Table of Contents

• ZABĀN-E ZANĀN

  Nassereddin Parvin

  a newspaper and a magazine published in Isfahan and Tehran, respectively, by Ṣeddiqa Dawlatābādi (1883-1961), a pioneer advocate of women’s rights in Iran (18 July, 1919 to 1 January, 1921, a total of 57 issues).

• ZĀDSPRAM

  Philippe Gignoux

  a 9th-century Zoroastrian scholar and author. He was one of the four sons of Gušn-Jam (or Juwānjam, according to Boyce and Cereti).

• ZĀDUYA

  Touraj Daryaee

  a Persian noble in the 7th century CE who was instrumental in the crowning of Farroḵzād Ḵosrow as Sasanian king.

• ZAEHNER, ROBERT CHARLES

  Carlo Cereti

  (1913-1974), a scholar of Iranian and Indian studies, historian of religions, Professor at Oxford University, British Intelligence officer stationed at the British Embassy in Tehran, and the major planner of the plot leading to the overthrow of Moḥammad Mosaddeq’s government.

• ẒAHIR-AL-DAWLA, EBRĀHIM KHAN

  Mehrnoush Soroush

  (d. Tehran, 1240/1824), military leader and governor of Kermān under Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah Qajar.

• ZĀL

  A. Shapur Shahbazi and Simone Cristoforetti

  legendary prince of Sistān, father of Rostam, and a leading figure in Iranian traditional history. His story is given in the Šāh-nāma.

• ZAMYĀD YAŠT

  Pallan Ichaporia

  Yašt 19, the last in sequence of the great pieces of the Yašt hymn collection of the Younger Avesta.

• ZAND

  Cross-Reference

  Zoroastrian term for the literature written in Middle Persian to translate and explicate the Avestan scriptures. The supplementary explanations, which developed into the exegetical literature that we know from the Sasanian period and which are  preserved in the Middle Persian/Pahlavi texts are known as the Zand, hence the expression “Avesta and Zand” or “Zand-Avesta.”

  See EXEGESIS i. In Zoroastrianism.

• ZAND DYNASTY

  John Perry

  a dynasty that ruled in Persia (excluding Khorasan) from Shiraz, from the time when Nāder Shah’s (r. 1736-47) successors, the Afsharids, failed to recover western Persia until the founding of the Qajar dynasty by Āḡā Moḥammad Khan Qajar (r. 1779-97).

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• ZAND Ī FRAGARD Ī JUD-DĒW-DĀD

  Yaakov Elman and Mahnaz Moazami

  “A Commentary on Chapters of the Vidēvdād”, a sixth-century Zoroastrian text. It has been preserved more or less intact as 240 pages and made up of about 540 sections.

• ZĀR

  Maria Sabaye Moghaddam

  harmful wind (bād) associated with spirit possession beliefs in southern coastal regions of Iran. People believe in the existence of winds that can be either vicious or peaceful, believer (Muslim) or non-believer (infidel).

• ZARANGIANA

  Cross-Reference

  territory around Lake Hāmun and the Helmand river in modern Sistān. See DRANGIANA.

• ZARATHUSTRA

  Cross-Reference

  the name generally known in the West for the prophet of ancient Iran, whose transformation of his inherited religion inaugurated a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Iran up until the triumph of Islam. See ZOROASTER.

• ZARINAIA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  legendary Saka queen during the reign of the likewise legendary Median king Astibaras.

• ZARIRI, ʿAbbās

  Jalil Doostkhah

  (b. Isfahan 1909; d. Isfahan 1971) noted story-teller (naqqāl). Zariri like most other eulogists of his era, was functionally illiterate. He memorized and recited whatever he heard from other storytellers and scroll-writers. However, he became literate towards the end of his life.

• ŻARRĀBI, MOLUK

  Erik Naḵjavāni

  the stage name of Moluk Faršforuš Kāšāni (b. Kāšān, ca 1289 Š./1910; d. Tehran, 1378 Š./1999), Persian singer and actress. Moluk was born into a musically inclined family.

