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ATOSSA, Achaemenid queen. The Greek form of the name may reflect Old Pers. *Utauθa ( = Av. Hutaosā), possibly “well trickling” or “well granting” (see M. Mayrhofer, Iranisches Personennamenbuch I, Vienna, 1979, p. I/52, no. 179). The most famous bearer of this name was the daughter of Cyrus the Great—probably…

ATRAK, river of northern Khorasan, flowing first northwest, and then southwest into the Caspian Sea. Its course is some 320 miles (according to Ḥamdallāh Mostawfī, 120 farsaḵs); the upper two-thirds drain the wide trough between the mountain chains of the Kopet-Dag and the Kūh-e Hazār Masjed to the north and…

Search terms: آتروپاتن   atropaten   

ATROPATES (Āturpāt, lit., “protected by the fire,” cf. Av. Atərəpāta), the satrap of Media, commander of the troops from Media, Albania, and Sacasene at the battle of Gaugamela in 331 B.C. (Arrian, Anabasis 3.8.4). He remained faithful to Darius III until the latter’s death in 330, after which he went…

ATRUŠAN, the Armenian word for “fire temple,” a loan-word from Parthian (see H. Hübschmann, Armen. Etymologie, p. 110 and more recently H. W. Bailey, Dictionary of Khotan Saka, Cambridge, 1979, p. 309, s.v. byuvāre). Armenian Zoroastrians worshipped at both fire temples and image-shrines, the latter called bagin-kʿ. In the first…

ĀTRƎVAXŠ (Mid. Pers ādurwaxš), one of the eight Zoroastrian priests (ratu) necessary for performance of the yasna ritual. As the name indicates, his primary function was to tend to (lit., “augment,” vaxš-) the sacred fire (ātar). According to Nirangistan 73 he also had to cleanse three sides of the fire…

Search terms:  اتسیز علاءالدین atsiz ala al din atsiz alaa al din atseez alaa aldin alaaldin atsiz atsiz ala edin      

ATSÏZ ḠARČAʾĪ, ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN WA’L-DAWLA ABU’L-MOẒAFFAR B. MOḤAMMAD B. ANŪŠTIGIN, ruler of Ḵᵛārazm with the traditional title Ḵᵛārazmšāh, 521 or 522/1127 or 1128 to 551/1156. His family was of Turkish ḡolām origin; his grandfather was appointed governor of Ḵᵛārazm by the Saljuq Sultan Malekšāh; and his father Qoṭb-al-dīn Moḥammad succeeded in…

ʿATTĀBĪ, one of many names for cloth used by medieval Islamic writers. The specific qualities of ʿattābī are not entirely clear from these references, although a general picture of the textile can be deduced from the few concrete phrases occurring in the texts. The word has passed into a number…

ʿAṬṬĀR, SHAIKH FARĪD-AL-DĪN, (شیخ فریدالدین عطّار) Persian poet, Sufi, theoretician of mysticism, and hagiographer, born ca. 540/1145-46 at Nīšāpūr, and died there in 618/1221. His name was Abū Ḥāmed Moḥammad b. Abī Bakr Ebrāhīm or, according to Ebn al-Fowatī, b. Saʿd b. Yūsof. ʿAṭṭār and Farīd-al-dīn were his pen-names. (B….

ATTAŠAMA, personal name in the Nuzi texts (at-ta-aš-ša-ma), see I. J. Gelb, P. M. Purves, and A. A. MacRae, Nuzi Personal Names, Chicago, 1943, p. 38b. An (Indo-) Aryan origin was proposed for this name by P. -E. Dumont (apud R. T. O’Callaghan, Aram Naharaim, Rome, 1948, pp. 58a, 150a),…

Search terms:  آتُر،آذر ator aator  

Search terms:  بادمجان bademjan baademjaan  

Search terms:  اَوَد،اوده audh  

AUGUSTINE, prominent Christian theologian and philosopher, born 354 in Thagaste, Numidia. In 373 he became a Manichean and for nine years belonged to their church as a layman, auditor. His profession as a rhetor and his intellectual curiosity made him ponder over Manichean doctrines from a philosophical point of view….