Explore Iranica

DĀDWAR, DĀDWARĪH (respectively judge, administrator of justice, lawgiver, lit., “bearer of law”; Man. Mid. Pers. dʾywr, Man. Parth. dʾdbʾr, Inscr. Mid. Pers. dʾtwbl, dʾtwbry, Inscr. Parth. dʾtbr, dtbr, OIr. dāta-bara-, Arm. lw. datavor, Aram. lw. dtbr, Talmu­dic dwʾr, dwwr; and legal decision, judgment, e.g., pad dādwarīh andar ēstādan “to sit…

DADYSETH AGIARY. In 1771 c.e. Dadibhai Noshirwanji Dadyseth established an agiary (see ātaškada) with an Ādarān fire for the sake of the soul of his first wife, Kunverbai, in the Fort district of Bombay. The fire was tended with Shenshahi rites by Bhagaria priests from Navsari (Vatcha, I, p. 309). Dadyseth having subsequently…

DADYSETH ĀTAŠ BAHRĀM, the oldest Ātaš Bahrām of Bombay, consecrated and installed according to Kadmi (see dadyseth) rites in the district of Fanaswadi on the day of Sarōš, month of Farvardīn 1153 A.Y./29 September 1783 (Patell, 1888, p. 86; idem, 1906, pp. 15-17). The cost was borne entirely by Dadibhai…

DADYSETH, Dadibhai Noshirwanji (1734-99), a distinguished Parsi philanthropist. His given name was Dadi, -bhai being a courtesy addition, Seth a later honorific. He came to be known popularly as the “Great Dadyseth” (Gujarati Mōtā Dādīšēth; Paymas­ter, p. 6), and his descendants adopted Dadyseth as the family surname. His grandfather, Homji…

DAF(F) AND DĀYERA (daf < Ar. daff, duff “tambourine”; E. W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon III, London, 1867, p. 888; cf. Hebrew ṭōph “timbrel” [Genesis 31:27, Judges 11:34, Psalms 68:25, 150:4]; dāyera, colloquial NPers. dārīa, colloquial Afghan doyra < Ar. dāʾera, “circle”), the frame drum or tambourine. i. In Persia....

DAFTAR (Mid. Pers. daftar (dptl) “register, ac­count book” < Gk. diphthéra “(prepared) hide, piece of leather, especially as a writing material”), an administrative office, as well as a notebook or booklet, more especially an account book or correspondence regis­ter, used in such an office. In Greek sources the term diphthéra...

DAFTAR-E ASNĀD-E RASMĪ (Registry of of­ficial documents), a government department where documents and records of transactions, contracts, marriages, divorces, and the like are kept and signa­tures verified. They are also known as maḥżar because before the modern period the religious court maḥżar-­e ḥākem-e šaṛʿ was responsible for recording such transactions….

DAFTAR-ḴĀNA-YE HOMĀYŪN (royal sec­retariat), a Safavid administrative unit headed by the daftardār, or chief secretary. The earliest known mention of the daftar-ḵāna (secretariat) is dated to the 14th century: Moḥammad Naḵjavānī devoted a chap­ter of his Dastūr al-kāteb to daftar-dārī-e mamālek (state record keeping). He credited Ṣāḥeb-(e) Dīvān Ḵᵛāja Šams-al-Dīn…

DĀḠ (Av. daxša-, Bal. daḵta), brand, a mark made by touching the body of an animal or human being with a heated iron implement or, by extension, a lasting mark of any kind (e.g., Hedāyat, s.v.; Nafīsī, s.v.; cf. Jorfādaqānī, p. 9). As an adjective dāḡ means very hot, particularly…

DĀḠESTĀN. i. Cultural relations with Persia. ii. Linguistic influences. i. Cultural Relations with Persia The many-faceted relationship between Dāḡestān (ancient Albania), a region in the eastern Caucasus, and Persia since antiquity has yet to be studied as a whole, though there is considerable historical, linguis­tic, folkloric, literary, and art-historical evidence…

DĀḠESTĀNĪ, fatḥ-ʿalǰ khan b. Alqāṣ Mīrzā b. Ildirim Khan Šamḵāl, grand vizier (wazīr-e aʿẓam, eʿtemād-al-dawla) under Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn I Ṣafawī (1105-35/1694-1722). In this office he was one of the successors to Mīrzā Moḥammad-Ṭāher Qazvīnī “Waḥīd” (Hedāyat, VIII, p. 505), who retired from office because of his great age and failing…

DAGH BARY, an important part of the colossal Darband defensive complex erected in the eastern Caucasus during the reign of Ḵosrow I (r. 531-79). This defensive system included two principal components. The first was the city of Darband, with its citadel (now called Naryn-kala) and two city walls (northern and…

DAGUERREOTYPE, the first practical photo­graphic process, introduced into Persia in the early 1840s, shortly after its official presentation to the French Académie de Science in Paris in 1839. It was developed by the French painter Jacques Daguerre (1787-1851) and involved exposing, through the lens of a camera, a silver-coated copper…