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AʿMĀ, ABU’L-ʿABBĀS SĀʾEB B. FARRŪḴ, 1st-2nd/7th-8th century poet from Azerbaijan who wrote in Arabic. His father must have been a mawlā of the Banū Jaḏīma b. ʿAdī, a relation Sāʾeb inherited. His permanent epithet, Aʿmā, suggests that he was born blind. He spent his life in Mecca, where he grew…

AʿMAŠ, ABŪ MOḤAMMAD SOLAYMĀN B. MEḤRĀN ASADĪ (in some sources, erroneously, Azdī) KĀHELĪ KŪFĪ, 1st-2nd/7th-8th century Shiʿite scholar, traditionist, and Koran reader. He was born between 58/677-78 and 61/680-81 in his father’s native village of Damāvand (Donbāvand) in Ṭabarestān, or in Kūfa, to which the family had moved. Shiʿite biographers…

AʿYĀN AL-ŠĪʿA, a monumental dictionary (56 vols. altogether) of Shiʿite celebrities and learned men compiled by the Shiʿite scholar Sayyed Moḥsen Amīn ʿĀmelī (d. 1952), the spiritual leader of the Imami community in Damascus from 1901 and a member of the Arab Academy of Damascus from 1942. The first volume,…

AʿẒAM KHAN, AMIR MOḤAMMAD, the fifth son of Amir Dōst Moḥammad Khan and the third amir of the Moḥammadzay line, ruler of Afghanistan in 1284/1867-1285/1868. Born at Kabul in 1236/1820 from a daughter of Mollā Ṣādeq ʿAlī, the sardār of the Bangaš tribe, he received a thorough education under his…

ĀΘRAVAN- (Avestan) “priest” (strong stem āθravan-, weak stem aθaurun-), Mid. Pers. āsrōn. Its Vedic counterpart is átharvan- (for the phonetic development of *aθarvan- to āθravan-, cf. Vedic aramati-, but Av. ārmaiti). Attempts have been made to connect the term with Avestan ātar- “fire” (not attested in Vedic); but these have…

AΘURĀ, Achaemenid province. See ASSYRIA.   Search terms:  آشور آشورا ashur aashoor  

ĀΘVIYA, in the Avestan Hōm Yast (Y. 9.7) the second mortal to press the haoma and the father of Θraētaona (Ferīdūn). See ĀBTĪN. Additional bibliography: M. Boyce, Zoroastrianism I, pp. 97ff. M. Mayrhofer, Iranisches Personennamenbuch I/1, Vienna, 1977, p. I/30, no. 75.   Search terms: آتویه   ataviyeh  aatavieyeh  

BAAT , Middle Iranian personal name, borrowed in Armenian as Bat. i. Baat in Iranian sources. ii. Armenian Bat. i. Baat in Iranian Sources Baat is the name of a disciple of Mani mentioned several times in the Coptic “crucifixion narrative,” where it is spelt Baat and (perhaps) Badia (H….

BĀB “door, gate, entrance”: a term of varied application in Shiʿism and related movements. It is applied differently in several sects to a rank in the spiritual hierarchy, either as conceived in transcendent terms or as actually manifested in the religious system on earth. Thus, the Ismaʿili hierarchy of ḥodūd…

BĀB, a title given to certain Sufi shaikhs of Central Asia. It appears to be a localized variant of bābā (father), a much more widely used appellation of Sufi elders, for bāb also is said to have the sense of father (see Borhān-e qāṭeʿ, ed. Moʿīn, I, p. 201). Hojvīrī…

BĀB, SAYYED ʿALĪ MOḤAMMAD ŠĪRĀZĪ (1235/1819-1266/1850), the founder of Babism. Born in Shiraz on 1 Moḥarram 1235/20 October 1819, he belonged to a family of Ḥosaynī sayyeds, most of whom were engaged in mercantile activities in Shiraz and Būšehr. Conflicting accounts indicate that the Bāb’s father, Sayyed Reżā Bazzāz, died…