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DA’TID BAHRANA (with the Persian title Āyanda-ye rowšan “Bright future”), Assyrian bilingual periodical published in Tehran in 1951. Begun on 16 March 1951 as a weekly, in Tehran, by Rabi Issa Benyamin (qv), this was the first Assyrian periodical to be published bilingually in Assyrian neo-Aramaic and Persian. All others,…

DEBRUIN (or de Bruyn), CORNELIS, also known as Corneille Le Brun or Le Bruyn (b. the Hague 1652, d. Utrecht 1726 or 1727), Dutch painter and author of two accounts of his travels in Persia and other eastern lands. From early childhood he showed a keen interest in foreign countries…

DE GOEJE, MICHAİL JAN (b. Dronrijp, Friesland, 18 August 1836, d. Leiden, 17 May 1909), Dutch orientalist and chief editor of Ṭabarī’s world history, Taʾrīḵ al-rosol wa’l-molūk (Annales, 15 vols., Leiden, 1879-1901; repr. Leiden, 1964). He was the second son of a Protestant minister. In 1854 he went to Leiden…

DE MORGAN, Jacques (b. Huisseau-sur-Cosson, near Blois, 3 June 1857, d. Marseilles, 14 June 1924), French archeologist and prehistorian. He came from an exceptionally gifted family, in which cultivation of humane learning was combined with scientific rigor. His father, Eugène, sometimes called “Baron” de Morgan, an engineer specializing in mineral…

DEADSEA SCROLLS, parchment and papyrus scrolls written in Hebrew, mainly of the 1st centuries B.C.E. and C.E., found in caves around Qomrān on the northwest coast of the Dead Sea and considered to represent a sect of Judaism. A number of Iranian elements can be discerned in these documents, particularly…

DEATH among Zoroastrians. At death among Zoroastrians the body is swiftly disposed of (see CORPSE), but rites for the soul are prolonged. They are also complex, partly because, although Zoroastrianism is a salvation faith, offering hope of heaven and threat of hell, it maintains rites that, as Brahmanic parallels show,…

DEBEVOISE, NEILSON CAREL (b. Jersey City, N.J., 8 November 1903; d. Harrisburg, Penn., 10 December 1992), American archeologist and scholar of the history and culture of ancient Mesopotamia and Iran. Despite his distinction as a fine scholar and author of well-known works, the available information about his scholarly and professional…

DECCAN (or Dakhan, Pers. Dakan < Sk. dakshiṇa, “right [hand],” i.e., south), the south-central plateau of India, bounded on the north by the Narbada river, on the west by the Sea of Oman, on the east by the Bay of Bengal, and on the south by the Tungabhadra river. The...

DECORATION, the use of consciously designed patterns to embellish building surfaces and objects for aesthetic effect, one of the most characteristic features of art and architecture in Islamic Persia. Both the quantity and quality of surface patterns attest the esteem they enjoyed among artists and patrons alike. Despite the obvious…

DECORATIONS, honors granted by the Persian government. Although in general Western usage orders are badges reflecting the distinction of belonging to select societies, whereas decorations and medals are awarded in recognition of various types and levels of civil or military achievement or service, in Persia there are no orders in…

DEDEYŪSOF SĪNAČĀK (b. Yenice on the Vardar in Ottoman Māqadūnīā [modern Macedonia] at an indeterminate date, d. Istanbul, 861/1546), Mawlawī Sufi shaikh, poet, and author. He was born to a family of scholars originally from Edirne and educated by his father. He became shaikh of the Mawlawī convent (mawlawī-ḵāna) at…

DEDE ʿOMAR RŪŠANĪ (b. Güzel Ḥeṣār, Aydın province, in western Anatolia, at an indeterminate date; d. Tabrīz, 892/1487), Turkish Sufi who wrote poetry in both Persian and Turkish. His mother belonged to the powerful Aydınoğlu family of western Anatolia, and his nesba (attributive name) is a deliberate play on the…

DĒDMARĪ, ḴᵛĀJA MOḤAMMAD-AʿẒAM b. Ḵayr-al-Zamān Kašmīrī (1103-79/1691-1765), historian, poet, and Sufi of Kashmir. He was born in the Dēdmar quarter of Srinagar, hence his nesba (attributive name) Dēdmarī. From his early years he studied traditional Islamic sciences with renowned scholars at the madrasas of Mollā ʿAbīd and ʿAbd-al-Razzāq in Srinagar….