Table of Contents

  • DĀNEŠ-NĀMA YE ʿALĀʾĪ

    Hamid Dabashi

    Persian philosophical treatise written by Avicenna (980-1037).

  • DĀNEŠ-NĀMA-YE ĪRĀN WA ESLĀM

    Ehsan Yarshater

    Encyclopedia of Iran and Islam.

  • DĀNEŠ-NĀMA-YE QADAR KHAN

    Solomon Bayevsky

    (Book of knowledge [dedicated to] Qadar Khan), a Persian dictionary compiled by Ašrāf b. Šaraf Moḏakker Fārūḡī primarily in Malwa, India, and completed in 1405.

  • DĀNEŠ-SARĀ-YE ʿĀLĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See EDUCATION; TEACHERS' TRAINING. See also JĀMEʿA-YE LISĀNSIAHĀ-YE DĀNEŠ-SARĀ-YE ʿĀLI.

  • DĀNEŠ-SARĀ-YE MOQADDAMĀTĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See EDUCATION.

  • DĀNESF(AH)ĀN

    Ehsan Yarshater

    locally Donesbon, a village located at 49°45′ E, 35°47′ N in the southern part of the Rāmand district of Qazvīn province, 30 km west and slightly north of Būyīn; it has a population of a little over 3,000.

  • DĀNEŠGĀH

    Cross-Reference

    See EDUCATION; entries on indi­vidual universities.

  • DĀNEŠGĀH-E JANG

    Cross-Reference

    See MILITARY.

  • DANESHVAR, REZA

    Forogh Hashabeiky and Behrooz Sheyda

    (1948-2015),  fiction writer, and playwright, who received substantial recognition both in Iran and abroad.

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  • DĀNEŠKADA

    Nassereddin Parvin

    a monthly literary journal published from April 1918 to April 1919 in Tehran by the distinguished poet, literary critic, and scholar Moḥammad-Taqi Malek-al-Šoʿarāʾ Bahār, considered the leading Persian literary figure of his time.

  • DĀNEŠKĀDA

    Cross-Reference

    See EDUCATION; FACULTIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TEHRAN.

  • DĀNEŠKĀDA-YE AFSARĪ

    Cross-reference

    See MILITARY.

  • DĀNEŠKADA-YE EṢFAHĀN

    N. Parvin

    a monthly literary journal and the organ of a society of the same name, published in two series in Isfahan by the poet and calligrapher Mirzā ʿAbbās Khan Dehkordi Šeydā (1882-1949).

  • DĀNEŠMAND

    Tahsin Yazici

    (d. 1104), Amir Ḡāzī Taylu Gümüš tigin Aḥmad (or Moḥammad), founder of a Turkman dynasty in northern Cappadocia toward the end of the 11th century.

  • DĀNEŠMAND BAHĀDOR

    Peter Jackson

    Mongol com­mander (d. 1306).

  • DĀNEŠMAND-E ḤĀJEB

    Peter Jackson

    Muslim officer in Mongol service in the first half of the 13th century.

  • DANESTAMA

    Klaus Fischer

    a mud-brick structure on diaper masonry foundations located on the left bank of the Sorḵāb river, 34 km north of Doāb-e Mīḵzarīn on the road to Došī.

  • DĀNG

    Cross-Reference

    See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

  • DĀNĪĀL B. MOŠEH QŪMESĪ

    Amnon Netzer

    Persian Jewish scholar and exegete of the Karaite sect, the members of which rejected rabbinical writings later than the Bible itself.

  • DĀNĪĀL-E NABĪ

    Amnon Netzer, Nicholas Sims-Williams, Parvīz Varjāvand, Amnon Netzer

    Dānīāl is not mentioned in the Koran but is venerated as a prophet in Muslim tradition. Eschatological statements and the prophecy recounted in Daniel 12:12 (supposedly concerning the year 1335) have been interpreted by Jews as referring to the coming of the Messiah.

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  • DANISH-IRANIAN RELATIONS

    Cross-Reference

    See DENMARK.

  • DAQĀYEQĪ MARVAZĪ, ŠAMS-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

    J. T. P. de Bruijn

    b. ʿAlī, the supposed author of a version of the Baḵtīār­nāma, who lived from the late 12th to the 13th century.

