Table of Contents

  • TAʿĀROF

    William Beeman

    an Arabic term used in Persian to define a broad complex of behaviors in Iranian life that mark and underscore differences in social status.

  • ṬABAQĀT-E NĀṢERI

    C. E. Bosworth

    an extensive general history composed in Persian by  b. Serāj-al-Din Jowzjāni, who for the first part of his career lived in Ḡur under the Ghurid sultans and latterly in Muslim India under the Moʿezzi or Šamsi Delhi sultans.

  • ṬABARI, ABU JAʿFAR MOḤAMMAD B. JARIR

    Elton L. Daniel

    one of the most eminent Iranian scholars of the early Abbasid era, author of a celebrated commentary on the Qorʾān as well as the most important of the classical Arabic historical texts still extant.

  • ṬABĀṬABĀʾI, MOḤAMMAD-ḤOSAYN

    Louis Medoff

    eminent Twelver Shiʿite philosopher and author of a famous exegesis of the Qur’an, al-Mizān.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TABRIZ v. The city in the 19th century

    James D. Clark

    Tabriz surpassed Isfahan in population early in the nineteenth century to become the most populous city in Iran. The city was centrally situated relative to the three neighboring regions with which most of its trade was conducted and to which people from the province traveled: the Caucasus, eastern Anatolia, and central Iran. 

  • TABRIZ x. MONUMENTS x(1). The Blue Mosque

    Sandra Aube

    (Pers. Masjed-e kabud), also known as Masjed-e Moẓaffariya, built during the rule of the Qarā Qoyunlu dynasty (1351-1469) and completed in 1465. The extant tilework documents artistic connections with contemporary architecture in Timurid Khorasan and in the Ottoman Empire.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TADAYYON, Sayyed Moḥammad Birjandi

    Hormoz Davarpanah

    (b. Birjand, 1881; d. United States, December 1951), early 20th-century educationist and politician.

  • TAḎKERA-YE NAṢRĀBĀDI

    Mahmoud Fotoohi

    a compilation of short biographical notices on some one thousand poets of the Safavid period.

  • TAḎKERAT al-AWLIĀʾ

    Mohammad Esteʿlami

    (Saints’ Lives), a hagiographic account of the sayings and miraculous deeds (karāmāts) of eminent sufis and other religious figures from the early Islamic centuries.

  • TAḎKERAT al-MOLUK

    M. Ismail Marcinkowski

    (Memorial for kings), Persian manual from the transitional period between the collapse of the Safavid empire at the end of the reign of Shah Solṭān Ḥosayn (r. 1694-1722) and the early Afghan period in Persia.

  • TADWIN, AL-

    K. Morimoto

    a local biographical dictionary of Qazvin in Arabic compiled by ʿAbd-al-Karim Rāfeʿi Qazvini.

  • TAFAŻŻOLI, AḤMAD

    Philippe Gignoux

    On his way back to Iran, Tafazzoli stayed for a few months in Paris, where he conducted research and made acquaintance with Father Jean de Menasce, a noted scholar in Iranian studies, whom he later assisted in his translation of the third book of Dēnkard.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TAFT

    EIr, based on an article submitted by Ali Modarres

    town and district in Yazd province.

  • TAHERIDS

    Elton L. Daniel

    (Pers. Āl-e Ṭāher), name of a prominent family of the early Abbasid period and more particularly a line of governors of Khorasan (821-73) from that family. Many of the Taherids, governors, and lesser officials, in Khorasan and in Iraq, were celebrated patrons of the arts, and adab literature is filled with anecdotes about their largesse and their appreciation of wit, wisdom, and bon mots.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • ṬAHMĀSP I

    Colin P. Mitchell

    (1524-1576), second ruler of the Safavid dynasty. His 52-year reign was the longest of all Safavid rulers.

  • TĀJ AL-SALĀṬIN

    M. Ismail Marcinkowski

    a book in the genre of Mirror for Princes written in Malay by Boḵāri Jawhari (fl. early 17th cent.).

  • TĀJ-al-SALṬANA

    Afsaneh Najmabadi

    (1884-1936), one of the best known daughters of the Qajar king Nāṣer-al-Din Shah (r. 1848-96), due to her memoirs (Ḵāterāt), written in 1914, which were first partially published in 1969 and whose authenticity has been disputed.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TAJADDOD

    Nassereddin Parvin

    (Modernity), a newspaper published as the official organ of the Democratic Party of Azerbaijan, of which a total of 202 issues appeared in Tabriz.

  • TAJIK

    Multiple Authors

    i. The Ethnonym: Origins and Application. ii. Tajik Persian. iii. Colloquial Tajiki in Comparison with Persian of Iran.

