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ḤAMDĀN QARMAṬ b. al-Ašʿaṯ, Ismaʿili dāʿi and founder of the Ismaʿili movement in Iraq. He came from a village in the ṭassuj of Bādaqlā, east of Kufa, and is described as working as a carter when he was converted by the Ismaʿili dāʿi Ḥosayn Ahvāzi sometime between the years 260/873-74…

HAMDARD ISLAMICUS, English-language quarterly for Islamic Studies, founded in Pakistan in 1978. It is published by the Hamdard Foundation of Pakistan (est. 1954), patron and supporter of learned bodies, including the Pakistan Historical Society, whose journal it publishes. The Foundation has also published a large number of monographs and research…

ḤĀMED BAL-ḴEŻR AL-ḴOJANDI, ABU MAḤMUD, mathematician and astronomer of the late 4th/10th century who, according to Heinrich Suter (p. 74, no. 173), died in around 1000 C.E. His nesba suggests that he originated from Ḵojand (Qojand) in Ferḡāna, on the Jaxartes (Syr Darya) river in present-day Tajikistan. He is the…

ḤĀMEDI EṢFAHĀNI (or Ḥāmedi ʿAjam), a poet of Persian origin (b. Isfahan, 843/1439; d. Bursa, ca. 890/1485) at the court of the Ottoman Sultan Moḥammad Fāteḥ (Mehmed the Conquerer). There is no information on his family background. He completed his education in his hometown, and gained recognition as a poet…

HAMĒSTAGĀN, a word of uncertain etymology, used in Pahlavi literature to designate the intermediate stage between paradise and hell (see below). It is related to the Avestan hə̄miiasaite, attested in Yasna 33.1, where, according to Helmut Humbach (I, p. 136, II, p. 93), it means “reckoned together,” in a passage…

HAMGAR, MAJD-AL-DIN B. AḤMAD, known also as Majd-e Hamgar and Ebn-e Hamgar (hamgar means “weaver”), an important poet of the 7th/13th century (b. Yazd, 607/1210, d. Isfahan, 686/1287). According to the Tāriḵ-e gozida, the Jāmeʿ-e mofidi, the Ḥabib al-siar and other sources, his birthplace was Yazd, but he refers to himself…

ḤAMID QALANDAR (d. Delhi, 768/1366), author of Ḵayr al-majāles, the obiter dicta (malfuẓāt) of the Češti shaikh Naṣir-al-Din Maḥmud Čerāḡ-e Dehli (q.v.). Ḥamid’s father, Tāj-al-Din of Kilugarhi, got him admitted at a young age into the circle of the disciples of Shaikh Neẓām-al-Din Awliāʾ, where he shaved his head and…

ḤAMID-AL-DIN KERMĀNI, ABU’L-ḤASAN AḤMAD b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. Moḥammad (d. after 411/1020-21), a prominent Ismaʿili dāʿi (q.v.) and one of the most accomplished Ismaʿili theologians and philosophers of the Fatimid period. As in the case of other prominent dāʿis, who observed strict secrecy in their activities while living in hostile milieus,…

ḤAMIDI ŠIRĀZI, MEHDI, poet, man of letters, literary scholar and critic, translator, journalist, and university professor (b. Shiraz, 14 Ordibe-hešt 1293 Š./4 May 1914; d. Tehran, 23 Tir 1365 Š./14 July 1986; Figure 1). His father, Sayyed Moḥammad-Ḥasan Ṯeqat-al-Eslām, was a member of the first Parliament (Majles) and his mother,…

HAMKALĀM, a Zoroastrian-Persian adjective meaning “of the same word.” It is a hybrid compound of Persian ham “together, of the same” (< Av./OP. hama-, see AirWb., col. 1773; Kent, Old Persian, p. 213) and Arabic kalām “word, speech.” It is a priestly technical term used of fully qualified priests who...

ḤAMMĀM-E WAKĪL (bathhouse of the Wakil), a historic monument in Shiraz built by Karim Khan Zand “the Wakil” (r. 1164-93/1751-79) after 1180/1776 (Nāmi, p. 158; Ḡaffāri, p. 279). It is situated in Meydān-e Šāh to the west of the Wakil’s Mosque (Masjed-e Wakil) and north of a water reservoir (āb-anbār,…

HAMMER-PURGSTALL, JOSEPH FREIHERR von, prolific Austrian Orientalist, among whose many works is the first ever complete translation of the Divān of Ḥāfeẓ into a western language (b. Graz, Austria, 9 June 1774, d. Vienna, 23 November 1856). When in 1791 his father Josef Hammer, a steward of crown domains and…

HĀMUN, DARYĀČA-YE (Lake Hāmun, lit. “lake of the plain, lowland”), also called Hāmun-e Helmand (Av. Haētumant- “provided with banks,” AirWb., cols. 1728-29; Gk. Etymandros, Pauly Wissowa, VI/1, cols. 806-7), a lake in Sistān covering the deepest part of the Sistān depression and the Sistān watershed. i. Geography. ii. In Literature…

HĀMUN i. GEOGRAPHY The Sistān basin is the easternmost endorheic basin in Persia, draining a watershed 350,000 km2, of which 26 percent, comprising especially the areas of the western divide, is located in Persia. The depression itself is almost 500 km long from east to west and approximately 300 km…