  • DAQĪQĪ, ABŪ MANṢŪR AḤMAD

    Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

     b. Aḥmad, one of the famous poets of the last years of the Samanid (819-1005) dynasty.

  • DAQQĀQ, ABŪ ʿALĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ABŪ ʿALĪ DAQQĀQ.

  • ḎARʿ

    cross-reference

    See WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

  • DĀR AL- ḤARB

    Hamid Algar

    “the realm of war”; lands not under Islamic rule, a juridical term for certain non-­Muslim territory, though often construed, especially by Western writers, as a geopolitical concept implying the necessity for perpetual, even if generally latent, warfare between the Muslim state and its non-Muslim neighbors.

  • DĀR AL-FONŪN

    John Gurney and Negin Nabavi

    lit., “polytechnic college”; a college founded in Tehran in 1268/1851 by Mīrzā Ṭāqī Khan Amīr-e Kabīr, which marked the begin­ning of modern education in Persia.

  • DĀR AL-ŠŪRĀ-YE KOBRĀ

    Cross-Reference

    See WEZĀRAT.

  • DĀR AL-ŻARB

    Cross-Reference

    See ŻARRĀB-ḴĀNA.

  • DĀR(- E) TANHĀ

    Ernie Haerinck

    lit., “the lonely tree”; an ar­cheological site in the district of Badr, near the village of Jabar, ca. 70 km east-southeast of Īlām, in the province of Pošt-e Kūh.

  • DAR-E MEHR

    Mary Boyce

    a Zoroastrian term first recorded in the Persian Rivāyats and Parsi Gujarati writings.

  • DĀRĀ

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀL-E BĀVAND.

  • DĀRA, MIRZĀ

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABDALLĀH MĪRZĀ DĀRĀ.

  • DĀRĀ (City)

    Michael Weiskopf

    the name of a Parthian city and of a Byzan­tine garrison town of the Sasanian period.

  • DĀRĀ ŠOKŌH

    Annemarie Schimmel

    (b. near Ajmer, 20 March 1615, d. Delhi, 12 August 1659), first son of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahān and his wife Momtāz Maḥall, religious thinker, mystic, poet, and author of a number of works in Persian.

  • DĀRĀ(B) (1)

    Aḥmad Tafażżolī

    or DĀRĀB, the name of two kings of the legendary Kayanid dynasty.

  • DĀRĀB (2)

    Massoud Kheirabadi, Dietrich Huff, Georgina Herrmann

    the name Dārāb refers both to a šahrestān (subprovince) of Fārs province and to its chief city.

  • DĀRĀB-NĀMA

    William L. Hanaway

    prose romance of the 12th century, by Abū Ṭāher Moḥammad b. Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Mūsā Ṭārsūsī (or Ṭarṭūsī), in which the adventures of the legendary Kayanid king Dārāb, son of Bahman (also called Ardašīr) and Homāy, variously identified as the daughter of king Sām Čāraš of Egypt or of Ardašīr (=Bahman), are recounted.

  • DĀRĀBGERD

    Cross-Reference

    See Dārā(b) II.

  • DĀRĀBĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See CITRUS FRUITS.

  • DĀRĀBĪ SAYYED JAʿFAR

    Andrew J. Newman

    b. Abī Esḥāq Mūsawī Borūjerdī Kašfī (b. Eṣṭahbānāt in Fārs, 1775, d. Borūjerd 1851), religious scholar, nephew of the Aḵbārī Yūsuf b. Aḥmad Baḥrānī and father of Sayyed Yaḥyā Waḥīd Dārābī.

  • DĀRĀBĪ SAYYED YAḤYĀ

    Moojan Momen

    (b. Yazd, ca. 1811, d. Neyrīz, 1850), Babi leader usually known as Waḥīd (unique), a title given him by the Bāb; the eldest son of Sayyed Jaʿfar Kašfī Eṣṭah-bānātī, he received a Muslim religious education and, like his father, was associated with the Qajar court.

  • DARABPAHLAN, DASTUR

    Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa

    Zoroastrian priest and author (b. Navsari, Gujarat, 1668, d. Navsari, 1 September 1734), eldest son of Pahlan Fredoon, who was accorded the title “dastur” (high priest) and the privilege of occupying the second chair in the Zoroastrian assembly of the small port of Navsari in 1670 or perhaps earlier.

