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ĀŠ i. Etymology. ii. In modern Iran. iii. Among Zoroastrians.   i. Etymology The word āš does not seem to appear in the earliest New Persian literature and the single occurrence of āš in Middle Persian, in the Pahlavi Vīdēvdād (13.28; H. Jamasp, Vendidad, Bombay, 1907, I, p. 473; II,…

ĀS, a game of playing cards (see CARD GAMES) which became popular in the Qajar era, and hence replaced ganjafa, the card game associated with the Safavids. The cards were made of papier-mâché strengthened by calico. Their oblong size did not exceed 6 x 4 cm. in general. The surface…

AṦA, “truth” in Avestan, from Indo-Iranian *ṛtá-, a neuter noun having the same meaning. The word is attested in Old Persian as ạrta and in Old Indian as ṛtá-. i. Avestan aṧa. ii. Old Persian Aṛta.   i. Avestan Aša Indo-Iranian inheritance. By reconstructing on the basis of the Avesta…

ASAD B. SĀMĀNḴODĀ, (Sāmānḵodāt in Naršaḵī), ancestor of the Samanid dynasty. Sāmānḵodā seems to have been a local landowner (dehqān) of the village of Sāmān in the district of Balḵ. Bīrunī gives a genealogy going back four generations from Sāmānḵodā to the Sasanian Bahrām Čūbīn (Āṯār al-bāqīa, p. 39; Chronology,…

ASADĀBĀD (or ASʿADĀBĀD), the official name of a small town in eastern Afghanistan. The town occupies a very favorable situation at the junction of the two main access routes to Nūrestān (the former Kafiristan) and Chitral, which run through the valleys of the Konar river and its principal right bank…

ASADĀBĀD (Asadābāḏ and Asadāvād in medieval Islamic sources). 1. A town in the medieval Islamic province of Jebāl, now in the ostān of Kermānšāhān (Bāḵtarān) of modern Iran. It is situated at an altitude of 5,575 ft/1,699 m, some 33.5 miles/54 km west-southwest of Hamadān on the historic Baghdad-Hamadān-Ray or…

ASADALLĀH EṢFAHĀNĪ, a signature borne by hundreds of fine blades, which is occasionally followed by dates ranging from the 17th to the 19th century (L. A. Mayer, Islamic Armourers and Their Works, Geneva, 1962, pp. 28-29). Nothing is known about the craftsman (or rather craftsmen) who is, in Mayer’s opinion…

ASADĪ ṬŪSĪ, ʿALĪ B. AḤMAD, (b. ca. 390/999-1000, d. 465/1072-73), poet, linguist and copyist, from Ṭūs in Khorasan (see the colophon of al-Abnīa, in his own hand; Asadī was his laqab or taḵalloṣ, see Garšāsp-nāma, ed. Ḥ. Yaḡmāʾī, pp. 14, 477). His konya is given as Abū Naṣr in Maǰāles…

ĀṢAF AL-LOḠĀT, title of a Persian dictionary compiled by Aḥmad al-ʿAzīz al-Nāʾeṭī, Šams-al-ʿolamāʾ Nawwāb ʿAzīz Jang Bahādor of Hyderabad in the Deccan. The compiler planned to give in alphabetic order explanations of every known word, compound, and saying together with examples of its use from works of early and later…

ĀṢAF KHAN, ʿABD-AL-MAJĪD, 10th/16th century Mughal official and military commander. Descended from Shaikh Abū Bakr Tāybādī (d.791/1389), he was born and brought up in Herat. He served under ʿAskarī and then as dīvān of Homāyūn. In 967/1560 he was appointed governor of Delhi by Akbar, who subsequently made him commander…