Explore Iranica

DUPREE, LOUIS (b. Greenville, N.C., 23 August 1925; d. Durham, N.C., 21 March 1989; Plate LIV), American anthropologist who specialized in Afghan studies (Plate XLIV. During World War II Dupree, as a teenager, joined the U.S. Merchant Marine, but toward the end of the war he transferred to the 11th…

DURA EUROPOS, ruined city on the right bank of the Euphrates between Antioch and Seleucia on the Tigris, founded in 303 B.C.E. by Nicanor, a general of Seleucus I. It flourished under Parthian rule. The site is in modern Syria, on a plateau protected on the east by a citadel…

DURAND, HENRY MORTIMER (b. Sehore, Bhopal State, India, 14 February 1850, d. Polden, Somerset, England, 8 June 1924), British diplomat and envoy to Tehran at the end of the 19th century. The second son of a British military family, he was educated in England and entered the Indian Civil Service…

DŪRAOŠA-, Avestan word, attested once in the Older Avesta (Y. 32.14), in the Younger Avesta the preferred and exclusive epithet of haoma, the ritual liquid. Although the equivalent term in Sanskrit duróṣa(s)- is attested three times, in only one instance is it connected with the soma. It is therefore not…

DŪRĀSRAW, according to the Pahlavi tradition the name of two legendary personages in the history of Zoroastrianism. The Pahlavi spelling dwlʾ- or dwlyd-slwbˈ is ambiguous (despite Pazand Durāsro) and points to an Avestan original, either *Dūrā- or, more likely, *Dūraēsrauuah-, literally “far-famed” (cf. Av. Dūraēsrūta-). 1. One of the three…

DURIS of Samos (Gk. Doûris), Greek historiographer of the early Hellenistic period (b. ca. 340 B.C.E., d. ca. 270 B.C.E. or at least after 281 B.C.E.). Duris attended the lectures of Theophrastus of Eresus and was said to have been tyrant of his native town, perhaps as heir to his…

DŪRMEŠ (or Dormeš) KHAN b. ʿAbdī Beg TAVĀČĪ ŠĀMLŪ, powerful Qezelbāš amir, brother-in-law and confidant of Shah Esmāʿīl I (907-30/1501-24; ʿĀlamārā-ye ṣafawī, pp. 148-49; Ḥabīb al-sīar, Tehran, IV, pp. 555, 558). In 909/1503 Dūrmeš Khan was appointed governor of Isfahan but remained at court in Tabrīz and sent Mīrzā Shah…

DŪRNEMĀ-YE ĪRĀN, weekly of politics and culture edited and published by the Persian writer, scholar, and filmmaker ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Sepantā (b. Tehran, 1286/1907, d. Isfahan, 1348 Š./1969) in Bombay from 9 Āḏar 1307 Š./30 November 1928 to Farvardīn 1308 Š./March 1929. Sepantā had moved to Bombay in 1306 Š./1927. Dūrnemā-ye Īrān…

DÜRRI EFENDI (Dorrī Afandī), AḤMAD (b. Van, date unknown, d. Istanbul, 1135/1722), Ottoman poet, civil servant, and diplomat who served as ambassador to Tehran and wrote Sefārat-nāma, the first Turkish account of Safavid Persia. Nothing is known of his early life and education; he made his career in Istanbul, rising…

DUSHANBE (Pers. Došanba “Monday”; in Russian known as Dyushambe until 1929, Stalinabad from 1929 to 1961, and Dushanbe after 1961), capital and most populous city of Tajikistan. It is located in the Hisor (Pers. Ḥeṣār, Russian Gissar) valley, at an average altitude of approximately 823 m, on the Dushanbe river…

DŪST-MOḤAMMAD b. Solaymān HERAVĪ (d. probably Qazvīn, shortly after 972/1564), master calligrapher, the only artist whom Shah Ṭahmāsb I (930-84/1524-76) kept with him after having gradually dismissed all the others from his direct service (Bodāq, fol. 111a; Qāżī Aḥmad, p. 99; tr. Minorsky, p. 147). Although Dūst-Moḥammad may have been…

DŪST-MOḤAMMAD MOṢAWWER (also Dūst-e Dīvāna “fool, eccentric,” Dūst-e Moṣawwer; d. India in 1560 or shortly afterward), master painter, not to be confused with the contemporary calligrapher Dūst-Moḥammad b. Solaymān (Ḏ¨okāʾ). It is remotely possible that he was identical with Dūst-Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-Allāh Heravī Qāṭeʿ (Adle, 1993, pp. 235-38; see CUT…

DUTCH-PERSIAN RELATIONS, from the 16th century to the present, encompassing commercial, political, and cultural contacts, including Persian studies in the Netherlands. Until the 16th century the Dutch knew little of Persia and nothing of its language. Franciscus Raphelengius (1539-97), a professor at Leiden University, drew up a short list of…