Table of Contents

  • AḤMAD KHATTŪ

    K. A. Nizami

    famous medieval Gujarati saint whose name is associated with the foundation of the city of Ahmadabad (b. Delhi, 737/1336; d. Sarkhej, 10 Šawwal 849/9 January 1446).

  • AḤMAD ḴOJESTĀNĪ

    C. E. Bosworth

    military commander in 3rd/9th century Khorasan, one of several contenders for authority in the region after the collapse of Taherid rule had left a power vacuum, d. 268/882.

  • AḤMAD MAYMANDĪ

    Ḡ. Ḥ. Yūsofī

    (d. 424/1032), Ghaznavid vizier, statesman, and foster brother and schoolfellow of Sultan Maḥmūd of Ḡazna (r. 388-421/998-1030).

  • AḤMAD MŪSĀ

    P. P. Soucek

    8th/14th century painter. 

  • AḤMAD NEHĀVANDĪ

    D. Pingree

    2nd/8th century ʿAbbasid astronomer.  

  • AḤMAD RODAWLAVĪ

    B. B. Lawrence

    early Muslim saint of the Ṣāberīya Češtīya (d. 837/1434.

  • AḤMAD ṢĀḠĀNĪ

    D. Pingree

    one of the many astronomers who worked for the Buyids in Baghdad in the 4th/10th century.

  • AḤMAD SERHENDĪ (1)

    Y. Friedmann

    Shaikh (1564-1624), outstanding Mughal mystic and prolific writer on Sufi themes. 

  • AHMAD SERHENDI (2)

    Demetrio Giordani

    Shaikh (1564-1624), Indian Sufi known as Mojadded-e alf-e Ṯāni, the Renovator of the second millennium (of Islam).

  • AḤMAD SHAH DORRĀNĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See AFGHANISTAN X. POLITICAL HISTORY.

  • AḤMAD SHAH QĀJĀR

    M. J. Sheikh-ol-Islami

    (r. 1909-1925), the seventh and last ruler of the Qajar dynasty.

  • AḤMAD ŠĪRĀZĪ

    C. E. Bosworth

    Ghaznavid official and vizier, d. ca. 434/1043.

  • AḤMAD SOLṬĀN AFŠĀR

    R. M. Savory

    Qizilbāš amir in the Safavid service.  

  • AḤMAD TABRĪZĪ

    İ. Aka

    Persian poet (first half of the 8th/14th century).

  • AḤMAD TAKŪDĀR

    P. Jackson

    third il-khan of Iran (r. 680-83/1282-84), seventh son of Hülegü.

  • AḤMAD TŪNĪ

    J. van Ess

    Karrāmī theologian who lived about 400/1010.  

  • AḤMAD YĀDGĀR

    Hameed-ud-Din

    10th/16th century historian of the Afghans in India.

  • AḤMAD, NEẒĀM-AL-DIN

    Erika Glassen

    vizier and amir under the Timurids (d. 912/1507).

  • AHMADABAD

    L. A. Desai

    Major city of Gujarat state in western India and a former center of Persian culture.

  • AḤMADĀVAND

    P. Oberling

    a small, sedentary Kurdish tribe of western Iran.

  • AHMADNAGAR

    Z. A. Desai

    major city and province in the state of Maharashtra in western India, founded about 900/1495 by Malek Aḥmad Neẓām-al-molk, a Bahmanī governor, on the site where he had earlier won a battle against his sovereign’s forces.

  • AḤMADNAGARĪ, ʿABD-AL-NABĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-NABĪ.

  • AḤMADPURĪ, GOL MOḤAMMAD

    K. A. Nizami

    (d. 1243/1827), a Panjabi saint and Češtī hagiographer.

  • AḤMADZĪ

    C. M. Kieffer

    “descendants of Aḥmad” (sing. Aḥmadzay), a Paṧtō clan and tribal name.

  • AḤRĀR

    C. E. Bosworth

    (or BANU’L-AḤRĀR), in Arabic literally “the free ones,” a name applied by the Arabs at the time of the Islamic conquests to their Persian foes in Iraq and Iran.

  • AḤRĀR, ḴᵛĀJA ʿOBAYDALLĀH

    J. M. Rogers

    (806-96/1404-90), influential Naqšbandī of Transoxania.

  • AHRIMAN

    J. Duchesne-Guillemin

    "demon," God’s adversary in the Zoroastrian religion.

