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ḤAYĀTI, ABDÜLHAY (ʿAbd-al-Ḥayy), 9th/15th century poet who wrote a series of Turkish poems modeled on Neẓāmi’s Ḵamsa. Nothing is known about his life other than that he lived during the reigns of Sultan Mo-ḥammad II and Bāyazid II (855/1451-918/1512). It is only in his Eskandar-nāma that his name is given…

ḤAYDAR KHAN ʿAMU-OḠLI, revolutionary activist who used terror to radicalize Persian politics in the early 20th century (1880-1921; Figure 1). He was born (his place of birth is uncertain) into the Tariverdiev family and was raised in Alexandropol in Armenia. He received training in Yerevan and Tblisi in electrical engineering,…

ḤAYDAR MIRZĀ ṢAFAVI, Safavid prince who considered himself to be the chosen successor of his father, Shah Ṭahmāsb, but was killed immediately after the latter’s death on 15 Ṣafar 984/14 May 1576. When Shah Ṭahmāsb died, there was confusion at the court regarding the question of succession. The Shah’s eldest…

ḤAYDAR ṢAFAVI (حیدر صفوی, b. Āmed, Diyarbakir, ca. Ramażān 863/July 1459; d. Tābasarān, Dagestan, 893/1488), spiritual leader (moršed) of the Ṣafaviya Sufi order (ṭariqa) and father of Shah Esmāʿil, the founder of the Safavid dynasty. Ḥaydar was born in circa Ramażān 863/June-July 1459 in Āmed, the capital of the province…

ḤAYDAR ʿALI EṢFAHĀNI, Ḥājji Mirzā, Bahāʾi polemicist (b. Isfahan, ca. 1830; d. Haifa, 7 December 1920). Ḥaydar ʿAli’s father, a merchant who followed the Šayḵi school, took him as a young boy to Kerman to become a personal attendant to the Šayḵi leader Moḥammad Karim-Ḵān. Ḥaydar ʿAli states that, after…

ḤAYDARI and NEʿMATI (also Amir-Ḥaydari; Neʿmat-Allāhi), mutually hostile urban moieties of Safavid and post-Safavid Iran. From the late ninth/fifteenth century up until recent decades, a number of cities and towns of Iran were perceived as being divided into two groupings of adjacent wards (maḥalla), one known as the Ḥaydari-kāna and…

HĀYEDA, the stage name of MAʿṢUMA DADEBĀLĀ (b. Tehran, 21 Farvardin 1321 Š./10 April 1942; d. San Jose, Calif., 30 Dey 1368 Š./20 January 1990; Figure 1, Figure 2), popular Persian singer. Her parents were Moḥammad Dadabālā and Zinat Bolḡāri. Hāyeda primarily distinguished herself by a naturally rich, operatic alto…

ḤAYRAT, MOḤAMMAD ṢEDDIQ, Tajik poet from Bukhara (1878-1902). Ḥayrat was born into poverty, as the son of a muezzin from the ʿArusān quarter of Bukhara, where he attended a local maktab (q.v. EDUCATION iii. and xxviii.). By the age of twelve he had lost both of his parents. His inheritance…

HAYTON (HETʿUM) of Gorighos, a prince of the Hetumid dynasty that ruled the kingdom of Lesser (Cilician) Armenia.  A nephew of King Hetʿum I (d. 1270), he succeeded an older brother as lord of Gorighos (Corycos) and became closely involved in the turbulent affairs of the kingdom.  According to Cypriot…

ḤAYYA ʿALĀ ḴAYR AL-ʿAMAL, a religious formula, meaning “Come to the best of actions,” included in the call to prayer (aḏān) by all three major branches of Shiʿism, Twelvers, Zaydis and Ismaʿilis, since they believe it to have been an original part of the aḏān throughout the lifetime of the…

HAŽĀR, the pen name of ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN ŠARAFKANDI (b. Mahābād, 1921; d. Tehran, 1 Esfand 1369 Š./21 February 1991; Figure 1), Kurdish poet, philologist, and translator. His father, Mollā Moḥammad Šarafkandi, a man of learning, was the founder of the first Kurdish school of Islamic studies in Šarafkand, where all instruction…