Table of Contents

  • AḴTAR-E KĀVĪĀN

    Cross-Reference

    See DERAFŠ-E KĀVĪĀN.

  • ĀḴŪND

    H. Algar

    (or ĀḴᵛOND), a word of uncertain etymology with the general meaning of religious scholar. Various Persian origins have been proposed for the word.

  • AḴŪND ḴORĀSĀNĪ

    A. Hairi, S. Murata

    (1255-1329/1839-1911), Shiʿite religious leader.

  • ĀḴŪND, ḤĀJJ

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿALĪ AKBAR ŠAHMĪRZĀDĪ.

  • ĀḴŪNDZĀDA

    H. Algar

    (in Soviet usage, AKHUNDOV), Azerbaijani playwright and propagator of alphabet reform (1812-78).

  • AKVĀN-E DĪV

    DJ. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    the demon Akvān, who was killed by Rostam in the Šāh-nāma.

  • ĀḴᵛOND

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀḴŪND.

  • AḴYĀR

    H. Algar

    “the chosen” (Persian, bargozīdagān), a category sometimes encountered in accounts given by Sufi writers of the unseen hierarchy known as reǰāl al-ḡayb (“men of the unseen”).

  • ĀL

    A. Šāmlū and J. R. Russell

    a folkloric being that personifies puerperal fever; the name apparently derives from Iranian āl “red.”

  • ĀL TAMḠĀ

    G. Doerfer

    “red seal,” Turkish term for the supreme seal of the Mongol Il-Khans of Iran.

  • ĀL-E ʿABĀ

    H. Algar

    “The Family of the Cloak,” i.e., the Prophet Moḥammad, his daughter Fāṭema, his cousin and son-in-law ʿAlī, and his grandsons Ḥasan and Ḥosayn.

  • ĀL-E AFRĀSĪĀB (1)

    C. E. Bosworth

    a minor Iranian Shiʿite dynasty of Māzandarān in the Caspian coastlands that flourished in the late medieval, pre-Safavid period.

  • ĀL-E AFRĪḠ

    C. E. Bosworth

    (Afrighid dynasty), the name given by the Khwarazmian scholar Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī to the dynasty of rulers in his country, with the ancient title of Ḵᵛārazmšāh.

  • ĀL-E AḤMAD, JALĀL

    J. W. Clinton

    (1923-69), well-known writer and social critic.

  • ĀL-E ʿALĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿALIDS.

  • ĀL-E BĀBĀN

    Cross-Reference

    See BĀBĀN.

  • ĀL-E BĀVAND

    W. Madelung

    (BAVANDIDS), a dynasty ruling Ṭabarestān (Māzandarān) from at least the 2nd/8th century until 750/1349. 

  • ĀL-E BORHĀN

    C. E. Bosworth

    the name of a family of spiritual and civic leaders in Bokhara during the 6th/12th and early 7th/13th centuries.

  • ĀL-E BŪ KORD

    P. Oberling

    a tribe of Ḵūzestān, of uncertain origin.

  • ĀL-E BŪYA

    Cross-Reference

    See BUYIDS.

  • ĀL-E DĀBŪYA

    Cross-Reference

    See DABUYIDS.

  • ĀL-E ELYĀS

    C. E. Bosworth

    a short-lived Iranian dynasty which ruled in the eastern Persian province of Kermān during the 4th/10th century. 

  • ĀL-E FARĪḠŪN

    C. E. Bosworth

    The Iranian name of the family, Farīḡūn, may well be connected with that of the legendary Iranian figure Farīdūn/Afrīdūn; moreover the author of the Ḥodūd al-ʿālam, who seems to have lived and worked in Gūzgān, specifically says in his entry on the geography of Gūzgān that the malek of that region was a descendant of Afrīdūn.

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  • ĀL-E FAŻLŪYA

    Cross-Reference

    See ATĀBAKĀN-E LORESTĀN.

  • ĀL-E HĀŠEM

    C. Cahen

    3rd-5th/9th-11th century local dynasty of the region of Darband.

  • ĀL-E JALĀYER

    Cross-Reference

    See JALAYERIDS.

  • ĀL-E ḴAMĪS

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿARAB.

