Table of Contents

  • IBEX, PERSIAN

    Eskandar Firouz, D. T. Potts

    Capra aegagrus, also called Persian Wild Goat, in Persian pāzan. It is regarded as the ancestor of the domestic goat. Formerly it was numerous, found in almost all of Persia’s mountainous areas with rugged cliffs.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • ʿID-E FEṬR

    cross-reference

    See FASTING.

  • ʿID-E ḠADIR

    cross-reference

    See ḠADĪR ḴOMM.

  • ʿID-E MEHREGĀN

    cross-reference

    See MEHREGĀN.

  • ʿID-E NIMA-YE ŠAʿBĀN

    Cross-Reference

    See Islam In Iran vii.

  • ʿID-E NOWRUZ

    cross-reference

    See NOWRUZ.

  • ʿID-E QORBĀN

    cross-reference

    See PILGRIMAGE, forthcoming online.

  • IDA

    Inna N. Medvedskaya

    a land and a city, part of Inner Zamua, located in the area of the southwest shore of Lake Urmia, mentioned in Neo-Assyrian sources dating to the 9th century BCE.

  • IḎEH

    Kaveh Ehsani

    town and county in northeast Khuzestan Province. Iḏa is located 20 km east of the Kārun River, in a small oval shaped valley, flanked by part of the Zagros range.

  • IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING

    N. Sims-Williams, D. Testen

    the representation of language by means of “ideograms,” that is, symbols representing “ideas,” rather than (or usually side by side with) symbols which represent sounds. i. Terminology and conventions. ii. Ideographic writing in the Ancient Near East.

  • IGDIR

    Pierre Oberling

    a Turkic tribe in Persia and Anatolia. It was one of the 24 original Oghuz tribes.  Like other tribes that migrated to the Middle East in Saljuqid times, it has become widely scattered.

  • IGNATIUS OF JESUS

    Paola Orsatti

    (Ignazio di Gesù, 1596-1667), an Italian missionary in Persia and a scholar of the Persian language, renowned mainly for his studies on religion and on the customs of the Mandaeans.

  • IHĀM

    N. Chalisova

    literally meaning “making one suppose,” a term applied to a rhetorical figure (badiʿ), a kind of play on words based on a single word with a double meaning.

  • IJEL

    John Woods

    Timurid prince (1394-1415), the fourth son of Mirānšāh b. Timur. Was named by the conqueror after one of his ancestors.

  • IJI, ʿAŻOD-AL-DIN

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿAŻOD-AL-DIN IJI.

  • IL

    Cross-Reference

    “tribe.” For the other Persian terms that also are used and an overview of tribal groups, see ʿAŠĀYER.

  • IL-ARSLĀN

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    Chorasmian king of the line of Anuštegin Ḡarčaʾi (r. 1156-72). He was the son and successor of ʿAlāʾ-Din Atsïz b. Moḥammad, , who had skillfully preserved the autonomy of Chorasmia.

  • IL-KHANIDS

    Multiple Authors

    the Mongol dynasty in Persia and the surrounding countries, from about 1260 until about 1335. The dynasty was founded by Holāgu/Hülegü Khan, the grandson of Čengiz Khan.

  • IL-KHANIDS i. DYNASTIC HISTORY

    REUVEN AMITAI

    The first part of this entry will be a short survey of the reigns of the various Il-khans. The second part will review some of the salient characteristics and institutions of the state they ruled.

  • IL-KHANIDS ii. Architecture

    Sheila S. Blair

    The architecture produced during the period of Il-khanid rule in Persia and Iraq is notable for its mammoth size, soaring height, sparkling color, and ingenious methods of covering space.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • IL-KHANIDS iii. Book Illustration

    Stefano Carboni

    The Il-khanid period (ca. 1260-ca. 1335) is no doubt the historical moment during which the art of painting, in particular in illustrated manuscripts, witnessed a dramatic increase in number, subject matter, artistic output, and patronage. The late 13th century and especially the first quarter of the 14th can be regarded as perhaps the most important formative period in the history of Persian painting, an epoch of great changes.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • IL-KHANIDS iv. Ceramics

    Peter Morgan

    This entry deals with glazed wares and tiles of the so-called “Sultanabad” (Solṭānābād) group, lajvardina (< Pers. lājvard “lapis lazuli”) wares, and luster wares produced in the Il-khanid period. The period extends from the fall of Baghdad in 1258 to the last dated luster tiles made in 1339.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • ILAK-KHANIDS

    Michal Biran

    (or Qara-khanids), the first Muslim Turkic dynasty that ruled in Central Asia from the Tarim basin to the Oxus river, from the mid-late 10th century until the beginning of the 13th.

