Table of Contents

• 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.

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• MESKAVAYH, ABU ʿALI AḤMAD

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  , ABU ʿALI AḤMAD b. Moḥammad [ebn], Persian chancery official and treasury clerk of the Buyid period, boon companion, litterateur and accomplished writer in Arabic.

• MESSINA, GIUSEPPE

  Carlo G. Cereti

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

• 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.

• MEYBODI, ABU'L-FAŻL RAŠID-AL-DIN

  Annabel Keeler

  (fl. early 12th cent.), Sunni scholar, mystic and author of a monumental Persian Sufi commentary on the Qurʾān.

• MEYMA i. The District

  Habib Borjian

  The district rests on a high plain on the western foothills of the Kargas range, which separates Meyma from Naṭanz on the east.

• MEYMA ii. The Dialect

  Habib Borjian

  district is at the heart of the area where the Central dialects are spoken.

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• MICHAEL THE SYRIAN

  Florence Jullien

  Jacobite patriarch of Antioch (1166-99), who wrote a universal chronicle in Syriac, covering events from the Creation until 1195.

• MICROCOSM and MACROCOSM

  Philippe Gignoux

  in pre-Islamic Iranian thought: the theory of the correspondence between the different parts of the human being and those of the cosmos.

• MIDDLE PERSIAN LITERATURE i. PAHLAVI LITERATURE

  Carlo G. Cereti

  the writings of the Zoroastrians in the Middle Persian language and Book Pahlavi script, which were compiled in the 9th and the 10th centuries CE.

• MĪKĀL DYNASTY

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀL-E MĪKĀL.

• MILĀN

  Pierre Oberling

  a Kurdish tribe in western Persian Azerbaijan.

• MILLET

  Cross-Reference

  See ARZAN.

• MINARET

  W. Kleiss

  (manāra), a tower, usually attached to a mosque, from which the muezzin (moʾaḏḏen) summons Muslims to prayer. In Arabic, manāra originally denotes a lighthouse or signaling tower at sea. The minaret was not part of the architecture of the early Islamic period. It appeared first in the 8th and 9th centuries.

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• MINBĀŠIĀN, Ḡolām-Ḥosayn

  Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi and EIr

  violinist, pianist, and conductor (1907-1978).

• MINING IN IRAN

  Multiple Authors

  i. Mines and Mineral Resources, ii. Mineral Industries

• MINING IN IRAN i. MINES AND MINERAL RESOURCES

  Mansur Qorbani and Anoshirvan Kani

  The ancient and pre-modern period is evidenced by abandoned mines,  which can be grouped into three categories based on the materials extracted: (1) mines of metallic ores: iron, copper, gold, lead, zinc, and silver; (2) non-metallic mines and quarries of china clay (used in ceramic and tile making), gel-e saršuy (a variety of bentonite used as soap), and bentonite and serpentine (used in clayware); (3) mines of precious and semi-precious stones.

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• MINING IN IRAN ii. MINERAL INDUSTRIES

  Willem Floor

  Commercial exploitation of the known resources, which are mainly located in inaccessible locations, was discouraged by the lack of cost-effective infrastructure.

• MINORSKY, Vladimir Fed’orovich

  C. E. Bosworth

  (1877-1966), outstanding Russian scholar of Persian history, historical geography, literature and culture.

• MIR FENDERESKI

  Sajjad H. Rizvi

  , Sayyed Amir Abu’l-Qāsem b. Mirzā Beg b. Ṣadr-al-Din Moḥammad Ḥosayni Astarābādi, renowned philosopher and mystic during the Safavid revitalization of philosophy (b. 1562-63,  d. 1640).

• MIRʿALĀʾI, Aḥmad

  Jalil Doostkhah

  (1942-1995), editor of three literary magazines and translator of works of Western literature.

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• MIRATH-E MAKTUB

  Ali Mir-Ansari

  a research center in Tehran, focused on editing manuscripts (including those concerned with the history of science), cataloguing Persian and Arabic manuscripts in Iran and the wider Persianate cultural area, and studying related codicological issues.

• MIRDREKVANDI, ʿALI

  Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  nicknamed “Gunga Din,” author of “Irradiant,” a popular epic written in broken English in the mid-20th century.

• MIRZA MOḤAMMAD ĀḠĀ JĀN

  Cross-Reference

  Author of Avīmāq-e Moḡol (publ. 1900), see ʿABD-AL-QĀDER KHAN.