  • ĀL-E KART

    B. Spuler

    or perhaps ĀL-E KORT, an east Iranian dynasty (643-791/1245-1389).

  • ĀL-E KAṮĪR

    J. Qāʾem-Maqāmī

    an Arab tribe of Ḵūzestān composed of two subtribes, Bayt Saʿd and Bayt Karīm and inhabiting two sectors of Šūš and Dezfūl.

  • ĀL-E MĀKŪLĀ

    D. M. Dunlop

    a Persian noble family prominent at Baghdad in the 5th/11th century.

  • ĀL-E MAʾMŪN

    C. E. Bosworth

    Their rise is connected with the growth of the commercial center of Gorgānǰ in northwest Ḵᵛārazm and its rivalry with the capital of the Afrighids, Kāt or Kāṯ, on the right bank of the Oxus. Gorgānǰ flourished especially because of its position as the terminus for caravan trade across the Ust Urt desert to the Emba.

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  • ĀL-E MĪKĀL

    R. W. Bulliet

    the leading aristocratic family of western Khorasan from the 3rd/9th to the 5th/11th century.

  • ĀL-E MOḤTĀJ

    C. E. Bosworth

    a local dynasty, most probably of Iranian origin but conceivably of Iranized Arab stock, who ruled in the principality of Čaḡānīān on the right bank of the upper Oxus in the basin of the Sorḵān river.

  • ĀL-E MOẒAFFAR

    Cross-Reference

    See MOZAFFARIDS.

  • ĀL-E ŠANSAB

    Cross-Reference

    See GHURIDS.

  • ĀL-E VARDĀNZŪR

    Cross-Reference

    See ATĀBAKĀN-E YAZD.

  • ĀL-E ZĪĀR

    Cross-Reference

    See ZIYARIDS.

  • ʿALĀʾ

    H. Busse

    vizier of Fārs under the Buyid rulers Šaraf-al-dawla and Ṣamṣām-al-dawla.

  • ĀLĀ DĀḠ

    E. Ehlers

    name of a number of mountains in Iran; of Turkish origin, the words mean “colored mountain.”

  • ALA, HOSAYN

    Mansureh Ettehadieh and EIr.

    (1882-1964), statesman, diplomat, minister, and prime minister during the late Qajar and Pahlavi periods. He served as a high-ranking official from the Constitutional Revolution of 1906-07 to the time of the White Revolution of 1963-64.

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  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA

    Cross-Reference

    See ABŪ KĀLĪJĀR GARŠĀSP.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA

    Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī

    (d. 1299/1882), notable of the Qajar tribe and holder of high offices under Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA ʿALĪ

    C. E. Bosworth

    (511-34/1117-40), ruler of the Espahbadīya line of the local dynasty of the Bavandids in the Caspian region of Māzandarān.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA ḎUʾL-QADAR

    R. M. Savory

    early 9th/15th century ruler of Maṛʿaš and Albestān in the kingdom of Little Armenia, east of the Taurus mountains. 

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA ḤASAN B. ROSTAM

    W. Madelung

    B. ʿALĪ B. ŠAHRĪĀR, ŠARAF-AL-MOLŪK, Bavandid ruler of Māzandarān. According to the account of Ebn Esfandīār, he reigned from 558/1163 to 566/1171. 

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA MOḤAMMAD

    C. E. Bosworth

    (d. 433/1041), Daylamī military leader and founder of the shortlived but significant Kakuyid dynasty.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA SEMNĀNĪ

    J. van Ess

    (1261-1336), famous mystic of the Il-khanid period, opponent of the growing influence of Ebn ʿArabī in Iran.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA, MĪRZĀ AḤMAD KHAN

    Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī

    (d. 1329/1911), the son of Moḥammad Raḥīm Khan ʿAlāʾ-al-dawla.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DAWLA, ROKN-AL-DĪN MĪRZĀ

    J. Woods

    Timurid prince (820-65/1417-60).

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN ʿALĪ

    C. E. Bosworth

    Ghurid malek and later sultan, reigned in Ḡūr from Fīrūzkūh as the last of his family there before the extinction of the dynasty by the Ḵᵛārazmšāhs, 599-602/1203-96 and 611-12/1214-15. 

