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ĀL TAMḠĀ “red seal,” Turkish term for the supreme seal of the Mongol Il-Khans of Iran. The term also meant “document with a red seal.” Before the Mongol conquest, e.g., in Saljuq and Ḵᵛārazmšāh administration, there occur the terms tawqīʿ (equivalent to ṭoḡrā “emblem” of the ruler) and mohr “seal”…

ĀL-E AFRĀSĪĀB, a minor Iranian Shiʿite dynasty of Māzandarān in the Caspian coastlands that flourished in the late mediaeval, pre-Safavid period; it is also called (e.g. by Rabino) the Kīā dynasty of Čalāb or Čalāv (after the district [bolūk] of that name in Āmol, Māzandarān). In the tortuous politics and…

ĀL-E AFRĪḠ (Afrighid dynasty), the name given by the Khwarazmian scholar Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī to the dynasty of rulers in his country, with the ancient title of Ḵᵛārazmšāh. According to him, the Afrighids ruled from 305 A.D. (year 616 of the Seleucid era), through the Arab conquests under Qotayba b….

ĀL-E AḤMAD, JALĀL (1302-48 Š./1923-69), well-known writer and social critic. In a brief autobiographical sketch completed in 1346 Š./1967 but published only after his death (Maṯalan sarḥ-e aḥwālāt) Āl-e Aḥmad describes his conservatively religious and moderately well-to-do family; his father’s strong religious principles led him to close his court of…

ĀL-E BĀVAND (BAVANDIDS), a dynasty ruling Ṭabarestān (Māzandarān) from at least the 2nd/8th century until 750/1349. It claimed descent from Bāv, allegedly a grandson of Kāʾūs, son of the Sasanian king Kavāḏ. J. Markwart (Ērānšahr, p. 128) suggested that the family may rather be descended from a Zoroastrian priest of…

ĀL-E BORHĀN, the name of a family of spiritual and civic leaders in Bokhara during the 6th/12th and early 7th/13th centuries; stemming from Marv, they were so called because virtually all of them seem to have had the laqab (honorific) of Borhān-al-dīn or Borhān-al-mella wa’l-dīn. The Islamic religious institution in…

ĀL-E BŪ KORD, a tribe of Ḵūzestān, of uncertain origin. It formerly belonged to the Baḵtīārī tribal confederacy, but some 180 years ago it moved from the Rāmhormoz and Jarrāḥī districts to the Ahvāz district. In time, the Āl-e Bū Kord settled down in the villages of Ḵerša, Kūt ʿAbdallāh,…

ĀL-E ELYĀS, a short-lived Iranian dynasty which ruled in the eastern Persian province of Kermān during the 4th/10th century. The founder of the family’s fortunes, Abū ʿAlī Moḥammad b. Elyās, was apparently of Sogdian origin; the family always retained estates in Soḡd. He started his career in the army of…

ĀL-E FARĪḠŪN, a minor Iranian dynasty of Gūzgān (Gūzgānān, Jūzǰān; in what is now northern Afghanistan) which flourished from some time before the beginning of the 4th/10th century until the incorporation of Gūzgān into the Ghaznavid empire in the early 5th/11th century. The Iranian name of the family, Farīḡūn, may…

ĀL-E HĀŠEM, 3rd-5th/9th-11th century local dynasty of the region of Darband (Bāb-al-abwāb). The chief source of information regarding it, beyond a few passing references (e.g., Masʿūdī, Morūǰ II, p. 5), is an anonymous late 5th/11th century history inserted in Aḥmad b. Loṭfallāh Monaǰǰembāšī’s Ṣaḥāʾef al-aḵbār (ed. and tr. V. Minorsky,…