-AKTĀF
Cross-Reference
See Šāpur II.
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ḎU’L-FAQĀR
Jean Calmard
lit., “provided with notches, grooves, vertebrae”; the miraculous sword of Imam ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb, with two blades or points, which became a symbol of his courage on the battlefield.
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ḎU’L-FAQĀR KHAN AFŠĀR
J. R. PERRY
governor (ḥākem) of Ḵamsa province (ca. 1763-80) under the Zand dynasty.
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ḎU’L-FAQĀR ŠĪRVĀNĪ
Moḥammad Dabīrsīāqī
MALEK-AL-ŠOʿARĀ QEWĀM-AL-DĪN ḤOSAYN b. Ṣadr-al-Dīn ʿAlī (d. ca. 691/1291), Persian poet and panegyrist of the Il-khanid period.
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ḎU’L-JANĀḤ
Jean Calmard
Imam Ḥosayn’s winged horse, known from popular literature and rituals.
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ḎU’L-LESĀNAYN
Hamid Algar
lit. “possessor of two tongues”; epithet often bestowed upon bilingual poets.
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ḎU’L-NŪN MEṢRĪ, ABU’L-FAYŻ ṮAWBĀN
Gerhard Böwering
b. Ebrāhīm (b. Aḵmīm in Upper Egypt, ca. 791, d. Jīza [Giza], between 859 and 862), early Sufi master.
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ḎU’L-QADR
Pierre Oberling
(arabicized form of Turk. Dulgadır), a Ḡozz tribe that became established mainly in southeastern Anatolia under the Saljuqs.
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DU’L-QARNAYN
Cross-Reference
See ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
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ḎU’L-RĪĀSATAYN
Cross-Reference
See FAŻL B. SAHL.
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ḎU’L-RĪĀSATAYN
Hamid Algar
(b. Shiraz, 1873, d. Tehran, 15 June 1953), for thirty years qoṭb (leader) of a principal branch of the Neʿmatallāhī Sufi order.
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ḎU’L-ŠAHĀDATAYN
Cross-Reference
See AŠRAF ḠAZNAVĪ.
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DULAFIDS
Cross-Reference
See DOLAFIDS.
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DUMAQU
Gerd Gropp
or Domoko; administrative center of the eastern region of the Khotan oasis in Chinese Turkestan.
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DUMÉZIL, Georges
Bruce Lincoln
(1898-1986), French comparatist philologist and religious studies scholar. Among the most significant later modifications in Dumézil's views was his decision to abandon the claim that Indo-European society was originally divided into three functional groupings.
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DUNG
Willem Floor
human and animal excrement, widely used in Persia and Afghanistan for fuel and fertilizer.
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DUNHUANG
Multiple Authors
an oasis town situated in the northwest of the Chinese province of Gansu, famous for the nearby Mogao Caves.
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DUNHUANG i. The cave sites; Manichean texts
Gunner Mikkelsen
The Mogao Caves are located some 25 km from Dunhuang at the edge of the Dunes of the Singing Sands (Mingshashan) of the Gobi desert. These contain over 45,000 square meters of predominantly Buddhist murals and more than 2,000 Buddhist painted stucco sculptures.
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DUNHUANG ii. Buddhist and Other Texts in Iranian Languages
Yutaka Yoshida
The library cave in Dunhuang has yielded a number of texts of the 8th to 10th centuries in two Middle Iranian languages, Khotanese and Sogdian.
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DŪNQEŠLĀQ
Klaus Fischer
or Dong Qešlaq; group of pre-Islamic and Islamic archeological sites on the Emām Ṣāḥeb plain in the Qondūz province of Afghanistan, about 10 km south of the Oxus.
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DUPREE, LOUIS
David B. Edwards
Following the completion of his Ph.D. degree, Dupree taught at the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base and Pennsylvania State University. Between 1959 and 1983 he was affiliated with the American Universities Field Staff (A.U.F.S.) as its expert on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
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DURA EUROPOS
Pierre Leriche, D. N. MacKenzie
ruined city on the right bank of the Euphrates between Antioch and Seleucia on the Tigris, founded in 303 BCE by Nicanor, a general of Seleucus I. Its military function of the Greek period was abandoned under the Parthians, but at that time it was an administrative and economic center.
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DURAND, HENRY MORTIMER
Rose L. Greaves
(b. Sehore, Bhopal State, India, 14 February 1850, d. Polden, Somerset, England, 8 June 1924), British diplomat and envoy to Tehran at the end of the 19th century.
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DŪRAOŠA
Jean Kellens
Avestan word, attested once in the Older Avesta, in the Younger Avesta the preferred and exclusive epithet of haoma, the ritual liquid.
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DŪRĀSRAW
D. N. MacKenzie
according to the Pahlavi tradition the name of two legendary personages in the history of Zoroastrianism.
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DURIS OF SAMOS
RÜDIGER SCHMITT
(Gk. Doûris), (ca. 340-281/270 B.C.E.), Greek historiographer of the early Hellenistic period.
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DŪRMEŠ, KHAN
Roger M. Savory
or Dormeš; b. ʿAbdī Beg TAVĀČĪ ŠĀMLŪ, powerful Qezelbāš amir, brother-in-law and confidant of Shah Esmāʿīl I.
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DŪRNEMĀ-YE ĪRĀN
Nassereddin Parvin
weekly of politics and culture edited and published by the Persian writer, scholar, and filmmaker ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Sepantā in Bombay from 30 November 1928 to March 1929.
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DÜRRI EFENDI, AḤMAD
Tahsin Yazici
(or Dorrī Afandī; (b. Van, date unknown, d. Istanbul, 1722), Ottoman poet, civil servant, and diplomat who served as ambassador to Tehran and wrote Sefārat-nāma, the first Turkish account of Safavid Persia.
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DUSHANBE
Muriel Atkin
capital and most populous city of Tajikistan.
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DŪST MOḤAMMAD KHAN BĀRAKZĪ
Cross-Reference
See DŌST MOḤAMMAD KHAN.