Table of Contents

  • ʿAṬR

    F. Aubaile-Sallenave

    “perfume” (Arabic ʿeṭr, plur. ʿoṭūr; in Persian also ʿaṭrīyāt, perfumes), a Semitic term also attested in Syriac and Amharic.

  • ATRAK

    C. E. Bosworth

    river of northern Khorasan, flowing first northwest, and then southwest into the Caspian Sea.

  • ĀΘRAVAN-

    M. Boyce

    (Avestan) “priest” regularly used to designate the priests as a social “class,” one of the three into which ancient Iranian society was theoretically divided.

  • ĀTRƎVAXŠ

    W. W. Malandra

    (Mid. Pers ādurwaxš), one of the eight Zoroastrian priests (ratu) necessary for performance of the yasna ritual.

  • ATROPATENE

    Cross-Reference

    See AZERBAIJAN iii. Pre-Islamic History.

  • ATROPATES

    M. L. CHAUMONT

    the satrap of Media, commander of the troops from Media, Albania, and Sacasene at the battle of Gaugamela in 331 B.C.

  • ATRUŠAN

    J. R. Russell

    the Armenian word for “fire temple,” a loan-word from Parthian.

  • ATSÏZ B. ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN ATSÏZ.

  • ATSÏZ ḠARČAʾĪ

    C. E. Bosworth

    ruler of Ḵᵛārazm with the traditional title Ḵᵛārazmšāh, 521 or 522/1127 or 1128 to 551/1156.

  • ATTABI

    E. Sims

    one of many names for cloth used by medieval Islamic writers.

  • AṬṬĀR, FARĪD-AL-DĪN

    B. Reinert

    (1145 or 46-1221) Persian poet, Sufi, theoretician of mysticism, and hagiographer, was born and died in Nīšāpūr.

  • ʿAṬṬĀŠ

    J. van Ess

    Ismaʿili leader during the time of Sultan Barkīāroq (Berk-yaruq, d. 498/1104).

  • ATTAŠAMA

    M. Mayrhofer

    personal name in the Nuzi texts.

  • ĀTUR

    Cross-Reference

    "fire." See ĀDUR and ĀTAŠ.

  • AΘURĀ

    Cross-Reference

    Achaemenid province. See ASSYRIA.

  • ĀΘVIYA

    cross-reference

    in the Avestan Hōm Yast (Y. 9.7) the second mortal to press the haoma and the father of Θraētaona (Ferīdūn).

  • AUBERGINE

    Cross-Reference

    See BĀDENJĀN.

  • AUDH

    Cross-Reference

    See AVADH.

  • AUGUSTINE

    G. Widengren

    prominent Christian theologian and philosopher, born 354 in Thagaste, Numidia.

  • AURELIUS VICTOR

    M. L. Chaumont

    born in Africa ca. 325/330, held high positions under Julian and Theodosius.

  • AUSTRIA i. Relations with Persia

    Helmut Slaby

    Diplomatic and commercial relations between Austria and Persia have a long history, stretching back to the sixteenth century.

  • AUSTRIA ii. IRANIAN STUDIES

    X. Tremblay and N. Rastegar

    The present entry is intended as a synthetic history of the organization of Iranian studies (1) up to 1918 in all the Habsburg “hereditary countries,” which included the present Czech Republic and Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia, also parts of Poland, Romania, and Ukraine, and (2) since 1918 in the Republic of Austria exclusively.

  • AUTIYĀRA

    R. Schmitt

    name of a district of the satrapy Armina of the Achaemenid empire.

  • AUTOPHRADATES

    M. A. Dandamayev

    name of several Achaemenid officials, especially the satrap of Lydia under the  Artaxerxes II, from 391 B.C. until the late 350s.

  • AVA

    C. E. Bosworth

    the basic modern form of the name of two small towns of northern Persia, normally written Āba in medieval Islamic sources.

  • AVADĀNA

    R. E. Emmerick

    Sanskrit term for a category of Buddhist narrative literature.

  • AVADH

    R. B. Barnett

    an ancient cultural and administrative region lying between the Himalayas and the Ganges in North India, named after Ayodhyā, the setting of the Sanskrit epic Ramayana.

  • AVALOKITEŚVARA-DHĀRAṆĪ

    R. E. Emmerick

    name given by H. W. Bailey to a Buddhist text written in archaizing Late Khotanese, ending with a dhāraṇī (Skt. “spell, sacred formula”) preceded by homage to the bodhisattvas.

  • AVARAYR

    R. Hewsen

    a village in Armenia in the principality of Artaz southeast of the Iranian town of Mākū.

