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ĀB “water.” i. The concept of water in ancient Iranian culture. ii. Water in Muslim Iranian culture. iii. The hydrology and water resources of the Iranian plateau.

ĀB “water.” i. The concept of water in ancient Iranian culture Zoroastrians, it has been said, could as justly be termed worshippers of water as of fire; and in revering this element they plainly continued an even more ancient tradition. The ancient Iranians respected water as the source of life,…

ĀB “water.” ii. Water in Muslim Iranian culture Water constitutes an essential element in Islamic ritual, as a means of purification, and serves as a common theme in folklore. The Koran, in describing the creation of life, indicates that water is its basis: “And of water We have made everything…

ĀB “water.”  iii. The Hydrology and Water Resources of the Iranian Plateau Introduction. The Iranian plateau is a large area of inland (endoreic) drainage in central Iran bounded to the north by the Alburz mountains, to the west and south by the Zagros mountains, and to the east by a…

ĀB-ANBĀR “water reservoir.” i. History. ii. Construction.  

ĀB-ANBĀR “water reservoir.”  i. History The term āb-anbār is common throughout Iran as a designation for roofed underground water cisterns. In Turkmenistan the term sardāba is found for similar structures (see, e.g., N. S. Grazhdankina, Stroitel’nye materialy sardob Turkmenistana, Izvestiya Akademii Nauk Turkmenistanskoi SSR, 1954, no. 4; G. Pugachenkova, Puti razvitiya…

ĀB-ANBĀR “water reservoir.” ii. Construction Cisterns are built in towns and villages throughout Iran, as well as at crossroads, caravanseries, and hospices (rebāṭ). While town cisterns may be filled with rain water or from qanāts, most āb-anbārs along caravan routes are filled from the spring torrents of nearby streams; during…

ĀB-E DEZ or ĀB-DEZ, a major river of Ḵūzestān, the one most vital to its economy. It rises in the central Zagros mountains about 20 km (all distances are given in a straight line) northeast of Borūǰerd near the village of Čahār Borra. Flowing past Borūǰerd to the west, it…

ĀB-E GARM “warm water”: hot springs and mineral springs in Iran (Figure 10). Springs in general. Springs are defined as places on the earth’s surface where underground water fed by rainfall issues forth either continuously or periodically. Sometimes a spring may also yield juvenile water that comes from deeper regions…

ĀB-E ĪSTĀDA “still water,” a salt lake in the province of Ḡazna in modern Afghanistan, lying 30 km southeast of the present Ḡazna-Kandahār highway and 100 km south of Ḡazna itself, in 32°30 ′ north latitude and 67°55 ′ east longitude and at an altitude of 2,130 m above sea…

ĀB-ḠŪRA (or ĀB-E ḠŪRA), the juice of ḡūra, i.e. unripe grapes. (The term is applied secondarily to other unripe fruit. For examples of the term ḡūra in literature, see Dehḵodā, fasc. no. 74, pp. 361-62.) Such juice, sour and highly acidic, is used in Persian cuisine both for its own…

ĀB-GŪŠT, literally “water-meat” signifying “meat juice” (i.e., āb-e gūšt), a popular Persian meat-based soup or stew, consisting of lamb, some legume, and herb and seasoning. Currently the standard variety of āb-gūšt is made of lamb shank (māhīča), dried chick peas, white beans, and potato, with salt, turmeric, and dried Persian…

ĀB-NĀHĪD “Nāhīd of the Water,” a Zoroastrian woman’s name, first attested in the poem Vis o Rāmīn (sec. 9, line. 5). This poem is held to be a composition of the late Parthian period, but was translated subsequently into Middle Persian, and finally into the classical Persian version which alone…