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Untitled Document H ENTRIES: CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS   online entry caption text ḤABAQUQ, TOMB OF Figure 1. The tomb of Ḥabaquq, after Sotuda, p. 6190. ḤABIB EṢFAHĀNI Figure 1. Ḥabib Eṣfahāni. Courtesy of the author. ḤABIB-ALLĀH SĀVAJI Figure 1. A seated courtier with his pet falcon, courtesy of The Pierpont…

IBEX, PERSIAN (Capra aegagrus; PLATE I), also called Persian Wild Goat, in Persian Pazan (pāzan). It is regarded as the ancestor of the domestic goat. i. Natural history. ii. In pre-Islamic art and archeology. i. NATURAL HISTORY The Persian ibex is of stocky build with relatively short but strong and…

IDA, a land and a city, part of Inner Zamua, located in the area of the southwest shore of Lake Urmia. Ida and its ruler Nikdêra are mentioned in Neo-Assyrian sources dating to the reign of Shalmaneser III in connection with his campaign to the Inner Zamua/Mazamua in the 4th…

IḎEH (also Iza, Iḏaj, Ayḏaj, Māl-(e) Amir, Malāmir, Māl-e Mir-Jānaki), a town and county in the northeast of the Khuzestan Province, in 31°50′ north latitude and 49°52′ east longitude. Iḏa is located 20 km east of the Kārun River, in a small oval shaped valley, flanked by the mountains of…

IDEOGRAPHIC WRITING, the representation of language by means of “ideograms,” i.e. symbols representing “ideas,” rather than (or usually side by side with) symbols which represent sounds. i. Terminology and conventions. ii. Ideographic writing in the Ancient Near East. iii. Ideographic writing in Middle Iranian languages. See HUZWĀREŠ.   i. TERMINOLOGY…

IGDIR, a Turkic tribe in Persia and Anatolia. It was one of the 24 original Oghuz tribes (Houtsma, p. 225; for discussions of its etymology, see Houtsma, p. 225, and Pelliot, pp. 194-95). Like other tribes that migrated to the Middle East in Saljuqid times, it has become widely scattered….

IGNATIUS OF JESUS (Ignazio di Gesù). An Italian missionary in Persia and a scholar of the Persian language. Carlo Leonelli was born near Pesaro in Italy in 1596 and died in Rome in 1667. He entered the Discalced Carmelite Order (see CARMELITES) taking the name Ignatius of Jesus, and was…

IHĀM, literally meaning “making one suppose,” a term applied to a rhetorical figure (badiʿ, q.v.), also known as tawriya (disguising) and taḵyil (making one imagine), a kind of play on words based on a single word with a double meaning (cf. amphibology, double entendre). It is not mentioned in early…

IJEL, Timurid prince (797-818/1394-1415). The fourth son of Mirānšāh b. Timur, Ijel was born in early 797/late 1394 (Yazdi, p. 561; the birth date 15 Moḥarram 790/25 January 1388 given by the Moʿezz-al-ansāb, fol. 129a, is probably to be rejected as too early) and was named by the conqueror after…

IL-ARSLĀN, ABU’L-FATḤ, Chorasmian king of the line of Anuštegin Ḡarčaʾi (r. 1156-72). He was the son and successor of ʿAlāʾ-Din Atsïz b. Moḥammad (see ATSÏZ ḠARČAʾI), who had skillfully preserved the autonomy of Chorasmia (see CHORASMIA ii.) and had taken a prominent role in affairs during his father’s lifetime. He…

IL-KHANIDS, the Mongol dynasty in Persia and the surrounding countries, from about 1260 until about 1335. The dynasty was founded by Holāgu/Hülegü Khan (q.v.), the grandson of Čengiz Khan, and ruled the territory covered by present-day Persia, Turkmenistan, northern Afghanistan, the southern Caucasus (modern Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan), Iraq, and…

IL-KHANIDS i. DYNASTIC HISTORY The first part of this entry will be a short survey of the reigns of the various Il-khans; treatment that is more detailed will be found in the individual entries for each ruler. The second part will review some of the salient characteristics and institutions of…

IL-KHANIDS ii. ARCHITECTURE The architecture produced during the period of Il-khanid rule in Persia and Iraq is notable for its mammoth size, soaring height, sparkling color, and ingenious methods of covering space. Size and scale were seen as representative of power and authority, and the wider palette and increased surface…