  • ILĀM

    Multiple Author

    a province, sub-province, and town in western Iran.

  • ILĀM i. GEOGRAPHY

    M. Rezazadeh Shafarudi

    Until the mid-1930s Ilam was known as the Poštkuh of Lorestān as opposed to the Piškuh of Lorestān, which was located in the eastern part of the region. Since the Ṣafavid era Lorestān had been administered under the wālis (governors-general), who came from the chieftains of Lor-e Kuček tribes.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • ILĀM ii. History

    Cross-Reference

    See LORESTĀN ii.

  • ILĀM iii. POPULATION

    Habibollah Zanjani

    According to the first national census of 1956, the present province (ostān) of Ilām used to be a sub-province (šahrestān) of the province of Kermānšāhān.

  • ILĀQ

    Boris A. Litvinsky

    medieval name of an area in what is now Uzbekistan, to the south of Tashkent along the middle reaches of the Syr Darya (Jaxartes) river.

  • ILĀQI, SAYYED ŠARAF-AL-ZAMĀN

    Lutz Richter-Bernburg

    follower of Avicenna and author in medicine, science, and philosophy (d. 1141).

  • ILBĀRS KHAN

    Yuri Bregel

    name of two rulers of Ḵᵛārazm in the 16th and 18th centuries: (1) Ilbārs Khan b. Buräkä (or Bürgä), from the ʿArab-šāhi (q.v.) branch of the Jochids, was the founder of the dynasty which ruled Ḵᵛārazm from 1511 to the end of the 17th century.

  • ILČI

    cross-reference

    See ELČI.

  • ILDEGOZIDS

    cross-reference

    See ATĀBAKĀN-E ĀḎARBĀYJĀN.

  • ILEDONG

    Mauro Maggi

    site in Central Asia of uncertain location, source of a number of Khotanese fragments.

  • ILLUMINATIONISM

    Hossein Ziai

    or Illuminationist philosophy, first introduced in the 12th century as a complete, reconstructed system distinct both from the Peripatetic philosophy  of Avicenna and from theological philosophy.

  • IMĀMIYA

    Cross-reference

    In history and theology, see: SHIʿITE DOCTRINE. In the clergy, see: SHIʿITE DOCTRINE ii. Hierarchy in the Imamiyya. See also: ISMAʿILISM xvii. The imamate in Ismaʿilism.

  • IMAMS IN TWELVER SHIʿA ISLAM

    Cross-Reference

    1st Imam:  see ʿALI B. ABI ṬĀLEB

    2nd Imam: see ḤASAN B. ʿALI B. ABI ṬĀLEB.

    3rd Imam: see ḤOSAYN B. ʿALI B. ABI ṬĀLEB.

    4th Imam: see ʿALI B. AL-ḤOSAYN B. ʿALI B. ABI ṬĀLEB.

    5th Imam: Moḥammad al-Bāqer (forthcoming).

    6th Imam: see JAʿFAR AL-ṢĀDEQ

    7th Imam: Musā al-Kāẓem (forthcoming).

    8th Imam: see ʿALI AL-REŻĀ.

    9th Imam: Mohammad al-Taqiy (forthcoming).

    10th Imam: see ʿALI AL-HĀDI.

    11th Imam: see ʿASKARI, ABU MOḤAMMAD ḤASAN B. ʿALI.

    12th Imam: see MAHDI.

  • IMMORTALS

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    (Gk. athánatoi), name of a corps of 10,000 Persian élite infantry soldiers in Herodotus, in connection with Xerxes’ campaign against Greece in 480–479 BCE.

  • INĀLU

    cross-reference

    See ḴAMSA.

