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JEH, name of a female demon in a small number of Zoroastrian Middle Persian texts. The name of Jeh is commonly, but with little justification, translated as “whore.” It is the Middle Persian rendering of Avestan jahī- (or jahikā-). That word is used in a number of different meanings, but…

JEJEEBHOY, Sir JAMSETJEE (b. Bombay, 15 July 1783; d. Bombay, 14 April 1859; FIGURE 1), Parsi businessman and philanthropist. Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy received a knighthood in 1842 and a hereditary baronetcy in 1857; both honors were the first of their kind bestowed upon a British subject in India by Queen Victoria….

JELWA, ABU’L-ḤASAN b. Moḥammad Ṭabā-ṭabāʾi (b. Aḥmadābād, Gujarat, July 1823; d. Tehran, April 1897), a leading Shi’ite scholar of the 19th century and master teacher of philosophy and mathematics, as well as a poet. Jelwa, the name by which he is best known, was the pen name he used in…

JELWA, KETĀB AL- (Kurd. Kitēba jilwe, “the Book of splendor”), title of a notional sacred text in Yazidism. Written copies of the text were first discovered in the late 1880s, together with Meṣḥefa reš (Meṣḥefa reş, “black book,”), another short text purporting to be a sacred book. The oldest copies…

JEM SOLṬĀN (or ŠĀHZĀDA JEM) b. Edirne, 27 Ṣafar 864/23 December 1459; d. Naples, 29 Jomādā I 900/25 February 1495), Ottoman prince and poet. Jem Solṭān was the third and youngest son of the Ottoman Sultan Meḥmet (Moḥammad) II (r. 1444-46 and 1451-81). His mother, Čiček (Çiçek) Ḵātun (d. 1498),…

JEMĀLI, Ottoman poet and writer of the 15th century. In two manuscripts of the supplement (ḏeyl), which he wrote for the Ḵosrow o Širin of Šayḵi, his name is given as Bāyazid b. Moṣṭafā b. Šayḵ Aḥmad Tarjomāni Āqšahri or as Bāyazid b. Moṣṭafā al-mašhur be Šayḵ-oḡlu (Kut, p. 316)….

JEN-NĀMA (The book of jinn, Sweden, 1998), the last novel—and arguably the magnum opus—of Hushang Golshiri, the eminent novelist and literary critic. Golshiri’s fame as a writer of formidable talent was established with the publication of his first novel, Šāzda Eḥtejāb (Tehran, 1968; tr. Minoo Ramyar Buffington as “Prince Eḥtejāb” in…

JENJĀN, coll. Jenjun, “Jinjun,” village in the Dašt-e Rostam-e Yek plain, at the western end of the Fahliān area of the Mamasani region, western Fārs (lat. 30°13.532 N, long. 51°26.792 E, 844 m above sea-level; Razmārā, Farhang VII, p. 65). It has given its name to a small (ca. 30…

JENKINSON, ANTHONY (b. Market Harborough, 8 October 1529, buried Holy Trinity Church, Teigh, 16 February 1611), merchant and traveler. His writings and his map (Figure 1), which are significant for the study of early Anglo-Russian relations, document England’s earliest concerted efforts to establish commercial relations with Safavid Persia. Jenkinson views…

JÉQUIER, GUSTAVE, Swiss archeologist (b. Neuchâtel, 14 August 1868; died there, 24th March 1946; Figure 1). After completing his secondary education at Neuchâtel and attending its university, and after his military service, he initially pursued his academic studies in 1888 in Berlin, where he attended courses given by the Egyptologist…

JERGA, an assembly or council of local adult men sitting in a circular formation for the resolution of conflicts and discussion of issues and challenges that face the settled and nomadic Pashtun tribal communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan. The earliest published reference to jerga is provided during the colonial period…