Table of Contents

  • MĀ WARĀʾ AL-NAHR

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    the classical designation for Transoxania or Transoxiana. It was defined by the early Arabic historians and geographers as the lands under Muslim control lying to the north of the middle and upper Oxus or Āmu Daryā.

  • MAʿĀYEB AL-REJĀL

    Afsaneh Najmabadi

    a treatise written in 1894 by Bibi Ḵānom Estarābādi/Astarābādi as a counterargument to the anonymous Taʾdib al-neswān/Taʾdib al-nesāʾ, a tract on how to discipline women, published in the mid-19th century.

  • MACHALSKI, FRANCISZEK

    Anna Krasnowolska

    (1904-1979), Polish Iranist. Some of his best papers are devoted to cultural and political life in Pahlavi Persia.

  • MACKENZIE, DAVID NEIL

    Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst

    Believing that the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies would be the institution most suited to his interests, Mackenzie enrolled there in September 1948. Because Pashto was not offered, he chose Persian, and completed the three-year B.A. course in 1951.

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  • MADĀʾEN

    Michael Morony

    the Sasanian metropolitan area of several contiguous cities, on both sides of the Tigris and connected by floating bridges, about 35 km southeast of Abbasid Baghdad.

  • MADĀR AL-AFĀŻEL

    Solomon Bayevsky

    dictionary of the Persian language compiled in 1001/1593 by the poet and historian Allāh-dād Fayżī b. Asad al-ʿOlamāʾ ʿAli-šir Serhendi.

  • MĀDAR-E SOLAYMĀN

    Cross-Reference

    "Solaymān's mother," local name of the tomb of Cyrus. See CYRUS v. The Tomb of Cyrus

  • MĀDAYĀN Ī HAZĀR DĀDESTĀN

    Maria Macuch

    (Book of a Thousand Judgements), Pahlavi Law-Book from the late Sasanian period (first half of the seventh century).

  • MĀDDA TĀRIḴ

    Paul Losensky

    chronogram poem, a poetic genre characterized by the inclusion of the year in which an event occurred.

  • MADRASA

    Cross-Reference

    school for the study of the Islamic sciences and related subjects.  For the institution, see under entry EDUCATION: iv. The Medieval Madrasa, v. The Madrasa In ShiʿIte Persia; vi. The Madrasa In Sunni Kurdistan. Other entries contain passing references to madrasas in relation to specific mosques; see, e.g., GOWHAR-ŠĀD MOSQUE, BĪBĪ KHANOM MOSQUE.   For the architecture of madrasas, see ISFAHAN x. Monuments x(4). Madrasa.

  • MAFĀTIḤ AL-ʿOLUM

    George Saliba

    (Keys to sciences) by  Ḵᵛārazmi, a book in which key terms used by various classes of scholars, artisans, state officials, and others are explained (comp. ca. 366/976).

  • MAGI

    Muhammad A. Dandamayev

    the only recorded designation of priests of all western Iranians during the Median, Achaemenid, Parthian (mgw), and Sasanian periods.

  • MAGIC i. MAGICAL ELEMENTS IN THE AVESTA AND NĒRANG LITERATURE

    Antonio Panaino

    The presence of magical elements in the strict sense  in Avestan literature has been considered rare.

  • MAGIC ii. IN LITERATURE AND FOLKLORE IN THE ISLAMIC PERIOD

    Mahmud Omidsalar

    Magic can be briefly described as the art of influencing the course of events by the occult control of natural phenomena through the application of ritual observances acquired through a study of esoteric and often closely guarded corpus of knowledge and traditions.

  • MAGOPHONIA

    Muhammad A. Dandamayev

    An appropriate Iranian word for magophonia is the Sogdian mwγzt- (killing of the Magi).

  • MĀH YAŠT

    William W. Malandra

    one of what have been termed ‘minor Yašts’  of the Avesta; it is dedicated to the moon.

