Table of Contents

• INSTITUTE OF ISMAILI STUDIES

  Paul E. Walker

  founded in 1977 by H. H. Prince Karim Aga Khan, a gathering point for the Ismaili community’s interest in its own history and in its relationship with the larger world of Islamic scholarship and contemporary thought.

• INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES AND RESEARCH

  Kazem Izadi

  (MOʾASSESA-YE MOṬĀLEʿĀT WA TAḤQIQĀT-E EJTEMĀʿI), an academic body established in 1958 at the University of Tehran for research, counseling, education, and publication.

• INTAPHERNES

  cross-reference

  See VINDAFARNĀ.

• INVERTEBRATE ANIMALS

  Steven C. Anderson

  IN IRAN, AFGHANISTAN, AND NEIGHBORING CENTRAL ASIA. This category includes all animals without a vertebral column. Thus it is a term of convenience that, though widely used, has little biological meaning.

• INVESTITURE

  Maria Brosius, Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis, Jenny Rose

  the ceremonies and symbolic actions used to assert the assumption of rulership and to elicit affirmation of it. i. The Achaemenid period. ii. The Parthian period. iii. The Sasanian period.

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• IONIAN REVOLT

  E. Badian

  the unsuccessful uprising of the Greek cities of Asia Minor against Achaemenid control, 499-493 BCE. The main and almost the only source for the Revolt is Herodotus of Halicarnassus. The revolt of the Ionians and of some Aeolians joining them had clearly not been a spontaneous rising. Dislike of Persian rule does seem, at this time, to have been universal among the western subjects.

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• IQĀʿ

  Gen'ichi Tsuge

  (pl. iqāʿāt), an Arabic term used in texts on music to denote rhythmic mode (or cycle) or rhythmic pattern.

• IQĀN

  cross-reference

  See KETĀB-E IQĀN.

• IQBAL, MUHAMMAD

  Annemarie Schimmel

  spiritual father of Pakistan and leading Persian and Urdu poet of India in the first half of the 20th century (1877-1938). He was well versed in the various fields of European philosophy and thought. He was equally well read in the Eastern tradition, and special mention should be made of his analysis of Persian thought in his thesis of 1907.

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• IRAJ

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  the youngest son of Ferēdun and the eponymous hero of the Iranians in their traditional history.

• IRAJ MIRZĀ

  Behrooz Mahmoodi-Bakhtiari

  , JALĀL-AL-MAMĀLEK, a major Persian poet and satirist of the early 20th century and one of the most popular poets of the late Qajar period (1874-1926). His intimate, idiomatic mode of expression and almost conversational tone initiated an entirely new trend in Persian poetry, which some critics have referred to as “the journalistic style.”

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• IRAN

  Multiple Authors

  The following sub-entries will provide an overview of the unifying factors which constitute Iran through time and across space, while also showing the complexity and heterogeneity of the components of Iranian culture.

• IRAN i. LANDS OF IRAN

  Xavier de Planhol

  This article intends to examine the relationship between Iranian culture and its natural environment.

• IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (1) Pre-Islamic Times

  Ehsan Yarshater

  This section provides a concise introduction to the history of Iran from its beginnings to modern times. The generally recognized periods of the country’s history are reviewed, and some of the major motifs or themes in the politics or culture of the various periods are discussed.

• IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (2) Islamic period (page 1)

  Ehsan Yarshater

  Iran in the Islamic Period (651-1980s). This section of Persian history begins with the conquest by Muslim Arabs and the introduction of Islam to Persia, the gradual conversion of the Persians to the faith of the conquerors, and some 200 years of Arab rule.

• IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (2) Islamic period (page 2)

  Ehsan Yarshater

  Formation of local dynasties. The Taherids (821-73). The first of these dynasties came into being when Ṭāher b. Ḥosayn was appointed the governor of Khorasan with full power.

• IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (2) Islamic period (page 3)

  Ehsan Yarshater

  The Saljuqids (1040-1194). The plains of Central Asia, northwestern China, and western Siberia were breeding grounds for nomadic people, who kept multiplying and searching for new pastures.

• IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (2) Islamic period (page 4)

  Ehsan Yarshater

  The Safavids (1501-1722). The advent of the Safavids constitutes one of the major turning points in Persian history.

• IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (2) Islamic period (page 5)

  Ehsan Yarshater

  The Qajar dynasty (1779-1924). The Qajar were a Turkmen tribe who first settled during the Mongol period in the vicinity of Armenia and were among the seven Qezelbāš tribes that supported the Safavids.

• IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (2) Islamic period (page 6)

  Ehsan Yarshater

  Moḥammad Reza Shah (1941-79). The long history of Russian and British interventions in Persian affairs had fostered widespread resentment against the two great powers.