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LĀHIJĀN (لاهیجان), a city in the province of Gilān.  It is located at 37°12′ N, long 50°0′ E, to the east of the lower reaches of Safidrud at an altitude of 4 m.  With 71,871 inhabitants in 2006, it is the third most populous city in of Gilān (after Rašt and…

LAHUTI, Abu’l-Qasem (Abu’l-Qāsem Lāhuti, b. Kermānšāh, 12 October 1887; d. Moscow, 16 March 1957), Marxist poet, political activist, and an important contributor to the modern of poetry in Tajikistan. His father was a cobbler who also wrote poetry under the pen name of Elhāmi (lit., ‘inspired’). He composed religious poems…

LAK (or Lakk), an ethnic term used for a large number of people residing in a vast part of present-day Iran.  The original meaning of the word in Persian, “hundred thousands,” apparently refers to the original number of families that constituted a nomadic tribal confederation (Širvāni, p. 522; Marduḵ, I,…

LĀḴ-MAZĀR “Rocky sacred place (?),” name applied to gorges not far from the settlement of Kuč, 29 km southeast of Birjand in Khorasan Province (ostān). For the name, compare Pers. sanglāḵ “stony place, gorge of stones,” dīwlāḵ “dwelling of div” (q.v.), rūd lāḵ “river bed.” In April 1992 Iranian scholar-archeologists, students…

LAKHMIDS, an Arab dynasty that ruled in central Iraq with their capital at Ḥira for roughly three centuries, from about 300 to 602 CE, generally but intermittently as the allies and clients of the Sasanian kings of Persia, with especially close links in the sixth century, when the Lakhmids were bulwarks…

LANBASAR (the form in Rašid-al-Din and Ḥamd-Allāh Mostawfi; popular pronunciation, and the form used by Jovayni, Lam(m)asar), an important fortress of the Nezāri Ismaʿilis in the valley of the Šāhrud river, a tributary of the Safidrud, in the mountainous district of Rudbār, within the region of medieval Islamic Daylam in northwestern Iran. …

LANGARUD (lit. the lower limb of the river), a city and sub-provincial district (šahrestān) in Gilān located at lat 37°11′ N, long 50°09′ E on the Langarud River, which cuts through the city, dividing it into two parts.  The suffix “rud” in the name of the city probably refers to the…

LĀRAK, a small island in the Straits of Hormuz to the south of Hormuz Island, located approximately 45 kms southeast of Bandar Abbas and 18 kms southeast of the eastern end of Qeshm Island at lat 26°51′0″ N, long 56°21′0″ E.  Lārak was identified by William Vincent (p. 348) with ancient Organa,…

LAŠANI, a Turkicized Kurdish tribe in Fārs. The Lašani accompanied Karim Khan Zand to the province in the mid-18th century. In summer 1754, they fought heroically against the forces of Āzād Khan the Afghān on the Marvdašt plain, north of Shiraz, and, in November of that year, the Lašani leader,…

LAURENS, Jules Joseph Augustin, French artist in drawing, painting, and lithography who depicted Oriental and other subjects (b. 26 July 1825 at Carpentras; d. 5 May 1901 at Saint-Didier, Vaucluse). He trained as a pupil of his elder brother, Jean Joseph Bonaventure (1801-90), and then studied at the Beaux-Arts in…

LĀVĀN ISLAND, in the Persian Gulf. Lāvān is located at lat 26.8˚ N and long 53.3˚ E, six nautical miles west-southwest of Naḵilu and three-quarters of a nautical mile west-northwest of Šatvār islet (United States Hydrographic Office, p. 154; Deutsches Hydrographisches Institut, p. 179).  It is almost 21 km long and about…

LAVĀSĀN, town and district located in the middle course of the river Jājrud in the northwest of Tehran. The district (baḵš), officially known as Lavāsānāt, constitutes, along with Rudbār-e Qaṣrān, the sub-province of Šemirān in the Tehran province. Lavāsānāt comprises two rural districts (dehestāns), Greater Lavāsān and Lesser Lavāsān—thus the…