Table of Contents

  • DOLDOL

    Aḥmad Mahdawī Dāmḡānī

    or Doldūl, in Ar. lit., “large porcupine”; name of a female mule that Moqawqes, governor of Egypt, sent to the Prophet Moḥammad as a gift.

  • DOLGORUKOV MEMOIRS

    Moojan Momen

    document published under the title Eʿterāfāt-e sīāsī yā yāddāšthā-ye Kenyāz Dolqorūkī (Political confessions or memoirs of Prince Dolgorukov) in the historical portion of the “Khorasan yearbook,” issued in Mašhad in 1943.

  • DOLICHĒ

    Erich Kettenhofen

    city in the Roman province of Syria conquered together with the surrounding area by Šāpūr I  during his second campaign against Rome in 252 or 253.

  • DOLMA

    M. R. Ghanoonparvar

    or dūlma; Turkish term for stuffed vegetable or fruit dishes common in the Middle East and in Mediterranean countries.

  • DOLOMITAE

    Cross-Reference

    See DEYLAMITES i.

  • DOMAN

    Erich Kettenhofen

    city in the Roman province of Cappadocia, conquered along with the surrounding area by the Sasanian Šāpūr I (240-70) during his second campaign against Rome.

  • DOMES

    Bernard O’Kane

    circular vaulted roofs or ceilings. The variety of forms and decoration of Persian domes is unrivaled. Domes on squinches first appeared in Persia in the Sasanian period in the palace at Fīrūzābād in Fārs and at nearby Qalʿa-ye Doḵtar, both erected by Ardašir I (r. 224-40).

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  • DOMESTIC ANIMALS

    Daniel Balland and Jean-Pierre Digard

    This article is devoted to the principal characteristics of the predominant systems of domestication in Afghanistan and Persia, what they owe to neighboring or preceding systems, how they have departed from them, and whether or not it is possible to speak of a typically Iranian system of domestication.

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  • DONALDSON, BESS ALLEN

    Peter Avery

    (1879-1974) and DWIGHT MARTIN (1884-1976), American Presbyterian missionaries and writers about Persia.

  • DONBA

    M. R. Ghanoonparvar

    the fatty part of the sheep’s tail, traditionally used as a cooking fat, sometimes in melted form, or as an inexpensive meat substitute.

  • DONBAK

    Cross-Reference

    See TONBAK.

  • DONBĀVAND

    Cross-Reference

    See DAMĀVAND.

  • DONBOLĪ

    ʿALĪ ĀL-E DĀWŪD and Pierre Oberling

    name of a turkicized Kurdish tribe in the Ḵoy and Salmās regions of northwestern Azerbaijan and of the leading family of Ḵoy since the 16th century.

  • DONBOLĪ, ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ BEG

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ BEG.

  • DONKEY

    Multiple Authors

    i. In Persian tradition and folk belief. ii. Domestication in Iran.

  • DONKEY i. In Persian tradition and folk belief

    Mahmoud Omidsalar and Teresa P. Omidsalar

    domesticated species descended from the wild ass, probably first bred in captivity in Egypt and western Asia, where by 2500 B.C.E. the domesticated donkey was in use as a beast of burden.

  • DONKEY ii. Domestication in Iran

    Daniel T. Potts

    The Tol-e Nurābād sherd raises many questions about the locus of donkey domestication in the Old World, particularly since the Zagros highlands, where it was discovered, have been considered well to the east of the original range of Equid africanus.

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  • DONYĀ

    Nassereddin Parvin

    lit., “The world”; name of several Persian journals and newspapers.

  • DONYĀ-YE EMRŪZ

    Nassereddin Parvin

    lit. "Today’s world"; name of a weekly magazine published in Tehran and two weekly newspapers founded in Qazvīn and Isfahan, respectively.

  • DOORS AND DOOR FRAMES

    Sheila Blair, Mortażā Momayyez

    in Persian architecture major foci of decoration, varying in size and elaboration with the function and importance of the building and the location of the entrance in relation to the total composition.

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  • DŌRĪ

    Daniel Balland

    river in southern Afghanistan, the main tributary of the Arḡandā.

  • DORN, JOHANNES ALBRECHT BERNHARD

    N. L. Luzhetskaya

    (1805-1881), pioneer in many areas of Iranian studies in Russia. He never visited Afghanistan, but he nevertheless established the scientific basis for Afghan studies, particularly the first systematic description of Pashto.

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  • DORNĀ

    Cross-Reference

    See CRANE.

  • DORR

    Cross-Reference

    See PEARL i. Pre-Islamic Period and PEARL ii. Islamic Period.

  • DORRĀNĪ

    Daniel Balland

    probably the most numerous Pashtun tribal confederation, from which all Afghan dynasties since 1747 have come. The Dorrānī confederation is a political grouping of ten Pashtun tribes of various sizes, which are further organized in two leagues of five tribes each.

