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ḠAFFĀRĪ, MOḤAMMAD-EBRĀHĪM Khan Moʿāwen-al-Dawla, Qajar diplomat and minister during the reigns of the last four Qajar kings (b. 1276/1859-60, d. Ṣafar 1337/November-December 1918; Figure 1). He was the son of Farroḵ Khan Amīn-al-Dawla (q.v.), a high-ranking Qajar official. He spent his early years in the inner circle of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah’s…

ḠAFFĀRĪ, NEẒĀM-AL-DĪN Mohandes-al-Mamālek, Qajar minister and engineer (b. in Borzābād, a village near Kāšān, 10 Šaʿbān 1260/24 August 1844; d. Tehran, 15 Jomādā II 1333/30 April 1915; FIGURE 1). At the age of fifteen, he was among the forty-two students sent by the government to France to continue their education…

GAFUROV, BOBODZHAN GAFUROVICH (b. 1908; d. 1977; Figure 1), Tajik statesman, academician, and historian. Gafurov was born in the Ispisar township near Ḵojand, Tajikistan, and studied law in Samarkand. From 1930 on, Gafurov worked as a government official in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, at the same time pursuing his interest in journalism….

GĀH, a Middle Persian, Parthian, and New Persian word meaning either “place” or “time.” i. Place. ii. Time.   i. PLACE In the sense of place, the word derives from Indo-Iranian √gā-, IE. √gwā- (go; Air Wb., col. 517; Mayrhofer, Wörterbuch I, p. 432). The attested Old Iranian forms are…

GĀHAMBĀR. See GĀHĀNBĀR.

GĀHĀNBĀR, Middle Persian name for the feasts held at the end of each of the six seasons of the Zoroastrian year. In the Avesta, seasons and feasts are both called yāirya ratavō (yearly times; Air Wb., cols. 1497-98, s.v. ratu-), and the term rad was still used in this sense…

GAHĪZ, weekly newspaper published in Kabul from 6 Dalw 1347/27 January 1968 to 10 Ṯawr 1352/30 April 1973, owned, edited, and published by Menhāj-al-Dīn Gahīz (1922-73), who was apparently assassinated by Soviet agents (Moḥammad-Esḥāq, pp. 20-21). After a short interval, its publication was resumed by the publisher’s son for only…

GAIL, MARZIEH (b. near Boston, Mass., 1 April 1908; d. San Francisco, 16 October 1993; Figure 1), Persian-American Bahaʾi author, essayist, and translator.  She was the second child of ʿAliqoli (Ali-Kuli) Khan Nabil-al-Dawla, the Iranian consul in Washington, and Florence Breed of Boston; their marriage was the first Persian-American marital…

GALBANUM (Pers. bārīja, bārzad), a slightly bitter odorous gum resin obtained from several Asian umbelliferous plants (especially the genera Ferula L. and Dorema Don), for which numerous medicinal uses have been recorded. History. Galbanum, sometimes confused with similar resins, has been known and used since ancient times. The etymology of…

ḠĀLEB DADA, MOḤAMMAD ASʿAD (Mehmed Esad Galib Dede) also known as Shaikh Ḡāleb (Şeyh Galib), poet in Turkish and Persian (b. Istanbul, 1171/1757; d. Galata, 26 Rajab 1213/3 January 1799). His father, Moṣṭafā Rašīd Efendi, was a poet, scholar, and member of the Mawlawī order with Malāmatī tendencies. Very little…

ḠĀLEB, Mīrzā ASAD-ALLĀH Khan, one of the greatest poets of Muslim India who wrote poems in both Persian and Urdu (b. Agra, 8 Rajab 1212/27 December 1797; d. Delhi, 2 Ḏu’l-qaʿda 1285/15 February 1869). According to a reference in one of his poems, he was of Turanian origin (Kollīyāt I,…