  • ÏNĀNČ ḴĀTUN

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    wife of the Atābeg Jahān-Pahlavān Moḥammad (r. 1175-86), the Eldigüzid (or Ildegizid) ruler in Arrān, most of Azerbaijan, and then Jebāl.

  • INCEST AND INBREEDING

    Geert Jan Van Gelder

    Incest and inbreeding are two different but related aspects of marriage and human reproduction.

  • INDIA

    Multiple Authors

    This series of entries covers Indian history and its relations with Iran.

  • INDIA i. Introduction

    Christopher J. Brunner

    This entry presents a series of survey articles on selected areas of interaction and mutual influence between the two culture areas, including overviews of the enormous body of literature produced in India in the Persian language.

  • INDIA ii. Historical Geography

    Pierfrancesco Callieri

    The geographical borders between the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontinent are well defined by features, such as mountain ranges, which represent the western limits of the Indus River valley.

  • 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.

  • INDIA iv. RELATIONS: SELEUCID, PARTHIAN, SASANIAN PERIODS

    Pierfrancesco Callieri

    Seleucus I (d. 281 BCE) led an expedition to India (Matelli, 1987) ca. 305 B.C.E. It ended, however, with the cession of  territories to a new Indian king, Candragupta Maurya.

  • INDIA v. RELATIONS: MEDIEVAL PERIOD TO THE 13TH CENTURY

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    The first political and military footholds of the Muslims in the subcontinent proper were in Sind, and at Multan in the middle Indus valley, secured in the early 8th century.

  • 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.

  • INDIA vii. RELATIONS: THE AFSHARID AND ZAND PERIODS

    Mansour Bonakdarian

     The invasion of the Persian capital (Isfahan) by Ḡilzai Afghan forces in 1722 and the collapse of Safavid central authority had a marked impact on Indo-Persian relations,

  • INDIA viii. RELATIONS: QAJAR PERIOD, THE 19TH CENTURY

    Mansour Bonakdarian

     By the time of Āqā Moḥammad Khan’s founding of the Qajar dynasty in 1796, Persia’s diplomatic relations with the Mughal empire and other territories in the Indian subcontinent were gradually passing under the supervision of British authorities in India.

  • INDIA ix. RELATIONS: QAJAR PERIOD, EARLY 20TH CENTURY

    Mansour Bonakdarian

    The contributions made by various non-Iranian individuals and groups to the constitutional/ nationalist cause in Persia have long been acknowledged in the historiography of the revolution.

  • INDIA x. RELATIONS: PAHLAVI PERIOD

    Cross-Reference

    Iranian-Indian relations during the Pahlavi period will be discussed in a future online entry.

  • INDIA xi. RELATIONS: ISLAMIC REPUBLIC

    Cross-Reference

    See Supplement.

  • INDIA xii. ISLAMIC DYNASTIES OF

    Cross-Reference

    See under individual dynasties.

  • INDIA xiii. INDO-IRANIAN COMMERCIAL RELATIONS

    Scott C. Levi

    Indo-Persian commercial relations were mediated by merchants originating from India, Persia, Afghanistan, and later Europe. Ethnic minority groups, such as Armenians and Jews, also played an important role in Persia’s international commercial relations.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • INDIA xiv. Persian Literature

    Mario Casari

    The amount of Persian literature composed in the Indian subcontinent up to the 19th century is larger than that produced in Iran proper during the same period.

  • INDIA xv. Persian Correspondence Literature

    cross-reference

    See CORRESPONDENCE iv.

  • INDIA xvi. INDO-PERSIAN HISTORIOGRAPHY

    Stephen F. Dale

    Historical works in Persian began to appear in India in the era of the Delhi Sultanate during the late 13th to 14th centuries.

  • INDIA xvii. PERSIAN PRESS IN

    cross-reference

    See INDIA viii and INDIA ix. See also CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION vi and ḤABL AL-MATIN.

  • INDIA xviii. PERSIAN ELEMENTS IN INDIAN LANGUAGES

    Christopher Shackle

    Some Persian elements are present in most of the modern languages of the subcontinent of South Asia, as a consequence of the prolonged cultivation of Persian associated with pre-modern Indo-Muslim culture.

