Table of Contents

• COMMUNISM i. In Persia to 1941

  Cosroe Chaqueri

  The Persian communist movement was born among Persian immigrant workers in the Baku oilfields. In the years 1323-25/1905-07 some of them had founded Ferqa-ye ejtemāʿīyūn-e ʿāmmīyūn-e Īrān.

• COMMUNISM ii. In Persia from 1941 to 1953

  Sepehr Zabih

  With the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Persia and the abdication of Reżā Shah on 25 Šahrīvar 1320 Š./16 September 1941, the climate for resumption of political activities was vastly improved.

• COMMUNISM iii. In Persia after 1953

  Torāb Ḥaqšenās

  Whereas in the previous period Persian communism had been embodied primarily in the Tudeh party, which followed the ideological and political dicta of the Soviet Union, after the coup d’etat of 1332 Š./1953 it was characterized by ideological and organizational diversity.

• COMMUNISM iv. In Afghanistan

  Anthony Arnold

  The Afghan Communist party, Ḥezb-e demōkrātīk-e ḵalq-e Afḡānestān was officially founded in 1344 Š./1965, at a time when political parties were illegal in Afghanistan. Two other durable Afghan Marxist-Leninist groups were active in the same general period.

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• COMPUTERS in Persia

  Moḥammad-Reżā Moḥammadīfar

  electronic data-processing equipment, in Persia.

• CONCESSIONS

  Willem Floor, Mansoureh Ettehadieh [neẓām māfī]

  (emtīāzāt), grants by a state to citizens, aliens, or other states of rights to carry out specific economic activities and of capitulatory rights on its territory.

• CONCOBAR

  Cross-Reference

  See KANGĀVAR.

• CONFEDERATION OF IRANIAN STUDENTS, NATIONAL UNION

  Afshin Matin-Asgari

  (Konfederāsīūn-e jahānī-e moḥaṣṣelīn wa dānešjūyān-e īrānī etteḥādīya-ye mellī), an organization purporting to be the political and corporate (ṣenfī) representative of Persian students abroad, as well as in Persia, during the 1960s and 1970s.

• CONFEDERATIONS, TRIBAL

  Richard Tapper

  tribal groups commonly comprise several levels of organization, from a nomad camp to (sometimes) a nation-state, with different criteria defining membership of groups at each level.

• CONFESSIONS

  Jes P. Asmussen

  i. In the Zoroastrian faith. ii. In Manicheism.

• CONGRATULATIONS

  Žāla Āmūzgār

  the custom of conveying congratulations on such happy occasions as the birth of a child, a birthday anniversary, a marriage, a coronation, or a national or religious festival.

• CONIFERAE

  Cross-Reference

  See DERAḴT.

• CONJUNCTIONS

  Cross-Reference

  See QERĀN.

• CONON OF ATHENS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  (b. before 444 BCE., d. after 392 BCE),  a leading Athenian admiral during the Peloponnesian and Corinthian wars.

• CONSERVATION

  Cross-Reference

  See ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION.

• CONSERVATION AND RESTORATION OF PERSIAN MONUMENTS

  Eugenio Galdieri and Kerāmat-Allāh Afsar

  in almost every historical period some restoration of Persian monuments has been undertaken either by state authorities or through the efforts of charitable individuals.

• CONSPIRACY THEORIES

  Ahmad Ashraf

  a complex of beliefs attributing the course of Persian history and politics to the machinations of hostile foreign powers and secret organizations.

• CONSTANTIUS II

  Cross-reference

  See Šāpur II.

• CONSTELLATIONS

  D. N. MacKenzie

  The first and only two constellations to be named in Old Iranian sources are Ursa Major and the Pleiades, in the Younger Avesta. The next possible mentions of constellations are of two kinds, both dating from late Middle Persian times but only actually attested in works or manuscripts from the Islamic period.

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• CONSTITUTION OF THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC

  Said Amir Arjomand

  In 1979, Persia was declared an Islamic republic. Until then there had been little discussion, outside religious circles, of the conception of welāyat-e faqīh (lit. “mandate of the jurist”) propounded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. 

• CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF AFGHANISTAN

  M. Ḥassan Kākaṛ

  When Amir ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Khan (r. 1297-1319/1880-1901) acceded to power, he established a centralized monarchy in Afghanistan for the first time.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION

  Multiple Authors

  (Enqelāb-e mašrūṭa) of 1323-29/1905-11, during which a parliament and constitutional monarchy were established in Persia.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION i. Intellectual background

  Abbas Amanat

  The establishment of a constitutional regime in Persia was the chief objective of the Revolution of 1323-29/1905-11.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION ii. Events

  Vanessa Martin

  After 1308/1890 the Persian government found itself in increasing financial difficulties, as inflation produced a sharp decline in the value of the land tax and the silver qerān lost value against the pound sterling with the rapid fall of international silver prices at the end of the 19th century.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION iii. The Constitution

  Said Amir Arjomand

  The term for “constitution” in Persia, qānūn-e asāsī (lit. “fundamental law”), was borrowed from the Ottoman empire in the 19th century. 

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION iv. The aftermath

  Mansoureh Ettehadieh

  In the decade 1329-39/1911-21, from the Russian ultimatum and the dissolution of the Second Majles until the coup d’etat of 1299 Š./1921, the Constitution was put to a series of crucial tests.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION v. Political parties of the constitutional period

  Mansoureh Ettehadieh

  Political parties were first officially organized after Moḥammad-ʿAlī Shah was forced to abdicate in 1327/1909, at about the time elections for the Second Majles were beginning.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION vi. The press

  ʿAlī-Akabr Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

  There are no statistics on literacy in Qajar Persia, but it can be conjectured that the literate population was very small. Until the beginning of the Pahlavi era there were people who could “read” the Koran and prayer books, for teaching in religious schools consisted of memorizing koranic passages.

• CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION vii. The constitutional movement in literature

  Sorour Soroudi

  “constitutional literature” refers here to literature produced from the late 19th century until 1339=1300 Š./1921, under the impact of aspirations for reform and the constitutional movement.

• CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS AND TECHNIQUES in Persian architecture

  Wolfram Kleiss

  The most frequent building material in Iranian cultural areas has always been mud, which is available everywhere. When wet, it can simply be plastered on walls without shaping. Alternatively, it can be tempered and formed into large blocks with more or less rectangular sides.

• CONSTRUCTION MATERIALS INDUSTRY

  Willem Floor

  In 1933, Iran’s first cement plant, the state-owned company Simān-e Ray (100 tons per day), became operational  in Ray. It had only 360 workers in 1936, but after expansion in 1939 to a capacity of 300 tons per day it had 1,000 workers. Its output did not suffice to satisfy domestic demand.

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• CONSUMERS AND CONSUMPTION

  Cross-Reference

  See ECONOMY.

• CONTARINI, AMBROGIO

  Filippo Bertotti

  (1429-99), Venetian merchant and diplomat, author of a noteworthy report on Persia under the Āq Qoyunlū Uzun Ḥasan.

• CONTI, NICOLO` DE’

  Paola Orsatti

  (1395-ca. 1469), Venetian merchant who traveled in the east from 1414 until 1438.

• CONTINENTS

  Cross-Reference

  See KEŠVAR.

• CONTRACTS

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev, Mansour Shaki, EIr

  (usually ʿaqd), legally enforceable undertakings between two or more consenting parties.

• CONVERSION

  Multiple Authors

  the act of adopting another religion.

• CONVERSION i. Of Iranians to the Zoroastrian faith

  Gherardo Gnoli

  Although modern Zoroastrians question whether their religion even allows conversion, Zoroastrianism, as an ethical and essentially monotheistic religion based on a historical figure, originally had pronounced missionary characteristics, as is clear from the extent of its dissemination.

• CONVERSION ii. Of Iranians to Islam

  Elton L. Daniel

  Iranians were among the very earliest converts to Islam, and their conversion in significant numbers began as soon as the Arab armies reached and overran the Persian plateau.

• CONVERSION iii. To Imami Shiʿism in India

  Juan Cole

  South Asians adopted Imami, or Twelver, Shiʿism in great numbers, mostly after the Safavid conquest of Persia in the first decade of the 16th century. 

• CONVERSION iv. Of Persian Jews to other religions

  Amnon Netzer

  In the Achaemenid, Seleucid, and Parthian periods relations between the Jews and the Persian authorities were friendly, and there is no evidence of forced or voluntary conversion of Jews to Zoroastrianism.

• CONVERSION v. To Babism and the Bahai faith

  Juan R. I. Cole

  In 1279/1863 the prominent Babi Bahāʾ-Allāh, while in exile in Baghdad, had declared himself to a very small group of close disciples and relatives as the messianic figure (man yoẓheroho ʾllāh) whose advent had been pre­dicted by Sayyed ʿAlī-Moḥammad Šīrāzī, the Bāb.