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN ʿALĪ MOTTAQĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿALĪ MOTTAQĪ.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN BĪRJANDĪ

    E. Baer

    a metalworker who lived between the late 15th and the early 16th century.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN ḤOSAYN JAHĀNSŪZ

    C. E. Bosworth

    called JAHĀNSŪZ, Ghurid sultan and the first ruler of the Šansabānī family to make the Ghurids a major power in the eastern Islamic world (544-56/1149-61).

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN ḴALJĪ

    N. H. Zaidi

    sultan of Delhi (r. 695-715/1296-1316). 

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

    R. Quiring-Zoche

    naqīb of Isfahan in the Timurid period and ancestor of prominent religious-legal dignitaries of the Safavid period. 

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

    B. Lewis

    chief of the Ismaʿilis of Alamūt (d. 1255).

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

    C. E. Bosworth

    Ḵᵛārazmšāh who reigned in Transoxania and central and eastern Iran as well as in Ḵᵛārazm, (596-617/1200-20).

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD BOḴĀRĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See BOḴĀRĪ.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN MONAJJEM

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿALĪŠĀH BOḴĀRĪ.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN SAMARQANDĪ

    W. Madelung

    Ḥanafī jurist and Mātorīdī theologian.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-MOLK, ḤĀJJĪ

    Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī

    (d. 23 Jomādā II 1308/4 February 1891), holder of various offices under Nāṣer-al-dīn Shah.

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-MOLK

    Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Aardakānī

    son of Mīrzā ʿAlī Aṣḡar Mostawfī, governor and minister in the later Qajar period (1258-1344/1842-1925).

  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-SALṬANA

    BĀQER ʿĀQELI

    prime minister and diplomat of the late Qajar period (d. 1918).  Upon the proclamation of the Constitution in 1907, he was appointed minister of foreign affairs. During the post-constitutional period he was a member of most cabinets, until in 1913 he was appointed prime minister.

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  • ʿALĀʾ-AL-SALṬANA

    Ḥ. Maḥbūbī Ardakānī

    Displeased with Malkom Khan, the Iranian minister in London, the Shah replaced him with Moḥammad-ʿAlī Khan; at this point he received the title ʿAlāʾ-al-salṭana. During the constitutional period he was back in Iran as a member of various cabinets. In January, 1913 he became prime minister, a position he enjoyed for seven months.

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  • ALA-FIRENG

    Cross-Reference

    See ALĀFRANK.

  • ALĀFRANK

    D. O. Morgan

    or ALA-FIRENG, the eldest son of the Il-khan Geiḵatu (r. 690-94/1291-95).

  • ʿALĀʾI, ŠOʿĀʿ-ALLĀH

    Firuz Kazemzadeh

    (1899-1984), prominent government official and a leading Bahai.

  • ALAK-DOLAK

    H. Javadi

    the game of tipcat, played for centuries in Iran, Afghanistan, and surrounding countries.

  • ʿĀLAM II, SHAH

    S. S. Alvi

    Mughal emperor (1173-1253/1759-1806).

  • ʿALAM KHAN

    J. R. Perry

    viceroy of the Afsharid state of Khorasan, 1161-68/1748-54.  

  • ʿALAM VA ʿALĀMAT

    J. Calmard, J. W. Allan

    In both Arabic and Persian, the word ʿalam conveys various senses connected with the general meaning of a distinctive sign or mark. In Persian the word had early carried the meaning of ensign and of standard or flag. The same meanings may also be rendered by the word ʿalāma, which derives from the same root.

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  • AʿLAM, HUŠANG

    Mehran Afshari and EIr

    (1928-2007), scholar of the history of science. 

  • ʿALAM, Moḥammad Ebrāhim

    Hormoz Davarpanah

    (1881-1944), one of the most eminent local magnates and landowners of the late Qajar and early Pahlavi period.

  • AʿLAM, MOẒAFFAR

    Baqer Aqeli

    Sardār Enteṣār (1882-1973), provincial governor, minister of foreign affairs, military minister plenipotentiary. 

  • AʿLAM-AL-DAWLA

    cross reference

    See ṮAQAFĪ, ḴALĪL KHAN.