  • INDIA xix. INDIAN LITERARY INFLUENCES ON PERSIAN LITERATURE

    Cross-Reference

    Iranian-Indian literary influences on Persian literature will be discussed in a future online entry.

  • INDIA xx. PERSIAN INFLUENCES ON INDIAN PAINTING

    Barbara Schmitz

    Between about 1300 and 1600, Persian painting styles had a sustained impact on the Indian art at the Sultanate and Mughal courts as well as on Hindu painting styles. 

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • INDIA xxi. INDIAN INFLUENCES ON PERSIAN PAINTING

    Barbara Schmitz

    During the 17th century, the flow of artistic influences between Persia and India reversed. Paintings and drawings in the developed Mughal style of the first quarter of the century were imported to the courts and bazaars of Isfahan.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • INDIA xxii. PERSIAN INFLUENCE ON INDIAN ARCHITECTURE

    cross-reference

    See DECCAN ii; DELHI SULTANATE ii; GARDEN iii; HYDERABAD ii.

  • INDIA xxiii. INDIAN INFLUENCE ON PERSIAN CINEMA

    cross-reference

    See x, above.

  • INDIA xxiv. PERSIAN CALLIGRAPHY IN

    Cross-Reference

    Forthcoming.

  • INDIA xxv. MUTUAL MYSTICAL INFLUENCES

    cross-reference

    See under SUFISM.

  • INDIA xxvi. MUTUAL MUSICAL INFLUENCES

    cross-reference

      See under MUSIC.

  • INDIA xxvii. MUTUAL SCIENTIFIC INFLUENCES

    cross-reference

    See under SCIENCE.

  • INDIA xxviii. IRANIAN IMMIGRANTS IN INDIA

    Masashi Haneda

    Although emigration from the Iranian plateau to the Indian subcontinent is not a phenomenon specific to any particular period, the trend does seem to have grown after the foundation of Muslim governments on the subcontinent.

  • INDIA xxix. SHIʿITE COMMUNITIES IN

    Cross-Reference

    See CONVERSION iii. TO IMAMI SHI'ISM IN INDIA.

  • INDIA xxx. INDIAN MERCHANTS IN CENTRAL ASIA AND IRAN

    Scott C. Levi

    The Indian merchant diaspora in Central Asia and Persia emerged in the mid-16th century and remained active for over four centuries.

  • INDIA xxxi. INDIAN MERCHANTS IN 19TH-CENTURY AFGHANISTAN

    Shah Mahmoud Hanifi

    Indian communities in Afghanistan performed an array of commercial functions in both the private and state sectors that served to integrate the Afghan economy and link it to surrounding markets in Central and South Asia.

  • INDIA xxxii. PARSI COMMUNITIES

    Cross-Reference

     See PARSI COMMUNITIES i. and PARSI COMMUNITIES ii.

  • INDIA xxxiii. INDO-MUSLIM PHYSICIANS

    Fabrizio Speziale

    Medicine constitutes the scientific field on which the largest corpus of works has been composed in Muslim India.

  • INDIAN OCEAN

    D. T. Potts

    This entry will deal with the role of Indian Ocean in international trade in the following periods:

    i. Pre-Islamic period. ii. Islamic Period. See Supplement.

  • INDIGO

    Carol Bier

    (Pers. nil), the common name of a broad genus, Indigofera, with numerous species. Many tribal groups in Persia have relied on the use of indigo to achieve a stable blue color for the wool of carpets and kilims.

  • INDO-EUROPEAN TELEGRAPH COMPANY

    Michael Rubin

    (IETC), a telegraph company that controlled telegraph wires between Tehran and the Russian border and onward through Russia and Germany to London.

  • INDO-EUROPEAN TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT

    Michael Rubin

    (IETD), a branch of the British Government of India, based in London, which managed a series of telegraph lines in Iran.

  • INDO-GREEK DYNASTY

    Osmund Bopearachchi

    Greco-Bactrian kings who ruled over the region south of the Hindu Kush in the second and first century B.C.E.