• CONVERSION vi. To Protestant Christianity in Persia

  Paul S. Seto

  The conversion of Armenians, Assyrians, Jews, Muslims, and Zoroastrians in Persia to Protestantism as the result of missionary activity by foreign societies and national churches is discussed here.

• CONVERSION vii. To the Zoroastrian faith in the modern period

  Pargol Saati

  Modern Zoroastrians disagree on whether it is permissible for outsiders to enter their religion. Now scattered in small minority communities in Persia, India, Europe, and North America and without a reli­gious hierarchy, the Zoroastrians are governed by councils and high priests whose authority is only local. 

• COOKBOOKS

  Mohammad R. Ghanoonparvar

  classical, in Persian; relatively few books in Persian exclusively devoted to the prepa­ration of food are known, even though references to a highly developed cuisine in Persia in premodern times are found in medical, religious, historical, and poetic texts.

• COOKIES

  Ṣoḡrā Bāzargān

  (kolūča, nān-e kolūča, kolīča) in Persia; in this article the cookies most frequently made in major Persian cities today, both traditional types and those reflecting foreign influence, will be described.

• COOKING

  Multiple Authors

  i. In ancient Iran. ii. In Pahlavi literature. iii. Principles and ingredients of modern Persian cooking. iv. In Afghanistan.

• COON, CARLETON STEVENS

  Robert H. Dyson, Jr.

  (b. Wakefield, Massa­chusetts, 23 June 1904, d. Gloucester, Massachusetts, 4 June 1981), American anthropologist and educator.

• COOPERATIVES

  Amir I. Ajami

  (šerkat-e taʿāwonī), economic organizations owned jointly by and operated for the benefit of groups of individuals. Such cooperatives were first introduced and recognized in Persia under the Commercial code (Qānūn-e tejārat) of 1303 Š./1924, which provided for both production (tawlīd) and consumer (maṣraf) cooperatives.

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• ČOPOQ

  Willem Floor

  or ČEPOQ, a long-stemmed pipe with a small bowl for smoking tobacco, distinct from the ḡ/qalyān, or water pipe.

• COPPER i. In Islamic Persia

  James W. Allan and Willem Floor

  the metallic element Cu.

• Copper ii. Copper resources in Iran

  Manṣur Qorbāni and Anuširavān Kani

  With the advancement of the knowledge of metallurgy in the Achaemenid era, finely crafted copper and bronze objects were created, continuing on through ancient times. The medieval Arab traveler Abu Dolaf wrote about the Nišāpur copper mine, but the extent of the deposits in Iran became known only from accounts of European travelers from the Safavid period onwards.

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• COPRATES

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀB-E DEZ.

• COPTIC MANICHEAN TEXTS

  Aloïs van Tongerloo

  primary source text fragments, written in previously undeciphered or little-known languages and scripts which considerably changed the interpretation and apprecia­tion of Manicheism.

• COPYRIGHT

  Karīm Emāmī

  (ḥaqq-e moʾallef), a direct translatof the French droit d'auteur; the exclusive right to reproduce, publish, and sell the matter or form of a created work, for example, a novel or musical compo­sition.

• CORAL

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  the skeletal deposit of marine polyps, often treated as a gem material.

• ČORĀS, ŠĀH-MAḤMŪD

  Robert D. McChesney

  b. Mīrzā Fāżel, historian of the 17th-century Chaghatay khanate in Moḡūlestān and hagiographer and staunch supporter of the “Black Mountain” khojas.

• CORBIN, HENRY

  Daryush Shayegan

  (b. Paris 14 April 1903, d. Paris 7 October 1978), French philosopher and orientalist best known as a major interpreter of the Persian role in the development of Islamic thought.

• CORIANDER

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  an herb indigenous to the Mediterranean area, the Caucasus, and Persia and valued for its aromatic leaves and seeds.

• ČORMĀGŪN

  Peter Jackson

  Mongol general and military gov­ernor in Persia, d. ca. 639/1242.

• CORMICK, JOHN

  Kamran Ekbal and Lutz Richter-Bernburg

  one of the first English surgeons to work in Persia and personal physician to the crown prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā.

• CORMICK, WILLIAM

  Moojan Momen

  (b. Tabrīz 1822, d. Tabrīz 25 Ḏu’l-ḥejja 1294/30 December 1877), a British physician in Tabrīz.

• CORN

  Cross-Reference

  See ḎORRAT.

