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ĀXWARRBED, Middle Iranian term for the “Stablemaster, Royal Equerry,” lit. “lord of the manger” (see ĀXWARR), an official in charge of the royal stables and transport. It is attested in the inscription of Šāpūr I on the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt (ŠKZ Parth. 1. 24, the Mid. Pers. is lost): Wrdn ʾhwrpty…

ĀY ḴĀNOM or AÏ KHANUM (Tepe), a local Uzbek name (lit. Lady Moon hill) designating the site of an important Greek colonial city in northern Afghanistan excavated since 1965 by a French mission and which belonged to a powerful hellenistic state born of Alexander’s conquest in Central Asia (329-27 B.C.)….

AY TĪMŪR (or TEYMŪR), MOḤAMMAD, Sarbadār commander and ruler, “the son of a slave” (probably one of the Turkish ḡolāms that Masʿūd, the previous Sarbadār leader, recruited to supplement his bandit and Shiʿite dervish soldiery). Masʿūd left Ay Tīmūr governing Sabzavār when campaigning against Herat (743/1342) and Māzandarān (summer, 745/1344)….

ĀYADANA “place of cult.” The term occurs once in the Old Persian Bīstūn inscription of Darius I (DB 1.63f.): āyadanā tayā Gaumāta haya maguš viyaka adam niyaçārayam “the places of cult which Gaumāta the mage had destroyed, I restored.” The āyadanas can hardly have been temples, since we know from…

AYĀDGĀR Ī JĀMĀSPĪG “Memorial of Jāmāsp,” a short but important Zoroastrian work in Middle Persian, also known as the Jāmāspī and Jāmāsp-nāma. Fragments from a damaged manuscript survive in Pahlavi script, but the complete text exists only in Pāzand (i.e., Middle Persian written in Avestan script), with many inaccuracies. There…

AYĀDGĀR Ī WUZURGMIHR, a popular-religious andarz composition in Pahlavi, attributed to one of the best-known sages of the Sasanian period, Wuzurgmihr (Bozorgmehr) ī Buxtagān, who was active at the court of Ḵosrow I Anōšīravān (531-79 A.D.). Nothing in the work itself is at variance with such a dating, and the…

AYĀDGĀR Ī ZARĒRĀN “Memorial of Zarēr,” a short Pahlavi text which is the only surviving specimen in that language of ancient Iranian epic poetry. It is preserved in a unique manuscript, written in A.D. 1322. The chief editions are those of J. M. Jamasp-Asana, The Pahlavi Texts Contained in the…

AYĀDĪ-E AMR ALLĀH, “Hands of the Cause of God” (sing. also ayādī, normally preceded by the reverential term ḥażrat), term used in Bahaʾism to designate the highest rank of the appointed religious hierarchy. In early Babism, an attempt was made to establish a hierarchical system based on eighteen groups of…

ĀYANDA, Persian journal which began publication in Tīr, 1304 Š./June-July, 1925, under the editorship of its founder, Maḥmūd Afšār (1893-1983). Its proclaimed purpose (1/1, pp. 3-15) was to strengthen national unity and cohesion, particularly through the promotion of the Persian language and public education throughout the country. Among its contributors…

ĀYANDAGĀN, a daily morning newspaper that first appeared in Tehran on 16 December, 1967. Ḥosayn Aharī, Masʿūd Behnūd, and Dāryūš Homāyūn were listed as the founder, the editor, and the general manager of the paper, respectively, but Āyandagān was in fact the brainchild of Homāyūn and a number of aspiring…

ĀYATALLĀH (Sign of God), an honorific title awarded by popular usage to mojtaheds, particularly the foremost among them, presumably with ultimate reference to Koran 41:53, “We shall show them Our signs on the horizons and in their own selves.” The sense of the title is that the one to whom…

ĀYATĪ, ʿABD-AL-ḤOSAYN (b. 1288/1871; d. 1332 Š./1953), son of Mollā Moḥammad-Taqī Āḵūnd Taftī, Bahāʾi missionary, journalist, author, and teacher. After receiving traditional education in Yazd and in Iraq, he became the leader of the Friday prayer (emām-e Jomʿa) in Yazd until he converted to Bahaʾism. Then for eighteen years he…

AYĀZ, ABU’L-NAJM B. ŪYMĀQ, favorite Turkish slave of the Ghaznavid Sultan Maḥmūd, whose passion for Ayāz is a recurrent theme in Persian poetry, where he is also called Ayās or Āyāz. Information about Ayāz’s life is very scarce, his real personality being hidden behind a veil of tales. As the…

AYBAK (Uzbek “cave dweller”), now called Samangān, capital of Samangān province, associated with several important archeological sites (N. H. Dupree, The Road to Balk; see also AFGHANISTAN VIII: ARCHEOLOGY). Modern ethnic groups in the area include Hazāra, Uzbek, Tājīk, and a smattering of Pashtun. Several doubtful Lower Paleolithic implements of…

AYBAK, QOṬB-AL-DĪN, founder of the Moʿezzī or Slave Dynasty and the first Muslim king of India, also called Ībak (moon chieftain) and Aybak Šel (lit., of the damaged little finger; this interpretation of the name is preferred by Thomas, Pathān Kings of Delhi, p. 32). In the second half of…