Explore Iranica

ABŪ MANṢŪR MOḤAMMAD B. ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ B. ʿABDALLĀH B. FARROḴ, a dehqān (landowner) of Ṭūs, official under the Samanids, and patron of a lost prose Šāh-nāma (Šāh-nāma-ye Abū Manṣūrī). When Khorasan was assigned to Abū ʿAlī Čaḡānī, Abū Manṣūr governed Ṭūs as his deputy until 335/946-47. He then joined Abū ʿAlī…

ABŪ MAʿŠAR JAʿFAR B. MOḤAMMAD BALḴĪ, astronomer and astrologer, born in Balḵ on 20 Ṣafar 171/10 August 787. Abū Maʿšar (called Albumasar in Medieval Latin, Apomasar in Byzantine Greek) must have received his early education in that cosmopolitan city and acquired there his strong sense of the intellectual primacy of…

ABŪ MOSLEM MOḤAMMAD B. BAḤR AL-EṢFAHĀNĪ AL-KĀTEB, secretary, official, man of letters, and Muʿtazilite Koran commentator, b. 254/868, probably in Isfahan. Nothing is known about his teachers. He must have come to Baghdad at an early age, for there he visited the house of the poet Boḥtorī, who left Iraq…

ABŪ MOSLEM ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN B. MOSLEM ḴORĀSĀNĪ, prominent leader in the ʿAbbasid cause. He was born either at Marv or in the vicinity of Isfahan ca. 100-01/718-19 or 105-09/723-27. Sources differ regarding his original name and his origin. Some make him a descendant of Gōdarz and of the vizier Bozorgmehr and call…

ABŪ MOṬĪʿ AL-BALḴĪ, AL-ḤAKAM B. ʿABDALLĀH B. SALAMA B. ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN, faqīh, judge, and traditionist, disciple of Abū Ḥanīfa, died 183/799 in Balḵ. Abū Moṭīʿ was a judge for sixteen years in his native Balḵ. He traveled to Baghdad several times and perhaps elsewhere, at least to Medina, Mecca, and Kūfa;…

ABŪ MŪSĀ AŠʿARĪ, ʿABDALLĀH B. QAYS, a Companion of the Prophet and important participant in the troubles which occupied the caliphate of ʿAlī. He was at various times governor of Baṣra and Kūfa and was involved in the early Arab conquests in Persia. In spite of plentiful references to him…

ABŪ MŪSĀ, island in the Persian Gulf. i . Description. ii. Recent history. i. Description Abū Mūsā, situated near 26° north latitude and 55° east longitude, is about two miles long and only a few square miles in area. It rises to a maximum 360 feet in height, consists of…

ABU MUSĀ (Bu Musā), a small island in the eastern Persian Gulf (25°52’N, 55°2’E). Persia considers it a town within the Abu Musā township (šahrestān) of the Hormozgān (q.v.) Province (Nurbaḵš, pp. 308, 314-15). The Shaikhdom of Sharjah of the United Arab Emirates claims it as its own. In November…

ABŪ MŪSĀ ʿĪSĀ B. ṢOBAYḤ (or ṢABĪḤ) AL-MORDĀR, theologian and ascetic, early representative of the Baghdad branch of the Moʿtazela (d. 226/840-41). His surname al-Mordār is frequently transmitted in a corrupt form: Mozdār (Ḥākem al-Jošamī, Šarḥ ʿoyūn al-masāʾel; cf. Qāżī ʿAbd-al-Jabbār, Fażl al-eʿtezāl, ed. F. Sayyed, Tunis, 1974, p. 227,…

ABŪ NAṢR AḤMAD B. ESMĀʿĪL SĀMĀNĪ, called AMĪR-E ŠAHĪD (“the martyred amir”) because of his violent death, Samanid amir in Transoxania and Khorasan (295-301/907-14). Under his father, Esmāʿīl b. Aḥmad (the real founder of Samanid fortunes), he had been for a time governor of the recently conquered province of Gorgān…

ABŪ NAṢR AL-ESMĀʿĪLĪ, an alleged teacher of Abū Ḥāmed Ḡazālī (450-505/1058-1111); it is not possible to identify him. A well-known Abū Naṣr Aḥmad b. Emām Abū Bakr Aḥmad al-Esmāʿīlī taught in Gorgān but died in 405/1014-15 (Sobkī, Ṭabaqāt1 III, p. 37; Ebn ʿAsāker, Tabyīn kaḏeb al-moftarī, Damascus, 1347/1928-29, p. 231)….

ABŪ NAṢR FĀMĪ, ṮEQAT-AL-DĪN ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN B. ʿABD-AL-JABBĀR B. ʿOṮMĀN, 472-546/1079-1151, local historian of Herat in the Saljuq period. The scanty biographical information we possess derives only from Samʿānī [Leiden], fol. 418b) and from Ebn al-ʿEmād (Šaḏarāt al-ḏahab, Cairo, 1350-51/1931-33, IV, p. 140). These authors describe him as pious and modest,…

ABŪ NAṢR HEBATALLĀH FĀRSĪ, QEWĀM-AL-MOLK NEẒĀM-AL-DĪN, official, soldier and poet of the Ghaznavid empire, flourished in the second half of the 5th/11th century during the reigns of the sultans Ebrāhīm b. Masʿūd I and Masʿūd III b. Ebrāhīm. His antecedents and his dates of birth and death are obscure, but…

ABŪ NAṢR MANṢŪR B. ʿALĪ B. ʿERĀQ, mathematician and astronomer, born probably in Gīlān about 349/960. Abū Naṣr presumably belonged to the Banū ʿErāq, who were the Ḵᵛārazmšāhs ruling from Kāṯ until their overthrow by Abū ʿAlī Maʾmūn in 385/995-96. Bīrūnī, who calls him his teacher (Āṯār al-bāqīya, pp. 184-85;…