  • MAḤALLĀTI, Moḥammad

    Javad Golmohammadi

    a master calligrapher of the Timurid period, known only through three surviving works on wood and stone (a cenotaph, a door, and a stone plaque), which reflect the stylistic influence of the Timurid prince and master calligrapher Ḡiāṯ-al-Din Bāysonqor (d. 1493).

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  • MĀHĀNI, ABU ʿABD-ALLĀH MOḤAMMAD

    Bijan Vahabzadeh

    mathematician and astronomer from Māhān, near Kerman, Iran, who flourished in the second half of the 9th century; he was a learned arithmetician and geometer, generally recognized among his peers.

  • MAHĀRLU LAKE

    Karāmat-Allāh Afsar

    a picturesque, rather extensive body of water to the southeast of Shiraz.

  • MAḤĀSEN EṢFAHĀN

    David Durand-Guédy

    (The beauties of Isfahan), a book extolling Isfahan, written by Mofażżal b. Saʿd Māfarruḵi during the reign of the Saljuq sultan Malekšāh.

  • MAHDAVI, Yaḥyā

    Moḥammad Ḵᵛānsāri and EIr

    Mahdavi continued his education at Tehran Teachers College from 1928 until 1931, from which he was among the first to graduate with a bachelor's degree. In 1931, he received a scholarship from the state to continue his education in France until his graduation in 1938, writing his doctoral thesis under André Lanlande and Emile Bréhier.

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  • MAHDI

    Cross-Reference

    “the rightly-guided one”  in Arabic, designation of the descendant of the Prophet who is expected to return to rule the world.

    See in entry ISLAM in IRAN:
    vi. THE CONCEPT OF MAHDI IN SUNNI ISLAM;
    vii. THE CONCEPT OF MAHDI IN TWELVER SHIʿISM;
    viii. THE OCCULTATION OF MAHDI;
    ix. THE DEPUTIES OF MAHDI.

  • MAḤFEL-E RUḤĀNI

    Moojan Momen

    current designation of the Bahai governing councils elected at local and national level.

  • MAHJUB, MOHAMMAD JA’FAR

    Mahmoud Omidsalar

    prominent scholar of Persian literature, essayist, translator, university teacher, and one of the founders of the discipline of folklore in Iran.

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  • MAḤJUBI, Morteżā

    Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi and EIr

    (1900-1965), composer and pianist,  noted for his use of the piano to perform traditional Iranian music.

  • MAḤJUBI, Reżā

    Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi and EIr

    (1898-1954) composer and violinist, brother of Morteżā.

  • MAḤMUD B. SEBÜKTEGIN

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    the first fully independent ruler of the Turkish Ghaznavid dynasty, who reigned (388-421/998-1030) over what had become by his death a vast military empire.

  • MAḤMUD MIRZĀ

    Dominic Parviz Brookshaw

    (b. 1799, d. between 1854 and 1858), fifteenth son of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah Qajar (r. 1797-1834), calligrapher, poet, and anthologist.

  • MAHMUD, AHMAD

    Saeed Rezaei and Maryam Seyedan

    (1931-2002), Iranian contemporary novelist and short story writer.

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  • MAJALLA-ye JAMʿIYAT-e NESWĀN-e WAṬANḴᵛĀH-e IRĀN

    Nassereddin Parvin

    magazine of the women's association of that name, 1923-26.

  • MAJALLA-ye RASMI-e ṮABT

    Nassereddin Parvin

    official journal of the Ministry of Justice from 1928.

  • MAJD, Loṭf-Allāh

    Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi and EIr

    r player known for his brilliant virtuosity and distinctive style (1917-1978).

  • MAJD-AL-ESLĀM KERMĀNI

    Maryam Kamali

    Shaikh Aḥmad (1871-1923), journalist, participant/observer in the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-11. One of his basic concerns  was to spread knowledge, a notion expressed through foreign and national news coverage in the newspaper Adab. 

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  • MAJD-AL-MOLK II

    M. Dabirsiāqi

    Majd-al-Molk was a learned man with a knowledge of Persian and Arabic literature. He was knowledgeable in philosophy and religious sciences and was an expert in calligraphy, engraving, and all kinds of secretarial craft. As a poet, he followed the style of past masters. Samples of his poetry mentioned by Ebrāhim Khan Madāyeḥnegār.

