Explore Iranica

AMĪRAK BAYHAQĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN AḤMAD B. MOḤAMMAD ʿANBARĪ (d. 448/1056), intelligence officer (ṣāḥeb-barīd) in Khorasan under the early Ghaznavids. He stemmed from a prominent Bayhaq family of scholars and officials, the ʿAnbarīān (q.v.), who had shortly before produced the poet and vizier Abu’l-ʿAbbās ʿAnbarī. Abu’l-Ḥasan was a landowner in Bayhaq, where…

AMĪRAK ṬŪSĪ, 4th/10th century notable of the ʿAbd-al-Razzāqī family of Ṭūs, related to Abū Manṣūr Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-al-Razzāq (an earlier local leader [kanārang] and governor of Ṭūs) and ruler of the fortress of Kalāt and the district of Tārūd (?) in Khorasan. In the struggle between Abū ʿAlī Sīmǰūr and…

AMIRDOVLATʿAMASIATSʿI (b. Amasya ca. 1420/25; d. Bursa, 1496), Armenian physician at the Ottoman court and author of Angitats Anpet,an encyclopedic polyglot in six languages including Persian. Angitats Anpet is by far Amirdovlatʿ’s most important accomplishment. The dictionary attests to the vast knowledge of the autor of remedial properties of plants,…

AMIRI, Yusof, a Persian-Chaghatay poet of the first half of the 15th century.  He was of Persian origin; the dates of his birth and death are unknown.  Amiri was a poet at the Timurid court in Herat and a confident of Bāysonḡor Mirzā, one of Šāhroḵ’s sons, whom he honored…

Amiri-e kutāh o boland o Ṭālebā title Amiri-e kutāh o boland o Ṭālebā genre/topic Amiri and Ṭālebā language Māzandarāni performer A. Khoshru et al. instrument Lalevā; Dotār; Daf composer   author/poet   first line of poem  Amir gətə ke “so Amir said” second part (from minute 2:40) əy nəmāsunesar əy…

AMĪRḴĪZĪ, ESMĀʿĪL, Iranian man of letters, poet, and political activist, born in the Amīrḵīz quarter of Tabrīz, Ḏu’l-ḥeǰǰa, 1294/December, 1877. As a young man he worked as a merchant, following his father, Moḥammad-Taqī; at the same time he joined the liberals (āzādīḵᵛāhān). In 1323/1906 he worked for a society which…

AMITĀYUS, Sanskrit name of one of the transcendental Buddhas, the so-called Dhyāni-Buddhas, of later Buddhism. He became associated with Sukhāvatī, the Pure Land or paradise of the west. Of a Late Khotanese poem in praise of Amitāyus (in Late Khotanese, Armyāya) thirty-six out of an original total of sixty verses…

AMLĀK (plural of melk), privately owned agricultural estates; the term (of Arabic origin) designates a form of rural land tenure pattern that existed simultaneously in Iran with various other types of land holdings over several centuries. From as early as the Safavid dynasty three primary kinds of amlāk can be…

AMLAŠ i. Geography. ii. Excavations.

AMLAŠ, small town and district in southeastern Gilān (q.v.). i. Geography. ii. Excavations.   i. Geography The town of Amlaš is located at lat 37°05′ N, long 50°11′ E, on the right bank of the Šalmānrud. After having long been the center of a rural district (dehestān) of the same…

AMLAŠ i. GEOGRAPHY This small town and district in the southeastern part of Gilān Province.  The town is located at lat 37°05′ N, long 50°11′ E on the right bank of the Šalmānrud.  After having been for long the center of a subdistrict (dehestān) of the same name within the…

AMLAŠ, a small village in southeastern Gīlān which, since 1959, has given its name to a large assortment of archeological artifacts derived from illegal, clandestine excavations in the nearby valleys of the Alborz range. The artifacts recovered range in date from the late second millennium B.C. through the Partho-Sasanian period,…

AMMIANUS MARCELLINUS, historian who provides important information on the Sasanians. Born ca. 330-35 in Antioch on the Orontes to a wealthy family of Greek origin, he received a bilingual education in Greek and Latin. Toward 350 he entered the elite group of the protectores domestici and was appointed to the…

AMMITMANYA (Elamite am-mi-ut-man-ya), an Iranian, to whom were entrusted 215 (?) BAR of grain provided for provisions at Tukraš (Ti-ik-raš, otherwise normally Tuk-raš), at the estate of Da-a-ya-u-ka (R. T. Hallock, Persepolis Fortification Tablets, Chicago, 1969, p. 193, no. 581). The Iranian name probably consists of *hamid- (cf. Avestan hamid-paiti-)…