Table of Contents

  • MANICHEISM iv. MISSIONARY ACTIVITY AND TECHNIQUE

    Werner Sundermann

    The main primary sources on the beginning of Manichean missionary work are the Cologne Mani Codex and the Kephalaia.

  • MANICHEISM v. IN CHINA

    Sammuel L.C. Lieu

    Manicheism arrived in China in the sixth century, but its history in there was little known until the first decade of the 20th century, when a genuine Manichean text in Chinese was discovered in the Cave of Thousand Buddhas in Tun-huang.

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  • MANJIL

    Marcel Bazin

    town in the Rudbār district, Gilān province. Located at lat 36°44′ N, long 49°24′ E, where the Qezel-owzan (Kızıl-uzun) and Šāhrud rivers unite into the Safidrud.

  • MANNEA

    Ran Zadok

    (Neo-Assyrian Mannāyu), name refering to a region southeast of Lake Urmia centered around modern Saqqez.

  • MANṢUR B. NUḤ

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    the name of two of the later Amirs of the Samanids (q.v.), the first ruling in both Transoxiana and Khorasan, and the second in Transoxiana only.

  • MĀR ABĀ

    Manfred Hutter

    Zoroastrian convert to Christianity, catholicos for the Church of the East, 540-52 CE.

  • MĀR MĀRI

    Florence Jullien

    the Christian apostle, considered as the first missionary in the Arsacid Empire.

  • MARĀ BEBUS

    Morteza Hosayni Dehkordi and EIr.

    (Kiss me), the title of one of the most popular songs (taṣnif) of mid-twentieth century Iran.

  • MARATHI LANGUAGE, PERSIAN ELEMENTS IN

    S. H. Qasemi and EIr

    the southernmost Indo-Aryan language, is spoken by more than 40 million speakers, including inhabitants of Bombay and the state of Maharashtra (Mahāraštrā) in west-central India.

  • MARD-E ĀZĀD

    Nassereddin Parvin

    a daily newspaper published in Tehran  to support Reżā Khan (the future Reza Shah) in his bid for power, 1923.

  • MARD-e EMRUZ

    Ḥasan Mirʿābedini

    a controversial and highly popular newspaper published weekly in Tehran, with frequent interruptions, from 19 August 1942 to 14 February 1947, by Mohammad Mas’ud.

  • MARDONIUS

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    Name of several Persians in Achaemenid times, as OPers. M-r-du-u-n-i-y- /Mr̥duniya-/ (DB 4.84) is rendered in Greek (Mardónios) and Latin (Mardonius).

  • MARICQ, André

    Philippe Gignoux

    gifted epigrapher who died prematurely at the age of 34 (1925-1960).

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  • MARITIME TRADE i. PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD

    Daniel T. Potts

    In comparison with Mesopotamia, Persia has far less proof that maritime trade was an important factor in her ancient economy.

  • MĀRLIK

    Kamyar Abdi

    an elite burial ground of the late 2nd-early 1st millennium BCE in the western Caspian basin. In total, fifty-three tombs were discovered. The grave goods, numbering over 25,000 individual items, constitute the largest collection discovered from any cemetery of the Early Iron Age anywhere in the Near East.

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  • MARR, NIKOLAĭ YAKOVLEVICH

    I. Yakubovich

    Russian philologist and archeologist, the founder of the “New Linguistic Doctrine” (ca. 1864-1934).

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  • MARRIAGE i. THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT IN THE PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD

    Ilya Yakubovich

    a formal, written agreement as part of the process of establishing a marriage bond between two families is documented in both eastern and western Iranian practice.

  • MARRIAGE ii. NEXT OF KIN MARRIAGE IN ZOROASTRIANISM

    Prods Oktor Skjærvø

    xwēdōdah, said to refer to marital unions of father and daughter, mother and son, or brother and sister (next-of-kin or close-kin marriage, nuclear family incest).

  • MARTYRS, BABI

    Peter Smith and Moojan Momen

    adherents of the Babi religion who were killed for their faith during the period up to about 1866, when the Bahai faith emerged.

  • MARTYRS, CHRISTIAN

    Christelle Jullien

    in the Iranian lands, as related in the surviving corpus of Persian Christian Acts.

  • MAʿRUFI, Jawād

    Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi and EIr

    Persian composer and pianist (1915-1993).

  • MARYAM KHANOM

    Dominic Parviz Brookshaw

    thirty-ninth wife of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah Qajar (r. 1797-1834), mother of Żiāʾ-al-Salṭana and Maḥmud Mirzā.

  • MĀSĀL

    Marcel Bazin

    small town and sub-provincial district (šahrestān) in the western part of Gilān Province.  The town is located at lat 37°22′ N, long 49°02′ E.

  • MASISTES

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    Greek rendering (Masístēs) of an Old Iranian name *Masišta- (reflected also in Bab. Ma-si-iš-tu4) based on the superlative YAv. masišta-, OPers. maθišta- “greatest, supreme”.

  • MASJED-E SANGI

    Dietrich Huff

    a rock-cut mosque near the ancient site of Dārābgerd.

