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  • KANDAHAR ii. Pre-Islamic Monuments and Remains

    Gérard Fussman

    city in southern Afghanistan (lat 31°36′28″ N, long 65°42′19″ E), the second most important in the country and the capital of Kandahar province.

  • MANICHEISM i. GENERAL SURVEY

    Werner Sundermann

    Manicheism is the only world religion that has become completely extinct. Its founder, Mani, lived in the third century CE. His religion spread over the continents from the Atlantic to the Chinese Sea.

  • HERODOTUS v. CAMBYSES ACCORDING TO HERODOTUS

    Robert Rollinger

    Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, is first described by Herodotus at a time when his father’s reign was already about to end.

  • Greece i. Greco-Persian Political Relations

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    After subjugating the Medes, Cyrus II started his first expedition westwards. In 547 B.C.E. he turned against Lydia and its king, Croesus.

  • Italy i. INTRODUCTION

    Carlo G. Cereti

    Direct relations between the Italian peninsula and the Iranian plateau date at least from the Parthian period,  when the border between the Arsacids and the Roman Empire was set on the Euphrates.

  • CHINESE-IRANIAN RELATIONS iv. The Safavid Period, 1501-1732

    J. M. Rogers

  • HAFEZ ii. HAFEZ’S LIFE AND TIMES

    Bahaʾ-al-Din Khorramshahi and EIr

    In spite of this enormous popularity and influence, details of his life are extremely sketchy, and the brief references in taḏkeras (anthologies with biographical sketches) are often unreliable or even purely fictitious.

  • SACRIFICE i. IN ZOROASTRIANISM

    William W. Malandra

  • FEMINIST MOVEMENTS i. INTRODUCTION, ii. IN THE LATE QAJAR PERIOD

    EIr, Janet Afary

    The struggle for women’s rights that began in the mid-19th century and, more specifically, on the eve of the 1905-09 Constitutional Revolution and continued to the present time has been one of the main forces for democratic change in the 20th century Persia.

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  • INDIA vi. Political and Cultural Relations (13th-18th centuries)

    Richard M. Eaton

    Relations between peoples of the Iranian plateau and India were extensive and uninterrupted between the 13th and 18th centuries. Migration, commerce, and politics all led to a range of cross-regional influences.

  • ḤASAN II

    Farhad Daftary

    , ʿALĀ ḎEKREHE’L-SALĀM, Nezāri Ismaʿili Imam and the fourth ruler of Alamut (1162-66). The most important event of his brief reign was his declaration of the qiāma (the Resurrection).

  • JUDEO-PERSIAN COMMUNITIES iv. MEDIEVAL TO LATE 18TH CENTURY

    Vera Basch Moreen

    The Arab conquest of Iran (636 CE) and the end of the 18th century are convenient, if artificial, dates to demarcate the “Middle Ages” in a diachronic approach to the history of the Jews in Iran.

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  • KASHAN ii. HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY

    Xavier de Planhol

    Geographic foundations and the origins of the urban area. To the northeast of the well-watered mountain ranges of western and southern Iran, a line of bountiful oases which have given rise to important urban areas stretches along the piedmont bordering the desert basins of central and southeastern Iran.

  • IRAN ii. IRANIAN HISTORY (2) Islamic period (page 2)

    Ehsan Yarshater

    Formation of local dynasties. The Taherids (821-73). The first of these dynasties came into being when Ṭāher b. Ḥosayn was appointed the governor of Khorasan with full power.

  • AFGHANISTAN viii. Archeology

    N. H. Dupree

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  • IRAN viii. PERSIAN LITERATURE (1) Pre-Islamic

    Philip Huyse

    Iranian “literature” was for a long time essentially of oral nature as far as composition, performance, and transmission are concerned.

  • EDUCATION xiii. RURAL AND TRIBAL SCHOOLS

    Moḥammad Bahmanbeygī, Nāṣer Mīr, Moḥammad Pūrsartīp, and EIr

    Compulsory-education laws enacted in 1911 and 1943 provided the legal framework for the extension of modern education into rural and tribal areas. Until the 1950s, however, the Persian government did not possess the resources  to implement these laws; in addition, landowners and tribal khans resisted such efforts.

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  • ISFAHAN i. GEOGRAPHY

    EIr, Xavier de Planhol

    (1) Geography of the province. (2) Geography of the oasis. Isfahan Province is situated in central Persia between the massive central Zagros mountain range and the great desert.

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  • Isfahan xxi. PROVINCIAL DIALECTS

    Donald Stilo

    The Iranian languages of Isfahan Province are of three basic types: Northwest Iranian dialects belonging to the Central Plateau Dialect group, and two different types of Southwest Iranian  languages: slightly divergent dialects of Persian, but intelligible to the standard language, and  large pockets of Lori.

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  • CENTRAL ASIA ix. In the 20th Century

    Edward Allworth

  • CENTRAL ASIA v. In the Mongol and Timurid Periods

    Bertold Spuler

  • CARPETS iii. Knotted-pile carpets: Techniques and structures

    Annette Ittig

    The techniques of carpet making are the processes of weaving, knotting, and finishing; structure is the complex of interrelations among the elements of the finished carpet. One of the major problems in carpet studies is the lack of a standard terminology to describe specific techniques, structures, and designs.

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  • HORMOZD II

    A. Shapur Shahbazi

    Sasanian great king (r. 303-09 CE). He assumed a crown very similar to that of Bahrām II,  representing the varəγna, the royal falcon.

