Table of Contents
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MENTOR and MEMNON
Ernst Badian
Rhodian brothers, condottieri of the late Achaemenid period.
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MEʿRĀJ
Multiple Authors
The term meʿrāj means “instrument of ascension,” more specifically associated with the Prophet Mohammad's “heavenly or celestial ascent”.
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MEʿRĀJ i. DEFINITION
Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi
Derived from the Arabic instrumental form mefʿāl, the term meʿrāj means “instrument of ascension,” either a “ladder” or a “stairway;” it can also designate the place one revolves or from where one climbs. However, in a technical sense and often accompanied by the article al-, it designates “heavenly or celestial ascent,” more specifically that which Muslim tradition attributes to the Prophet Mohammad, an ascension soon associated with the “nocturnal or night journey” (esrāʾ) of the latter.
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MEʿRĀJ ii. Illustrations
Christiane J. Gruber
From the turn of the 14th century onward, depictions of the Prophet Moḥammad’s night journey (esrāʾ) and heavenly ascent (meʿrāj) were integrated into illustrated world histories and biographies.
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MESKAWAYH, ABU ʿALI AḤMAD
C. Edmund Bosworth
ABU ʿALI AḤMAD b. Moḥammad, Persian chancery official and treasury clerk of the Buyid period, boon companion, litterateur and accomplished writer in Arabic.
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MESOPOTAMIA i. Iranians in Ancient Mesopotamia
Muhammad Dandamayev
an overview of the presence of Medes, Persians, and other Iranian-speakers in Mesopotamia prior to the Achaemenid empire.
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MESSINA, GIUSEPPE
Carlo G. Cereti
(1893-1951), SJ, Italian scholar of Middle and Modern Iranian studies.
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METALWORK
Linda Komaroff
perhaps the most continuous and best-documented artistic medium from Iran in the Islamic period.
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Meʿyār-e Jamāli wa meftāḥ-e Abu Esḥāqi
Solomon Bayevsky
(‘Jamāl’s touchstone and Abu Esḥāq’s key’), a dictionary of the Persian language (comp. ca. 745/1344).
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MEYBOD
Ali Modarres
name of a sub-province (šahrestān) and town in Yazd Province (32°14′45″ N, 54°2′10″ E; elev. 3,637 ft.) on the road to Tehran, at a short distance south of Ardakān (see ARDAKĀN-e YAZD) and about 48 km northwest of the city of Yazd.