• ZARUDNIĬ, NIKOLAĬ ALEKSEEVICH

  Natalia Ananjeva

  (1859-1919), zoologist and explorer of fauna in Iran. Between 1884 and 1904, he conducted field trips in the Caspian region, the plains of Bukhara, the Khiva (Ḵiva) oasis, and northern and eastern Persia. More than 130 species of animals were named after him.

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• ZĀYANDARUD newspaper

  Nassereddin Parvin

  weekly newspaper published in Isfahan by ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Mo ʿin-al-Eslām Ḵᵛānsāri from 1 RabiʿI 1327 to 22 Ḏu’l-ḥejja 1333 (23 March 1909 to 31 October 1915).

• ZĀYČA

  Enrico G. Raffaelli

  Middle Persian term meaning "birth chart, horoscope."

• ZAYN AL-AḴBĀR

  Cross-Reference

  a history written in 11th century by Gardizi. See GARDIZI. 

• ZAYN-AL-ʿĀBEDIN MARʿAŠI MAUSOLEUM

  SANDRA AUBE

  a tomb-shrine in Sāri, Māzandarān, where Sayyed Yaḥyā Marʿaši is buried.

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• ZAYNAB BEGUM

  Kioumars Ghereghlou

  (d. Qazvin, 1640), the fourth daughter of Shah Ṭahmāsp and one of the most influential princesses in Safavid Iran.

• ZEFRA

  Multiple Authors

  mountainous district and village northeast of Isfahan, best known for its dialect.  This article is divided into two sections: i. The district   ii. The dialect

• ZEFRA i. The District

  Mohammad-Hasan Raja’i Zefra’i and Habib Borjian

  mountainous district and village northeast of Isfahan. Historical documents have little mention of Zefra.  Nevertheless the village is embellished with a fine congregational mosque from the Saljuq era with subsequent renovations; the mosque’s antique gate and pulpit are dated 790/1388 and 791/1389, respectively.

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• ZEǏMAL’, Evegeniǐ Vladislavovich

  Alexander Nikitin

  (1932-1998), Russian numismatist and historian of ancient Iran and Central Asia.

• ZEKRAWAYH B. MEHRAWAYH

  Heinz Halm

  10th-century Ismaʿili missionary in Iraq.

• ẒELLI, REZĀQOLI MIRZĀ

  Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi

  (1906-1945), singer. He had a clear voice with wide range, which his distinct, beautiful yodeling (taḥrir) made especially enchanting. His singing is an example of the Tehran singing school. He died of tuberculosis.

• ZEMESTĀN-E 62

  ʿAli Ferdowsi

  (Winter of 62, 1987), a novel published by the well-known and prolific Persian novelist Esmāʿil Fasih.

• ZENDA BE GUR

  SOHILA SAREMI

  “Zenda be gur” is a first-person narrative featuring the notes of a young writer in his sickbed in Paris; his unfortunate existence; his disgust and despondency; his horrible nightmares; his desire to end his life; his plots for a “successful suicide,” and how he tortures himself throughout in his failure to attain his goal.

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• ZHUKOVSKIĬ, Valentin Alekseevich

  Firuza Abdullaeva

  (1858-1918), one of the most prominent representatives of Russian, namely St. Petersburg, Oriental studies. The scholarly interests of Zhukovskiĭ were extremely wide, covering the whole range of subjects from dialectology and folklore to archeology. His archives contain papers on many different subjects; some of them still await publication.

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• ŻIĀʾ-AL-SALṬANA

  Dominic Parviz Brookshaw

  (1799-1873), Šāh Begom, seventh daughter of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah Qajar (r. 1797-1834), private secretary to him, calligrapher and poet.

• ZIAPOUR, JALIL

  Nojan Medinei

  (1920-1999), painter, art critic, and scholar, who played a pioneering role in the establishment of modern arts in Iran.

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• ZIGGURAT

  Michael Herles

  In Iran, buildings considered ziggurats or high temples can be distinguished from Mesopotamian ziggurats by their means of access.  External flights of steps are always missing from monumental buildings in Iran, yet they are at all times present in Mesopotamia.  In Iran, monumental buildings were accessible by ramps.

