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ZEǏMAL’, Evegeniǐ Vladislavovich (b. Moscow, 10 March 1932; d. St. Petersburg, 6 May 1998), Russian numismatist and historian of ancient Iran and Central Asia. His father, Vladislav Ivanovich Zeǐmal’, a Latvian, and his mother, Ol’ga Iosifovna, were repressed by Stalin’s regime in 1937, and Evgeniǐ was brought up by his…

ZEKRAWAYH B. MEHRAWAYH (actually: Zakaroya b. Mehroya; b. unknown; d. Wādi Ḏi Qār, 294/907), one of the first Ismaʿili missionaries (dāʿi) in Iraq.  He came from the village of Maysāniya near the town Ṣawʾar on the Ḥadd canal, southwest of Kufa, four miles to the west of Qādesiya, on the…

ẒELLI, Reżāqoli Mirzā (b. Tehran, 1906; d. Tehran, 1945), singer. Ẓelli lost his father, Aḥmad Mirzā, in childhood and was brought up by his elder brother. He got a job in the telephone company after finishing middle school. He become a teacher later and was finally employed by Bank Melli…

ZEMESTĀN-E 62 (Winter of 62), a novel published in 1987 by the well-known and prolific Persian novelist Esma’il Fasih This title of the novel refers to the winter of 1362 Š. (1984), the third year of the Iran-Iraq war. The story is narrated by one of the familiar protagonists of…

“ZENDA BE GUR” (1930, translated by Brian Spooner as “Buried Alive,” 1979), a short story by the prominent 20th-century writer, Sadeq Hedayat (HEDAYAT, SADEQ, 1903-1951); it first appeared in a collection of the same title (Figure 1).  The subtitle of the story reads, “from the jottings of a mad man.”…

ZHUKOVSKIĬ, Valentin Alekseevich (b. Voronezh, 17 May [5 May Old Style] 1858; d. Petrograd, 17 January [4 January Old style] 1918), one of the most prominent representatives of Russian, namely St. Petersburg, Oriental studies (FIGURE 1). He was the pupil of such outstanding scholars as Carl Salemann (1849-1916), Baron Victor…

ZIAPOUR, JALIL (Jalil Żiāʾpur, b. Anzali, 5 Ordibehešt 1299 Š./25 April 1920; d. Tehran 30 Āḏar 1378 Š./21 December 1999; Figure 1), painter and scholar. Ziapour was the eldest child of eight born to Shaikh Ḥasan Ziapour, a shoemaker from Bandar Anzali. Upon graduating from high school, Jalil moved to…

ŻIĀʾ-AL-SALṬANA, Šāh Begom (1799-1873), seventh daughter of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah Qajar (r. 1797-1834), private secretary to him, calligrapher and poet. Her mother, Maryam Khanom, the shah’s thirty-ninth wife, was of Jewish origin and had previously been married to Āḡā Moḥammad Khan Qajar (Lesān-al-Molk, I, p. 555; Ḵāvari, II, p. 986; Ażod-al-Dawla,…

ZIGGURAT (Akkadian ziqqurratu  “temple-tower”), a tower consisting of several stages, on whose uppermost platform existed in all probability a high temple (Roaf, pp. 104-105).  According to Wilfrid Allinger-Csollich (p. 319), the high temple is not separate from the ziggurat, and the entire ziggurat should be understood as a raised temple. …

Žimnāstik muzikāl title Žimnāstik muzikāl (Musical gymnastics) genre/topic Āvāz-e Dāšti language   performer Vaziri, ʿAli-Naqi instrument Tār composer Vaziri, ʿAli-Naqi author/poet   first line of poem   recorded by   place of recording   date of recording   duration 3:13 source Ostād Ali-Naqi Vaziri. Mahoor Institute of Culture and Art,…

ZIWIYE (ZIVIA), name of an archeological site in northwestern Iran at which a trove of objects known as the “Ziwiye Treasure” was reputedly found. In 1948, the French archaeologist André Godard (1881-1965) published in a museum catalogue a small group of silver and ceramic artifacts in his and the dealer Ayub Rabenou’s…

ZIYARIDS (Āl-e Ziār), a minor Islamic dynasty of the Caspian coastlands (931-ca. 1090).  They ruled first in northern Iran, and then in Ṭabarestān and Gorgān. The Ziyarids belonged to hitherto submerged mountain peoples, notably the Deylamites, Gilites (Gelae; see GILĀN iv, EIr X/6, p. 634), and Kurds, whose rise to…

ZODIAC, a circle, oblique with respect to the equator, represented on the celestial sphere and divided into twelve equal parts, conventionally of 30° each (Pahlavi dwʾcdhʾn dwāzdahān “the twelve ones;” Sogd. Man. ʾ(n)xrwzn/Buddh. ʾnγrwzn; Mod. Pers. menṭaqato’l-boruj, lit. “the region of the Zodiacal signs,”; Gk. Dōdekatēmória, etc. [see below]). These…

ẒOHUR-AL-ḤAQQ (variously also called Tāriḵ-e Ẓohur-al-Ḥaqq and Ketāb-e Ẓohur-al-Ḥaqq), the most comprehensive history of the first century of the Bahai faith yet written, compiled in nine volumes by Mirzā Asad-Allāh, known as Fāżel Māzandarāni (1881-1957). In about 1924, shortly after his succession to the leadership of the Bahai community, Shoghi…

ẒOHURI TORŠIZI, Mollā Nur-al-Din Moḥammad (d. 1025/1616), Persian poet. Ẓohuri was born and raised in rural Khorasan. Ẓohuri himself states that he comes from the village of Qāyen (Sāqi-nāma, p. 203), but the earliest biographies associate him with the town of Toršiz, near today’s Kāšmar, where he perhaps went to…