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DIODORUS SICULUS, Greek historian from Agyrium in Sicily, hence called Siculus (the Sicilian). He came to Rome in the middle of the first century B.C.E. and there wrote his Bibliotheca Historica, a universal history in forty books (only 1-5, largely legendary early history, and 11-20, covering 480-301 B.C.E., survive), from…

DIODOTUS, the satrap of Bactria-Sogdiana, who revolted against his Seleucid soverign Antiochus II (q.v.) and proclaimed himself king, thus laying the foundation of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom. The date of his revolt has been a subject of much debate. It has been placed between 256 and 239 B.C., the majority of…

DIOGENES LAERTIUS, author of a biographically arranged history of Greek philosophy in ten books that also deals with the Persian Magi, especially in the first book on the origins of philosophy. Of his life nothing is recorded, but according to the internal evidence in his work he must have lived…

DIONYSIUS (Gk. Dionýsios) of Miletus, Greek historiographer, who may have lived in the 5th century B.C.E. and is said to have written a book about Persian history after the death of Darius I (cf. Suda, s.v., where five books of Events after Darius and Persiká, written in the Ionian dialect,…

DĪRAKVAND, Lor tribe belonging to the Bālā Garīva group and inhabiting a mountainous area between Ḵorramābād and Dezfūl in the Pīš-Kūh region of Lorestān. According to Albert Houtum-Schindler (p. 86), the Dīrakvand comprised about 2,000 families in 1294/1877; Arnold Wilson (p. 26), reported about 3,000 families in 1330/1912 and Henry Field…

DĪRGHANAKHA-SŪTRA, a Buddhist text in which the Buddha expounds the merits of observing the eight commandments to a parivrājaka named Dīrghanakha. It was translated into Chinese by I-tsing early in the 8th century (Taishō Tripiṭaka XIV, no. 584) and the complete Sogdian version translated from the Chinese is extant. Its…

DIRHAM (< Gk. drakhmē´ “drachma”; Mid. Pers. drahm, Pers. derham), a unit of silver coinage and of weight. i. In Pre-Islamic Iran ii. In the Islamic Period   i. IN PRE-ISLAMIC IRAN The dirham retained a stable value of about 4 g throughout the entire pre-Islamic period. The tetradrachm, or...

DĪV (demon, monster, fiend), often confused with ḡūl (orge, ghoul) and jinn in both folk and literary traditions (Massé, Croyances, pp. 352-53; Qazvīnī, pp. 383-95), expresses not only the idea of “demon,” but also that of “ogre,” “giant,” and even “Satan.” The translators of Ṭabarī’s commentary render the Arabic eblīs,…

DĪVSOLṬĀN, title of ʿALĪ BEG RŪMLŪ, a qezelbāš officer first mentioned at the battle of Šarūr (907/1501), in which the Safavid Esmāʿīl I defeated the Āq Qoyūnlū prince Alvand (Jahāngošā-ye Ḵāqān, p. 138). Dīv Solṭān was present at the decisive battle of Marv (916/1510), which enabled Esmāʿīl to recover Khorasan from…

DĪVĀL-E ḴODĀYDĀD (31°15’-31°16’ N, 62°06’-62°09’ E), an extensive area of historic remains in the center of an ancient canal system fed by the rivers Helmand and Ḵāšrūd. It is located between the eastern border of the Hāmūn-e Aškīnʿām and the lower Ḵāšrūd, about 45 km to the northeast of Zaranj…

DĪVĀN, archive, register, chancery, government office; also, collected works, especially of a poet. i. The term. ii. Government office. iii. Collected works of a poet.     i. THE TERM Dīvān is a Persian loan-word in Arabic and was borrowed also at an earlier date into Armenian. It is attested…

DĪVĀNANAQQĀŠ, 15th-century painter whose work is known primarily from single-page paintings preserved in the Topkapı Sarayı library, Istanbul. His name is inscribed on five pages now mounted in a moraqqaʿ (album; ms. no. H.2160), which contains paintings and calligraphy of various dates, including many linked to Sultan Yaʿqūb (883-96/1478-90) or…

Divāna šo title Divāna šo genre/topic Ghazal language Persian performer Davlatmand Kholov, voice and dotār Abd-ol-Sattar Abdollahev, tablak instruments voice, dotār, tablak composer   author/poet Jalāl-al-Din Rumi first line of poem Hilat rahā kon ‘āšeqā recorded by   place of recording   date of recording   duration 5:00 source Music…