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HOMOSEXUALITY i. IN ZOROASTRIANISM Zoroastrian literature contains discussions of personal relations only in legal contexts and is quite explicit with regard to sins of a sexual nature, including between males. The information about “homosexuality” contained in this literature is restricted to anal intercourse, as defined in the Videvdad (8.32): “When…

HOMOSEXUALITY ii. IN ISLAMIC LAW The foundational texts of Islam address, and generally condemn, sexual relations between members of the same sex. While the Qorʾān does not legislate explicitly on this matter, in its reiterated references to the story of the people of Lot it is unequivocal in expressing abhorrence…

HOMOSEXUALITY iii. IN PERSIAN LITERATURE A sharp contrast exists between the treatment of homosexuality in Islamic law, on the one hand (see ii. above), and its reflection in Persian literature, particularly poetry (the chief vehicle of Persian literary expression), on the other. From the dawn of Persian poetry in the…

HONAR O MARDOM, a monthly magazine published by the General Office of Fine Arts in the Ministry of Education (Edāra-ye koll-e honarhā-ye zibā, Wezārat-e farhang). The first issue was published in March 1957, under the managing editorship of Firuz Bāqerzāda, but publication soon ceased. Eventually in October 1962 it was…

HONARMANDI, HASAN (Ḥasan Honarmandi, b. Ṭāleqān, 2 Farvardin 1307 Š./22 March 1928; d. Paris, 26 Šahrivar 1381 Š./17 September 2002), poet, translator, and literary scholar. Hasan Honarmandi moved to Sāri with his family after the death of his father Šams-ʿAli Honarmandi in 1932.  He attended the Teacher Training School in…

HONEY (ʿasal, Ar. term now the most common name for honey in Persia; archaic Pers. angobin < Mid. Pers. angubēn, with the variants angup/mēn recorded in Frahang ī Pahlavīk, ed. M. J. Maškur, Tehran, 1968, pp. 68, 144), the well-known substance made by honeybees (Ar. naḥl;Pers. zanbur-e ʿasal [lit. “honey...

ḤOQAYNI, the nesba of two Zaydi Imams referring to their ancestor Aḥmad Ḥoqaynab. ʿAli b. Ḥosayn b. ʿAli b. Abi Ṭāleb. Aḥmad is said to have moved from Ḥoqayna, a village near Medina, to Āmol in Ṭabarestān, where he died and was buried (at the same spot where Imam al-Nāṣer…

ḤOQUQ, the name of various 20th-century periodicals published in Iran and Afghanistan. (1) The weekly Ḥoquq began publication on 29 Jomā-dā I 1325/10 July 1907 and was closed after the publication of the sixth issue in its second year on 21 Rabiʿ II/22 May 1908. The journal’s publisher was Solaymān…

ḤOQUQ-E EMRUZ, a journal published irregularly in Tehran between Esfand 1341 Š./March 1963 and 1355 Š./1976 (Solṭāni, p. 429). The last available issue of it is, however, dated Farvardin-Ordibehešt 1352 Š./April-May 1973. The publisher of the journal was Bahāʾ-al-Din Ṭabāṭabāʾi (attorney, b. 1925), and with issue no. 18 (Bahman 1345…

HORDĀD, one of the Avestan entities (see AMƎŠA SPƎNTA), normally mentioned in association with Amərətāt (very often in a dual dvandva; see AMURDĀD) already in the Ḡāθās. The name is the Pahlavi form of Av. Hauruuatāt-, also by haplology HauruuāŸt- (NPers. Ḵordād; Skt. tr. Avirdāda, udaka “water” and s arvapravṛttihá…

HORMOZĀN, one of the last military leaders of Sasanian Persia. The correct form of his name is *Hormazdān, attested as Hormezdān by the 7th-century anonymous Khuzistan Chronicle, also known as Guidi’sChronicle (q.v.; tr. Nöldeke, p. 42), which also calls him “a Mede” and a leading general of Yazdegerd III. He…