Table of Contents

  • ANAW

    T. C. Young, Jr., G. A. Pugachenkova

    village and archeological site at the foot of the Kopet-Dag mountains east of Ashkhabad in Soviet Turkestan.

  • ANA’L-ḤAQQ

    A. Schimmel

    “I am the Truth,” the most famous of the Sufi šaṭḥīyāt (ecstatic utterances, or paradoxes).

  • ʿANBAR

    Ž. Mottaḥedīn

    (ambergris), a waxy, aromatic substance produced in the intestines of stomach of the sperm whale and used in perfumery.

  • ANBĀR

    M. Morony

    (Pers. term meaning granary), a town on the left bank of the Euphrates five km northwest of Fallūǰa and sixty-two km west of Baghdad. 

  • ANBAR

    C. E. Bosworth

    (or ANBĪR), a town of the medieval Islamic province of Gūzgān or Jūzǰān in northern Afghanistan, probably to be identified with the modern Sar-e Pol.  

  • ʿANBARĀN

    Marcel Bazin

    a township and district (baḵš) in the Namin sub-provincial district (šahrestān) of Ardabil Province.

  • ANBARĀNĪ Dialect

    Cross-Reference

    See ṬĀLEŠĪ.

  • ʿANBARĪ, ABU’L-ʿABBĀS

    C. E. Bosworth

    4th-5th/10th-11th century poet and prose stylist of Khorasan and statesman in the service of the Qarakhanids.

  • ANBARĪĀN FAMILY

    C. E. Bosworth

    a distinguished family of officials, littérateurs, ʿolamāʾ, and traditionists from Bayhaq (modern Sabzavār).

  • ANBARIN QALAM, ‘ABD-AL-RAḤĪM

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-RAḤĪM ʿANBARĪN QALAM.

  • ANCIENT LETTERS

    N. Sims-Williams

    The group consists of five almost complete letters and a number of fragments of similar letters. Each letter was folded several times and bore the names of the sender and addressee on the outside. Most were tied with string; one letter was wrapped in silk and enclosed in an envelope of coarse cloth addressed to Samarkand.

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  • ʿANDALIB, NĀṢER MOḤAMMAD

    A. Schimmel

    Sufi writer (b. in Delhi 1105/1693-94, d. 1172/1759).

  • ANDĀMEŠ

    Cross-Reference

    See ANDĪMEŠK; DEZFŪL.

  • ANDARĀB

    C. E. Bosworth

    or ANDARĀBA, the name of a river and a town situated upon it in northern Afghanistan.

  • ANDARĪMĀN

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    the name of a number of Turanian heroes in the Šāh-nāma.

  • ANDARUN

    M. A. Djamalzadeh

    or ANDARŪNĪ (inside), the private quarters of well-to-do houses in contrast to bīrūnī. the public rooms usually reserved for men.

  • ANDARWAYWAZĪG

    C. J. Brunner

    Middle Persian term for “acrobat, tumbler” (lit. “one who plays in the air”).

  • ANDARZ

    S. Shaked, Z. Safa

    “precept, instruction, advice”: the literary genre in pre-Islamic and New Persian literatures.

  • ANDARZBAD

    M. L. Chaumont

    Sasanian administrative title meaning “chief advisor” for a city.

  • ANDARZGAR

    J. P. Asmussen

    Mid. Pers. term, “counselor, teacher.”

  • ANDEJĀN

    C. E. Bosworth

    town in in the medieval Islamic province of Farḡāna, modern Russian Andizhan, in the easternmost part of the in the easternmost part of Uzbekistan.

  • ANDIJAN UPRISING

    Anke von Kuegelgen

    On the night of 9 Muḥarram 1316/30 May 1898, a group of about 2,000 poorly armed men attacked the 4th and 5th Russian Companies on the outskirts of Andijan under the leadership of the Naqšbandi Sufi Shaykh Dukči Išān (Muḥammad ʿAli Madali, ca. 1856-1898). 

  • ANDĪMEŠK

    X. De Planhol

    (also ANDĀMEŠ, ANDĀLMEŠK), the name of medieval Dezfūl.

  • ANDḴŪY

    D. N. Wilber

    a commercial town in northwestern Afghanistan.

  • ANDRAGORAS

    R. N. Frye

    Seleucid satrap of Parthia and Hyrcania, known primarily from his coins.

  • ANDREAS, FRIEDRICH CARL

    W. Lentz, D. N. MacKenzie, B. Schlerath

    German Iranologist (1846-1930).

  • ANĒRĀN

    Ph. Gignoux

    “non-Iran,” Middle Persian ethno-linguistic term generally used pejoratively to denote a political and religious enemy of Iran and Zoroastrianism.  

  • ANGAJĪ, ḤĀJJ MĪRZĀ ABŪ’L-ḤASAN

    H. Algar

    (1282-1357/1865-1939), a leading moǰtahed of Tabrīz, politically active during both the Constitutional Revolution and the reign of Reżā Shah.

