Explore Iranica

AL-AḠĀNĪ, KETĀB (“The Book of Songs”), the major work of Abu’l-Faraǰ Eṣfahānī (284-356/897-967). Although thirty-six works are attributed to him (see ʿA. Aṣmaʿī, Abu’l-Faraǰ al-Eṣfahanī wa ketāboh al-Aḡānī, Cairo, 1951, pp. 172-75; EI2 I, p. 118), his reputation rests entirely on al-Aḡānī. In its most recent edition (Cairo, 24 vols.,…

Agar ān tork-e Širāzi title Agar ān tork-e Širāzi genre/topic Maqām Rāst – Naṣr-i Uššāq language   performer Abdunazar Hasanov, voice and tanbur instrument Voice and Tanbur composer   author/poet Ḥāfeẓ first line of poem Agar ān tork-e Širāzi be dast ārad del-e mā rā recorded by Jean During place…

AGATHANGELOS (Greek for “messenger of good news”), the supposed author of a History of the Armenians, which describes the conversion of King Trdat of Armenia to Christianity at the beginning of the 4th century A.D. The Armenian version (Aa) of this History dates from the second half of the 5th…

AGATHIAS, Byzantine historian, b. 536 or 537 in Myrina, a small village in Asia Minor, d. about 580. He completed his legal studies in Constantinople, where he practiced the profession of advocate, whence the surname scholasticus. More interested in belles-lettres than in the bar, he at first devoted himself to…

ĀḠKAND, a special kind of pottery, so designated because of a village in southeast Azerbaijan of the same name, where most of it was said to have been found in the 1930s. So-called Āḡkand-ware belongs to the class of lead-glazed earthenware with designs engraved through a white slip in bold,…

ĀḠOŠ VEHĀḎĀN (Āḡoš son of Vehāḏ), king of Gīlān at the time of Kay Ḵosrow, the Kayanid king, and one of the commanders of his armies. Kay Ḵosrow sent four armies to fight Afrāsīāb, the third of which was led by Āḡoš Vehāḏān. Accompanied by Gostahm, son of Nōḏar, Āḡoš…

AGRA, city and district center in the state of Uttar Pradesh in northern India, situated on the west bank of the river Jumna (Yamonā) approximately 125 miles south of Delhi. Capital of Mughal empire during the 16th and 17th centuries, it is today the location of some of the most…

AḠRĒRAṮ (Av. Aγraēraθa), Turanian warrior and brother of Afrāsīāb (in the older and more reliable copies of the Šāh-nāma, including the Florence ms. of 614/1217, the final letter is correctly t; in later mss. it has changed to ṯ, as in the case of Kayōmarṯ and Ṭahmōraṯ). In the Avesta…

AGRICULTURE in Iran. The rural economy, for millennia the economic and social basis for all Persian governments, is characterized by a series of ecological and economic restraints that have hampered its development. While the natural limitations of the country have effects on the extent of agriculturally usable land and the…

ĀHAK “lime,” a solid, white substance consisting essentially of calcium oxide. i. Production. ii. Early use of lime mortars. i. Production Calcium oxide is produced by heating limestone and other forms of calcium carbonate to a temperature of more than 900° C (referred to as lime burning). Thereby carbon dioxide…

ĀHAN, iron, from prehistory to the ethnographic present. Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Ages. Prehistoric peoples first came into contact with metal-bearing ores in the Paleolithic period; from then into the Neolithic period iron ores, particularly hematite (red ocher), were used as pigments (D. Schmandt-Besserat, “Ocher in Prehistory: 3,000,000 Years of…

AHAR, the name of a county (šahrestān) and town in Azerbaijan. Situated between the Aras river on the north and the counties of Tabrīz on the south, Sarāb, Mešgīn and Moḡān on the east and Marand on the west, Ahar is one of the ten counties of eastern Azerbaijan. Except…

AHAR RŪD, the Ahar river. Originating in the mountains of Eškanbar, Sārī Čaman and Qarāǰa-dāḡ, the Ahar river runs from east to west. It passes north of Varzqān and south of Ahar, where a few seasonal streams such as Kīčīk-čāy flow into it before it changes direction to the north…