Table of Contents

• 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.

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• DAVID, JACOB

  Eden Naby

  (1873-1967) Assyrian pastor and relief worker.

• DAWĀ

  Cross-Reference

  See DRUGS.

• 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-MOḤAM-MAD

  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), celebrated 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, AMIR

  ḎABĪH-ALLĀH ṢAFĀ

  b. Amīr ʿAlāʾ-al-Dawla Boḵtīšāh Ḡāzī SAMARQANDĪ (b. ca. 1438, d. 1494 or 1507), author of Taḏkerat al-šoʿarāʾ (Memorial of poets), a book containing biographies of about 150 poets with specimens of their poetry, as well as historical information.

• DAWLATŠĀH, MOḤAMMAD-ʿALĪ MĪR-ZĀ

  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. lit. “circle”), a term applied to scales and also to rhythmic cycles, both commonly diagramed as circles (dāʾera, dawr) in the classical musicology of Persian, Arab, and Turkish groups.

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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

  or Daftānī, sg. Dawtānay/Daftānay; Pashtun tribe of the Lōdī confederation, still mainly nomadic.

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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, 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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