Table of Contents

  • MARZBĀN-NĀMA

    K. Crewe Williams

    an early 13th-century prose work in Persian consisting of various didactic stories and fables used as illustrations of morality and right conduct. The work is comprised of nine chapters (bāb) with main-framed stories, embedded minor tales, as well as Persian and Arabic poems, parables, sayings, and Qorʾanic expressions. 

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  • 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.

  • MAŠHAD-E ARDAHĀL

    Habib Borjian

    district and settlement near Kashan, significant for its shrine and conservative traditions.

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  • MASHAYEKHI, MEHRDAD

    Mehrzad Boroujerdi

    (1953-2011), scholar, public intellectual, political activist, whose research was focused primarily on the theoretical shortcomings of the traditional Iranian left and what seemed to him as their inadequate regard for democratic politics.

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  • 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

    With regard to the building and design of the Mašreq al-Aḏkārs, Bahāʾ-Allāh states: “Make them as perfect as is possible in the world of being.”  Writing in 1955 to the German Bahais, Shoghi Effendi considered that the Mašreq al-Aḏkār should not be built in ultra-modern style, but be “graceful in outline,” with a “delicate architectural beauty.” 

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  • MASRUR, Hosayn

    Ḥasan Mirʿābedini

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

  • MASSAGETAE

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    (Gk. Massagétai), a nomadic tribe that settled in ancient times somewhere in the wide lowlands to the east of the Caspian Sea, in particular probably between the Oxus (Āmū Daryā) and Jaxartes (Syr Daryā) rivers.

  • 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

    Matheson was born Sylvia Anne Terry-Smith in London and trained at Wimbledon Technical College. By the age of 16 she started work as a journalist while attending evening classes at the Wimbledon School of Art. She interviewed celebrities such as Charles Laughton, Compton Mackenzie, and P. G. Wodehouse.

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  • MAURICE

    Michael Whitby

    (539-602), Roman emperor, who campaigned in the Balkans (against the Avars) and on the frontier of Sasanian Iran, but gave refuge to Ḵosrow II and helped him to secure the Sasanian throne from Bahrām Čōbin. 

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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. 

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  • MAYMANA, MEYMANA

    cross-reference

    See FĀRYĀB.