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INHERITANCE i. SASANIAN PERIOD Our main source on jurisprudence during the Sasanian period is the Lawbook Hazār dādestān “One Thousand Judgements” of the 7th century, known since the facsimile edition of a large part of the manuscript (Modi, 1901) as the Mādayān ī hazār dādestān (MHD). This text does not…

INHERITANCE ii. ISLAMIC PERIOD In the pre-Islamic period, the Arab family was socially and politically composed of males (ʿaṣaba), namely those who were able to fight and defend the common property. At the pater familias’s death, the familial estate was transmitted only to males, pro indiviso, according to the principle…

INJU DYNASTY (ca. 725-754/1325-53), one of the minor dynasties that controlled Persia following the collapse of the Il-Khanid state. Members of this family vied for power in southern Persia, and intermittently controlled Fārs, Isfahan, Kermān, and Lorestān. For about twenty years the Injus waged complex and bloody power struggles with…

INOSTRANTSEV, KONSTANTIN ALEXANDROVICH (b. St. Petersburg, Russia, 17 April 1876; d. Leningrad, USSR, end of December, 1941), Russian orientalist and historian of culture, best known abroad as the author of Sasanidskie et’udy (Etudes sassanides). In 1896, Inostrantsev matriculated in the University of St. Petersburg, Faculty of Oriental Languages (Department of…

INSECTIVORES, members of the mammalian order, small animals with several conservative anatomical characteristics. They retain five digits on all limbs and walk or run with soles and heels on the ground (plantigrade). They have flexible snouts and relatively small eyes and ears, sometimes lacking external evidence of either one or…

INSECTS. The insects of Persia and Afghanistan belong to the Palearctic fauna, although in the eastern and southeastern parts of the region there are representatives of the Oriental fauna characteristic of the Indian subcontinent. Afro-tropical groups make up a small part of the fauna of southern and southwestern Persia. As…

INSTITUT PASTEUR (PASTEUR INSTITUTE OF IRAN), the Institute for bacteriology and vaccination founded by the Persian government in 1921 as a branch of Institut Pasteur of Paris. The idea of establishing an institute for microbiological research and immunology in Iran was conceived in the aftermath of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic in…

INSTITUTE FOR IRANIAN PHILOLOGY (INSTITUT FOR IRANSK FILOLOGI), University of Copenhagen. i. Forerunners. ii. History.   i. FORERUNNERS Although the Institute was founded only in 1961, it has a long prehistory, since it is the natural culmination of about 200 years of Iranian studies in the Kingdom of Denmark. This…

INSTITUTE OF ISMAILI STUDIES, founded in 1977 by H. H. Prince Karim Aga Khan. The Institute functions today as a gathering point for the Ismaili community’s interest in its own history and in its relationship with the larger world of Islamic scholarship and contemporary thought. Its stated mission is to…

INSTITUTE OF SOCIAL STUDIES AND RESEARCH (MOʾASSESA-ye MOṬĀLEʿĀT WA TAḤQIQĀT-e EJTEMĀʿI), an academic body established in 1958 at the University of Tehran with the following main objectives: research, counseling, education, and publication. Research activities of the Institute were conducted in the following groups: urban studies, rural studies, tribal studies, demographic…

INTERNATIONAL DUNHUANG PROJECT (IDP), founded in 1994, a collaboration among libraries, museums, and research institutes worldwide to conserve, catalogue, digitize and research archeological artifacts, manuscripts, and archives relating to the archeological sites of Central Asia during the period of the ‘Silk Road’ (Figure 1). The members agree to formulate, implement,…

INVERTEBRATE ANIMALS IN IRAN, AFGHANISTAN, AND NEIGHBORING CENTRAL ASIA. This category includes all animals without a vertebral column. Thus it is a term of convenience that, though widely used, has little biological meaning. Well over a million species are known, and probably several times that many are unnamed and undescribed….