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EṢṬAḴR (ESTAḴR, STAḴR), city and district in ancient Persia (Fārs). i. History and Archaeology. ii. As a Zoroastrian Religious Center. i. HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY Eṣṭaḵr is situated in the narrow valley of the Polvār River, between the north flank of the Kūh-e Raḥmat and the cliffs of Naqš-e Rostam. It…

ESTAḴR, a newspaper published in Shiraz once a week from Asad 1297 Š./August 1918 until 1311 Š. /1932 (not 1306 Š. as mentioned in some sources) and again twice a week from 1321 Š./1942 until Esfand 1341 Š/1962. Its content dealt with the news of current events, particularly those of…

EṢṬAḴRĪ, ABŪ ESḤĀQ EBRĀHĪM b. Moḥammad Fāresī Karḵī, 10th century Muslim traveler and geographer and founder of the genre of masālek (lit. “itineraries”) literature. Biographical data are very meager. From his nesbas (attributive names) he appears to have been a native of Eṣṭaḵr in Fārs, but it is not known…

EṢṬAḴRĪ, ABŪ SAʿĪD ḤASAN b. Aḥmad b. Yazīd, Shafiʿite jurisconsult and author (b. 244/858, d. in Baghdad, 328/939). He is usually described as the judge of Qom, but he also became the judge of Sejestān (some of his judicial decisions made there are known) at the invitation of the caliph…

ESTĀLEF, a large Persian-speaking village of the Kōhdāman, 55 km north of Kabul, built on a foothill of the Paḡmān range of the Hindu Kush between 1,875 and 1,950 m above sea-level. It has been suggested that the name of the village derives (with metathesis) from Greek staphilè (bunch of…

EŠTEHĀRD, a town and district (baḵš) in the province of Tehran. The town is 63 km to the southwest of Karaj. The district, crossed by the Tehran-Hamadān and Tehran-Zanjān highways, borders in the north on the central district of Sāvojbolāḡ, in the east on the rural district (dehestān) of Moḥammadābād,…

EŠTEHĀRDĪ, the easternmost of the nine Southern Tati (Tātī) dialects, described by Ehsan Yarshater (1962, 1963, 1969a, 1969b, 1970; cf. also Zhukovskiĭ, some 158 glosses, passim; Sotūda; LeCoq, passim), with which it shares most phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical features. As a group the Southern Tati dialects are part of…

ESTEQLĀL, newspaper published by the constitutionalists who had taken refuge in the Ottoman consulate in Tabrīz during the Russian occupation of the city in 1327/1909. Fifty-four issues were published from 23 Jomādā I 1327 to 16 Jomādā I 1328/12 June 1909-26 May 1910. It was originally a weekly, but after…

ESTEQLĀL-e ĪRĀN, an evening daily published in Tehran from 22 Jomādā I 1328 to 22 Šaʿbān 1329 (31 May 1910-17 August 1911), the last issue being 2/59. It was the organ of the small Unity and Progress party (Ḥezb-e ettefāq o taraqqī) and was published by the party’s leader, the…

ESTEʿĀRA (< Ar. estaʿāra, to borrow), the general term for metaphor. Rhetorical manuals customarily define esteʿāra as “borrowing” a word, expression or concept to apply it in other than its literal (ḥaqīqī) sense. In Arabic esteʿāra was discussed extensively by writers on rhetoric and poetics, literary criticism, exegesis, and logic....

ESTHER AND MORDECHAI, a Jewish shrine in the city of Hamadān, where, according to Judeo-Persian tradition, Esther and Mordechai are buried. This tradition is not supported by the Jews outside of Persia and does not appear in either Babylonian or Jerusalemite Talmuds. The earliest Jewish source on the tombs is…

ESTHER,BOOK OF, a short book of the Old Testament, written in Hebrew. It recounts events supposed to have taken place in the court of an Achaemenian king, called in the Hebrew text Aḥašweroš (the usual English form is Ahasuerus, q.v.), a name which has been plausibly interpreted as a transcription…