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AFŻAL BEG KHAN QĀQŠĀL, south Indian taḏkera writer. Little is known about his early life or the Indian members of the Turkish clan from which he was descended (see Storey, I/2, p. 849, n. 1). A resident of Awrangābād in the Deccan or mid-southern region of India, he served in…

AFŻAL KHAN, title of MOLLĀ ŠOKRALLĀH ŠĪRĀZĪ, Mughal court official (ca. 978-1048/1570-1639). Born in Shiraz, in his late thirties he went to India, where he eventually attained the position of prime minister (dīvān-e koll) under the Mughal emperor Shah Jahān (r. 1037-68/1628-58); the official court history gives the chronogram for…

AFŻAL KHAN ḴAṬAK (b. 1075/1664-65), chief of the Ḵaṭak tribe, Pashto poet, and author of Tārīḵ-emoraṣṣaʿ. He was the eldest son of Ašraf Khan “Heǰrī” (1044-1105/1635 to 1693-94); in 1083/1672-73 Ašraf succeeded his father Ḵᵛošḥāl Khan in the chieftaincy of the Ḵaṭak tribe, but in 1092/1681 he was betrayed into…

AFŻAL KHAN, AMIR MOḤAMMAD (1220-84/1814-67), governor of Balḵ and for a short time ruler of Afghanistan. The eldest son of the ruler Dōst Moḥammad Khan (Fayż Moḥammad Hazāra, Serāǰ al-tawārīḵ II, p. 251; Y. ʿA. Ḵāfī, Pādešāhān-e motaʾaḵḵer I, p. 212), under his father (whose reign at Kabul began in…

AFŻAL-AL-DĪN KERMĀNĪ, ABŪ ḤĀMED AḤMAD B. ḤĀMED KŪHBONĀNĪ, writer, poet, and physician of Kermān in the 6th and early 7th/12th and early 13th centuries (introduction to M. E. Bāstānī Pārīzī, Salǰūqīān va Ḡozz dar Kermān, Tehran, 1343 Š./1964, p. 57); he is often called Afżal-al-dīn Kāteb (Nāṣer-al-dīn Monšī Kermānī, Semṭ…

AFŻAL-AL-DĪN TORKA, name of three figures from Isfahan. 1. The only thing known about the first is that he was an adherent of Fażlallāh Astarābādī (d. 796/1394), the founder of the Ḥorūfīs (H. Ritter, “Studien zur Geschichte der islamischen Frommigkeit II. Die Anfänge der Ḥurūfīsekte,” Oriens 7, 1954, p. 15)….

AFŻAL-AL-MOLK KERMĀNI, ḠOLĀM-ḤOSAYN (b. Tehran, 20 Moḥarram 1279/23 July 1862; d. Tehran, 23 Moḥarram 1348/1 July 1929), a prominent Iranian historian, bureaucrat, and poet of the late Qajar period. A renowned polymath and accomplished writer, he is best known for his work Afżal al-tawāriḵ chronicling the first half of Moẓaffar-al-Dīn…

ĀḠĀ MOḤAMMAD KHAN QĀJĀR (r. 1203-12/1789-97), founder of the Qajar dynasty (q.v.). He was born about 1155/1742, the eldest son of the chief of the Qavānlū (Qoyunlū) clan of the Qajars of Astarābād, Moḥammad-Ḥasan Khan, whose father, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Khan, had been executed by Ṭahmāsb II (perhaps at the instigation of…

AḠĀČ ERĪ, a tribe of mixed ethnic origin living in eastern Ḵūzestān. The name Aḡāč Erī (“People of the Forest” in Turkic) is very ancient (cf. Rašīd-al-dīn, Jāmeʿ al-tawārīḵ, ed. A. A. Ali-Zade, Moscow, 1965, I/1, p. 35; V. Minorsky, “Äḭnallu/Inallu,” RO 18, 1953, p. 4; Nozhat al-qolūb, p. 81;…

ĀḠĀJĀRĪ, town in Ḵūzestān and district (bakš) in the county (šahrestān) of Behbahān, situated seventy-eight km to the northwest of the city of Behbahān. The name derives from that of the tribe, Aḡāč Erī, that used to winter there. The district is bounded on the north by the Mārūn river,…

ĀḠĀJĪ (or AḠĀJĪ, ĀḠAJĪ, ĀḠĀČĪ), title of a court official in the administrations of the Ghaznavids and Saljuqs; it apparently existed as early as the Samanids, judging by the epithet of the poet Āḡāǰī Boḵārī. The functions of this position are not specifically defined in the historical literature but only…

ĀḠĀJĪ (or ĀḠĀČĪ) BOḴĀRĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ B. ELYĀS, Samanid amir and poet; he served at the courts of Manṣūr b. Nūḥ and Nūḥ b. Manṣūr (350-87/961-97) and is called a contemporary of Daqīqī (ʿAwfī, Lobāb [Tehran], pp. 568, 623). He may have belonged to the Samanid family, a possibility strengthened…