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AḤMAD TŪNĪ, Karrāmī theologian who lived about 400/1010. He originated from Tūn in the region of Qohestān and founded a branch of the Karrāmīya which became known under the name of Tūnīya (cf. Šahrastānī, p. 79). We have no information about his specific doctrine. He traced himself back, through his…

AḤMAD YĀDGĀR, 10th/16th century historian of the Afghans in India. The details of his life are not known. The only information he gives about himself is that he was a courtier of the Afghan ruler of Bengal, Dāʾūd Shah Karrānī (980-84/1572-76), who ordered him to write a history of Afghan…

AḤMAD B. ZAYN-AL-ʿĀBEDĪN ʿALAWĪ ʿĀMELĪ, EṢFAHĀNĪ, SAYYED, philosopher and author in Persian and Arabic (d. between 1054/1644 and 1060/1650). He belonged to one of the great Shiʿite families of the region of Jabal ʿĀmel in Syria, from whence many Shiʿite scholars emigrated to Iran at the time of the establishment…

AḤMAD ʿALĪ HĀŠEMĪ SANDĪLAVĪ, Indo-Persian litterateur, b. 1162/1748-49 in Sandila, a town near Lucknow; d. after 1224/1809. He is remembered for his voluminous taḏkera of Persian poets, Maḵzan al-ḡarāʾeb (partial ed., about one-sixth of the whole work, by M. Baqir, Lahore, 1968). He wrote poetry under the pen name Ḵādem,…

AḤMAD, NEẒĀM-AL-DIN b. Neẓām-al-Din Shaikh Maḥmud, vizier and amir under the Timurids (d. 912/1507). Both his maternal uncle, Ḵᵛāja Šams-al-Din Moḥammad b. Ḵᵛāja Sayyedi Aḥmad Širāzi, and his father, Mawlānā Neẓām-al-Din Shaikh Maḥmud, worked in the service of the Timurids. His father had served until his death as the vizier…

AḤMAD-E JĀM, in full ŠEHĀB-AL-DĪN ABŪ NAṢR AḤMAD B. ABU’L-ḤASAN B. AḤMAD B. MOḤAMMAD NĀMAQĪ JĀMĪ, a Conservative Sufi with unreserved loyalty to the Šarīʿa (b. 440/1049 in Nāmaq, near Toršīz, Khorasan; d. 536/1141 in Maʿaddābād on the outskirts of Jām, which today, thanks to his tomb, is called Torbat-e…

AḤMAD-E ḴĀNI (1061-1119/1650-1707), a distinguished Kurdish poet, mystic, scholar, and intellectual who is regarded by some as the founder of Kurdish nationalism. He was born in the region of Hakāri, now in Turkish Kurdistan. He studied in traditional religious schools and in order to further his education traveled in different…

AHMADABAD, the major city of Gujarat state in western India and a former center of Persian culture. It was founded on the left or eastern bank of the Sabarmati river in 813/1411 by Aḥmad Shah I, the third of the Gujarat sultans, after whom the city was named. Since its…

AḤMADĀVAND, a small, sedentary Kurdish tribe of western Iran, inhabiting some five villages in the dehestān of Dorū Farāmān, southeast of Kermānšāh. The Aḥmadāvands supported Karīm Khan Zand and were moved to Fārs by that ruler along with other Kurdish tribes. But they returned to the Kermānšāh area after the…

AHMADNAGAR, a major city and province in the state of Maharashtra in western India, founded about 900/1495 by Malek Aḥmad Neẓām-al-molk, a Bahmanī governor, on the site where he had earlier won a battle against his sovereign’s forces. He liked not only its strategic importance for military campaigns but also…

AḤMADPURĪ, GOL MOḤAMMAD (d. 1243/1827), a Panjabi saint and Češtī hagiographer. He is best known for his taḏkera, Ḏekr al-aṣfīāʾ, which he wrote as a supplement (takmela) to Amīr Ḵord’s Sīar al-awlīāʾ (see Storey, 1/2, pp. 943-44). Gol Moḥammad was born into a family which traced its descent from Maʿrūf…

AḤMADZĪ “descendants of Aḥmad” (sing. Aḥmadzay), a Paṧtō clan and tribal name. Its diverse use is one indicator of the complexity of Paṧtūn tribal structure. There are Aḥmadzī springing from different tribal branches and constituting ethnic groups at various levels (clans, sub-clans, tribal fractions, large families etc.) and tracing their…

AḤRĀR (BANU’L-AḤRĀR), in Arabic literally “the free ones,” a name applied by the Arabs at the time of the Islamic conquests to their Persian foes in Iraq and Iran. In a poem by the Prophet’s older contemporary, Omayya b. Abi’l-Ṣalt al-Ṯaqafī, concerning the Persian conquest of Yemen from the Ethiopians,…