  • TAJIK i. THE ETHNONYM: ORIGINS AND APPLICATION

    John Perry

    The Tajiks are an Iranian people, speaking a variety of Persian, concentrated in the Oxus Basin, the Farḡāna valley (Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan) and on both banks of the upper Oxus.

  • TAJIK ii. TAJIK PERSIAN

    John Perry

    Tajiki Persian is the variety of New Persian used in Central Asia. From the 1920s it was officially fostered in the USSR as the national literary language of the Tajik SSR (since 1991, the Republic of Tajikistan). It is also spoken in parts of Uzbekistan, notably in the cities of Bukhara and Samarqand.

  • TAJIK iii. COLLOQUIAL TAJIKI IN COMPARISON WITH PERSIAN OF IRAN

    Bahriddin Aliev and Aya Okawa

    Fārsi of Iran (here called “Farsi” for short), Tajiki, and Dari are distinct branches of the Persian language, and within each branch a wide variety of local dialects exist.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TAJIKISTAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

    Habib Borjian

    Tajikistan’s leading research institution for coordinating and conducting theoretical and applied research projects.

  • TAJIKISTAN i. STATUS OF ISLAM SINCE 1917

    Muriel Atkin

    Tajikistan’s population, which numbered slightly more than six million in the year 2000, consists overwhelmingly of ethnic groups which have historically been Muslim.

  • TAJIKISTAN v. DICTIONARIES AND ENCYCLOPEDIAS

    Habib Borjian

    The alphabet change to Roman and then to Cyrillic (1928 and 1940) coupled with vernacularization of Tajik Persian, called for independent lexicography in Tajikistan.

  • TAKLAMAKAN

    Alain Cariou

    The Taklamakan stretches over 337,000 square kilometers in the centre of the Tarim basin. The vast depression runs nearly 1,200 km from west to east, and is 400 km wide from north to south. It forms an elliptical, semi-open basin in the Lop Nur marsh.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TAḴT-E SOLAYMĀN

    Dietrich Huff

    outstanding archeological site with substantial Sasanian and Il-khanid ruins in Azerbaijan, between Bijār and Šāhin-dež, about 30 km north-northeast of Takāb. Up to the early Islamic time the geographical name of the place and the region was Šiz.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TAḴTI, Ḡolām-Reżā

    Houchang E. Chehabi

    (b. Tehran, 20 Šahrivar 1309 Š./27 August 1930; d. Tehran, 27 Ordibehešt 1347 Š./7 June 1968), freestyle wrestling champion, and Persia’s most popular athlete of the 20th century.

  • ṬĀLEB

    Cross-Reference

    Poet and physician (d. 1015/1606-07). See ABU ṬĀLEB TABRIZI.

  • ṬĀLEB ĀMOLI

    Paul Losensky

    Persian poet of the early 17th century (b. Mazandaran, ca. 1580; d. India, 1626-7).

  • ṬĀLEBUF, ʿABD-AL-RAḤIM

    Cyrus Masroori

    (1834-1911), intellectual and author of several influential works, including Ketāb-e Aḥmad. The fact that the book went through several reprints both inside and outside Iran testifies to its popularity. Its style and design made it a textbook of choice in the modern schools of Tabriz. 

     

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TĀLEŠ DISTRICT

    Marcel Bazin

    altogether stretches north from the Safidrud, which cuts through the western Alborz mountains in western Gilān, to the the Araxes-Kura plain in the south of the Republic of Azerbaijan.

  • ṬĀLEŠ DULĀB

    Cross-Reference

    one of the five traditional Ṭāleš khanates (Ḵamsa-ye Ṭavāleš) in western Gilān.

  • TAʿLIM O TARBIAT

    Nassereddin Parvin

    monthly periodical published by the Ministry of Culture (April 1925-March 1927, April 1934-July 1938). 

  • TALMUD ii. RABBINIC LITERATURE and MIDDLE PERSIAN TEXTS

    Yaakov Elman

    Jews and Persians had coexisted in Mesopotamia, mostly peaceably, for some 700 years by the time that the first generation of prominent Babylonian talmudic rabbis was born in the third quarter of the 2nd century.

  • TALMUD, PERSIAN ELEMENTS IN

    Jacob Neusner

    Persian influence on Judaism through the Babylonian Talmud (Bavli) is by no means negligible. The Bavli is full of Iranian words and motifs.