  • BESṬĀMĪ, ŠEHĀB-AL-DĪN

    Hamid Algar

    [Basṭāmī], SHAIKH (d. 1405), a Sufi of Herat during the Timurid period.

  • ḎARĪʿA elā TAṢĀNĪF al-ŠĪʿA

    Etan Kohlberg

    a comprehensive bibliography of Imami Shiʿite works in twenty-five volumes compiled by Shaikh Moḥammad-Moḥsen Āqā Bozorg Ṭehrānī (1876-1970); it contains about 55,000 entries for works written up to 1950-51.

  • GEORGIA viii. Georgian communities in Persia

    Pierre Oberling

  • INDIA iii. RELATIONS: ACHAEMENID PERIOD

    Pierfrancesco Callieri

    The conquest by Darius I of the territories of the Indian subcontinent west of the Indus for the first time created a clear relationship between India and Iran.

  • CARPETS vi. Pre-Islamic Carpets

    Karen S. Rubinson

    Evidence for textiles of all kinds in pre-Islamic Iran is very sparse. It is necessary to supplement the few remains of actual textiles with examination of representations in art and other kinds of indirect evidence of production, for example preserved impressions and pseudomorphs from excavations.

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  • FESTIVALS i. ZOROASTRIAN

    Mary Boyce

  • KURDISH LANGUAGE i. HISTORY OF THE KURDISH LANGUAGE

    Ludwig Paul

  • AFGHANISTAN iii. Fauna

    K. Habibi

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  • EDUCATION vii. GENERAL SURVEY OF MODERN EDUCATION

    Ahmad Ashraf

    A modern system of national education emerged in Persia in the 1920s and 1930s, after the Pahlavi state had been founded; during this period the influence of the religious establishment was minimized, and the government gained control over schools, expanding enrollment at all levels.

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  • GILĀN xii. Rural Housing

    Christian Bromberger

    There are considerable differences among settlement and building styles according to geographic location. Roughly, one can isolate four geographic areas, each with a distinctive type of rural dwelling: the Gilān plain; the low foothills of the Alborz range; the mountains, covered with forest and capped by alpine meadows; and finally the arid slopes of the Alborz.

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  • FRANCE ii. RELATIONS WITH PERSIA TO 1789

    Jean Calmard

  • Isfahan xvii. ARMENIAN COMMUNITY

    Cross-Reference

    See JULFA.

  • CYRUS ii. Cyrus I

    A. Shapur Shahbazi

  • Great Britain viii. British Archeological Excavations

    St. J. Simpson

  • AMLAŠ ii. Excavations

    R. H. Dyson

    small village in southeastern Gilān which, since 1959, has given its name to a large assortment of archeological artifacts derived from illegal, clandestine excavations in the nearby valleys of the Alborz range.

  • CLOTHING xviii. Clothing of the Baluch in Persia

    Iran Ala Firouz and Mehremonīr Jahānbānī

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  • EGYPT ii. Egyptian influence on Persia in the Pre-Islamic period

    Philip Huyse

  • GEORGIA iii. Iranian elements in Georgian art and archeology

    Gocha R. Tsetskhladze

    Ancient Georgian tribes had close cultural contacts with Near Eastern civilizations from the 18th century BCE. Iranian elements appeared from the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C.E., as they did in the art of the entire Caucasian region.

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  • ARMENIA ii. ARMENIAN WOMEN IN THE LATE 19TH- AND EARLY 20TH-CENTURY PERSIA

    Houri Berberian

  • GĪLĀN ix. Monuments

    Manouchehr Sotoudeh

    Most buildings of historical interest in Gilān have been repeatedly repaired and rebuilt throughout their history. Some have clear records of their history, but most of them lack reliable, primary documents, and one has to rely on a variety of indirect evidence, such as the dates engraved on entrance doors or tombstones to reconstruct part of the past of a given edifice.

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  • EDUCATION iii. THE TRADITIONAL ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

    Jalīl Dūstḵᵛāh and Eqbāl Yaḡmāʾī

    Before the establishment of a modern educational system in Persia in the early 20th century children received their early and intermediate education in the maktab (or maktab-ḵāna, lit., “place of writing”) under the tutelage of an āḵūnd (q.v.), mulla (clerical teacher), or moʿallem (teacher), who worked alone or occasionally with one or two assistants.

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  • Isfahan xiv. MODERN ECONOMY AND INDUSTRIES

    Habib Borjian

    This sub-section is divided into the following parts: (1) Modern Economy of the Province; (2) Industries of Isfahan City.

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  • GREAT BRITAIN iii. British influence in Persia in the 19th century

    Abbas Amanat

  • CLOTHING xiii. Clothing in Afghanistan

    Nancy Hatch Dupree

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  • ŠĀH-NĀMA — EXCURSUS

    Amin Banani

    Essay: “Reflections on Re-reading the Iliad and the Shahnameh” by Amin Banani.

  • EGYPT viii. Egyptian cultural influence in Persia, modern times

    E. Yarshater

  • HAMADĀN iv. URBAN PLAN

    Abdolhamid Eshragh

    Hamadān is the only city in Persia which has a star-shaped urban design, with six boulevards and a network of avenues autonomously branching out in various directions from the circular city center. In 1928, German architects were given the task of designing a plan for the city which would modernize its urban infrastructure and be suitable for motor traffic. The resultant project was eventually implemented in 1933.

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