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MEYBODI, Abu’l-Fażl Rašid-al-Din (fl. early 12th century), Sunni scholar, mystic and author of the Kašf al-asrār wa ʿoddat al-abrār (Unveiling of mysteries and provision of the righteous), a monumental Persian Sufi commentary on the Qurʾān. His full name is variously given in two manuscripts of Kašf al-asrār as Abu’l-Fażl b….

MEYMA, district in central Persia, on the road leading north from Isfahan to Qom. i. The district History. Meyma itself is not mentioned by the early Arab geographers, but Ebn Ḵordādbeh (p. 58) in the 10th century mentions Rebāṭ-e Vazz as the caravan station after Borḵᵛār (q.v.) on the road…

MEYMA, district in central Persia, on the road leading north from Isfahan to Qom. ii. The Dialect  Meyma district is at the heart of the area where the Central dialects are spoken. Almost the entire district has been resistant to Persian in favor of the local vernacular (see ISFAHAN xx). Meymaʾi…

MEʿRĀJ The term meʿrāj means “instrument of ascension,” more specifically associated with the Prophet Mohammad’s “heavenly or celestial ascent”. i. Definition ii. Illustrations

MEʿRĀJ i. DEFINITION Derived from the Arabic instrumental form mefʿāl, the term meʿrāj means “instrument of ascension,” either a “ladder” or a “stairway;” it can also designate the place one revolves or from where one climbs. However, in a technical sense and often accompanied by the article al-, it designates…

MEʿRĀJ ii. ILLUSTRATIONS From the turn of the 14th century onward, depictions of the Prophet Moḥammad’s night journey (esrāʾ) and heavenly ascent (meʿrāj) were integrated into illustrated world histories and biographies, and also began to appear in animal fables like Kalila wa Demna, compendia of poetical extracts, Persian romances, heroic…

Meʿyār-e Jamāli wa meftāḥ-e Abu Esḥāqi (‘Jamāl’s touchstone and Abu Esḥāq’s key’), a dictionary of the Persian language (comp. ca. 745/1344), comprising the fourth part (fann) of a long treatise on poetics written by Šams-al-Din Moḥammad b. Faḵr-al-Din Faḵri Eṣfahāni (Šams-e Faḵri). Šams-e Faḵri was a poet, a specialist in…

MICHAEL THE SYRIAN, Jacobite patriarch of Antioch (1166-99), who wrote a universal chronicle in Syriac, covering events from the Creation until 1195. The main events of Michael’s life are known from the details he reports in his Chronicle (Chabot, 1899-1910, III, pp. 341-413); from the Syrian historian Bar Hebraeus (see…

MICROCOSM and MACROCOSM in pre-Islamic Iranian thought. The theory of microcosm and macrocosm, i.e., of the correspondence between the different parts of the human being and those of the cosmos, is no mere mental game. It is one of the ancient ways in which people have represented existence, seeking to…

MIDDLE PERSIAN LITERATURE i. PAHLAVI LITERATURE Pahlavi literature traditionally defines the writings of the Zoroastrians in the Middle Persian language and Book Pahlavi script which were compiled in the 9th and the 10th centuries CE. These books safeguard, in the vast majority of cases, older material, going back to the…

MIHR YAŠT, Middle Persian form of the name of the tenth of the 21 Yašts of the Avesta. It constituted the seventh Fargard of the Avestan Bagān Yašt Nask, of which a Pahlavi summary survives in the Dēnkard (see BAGĀN YAŠT). The Mihr Yašt is the hymn of the sixteenth…

MILĀN, a Kurdish tribe in western Persian Azerbaijan. Its territory borders that of the Jalāli tribe. Its winter quarters are on or near the southern bank of the Aras river, in the rural districts (dehestāns) of Sāri-subāsār, Aras-kanār, Čāy-bāsār and Gečlarāt, from northeast to southeast of Māku (Razmārā IV, pp….