  • AHRIŠWANG

    B. Schlerath

    a learned transcription of the Avestan nominative Ašiš vaŋuhī, the goddess “Good Recompense.”

  • AḤSĀʾĪ, SHAIKH AḤMAD

    D. M. MacEoin

    (1753-1826), Shiʿite ʿālem and philosopher and unintending originator of the Šayḵī school of Shiʿism in Iran and Iraq.

  • AḤSAN AL-TAQĀSĪM

    C. E. Bosworth

    a celebrated geographical work in Arabic written towards the end of the 4th/10th century.

  • AḤSAN AL-TAWĀRĪḴ

    ʿA. Navāʾī

    a chronological history of Iran and the neighboring countries written by Ḥasan Beg Rūmlū (b. 937/1530-31), a qūṛčī in the service of the Safavid Shah Ṭahmāsb.

  • AHU

    B. Schlerath

    two homonymous Avestan terms: (1) “Existence, life” in a range of religious phrases, (2) “Lord, overlord,” linked with ratu- “lord, judge.”

  • ĀHŪ

    B. P. O’Regan, H. Javadi

    Two species of gazelle occur in Iran, Gazella sub-gutturosa and G. dorcas.

  • AHUNWAR

    C. J. Brunner

    Middle Persian form of Avestan Ahuna Vairya, name of the most sacred of the Gathic prayers.

  • AHURA

    F. B. J. Kuiper

    designation of a type of deity inherited by Zoroastrianism from the prehistoric Indo-Iranian religion.

  • AHURA MAZDĀ

    M. Boyce

    the Avestan name with title of a great divinity of the Old Iranian religion, who was subsequently proclaimed by Zoroaster as God.

  • AHURA.ṰKAĒŠA

    M. Boyce

    an infrequent Avestan adjective meaning “following the Ahuric doctrine.”

  • AHURĀNĪ

    B. Schlerath

    feminine deity of the waters.

  • AHVĀZ

    Multiple Authors

    city of southwestern Iran, located in the province of Ḵūzestān on the Kārun river.

  • AHVĀZ i. History

    C. E. Bosworth

    Ahvāz was apparently a flourishing town in pre-Islamic times. When the Arabs invaded Ḵūzestān in the later 630s, after the overrunning of Iraq, the general ʿOtba b. Ḡazwān destroyed the administrative half of the town of Ahvāz but preserved the commercial one.

  • AHVĀZ ii. The Modern City

    X. De Planhol

    The city has a grid plan adapted to the bends of the Kārūn river. Its heart is on the left bank of the Kārūn; a new quarter has been added on the right bank, where the railway station has been located. Besides the railway bridge an imposing road bridge links the two river banks.

  • AHVĀZ iii. Monuments

    J. Lerner

    Little of architectural interest appears to have survived from the medieval period, but a few structures in old Ahvāz and the new city are remnants of various historical and structural happenings.

  • AHVAZ iv. Population, 1956-2011

    Mohammad Hossein Nejatian

    This article deals with the following population characteristics of Ahvaz: population growth from 1956 to 2011, age structure, average household size, literacy rate, and economic activity status.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • AHVĀZĪ

    D. Pingree

    a 4th/10th century mathematician.

  • AHVĀZĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN

    Cross-Reference

    See ABU’L-ḤASAN AHWĀZĪ.

  • ĀĪN GOŠASP

    A. Tafażżolī

    a general of Hormazd IV (A.D. 579-590), sent by him to campaign against the rebellious general Bahrām Čūbīn.

  • ĀĪN-E AKBARĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See AKBAR-NĀMA.

  • ĀĪN-NĀMA

    A. Tafażżolī

    Arabic and New Persian form of Middle Persian ēwēn nāmag (“book of manners”), a general term for texts dealing with the exposition of manners, customs, skills, and arts and sciences.

  • ĀĪNA-KĀRĪ

    Eleanor G. Sims

    the practice of covering an architectural surface with a mosaic of mirror-glass.

  • ĀĪNA-YE ḠAYBNOMĀ

    L. P. Elwell-Sutton

    “The Revealing Mirror,” a fortnightly illustrated magazine which began publication in Tehran on 22 Jomādā I 1325/3 July 1907, edited by Sayyed ʿAbd-al-Raḥīm Kāšānī.

  • AIRYAMAN

    M. Boyce

    an ancient Iranian divinity and a yazata of the Zoroastrian pantheon, known in Manichean Middle Persian as Aryaman, in Pahlavi as Ērmān.

