Table of Contents

• 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.

• 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.

• 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• MINBĀŠIĀN, Ḡolām-Ḥosayn

  Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi and EIr

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