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HENNA (Pers. ḥanā,Ar. ḥennāʾ), a russet or orange dye obtained from the pulverized leaves of the henna plant, Lawsonia alba Lam. (= L. inermis/spinosa L.; fam. Lythraceae), a shrub with fragrant, usually greenish white flowers (for an accurate morphology thereof see Dymock et al., II, p. 43; Polatschek and Rechinger,…

HENNING, WALTER BRUNO (b. Ragnit, East Prussia, 1908; d. Berkeley, Calif., 1967; Figure 1), celebrated Iranist and linguist. An appreciation of the work of Walter Bruno Henning (in his earlier publications W[alter], from 1937 W[alter] B[runo] Henning), would almost amount to writing a history of the study of Middle Iranian…

HEPHTHALITES (Arabic Hayṭāl, pl. Hayāṭela), a people who formed apparently the second wave of “Hunnish” tribal invaders to impinge on the Iranian and Indian worlds from the mid-fourth century C.E. The first invaders, known simply as “Huns” (see CHIONITES), representing Gk. *Xίων “Hun” plus tribal suffix -itai, were reported by…

HERACLEIDES OF CYME (fl. ca. 350 B.C.E.), Greek author of a “Persian History” (Persika) in five books, which survives only in a few fragments. These fragments are collected by Jacoby (Fragmente IIIC, no. 689). In the first two books, bearing the particular title Paraskeuastika, the land and people of Persia…

HERACLEITUS OF EPHESUS, Greek philosopher traditionally credited as the first to have written on the magi. Heracleitus, son of Bloson, may be regarded as Ephesus’ most eminent native son during the early Persian period. He flourished ca. 500 B.C.E. (Diogenes Laërtius 9.1), and came from a venerable aristocratic line with…

HERACLES (Gk. Hēraklēs, Lat. Hercules; Figure 1), one of the most popular Greek gods in the Hellenistic East and by far the best-attested Greek god in the Iranian world. In the Greek pantheon, he occupied a special position, being the most prominent of the hērōes (and one of the few…

HERAT, ancient city and province in northwestern Afghanistan. i. Geography. ii. History, Pre-Islamic Period. iii. History, Medieval Period. iv. Topography and urbanism. v. Local histories. vi. The Herat question. vii. The Herat frontier in the latter half of 19th and 20th centuries. viii. From the Soviet occupation to the post-Ṭālebān…

HERAT i. GEOGRAPHY The province of Herat constitutes roughly the northern one-third of the western lowlands of Afghanistan, bordering on Persia and comprising the eastern extensions of the province of Khorasan. Altitudes range from an average of 900 m in the west in the lower valleys of the Harirud River…

HERAT ii. HISTORY, PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD The present town of Herat in western Afghanistan dates back to ancient times, but its exact age remains unknown. In Achaemenid times (ca. 550-330 B.C.E.), the surrounding district was known as Haraiva (in Old Persian), and in classical sources the region was correspondingly known as…

HERAT iii. HISTORY, MEDIEVAL PERIOD Herat at the time of the Arab conquest. When the Arab armies appeared in Khorasan in the 30s/650s, Herat was counted among the twelve capital towns of the Sasanian Empire (Markwart, pp. 8-13). The period from the 3rd to the 5th century was one of…

HERAT iv. TOPOGRAPHY AND URBANISM Pre-Mongol period. In the medieval period, Herat, together with Nišāpur, Marv, and Balḵ, was one of the four main urban centers of the eastern Iranian world. Although its antiquity cannot be doubted, the origins of Herat remain largely unresearched, as no complex archeological study has…

HERAT v. LOCAL HISTORIES Local histories of Herāt belong to three distinct literary genres: the biographical dictionary, the dynastic history, and the guide for pilgrims. Chronologically, the biographical dictionaries belong to the pre-Mongol period, the dynastic histories to the centuries when Herāt was the capital of a regional or imperial…

HERAT vi. THE HERAT QUESTION From the middle of the 18th century, following Nāder Shah’s assassination in 1747, Herat became the focus of a century-long power struggle and regional rivalry that came to an end only with Persia renouncing its sovereignty over the city in 1857. Early Qajar shahs were…

HERAT vii. THE HERAT FRONTIER IN THE LATTER HALF OF 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES In the latter half of the 19th century, following the settlement of the Khorasan frontier with Persia in 1857, the rulers of Kabul, with British support, sought to make Herat a part of the Afghan state…