  • AIRYAMAN IŠYA

    C. J. Brunner

    Gathic Avestan prayer.

  • AIWYǠŊHANA

    M. F. Kanga

    Avestan term “wrapping round, girdle”: (1)  a strip from a date-palm leaf used to tie bundle of wires which constitute the barsom, (2) the kusti or sacred girdle.

  • ʿAJABŠĪR

    ʿA. Kārang

    a town and baḵš in East Azerbaijan. 

  • ʿAJĀʾEB AL-DONYĀ

    L. P. Smirnova

    (“Wonders of the world” or “Wonderful things”), title of a Persian geography.

  • ʿAJĀʾEB AL-MAḴLŪQĀT

    C. E. Bosworth, I. Afshar

    (“The marvels of created things”), the name of a genre of classical Islamic literature and, in particular, of a work by Zakarīyāʾ b. Moḥammad Qazvīnī.

  • ʿAJĀʾEB AL-MAQDŪR

    U. Nashashibi

    (“The wondrous turns of fate in the vicissitudes of Tīmūr”), a history of the life and conquests of Tīmūr (1336-1405).

  • ʿAJAM

    C. E. Bosworth

    the name given in medieval Arabic literature to the non-Arabs of the Islamic empire, but applied especially to the Persians.

  • ʿAJAMĪ

    A. A. Kalantarian

    6th/12th century architect under the Eldigüzid atabegs, founder of the Nakhchevan architectural school.

  • ʿAJEZ, NARAYAN KAUL

    A. Mattoo

    Kashmiri Brahman of the 17th-18th centuries, a poet and compiler of Moḵtaṣar-e tārīḵ-e Kašmīr (1710-11).

  • ĀJĪ ČĀY

    E. Ehlers

    (Talḵa-rūd, “Bitter river”), a river some 200 km in length which flows into Lake Urumia. Due to the mountain origins of many of its source rivers and tributaries, the flow of the river shows marked seasonal variations.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • ʿAJIB MĀZANDARĀNI

    M. Dabirsiāqi

    19th-century poet of the Qajar court.

  • ĀJĪL

    M. Kasheff

    an assortment of nuts, roasted chickpeas and seeds such as watermelon, pumpkin, and pear, and raisins and other dried fruits.

  • AJINA TEPE

    B. A. Litvinskiĭ

    the present-day name of the mound covering the ruins of an early medieval Buddhist monastery.

  • AJMER

    F. Lehmann

    (Aǰmēr, from Skt. Ajayameru), a city in Rajasthan, western India, of great strategic, commercial, and cultural importance from the 6th/12th to the 12th/18th centuries.

  • ĀJOR

    Cross-Reference

    See BRICK.

  • ĀJŪDĀN-BĀŠĪ

    Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī

    a Persian term translating the French military title adjudant-en-chef; aide and deputy to the army commander during the Qajar period.

  • ĀKAUFAČIYĀ

    R. Schmitt

    name of a tribe resident in the southeastern part of the Achaemenid empire.

  • AḴAWAYNĪ BOḴĀRĪ

    H. H. Biesterfeldt

    4th/10th century physician who worked in Bukhara.

  • AḴBĀR AL-AḴYĀR

    B. Lawrence

    The most reliable taḏkera of early Indian Sufis, by Shaikh ʿAbd-al-Ḥaqq Moḥaddeṯ Dehlavī (d. 1052/1642).

  • AḴBĀR AL-DAWLAT AL-SALJŪQĪYA

    C. E. Bosworth

    An Arabic chronicle on the history of the Great Saljuq dynasty in Iran and Iraq.

  • AḴBĀR AL-ṬEWĀL, KETĀB AL-

    C. E. Bosworth

    (“The book of the long historical narratives”), title of a historical work by the Persian writer of ʿAbbasid times Abū Ḥanīfa Aḥmad b. Dāwūd b. Wanand Dīnavarī.

  • AKBAR FATḤALLĀH

    Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī

    prime minister of Iran from Ābān, 1299 Š./October, 1920 to Esfand, 1299 Š./February, 1921.  

  • AKBAR I

    F. Lehmann

    (949-1014/1542-1605), third and greatest of the Mughal emperors of India. 

  • AKBAR KHAN ZAND

    J. R. Perry

    (d. 1196/1782), youngest son of Zakī Khan Zand.  