  • ĀVĀZ

    G. Tsuge

    Āvāz as a musical term has three basic meanings: (1) The classical vocal style of Iran, which is based on the elaborate modal system called dastgāh and sung mainly to classical Persian verses. (2) “Tune.” This term is used to denote an auxiliary mode in the dastgāh system.

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  • AVERY, PETER

    David Blow

    The most important part of Avery’s published works consists of translations of Persian poetry, in particular the ghazals (ḡazal) of Hafez, the Persian poet for whom he felt a special empathy. He began translating some of the ghazals while still a student at SOAS.

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  • AVESTA

    Multiple Authors

    the holy book of the Zoroastrians.

  • AVESTA i. Survey of the history and contents of the book

    J. Kellens

    “Avesta” is the name the Mazdean (Mazdayasnian) religious tradition gives to the collection of its sacred texts. The etymology and the exact meaning of the name (Pahlavi ʾp(y)stʾk/abestāg) can not be considered established.

  • AVESTA ii. Middle Persian Translations

    Alberto Cantera

    The ritual Avestan texts belonging to the great rituals are transmitted through two different kinds of manuscripts: the Sāde manuscripts, containing only the Avestan text, and the so-called Pahlavi manuscripts, which include the Pahlavi translations.

  • AVESTAN GEOGRAPHY

    G. Gnoli

    Geographical references in the Avesta are limited to the regions on the eastern Iranian plateau and on the Indo-Iranian border.

  • AVESTAN LANGUAGE I-III

    K. Hoffmann

    The Avestan script is based on the Pahlavi script in its cursive form. The earliest Pahlavi manuscripts date from the fourteenth century A.D., but the Pahlavi cursive script must have developed from the Aramaic script already in the first centuries A.D.

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  • AVESTAN LANGUAGE iv. AVESTAN SYNTAX

    Jean Kellens

    The only complete syntax of Avestan which is still usable today is H. Reichelt’sAwestisches Elementarbuch.

  • AVESTAN PEOPLE

    M. Boyce

    The term Avestan people is used here to include both Zoroaster’s own tribe, with that of his patron, Kavi Vištāspa, and those peoples settled in Eastern Iran.

  • AVIATION

    Abbas Atrvash

    Originally the Iranian government had approached the U.S. administration to negotiate the purchase of American military aircrafts and to organize the training of pilots and technicians. But the Americans rejected the request, arguing that such an agreement would violate the disarmement clauses of the post-World War I peace treaties.

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  • AVICENNA

    Multiple Authors

    Latin form of the name of the outstanding philosopher and physician of the medieval period,  Abū ʿAlī Ḥosayn Ebn Sīnā (d. 1037).

  • AVICENNA i. Introductory note

    M. Mahdi

    philosopher who began a movement away from explicitness about the central question of the relation between philosophy and religion.

  • AVICENNA ii. Biography

    D. Gutas

    philosopher whose biography presents the paradox that although more material is available for its study than is average for a Muslim scholar of his caliber, it has received little critical attention.

  • AVICENNA iii. Logic

    Sh. B. Abed

    philosopher whose works on logic are extant, and most of them have been published. With the exception of two Persian works, Dāneš-nāma-ye ʿalāʾī and Andar dāneš-e rag, all of his works are written in Arabic.

  • AVICENNA iv. Metaphysics

    M. E. Marmura

    a philosopher whose metaphysical system is one of the most comprehensive and detailed in the history of philosophy.

  • AVICENNA v. Mysticism

    D. Gutas

    a philosopher whose philosophical system, rooted in the Aristotelian tradition, is thoroughly rationalistic and intrinsically alien to the principles of Sufism as it had developed until his time.

  • AVICENNA vi. Psychology

    F. Rahman

    a psychology or doctrine of the soul that has an Aristotelian base with a strong Neoplatonic superstructure.

  • AVICENNA vii. Practical Sciences

    M. Mahdi

    an account of practical science that is laconic and dispersed in minor tracts and in the opening and closing passages of his comprehensive encyclopedic works.

  • AVICENNA viii. Mathematics and Physical Sciences

    G. Saliba

    referred to, in his encyclopedic work the Šefāʾ, as the mathematical sciences; includes both mathematics and astronomy.

  • AVICENNA ix. Music

    O. Wright

    from the discussion in his Ketāb al-najāt, Dāneš-nāma-ye ʿalāʾī, and Ketāb al-Šefāʾ. He considers music one of the mathematical sciences (the medieval quadrivium).

  • AVICENNA x. Medicine and Biology

    B. Musallam

    In the works of Avicenna, the two great traditions,Galen and Aristotle, intersected. Avicenna wrote the medieval textbook of Galenic medicine the Qānūn (the Canon), as well as the central medieval statement of Aristotelian biology (the Ḥayawān, the biological section of the Šefāʾ).

