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ETTEHĀDĪYA, ŠERKAT-E, an exchange company (ṣarrāfī) founded in Tabrīz in 1305/1887 (Jamālzāda, p. 98) by the brothers Ḥājī ʿAlī and Ḥājī Mahdī Kūzakanānī in partnership with two local money changers (ṣarrāfs), Sayed Mortażā and Ḥājī Loṭf-ʿAlī, and other Tabrīzī merchants (Etteḥādīya, 1363 Š./1984, p. 315). A third brother, Hājī Ḥasan,…

EṬṬELĀʿ, title of a Persian newspaper and a magazine. 1. A semi-official government weekly (sometimes biweekly) newspaper published in Tehran from 27 Rabīʿ II 1298 to 24 Šaʿbān 1325/28 March 1881-2 October 1907. Until its last two years it was distributed as a supplement to the government newspaper Īrān. It…

EṬṬELĀʿĀT (lit.information, knowledge), the oldest running Tehran afternoon daily newspaper and the oldest running Persian daily in the world. It was first published on 19 Tīr 1305 Š./10 July 1926 (Plate I) as the organ of Markaz-e Eṭṭelāʿāt-e Īrān, the first Persian news agency, founded in Asad 1302 Š./August 1923…

ETTINGHAUSEN, RICHARD (1906-79), a German-born and educated scholar specializing in the study of Islamic art (Figure 1). His career was largely in the United States, where he held both curatorial and professorial appointments. Although his interests and publications ranged from Spain to India, he made especially important contributions to the…

EUCRATIDES, name of two Greco-Bactrian kings. 1. Eucratides I (r. 170-145 B.C.E.), one of the last and most powerful of the Greco-Bactrian kings. After taking Bactria (q.v.) from the Euthydemid Demetrius II (q.v.), he subjugated the Indo-Greek kingdoms south of the Hindu Kush and seized northwest India as far as…

EUGENIUS (MĀRAWGEN), legendary Christian saint traditionally credited with the introduction of Egyptian monasticism into Mesopotamia and Persia. Part of a Sogdian version of his legend, translated from the Syriac, has been identified by Sundermann (pp. 263-64) in a group of unpublished fragments preserved in the Turfan collection of the Berlin-Brandenburgische…

EUNUCHS,castrated males who were in charge of the concubines of royal harems, served in the daily life of the court, and sometimes carried out administrative functions. The Achaemenid period. ii. The Sasanian period. iii.The Early Islamic period. iv. The Safavid period. v. The Qajar period. i. THE ACHAEMENID PERIOD According…

EUPHRATES, together with the Tigris (2,700 km in total length), historically and geographically constituting one of the most important river-systems in the Near East. Its significance to the history of Persia lies in it being one of the main trade and invasion routes between Persia and the Graeco-Roman world. Along…

EUROPE, PERSIAN IMAGE OF. To Persians, as to other Muslim peoples, Europe was long synonymous with Christendom and was thus closely associated with Rūm, the realm of Byzantium or eastern Christianity. Prior to the Mongol era, information available to Persians about Europe beyond the Byzantine frontier was scanty and consisted…

EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA (b. around 260 or shortly thereafter; d. 30 May 339 [or, less probably, 340]), Greek ecclesiastical historian and theologian. His parentage and exact place of birth are unknown; since no contemporary biography is extant, we are largely dependent on the evidence of his own writings for information…

EUSTATHIUS, ACTS OF, Christian martyrological text, of which versions survive in many languages, including Greek, Latin, Syriac, and Armenian. Several fragments of the manuscript C2 (preserved in Berlin, in the Turfan collection of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Orientabteilung, and in the Museum für Indische Kunst) have been identified…

EUTHYDEMUS, name of two Greek kings of Bactria. Euthydemus I (ca. 230-200 B.C.E.), considered the real founder of the Greco-Bactrian kingdom, was of a family originally from Magnesia-on-the-Meander (apparently not Magnesia-under-Sipylus; Polybius 11.39.1). When Antiochus III (q.v.) invaded Bactria in 208 B.C.E. as part of his attempt to reconquer the…

EUTROPIUS, Roman administrator and historian, probably from Bordeaux, who accompanied the emperor Julian the Apostate on his ill-fated Persian expedition in 363. He later rose to the rank of praefectus praetorio (Illyrici) under Gratian and Theodosius (380-81) and was consul (posterior) with Valentinian II in 387 despite the fact that…

EUTYCHIUS of Alexandria (Saʿīd b. Beṭrīq), Christian physician and historian whose Annales (written in Arabic and called Ketāb al-tārīḵ al-majmūʿ ʿalā’l-taḥqīq wa’l-taṣdīq or Naẓm al-jawhar) is a rich repository of much otherwise unobtainable information about the history of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, especially in the periods of Persian occupation in…