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AVESTA i. Survey of the history and contents of the book the holy book of the Zoroastrians. Avesta is the name the Mazdean (Mazdayasnian) religious tradition gives to the collection of its sacred texts. The etymology and the exact meaning of the name (Pahlavi ʾp(y)stʾk/abestāg) can not be considered established, although,…

AVESTA  ii. Middle Persian Translations  The manuscripts transmitting the preserved Avestan texts often also include their translation into Pahlavi [PT], the Zoroastrian Middle Persian language. The ritual Avestan texts belonging to the great rituals (Yasna, Vīsparad, and Vīdēvdād) are transmitted through two different kinds of manuscripts: the Sāde manuscripts, containing…

AVESTAN GEOGRAPHY. It is impossible to attribute a precise geographical location to the language of the Avesta. The Avestan texts, however, provide some useful pointers, while their comparison with Old Persian inscriptions offer further evidence: Geographical references in the Avesta are limited to the regions on the eastern Iranian plateau…

AVESTAN LANGUAGE, the language of the Avesta, an Old Iranian language. i. The Avestan script. ii. The phonology of Avestan. iii. The grammar of Avestan. iv. Avestan Syntax. i . The Avestan Script The Avestan script is known from manuscripts written in Iran (at Yazd and Kerman) and in India…

AVESTAN LANGUAGE iv. AVESTAN SYNTAX The only complete syntax of Avestan which is still usable today is H. Reichelt’s Awestisches Elementarbuch (Heidelberg 1909, pp. 218-387, indicated by “R” in the references). Each chapter features a list of older manuals and other related studies. This outdated and insufficient work has been…

AVESTAN PEOPLE. The term Avestan people is used here to include both Zoroaster’s own tribe, with that of his patron, Kavi Vištāspa, and those peoples settled in Eastern Iran who, though not all “Avestan” speaking, were “of the Avesta” in that they shared in transmitting, and in part composing, the…

AVIATION, history of civil aviation since 1927. i. The Formation of the Iranian Air Force (1923-27) ii. Junkers Airline in Iran (1927-32) iii. Iranian State Airlines of the Ministry of Post and Telegram (1938-46) iv. Privately Owned Commercial Airlines (1945-62) (1) Iranian Airways (2) Persian Air Services (3) United Iranian…

AVICENNA, Latin form of the name of the outstanding philosopher and physician of the medieval period,  Abū ʿAlī Ḥosayn Ebn Sīnā (ابوعلی حسین ابن سینا, b. Bukhara 370/980[?], d. Hamadān 428/1037). i. Introductory note. ii. Biography. iii. Logic. iv. Metaphysics. v. Mysticism. vi. Psychology. vii. Practical sciences. viii. Mathematics and physical sciences….

AVICENNA i. Introductory Note The generally accepted view that the Islamic philosophic tradition established by Fārābī (d. 339/950) came to an end with Ebn Rošd (Averroes, fl. 520-95/1126-98) has been challenged by scholars who have pointed to the continuity of that tradition in the East, principally in Iran, to the…

AVICENNA ii. Biography Sources. Avicenna’s biography presents the paradox that although more material is available for its study than is average for a Muslim scholar of his caliber, it has received little critical attention. The very existence of the autobiography and Jūzjānī’s biography, both retold, paraphrased, and elaborated upon, seems…

AVICENNA iii. Logic Avicenna’s works on logic. Many of Avicenna’s works on logic are extant and most of them have been published. With the exception of two Persian works, Dāneš-nāma-ye ʿalāʾī and Andar dāneš-e rag (see below, xi), all of his works are written in Arabic. The nine parts that…

AVICENNA iv. Metaphysics General characteristics. Avicenna’s metaphysical system is one of the most comprehensive and detailed in the history of philosophy. Its ingredients, its conceptual building blocks, so to speak, are largely Aristotelian and Neoplatonic, but the final structure is other than the sum of its parts. Avicenna himself hints…

AVICENNA ix. Music Islamic writings on music are often theoretical treatises concerned with the analysis of pitch and duration, the constituent elements of melody. They are conceived less as descriptive accounts of contemporary practice than as systematizations of possible structures, utilizing, in the case of pitch, mathematical formulations derived from…

AVICENNA v. Mysticism Avicenna and Sufism. Avicenna’s philosophical system, rooted in the Aristotelian tradition, is thoroughly rationalistic and intrinsically alien to the principles of Sufism as it had developed until his time. It is also self-consistent and unified, and therefore free of any other mystical or esoteric aspect—however these terms…

AVICENNA vi. Psychology Like his metaphysics, Avicenna’s psychology or doctrine of the soul has an Aristotelian base with a strong Neoplatonic superstructure. This we can see already in his definition of the soul. While Aristotle defines the soul as an entelechy or form of an organized natural body, Avicenna interprets…