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EMĀMZĀDA ii. Forms, decorations, and other characteristics Introduction. The identity of the people interred in emāmzādas and the exact location where they are entombed are often moot questions, as in most cases there are no historical documents authenticating the claims for these shrines. Nevertheless, the identity of many of them…

EMĀMZĀDA iii. Number, distribution, and important examples Information and statistics regarding the number and distribution of emāmzādas in Persia vary from one source to another. The Department of pious endowments (Sāzmān-e awqāf) estimated in 1352 Š./1973 that there were 1,059 emāmzādas (Kayhān, no. 9111, Ābān 1352 Š.). Šehābī (1945) lists…

EMDĀD-ALLĀH ḤĀJĪ (b. Thana Bhawan, India, 1233/1817, d. Mecca, 1317/1899), spiritual guide and scholar. He belonged to a scholarly family of Fārūqī shaikhs. In 1249/1833 he went to Delhi, where he joined the reformist circle of Moḥammad-Esḥāq Dehlavī (1192-1257/1778-1841; Metcalf, pp. 71-72). At Dehlavī’s urging he rejected his given name,…

ĒMĒDĪ AŠAWAHIŠTĀN, RIVĀYATĪ (Exposition [of Zoroastrian doctrines] by Ēmēd, son of Ašawahišt), a major 10th-century Pahlavi work comprising forty-four questions (pursišn) put by a priest (āsrōn), Ādur Gušnasb, son of Mihr-ātaš, grandson of Ādur Gušnasb, to the saint (hufraward) Ēmēd, son of Ašawahišt, the high priest (mōbedān mōbed) of the…

EMERSON, RALPH WALDO, distinguished American transcendentalist, philosopher, and poet (b. 25 May 1803, Boston, Mass.; d. 27 April 1882, Concord). Only two other major Western authors have contributed as much to the cultivation of Persian poetry as Emerson: Goethe (q.v.) in the early years of the 19th century and Edward…

EMĪN YOMNĪ, MEḤMED (Moḥammad Amīn); b. Solaymānīya in Persia, 1261/1845, d. Istanbul, 28 Šaʿbān 1342/5 April 1924), Turkish poet and man of letters who also wrote in Persian. He was born to one Aḥmad Efendī and received a madrasa education in Solaymānīya. In 1284/1867 he was appointed assistant chief clerk…

EMLĀ BOḴĀRĀʾĪ, MOḤAMMAD b. ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn, Sufi poet of Arab descent, born in 1688 in Sangārak, Afghanistan, died in 1749 in Bukhara. He studied in the Bukhara madrasa and remained in that town until his death. He left a dīvān with ḡazals, qeṭʿas, and robāʿīs. Of the many manuscripts of his…

EMMERICK, RONALD ERIC, (b. Sydney, 9 March 1937; d. Hamburg, 31 August 2001), distinguished Australian scholar of the ancient civilizations and languages of Iran, India, and Tibet (FIGURE 1). He was the only son of Eric Steward Emmerick (1905-67) and Myrtle Caroline Emmerick, née Smith (1908-72). Prompted by his keen…

EMPLOYMENT, economic activity in which one engages and employs his or her time and energy. Before the first general census was carried out in 1956, there were no comprehensive data available on the active population in Persia on a national scale. Since 1956, the data provided by successive censuses (q.v.)…

ʿEMRĀNĪ, the name or most likely the penname (taḵalloṣ) of the Jewish-Persian poet of Isfahan and Kāšān. Together with his 7th-8th/13th-14th century predecessor Šāhīn, he is one of the two most prominent and beloved poets of Judeo-Persian literature. Since Wilhelm Bacher’s pioneering study on Šāhīn and ʿEmrānī in 1907 a…