• MITHRA

  Multiple Authors

  i. Mitra in Old Indian and Mithra in Old Iranian   ii. Iconography in Iran and Central Asia   iii. in Manicheism

• MITHRA i. MITRA IN OLD INDIAN AND MITHRA IN OLD IRANIAN

  Hanns-Peter Schmidt

  Indo-Iranian god, with name based on the common noun mitrá “contract” with the connotations of “covenant, agreement, treaty, alliance, promise.”

• MITHRA ii. ICONOGRAPHY IN IRAN AND CENTRAL ASIA

  Franz Grenet

  There is no known iconography of Mithra in the Achaemenid period. On coins of the Arsacids the seated archer dressed as a Parthian horseman has been interpreted as Mithra. In the Kushan empire Mithra is among the deities most frequently depicted on the coinage, always as a young solar god.

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• MITHRA iii. IN MANICHEISM

  Werner Sundermann

  The Iranian Manicheans adopted the name of the Zoroastrian god Mithra (Av. Miθra; Mid. Pers.Mihr)and used it to designate one of their own deities.

• MITHRADATES VI

  Brian McGing

  Eupator Dionysos (r. 120-63 BCE), last king of Pontus, the Hellenistic kingdom that emerged in northern Asia Minor in the early years of the 3rd century BCE.

• MITHRAISM

  Roger Beck

  the cult of Mithra as it developed in the West, its origins, its features, and its probable connection with Mithra worship in Iran.

• MOʾAYYAD FI’L-DIN ŠIRĀZI

  Verena Klemm

  (ca. 1000-87), outstanding and multitalented representative of the Fatimid religious and political mission (daʿwa) in the service of the Caliph/Imam Mostanṣer bi’llāh (r. 1036-94).

• MOʾTAMEN, Zeyn-al-ʿĀbedin

  Ali Gheissari

  A teacher, writer, and scholar of Persian literature.

• MODARRESI, Taqi

  Nasrin Rahimieh

  (1931-1997), Persian novelist and psychiatrist.

• MOʿEZZ-AL-DAWLA

  Claude Cahen

  , ABU’L-ḤOSAYN, Aḥmad ebn Abi Šojāʿ (d. 356/967), 4th/10th century Buyid prince, the youngest of the three brothers who conquered western, southern, and central Persia.

• MOʿEZZI Nišāburi

  Hormoz Davarpanah

  Šāburi, Abu ʿAbd-Allāh Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-al-Malek (b. ca. 1048-49, d. ca. 1125-27), a major poet at the court of the Saljuqs in Khorasan in the 12th century.

• MOFAŻŻAL al-JOʿFI

  Mushegh Asatryan

  a prominent member of the Kufan ḡolāt and companion of the sixth and seventh Shiʿite imams Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq and Musa al-Kāẓem.

• MOḠĀN

  Richard Tapper

  (or Dašt-e Moḡān, also Muqān), a lowland steppe in Azerbaijan.

• MOHALLABI, Abu Moḥammad

  Maurice Pomerantz

  vizier and literary patron.

• MOḤAMMAD b. ʿABD-ALLAH

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  , Abu’l -ʿAbbās (b. 824-25, d. 867), high official in Iraq and the central lands of the caliphate.

• MOḤAMMAD B. NOṢAYR

  Yaron Friedman

  Abu Šoʿayb al-Nomayri/al-Namiri (d. after 868), the founder and eponym of the Nomayriya/Namiriya sect.

• MOḤAMMAD NĀDER SHAH

  May Schinasi

  (1883-1933), king of Afghanistan, first representative of the new Dorrāni dynasty.

• MOḤAMMAD SHAH QĀJĀR

  Jean Calmard

  (1808-1848), the third ruler of the Qajar dynasty after his grandfather Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah.

• MOḤAMMAD-AYYUB KHAN

  R. D. McChesney

  born Amir Šēr-ʿAli Khan, a prominent Afghan political figure of the Moḥammadzi clan (1857-1914).

• MOḤSENI, Akbar

  Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi

  (1912-1995) composer and prominent performer of the Ud (lute).

• MOḤTĀJ DYNASTY

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀL-E MOḤTĀJ.

• MOḤTAŠAM KĀŠĀNI

  Paul Losensky

  , Šams-al-šoʿarā Kamāl-al-Din, Persian poet of the Safavid period (b. Kashan, 1528-29, d. Kashan, 1588).

• MOʿJEZ ŠABESTARI

  Hasan Javadi

  (1874-1934), a satirical poet in Azerbaijani, fairly unknown during his lifetime. A social problem is addressed in every one of his poems.

• MOJMAL al-TAWĀRIḴ wa’l-QEṢAṢ

  Siegfried Weber and Dagmar Riedel

  an anonymous chronicle from the 12th century in the Persian tradition of literary historiography.

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