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ʿĀMELĪ EṢFAHĀNĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN ŠARĪF B. MOḤAMMAD ṬĀHER, Shiʿite theologian and author (d. Naǰaf, 1138/1726). He was born in Isfahan, where he spent most of his life, into a family of Iranized sayyeds originally from Jabal al-ʿĀmel in Lebanon; he studied with the great Shiʿite theologian Moḥammad Bāqer Maǰlesī, from whom…

ʿĀMERĪ NĪŠĀPŪRĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN MOḤAMMAD B. YŪSOF (d. 381/992), important philosopher from Khorasan between Fārābī and Avicenna. Though he was praised by his contemporaries and later figures (e.g., Tawḥīdī, Moskūya, Šahrestānī, Šahrazūrī, Kalābāḏī, little is known about his life. Born at Nīšāpūr, he studied with Abū Yazīd Aḥmad b. Sahl Balḵī…

ʿAMĪD, ABŪ ʿABDALLĀH AL-ḤOSAYN B. MOḤAMMAD, known as Kolah (said to be an opprobrious term), secretary and official in northern Persia and Transoxania during the 4th/10th century, and father of Abu’l-Fażl Moḥammad b. ʿAmīd, the celebrated vizier of the Buyid amir Rokn-al-dawla. He was allegedly of lowly birth, originally a…

ʿAMĪD-AL-DĪN SANĀMĪ, ḴᵛĀJA FAḴR-AL-MOLK, 7th/13th century Persian poet of India, panegyrist of Nāṣer-al-dīn Maḥmūd (r. 644-64/1246-66) and perhaps of Ḡīāṯ-al-dīn Balban (r. 664-86/1266-87). Although much is known of ʿAmīd’s contemporaries, information on his life is scanty and contradictory, and only a few of his verses are preserved in biographical dictionaries….

ʿĀMMA (pl. ʿawāmm), a common Emāmī Shiʿite appellation for the Sunnites. Roughly equivalent to ahl al-ḵelāf, al-moḵālefūn, al-ḵaṣm, or al-ǰomhūr, it is more obviously pejorative, in that it implies an identity between Sunnites and ʿāmma in the sense of “ignorant masses.” It is not clear at precisely which point the…

ʿAMMĀRLŪ, a Kurdish tribe of Gīlān and Khorasan. Needing a barrier against the Uzbeks, Shah ʿAbbās (r. 996-1038/1588-1629) moved some 40,000 families of Zaʿfarānlū, Šādellū, Keyvānlū, Qarāčūrlū, and ʿAmmārlū Kurds from Kurdistan to the Āḵāl Takka, beyond the Kopet-Dag. During the reign of Shah Solṭān-Ḥosayn (1105-35/1694-1722), these Kurds, worn out…

ʿAMR B. LAYṮ ṢAFFĀRĪ, military commander and second ruler of the Saffarid dynasty of Sīstān (r. 265-87/879-900). Though of humble birth, the four Saffarid brothers from the Sīstān countryside were able to further their military ambitions by joining the ʿayyār bands that had originally arisen there to combat the local…

ʿAMR B. YAʿQŪB B. MOḤAMMAD B. ʿAMR B. LAYṮ ABŪ ḤAFṢ, great-grandson of the co-founder of the Saffarid dynasty and ephemeral boy amir in Sīstān, 299-301/912-13. The first Saffarid empire had collapsed a decade after the defeat and capture of ʿAmr b. Layṯ, and Sīstān itself had come under Samanid…