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MAZAEUS, member of the highest Achaemenid aristocracy, who had a long career under Artaxerxes III, Darius III, and Alexander of Macedon. Name and rank. On the satrapal coins of Mazaeus his name appears as mzdy (read as Mazdai), at Sidon sometimes abbreviated to mz (see Head, 1911, pp. 722, 731,…

MAZĀR-E ŠARIF, the largest city of northern Afghanistan. The religious origins of the urban area. On the northern slope of the Hindu Kush, the heart of the plains of Afghan Turkestan has always consisted of the alluvial cone deposited by the Balḵāb and irrigated by its waters. Divided between 18…

MAẒHAR-E ELĀHI (Manifestation of God), a key Bahai term designating the prophets/founders of the world’s religions as the manifestations of the names and attributes of God.  The Bahai scriptures assert that the teachings of each of these figures have taken humanity a stage forward in its social evolution. The term maẓhar…

MAʾMUN, Abu’l-ʿAbbās ʿAbd-Allāh (b. 786; d. near Tarsus in July-August 833), the seventh Abbasid caliph (r. 813-33; see ʿABBASID CALIPHATE), the son of Hārun-al-Rašid (d. 809) by a Persian concubine, named Marājel. He spent the earlier part of his reign in Khorasan, and only moved to Baghdad in 819. Between…

MAʿĀYEB AL-REJĀL (“Faults of men”), a treatise written in 1894 by Bibi Ḵānom Estarābādi/Astarābādi as a counterargument to the anonymous Taʾdib al-neswān/Taʾdib al-nesāʾ, a tract on how to discipline women, published in the mid-19th century.  According to Ruhangiz Karachi, the author of Taʾdib al-neswān is most probably Ḵānlar Mirzā Eḥtešām-al-Dawla (d….

MAʿRUFI, Jawād, a renowned Persian music composer and pianist (b. Tehran, 1294 Š/1915; d. Tehran, 1372 Š/1993). Maʿrufi’s father, Musā Maʿrufi, was a master musician and an imposing player of the tār (a plucked long-necked lute), who wrote down the repertoires (radifs) of Persian music in Western notation and thus…

MECQUENEM, ROLAND DE, born 1877 in Orlèans, d. 1957, French archeologist, director of the excavations of the Mission Archèologique de Susiane at Susa from 1913 to 1946, discoverer and excavator of Tchoga Zambil, where he carried out four excavation campaigns starting in 1935 (see ČOḠĀ ZANBIL). Like J. de Morgan,…

MEDḤAT PASHA, a liberal Ottoman statesman of the 19th century, who served both as provincial governor and grand vizier (b. Istanbul, 18 October 1822; d. Ṭāʾef, 8 May 1884). Medḥat, whose real name was Ahmed Şefik (Aḥmad Šafiq), was called “father of the liberals.”   He displayed tolerance toward other religions…

MEDIA, ancient population region and kingdom in northwestern Iran. The name is attested as Gk. Mēdía, OPers. Māda (Kent, Old Persian, p. 202), Assyrian and Babylonian Mādāya (Parpola, 1970, pp. 230-31; Zadok, 1985, pp. 214-15). HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY At the end of the 2nd millennium BCE, Median tribes began to settle…

MEDICINE i. INTRODUCTION OF WESTERN MEDICINE TO IRAN Western medicine was introduced to Iran by European physicians who began to arrive there from early nineteenth century onwards (Elgood, pp. 437-93). This gradual process was part and parcel of the increasing influence of the West in the country. The foreign doctors…

MEGABATES, Greek rendering of the well-known name OIran. *Baga-pāta- “protected by the gods” (which is attested in El. Ba-qa-ba-(ad-/ud-)da, Bab. Ba-ga-pa-a-ta/tu4, Ba-ga-(’)-pa-a-tú, etc., Aram. bgpt, Lyc. Magabata). Whereas the variant form Gk. Bagapátēs (Ctesias, frag. 13 §§ 9–23, F 16 § 66) has remained unchanged, the more common and widespread…

MEHR-NARSEH, the grand vizier (Mid. Pers. wuzurg framādār) during the reigns of the Sasanian kings Yazdgerd I (r. 399-421 CE), Bahrām V (r. 421-39; see BAHRĀM v), Yazdgerd II (r. 439-57; Frye, p. 146), and Pērōz (r. 459-84; see FĪRŪZ). Mehr-Narseh was born in the fourth century CE in the…

MEHRAGĀN (Mehrgān/Mehregān; Ar. Mehrajān; Meherangān among the Parsis), an Iranian festival apparently dedicated to the god Miθra/Mehr (see MITHRA), occurring also in onomastics and toponymy.  By extension this name is used with the generical meaning of autumn and identifies a musical mode.  In the Mazdean annual schema of feasts, the…