  • MAŠREQ AL-AḎKĀR

    Moojan Momen

    (the Dawning-Place of the Remembrance [of God]), a Bahai term having three meanings.  The first meaning is a gathering which is held, ideally at dawn, to say prayers and recite from scripture; the second meaning is a building to be constructed in every community in which this dawn gathering takes place; and the third meaning is a complex of edifices centered around the prayer building but including other auxiliary social and humanitarian institutions as well. 

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  • MASRUR, Hosayn

    Ḥasan Mirʿābedini

    (1890-1968), novelist, poet, and literary scholar.

  • MASSON, Charles

    Elizabeth Errington

    alias of James Lewis (1800-53), traveler, pioneering archeologist and numismatist, who in 1832-38 produced the first comprehensive archeological records of eastern Afghanistan.

  • MASʿUD (III) B. EBRĀHIM

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    recorded on his coins with various other honorifics. He seems to have had generally peaceful relations with his western neighbors, the Great Saljuqs.

  • MAS’UD, MOHAMMAD

    Ḥasan Mirʿābedini

    novelist and editor of the controversial and highly popular newspaper Mard-e emruz.

  • MASʿUD-E SAʿD-E SALMĀN

    Sunil Sharma

    (b. Lahore 1046-49?; d. 1121-22), Persian poet of the later Ghaznavid period. The first major Indo-Persian poet, Masʿud-e Saʿd-e Salmān is best known for the poetry he wrote in prison and in exile.

  • MASʿUDI

    Michael Cooperson

    a tenth-century geographer and historian and an important source of information on pre-Islamic and early Islamic Iran.

  • MĀSULA

    Marcel Bazin

    township and district (baḵš) in western Gilān.

  • MATHESON, Sylvia Anne

    Yolande Crowe

    (1916-2006), writer, traveler and archeologist, especially remembered for her pioneering work, Persia: An Archaeological Guide, first published in 1972.

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  • MAWDUD B. MASʿUD

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    sultan of the Ghaznavid dynasty, recorded on his coins with the honorifics Šehāb-al-Din wa’l-Dawla and Qoṭb-al-Mella.

  • MAWLAWI, ʿAbd-al-Raḥim Maʿdumi

    Keith Hitchins

    (1806-1882/83), a leading Kurdish poet of the 19th century who wrote in the Gurāni dialect of southeastern Kurdistan. He benefited from the support of Sufi shaikhs, who were generous patrons of writers and scholars. Mawlawi also formed long-lasting relationships with leaders of the Jaf tribe, who were prominent in Kurdish public life.

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  • MAYMANA

    cross-reference

    See FĀRYĀB.

  • MECQUENEM, ROLAND DE

    Laurianne Martinez-Sève

    (1877-1957), French archeologist, director of the excavations of the Mission Archèologique de Susiane at Susa from 1913 to 1946.

  • MEDḤAT PASHA

    Necati Alkan

    A liberal Ottoman statesman of the 19th century, who served both as provincial governor and grand vizier (b. Istanbul, 18 October 1822; d. Ṭāʾef, 8 May 1884).

  • MEDIA

    M. Dandamayev and I. Medvedskaya

    ancient population region (from the end of the 2nd millennium BCE) and kingdom in northwestern Iran.

  • MEDICINE i. INTRODUCTION OF WESTERN MEDICINE TO IRAN

    Shireen Mahdavi

    Western medicine was introduced to Iran by European physicians who began to arrive there from early nineteenth century onwards.

  • MEGABATES

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    Greek rendering of the well-known name OIran. *Baga-pāta- “protected by the gods” (which is attested in El. Ba-qa-ba-(ad-/ud-)da, Bab. Ba-ga-pa-a-ta/tu4, Ba-ga-(’)-pa-a-tú, etc., Aram. bgpt, Lyc. Magabata).

  • MEHR-NARSEH

    Touraj Daryaee

    The grand vizier (Mid. Pers. wuzurg framādār) during the reigns of the Sasanian kings Yazdgerd I (r. 399-421 CE), Bahrām V (r. 421-39), Yazdgerd II (r. 439-57), and Pērōz (r. 459-84).

  • MEIER, FRITZ

    Gudrun Schubert

    (1912-1998), Swiss Islamicist renowned for his influential and wide-ranging writings on Sufism.

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  • MEILLET, (PAUL JULES) ANTOINE

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    French linguist and scholar of Iranian and Armenian studies (1866-1936).

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  • MELZER, UTO

    Nosratollah Rastegar

     (1881-1961), teacher, author, and independent scholar.

  • MEM-Ê ALAN

    Philip G. Kreyenbroek

    (Kurdish romance), probably the best-known Kurdish tale, and the one most often regarded as representative of Kurdish verbal art generally. 

  • MENHAJ-e SERAJ

    C. E. Bosworth

    author of a general history in Persian valuable as a first-hand source for the history of the Ghurids, the Šamsi Delhi Sultans, and the irruption of the Mongols into the eastern Islamic lands.

  • MENOSTANES

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    Achaemenid prince, son of Artaxerxes I’s brother Artarios, who was satrap of Babylon; he was a “eunuch” at Artaxerxes’ court and during the troubles about the succession after Artaxerxes’ death in 424/23 BCE.

  • MENTOR and MEMNON

    Ernst Badian

    Rhodian brothers, condottieri of the late Achaemenid period.