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  • DORRĀNĪ DYNASTY

    Cross-Reference

    See AFGHANISTAN x.

  • DORRĀNĪ, AḤMAD SHAH

    Cross-Reference

    See AFGHANISTAN x.

  • ḎORRAT

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    maize or (Indian) corn, Zea mays L. (fam. Gramineae), with many varieties and hybrids.

  • DORRAT AL-NAJAF

    Nassereddin Parvin

    lit. "Pearl of Najaf"; monthly religious journal published in Persian at Najaf in southern Iraq at the end of the first decade of the 20th century.

  • DORRAT-AL-MAʿĀLĪ

    Afsaneh Najmabadi

    (b. Tehran, 1873, d. Tehran, Šahrīvar 1924), pioneer in female education in Persia.

  • DORRI EFENDI

    Cross-Reference

    See DÜRRI EFENDI.

  • DORŪD

    ʿALĪ ĀL-E DĀWŪD

    a town in Lorestān province, situated at the foot of Oštorānkūh, at an altitude of 1,460 m on the route from Tehran to Ḵorramābād at the confluence of the rivers Tīra and Mārbara.

  • DŌŠĪ

    Daniel Balland

    small town and district on the northern slope of the central Hindu Kush in Afghanistan.

  • DOŠMANZĪĀRĪ

    Pierre Oberling

    name of two Lor tribes in southern Persia, the Došmanzīārī-e Mamasanī and the Došmanzīārī-e Kūhgīlūya.

  • DŌST MOḤAMMAD KHAN

    Amin H. Tarzi

    (b. Qandahār December 1792, d. Herat, 9 June 1863), first ruler of the Bārakzay/Moḥammadzay dynasty of Afghanistan. He was the first to bring the region that today constitutes Afghanistan under the control, occasionally tenuous, of a single central government.

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  • DOTĀR

    Jean During

    long-necked lute of the tanbūr family, usually with two strings (do tār). The principal feature is the pear-shaped sound box attached to a neck that is longer than the box and faced with a wooden soundboard. Dotārs can be classified in several different types.

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  • DOZĀLA

    Jean During

    kind of flute consisting of two parallel pipes pierced with holes and fitted with a removable vibrating mouthpiece made by cutting a U-shaped incision into a thin reed.

  • DOZDĀB

    Cross-Reference

    See ZĀHEDĀN.

  • DOZY, REINHARD PETRUS ANNE

    J. T. P. de Bruijn

    (b. Leiden, 21 February 1820, d. Leiden, 29 April 1883), Dutch orientalist renowned especially as a lexicographer of Arabic and a historian of Muslim Andalusia.

  • DRAGON

    Cross-Reference

    See AŽDAHĀ.

  • DRAINAGE

    Eckart Ehlers

    the carrying away of excess surface water through runoff in permanent or intermittent streams. Persia can be divided into four main drainage regions: the Caspian region, the Lake Urmia region, the Persian Gulf region, and the interior. Most of it is characterized by endorheic basins, that is, by interior drainage.

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  • DRAMA

    M. R. Ghanoonparvar

    in formal Western terms a relatively new art form in Persia, though various types of dramatic performance, including religious plays and humorous satirical skits, have long been a part of Persian religious and folk tradition.

  • DRANGIANA

    R. Schmitt

    or Zarangiana; territory around Lake Hāmūn and the Helmand river in modern Sīstān.

  • DRÁPSAKA

    Frantz Grenet

    Greek name of a Bactrian city in northern Afghanistan, the first town captured by Alexander the Great after crossing the Hindu Kush.

  • DRAWING

    M. L. Swietochowski

    an art form primarily dependent on expressive line. The high quality of Persian drawings maintained from the late 13th to the early 20th century provides a clear indication that this art form was appreciated by the Persian cultural elite.

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  • DRAXT Ī ĀSŪRĪG

    Aḥmad Tafażżolī

    lit. "The Babylonian tree"; a versified contest over precedence between a goat and a palm tree, composed in the Parthian language, written in Book Pahlavi script, and consisting of about 120 verses. 

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  • DREAMS AND DREAM INTERPRETATION

    Hossein Ziai

    i. In pre-Islamic Persia. ii. In the Persian tradition.

  • DRESDEN, MARK JAN

    Hiroshi Kumamoto

    (b. Amsterdam, 26 April 1911; d. Philadelphia, 16 August 1986), professor at the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught Persian, then various Old and Middle Iranian languages from 1949 until his retirement in 1977.  He worked especially on Khotanese literary texts.

  • DREYFUS-BARNEY

    Shapour Rassekh

    joint surname adopted by two leading Bahai figures of the 20th century.

  • DRIWAY

    Jean Kellens

    (or Driβi-), Younger Avestan noun from the Vidēvdād; the word probably referred either to a skin disease or to drooling.

