Explore Iranica

ABNĀʾ “sons” in Arabic, used as a term for the offspring of Persian soldiers and officials in the Yemen and of Arab mothers. These people were known thus in the lifetime of the Prophet (ca. 580-632 A.D.) and survived as a distinct ethnic and social group in the first century…

ABOULITES, satrap of Susiana under Darius III, at the time of the Achaemenid collapse. He was perhaps an Elamite, although his son bears an Iranian name—one that seems distinctly Zoroastrian (Oxathres: GAv. Huxšathra). After the battle of Arbela (1 October 331 B.C.), Mesopotamia rapidly fell to Alexander’s forces. Thus Aboulites…

ABRADATAS, a fictional king of Susa in Xenophon’s fictional, didactic life of Cyrus (Cyropaedia, books 5-7). He and his wife, Panthea, provide a running romantic theme in the work. Originally a subject of the Assyrians, Abradatas was separated from his wife when Cyrus captured her in one of his raids….

ABRAHAM OF CRETE (Kretatsʾi; b. Kandia, Crete, ?- d. Ejmiatsin, 18 April 1737), a leader of the Armenian Church and the author of a chronicle about Nāder Shah Afšār. Abraham was the bishop of Tekirdag (Rodosto, Thrace) and the Armenian prelate of Thrace from 1708 to 1734. He also spent…

ABRAHAM OF EREVAN, the author of a history of the wars in Armenian at the time of Nāder Shah Afšār. Little is known about Abraham of Erevan. He was probably born and died in the 18th century. His name survives mainly due to his book, Patmutʾiwn tʾagahori Parsits (History of…

ABRAHAM OF KAŠKAR, Christian monk of the 6th century CE, regarded as father of the monks in the Orient. Syriac sources attribute to Abraham an undisputed paternity over the monks of the Orient: for the author of the Chronicle of Seert and of the History of Rabban Hormizd, he is…

ABRAHAMIAN, ROUBEN  (Arm. Ṛubēn Tʻadēosi Abrahamyan, also Abrahamean; b. Gnishik, 1881; d. Yerevan, 1951) Armenian Iranist, linguist, and translator. Abrahamian was born in the village of Gnishik in the Vayotsʻ Dzor region of Armenia, then part of the Russian empire. It was in this village that he received his primary…

ABRĀZ, Middle Persian “high, superior, height,” old Iranian *uparyānk- “above, high.” For the literal sense of the word, cf. Bundahišn, p. 188.11-12; pad abrāz paydāg, “visible on high” (i.e., in the heavens). The figurative sense, familiar in New Persian afrāz and the military title sar-afrāz, was already common in Old…

ABRĪŠAM, silk. i. Etymology. ii. Trade and production of silk and its use in crafts. iii. Silk textiles in Iran. i. Etymology The etymology of abrīšam (also abrīšom with dialectical labialization of a or delabialization of o, and barīšam) is not entirely certain. At present its apparent connection with New…

ĀBRĪZAGĀN “the pouring of water,” name for a Zoroastrian feast; the term could be used for Tīragān (q.v.) and probably also for the name-day festival of Hordād, both of which were celebrated by people sprinkling one another joyfully with water (see Bīrūnī, Chronology, pp. 218, 221). More specifically it was,…

ABROCOMAS, Persian satrap of Syria and commander under Artaxerxes II. In 401 B.C. he prepared an army to reconquer Egypt, which was in revolt against the Persian domination. But the same year Cyrus the Younger rebelled against Artaxerxes II, and Abrocomas went to Babylonia to the aid of the Persian…

ABROCOMES, a son of Darius I by Phrataguna, daughter of his brother Artanes. He perished at the battle of Thermopylae (Herodotus 7.224).

ĀBŠĪNA HAMADĀN RŪD, name of a drainage system that covers several streams and small rivers along the eastern flank of the Alvand Kūh; it flows north into the kavīr of Qom. The annual discharge of this river system varies between approx. 100 million cu m and 500 million cu m,…

ĀBŠŪR RŪD “salt river.” The name ābšūr is very common in Iran for those rivers with a high salt content. Salt may generally arrive from two sources: firstly, from minerals of the soil which are transported to the surface by the upward direction of groundwater and by soil-water evaporation due…