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OMAN, SEA OF, the sea, or gulf, which divides Iran and the Arabian peninsula and forms the link between the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Sea. It is 560 km long and at its widest point is 320 km wide. From a hydrological point of view it is just a…

OMM AL-KETĀB, title of an anonymous Persian book associated with certain early Shiʿite ḡolāt (extremist) groups of southern Iraq.  The origins of this syncretic text, produced initially in Arabic, are shrouded in mystery.  Subsequently, this work found its way into the manuscript collections of the Nezāri Ismaʿilis of Badaḵšān (an…

ONO, Morio (b. Tokyo, 22 January 1925; d. Tokyo, 4 April 2001), eminent Japanese scholar and Iranologist.  Morio Ono was an influential Japanese scholar in many fields, notably the field of rural studies, particularly Iranian. Born and raised in a family of Samurai ancestry, he finished high school during the…

OPTICS The science of “aspects” or “appearances” (ʿelm al-manāẓer), as optics was called in the Islamic Middle Ages, has a long and impressive history in both Arabic and Persian. The disciplinary, theoretical, and methodological developments of optics as the study of “direct” and “indirect” vision (manāẓer, “ordinary vision;” marāyā, “mediated…

ORAHAM, ALEXANDER JOSEPH (b. Armudāḡāj, 7 February 1898; d. 1953, Figure 1), Assyrian physician and lexicographer, born in the village of Armudāḡāj of the Urmia District, Azerbaijan.  Until the age of thirteen he studied at the village school, where many Assyrian men and women received their primary education.  Later he…

ORANSKIĬ, IOSIF MIKHAILOVICH, prominent Soviet (Russian-Jewish) Iranologist (b. 24 April 1923 in Petrograd [St. Petersburg], d. 16 May 1977, from a heart attack at his place of work in the Institute of Oriental Studies in Leningrad [St. Petersburg]) (FIGURE 1). His works played a significant role in the development of…

ORBELI, IOSEF ABGAROVICH (Arm. Hovsepʻ Ōrbeli; b. Tbilisi, 20 March 1887; d.  Leningrad, 2 February 1961; Figure 1), orientalist and academician who specialized in Iranian studies, Armenian and Kurdish philology, and archeology. Iosef (Joseph) Orbeli was born in a family of intellectuals in Tbilisi, where he had his pre-university education…

ORDUBĀD, a town on the north bank of the middle course of the Araxes (Aras) river of eastern Transcaucasia, former in Persian territory but now in the Republic of Azerbaijan. It is some 94 km north-northwest of Tabriz and lies at an altitude of 948 m. The Turco-Persian name “army…

ORIENTAL INSTITUTE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, a major research center devoted to the study of the history, languages, and archaeology of the ancient Near East and Egypt. The origins of the Oriental Institute can be traced back to 1892 and the foundation of the new University of Chicago in its…

ORMURI is spoken by the Ormur (Ōrmuṛ), as the Pashtuns call them. The term Ōrmuṛ is traditionally interpreted as “extinguishers of fire,” from Pashto ôr “fire,” and mər, “dead, extinct”; perhaps the term is a malevolent allusion to a pretended past of “extinguishers of fire” (for other interpretations, see Morgenstierne, n.d.,…

OROITES, the Graecicized form (Oroítēs) of an Old Iranian name of unclear etymology (perhaps hypocoristic *Arv-ita- from OIr. *arva- = Av. auruua- ‘swift, brave’ according to Hinz, p. 39). It was borne by the satrap of Lydia, Phrygia, and Ionia during the reigns of the Achaemenid kings Cyrus II and…

ORONTES, Old Iranian masculine name, attested only in the Greek forms Oróntas, Oróntēs (Latin Orontes, Oronta), Orondēs, Aroandēs, Oro-, Aru-, Oruándēs, which reflect certainly — since most of these variants denote traceably one and the same person (no. 2 below) — a form OPers. *Arvanta- (continued by MPers., NPers. Arvand),…

OŠNUYA, OŠNU, OŠNOH (now OŠNAVIYA), a small town of southwestern Azerbaijan. It lies near the southwestern corner of Lake Urmia on the Qādar-Čay river; it is some 32 km from the lakeshore and also some 32 km from the meeting-place of the modern frontiers of Iran, Turkey, and Iraq. The…

OSRUŠANA, a district of medieval Islamic Transoxania lying to the east of Samarqand on the upper reaches of the Zarafšān river or Nahr-e Ṣogd. It extended northwards to the southern bend of the Syr Darya and the western fringes of Farghana (see FARḠĀNA), and southwestwards to the Bottamān mountains, which separated…