  • ANGALYŪN

    J. P. Asmussen

    Persian rendering of the title of the Gospel of Mani.

  • ANGIOLELLO, GIOVANNI MARIA

    A. M. Piemontese

    (or DEGLI ANGIOLELLO) (1451-ca. 1525), Venetian adventurer, merchant, and author of an important historical report on the Aq Qoyunlū and early Safavid Persia.

  • ANGLO-AFGHAN RELATIONS

    J. A. Norris

    a survey from the earliest times to the death of the last Bārakzay ruler in 1357 Š./1978.

  • ANGLO-AFGHAN TREATY OF 1905

    J. A. Norris

    an agreement pertaining to British control of Afghan foreign policy and related matters.

  • ANGLO-AFGHAN TREATY OF 1921

    L. W. Adamec

    the outcome of peace negotiations following the Third Anglo-Afghan War. 

  • ANGLO-AFGHAN WARS

    J. A. Norris, L. W. Adamec

    First Anglo-Afghan War (1838-42), Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878-80),  Third Anglo-Afghan War (1919).

  • ANGLO-IRANIAN AGREEMENT

    Cross-Reference

    See ANGLO-PERSIAN AGREEMENT.

  • ANGLO-IRANIAN RELATIONS

    Multiple Authors

    This series of articles covers relations between England and Iran from the Safavid to the Pahlavi periods. 

  • ANGLO-IRANIAN RELATIONS i. Safavid to Zand Periods

    R. W. Ferrier

    English interest in Persia during this period is almost exclusively concerned with trade and has almost nothing to do with political relations. Relations arose as the result of a failure to trade eastwards through Russia and Central Asia in the mid-16th century by merchants of the Russia Company, which, though formed in London on 26 February 1555, had already dispatched their first voyage of three ships by the northeastern route round Russia on 18 May 1553.

  • ANGLO-IRANIAN RELATIONS ii. Qajar period

    F. Kazemzadeh

    Before the 19th century Anglo-Iranian relations were sporadic. Periods of engagement alternated with decades of disengagement. After the death of Karīm Khan Zand (1193/1779) contacts between Britain and Iran diminished and were maintained with regularity only in the Persian Gulf as the center of government authority moved north.

  • ANGLO-IRANIAN RELATIONS iii. Pahlavi period

    R. W. Ferrier

    For most of the 20th century relations have been dominated politically by the modernization and revival of Iran under the stimulus of Reżā Shah and his son and successor Moḥammad Reżā Shah, strategically by Iran’s proximity to the Soviet Union, and economically by Iranian oil.

  • ANGLO-IRANIAN WAR

    Cross-Reference

    See ANGLO-PERSIAN WAR.

  • ANGLO-PERSIAN AGREEMENT OF 1919

    N. S. Fatemi

    provisional agreement made between the British and the Persian governments which, if ratified, would have granted the British a paramount position of control over the financial and military affairs of Iran. 

  • ANGLO-PERSIAN OIL COMPANY

    F. Kazemi

    (ŠERKAT-E NAFT-E ENGELĪS O IRAN), a British company formed to extract and market oil in the oil fields of southwestern Iran.  

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  • ANGLO-PERSIAN WAR (1856-57)

    J. Calmard

    Following their defeat in the Russo-Persian wars of 1219-28/1804-13 and 1242-44/1826-28, the Qajars, tried to compensate for their losses by reasserting Persia’s control over western Afghanistan.

  • ANGLO-RUSSIAN AGREEMENT OF 1873

    J. A. Norris

    an attempt by the Foreign Offices of London and St. Petersburg to define the northern boundary of Afghanistan.

  • ANGLO-RUSSIAN CONVENTION OF 1907

    F. Kazemzadeh

    an agreement relating to Persia, Afghanistan, and Tibet.

  • ANGRA MAINYU

    Cross-Reference

    See AHRIMAN.

  • AṄGULIMĀLĪYA-SŪTRA

    R. E. Emmerick

    a Buddhist text concerning the conversion to Buddhism of a robber called Aṅgulimāla.

  • ANGŪR

    M. Bazin, X. de Planhol, W. L. Hanaway, Jr

    In the big river basins, real viticulture in organized plantations gradually took shape. Western cultural influences brought by the Greeks may well have stimulated this development. The vineyards are always irrigated, even though rain-fed vine growth is possible in most of the districts. The waterings, however, are few.

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  • ANHALT CARPET

    M. H. Beattie

    The overall composition, the central medallion, and the cloud bands are characteristic of Tabrīz, which was a major artistic center under the Safavids. The carpet’s almost perfect state of preservation, which at one time cast doubt on its being from the 16th century, has been attributed to its remaining in its original Turkish packing.

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  • ANIMAL HUSBANDRY

    Cross-Reference

    See DĀM-DĀRĪ