  • DRIYŌŠĀN JĀDAG-GŌW UD DĀDWAR

    Philippe Gignoux

    Middle Persian title of a Sasanian official, “intercessor and judge of the poor.”

  • DṚNABĀJIŠ

    RÜDIGER SCHMITT

    name of the fifth month (July-August) of the Old Persian calendar, equivalent to Akkadian Ābu and Elamite Zillatam.

  • DRŌN

    Jamsheed K. Choksy

    Zoroastrian ritual term originally meaning “sacred portion” and designating a ritual offering to divine beings.

  • DRUGS

    ṢĀDEQ SAJJĀDĪ

    in medieval Muslim literature any vegetable, mineral, or animal substance that acts on the human body, whether as a medicament, a poison, or an antidote.

  • DRUJ-

    Jean Kellens

    Avestan feminine noun defining the concept opposed to that of aṧa-.

  • DRUMS

    Jean During

    large group of percussion instruments.

  • DRUSTBED

    Aḥmad Tafażżolī

    chief physician in the Sasanian period.

  • DRVĀSPĀ

    Jean Kellens

    or Drwāspā, Druuāspā, lit., “with solid horses”; Avestan goddess.

  • DRYPETIS

    RÜDIGER SCHMITT

    (Gk. Drýpĕtis [Arrian] or Drypêtis [Diodorus]), daughter of Darius III Codomannus and younger sister of Stateira; in the collective wedding arranged by Alexander the Great at Susa in 324 B.C.E. she was given in marriage to Hephaestion.

  • DU MANS, RAPHAEL

    Francis Richard

    (d. 1696), FATHER, author of important descriptions of Persia.

  • ḎŪ QĀR

    Ella Landau-Tasseron

    watering place near Kūfa in Iraq where a battle was fought between Arab tribesmen and Persian forces in the early 7th century.

  • ḎŪ-BAḤRAYN

    Sīrūs Šamīsā

    a term in Persian and Arabic prosody designating a poem that can be scanned according to two or more different meters (baḥr).

  • DUALISM

    Gherardo Gnoli

    feature peculiar to Iranian religion in ancient and medieval times.

  • DUBAI

    Sussan Siavoshi

    (Dobayy), second largest of the seven emirates constituting the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.) on the southern shores of the Persian Gulf.

  • DUCHESNE-GUILLEMIN, JACQUES

    Pierre Lecoq

    (1910-2012), distinguished scholar of classical philology and Indo-Iranian studies.

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  • DUCK

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    technically any species of the family Anatidae but in Persian popular usage including similar waterfowl from other families, particularly some geese and grebes.

  • DŪḠ

    M. R. Ghanoonparvar

    beverage made of yogurt and plain or carbonated water and often served chilled as a refreshing summer drink or with meals, especially with kebabs or čelow-kabāb.

  • DŪḠ-E WAḤDAT

    Mahmoud Omidsalar

    lit. “beverage of unity”; concoction made from adding hashish extract (jowhar-e ḥaīš) to diluted yogurt.

  • DUGDŌW

    D. N. MacKenzie

    the name of Zoroaster’s mother, which appears in several different spellings in the Pahlavi texts, mostly more or less corrupted from an original attempt at representing the Avestan form.

  • ḎU’L-AKTĀF

    Cross-Reference

    See Šāpur II.

  • ḎU’L-FAQĀR

    Jean Calmard

    lit., “provided with notches, grooves, vertebrae”; the miraculous sword of Imam ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb, with two blades or points, which became a symbol of his courage on the battlefield.

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  • ḎU’L-FAQĀR KHAN AFŠĀR

    J. R. PERRY

    governor (ḥākem) of Ḵamsa province (ca. 1763-80) under the Zand dynasty.

  • ḎU’L-FAQĀR ŠĪRVĀNĪ

    Moḥammad Dabīrsīāqī

    MALEK-AL-ŠOʿARĀ QEWĀM-AL-DĪN ḤOSAYN b. Ṣadr-al-Dīn ʿAlī (d. ca. 691/1291), Persian poet and panegyrist of the Il-khanid period. 

  • ḎU’L-JANĀḤ

    Jean Calmard

    Imam Ḥosayn’s winged horse, known from popular literature and rituals.

  • ḎU’L-LESĀNAYN

    Hamid Algar

    lit. “possessor of two tongues”; epithet often bestowed upon bilingual poets.

  • ḎU’L-NŪN MEṢRĪ, ABU’L-FAYŻ ṮAWBĀN

    Gerhard Böwering

    b. Ebrāhīm (b. Aḵmīm in Upper Egypt, ca. 791, d. Jīza [Giza], between 859 and 862), early Sufi master.

