Table of Contents

  • WACKERNAGEL, JACOB

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    (1853-1938), Swiss classicist and scholar of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian studies. His scholarship in the field of Old Indo-Aryan is best reflected in his large-scale Altindische Grammatik, a work of fundamental significance for Indo-Iranian and Iranian studies.

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  • WAKIL-AL-RAʿĀYĀ

    John Perry

    regnal title assumed by Karim Khan Zand (r. 1164-93/1751-79) after he established himself at Shiraz in 1765. It is recorded in variants wakil-al-raʿiya, wakil-e raʿiat, and wakil-al-ḵalāʾeq, all meaning “deputy of the people.”

  • WAKIL-al-RAʿĀYĀ, Ḥāji Shaikh Taqi Irāni

    John R. Perry

    (1868-1939), a prominent merchant and the Majles deputy of Hamadān, who, in October 1906, was the first provincial deputy to take his place in the First Majles (parliament) to be established after the Constitutional Revolution.

  • WALDMAN, Marilyn

    Dick Davis

    (b. Dallas, Texas, April 13th 1943-d. Columbus, Ohio, July 8th, 1996), scholar of Islamic history.

  • WALDSCHMIDT, ERNST

    Multiple Authors

    (1897-1985), Indologist whose research focused on Sanskrit manuscripts in the Turfan collection and co-authored a couple of probing contributions to Manichean Studies.

  • WALDSCHMIDT, ERNST i. Life

    Dagmar Riedel

    In 1924, Waldschmidt was awarded a Ph.D. and joined the curatorial staff of the Museum of Ethnography as assistant to Albert von Le Coq (1860-1930), who had participated in the German Turfan Expeditions between 1903 and 1914.  The Museum sent Waldschmidt from October 1932 until June 1934 on a research trip to Sri Lanka and India.

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  • WALDSCHMIDT, ERNST ii. Research

    Thomas Oberlies

    Since Waldschmidt had a masterly knowledge of Chinese, he was asked to prepare with the Iranian studies scholar Wolfgang Lentz (1900-1986) the edition and translation of a Manichean  hymns scroll which Aurel Stein (1862-1943) had brought from Dunhuang to London.

  • WAQF

    Cross-Reference

    a charitable endowment: article pending.  See  AMLĀK, ḴĀṢṢA.

  • WAR KABUD

    Bruno Overlaet

    an archeological site to the north of Čavār in Ilām Province (Pošt-e kuh, Lorestān). Two hundred and three individual tombs of a large plundered graveyard (more than 1,000 tombs estimated to have been plundered) were excavated in 1965 and 1966. They all date to the Iron Age III (ca. 800/750-600 BCE).

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  • WARŠTMĀNSR NASK

    Cross-Reference

    See SŪDGAR NASK AND WARŠTMĀNSR NASK.

  • WĀṢEFI, ZAYN-AL-DIN MAḤMUD

    Keith Hitchins

    (1485-d. 1551-1566), Persian memoirist, historian, and poet.

  • WAṢF

    A. A. Seyed-Gohrab

    a literary term meaning “description;” but it can carry several other connotations, including “quality,” “attribute,” “characterization,” “distinguishing mark,” and “adjective.”

  • WATER

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀB.

  • WATERMILL

    Cross-Reference

    See  ĀSIĀ.

  • WAṬWĀṬ, RAŠID-AL-DIN

    Natalia Chalisova

    bilingual poet, philologist, and prose writer in Persian and Arabic, as well as a high-ranking official of the Khwarazmian court in the 12th century.

  • WEBLOGS

    Alireza Doostdar

    The vast majority of Iranian bloggers write in Persian, although other languages – chief among them English – are also used.

  • WEIGHTS AND MEASURES i. PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD

    A. D. H. Bivar

    Evidence for ancient standards is provided by examination of weights surviving from antiquity, and from inspection of certain specimens of ingot currency. There are six surviving, well-preserved Achaemenid weights with inscriptions.

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  • WELLHAUSEN, JULIUS

    Ludmila Hanisch

    scholar of Biblical studies, who primarily gained renown as an Old Testament scholar and Semitist.

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  • WERTIME, Theodore

    Roya Arab

    (b. Chambersburg, Pa., 31 August 1919; d. Chambersburg, 8 April 1982), diplomat and scholar, expert on the history of technology in the ancient Middle East.

  • WESTERGAARD, NIELS LUDVIG

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    (1815-1878), Danish orientalist scholar with special interest in Indology.

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