  • DARAFŠ -E KĀVĪĀN

    Cross-Reference

    See DERĀFŠ-E KĀVĪĀN.

  • DĀRĀʾĪ, WEZĀRAT

    Cross-Reference

    See FINANCE MINISTRY.

  • DARĀMAD

    Jean During

    lit., “introduction”; an episode in the course of a musical performance, the nature and length of which vary with the material introduced.

  • DARARIĀN, Vigen

    Morteżā Ḥoseyni Dehkordi

    (1929-2003) renowned pop singer and performer on the guitar.

  • DARĀZ-DAST

    Cross-Reference

    See DERĀZ-DAST; ARDAŠĪR; BAHMAN (2).

  • DARB -E EMĀM

    Parvīz Varjāvand

    large shrine complex in the old Sonbolestān quarter of Isfahan. The main structure, consisting of entrance portal (sar-dar), vestibule, and tomb, was built in 1453 and expanded and modified several times during the Safavid period.

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  • DARBĀ

    Cross-Reference

    See BĀR; COURTS AND COURTIERS.

  • DARBAND

    Erich Kettenhofen

    (Ar. Bāb al-Abwāb), ancient city in Dāḡestān on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, located at the entrance to the narrow pass between the Caucasus foothills and the sea.

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  • DARBAND EPIGRAPHY

    Multiple Authors

    epigraphic remains on the walls of Darband, from Sasanian through Medieval Islamic times.

  • DARBAND EPIGRAPHY i. MIDDLE PERSIAN INSCRIPTIONS

    Murtazali Gadjiev

    Thirty-two Pahlavi inscriptions of the mid-6th century CE are engraved on the defensive walls of the city of Darband.

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  • DARBAND EPIGRAPHY ii. DAR-E QIĀMAT SHRINE

    Murtazali Gadjiev

    a medieval Muslim cultic site, now forgotten and non-functioning, in Darband.

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  • DARBAND QUARTER

    Bernard Hourcade

    a former village in the summer resort (yeylāq) of Šamīrān, situated at an elevation of 1,700 m on the extreme northern edge of the capital, where the Alborz foothills begin.

  • DARBANDĪ, MULLA ĀQĀ

    Hamid Algar

    b. ʿĀbed b. Ramażān, commonly known as Fāżel Darbandī (d. Tehran, 1869-70), Shiʿite scholar and preacher of the Qajar period, renowned for his disputatious and irascible character.

  • DARBĀR -E AʿẒAM

    Guity Nashat

    lit., “the great court”; a council of ministers established in October 1872 as one of several experiments undertaken in the reign of Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah (1848-96) to reorganize and rationalize the Persian administration on the model of Western cabinet government.

  • DĀRČĪNĪ

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    lit., “Chinese tree/wood."

  • D'ARCY, JOSEPH

    Kambiz Eslami

    (Pers. “Mester Bārūt,” “Qūlūnel Khan,” “Qonsūl Khan”; b. Portsmouth, England, 14 March 1780, d. Lymington, England, 17 February 1848), major (later lieutenant colonel) in the British Royal Artillery who arrived in Persia in 1226/1811 with the ambassador Sir Gore Ouseley; he was one of a group of British officers and enlisted men who were to reform and equip the Persian army.

  • D'ARCY, WILLIAM KNOX

    Fuad Rouhani

    (b. Newton Abbot, Devonshire, England, 11 October 1849, d. Stanmore, Middlesex, England, 1 May 1917), petroleum entrepreneur and founder of the oil industry in Persia and the Middle East.

  • DARD, ḴᵛĀJA MĪR

    Annemarie Schimmel

    (b. Delhi, 13 September 1721; d. 11 January 1785), poet and author of prose works on mystical theology.

  • DARDESTĀN

    NIGEL J. R. ALLAN, D. I. EDEL’MAN

    The toponym Dardestān is a social and political construct. Its currency toward the end of the 19th century in many ways reflected an attempt by supporters of imperial India to link the Indian northwestern frontier tracts to Kashmir, with which the British had treaties.

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  • DĀREMĪ, ABŪ SAʿĪD ʿOṮMĀN

    Josef van Ess

    b. Saʿīd b. Ḵāled SEJESTĀNĪ, Persian traditionist and jurist (b. ca. 816, d. February 894).