  • AḴBĀR-E MOḠOLĀN

    George Lane

    an original and independent source prepared by Qoṭb-al-Dīn Širāzi on the reign of the Il-Khan Hulāgu Khan and his immediate successors, Abaqa and Aḥmad Tegüdār.

  • AKBAR-NĀMA

    R. M. Eaton

    Official history of the reign of the Mughal Emperor Akbar (964-1015/1556-1605), including a statistical gazetteer of sixteenth century North India, compiled by Abu’l-Fażl ʿAllāmī.

  • AḴBĀRĪ, MĪRZĀ MOḤAMMAD

    H. Algar

    A leading exponent of the Aḵbārī school of Islamic jurisprudence (feqh) and a violent polemicist against its opponents (1178-1233/1765-1818).

  • AḴBĀRĪYA

    E. Kohlberg

    A school in Imamite Shiʿism which maintains that the traditions (aḵbār) of the Imams are the main source of religious knowledge, in contrast to the Oṣūlī school.

  • AKES

    M. A. Dandamayev

    (Greek Akēs), a river in Central Asia, the modern Tejen or Harī-rūd (q.v.).

  • AḴESTĀN

    Ż. Sajjādī

    a late 12th-century ruler of the Šervānšāh dynasty, patron of the poet Ḵāqānī Šervānī.

  • AKHAVAN-E SALESS, MEHDI

    Saeid Rezvani

    prominent poet who holds a place of distinction between the followers of classical Persian prosody and the modernists  (1928-1990).

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • ʿAKKĀS-BĀŠĪ

    F. Gaffary

    photographer and pioneer motion-picture cameraman (1874-1915).

  • AḴLĀQ

    F. Rahman

    “ethics” (plural form of ḵoloq “inborn character, moral character, moral virtue”).

  • AḴLĀQ AL-AŠRĀF

    P. Sprachman

    (“The ethics of the aristocracy”), a satire composed in 740/1340-41, the most important work of ʿObayd Zākānī. 

  • AḴLĀQ-E JALĀLĪ

    G. M. Wickens

    an “ethical” treatise in Persian by Moḥammad b. Asʿad Jalāl-al-dīn Davāni (15th century).

  • AḴLĀQ-E MOḤSENĪ

    G. M. Wickens

    an ostensibly serious treatise on ethics by the prolific prose-stylist Kamāl-al-dīn Ḥosayn Wāʿeẓ Kāšefī, completed in 900/1494-95.

  • AḴLĀQ-E NĀṢERĪ

    G. M. Wickens

    by Ḵᵛāǰa Naṣīr-al-dīn Ṭūsī, the principal treatise in Persian on ethics, economics, and politics, first published according to the author in 633/1235.

  • AḴLĀṬ

    C. E. Bosworth, H. Crane

    a town and medieval Islamic fortress in eastern Anatolia.

  • AḴNŪḴ

    J. P. Asmussen

    Enoch, in Manichean texts. According to the Cologne Mani Codex, the outstanding Greek Mani-vita, the prophet grew up in a Judeo-Christian environment, in the sect founded by Elkhasai in Eastern Syria about 100 CE.

  • AKŌMAN

    J. Duchesne-Guillemin

    “Evil Mind,” a term personified as a demon in Zoroastrianism.

  • AḴORSĀLĀR

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀXWARR.

  • AḴSĪKAṮ

    C. E. Bosworth

    in early medieval times the capital of the then still Iranian province of Farḡāna.

  • AḴSĪKATĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See AṮĪR AḴSĪKATĪ.

  • AḴŠONVĀR

    C. J. Brunner

    The imperfect recording in Arabic of an eastern Middle Iranian term for “king;” it is used as a proper name.

  • AKSU

    Alain Cariou

    Nowadays, Aksu is a town and major oasis of the Northwest Tarim Basin in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China. Located between the southern foot of the Tien Shan Mountains (“Heavenly Mountains”) and the edge of the Taklamakan Desert, the administrative area of the city (18,184 sq km) had a population of 572,700, in 2000.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • AḴTĀJĪ

    D. O. Morgan

    a term, Mongolian in origin, derived from aḵtā “gelding” and meaning “groom” or, more specifically in the context of the court, “master of the horse.”

  • AḴTAR newspaper

    L. P. Elwell-Sutton

    a Persian newspaper published in Istanbul, 1876 to 1895-96.

  • AḴTAR “star"

    Cross-Reference

    See AXTAR.

  • AḴTAR, AḤMAD BEG GORJĪ

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    a poet of the era of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qāǰār (1212-50/1797-1834).