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ZOROASTRIANS OF IRAN vi. Linguistic Documentation This article focuses on the importance of documenting the Zoroastrian dialects of Yazd and Kerman, also known as Zoroastrian Dari (a term not to be confused with classical Persian Dari or Dari in Afghanistan). We discuss the relevance of social, historical, and cultural contexts…

territory around Lake Hāmun and the Helmand river in modern Sistan. See DRANGIANA.

ZUR-ḴĀNA (lit. house of strength), the traditional gymnasium of urban Persia and adjacent lands. Until the mid-20th century the zur-ḵāna was associated primarily with wrestling, and it bore great resemblance to the wrestlers’ tekkes (Pers. takia, Ar. takiya “lodges, buildings designed for confraternal life) of Ottoman Turkey (Kreiser, pp. 97-103),…

ZURVAN (Av. zruuan-, Pahl. zrlwʾn), ancient Zoroastrian deity of Time.  Although the etymology of the Avestan word zruuan- causes difficulty, there is consensus over its basic meaning, that is, “period (of time),” rather than (abstract) “time” itself (Lubonsky, p. 73).  It occurs thus in a limited number of fixed expressions,…

ZURVANISM, a hypothetical religious movement in the history of Zoroastrianism.  The first notices of a movement called zurvānīyya among the Iranians derive from the rich tradition of Muslim writings on religions and religious movements in the early Islamic world. These sources reflect, first and foremost, Muslim concerns (Monnot, 1986, pp….

ZURWĀNDĀD, the eldest son of the grand vizier (wuzurg framādār) Mehr Narseh, who appointed him to the high religious office of chief hērbed during the reign of the Sasanian king Bahrām V Gōr (r. 420-38, q.v.) in the 5th century CE (Ṭabari, I/2, p. 869, tr., p. 104).  His name, Zurwāndād…

Z~ ENTRIES: CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS Entry Image Caption ZAND DYNASTY Figure 1. Portrait of Karim Khan Zand (© British Library Board, MS Or. 4938; Rieu, Persian Manuscripts, Supp., p. 262). ZARUDNIĬ, NIKOLAĬ ALEKSEEVICH Figure 1. Nikolaĭ Alekseevich Zarudniĭ. ZENDA BE GUR Figure 1. Book cover of Zenda be gur. ZHUKOVSKIĬ,…

ŁAZAR PʿARPECʿI, late 5th century Armenian historian, author of History of Armenia and Letter to Vahan Mamikonean.  Łazar was born circa 441-43 or 453 CE, in a low or middling noble family, in the village Pʿarpi (Aragacotn province). He was raised by a princess of the Armenian noble Mamikonean family…

ƎRƎTI, the name of a minor goddess. One of a number of abstract deities who appear in the Avesta only in formulaic invocations of divinities, she is the hypostasis of ərəti-. Although most interpreters follow Bartholomae (AirWb, col. 350) in taking this feminine noun to mean approximately ‘energy’ on the…

ʿABAQĀT AL-ANWĀR, a large Persian and Arabic work by Mīr Ḥāmed Ḥosayn b. Moḥammad-qolī b. Moḥammad b. Ḥāmed of Lucknow on the legitimacy of the imamate and the defense of Shiʿite theology. The book, arranged in two parts, is one of several refutations of Toḥfa eṯnāʿašarīya (specifically chap. 7) by…

ʿABĀʾ (in Arabic, also ʿabāʾa and ʿabāya), a loose outer garment, generally for men, worn widely throughout the Middle East, particularly by Arab nomads. In Iran the ʿabāʾ is used almost exclusively by religious scholars. In its most common form, that prevalent in Syria and Arabia, the ʿabāʾ has the…

ʿABBĀD B. SALMĀN (or SOLAYMĀN) B. ʿALĪ AL-ṢAYMARĪ, ABŪ SAHL, Muʿtazili theologian of the 3rd/9th century. Although Ebn al-Nadīm calls him a Basran, his nesba indicates that he came from Ṣaymara in southwestern Jebāl. He must have been born before the year 200/816, for his teacher in Muʿtazili theology, Hešām…

ʿABBĀS II, king of Iran (1052-77/1642-66) of the Safavid dynasty. The son of Shah Ṣafī, he was born on 18 Jomādā II 1043/20 December 1633, and succeeded his father on 12 Ṣafar 1052/12 May 1642, when he was only eight and a half years old; he died on 26 Rabīʿ…

ʿABBĀS AḤVAL, leader with ʿAmr al-Azraq (Masʿūdī: al-Afvah) of an Arab invasion of the lower Euphrates region in which the Savād of Iraq was ravaged, about A.D. 589, toward the end of the reign of Hormozd IV. This event is represented by some ancient historians as part of a coalition…