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ASTARĀBĀDĪ, FAŻLALLĀH ŠEHĀB-AL-DĪN B. BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN (or B. ABŪ MOḤAMMAD) (d. 796/1394), founder of the Ḥorūfī religion that achieved some prominence in Timurid Iran before coming to exert a decisive influence on the Bektāšī order of dervishes in Turkey. He is sometimes designated as Fażlallāh Ḥorūfī or Fażlallāh Tabrīzī, the latter…

ASTARĀBĀDĪ, MĪRZĀ (MOḤAMMAD) MAHDĪ KHAN B. MOḤAMMAD-NAṢĪR, court secretary and historiographer to Nāder Shah Afšār (r. 1148-60/1736-47). Despite his position as an eminent public figure and scholar during the reign of Nāder Shah, little is known for certain of the life of Mīrzā Mahdī, not even the dates of his…

ASTARĀBĀDĪ, MOLLĀ MOḤAMMAD AMĪN B. MOḤAMMAD ŠARĪF AL-AḴBĀRĪ, founder of the 17th-century Aḵbārī school. His first teacher of Hadith was Moḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Ḥosayn ʿĀmelī (d. ca. 1009/1600), under whom he studied in Naǰaf (not Mašhad; cf. Brockelmann, GAL, S. II, p. 577), receiving the eǰāza at the beginning…

  Search terms: استرابادی عبدالجبار astarabadi abdouljabar  astarabadi abdouljabaar astarabadi abdoljabar  

AŠTARAK,a village in the Ābārān district about six miles northwest of Yerevan (Iravān) in a mountainous region of the Caucasus; in Moḥarram 1243/August 1827 the site of a Persian victory in the second Russo-Persian war; also known as the battle of Oshakan (Awšakān). The Russian commander-in-chief, Ivan Fedorovich Paskevich, who…

AŠTARJĀN (OŠTORJĀN), name of a subdistrict (dehestān) and its chief village, lying southwest of Isfahan on the road connecting this city with Šahr-e Kord. The village (population 2065 in 1345 Š./1966) is noteworthy for its medieval Friday mosque dating from the early 8th/14th century. The mosque, significant for its architecture,…

ĀSTARKĪ (or AŠTARKĪ), one sub-tribe (qabīla) of the six which presently constitute the Dūrkī tribe (ṭāyefa) of the Haft Lang confederation (īl) of the Baḵtīārī people. The Āstarkī are divided into five clans (tīra)—Bahrāmasarī, Kovešša, Kāʾīvand, Tūšmāl, and Čārborī. (There was formerly a sixth clan, the Qāʾedšahī; but it detached…

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ĀŠTĪĀN, the name both of an administrative subdistrict (dehestān) and its chef-lieu in the First Province (ostān). It lies on the northeastern side of the central Zagros mountain massif in a region traditionally known as ʿErāq (modern Arāk), and the dehestān is one of three making up the district (baḵš)…

ĀŠTĪĀNI, the dialect of Āštīān, belongs to the group of “Central” dialects spoken in Kashan and Isfahan provinces and some adjacent areas. In 1969, when the writer visited Āštīān, the dialect was still spoken in the Māzerī quarters of the town by some elderly people, and it was well preserved…

ĀŠTĪĀNĪ, ḤĀJJ MĪRZĀ ḤASAN (or MOḤAMMAD ḤASAN) B. MĪRZĀ JAʿFAR (d. 1319/1901), late nineteenth-century moǰtahed who played an important role in the campaign against the tobacco concession of 1309/1891. Like most scholars of the period, he received his higher religious training in Naǰaf, where his teachers were Shaikh Moḥsen b….

ĀŠTĪĀNĪ, ḤĀJJ MĪRZĀ MAHDĪ, known as Mīrzā Kūček (1306-1372/1888-89 to 1952-53), a scholar who excelled in both the traditional (manqūl) and rational (maʿqūl) sciences. His father, Mīrzā Jaʿfar, was both a nephew and a son-in-law of the great moǰtahed Mīrzā Moḥammad Ḥasan Āštīānī, Ḥāǰǰ Mīrzā Mahdī first studied with his…

AŠTIŠAT, religious center of pagan Armenia and first official Christian see. Aštišat is generally identified with the site of the convent of St. Sahak or of Yašticʿ, on a hill at the northern side of the confluence of the Murad = nehir and the Kara-nehir, north of Muš (H. Oskean,…

ASTŌDĀN, “bone-receptacle, ossuary” (Persian sotōdān), from ast- “oss, bone” and -dāna “container, receptacle.” The term has an important place in the vocabulary of ancient Iranian funerary rites. The Old Iranian word daxma (from *dafma from IE *dhṃbh) “bury” (K. Hoffman in ZVS [KZ] 79, 1965, p. 238) indicates that Iranians…