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  • AVICENNA xi. Persian Works

    M. Achena

    only two works in Persian have come down to us: a short book Andar dāneš-e rag (On the science of the pulse), and a treatise on philosophy.

  • AVICENNA xii. The impact of Avicenna’s philosophical works on the West

    S. Van Riet

    Western European acquaintance with Avicenna began when Latin versions of some of his Arabic works came out in the mid-12th to late 13th centuries.

  • AVICENNA xiii. The influence of Avicenna on medical studies in the West

    U. Weisser

    From the early fourteenth to the mid-sixteenth century Avicenna held a high place in Western European medical studies.

  • ĀVĪŠAN

    R. A. Parsa

    wild thyme. Varieties in Iran are carminative, stomachic, diuretic, digestive, and flatulent. They may be used for liver and respiratory disorders.

  • AVROMAN

    D. N. MacKenzie

    a mountainous region on the western frontier of Persian Kurdistan.

  • AVROMAN DOCUMENTS

    D. N. MacKenzie

    three parchments found in a cave in the Kūh-e Sālān.

  • AVROMANI

    D. N. MacKenzie

    the dialect of Avroman, properly Hawrāmi, the most archaic of the Gōrāni group.

  • AWĀʾEL AL-MAQĀLĀT

    M. J. McDermott

    a Shiʿite doctrinal work written in Baghdad.

  • AWAN

    M. W. Stolper

    name of a place in ancient western Iran, the nominal dynastic seat of Elamite rulers in the late third millennium B.C.

  • ʿAWĀREF AL-MAʿĀREF

    W. C. Chittick

    a classic work on Sufism by Šehāb-al-dīn Sohravardī (1145-1234)

  • ʿAWĀREŻ

    W. Floor

    term used since 4th/10th century to denote extraordinary imposts of various kinds, the nature of which differed per area and historic period.

  • ʿAWFĪ, SADĪD-AL-DĪN

    J. Matīnī

    an important Persian writer of the late 6th/12th and early 7th/13th centuries.

  • AWḤAD-AL-DĪN KERMĀNĪ

    Z. Safa

    a famous mystic of the 6th/12th century.

  • AWḤADĪ MARĀḠAʾĪ

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    (born ca. 673/1274-75 in Marāḡa and died there in 738/1338), a poet who flourished in the reign of Abū Saʿīd Bahādor Khan (r. 716/1316-736/1335).

  • AWLĪĀʾ

    H. Algar

    a term commonly translated in European languages as “saints” or the equivalent.

  • AWLĪĀʾALLĀH ĀMOLĪ

    W. Madelung

    the author of the history of Rūyān, Tārīḵ-e Rūyān, written about 760/1359.

  • AWQĀF

    Cross-Reference

    See WAQF (pending).

    See also AMLĀKḴĀṢṢA.

  • AWRANGĀBĀDĪ, ʿABD-AL-ḤAYY

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-ḤAYY AWRANGĀBĀDĪ.

  • AWRANGĀBĀDĪ, ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ AWRANGĀBĀDĪ.

  • AWRANGĀBĀDĪ, SHAH NEẒĀM-AL-DĪN

    M. L. Siddiqui

    the celebrated Češtī saint said to be a descendant of Abū Bakr, the first caliph, in the line of Šehāb-al-dīn Sohravardī.

  • AWRANGZĒB

    Cross-Reference

    See Supplement.

  • AWRŌMĀN

    Cross-Reference

    or AWRŌMĀNI, See AVROMAN; AVROMANI.

  • AWṢĀF AL-AŠRĀF

    G. M. Wickens

    a short mystical-ethical work in Persian by Naṣīr-al-dīn Ṭūsī, written late in life, ca. 670/1271-72.

  • AWTĀD

    Cross-Reference

    See ABDĀL; AWLĪĀʾ.

  • AXSE

    M. L. Chaumont

    name of a Parthian hostage in Rome, inscribed in the dedication of an epitaph engraved on a marble plaque and discovered at the Forum Boarium in Rome.

  • ĀXŠTI

    B. Schlerath

    (Avestan) “Peace, contract of peace.”

  • AXT

    M. F. Kanga

    a sorcerer and, according to Zoroastrian tradition, a vehement, early opponent of the Religion.

  • AXTAR

    W. Eilers

    (Middle and New Persian) “star” or “constellation.”

  • AXTARMĀR

    A. Tafażżolī

    “astronomer.” The astronomers were included in the category of the third of the four Sasanian social classes, i.e., the class of the scribes, together with the physicians and poets.

