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PURSIŠNĪHĀ (Questions), a collection of 59 questions and answers in Avestan and Middle Persian relating to matters of Zoroastrian religion. In support of the answers, the text includes fragmentary Avestan quotations, which are the main claim to fame of these questions. The title Pursišnīhā comes from the first word of…

PUYANDA, Moḥammad-Jaʿfar (b. Yazd, 17 Ḵordād 1333/7 June 1954; d. Tehran, 18 Āḏar 1377/9 December 1998, FIGURE 1), scholar and translator of literary texts and sociological studies. Puyanda finished his primary and secondary education in Yazd before going to Tehran, where he received his MA degree in Law from the…

P ENTRIES: CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS online entry caption text PAHLAVI PSALTER Figure 1. F. C. Andreas and Kaj Barr, “Bruchstücke einer Pehlevi-Übersetzung der Psalmen, mit 11 Tafeln,” Sb. d. Preussischen Akad. d. Wissenschaften, 1933, pp. 91-152. PALACE ARCHITECTURE Figure 1. Godin Tepe. After Young and Levine, p. 116, fig. 37….

QADAMGĀH, an ancient site at the southeastern tip of the Kuh-e Raḥmat, some 40 km south of the Persepolis terrace (lat 29°43′10″ N, long 53°12′05″ E; Figure 1). Its Persian name (“place of the footprints”) was explained to the 19th-century visitor as due to “the curious marks in the rocks, which…

QĀDESIYA, BATTLE OF, an engagement during the mid-630s CE in which Arab Muslim warriors overcame a larger Sasanian army and paved the way for their subsequent conquest of Iran. The battle took place at a small settlement on the frontier of Sasanian Iraq.  Qādesiya was likely a garrison town in…

QAJAR DYNASTY xiii. Children’s Upbringing in the Qajar Period The birth of a child in a Shiʿite family during the Qajar period was usually associated with the performance of various rituals.  Immediately after the child was born, the Shiʿi aḏān (call to prayer) as well as eqāma (the call indicating…

QAJAR DYNASTY viii. “Big Merchants” in the Late Qajar Period This entry deals with the economic, social, and political life of the Iranian “big merchants” (tojjār-e bozorg) and entrepreneurs (estimated at 250-350 in number) in the late Qajar period (1870-1914). Big merchants, most of them Muslims, with a few Zoroastrians,…

QAJAR DYNASTY xii. The Qajar-Period Household Qajar society was pluralistic, in the sense that different groups of various social status existed in it. It was patrilineal and patriarchal, and residence after marriage was normally patrilocal, although there were exceptions to this rule. It was a society of strong kinship relations, in…

QAJAR DYNASTY  xiv. Qajar Cuisine Persian cuisine is an art that has evolved through centuries of refinement, culminating in the Qajar period and continuing in present-day Iran.  Qajar cuisine has its origins in Iran’s ancient empires (see COOKING i), particularly that of the Sasanians (226-651 CE; Briant, pp. 266-414; see…

QALA d-ŠRARA (The voice of truth), a monthly publication of the mainly French Catholic Lazarist Mission in Urmia which ran from 1897 to 1915 (Figure 1).  The second periodical to appear in Urmia wholly published in Assyrian neo-Aramaic, after Zahrire d-bahra (1849-1918; Yonan, pp. 22-23), Qala d-šrara was edited for…

QALAM  “reed pen.”  Qalam (قلم) is a common name for a reed (nay/ney, نی), a perennial plant of the grass family (Gramineae), after its hollow stem is cut and a nib is formed on the tip for calligraphy purposes (Māyel Heravi, pp. 717-18).  In a narrative in Greek mythology, two…

QALʿA-YE DOḴTAR, a vast barrier fortress with a lofty palace of royal dimensions, built by the founder of the Sasanian empire, Ardašir I Pāpakān before his decisive victory against the last Parthian king in 224 CE (FIGURE 1). It is built on a high spur of rock above a bend of…

Qamar al-Moluk – Magar nasim-e sahar title Qamar al-Moluk – Magar nasim-e sahar genre/topic Abu-‘atā language   performer Qamar al-Molk Vaziri, vocals and Mortezā Neydāwud, tār instrument   composer   author/poet Sa’di first line of poem magar nasim-e sahar buye yār-e man ast recorded by   place of recording  …

QAMAR-AL-MOLUK VAZIRI (Waziri), commonly referred to as Qamar, the stage name of Qamar-al-Moluk Vazirizāda (b. Tākestān, circa 1284 Š./1905; d. Tehran, 14 Mordād 1338 Š./5 August 1959, FIGURE 1), popular, pioneering Persian mezzo-soprano, much revered for her mastery of the repertoire of Persian vocal music (radif-e āvāz) and her sensitive…