• CORNELIAN CHERRY

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  the male cornel tree, a dogwood shrub with edible berries.

• CORONATION

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  in ancient Iran, the ceremonial act of investing a ruler with a crown.

• CORPSE

  Mary Boyce

  disposal of, in Zoroastrianism; in Zoroastrianism the corpse of a righteous believer was held to be the greatest source of pollution in the world, as the death of such a one represented a triumph for evil, whose forces were thought to be gathered there in strength.

• CORPUS INSCRIPTIONUM IRANICARUM

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  (C.I.I.), an association devoted to the col­lection and publication of Iranian inscriptions and documents.

• CORRESPONDENCE

  Multiple Authors

  Correspondence i. In pre-Islamic Persia, ii. In Islamic Persia, iii. Forms of opening and closing, address, and signature, and iv. On the subcontinent of India.

• CORRESPONDENCE i. In pre-Islamic Persia

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  There is no information about correspondence in Median times, except for a fictitiously paraphrased letter from Cyrus to Cyaxares that began “Cyrus to Cyaxares, greeting!” 

• CORRESPONDENCE ii. In Islamic Persia

  Fatḥ-Allāh Mojtabāʾī

  In Islamic Persia letter writing (Ar.-Pers. tarassol < Ar. r-s-l “to send”) developed into a genre of great literary, historical, and social importance. 

• CORRESPONDENCE iii. Forms of opening and closing, address, and signature

  Hashem Rajabzadeh

  In this article the parts of the Persian letter are surveyed section by section, with comments on the general features, style, and stock formulas characteris­tic of each from early Islamic times to the present.

• CORRESPONDENCE iv. On the subcontinent of India

  Momin Mohiuddin

  The chancellery of official and diplomatic correspondence was an organ of Indian Muslim political organization. At various times it was known as dīvān-­e resālat,dīvānal-enšāʾ, dīvānal-rasāʾel, or dār al-­enšāʾ. 

• ČORTKA

  Yaḥyā Ḏokāʾ

  (or čortaka, čotka < Russ. schëty “abacus”), an ancient calculation device, a rectangle strung with parallel metal wires along which clay, metal, or wooden beads can be moved.

• ČORŪM

  Cross-Reference

  See ČERĀM.

• CORVÉE

  Cross-Reference

  See BĪGĀR.

• CORVIDAE

  Cross-Reference

  See CROW.

• COSMETICS

  This article is based on information provided by Žāla Mottaḥedīn and Eqbāl Yaḡmāʾī.

  prepara­tions for personal beautification, in Persian tradition used mainly by women on special occasions.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY

  Multiple Authors

  theories of the origins and structure of the universe.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY i. In Zoroastrianism/Mazdaism

  Philip G. Kreyenbroek

  The “orthodox” myth. The extant Avesta contains no systematic exposition of the cosmological beliefs of the people among whom it was composed and who eventually brought Zoroastrianism to western Iran.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY ii. In Mithraism

  Roger Beck

  That Mithraism had an elaborate cosmology, central to its doctrines, is proven first by the structure of its cult shrines (mithraea), which took the form of caves (real or artificial). As Porphyry (6) stated, the cave is an “image of the cosmos.” 

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• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY iii. In Manicheism

  Werner Sundermann

  Manicheism, like contemporary Zoroastrianism and various gnostic sects, offered a detailed cosmogonic myth, or cosmology.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY iv. In the Mazdakite religion

  Werner Sundermann

  The most important source for modern knowledge of Mazdakite cosmogony is the description of the Mazdakite religion in Ketāb al-melal wa’l-neḥal, writ­ten by Abu’l-Fatḥ Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-al-Karīm Šahrestānī, in 624/1227, several hundred years after the period in which the sect flourished. 

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY v. In Twelver Shiʿism

  Mohammad Ali Amir-Moezzi

  Imami traditions contain a chaotic abundance of material portraying the origin and structure of the universe. Book XIV, “On the heavens and the earth,” of Moḥammad-Bāqer Majlesī’s Beḥār al-anwār, fills ten volumes (LVII-LXVI) in the most recent edition and contains several thousand traditions.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY vi. In Ismaʿilism

  Wilferd Madelung

  The physical world consists of nine celestial spheres, the highest sphere, the sphere of the fixed stars, the seven spheres of the planets, as well as the sublunar world of generation and corruption.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY vii. In Shaikhism

  Denis M. MacEoin

  It is in some respects redundant to speak of a “Shaikhi cosmology” distinct from that of Imami Shiʿism as a whole. Shaikhi ideas never developed independently of ordinary Shiʿite thought but were either part of it or in dialogue or conflict with it.