  • ĀXWARR

    W. Eilers

    Middle Persian term for “manger” or “stall” borrowed into Armenian as axoṙ.

  • ĀXWARRBED

    A. Tafażżolī

    Middle Iranian term for the “Stablemaster, Royal Equerry.”

  • ĀY ḴĀNOM

    Paul Bernard

    or AÏ KHANUM (Tepe), a local Uzbek name designating the site of an important Greek colonial city in northern Afghanistan excavated since 1965 by a French mission and which belonged to a powerful hellenistic state born of Alexander’s conquest in Central Asia (329-27 B.C.)

  • AY TĪMŪR

    J. M. Smith, Jr.

    Sarbadār commander and ruler, “the son of a slave”.

  • ĀYADANA

    J. Duchesne-Guillemin

    “place of cult.” The term occurs once in the Old Persian Bīstūn inscription of Darius I.

  • AYĀDGĀR Ī JĀMĀSPĪG

    M. Boyce

    “Memorial of Jāmāsp,” a short but important Zoroastrian work in Middle Persian, also known as the Jāmāspī and Jāmāsp-nāma.

  • AYĀDGĀR Ī WUZURGMIHR

    S. Shaked

    a popular-religious andarz composition in Pahlavi, attributed to one of the best-known sages of the Sasanian period, Wuzurgmihr (Bozorgmehr) ī Buxtagān, who was active at the court of Ḵosrow I Anōšīravān (531-79 A.D.).

  • AYĀDGĀR Ī ZARĒRĀN

    M. Boyce

    “Memorial of Zarēr,” a short Pahlavi text which is the only surviving specimen in that language of ancient Iranian epic poetry.

  • AYĀDĪ-E AMR ALLĀH

    D. M. MacEoin

    “Hands of the Cause of God”, term used in Bahaʾism to designate the highest rank of the appointed religious hierarchy.

  • AʿYĀN AL-ŠĪʿA

    W. Ende

    a monumental dictionary (56 vols. altogether) of Shiʿite celebrities and learned men compiled by the Shiʿite scholar Sayyed Moḥsen Amīn ʿĀmelī (d. 1952).

  • ĀYANDA

    Ī. Afšār

    Persian journal which began publication in Tīr, 1304 Š./June-July, 1925, under the editorship of its founder, Maḥmūd Afšār (1893-1983).

  • ĀYANDAGĀN

    L. P. Elwell-Sutton and P. Mohajer

    a daily morning newspaper that first appeared in Tehran on 16 December, 1967.

  • ĀYATALLĀH

    H. Algar

    (Sign of God; Engl. Ayatullah, Ayatollah), an honorific title awarded by popular usage to mojtaheds, particularly the foremost among them.

  • ĀYATĪ, ʿABD-AL-ḤOSAYN

    Ī. Afšār

    (b. 1288/1871; d. 1332 Š./1953), son of Mollā Moḥammad-Taqī Āḵūnd Taftī, Bahāʾi missionary, journalist, author, and teacher.

  • AYĀZ, ABU’L-NAJM

    J. Matīnī

    favorite Turkish slave of the Ghaznavid Sultan Maḥmūd, whose passion for Ayāz is a recurrent theme in Persian poetry, where he is also called Ayās or Āyāz.

  • AYBAK

    L. Dupree

    (Uzbek “cave dweller”), now called Samangān, capital of Samangān province, associated with several important archeological sites.

  • AYBAK, QOṬB-AL-DĪN

    N. H. Zaidi

     founder of the Moʿezzī or Slave Dynasty and the first Muslim king of India, also called Ībak (moon chieftain) and Aybak Šel.

  • ĀYENAHĀ-YE DARDĀR

    Mohammad Mehdi Khorrami

    (Mirrors with cover doors, Tehran, 1992), one of the last major works by Hushang Golshiri.

  • AYMĀQ

    A. Janata

    (Turk. Oymaq), a term designating tribal peoples in Khorasan and Afghanistan, mostly semi-nomadic or semi-sedentary, in contrast to the fully sedentary, non-tribal population of the area.

  • ʿAYN-AL-DAWLA, ʿABD-AL-MAJĪD

    J. Calmard

    ATĀBAK-E AʿẒAM (1845-1926) son of Solṭān Aḥmad Mīrzā ʿAżod-al-dawla, Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s forty-eighth son and a prominent political figure of Moẓaffar-al-dīn Shah’s reign (1896-1907).

  • ʿAYN-AL-QOŻĀT HAMADĀNĪ

    G. Böwering

    (492/1098-526/1131), brilliant mystic philosopher and Sufi martyr.