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EḤTĪĀJ, weekly newspaper published in Tabrīz by ʿAlīqolī Khan Tabrīzī, known as Ṣafarov, who had distributedpolitical šab-nāmas (lit. night letters) in 1310/1892. Seven issues of Eḥtīāj appeared between 12 Moḥarram and 1 Rabīʿ I 1316/3 June-20 July 1898. The meaning of its title (Need) alluded to Persia’s dependence on foreign…

EILERS, WILHELM (b. 27 September 1906 in Leipzig; d. 3 July 1989 in Würzburg), German scholar of oriental studies, particularly of Iranian onomastics, lexicography, and dialects (Plate I). Life. The son of a grammar school headmaster, Eilers received a classical education, then studied law at the universities of Freiburg im…

EJĀZA (lit. permission, license, authorization), a term describing a variety of academic certificates ranging in length from a few lines to many fascicles. Giving, receiving, and collecting such certificates grew from the science of Prophetic tradition and became an essential part of Islamic education in nearly all academic fields. Three…

EJMĀʿ (consensus), a technical term in Islamic jurisprudence (oṣūl al-feqh). Opposed to ḵelāf (dissent, disagreement), ejmāʿ is defined by most jurists of the four Sunni schools and by many later jurists of the Twelver and Zaydi Shiʿite schools as the unanimous agreement of authoritative Muslim jurists on a given point…

EJMIATSIN (or Echmiadzin; Arm. Eǰmiacin; Tk. Ūč Kelīsā), currently designation of three separate but interrelated entities: the cathedral and monastic complex which forms the residence of the supreme patriarch and catholicos of all the Armenians, the city in which this complex is located, and the district of which the latter…

EJTEHĀD in Shiʿism Ejtehād is an Arabic verbal noun having the literal sense of exerting effort. Both ejtehād and its derivatives, including the active participle mojtahed, are used in Islamic literature in several distinct senses. Although as a technical legal term it has been variously defined, according to what is…

EJTEMĀʿĪŪN-E ʿĀMMĪŪN (Mojāhed), FERQA-YE (FEAM; lit., Social-Democratic party), an organization founded in 1905 by Persian emigrants in Transcaucasia with the help of local revolutionaries. It played an important role during the Constitutional Revolution of 1324-29/1906-11 (q.v.) by introducing radical ideas and by taking part in the struggle for the restoration…

EKEŁEACʿ, Gk. Akilisēnē, region along the Euphrates in northwest Armenia. Here stood the temple and estate of Anahit at Erēz (see ARZENJĀN). Strabo (11.12.3) describes the site, because of whose fame and prominence the region was known also as Lat. Anaetica, Gk. Anaitis khōra. After Chris-tianization, a necropolis of the…

EKRĀM (Ekrom), MOḤAMMAD b. ʿAbd-al-Salām, known as Dāmollā Ekrāmče (contemporary Tajik: Domullo Ikromča), a Bukharan scholar and madrasa teacher (1847-1925). He was born in Bukhara, where he received a traditional madrasa ecducation. In 1896 he traveled to the Near East, where he acquainted himself with a more favorable intellectual milieu,…

EKRĀMĪ, JALĀL (Jalol Ikromī; 1909-93), considered to be Tajikistan’s most important fiction writer and playwright of the Soviet period. He was born in Bukhara to the family of a judge. He attended Samarkand’s teachers training college and moved to Dushanbe in 1930, where he spent a year in prison during…

EḴŠĪD, Arabo-Persian form of a Sogdian royal title attested in Sogdian script as (ʾ)xšyδ (more anciently and more commonly written by means of the ideogram MLKʾ ) and in Manichean script as (ʾ)xšy(y)δ. The Old Turkish title šad may be a dialectal variant of the Sogdian word, which is almost…

EḴTESĀN, TĀJ-AL-MOLK MOḤAMMAD b. Aḥmad b. Ḥasan ʿAbdūsī Dehlavī (700-52/1300-51), author in Persian and secretary (dabīr) at the courts of the Tughluqid sultans Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Tōḡloq (720-25/1320-25) and his son Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Mo-ḥammad (725-52/1325-51). He joined the royal chancery at an early age and eventually became Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Moḥammad’s private secretary (dabīr-e ḵāṣṣ),…