  • ʿALAM-AL-HODĀ

    W. Madelung

    leading Imamite scholar, man of letters, and naqīb (syndic) of the Talibids in Baghdad.

  • ʿĀLAM-E NESVĀN

    L. P. Elwell-Sutton

    a magazine founded in Mīzān 1299 Š./September 1920, one of the earliest periodicals published by and for women.

  • ʿĀLAMĀRĀ-YE ʿABBĀSĪ

    R. M. Savory

    a Safavid chronicle written by Eskandar Beg Monšī (1560-1632). 

  • ʿĀLAMĀRĀ-YE ŠĀH ESMĀʿĪL

    R. McChesney

    an anonymous narrative of the life of Shah Esmāʿīl (r. 907-30/1501-24), the founder of the Safavid dynasty in Iran.

  • ʿALĀMĀT-E ŻOHŪR

    Cross-Reference

    See APOCALYPTIC.

  • ALAMŪT

    B. Hourcade

    a high, isolated valley in the Alborz 35 km northeast of Qazvīn, the center of an autonomous Ismaʿili state.

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  • ALAMŪT DIALECTS

    Cross-Reference

    See QAZVĪN DIALECTS.

  • ALANS

    V. I. Abaev, H. W. Bailey

    an ancient Iranian tribe of the northern (Scythian, Saka, Sarmatian, Massagete) group, known to classical writers from the first centuries CE.

  • ĀLĀT

    F. M. Kotwal and J. W. Boyd

    “utensils,” for Parsis the “sacred apparatus” employed in Zoroastrian rituals. 

  • ALAVI, BOZORG

    Ḥasan Mirʿābedini

    (1904-1997), leftist writer and one of the most noted Persian novelists of the 20th century, whose works were banned in Iran from 1953 to 1979.

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  • ʿALAWAYH

    D. M. Dunlop

    AL-AʿSAR (“the Left-handed”), a noted singer at the ʿAbbasid court under Hārūn al-Rašīd and his successors, ca. 184-230/800-54.

  • ʿALAWĪ

    W. Kadi

    the nesba used to denote descendants, political states, or sects connected with one or another ʿAli; more particularly, it is employed to refer to a Shiʿite sect centered today in Syria.

  • ʿALAWĪ, ABD-AL-KARĪM

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-KARĪM ʿALAVĪ.

  • ʿALAWĪ, AḤMAD

    Cross-Reference

    See AḤMAD ʿALAWĪ.

  • ʿALAWĪS

    Cross-Reference

    OF ṬABARESTĀN, DAYLAMĀN, AND GĪLĀN. See ʿALIDS.

  • ʿALAWĪYAT AL-AʿSAR

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿALAWAYH.

  • ĀLBĀLŪ

    A. Parsa

    (or ĀLŪBĀLŪ), sour cherry (Cerasus vulgaris), a tree of western Asia and eastern Europe.

  • ALBANIA

    M. L. Chaumont

    an ancient country in the Caucasus (for Albania in Islamic times, see Arrān). 

  • ALBORZ

    Multiple Authors

    modern Persian name for the east-west massif in northern Iran, lying south of the Caspian districts.

  • ALBORZ i. The Name

    W. Eilers

    etymology and meaning.

  • ALBORZ ii. In Myth and Legend

    M. Boyce

    stories about the Alborz mountains in Iran and Zorastrianism.

  • ALBORZ iii. Geography

    M. Bazin, E. Ehlers, B. Hourcade

    physical relief, geology, geomorphology, climate, flora, demography and economy of the Alborz massif.

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  • ALBORZ COLLEGE

    Y. Armajani

    an American Presbyterian missionary institution in Tehran; starting as a grade school in 1873, it grew to a junior college in 1924 and an accredited liberal arts college by 1928. In 1940 it was closed and its property bought by the government of Iran.

  • ALBUQUERQUE, ALFONSO DE

    J. Aubin

    (ca. 1460-1515), admiral in the Indian Ocean (1504, 1506-08), second governor of Portuguese India (1509-15), a great conqueror, and the real founder of the Portuguese empire in the Orient.

  • ALCHASAI

    J. P. Asmussen

    a sectarian in the early Christian Church, 1st-2nd centuries CE, in the time of Trajan.