  • DARGĀHĪ, MOḤAMMAD

    Bāqer ʿĀqelī

    (b. Zanjān, 1899, d. Tehran, 1952), first chief of the state police under Reżā Shah.

  • DARGĀHQOLĪ KHAN ḎU’L-QADR

    M. Saleem Akhtar

    also known as Moʿtaman-al-Dawla Moʿtaman-al-Molk Sālār-Jang Ḵān-e Dawrān Nawwāb (b. Sangamnēr, Deccan, 1710, d. Awrangābād, 22 October 1766), Persian official at Hyderabad and Awrangābād, best known for his description of Delhi.

  • DARGAZĪNĪ

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    nesba (attributive name) for Dargazīn (or Darjazīn), borne by several viziers of the Great Saljuqs in the 12th century.

  • DARĪ

    GILBERT LAZARD

    name given to the New Persian literary language at a very early date and widely attested in Arabic and Persian texts since the 10th century.

  • DARĪ IN AFGHANISTAN

    Cross-Reference

    See AFGHANISTAN v. LANGUAGES

  • ḎARĪʿA elā TAṢĀNĪF al-ŠĪʿA

    Etan Kohlberg

    a comprehensive bibliography of Imami Shiʿite works in twenty-five volumes compiled by Shaikh Moḥammad-Moḥsen Āqā Bozorg Ṭehrānī (1876-1970); it contains about 55,000 entries for works written up to 1950-51.

  • DARIC

    Michael Alram

    Achaemenid gold coin which was introduced by Darius I toward the end of the 6th century.

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  • DARĪGBED

    Richard N. Frye

    title of a low-ranking official at the Sasanian court.

  • DARIUS

    Multiple Authors

    (NPers. Darīūš, Dārā), name of several Achaemenid and Parthian rulers and princes.

  • DARIUS i. The Name

    Rudiger Schmitt

    the common Latin form of Greek Dareîos, itself a shortened rendering of Old Persian five-syllable Dārayavauš, the throne name of Darius the Great and two other kings of the Achaemenid dynasty, which thus enjoyed considerable popularity among noblemen in later periods

  • DARIUS ii. Darius the Mede

    Richard N. Frye

    In the Old Testament Book of Daniel Darius the Mede is mentioned (5:30-31) as ruler after the slaying of the “Chaldean king” Belshazzar.

  • DARIUS iii. Darius I the Great

    A. Shapur Shahbazi

    third Achaemenid king of kings (r. 29 September 522-October 486 BCE). Once he gained power, Darius placed the empire on foundations that lasted for nearly two centuries and influenced the organization of subsequent states, including the Seleucid and Roman empires.

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  • DARIUS iv. Darius II

    Heleen Sanchisi-Weerdenburg

    the sixth Achaemenid king of kings (r. February 423- March 403 B.C.E.). He had been satrap of Hyrcania. Darius was his throne name; his given name is reported in classical sources as Ochus.

  • DARIUS v. Darius III

    EIr.

    (b. ca. 380 BCE, d. mid-330), the last Achaemenid king. The lack of sources is especially severe for his life and reign. There are no Persian royal texts or monuments, and what is known comes almost solely from the Greek historians, who depicted his career mainly as a contrast to the brilliant first few years of Alexander the Great.

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  • DARIUS vi. Achaemenid Princes

    Rudiger Schmitt

    the name of two Achaemenid princes in addition to the emperors who bore it.

  • DARIUS vii. Parthian Princes

    Rudiger Schmitt

    In 64 B.C.E. while his father, Mithridates VI Eupator, king of Pontus (ca. 121/20-63 B.C.E.), was fighting his last, losing campaign against the troops of the Roman general Pompey (106-48 B.C.E.), the child Darius was taken prisoner, along with several brothers and his sister Eupatra, in Phanagoria

  • DARIUS viii. Darius Son of Artabanus

    Marie Louise Chaumont

    A son of the Parthian king Artabanus II named Darius was sent as a hostage to Rome shortly after an interview between Artabanus and the Roman legate for Syria, Vitellius, in 37 C.E.

  • DARJAZĪN

    Parviz Aḏkāʾī

    (or Dargazīn), name of two rural subdistricts (dehestāns) and a village in the Razan district (baḵš) of Hamadān province.