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• ZIWIYE

  Oscar White Muscarella

  name of an archeological site in northwestern Iran at which a trove of objects known as the “Ziwiye Treasure” was reputedly found.

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• ZIYARIDS

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (Āl-e Ziār), a minor Islamic dynasty of the Caspian coastlands (931-ca. 1090).  They ruled first in northern Iran, and then in Ṭabarestān and Gorgān.

• ZODIAC

  Antonio Panaino

  The origin and development of the idea of a zodiacal circle have been much debated, but now there is a general consensus that a kind of zodiacal belt must have been defined by Babylonian astronomers as early as 700 BCE. In this period the “path” followed by the planets, sun, and moon was divided into 15 constellations.

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• ẒOHUR-AL-ḤAQQ

  Moojan Momen

  (also called Tāriḵ-e Ẓohur-al-Ḥaqq and Ketāb-e Ẓohur-al-Ḥaqq) the most comprehensive history of the first century of the Bahai faith yet written, compiled in nine volumes by Mirzā Asad-Allāh,

• ẒOHURI TORŠIZI

  Paul E. Losensky

  Mollā Nur-al-Din Moḥammad (d. 1025/1616), Persian poet.

• ZOROASTER

  Multiple Authors

  the name generally known in the West for the prophet of ancient Iran, whose transformation of his inherited religion inaugurated a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Iran up until the triumph of Islam. 

• ZOROASTER i. THE NAME

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  The authentic form of Zoroaster’s name is that attested in his own songs, the Gathas: Old Av. Zaraθuštra-, on which are based regular derivatives like zaraθuštri- “descending from Zoroaster."

• ZOROASTER ii. GENERAL SURVEY

  W. W. Malandra

  “Zoroaster” is the name generally known in the West for the prophet of ancient Iran, whose transformation of his inherited religion inaugurated a movement that eventually became the dominant religion in Iran up until the triumph of Islam.

• ZOROASTER iii. ZOROASTER IN THE AVESTA

  Manfred Hutter

  Zaraθuštra is considered the founder of the Mazdayasnian religion who lived in Eastern Iran during the end of the second millenium BCE.

• ZOROASTER iv. In the Pahlavi Books

  A. V. Williams

  Although Pahlavi was spoken as long ago as the 3rd century BCE, most of the written works that survive were compiled from older Zoroastrian material in the period after the Muslim conquest up to the 10th century CE.

• ZOROASTER v. AS PERCEIVED BY THE GREEKS

  Roger Beck

  The Greek constructions of Zoroaster relate to the historical Zoroaster and to the Zoroaster of the Zoroastrian faith in one respect only. The Greeks knew that Zoroaster was the “prophet,” in the sense of the human founder, of the national Persian religion of their times.

• ZOROASTER vi. AS PERCEIVED IN WESTERN EUROPE

  Michael Stausberg

  There is a continuous tradition of reports about Zoroaster among early and later medieval Christian historians, chroniclers, and annalists. In slightly modified form, this tradition continues through the early modern periods stretching from Humanism to Enlightenment.

• ZOROASTER vii. AS PERCEIVED BY LATER ZOROASTRIANS

  Jenny Rose

  This entry treats the development of the concept and image of Zoroaster among the Zoroastrians of Persia and India after the Islamic conquest (10th century onwards).

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• ZOROASTRIAN RITUALS

  Michael Stausberg

  Ritual has been variously theorized in recent decades.  While the category remains elusive, the formative social importance of ritual is by now generally acknowledged even in Zoroastrian studies.

• ZOROASTRIANISM

  Multiple Authors

  Historical reviews

• ZOROASTRIANISM i. HISTORICAL REVIEW UP TO THE ARAB CONQUEST

  William W. Malandra

  This article presents an overview of the history of Zoroastrianism from its beginnings through the 9th and 10th centuries CE. Details of different periods and specific issues relating to Zoroastrianism are discussed in the relevant separate entries.

• ZOROASTRIANISM ii. Historical Review: from the Arab Conquest to Modern Times

  Jamsheed K. Choksy

  As Zoroastrians in the seventh century began slowly but steadily adopting Islam, the magi attempted to preserve their religion’s beliefs, traditions, and lore by writing them down.

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