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MEHRAJĀN (or Mehr(e)jān; locally known as Mehrigun), oasis and the seat of Naḵlestān district in Ḵur-Biābānak Sub-province, Isfahan Province. Mehrajān is an isolated oasis on southern fringes of Dašt-e Kavir, situated at lat 33°29′  N, long 55°07′ E, 20 miles south of Ḵur, at an elevation of 2,392 feet above…

MEIER, FRITZ (b. Basel, 10 June 1912; d. Dornach, 10 June 1998; Figure 1), Swiss Islamicist renowned for his influential and wide-ranging writings on Sufism. Fritz Meier grew up in Gelterkinden in the canton of Baselland. When one of his teachers at the local school in Böckten spoke to the…

MEILLET, (PAUL JULES) ANTOINE, French linguist and scholar of Iranian and Armenian studies (b. 11 November 1866 in Moulins, Allier, d. 21 September 1936 in Châteaumeillant, Cher; FIGURE 1). Being the scion of an old family coming from the historical province of Bourbonnais and the son of a notary, Meillet…

MELZER, UTO (b. Graz, Austria, 18 October 1881; d. Graz, Austria, 22 February 1961; photograph at Universitātsbibliothek Graz), born Utho Ottomar Melzer Edler von Tapferheim, teacher, author, and independent scholar. His principal contribution to Iranian studies is a thesaurus of Modern Persian posthumously published in 2006 as Farhangnevīs. Life. His…

MEM-Ê ALAN (Kurdish romance), probably the best-known Kurdish tale, and the one most often regarded as representative of Kurdish verbal art generally. Versions of the tale were reproduced in most of the early works on Kurdish oral literature (see Pryn and Socin, 1890; Von le Coq, 1903; Mann, 1909; and Makas,…

MENASCE, JEAN PIERRE DE (b. Alexandria, Egypt, 24 December 1902; d. Paris, 24 November 1973), an eminent Iranist and historian of religions. Jean André Moise de Menasce was born into one of the richest and most distinguished Jewish families in Egypt. His father, the Baron Felix, was the head of…

MENHĀJ-e SERĀJ, Menhāj-al-Din Abu ʿAmr ʿOṯmān b. Serāj-al-Din Moḥammad Jowzjāni, qāżi, author of a general history in Persian valuable as a first-hand source for the history of the Ghurids, the Šamsi Delhi Sultans, and the irruption of the Mongols into the eastern Islamic lands (see Ṭabaqāt-e Nāṣeri). Everything known about…

MENOSTANES (Gk. Menostánēs, Bab. Manuštanu), Achaemenid prince, son of Artaxerxes I’s brother Artarios, who was satrap of Babylon; he was a “eunuch” at Artaxerxes’ court and during the troubles about the succession after Artaxerxes’ death in 424/23 BCE he took the side of Sogdi(an)os/Sekyndianos and participated in the murder of…

MENTOR and MEMNON, Rhodian brothers, condottieri of the late Achaemenid period. They aided Artabazus in securing the succession to his father Pharnabazus’s satrapy of Dascylium and as a reward received a large fief in the Troad (Demosthenes, 23.154; cf. Arrian, Anabasis 1.78, Strabo 13.1.11). Henceforth they were closely linked with Artabazus, who…

Menu of Music Samples  The following includes a list of selected music files on the Encyclopaedia Iranica. The ‘Music’ column on the chart will take you to a page where you can get more information about each selection and listen to a sample in MP3 format. The related entries on the…

MESKAWAYH, ABU ʿALI AḤMAD b. Moḥammad [Ebn], Persian chancery official and treasury clerk of the Buyid period, boon companion, litterateur and accomplished writer in Arabic on a variety of topics, including history, theology, philosophy and medicine (d. 421/1030). His name appears variously in the sources as “Ebn Meskawayh” and “Meskawayh,”…

MESOPOTAMIA i. Iranians in Ancient Mesopotamia Medes. Beginning with the 9th century BCE, the Assyrians regularly raided the territory of Media, where dozens of small principalities existed with a mixed population of Medes and other nations of Qutian-Kassite origin.  Assyrian sources contain important data on a number of dominions in…

MESSINA, GIUSEPPE, SJ (b. San Cataldo [Caltanisetta] January 1, 1893; d. Messina June 28, 1951), Italian scholar of Middle and Modern Iranian studies. Following the completion of his philosophical and theological training, Father Messina took up Oriental studies first at the Pontificio Istituto Biblico (Political Biblical Institute) in Rome, and…

METALWORK. Metalwork is perhaps the most continuous and best-documented artistic medium from Iran in the Islamic period. It survives mainly in brass (see BERENJ) and bronze. Most gold and silver wares, better known through literary accounts, were likely melted down (Ward, pp. 10-11). At times, echoing the forms of more ephemeral…

MEYBOD, name of a sub-province (šahrestān) and town in Yazd Province (32°14′45″ N, 54°2′10″ E; elev. 3,637 ft.) on the road to Tehran, at a short distance south of Ardakān (see ARDAKĀN-e YAZD) and about 48 km northwest of the city of Yazd. It is the smallest šahrestān in Yazd…