  • TAMIŠA WALL

    Hamid Omrani Rekavandi and Eberhard W. Sauer

    an at least 11-km-long Sasanian wall west of present-day Sarkālata village in Gorgān, crossing the coastal corridor at the southeast corner of the Caspian Sea.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TANG-E SARVAK

    Ernie Haerinck

    (Gorge of the cypresses), an archeological site in eastern Ḵuzestān province, southwestern Iran. It is located in a gorge in the mountainous area approx. 50 km north of Behbahān. At an altitude of ca. 1200 m, it is only reached after a long climb.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TANNING, RUBBER, AND FOOTWEAR INDUSTRIES

    Willem Floor

    Tanning was an economic activity traditionally practiced all over Iran, not only in the large towns, but also (for local consumption) in small towns and large villages, and it was practiced on a small scale by the nomads.

  • TAQIYA

    Multiple Authors

    dissimulation; the practice, commonly regarded as distinctively Shiʿite, of hiding beliefs or rituals in times of imminent harm to one.

  • TAQIYA i. In Shiʿism

    Louis Medoff

    The foundations of taqiya can be traced back to certain Qurʾanic verses, perhaps the most explicit of which is Qurʾan 3:28. Taqiya holds an exceptional degree of legitimacy in Shiʿism owing to the abundant Hadith in its praise from the Imams. In Shiʿite exegesis there are several taqiya related intepretations of Qurʾanic verses.

  • TAQIYA ii. AMONG BABIS AND BAHAIS

    Kamran Ekbal

    Dissimulation of the faith was widespread among Babis and Bahais until the early years of the ministry of Shoghi Effendi (1921-57), when he, in a number of messages starting in 1927, prohibited its practice.

  • TAQIZADEH, SAYYED ḤASAN

    Multiple Authors

    (1878-1970), distinguished statesman, constitutionalist, and scholar.

  • TAQIZADEH, SAYYED ḤASAN i. To the end of the Constitutional Revolution

    Iraj Afshar and EIr

    (1878-1970), distinguished statesman, constitutionalist, and scholar.

  • TĀRIḴ-E QOM

    Andreas Drechsler

    (The History of Qom), an early local history (comp. 378/988) from medieval Persia by Ḥasan b. Moḥammad Qomi, which has been preserved in an early 9th/15th-century Persian translation.

  • TĀRIḴ-E SISTĀN

    C. E. Bosworth

    an anonymous local history in Persian of the eastern Iranian region of Sistān, the region that straddles the modern Iran-Afghanistan border. It forms a notable example of the flourishing genre of local histories in the pre-modern Iranian lands.

  • ṬARZI, MAḤMUD

    May Schinasi

    (1865-1933), writer, journalist, politician, and a prominent figure in Afghanistan in the first quarter of the 20th century. Tarzi was hailed as the "father of journalism" and oversaw the bi-monthly Serāj al-aḵbār, for which he wrote most of the articles, and was a translator of Turkish, an essayist, and a poet.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TAṢNIF

    Margaret Caton

    a type of vocal composition in classical Persian music.

  • TAVADIA, JEHANGIR C.

    Firoze M. Kotwal and Jamsheed K. Choksy

    Parsi scholar of ancient Iranian languages and Zoroastrianism.

  • TAVALLALI, Fereydun

    Kāmyār ʿĀbedi

    (1919-1985), noted poet and writer. His literary career paralleled the dominant social, political, and literary trends of the middle decades of 20th century Iran.

  • TAVERNIER, JEAN-BAPTISTE

    Pierre-François Burger

    merchant, traveler, and author of Les six voyages and other works.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TAʿZIA

    Peter Chelkowski

    a term used for the Shiʿite passion play performed in Persia. It is the sole form of serious drama to have developed in the world of Islam, with the exception of contemporary theater, which was introduced to Islamic countries in the mid-19th century.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TEA

    Cross-Reference

    See ČĀY.

  • TEDESCO, PAUL MAXIMILIAN

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    (1898-1980), Austrian scholar of Indo-Iranian studies.

  • TEHRAN i. A PERSIAN CITY AT THE FOOT OF THE ALBORZ

    Xavier de Planhol

    At the northern borders of Iran’s arid central plateau, the southern foothills of the Alborz chain, which have the advantage of major precipitations, are particularly suitable for human settlements.

  • TEHRĀNI, Ḥosayn

    Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi

    (1911-1973) well-known master performer of the tonbak.

  • TEKIŠ B. IL ARSLĀN

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    (r. 1172-1200), ʿAlāʾ-al-Donyā wa’l-Din Abu’l-Moẓaffar, a ruler of the branch of Khwarazmshahs who descended from the Great Saljuq slave commander (ḡolām) Anuštigin Ḡarčāʾi.