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  • MAJDUʿ, ESMĀʿIL

    Ismail K. Poonawala

    (d. 1769-70), an Ismaʿili scholar from India, well-known for his Bibliography (Fehrest) of extant Ismaʿili manuscripts.

  • MAJLESI, Moḥammad-Bāqer

    Rainer Brunner

    (b. 1627; d. 1699 or 1700), an eminent Twelver Shiʿite jurist in Safavid Iran (1501-1722) and one of the most important hadith scholars of Twelver Shiʿism.

  • MAJLESI, MOḤAMMAD-TAQI

    Rainer Brunner

    b. Maqṣud-ʿAli Eṣfahāni, commonly referred to as Majlesi-ye Awwal, an important Twelver Shiʿite jurist and Hadith scholar of the Aḵbāri school.

  • MAḴDUM ŠARIFI ŠIRĀZI

    Kioumars Ghereghlou

    (1540-41 to 1587), Sunni bureaucrat and polemicist; he held office as ṣadr or minister of religious affairs and endowments at the court of Shah Esmāʿil II Ṣafawi, and eventually fled to the Ottoman Empire.

  • MAKRĀN

    C. E. Bosworth

    (also Mokrān) the coastal region of Baluchistan, extending from the Somniani Bay to the northwest of Karachi in the east westwards to the fringes of the region of Bashkardia/Bāšgerd in the southern part of the Sistān and Balučestān province of modern Iran.

  • MAKTAB

    Cross-Reference

    See EDUCATION iii. The Traditional Elementary School.

  • MĀKŪLĀ DYNASTY

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀL-E MĀKŪLĀ.

  • MALABĀRI, BEHRĀMJI MERWĀNJI

    Firoze M. Kotwal and Jamsheed K. Choksy

    Malabari began his journalistic and editorial career after Sir Cowasji Jehangir, an eminent Parsi businessman, introduced him to Martin Woods, then the editor of the Times of India. Malabari also began writing a serial column for the Indian Spectator, an English language weekly magazine.

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  • MALAKUT

    Saeed Honarmand

    the highly acclaimed and the only published novella by the noted modernist fiction writer Bahram Sadeqi.

  • MALARIA

    Mohammad Hossein Azizi

    According to the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2013, Iran, after several decades of fighting against the disease, has now entered the pre-eliminated stage of malaria control; it is anticipated that, by 2025, malaria will be completely eradicated in Iran.

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  • MALEKŠĀH

    David Durand-Guédy

    the Great Saljuq sultan, during whose reign the Saljuq empire attained its maximum extension.

  • MALIĀN

    Kamyar Abdi

    an important archeological site in the Kor River basin in central Fārs, identified as ancient Anshan, the highland capital of Elam. At nearly 200 ha, Maliān is the largest pre-Achaemenid settlement in Fārs and one of largest archeological sites in Iran.

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  • MĀLIK, DĀWĪD GĪWARGĪS

    David G. Malick

    (1861-1931), Assyrian poet and historian, born in the village of Sipūrḡān in the Urmia plain; served as secretary of the Patriarchal Church Committee.

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  • MĀLIK, GĪWARGĪS DĀWĪD

    David G. Malick

    (1836-1909), Assyrian writer, educator, and missionary, born in the village of Sipūrḡān in the Urmia plain, Azerbaijan; his work with Americans and Europeans enabled him to travel widely in the Middle East and Europe.

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  • MĀLIK, NISṬŌRĪS GĪWARGĪS

    David G. Malick

    (1864-1927), Assyrian priest, educator, and writer was born in the village of Sipūrḡān in the Urmia plain, Azerbaijan; he succeeded in persuading Norwegian Lutherans to sponsor missionary work aimed at supporting, rather than converting, the Church of the East.

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  • MALKŪS

    Kianoosh Rezania

    a malignant demon in Zoroastrian Pahlavi literature, of pestilential nature and a descendant of the Turanian Brādarōrēš, who killed Zarathustra.