  • INDO-IRANIAN FRONTIER LANGUAGES

    Elena Bashir

    This article surveys Indo-Iranian frontier languages the territory of present-day Pakistan, which have been under the cultural and linguistic influence of successive stages of the Persian language since the time of the Achaemenid Empire.

  • INDO-IRANIAN LANGUAGES

    cross-reference

    See IRAN vi. IRANIAN LANGUAGES AND SCRIPTS.

  • INDO-IRANIAN RELIGION

    Gherardo Gnoli

    Indo-Iranian comparative studies enable us to distinguish a fund of religious concepts, beliefs, and practices that are common to ancient Iran and ancient India.

  • INDO-PARTHIAN DYNASTY

    Christine Fröhlich

    While maritime disturbances were known to have driven merchants to use the caravan routes, during the periods of Mughal-Safavid rivalry over Kandahar merchants would temporarily favor the more predictable maritime routes.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • INDO-PERSIAN LITERATURE

    Cross-Reference

    For Indo-Persian poetry and other literature,  see INDIA xiv. Persian Literature.

  • INDO-SCYTHIAN DYNASTY

    R. C. Senior

    from Maues, the first (Indo-)Scythian king of India (ca. 120-85 BCE) to the mid-1st century CE. When precisely Maues arrived in India is uncertain, but the expulsion of the Scythian (Saka/Sai) peoples from Central Asia is referred to in the Han Shu.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • INDRA

    W. W. Malandra

    the name of a minor demon (daēwa) in the Avesta, In sharp contrast to the Indra of the Ṛgveda [RV], the most celebrated god (devá) of the Vedic pantheon.

  • INDUS RIVER

    cross-reference

    See INDIA ii.

  • INDUSTRIALIZATION

    Multiple Authors

    : the foundation and development of modern industries in 20th-century Iran. Although generally characterized as an oil economy, Iran has a relatively rich history of industrialization going back to the early 20th century.

  • INDUSTRIALIZATION i. The Reza Shah Period And Its Aftermath, 1925-53

    Hassan Hakimian

    Archaic and underdeveloped infrastructure as well as a low level of human resources were limiting factors; however, changes after the 1920s, paved the way for the emergence of Iran’s nascent industrial sector from the 1930s onwards.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • INDUSTRIALIZATION ii. The Mohammad Reza Shah Period, 1953-79

    M. Karshenas and H. Hakimian

    Public sector investment in this period started from a very slender base but soon witnessed an annual growth rate of 25 percent in real terms; more than 68 percent of government investment went into economic infrastructure.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • INDUSTRIALIZATION iii. The Post-Revolutionary Period, 1979-2000

    Parvin Alizadeh

    Available evidence indicates that the share of the manufacturing sector in the economy declined after the Revolution; it was around 19-20 percent of non-oil GDP by 1977 but dropped to about 15 percent by 1990. 

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • INDUSTRY, TRADITIONAL

    cross-reference

    See CRAFTS.

  • INFLUENZA

    A. A. Afkhami

    In Persia, the first established evidence of influenza’s visitation dates back to the summer of 1833, when it erupted with great virulence in Tehran.

  • INHERITANCE

    Multiple Authors

    i. Sasanian period. ii. Islamic period.

  • INHERITANCE i. SASANIAN PERIOD

    Maria Macuch

    Our main source on jurisprudence during the Sasanian period is the Lawbook Hazār dādestān “One Thousand Judgements” of the 7th century.

  • INHERITANCE ii. ISLAMIC PERIOD

    Agostino Cilardo

    In the pre-Islamic period, the Arab family was socially and politically composed of males (ʿaṣaba), namely those who were able to fight and defend the common property.

  • INJU

    Cross-Reference

    See ḴĀLEṢA.

  • INJU DYNASTY

    John Limbert

    (ca. 1325-53), one of the minor dynasties that controlled Persia following the collapse of the Il-Khanid state.

  • INOSTRANTSEV, KONSTANTIN ALEXANDROVICH

    Aliy I. Kolesnikov

    (1876-1941), Russian orientalist and historian of culture, best known abroad as the author of Sasanidskie et’udy (Etudes sassanides).

  • INSCRIPTIONS

    cross-reference

    See EPIGRAPHY.