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CARIA, Achaemenid satrapy in the area of southwestern Turkey. Caria was under Achaemenid rule first as a part of the satrapy of Sparda (Lydia; 540s-390s B.C.), then as a separate satrapy (390s-30s B.C.) under the Hecatomnid family. The study of Achaemenid Caria offers a cautionary example to those examining less…

ČĀRĪKĀR (also Čahārīkār), the main town of Kōhdāman and the administrative capital of the Afghan province of Parwān, located about 63 km north of Kabul. Throughout history there has been an important urban center at the northern end of the long Kōhdāman depression, though the site has shifted back and…

ČARḴ, a common toponym all over the Iranian world. The following forms are attested in Iran and Afghanistan: Čarḵ-e Bīnal (also known as Čarḵāb), a village about 26 km north of Bālā Morḡāb; Čarḵ-e Falak, a small village in Tabādkān district northeast of Mašhad, a site 5 km east of…

ČARḴ-E ČĀH (lit. “well wheel”), also called čarḵ-āb, dūl-āb (especially the domestic kind), and čarḵ-e dalw, a device for drawing water from a well or river or for removing soil during the excavation of a well. It is a type of windlass, consisting of a hollow horizontal cylinder around which…

ČARKAS (Cherkes), term used in Persian, Arabic, and Turkic for the Circassian people of the northwest Caucasus who call themselves Adygeĭ and speak a language of the Abazgo-Circassian branch of Caucasian (see caucasian languages). In Persian, however, the word is sometimes applied generally to peoples living beyond Darband/Derbent(Taḏkerat al-molūk, tr….

ČARḴĪ, Mawlānā Yaʿqūb b. ʿOṯmān b. Maḥmūd (d. 851/1447), an early shaikh of the Naqšbandī order and author of several works in Persian. Born in the Čarḵ area of the Lōgar district near Ḡazna, he studied first in Herat, where he drew a stipendium from the endowments attached to the…

ČARM (Av. čarəman-, OPers. čarman-, Khot. tcārman-, etc.; see Bailey, Dictionary, p. 140), skin, hide, and leather, which have had a variety of uses in Persia (Wulff, pp. 231-32). The earliest known use of the word čarm in Persian is in the inscription of Darius at Bīsotūn (DB 4.90): “on…

CARMANIA, region east of Fārs province, approximately equivalent to modern Kermān. The Old Persian form (k-r-m-a-n = Kṛmāna- or Karmāna-, rendered as Elamite h.kur-ma-na [DSz 32], h.kur-ma-an [see now Hinz and Koch, pp. 525f. s.v.], cf. Mid. Pers. Krmʾn, NPers. Kermān [q.v.], Ar. Karmān, Kermān) is attested only once in…

CARMATIANS (Ar. Qarāmeṭa; sing. Qarmaṭī), the name given to the adherents of a branch of the Ismaʿili movement during the 3rd/9th century. Originally, the term was evidently applied primarily to those Ismaʿilis who had been converted by Ḥamdān Qarmaṭ b. Ašʿaṯ, the chief leader of the Ismaʿili daʿwa in the…

CARMELITES IN PERSIA. In 1604 Pope Clement VIII, with the support of Sigismund III Vasa of Poland, dispatched a mission of Discalced Carmelite fathers (pādrīān-e [ < Portuguese padre] pā-berehna-ye kūh-e Karmel) to Persia; the embassy represented the culmination of a policy of seeking alliances against the Ottoman empire that...

CARPETS, (qālī; Ar. and Pers. farš), heavy textiles used as coverings for floors, walls, and other large surfaces, as well as for various kinds of furnishing. i. Introductory survey. ii. Raw materials and dyes. iii. Knotted-pile carpets. Techniques and structures. iv. Knotted-pile carpets. Designs, motifs, and patterns. v. Flat-woven carpets. Techniques…

CARPETS i. Introductory Survey The history of Persian carpet manufacture is fraught with unproved hypotheses, rash assumptions, and confident assertions that flout historical evidence. Indeed, scholars hold widely differing opinions on almost every aspect of the production of Persian carpets. As Edward Gibbon said in another connection, “the melancholy duty…

CARPETS ii. Raw Materials And Dyes For centuries Persian carpet weaving has depended primarily on local materials processed by traditional techniques. The introduction of merino wool from Australia was short-lived (Report of the Iran Carpet Company), and, even after synthetic chemical dyes were introduced around the turn of the 14th/20th…