Table of Contents

  • OPIUM

    Cross-Reference

    See AFYŪN.

  • OPTICS

    Elaheh Kheirandish

    The science of “aspects” or “appearances” (ʿelm al-manāẓer), as optics was called in the Islamic Middle Ages, has a long and impressive history in both Arabic and Persian.

  • ORAHAM, ALEXANDER JOSEPH

    Eden Naby

    (1898-1953), physician and lexicographer, born in the village of Armudāḡāj of the Urmia District, Azerbaijan. He emigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago. He is known for the widely used Assyrian-English Oraham’s Dictionary.

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  • ORANSKIĬ, IOSIF MIKHAILOVICH

    Ivan Steblin-Kamensky

    It is difficult to name a field of Iranian studies which was not included in Oranskii's studies: history of Iranian studies, history of the teaching of Persian and other Iranian languages, the study of the languages themselves, the development of their grammatical structure, etymology, language contacts, dialectology, ethnology, etc.

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  • ORBELI, IOSEF ABGAROVICH

    Karen Yuzbashian

    (1887-1961), orientalist and academician who specialized in Iranian studies, Armenian and Kurdish philology, and archeology.

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  • ORDUBĀD

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    a town on the north bank of the middle course of the Araxes (Aras) river of eastern Transcaucasia, former in Persian territory but now in the Republic of Azerbaijan.

  • ʿORFI ŠIRAZI

    Paul Losensky

    Persian poet of the latter half of the 16th century (b. Shiraz, 1555; d. Lahore, Aug. 1591).

  • ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

    Kamyar Abdi

    a major research center devoted to the study of the history, languages, and archeology of the ancient Near East, and Egypt.

  • ORMURI

    Ch. M. Kieffer and EIr.

    language spoken in Afghanistan and Pakistan by the Ormur or Baraki.

  • OROITES

    C. J. Brunner

    satrap of Lydia, Phrygia, and Ionia during the reigns of the Achaemenid kings Cyrus II and Cambyses.

  • ORONTES

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    Old Iranian name, attested only in Greek forms, carried by several personages of the Achaemenid period.

  • OŠNUYA

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    (now OŠNAVIYA), a small town of southwestern Azerbaijan, on the historic route from the Urmia basin toward the plains of northern Iraq.

  • OSRUŠANA

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    a district of medieval Islamic Transoxania lying to the east of Samarqand (q.v.) on the upper reaches of the Zarafšān river or Nahr-e Ṣogd.

  • OSSETIC LANGUAGE i. History and description

    Fridrik Thordarson

    According to the 1989 Soviet census, Ossetic is spoken by about 500,000 people; of these, about 330,000 live in North Ossetia and 125,000 in Georgia. These figures should, however, be regarded with some caution as a large part of the Ossetic population is bilingual, also speaking Kabardian, Ingush, or Karachay-Balkar.

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  • OSSETIC LANGUAGE ii. Ossetic Loanwords in Hungarian

    J.T.L. Cheung

    One of the features of Ossetic is the number of lexical traces that show ancient contacts with many, often very diverse, ethnic groups.

  • OSTANES

    Morton Smith

    legendary mage in classical and medieval literature.

  • OSTOVĀ

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    rural district (rostāq) of northern Khorasan, considered in medieval Islamic times to be an administrative dependency of Nišāpur.

  • OTANES

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    Greek form (Otánēs) of the name OPers. Utāna(DB IV 83 u-t-a-n, rendered as Elam. Hu-ud-da-na, Bab. Ú-mi-it-ta-na-na-ʾ), which often is interpreted as “having good descendants”.

  • ʿOTBI

    C. E. Bosworth

    the family name of two viziers of the Samanids of Transoxiana and Khorasan.

  • ʿOTBI, ABU NAṢR MOḤAMMED

    Ali Anooshahr

    (ca. 961-1036 or 1040), secretary, courtier, and author of the Arabic al-Kitāb al-Yamini, an important dynastic history of the Ghaznavids.