  • DARKE, Hubert Seymour Garland

    John Perry

    In 1961 Darke was appointed University Lecturer in Persian at Cambridge, where he taught language and literature for the next twenty years. His particular interests were Early New Persian and Persian prosody. His major research achievement was the definitive edition and translation of the Siar al-moluk, a manual of government by the celebrated Saljuq vizier Neẓām-al-Molk.

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  • DARMESTETER, JAMES

    Mary Boyce and D. N. MacKenzie

    (b. Château-Salins, Alsace, 12 March 1849, d. Paris, 19 October 1894), the great Iranist, was the son of a Jewish bookbinder, who in 1852 moved to Paris to improve his children’s educational opportunities.

  • DARRA-YE BARRA

    Remy Boucharlat

    lit. "Valley of the lamb", a locality in Fārs province, 2.5 km east-northeast of the Achaemenid royal tombs at Naqš-e Rostam. Several rock-cut monuments are scattered on steep scree and in the cliff on the north side of the valley. The most outstanding feature is the tallest fire altar so far found in Fārs.

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  • DARRA-YE NŪR

    Daniel Balland

    name of a small tributary valley on the right bank of the Konar river in eastern Afghanistan and the corresponding subdistrict of Nangrahār province.

  • DARRA-YE ṢŪF

    Daniel Balland

    name of a valley in northern Afghanistan, drained by a tributary of the right bank of the Balḵāb, and of the adjoining mountain district and its administrative center in Samangān province.

  • DARRAGAZ

    Massoud Kheirabadi, Philip Kohl

    or DARGAZ (Valley of the tamarisks), a fertile valley about 50-55 km east-west and 30-35 km north-south in the Kopet Dagh range in northern Khorasan, at about 450 m above sea level, in which are located a šahrestān (subprovince) and a town of the same name.

  • DARRAŠŪRĪ

    Pierre Oberling

    one of the five major tribes of the Qašqāʾī tribal confederation.

  • DARRŪS

    Sayyed ʿAlī Āl-e Dāwūd, JOHN CURTIS

    district in northern Tehran east of Qol-hak and south of Qayṭarīya, all former suburbs of the city; it is located about 8 km from the center of the modern city.

  • DĀRŪ

    Cross-Reference

     See DRUGS.

  • DĀRŪḠA

    Cross-Reference

    See CITIES iii.

  • DARVĀZ

    Jan-Heeren Grevemeyer

    a largely autonomous principality with territory on both sides of the upper course of the Āmū Daryā, known as the Panj, until the partition between czarist Russia and the Afghan kingdom in the last quarter of the 19th century.

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  • DARVĀZA

    Wolfram Kleiss

    (gateway), generally an entrance opening wide enough to permit passage of vehicles, in contrast to doorways, which are smaller openings to permit passage through a wall or fence. 

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  • DARVĀZA TEPE

    Linda K. Jacobs

    (or Tall-e Darvāza), a village site in the southeastern Kor river basin, in Fārs province, occupied in three stages from 1800 B.C.E. to 800 B.C.E., according to radiocarbon dates of the finds, and characterized by an essential continuity in both architecture and other aspects of material culture.

  • DARVĪŠ

    Mansour Shaki, Hamid Algar

    a poor, indigent, ascetic, and abstemious person or recluse.

  • DARVĪŠ AḤMAD QĀBEŻ

    M. E. Subtelny

    (d. 1507), Timurid vizier.

  • DARVĪŠ ʿALĪ BŪZJĀNĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See BŪZJĀNĪ.

  • DARVĪŠ ʿALĪ, AMĪR NEẒĀM-AL-DĪN KüKäLTĀŠ KETĀBDĀR

    M. E. Subtelny

    Timurid amir under Solṭān-Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (1469-1506) and younger brother of ʿAlī-Šīr Navāʾ.

  • DARVĪŠ KHAN, ḠOLĀM-ḤOSAYN

    Margaret Caton

    (b. Tehran, 1872, d. Tehran, 23 November 1926), master musician, renowned teacher, and innovative composer of Persian classical music.

  • DARVĪŠ REŻĀ

    Kathryn Babayan

    (d. 1040/1631), a qezelbāš functionary who claimed to be the awaited Mahdī.