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ʿALAM VA ʿALĀMAT (Ar. ʿalāma), banner; more particularly, the banners carried in religious processions. For banners in the pre-Islamic period, sec Derafš. i. History. ii. The Art of Metal ʿAlams.   i. History In both Arabic and Persian, the word ʿalam (pl. aʿlām) conveys various senses connected with the general…

ʿALAM, MOḤAMMAD EBRĀHIM, AMIR ŠAWKAT-AL-MOLK (b. Birjand, 1881; d. Birjand, 1944), one of the most eminent local magnates and landowners of the late Qajar and early Pahlavi period. He was the governor of Qāʾenāt and the Sistān province, and minister of post and telegraph in different cabinets between 1938 and…

ʿALAM-AL-HODĀ, ABU’L-QĀSEM ʿALĪ B. AL-ḤOSAYN AL-MŪSAWĪ AL-ŠARĪF AL-MORTAŻĀ, leading Imamite scholar, man of letters, and naqīb (syndic) of the Talibids in Baghdad. He was born in Baghdad in Raǰab, 355/June-July, 965. His father Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥosayn b. Mūsā b. Moḥammad b. Mūsā b. Ebrāhīm b. Mūsā al-Kāẓem (d. 400/1009) several…

ʿĀLAM-E NESVĀN, a magazine founded in Mīzān, 1299 Š./September, 1920, one of the earliest periodicals published by and for women. Started by Nawwāba Ḵānom Ṣafawī, its principal contributors were members of the graduates’ association of the American Women’s College of Iran; throughout its life two members of the American staff,…

ʿĀLAMĀRĀ-YE ŠĀH ESMĀʿĪL, an anonymous narrative of the life of Shah Esmāʿīl (r. 907-30/1501-24), the founder of the Safavid dynasty in Iran. The work, also published under the title ʿĀlamārā-ye Ṣafawī, takes the form of an historical romance; compiled late in the 11th/17th century (the text contains the date 1086/1675-76),…

ʿĀLAMĀRĀ-YE ʿABBĀSĪ, a Safavid chronicle written by Eskandar Beg Monšī (b. ca. 968/1560, d. ca. 1042/1632). The work, which is of great length (1,116 pages in the two-volume, closely printed edition published in Tehran, 1334-35 Š./1955-56), comprises a moqaddama on the origins of the Safavid house and the reigns of…

ʿALAWAYH (or in Ṭabarī, III, p. 1149) AL-AʿSAR (“the Left-handed”), ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALI B. ʿABDALLĀH B. SAYF, a noted singer at the ʿAbbasid court under Hārūn al-Rašīd and his successors, ca. 184-230/800-54. His grandfather, a captive from Soḡd, had been an Omayyad freedman (mawlā). ʿAlawayh was a pupil of Ebrāhīm al-Mawṣelī…

ʿALAWĪ, the nesba used to denote descendants, political states, or sects connected with one or another ʿAli (Ebn al-Aṯīr, al-Lobāb, II, Cairo, 1357, p. 148; Ebn Ḥaǰar, Tabṣīr al-montabeh, ed. ʿA. M. al-Beǰāwī, Cairo, 1964-67, III, pp. 1020-21); more particularly, it is employed to refer to a Shiʿite sect centered…

ʿALĀʾ B. ḤASAN B. ʿALĪ, ABU’L-QĀSEM, vizier of Fārs under the Buyid rulers Šaraf-al-dawla and Ṣamṣām-al-dawla. ʿAlāʾ’s term of office was situated in a period of disturbances following ʿAżod-al-dawla’s death in 372/983, when the latter’s sons Šaraf-al-dawla (d. 379/989), Ṣamṣām-al-dawla (d. 388/998), and Bahāʾ-al-dawla (d. 403/1012) were engaged in fierce…