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AḤMAD KHATTŪ, also known as Aḥmad MAḠREBĪ, famous medieval Gujarati saint whose name is associated with the foundation of the city of Ahmadabad (b. Delhi, 737/1336; d. Sarkhej, 10 Šawwal 849/9 January 1446). It is said that, born into a noble family, Aḥmad was separated from his parents by a…

AḤMAD B. ʿABDALLĀH ḴOJESTĀNĪ, military commander in 3rd/9th century Khorasan, one of several contenders for authority in the region after the collapse of Taherid rule had left a power vacuum, d. 268/882. He was from Ḵoǰestān, a small town of Bādḡīs (the district northeast of Herat, described by the geographers…

AḤMAD B. ḤASAN MAYMANDĪ, ŠAMS-AL-KOFĀT ABU’L-QĀSEM (d. 424/1032), Ghaznavid vizier, statesman, and foster brother and schoolfellow of Sultan Maḥmūd of Ḡazna (r. 388-421/998-1030). His father was the ʿāmel of Bost under Maḥmūd’s father Seboktegīn before he was crucified on Seboktegīn’s orders, a victim of intrigues. Seboktegīn is reported to have…

AḤMAD MŪSĀ, 8th/14th century painter. Despite the prominence given him in modern scholarly writing, he remains a vague figure. All evidence which can be called “documentary” stems from a single source—the album of Bahrām Mīrzā b. Shah Esmāʿīl now in the Topkapi Saray Library, Istanbul, Hazine 2154. Compiled in 961/1554…

AḤMAD B. MOḤAMMAD NEHĀVANDĪ, 2nd/8th century ʿAbbasid astronomer. The fame of this author is due almost entirely to Ebn Yūnos’s statement (al-Zīǰ, pp. 156-59) that he knew of no observations to determine the mean motion of the sun between the time of Ptolemy and that of the authors of al-Zīǰ…

AḤMAD RODAWLAVĪ, ʿABD-AL-ḤAQQ (d. 837/1434), early Muslim saint of the Ṣāberīya Češtīya (a branch of the Češtī selsela only scantily documented). He was probably born ca. 751/1350 (cf. his disciple ʿAbd-al-Qoddūs Gangōhī, Anwār al-ʿoyūn, lith. ed., Lucknow, 1296/1879, p. 26) in Rudawli, a town in eastern Uttar Pradesh near Jawnpur….

AḤMAD B. MOḤAMMAD ṢĀḠĀNĪ, ABŪ ḤĀMED, one of the many astronomers who worked for the Buyids in Baghdad in the 4th/10th century. Thus Bīrūnī (Taḥdīd al-amāken, ed. P. Bulgakov, Cairo, 1964, p. 100; tr. J. Ali, Beirut, 1967, p. 69; commentary E. S. Kennedy, Beirut, 1973, p. 43; see also…

AḤMAD SERHENDĪ, SHAIKH, outstanding Mughal mystic and prolific writer on Sufi themes. Born in the city of Sirhind in the Panjab in 971/1563-64, he studied religious sciences first with his father, the Sufi Shaikh ʿAbd-al-Aḥad, and later with several other teachers in the city of Sialkot. He also spent some…

AḤMAD SERHENDI, SHAIKH  (b. East Punjab, 14 Šawwāl 971/26 May 1564; d. Serhend, 1034/1624), Indian Sufi known as Mojadded-e alf-e ṯāni, the Renovator of the second millennium (of Islam). He was the fourth son of ʿAbd-al-Aḥad Fāruqi (d. 1007/1598), who traced his descent from the second “rightly-guided” Caliph ʿOmar with epithet al-Fāruq…

AḤMAD SHAH QĀJĀR (1909-1925), the seventh and last ruler of the Qajar dynasty. He was declared shah of Iran on 16 July 1909, the same day his father, Moḥammad-ʿAlī Shah (1906-1909), was deposed. Moḥammad-ʿAlī Shah was considered to have lost his right to the throne by opposing and seeking the…

AḤMAD B. MOḤAMMAD B. ʿABD-AL-ṢAMAD ŠĪRĀZĪ, ḴᵛĀJA ABŪ NAṢR (usually “Aḥmad-e ʿAbd-al-Ṣamad” in Bayhaqī, Ghaznavid official and vizier, d. ca. 434/1043. The nesba “Šīrāzī” indicates a family origin in southwest Persia; and panegyrics to Aḥmad’s son mention descent from the ʿAbbasids. But the family was in the service of the…

AḤMAD SOLṬĀN AFŠĀR, Qizilbāš amir in the Safavid service. He is first mentioned under the orders of Amir Khan Mawṣellū, governor of Herat (Ḥabīb al-sīar [Tehran] IV, p. 403); he was in action against the Timurid prince, Moḥammad Zamān Mīrzā Bāyqarā, who had seized Balḵ in 922/1516 (see Riazul Islam,…

AḤMAD B. MOḤAMMAD TABRĪZĪ, Persian poet (first half of the 8th/14th century), known only as the author of the 18,000 verse Šāhanšāh-nāma dedicated to the il-khan Abū Saʿīd (717-36/1317-35). The epic begins with Noah’s son Japheth (Yāfeṯ), relates the genealogy of the Mongols up to Čengiz Khan, mentions Ögedey, Toluy,…

AḤMAD TAKŪDĀR, third il-khan of Iran (r. 680-83/1282-84), seventh son of Hülegü (Hūlāgū), by Qūtūī Ḵātūn. The year of his birth is not specified by Persian sources, but since Ebn ʿAbd-al-Ẓāher (Tašrīf al-ayyām wa’l-ʿoṣūr fī sīrat al-malek al-Manṣūr, ed. M. Kāmel, Cairo, 1961, p. 271) gives his age at his…