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GĀVBAND, the owner of the oxen (gāv) in the traditional farming system of Persia. The owner of the oxen or other animal power was a major element in the sharecropping arrangement for cultivation of wheat and barley in the arid and semi arid regions of the country. The sharecropping was…

GĀVBĀZĪ, arranged fights between bulls. These now take place only in the Caspian provinces of Gīlān and Mazandarān. In the past, however, they were common throughout Persia and formed part of the entertainment in local festivities along with other games involving pitting animals and creatures of all kinds against each…

GĀW Ī ĒWDĀD (also ēwagdād), the name of the primordial Bovine in Zoroastrian mythology. Although the name gav- aēvō.dātā- appears in two Avestan litanies (Nīāyišn 3.2; Sīh rōzag 2.12) together with måŋha- gaociθra- “the Moon containing the seed of cattle” and gaw- pouru.sarəδā “the Bovine of many species,” the only…

ḠAWṮĪ, MOḤAMMAD, b. Ḥasan b. Mūsā Šaṭṭārī MANDOVĪ, author of Golzār-e-abrār, a Persian hagiographyof Indian saints (b. 11 Rajab 962/2 June, 1554 in Mandu, d. ?). Ḡawṯī received his earliest education from his father, a Sufi and Koran reciter (ḥāfezá) well-versed in religious sciences. His father died when he was…

ḠAYBA (Pers. ḡaybat, lit: absence), term used by the Shiʿites to refer to the occultation of the Hidden Imam. The notion of a concealed savior is not unknown in the Judaeo-Christian apocalyptic literature. In the Similitudes of Enoch, we read of “that Son of Man” who “became the Chosen One;…

ḠĀYER KHAN (d. 617/1220), Turkish general of the Ḵᵛārazmšāh ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn Moḥammad b. Tekeš. The title is supplied by Jovaynī (ed. Qazvīnī, I, p. 60); the form Qāder Khan employed by Jūzjānī (Ṭabaqāt I, 311, II, 103-4, tr. Raverty, pp. 272, 966-67) seems to be a corruption. Jovaynī gives his personal…

GAYḴĀTŪ KHAN, fifth Mongol Il-khan of Persia (690-94/1291-95); his coins also bear the name Īrinjīn Dūrjī (Tibetan Rin-chen rDo-rje “Jewel Diamond”) bestowed upon him by Buddhist lamas. He was the son of the Il-khan Abaqa (q.v.) by Nūqdān Ḵātūn of the Tatar tribe; the date of his birth, which is…

GAYŌMARD, in the Zoroastrian tradition, a primordial giant, the first man from whom mankind descends. In the Avesta, Gayōmard is shown to be the beginning of this world, just as Sōšāns represents the end, and he is often accompanied by the sole-created Ox (gāw ī ēwdād). Moreover, Gayōmard is shown…