  • ḎU’L-QADR

    Pierre Oberling

    (arabicized form of Turk. Dulgadır), a Ḡozz tribe that became established mainly in southeastern Anatolia under the Saljuqs.

  • DU’L-QARNAYN

    Cross-Reference

    See ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

  • ḎU’L-RĪĀSATAYN

    Cross-Reference

    See FAŻL B. SAHL.

  • ḎU’L-RĪĀSATAYN

    Hamid Algar

    (b. Shiraz, 1873, d. Tehran, 15 June 1953), for thirty years qoṭb (leader) of a principal branch of the Neʿmatallāhī Sufi order. 

  • ḎU’L-ŠAHĀDATAYN

    Cross-Reference

    See AŠRAF ḠAZNAVĪ.

  • DULAFIDS

    Cross-Reference

    See DOLAFIDS.

  • DUMAQU

    Gerd Gropp

    or Domoko; administrative center of the eastern region of the Khotan oasis in Chinese Turkestan.

  • DUMÉZIL, Georges

    Bruce Lincoln

     (1898-1986), French comparatist philologist and religious studies scholar. Among the most significant later modifications in Dumézil's views was his decision to abandon the claim that Indo-European society was originally divided into three functional groupings.

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  • DUNG

    Willem Floor

    human and animal excrement, widely used in Persia and Afghanistan for fuel and fertilizer.

  • DUNHUANG

    Multiple Authors

    an oasis town situated in the northwest of the Chinese province of Gansu, famous for the nearby Mogao Caves.

  • DUNHUANG i. The cave sites; Manichean texts

    Gunner Mikkelsen

    The Mogao Caves are located some 25 km from Dunhuang at the edge of the Dunes of the Singing Sands (Mingshashan) of the Gobi desert. These contain over 45,000 square meters of predominantly Buddhist murals and more than 2,000 Buddhist painted stucco sculptures.

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  • DUNHUANG ii. Buddhist and Other Texts in Iranian Languages

    Yutaka Yoshida

    The library cave in Dunhuang has yielded a number of texts of the 8th to 10th centuries in two Middle Iranian languages, Khotanese and Sogdian.

  • DŪNQEŠLĀQ

    Klaus Fischer

    or Dong Qešlaq; group of pre-Islamic and Islamic archeological sites on the Emām Ṣāḥeb plain in the Qondūz province of Afghanistan, about 10 km south of the Oxus.

  • DUPREE, LOUIS

    David B. Edwards

    Following the completion of his Ph.D. degree, Dupree taught at the Air University at Maxwell Air Force Base and Pennsylvania State University. Between 1959 and 1983 he was affiliated with the American Universities Field Staff (A.U.F.S.) as its expert on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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  • DURA EUROPOS

    Pierre Leriche, D. N. MacKenzie

    ruined city on the right bank of the Euphrates between Antioch and Seleucia on the Tigris, founded in 303 BCE by Nicanor, a general of Seleucus I. Its military function of the Greek period was abandoned under the Parthians, but at that time it was an administrative and economic center.

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  • DURAND, HENRY MORTIMER

    Rose L. Greaves

    (b. Sehore, Bhopal State, India, 14 February 1850, d. Polden, Somerset, England, 8 June 1924), British diplomat and envoy to Tehran at the end of the 19th century.

  • DŪRAOŠA

    Jean Kellens

    Avestan word, attested once in the Older Avesta, in the Younger Avesta the preferred and exclusive epithet of haoma, the ritual liquid.

  • DŪRĀSRAW

    D. N. MacKenzie

    according to the Pahlavi tradition the name of two legendary personages in the history of Zoroastrianism.

  • DURIS OF SAMOS

    RÜDIGER SCHMITT

    (Gk. Doûris), (ca. 340-281/270 B.C.E.), Greek historiographer of the early Hellenistic period.

  • DŪRMEŠ, KHAN

    Roger M. Savory

    or Dormeš; b. ʿAbdī Beg TAVĀČĪ ŠĀMLŪ, powerful Qezelbāš amir, brother-in-law and confidant of Shah Esmāʿīl I.

  • DŪRNEMĀ-YE ĪRĀN

    Nassereddin Parvin

    weekly of politics and culture edited and published by the Persian writer, scholar, and filmmaker ʿAbd-al-Ḥosayn Sepantā in Bombay from 30 November 1928 to March 1929.

  • DÜRRI EFENDI, AḤMAD

    Tahsin Yazici

    (or Dorrī Afandī; (b. Van, date unknown, d. Istanbul, 1722), Ottoman poet, civil servant, and diplomat who served as ambassador to Tehran and wrote Sefārat-nāma, the first Turkish account of Safavid Persia.

  • DUSHANBE

    Muriel Atkin

    capital and most populous city of Tajikistan.

  • DŪST MOḤAMMAD KHAN BĀRAKZĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See DŌST MOḤAMMAD KHAN.