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HAGIOGRAPHIC LITERATURE in Persia and Central Asia. Hagiographic literature may be defined broadly as a biographical genre devoted to individuals enjoying an exclusive religious status as “saints” or “holy men” in the eyes of the authors. There is therefore a considerable overlap with other genres of biography. Since it is…

HAIFA, a port city in northwestern Israel and the site of a number of significant Bahai holy places, administrative buildings, and historical monuments. Bahais consider it their most sacred location after the shrine of Mirzā Ḥosayn-ʿAli Nuri Bahāʾ-Allāh(d. 1892; q.v.), the prophet of the Bahai faith (q.v.), situated across the…

HAIKU, a Japanese poetic form adopted and employed by Iranian poets since the second half of the 20th century. Combining form, content, and language in a meaningful yet compact form, the haiku existed as an independent poetic form in Japan since the 19th century. It has impacted poets the world…

ḤAIM, Moreh Ḥaḵām, eminent Jewish scholar (b. Tehran, 1872; d. Tehran, 1942). Moreh and his younger sister Mandana were the children of Mordechai ben Eliyahu from Shiraz and Rachel (Rāḥel) the daughter of Yādegār from Isfahan. Moreh lost the sight of both eyes at the age of two as the…

ḤAIM, Šemuʾel, generally known as Monsieur Ḥaim or Mister Ḥaim, journalist and Majles deputy (b. Ker-mānšāh, 1891; executed Tehran, Dec. 15, 1931). He studied at the Protestant missionary school in Kermānšāh until 1904, when he moved to the Alliance school founded in that year (see ALLIANCE). He acquired a thorough…

ḤAIM, SOLAYMĀN, outstanding twentieth-century lexicographer (b. Tehran, 1886; d. Tehran, 1970). His father, Ḥaim Esḥāq, was a quilt-maker by profession; both he and Solaymān’s mother, Ḵānom, were born in Shiraz and had migrated to Tehran. Solaymān Ḥaim received his elementary schooling at a traditional primary school (maktab) and then at…

HAJĀR. See ŠARAFKANDI, ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN.

ḤĀJEB, an administrative and then military office in the pre-modern Iranian world. i. In the Medieval Islamic Period. ii. In the Safavid and Qajar Periods.

ḤĀJEB i. IN THE MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC PERIOD The office of ḥājeb, implying military command, appears in the Iranian world with the Samanids, where it probably grew out of the amir’s domestic household, in which the ḥājeb had had duties similar to those of the Umayyad and Abbasid ḥājebs or doorkeepers/chamberlains….

ḤĀJEB ii.IN THE SAFAVID AND QAJAR PERIODS In the Safavid period the ḥājeb, the major domo or master of ceremony, was called the išik-āqāsi-bāši, literally ‘head of the masters of the threshold.’ The name change is explicitly mentioned by Mirzā Beg Jonābādi (p. 730), who for the year 1001/1592-93 claims…

ḤĀJI ĀQĀ, a satirical novella by Ṣādeq Hedāyat, published for the first time in the journal Soḵan in 1945 under the pen name “Hādi Ṣadāqat,” followed by a second edition in 1952. One of Hedāyat’s most popular works in Persia, Ḥāji Āqā lacks a substantial plot, being instead a sardonic…

ḤĀJI BĀBĀ, a satirical and politically critical newspaper, published in Tehran between 12 Mehr 1328 Š./4 October 1949 and 28 Mordād 1332 Š./19 August 1953, in 173 weekly issues. Owing to censorship, Issues 140 to 145 were published under the name Āqā Bābā. The key figure behind the production of…

ḤĀJI BĀBĀ AFŠĀR, son of an officer in the army of the Crown Prince ʿAbbās Mirzā (q.v.) and one of the first Persian students sent to study in Europe. Ḥāji Bābā, together with Moḥammad Kāẓem, the son of the same prince’s court painter, left home in the company of the…