  • TELEGRAPH i. FIRST TELEGRAPH LINES IN PERSIA

    Soli Shahvar

    The initiator of introducing the electric telegraph in Persia was Mirzā Malkom Khan. In 1858 he carried out two successful telegraphic experiments for Nāṣer-al-Din Shah.

  • TENTS in Iran

    Multiple Authors

    A portable dwelling characteristic of certain nomad groups. It consists of a canopy of cloth or skin supported by upright posts and anchored to the ground by means of pegs and ropes.

  • TENTS i. General Survey

    Jean-Pierre Digard

    The most common type of tent in Iran and Afghani­stan is the “black tent” (constructed of bands of woven goat hair stitched together), which is known from Mauritania to India.

  • TENTS ii. Variety, Construction, and Use

    Peter Alford Andrews

    Both of the basic tent types used by nomads elsewhere in the Middle East are present in Iran and Afghanistan: the black, goat-hair tent and the felt tent.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TEPE HISSAR

    Robert H. Dyson

    Sixteen hundred graves were recorded; of these 782 from 1932 formed the basis of the 1937 tabular presentation of burial data. Generally, bodies were buried on their sides in a flexed position in simple pits. In period II, however, rare brick cist graves appear.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TEPE YAHYA

    D. T. Potts

    (Tappe Yaḥyā), archeological site in the Soḡun valley, Kerman province, ca. 220 km south of Kerman and 130 km north of the Straits of Hormuz.

  • TERKEN ḴĀTUN

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    title of the wife of the Khwarazmshah Tekiš b. Il-Arslān (r. 1172-1200) and mother of ʿAlāʾ-al-Din Moḥammad (r. 1200-20).

  • TETRADRACHM

    Cross-Reference

    “four drachmas,” or stater, a denomination of silver coinage; see DIRHAM.

  • TEXTILE INDUSTRY IN IRAN

    Willem Floor

    Textile production in Iran dates back to the 10th millennium BCE. The first European-style factories in Persia were established in the 1850s and were among the first establishments in the country to use modern technology.

  • THAILAND-IRAN RELATIONS

    M. Ismail Marcinkowski

    Iran’s cultural and trade relations with Southeast Asia date back far into the pre-Islamic period. Official diplomatic relations between the two regions become traceable only during the Safavid period (1501-1722).

  • THEOPHYLACT SIMOCATTA

    Michael Whitby

    Greek historian and author of Histories, a work mainly concerned with late sixth-century Byzantine warfare in the Balkans and against Persia.

  • TIGER

    Cross-Reference

    See BABR.

  • TIGRAN II

    N. Garsoian

    THE GREAT, king of Armenia (r. 95-55 BCE),  the most distinguished member of the so-called Artašēsid/Artaxiad dynasty.

  • TIGRIS RIVER

    Daniel T. Potts

    major river arising in the Taurus mountains of eastern Turkey, fed mainly by snow melt, which flows about 2,032 km through eastern Turkey and Iraq to the Persian Gulf.

  • TILLA BULAK

    Kai Kaniuth

    The site’s stratigraphy is marked by two main building horizons, of which the earlier one was destroyed in a conflagration that apparently engulfed the entire hamlet. From rooms of this phase, complete household inventories have been recovered which will be of enormous help in understanding the rural economic system.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TIŠTRYA

    Antonio Panaino

    (Pahl. Tištar, NPers. Teštar), an important Old Iranian astral divine being (yazata-), to whom the eighth hymn (Tištar Yašt) of the Later Avestan corpus was dedicated (Panaino, 1990).

  • TOBACCO

    Willem Floor

    Modes of use, cultivation, and cultural connotations of Tobacco in Iran. Persian sources imply that the use of tobacco was already known in Persia before its introduction into Europe in the 1550s.

  • TOCHARIAN LANGUAGE

    Michaël Peyrot

    the conventional name for two closely related Indo-European languages that were spoken in northwest China, in the north of the Tarim Basin in present-day Xīnjiāng.

  • TOḠA TIMUR

    Peter Jackson

    (1336-1353), the last of the Mongol Il-Khans of Iran.

  • TOḤFAT AL-AḤBĀB

    Solomon Bayevsky

    (Gift for friends), a Persian dictionary of the early Safavid period, compiled by Ḥāfeẓ Solṭān-ʿAli Owbahi Heravi in 936/1529-30.

  • TOḤFAT AL-SAʿĀDA

    Solomon Bayevsky

    An early 16th-century Persian dictionary of 14,000 entries by Maḥmud b. Shaikh Żiāʾ-al-Din Moḥammad, a poet of northern India.

