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HAREM i. IN ANCIENT IRAN There is no evidence for the practice among the early Iranians of taking large numbers of wives or concubines and keeping them in secluded quarters. The Iranian national history ascribes to ancient heroes and kings few children and fewer wives (Geiger, pp. 240-44. On the…

HAREM ii. IN THE QAJAR PERIOD Women played an important role in the life of the Qajar monarchs. Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah and Nāṣer-al-Din Shah, in particular, kept a large harem. Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah’s harem. Though the number of his wives and concubines can not accurately be determined, it was probably over a…

ḪARḪAR, a land and a city at the western border of Media. It was taken several times by the Assyrian kings Shalmanaser III (r. 860-825 B.C.E.) and Adad-nerari III (r. 812-782 B.C.E.). At the beginning of the reign of Sargon II (r. 721-705 B.C.E.), the people of Ḫarḫar ceased to…

ḤARIRA, a very light and diluted farinaceous Persian dish made of fine wheat flour or wheat starch, or with rice flour or rice powder; sugar, oil, saffron, ground pistachios, or almonds may also be added. Because of its lightness, most dictionaries consider ḥarira to be a suitable diet for sick…

HARISA, a cooked dish made from a mixture of grains, usually half-ground wheat and barley, and meat, usually lamb and more recently sometimes beef, which is very similar to ḥalim (q.v.). Dehḵodā comments that “in our times, this dish is made of red meat and wheat and should be cooked…

HARKARN DĀS KANBŌH B. MATHURĀ DĀS MULTĀNI, the first Hindu author of a Persian work, namely Eršād al-ṭālebin, more commonly known as Enšāʾ-e Harkarn, a collection of documents and model letters written by him as a secretary. The details of his early career are not known. He was attached for…

HARKI (Herki), a Kurdish tribe of western Azerbaijan, eastern Anatolia, and northeastern Iraq. As of 1963, the Harki of Persia were still predominantly nomadic and dwelled near the borders of Turkey and Iraq, west and southwest of Urmia. Their summer quarters were on the highlands of the dehestāns of Targavar…

HARP (čang, q.v.),a string instrument which flourished in Persia in many forms from its introduction, about 3000 B.C.E., until the 17th century. The original type was the arched harp as seen at Čoḡā Miš and on later third millennium seals (Figure 1a-c). Around 1900 B.C.E. they were replaced by angular…

HARPAGOS, a Median magnate and the trusted advisor of the last Median king Astyages (q.v.). In 550 B.C.E, during the war between the Medes and Persians, Harpagos, who had already made common cause with a number of Median nobles to support Cyrus II, defected to his side (q.v.; Herodotus 1.108-13,…

ḤARRĀN, an ancient town of Upper Mesopotamia, now located in the modern Turkish province of Diyarbakir approximately 40 km/25 miles south-southeast of Edessa, or Urfa. It is the Greek “Hai Kharrai,” and Roman “Carrhae,” but has a more ancient history as the “Ḫarrānu” of Assyrian texts; in the Old Testament…

HARRIMAN MISSION, the mission of American diplomat W. Averell Harriman, who was sent to Tehran in July 1951 to mediate between Persia and Great Britain in the wake of the Persian nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. American fears of the consequences of deadlock in negotiations and of the possibility…

HARTNER, WILLY, Professor of the History of Sciences specializing in astronomy (b. Ennigerloh Westfalen (Germany), 22 January 1905, d. Bad Homburg, 16 May 1981). Hartner studied astronomy at Frankfurt University under Martin Brendel, who introduced him to classical and modern celestial mechanics. Already in 1928 he published an important contribution…

HĀRUN B. ʿALI B. HĀRUN B. YAḤYĀ B. ABI MANṢUR AL-MONAJJEM, astronomer, astrologer, and Hadith expert, born ca. 915 C.E., died 29 Ḏu’l-ḥejja 376/1 May 987 in Baghdad. Hārun’s family traced its ancestry back to Abu Manṣur, whose Persian name was Ābān Gošnasp, the son of Warid, the son of…

HĀRUN AL-RAŠID, HĀRUN B. MOḤAMMAD B. ʿABD-ALLĀH (d. Ṭus, 3 Jomādā II 193/24 March 809), the fifth caliph of the ʿAbbasid dynasty (r. 170-93/786-809), the third son of the caliph al-Mahdi and second son borne him by the slave concubine Ḵayzorān. He was born in Ray, either on 26 Ḏu’l-ḥejja…