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DĀMḠĀN, Persian town located on a plain south of the Alborz range, 342 km east of Tehran (54° 20’, 36° 10’ N, 1115-30 m above sea level). It was for a long time the capital city of the small province of Kūmeš (Ar. Qūmes, Gk. Kōmisēnḗ; Lat. Comisene; see, e.g.,…

DĀMḠĀNĪ, nesba of a leading family of jurists of Persian origin, descendants of Abū ʿAbd-Allāh Moḥammad Kabīr (b. Dāmḡān 398/1007, d. Baghdad 478/1085), a well-known exponent of Hanafite law, who served as the chief magistrate (qāżī al-qożāt) of Baghdad. Members of the family were active until the mid-12th century (see…

DĀMḠĀNĪ, nesba of a father and two sons from Dāmḡān who worked as engineers, builders, and stucco carvers in the early 14th century. 1. Ḥosayn b. Abī Ṭāleb Dāmḡānī was responsible for most of the superb foundation inscription in cut plaster that runs around the flanged tomb tower abutting the…

DĀMI-, Avestan word, probably the noun of agency connected with Old Avestan dāman- “stake” (Y. 46.6, 48.7; equivalent to Skt. dāˊman- < Indo-Ir. *dā “to attach”; Insler, p. 267), thus “the one who drives the stake” (Kellens, 1989). It was formerly interpreted (AirWb., pp. 736-37) as a masculine noun in...

DAMIRI, MOḤAMMAD b. Musā b. ʿIsā Kamāl al-Din Ebn Elyās b. ʿAbd-Allāh al-Damiri (b. Cairo, A.H. 745/A.D. 1342, d. Cairo, A.H. 808/ A.D. 1405), a tailor turned Shāfiʿi theologian, is best known for his Ḥayātal-ḥayawān (Animal Life). It is a comprehensive work on all that pertains to animals, which became…

DAMPOḴT(AK), DAMĪ, terms referring to rice cooked in a single pot (cf. polow and čelow; see čelow-kabāb). Dampoḵt or damī may consist of plain rice, in which case it is sometimes called kata, or rice mixed with other ingredients, like sautéed onions, fava beans, mung beans, and seasonings. Plain damī…

DANCE (raqṣ). The term dance has been defined as a “transient mode of expression, performed by the human body moving in space . . . through purpose­fully selected and controlled rhythmic movements . . . ” (Kealiinohomoku, p. 28).

DANDĀN ÖILÏQ (“ivory houses”), ruined city located about 50 km north of the Domoko oasis in the eastern portion of the oasis complex of Khotan, in Chinese Turkestan. Today this area is completely uninhabited, but the ruined buildings and remains of huge trees show that in the 6th-8th centuries the Chira…

DANDĀNQĀN, a small town of medieval Khorasan, in the Qara Qum, or sandy desert, between Marv and Saraḵs, 10 farsaḵs from the former, on which it was administratively dependent (Ebn Ḵorradāḏbeh, pp. 24, 202; Eṣṭaḵrī, p. 284; Ebn Rosta, p. 279; Zhukovskiĭ, pp. 21-22, 38). The site of the settlement…

DĀNEŠ, pen name of MOʿĪN-AL-WEZĀRA MĪRZĀ REŻĀ KHAN ARFAʿ (Arfaʿ-al-Dawla; ca. 1262/1846-1316 Š./1937), also known as Prince Reżā Arfaʿ, diplomat and poet of the late Qajar period. According to his son Ḥasan Arfaʿ (Arfa, p. 1), Reżā’s grandfather Mīrzā Ebrāhīm was the chief min­ister of the khan of Yerevan during…

DĀNEŠ (lit., “knowledge”), title of seven newspa­pers and journals published in Persia and the Indian subcontinent, presented here in chronological order. 1. The first was a biweekly scientific newspaper published by Dār al-fonūn in Tehran (Browne, Press and Poetry, p. 84; Ṣadr Hāšemī, Jarāʾed o majallāt, pp. 265-66; Reżwānī, pp. 68-69;…

DĀNEŠ (Doniš), AḤMAD MAḴDŪM b. Mīr b. Yūsof ḤANAFĪ ṢEDDĪQĪ BOḴĀRĪ (1242-1314/1827-97), known as Aḥmad Kallā and Mohandes (lit., “engineer”), a historian and progressive Tajik writer of Bukhara. The son of the imam of a small mosque in Bukhara, he proved more interested in stories told in the street than…

DĀNEŠ, ḤOSAYN (حسین دانش)(b. Istanbul 1286/1870, d. Ankara 1322 Š./1943), a leading Turco-Persian poet, journalist, and scholar. Dāneš, the son of Moḥammad-Hāšem Eṣfahānī, a Persian merchant who had settled in Turkey in about 1850, learned Persian at home while attending a Turk­ish elementary school; he then attended a French school…