  • TONB ISLANDS

    Guive Mirfendereski

    (GREATER and LESSER), two tiny islands of arguable strategic importance in the eastern Persian Gulf, south of the western tip of Qešm island.

  • TOPKAPI PALACE

    Zeren Tanındı

    and its Persian holdings. The Topkapı Palace, which was known as the Yeni Saray (New Palace) until the 19th century, served the Ottoman sultans for almost 380 years as the imperial residence and center of command.

  • TORTURE IN THE ACHAEMENID PERIOD

    Bruno Jacobs

    Torture is here taken as defined in the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), Art. 1.1.

  • TOWFIQ (TAWFIQ) NEWSPAPER

    Hasan Javadi

    a satirical and political weekly newspaper published intermittently in Tehran between 1923 and 1971.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TOYUL

    Cross-Reference

    one of the terms for “land grant.” See EQṬĀʿ.

  • TRAGACANTH

    Cross-reference

    For gum tragacanth, see KATIRĀ.

  • TRAJAN

    Erich Kettenhofen

    Marcus Ulpius Traianus, Roman emperor (98-117 CE), born probably in 53 CE, and died in early August 117. During his reign, the Imperium Romanum stretched to its widest extent, but only for a short period.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TREE

    Cross-Reference

    See DERAḴT.

  • TRIBE

    Cross-Reference

    For the Persian terms used and an overview of tribal groups, see ʿAŠĀYER.

  • ṬUBĀ VA MAʿNĀ-YE ŠAB

    Houra Yavari

    novel (1987) by Shahrnush Parsipur, fiction writer and essayist, generally regarded as one the first instances of magical realism in modern Iran. The novel’s creative use of magical realism is colored by a distinctly mystical tone and has borrowed much of its flavor from Iran’s Illuminationist Philosophy.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TUMANSKIǏ, Aleksandr Grigor’evich

    Jahangir Dorri

    (1861-1920), Russian orientalist, major-general of the Russian Imperial Army. He belonged to an ancient aristocratic family which had originated from the Great Duchy of Lithuania.

  • TUP

    F. Farrokh

    (tr. by Fariydoun Farrokh as The Cannon, Washington D. C., 2009), the first full-length novel by Gholam-Hosayn Sa’edi.

  • ṬURĀN

    C. E. Bosworth

    (ṬOVARĀN), the mediaeval Islamic name for the mountainous district of east-central Baluchistan lying to the north of the mediaeval coastal region of Makrān, what was in recent centuries, until 1947, the Aḥmadzay Khanate of Kalat.

  • TURFAN EXPEDITIONS

    Werner Sundermann

    Turfan (also Uigur Turpan, Chin. Tulufan) in Xinjiang (Chinese Turkestan) is the largest oasis (ca. 170 square kilometers) on the ancient northern Silk Road.

  • TURKEY

    Cross-Reference

    See BŪQALAMŪN.

  • TURKIC LANGUAGES OF PERSIA: AN OVERVIEW

    Michael Knüppel

    Only in few other regions (Caucasus and Southern Siberia) one can find a nearly comparable diversity of Turkic languages as in Persia. The number of their speakers varies from several thousands to several millions.

  • TURKIC LOANWORDS IN PERSIAN

    Michael Knüppel

    Turkic-Iranian language contacts, as well as reciprocal loaning/borrowing of words, go back to the era of the Old Turkic language. 

  • TURKIC-IRANIAN CONTACTS i. LINGUISTIC CONTACTS

    John R. Perry

    Speakers of Iranian and Turkic languages have been in contact since pre-Islamic times, notably along the Inner Asian commercial corridors known collectively as the Silk Road.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TURKIC-IRANIAN CONTACTS ii. CHAGHATAY

    Andras J. E. Bodrogligeti

    Chaghatay has been strongly influenced by Islamic prestige languages, especially Persian and Arabic, in all segments: phonetics, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, and cultural content. In the hands of the educated elite it became a tool wielded impressively.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TURKMENS OF PERSIA ii. LANGUAGE

    Michael Knüppel

    Geographical location and the “tribal affiliation” of the speakers form the background of the dialectal variety. The dialects of Turkmen are spoken in their respective areas, where the members of the corresponding “tribes” live. 

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • TURKO-SOGDIAN COINAGE

    Larissa Baratova

    issues of the khaqans (ḵāqāns) of the Western Turkic khanate in Central Asia between the 6th and 8th centuries CE, so called because the Turkic rulers issued them with Sogdian inscriptions.

  • TURNIP

    Shamameh Mohammadifar

    a biennial shrub of the Cruciferae family with edible fleshy thick root, hairy rosette leaves, grape inflorescence and siliques fruits.