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ARDAKĀNĪ, ḤĀJJĪ ABU’L-ḤASAN, known as Ḥāǰǰī Amīn and Amīn-e Elāhī, one of the four Ayādī-e Amr Allāh (Hands of the Cause of God) appointed by Bahāʾallāh as leaders of the Bahaʾi movement in Iran. Apart from his general functions as an exponent and defender of Bahaʾism, Ḥāǰǰī Amīn was made responsible for…

ARDAŠĪR, name of several figures in the Šāh-nāma. 1. The mōbad-e mōbadān (chief Zoroastrian priest-jurisconsult) in the reign of Pērōz (459-84), and also in the reign of Ḵosrow I Anōšīravān (r. 531-79). Ardašīr was one of the Iranian notables taken prisoner in the war between Pērōz and the Hephthalite king…

ARDAŠĪR BĀBAKĀN, name of a Sasanian and early Islamic district (ostān) formed in the early 7th century south of Baghdad and west of the Tigris. Its capital was Weh-Ardašīr (Ar. Bahrasīr) a town founded by Ardašīr I Bābakān on the west of the Tigris opposite Ctesiphon. The district comprised five…

ARDAŠĪR I (?-242 A.D.), the founder of the Sasanian empire. i. History ii. Rock reliefs

ARDAŠĪR I i. History Ardašīr, Middle Persian spelling ʾrthštr ( = Parthian ʾrthštr), pronounced Artašīr, later Ardašīr, is derived from Old Iranian *Ṛtaxšira, a two-stem hypocoristic name (*ṛta-xš-ira) to a full name *Ṛtaxšθra (R. Schmitt, “Artaxerxes, Ardašīr und Verwandte,” in Incontri Linguistici 5, 1979, pp. 61-72 and below under Artaxerxes)….

ARDAŠĪR I ii. Rock Reliefs The first Sasanian ruler Ardašīr I (224-241) established the Sasanian tradition of rock carving, which flourished until the reign of Šāpūr III (383-88) and made an impressive resurgence under Ḵosrow II (590-628) (H. Luschey, Iranica Antiqua 11, 1975, pp. 127ff. and plates 21, 22; D….

ARDAŠĪR II, Sasanian king of kings, A.D. 379-83. When his father, Hormozd II, died in 309, leading nobles and priests wrested the power from his eldest son, Āḏar Narseh, blinded a second son, and forced a third, Hormozd, to flee to the Romans (Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, p. 51 n….

ARDAŠĪR III, Sasanian king (r. September, 628-29 April, 629). His father Šērōyē (Kawād II) murdered most of the Sasanian princes and died after only a brief reign (Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser, pp. 383ff.). Nobles and senior officials proclaimed his seven-year-old son Ardašīr king, and one of them, Meh-Ādur Gušnasp (Meh-Āḏar…

ARDAŠĪR MĪRZĀ ROKN-AL-DAWLA, the ninth son of the crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā, was born about 1220/1805-06, and held the governorship of Garrūs and Ṣāʿīn Qaḷʿa-ye Afšār under his father’s viceregency of Azerbaijan (Moḥammad-Ḥasan Khan Ṣanīʿ-al-dawla, Montaẓam-e nāṣerī III, Tehran, 1300/1883, p. 157; Jahāngīr Mīrzā, Tārīḵ-e now, ed. ʿA. Eqbāl, Tehran,…

ARDAŠĪR SAKĀNŠĀH, a vassal king of the first Sasanian king of kings, Ardašīr I. The trilingual inscription of Šāpūr on the walls of the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt starts the list of “those who lived under the rule of king of kings Ardašīr” with four East Iranian rulers: Sātārop king of Aparēnak…

ARDAŠĪR-ḴORRA, one of the five administrative divisions (kūra) of Fārs, in Sasanian and early Islamic times (the other four being enumerated under the Sasanians as Šāpūr-Ḵorra, Arraǰān, Eṣṭaḵr and Dārābīerd). The name means literally “glory of Ardašīr,” with reference to the founder of the Sasanian monarchy, Ardašīr I, son of…

ARDAŠĪR-NAMA, a matnawī of six thousand couplets in Persian by Šāhīn Šīrāzī, a Jewish Persian poet of the 8th/14th century (comp. Šawwāl, 773/June, 1333). Composed in the meter of hazaǰ mosaddas aḵrab maqbūż maḥḏūr (- – ᴗ ᴗ | – ᴗ – ᴗ | – -) and written in the…