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HAMADĀN vi. HISTORY, ISLAMIC PERIOD Hamadān was captured by the Arabs after their victory at the battle of Nehāvand, which took place in 19/640, or 21/642 (Ṭabari, I, p. 2647; Ṭabari, tr. XIV, p. 17), or 23/643 (Balāḏori, Fotuhá, p. 309). The date varies according to different sources (see further…

HAMADĀN vii. MONUMENTS The city of Hamadān, besides its pre-Islamic remains, comprises some important monuments belonging to the Islamic period. Pre-Islamic remains of Hamadān are located at three different sites: Tappa-ye Hegmatāna, the Šir-e Sangi area, and the Achaemenid inscriptions of Darius the Great and Xerxes, engraved on the rocks…

HAMADĀN viii. JEWISH COMMUNITY The earliest reference to the Jews in Hamadān is in The Old Testament, according to which a group of Israelites were brought to the Persian plateau by King Shalmaneser of Assyria in around 722 B.C.E. (2 Kings 18.11) and “settled there in the cities of the…

HAMADĀNI,SAYYED ʿALI b. Sayyed Šehāb-al-Din (b. Hamadān, 12 Rajab 714/1314; d. Ḏu’l-ḥejja 786/1384), Sufi author and preacher who undertook a celebrated mission to convert the people of Kashmir to Islam. He is referred to usually as “Mir Sayyed ʿAli,” but was also known by such honorifics as “Amir Kabir,” “ʿAli-e…

HAMADĀNIĀN FACTORIES AND ENDOWMENTS Established by ʿAli Hamadāniān (1907-63) and his brother Ḥosayn Hamadāniān (1909-78), entrepreneurs and industrialists based in Isfahan, these include textile, cement, and sugar factories, which had a decisive impact on industrialization of the city, and the Hamadāniān Foundation, which engages in significant philanthropic activities.  The Hamadāniān…

HAMAN, the chief courtier of King Ahasuerus (Xerxes, Xšayārša; q.v.), according to the story of the Book of Esther in the Hebrew Bible. He is portrayed as the villain of the narrative: He took a dislike to Mordecai, who was at the court of the king but did not pay…

HAMĀRAKARA (*hmāra-kara-, lit. “account-maker”), “bookkeeper,” an Old Iranian title attested in various sources of Achaemenid and later times. It occurs in Babylonian documents in the following spellings: ḫammarakara, ammarkarra/ammari(/u)akal. Wolfram von Soden (p. 44) considered these forms as separate words, the latter having the meaning “Proviantmeister” (see, however, Greenfield, p….

ḤAMĀVAND (from MOḤAMMADVAND), a Kurdish tribe of northeastern Iraq which has been described as “the most celebrated fighting tribe of southern Kurdistan” (Edmonds, pp. 39-40). The Ḥamāvand reportedly moved from the Kermānšāh region in Persia to the Bāz-yān district, between Kerkuk and Solaymāniya, early in the 18th century (Edmonds, p….

ḤAMAYD, an Arab tribe of Ḵuzestān, which claims descent from the large Bani Rabiʿa tribe (Bani Ṭoraf, p. 47). In the early 1900s, it dwelled mostly in the boluk of Ḥamayd, on the left bank of the Kārun river (just south of its juncture with the Āb-e Dez), its territory…

HAMĀZŌR, a Zoroastrian-Persian adjective meaning “of the same strength” (< OP/Av. hama-, AirWb, col. 1773, and OP *zavar-, AirWb, cols 1689-90; Hübschmann, Persische Studien, p. 273). The term occurs only in a formula of greeting: in Irani Zoroastrian usage hamāzōr bēm “Be we one in strength” (Dastūr Shehriyār, p. 305;...

ḤAMD-ALLĀH MOSTAWFI, historian and geographer of the Ilkhanid period (b. Qazvin, ca. 680/1281, d. ca. 744/1344). There is some disagreement over whether his name was Ḥamd or Ḥamd-Allāh (Navāʾi, intro. to Tāriḵ-e gozida, p. yā; Homāyun-Farroḵ refers to him as Ḥomad). His mausoleum still exists in Qazvin. Life. Mostawfi was…