Table of Contents

  • MENTOR and MEMNON

    Ernst Badian

    Rhodian brothers, condottieri of the late Achaemenid period.

  • MEʿRĀJ

    Multiple Authors

    The term meʿrāj means “instrument of ascension,” more specifically associated with the Prophet Mohammad's “heavenly or celestial ascent”.

  • 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.

  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • MESSINA, GIUSEPPE

    Carlo G. Cereti

    (1893-1951), SJ, Italian scholar of Middle and Modern Iranian studies.

  • METALWORK

    Linda Komaroff

    perhaps the most continuous and best-documented artistic medium from Iran in the Islamic period.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.

  • 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).

  • 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.