• COSMOGONY AND COSMOLOGY viii. In the Bahai faith

  Moojan Momen

  First, the human mind is strictly finite and limited in knowledge and understanding. Second, no absolute knowledge of God or reality or the cosmos is therefore available to man. Third, from the above it follows that all conceptualizations and attempts by men to portray cosmology are “but a reflection of what has been created within themselves.”

• COSSACK BRIGADE

  Muriel Atkin

  a cavalry unit in the Persian army established in 1879 on the model of Cossack units in the Russian army. The formation of the Cossack Brigade was part of a larger process in which the Persian government, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, engaged various European soldiers to train units of the Persian armed forces.

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• COSSAEANS

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  a tribe of mountain people settled in western Iran; their land was called Cossaea/Kossaîa.

• COSTE, Pascal-Xavier

  Cross-Reference

  (1787-1879), French architect, famous for the illustrated account of his travels in Persia. See FLANDIN AND COSTE.

• COTTAM, Richard

  Susan Siavoshi

  Cottam was convinced of the moral superiority of U.S. and allied forces in their fight against fascism in Europe and the Far East. This belief lingered for some time after the end of the war, allowing him to form an idealistic view of the validity of U.S. values in its post-war struggle against communism.

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• COTTON

  Multiple Authors

  Cotton (panba < Mid. Pers. pambag; katān; in Isfahan kolūza; genus Gossypium), particularly the short-staple species Gossypium herbaceum, is cultivated in almost all parts of Persia, and is of great economic importance both for home consumption and for export.

• COTTON i. Introduction

  Eckart Ehlers and Ahmad Parsa

  Cotton (panba < Mid. Pers. pambag; katān; in Isfa­han kolūza; genusGossypium), particularly the short-staple species Gossypium herbaceum, is cultivated in almost all parts of Persia, and is of great economic importance both for home consumption and for export.

• COTTON ii. Production and Trade in Persia

  Hassan Hakimian

  Cotton was one of the first vegetable fibers used to make textiles, and, despite competition from synthetic fibers in recent times, it remains the most important nonfood agricultural commodity in the world.

• COTTON iii. In Afghanistan

  Daniel Balland

  Two Iranian words, paḵta (< Tajik) and pomba (Pers. panba < Pahl. pambag), are currently used in Afghani­stan to designate raw cotton. Most people use them fairly indiscriminately, but specialists tend to confine the former to unginned, or seed, cotton and the latter to ginned, or fiber, cotton (Pashto mālūǰ/č).

• COUP D’ETAT OF 1299/1921

  Niloofar Shambayati

  the military coup that eventually led to the founding of the Pahlavi dynasty.

• COUP D’ETAT OF 1332 Š./1953

  Mark J. Gasiorowski

  the appointment of Moḥammad Moṣaddeq as prime minis­ter of Persia on 9 Ordībehešt 1330 Š./29 April 1951 and the nationalization two days later of Persia’s British-owned oil industry initiated a period of tense confrontation between the Persian and British govern­ments.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS

  Multiple Authors

  Courts and courtiers i. In the Median and Achaemenid periods, ii. In the Parthian and Sasanian periods, iii. In the Islamic period to the Mongol conquest, iv. Under the Mongols, v. Under the Timurid and Turkman dynasties, vi. In the Safavid period, vii. In the Qajar period, viii. In the reign of Reżā Shah Pahlavī, ix. In the reign of Moḥammad-Reżā Shah. See SUPPLEMENT, x. Court poetry

• COURTS AND COURTIERS i. In the Median and Achaemenid periods

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

  From Herodotus’ report of the child Cyrus’ playing at being king it seems that the Median court included bodyguards, messengers, the “king’s eye," and builders, for it is likely that the game was modeled on the existing court.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS ii. In the Parthian and Sasanian periods

  Philippe Gignoux

  In the absence of records, a full picture of court life under the Parthians and Sasanians cannot be pieced together.

• COURTS AND COURTIERS iii. In the Islamic period to the Mongol conquest

  C. E. Bosworth

  In Persia the organization of courts (Pers. bār, bādrgāh, dargāh, darbār; in Arabic, there exists no more precise designation than majles, lit. “session”), including the formation of a circle of courtiers in the early centuries after the Islamic conquest, was directly inspired by the court life of the ʿAbbasid caliphs at Baghdad and Sāmarrāʾ.