Table of Contents

  • DAHRĪ

    Mansour Shaki, Daniel Gimaret

    (< Ar.-Pers. dahr “time, eternity”), a theological term referring either to an atheist or to an adherent of the doctrine that the universe had no beginning in time.

  • DAHYU

    Gherardo Gnoli

    country (often with reference to the people inhabiting it).

  • DAʿĪ

    Farhad Daftary

    he who summons; a term used by several Muslim groups, especially the Ismaʿilis, to designate their propagandists or missionaries.

  • DĀʿĪ

    Tahsin Yazici

    the pen name of Aḥmad b. Ebrāhīm b. Moḥammad, Turkish scholar and poet who wrote in both Persian and Turkish.

  • DĀʿĪ BOḴĀRĪ

    Cathérine Poujol

    (d. 1885), poet from Bukhara, probably born during the reign of Amir Naṣr-Allāh (1827-60).

  • DĀʿĪ ELAʾL-ḤAQQ, ABŪ ʿABD ALLĀH MOḤAMMAD

    Wilfred Madelung

    b. Zayd b. Moḥammad b. Esmāʿīl b. Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb (d. 287/900), brother and successor of Ḥasan b. Zayd, founder of Zaydī rule in Rūyān and Ṭabarestān.

  • DĀʿĪ JĀN NĀPELʾON

    Nasrin Rahimiyeh

    lit., “Uncle Napoleon”, a satirical novel written in 1348-49 Š./1969-70 by Īraj Pezeškzād, who was already known in Persia for writing such satirical novels.

  • DĀʿĪ ŠĪRĀZĪ

    Ḏabīḥ-Allāh Ṣafā

    (1407-65), poet, preacher, and leader of the Neʿmat-Allāhī Sufi order in Fārs.

  • DĀʿĪ-AL-ESLĀM, SAYYED MOḤAMMAD ʿALĪ

    M. Saleem Akhtar

    Per­sian scholar, preacher, and lexicographer, born 1295/1878 at Lārījān.

  • DĀʿĪ-E KABĪR

    Cross-Reference

    See ḤASAN b. ZAYD.

  • DĀʿĪ-E ṢAḠĪR

    Cross-Reference

    See ḤASAN b. QĀSEM ʿALAWĪ.

  • DĀITYĀ, VAŊHVĪ

    Gherardo Gnoli

    the name of a river connected with the religious law, frequently identified in scholarly literature with the Oxus or with rivers of the northeastern region.

  • DAIUKKU

    Cross-Reference

    See DEIOCES.

  • DAIVA

    Clarisse Herrenschmidt and Jean Kelllens

    Old Iranian noun (Av. daēuua-, OPers. daiva-) corresponding to the title devá- of the Indian gods and thus reflecting the Indo-European heritage (*deiu̯ó-).

  • DAIVADANA

    Gherardo Gnoli

    lit., "temple of the daivas," Old Persian term that appears in the “daiva inscrip­tion” of Xerxes at Persepolis.

  • DAJJĀL

    Hamid Algar

    lit. "the great deceiver"; in Islamic tradition the maleficent figure gifted with supernatural powers whose advent and brief, though quasi-universal, rule will be among the signs heralding the approach of the resurrection.

  • ḎAKAʾ-AL-MOLK

    Cross-Reference

    See FORŪḠĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ʿALĪ; FORŪḠĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ḤOSAYN.

  • DAKANĪ, REŻĀ ʿALĪŠĀH

    Javad Nurbakhsh

    also known as Shah ʿAlī-Reżā (1683-1799), leader (qoṭb, lit., “pole”) in the years 1741-99 of the Neʿmat-­Allāhī Sufi order in Hyderabad (Deccan), India.

  • DAKANĪ, SAYYED MĪR ʿABD AL ḤAMĪD MAʿṢŪM ʿALISĀH

    Hamid Algar

    (ca. 1738-97), the “renewer” (mojadded) of the Neʿmat-Allāhī Sufi order in Persia and thus the initiatory ancestor of all present­-day Neʿmat-Allāhīs.

  • DAḴĪL

    Ḥosayn-ʿAlī Beyhaqī

    lit. “interceder”; a piece of rag or cord or a lock fastened (daḵīl bastan) on a sacred place or object, for example, the railing around a saint’s tomb or grave or a public fountain (saqqā-ḵāna), the branch of a tree considered sacred, or another plant, in order to obtain a desired benefit.

  • ḎAḴĪRA-YE ḴᵛĀRAZMŠĀHĪ

    ʿAlī-Akbar Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

    early 13th-century Persian ency­clopedia of medical knowledge compiled by Sayyed Esmāʿīl b. Ḥosayn Jorjānī.

  • DAḴMA

    Cross-Reference

    in Zoroastrian practice, enclosure or structure for the exposure of the dead. See CORPSE.

  • DALMĀ TEPE

    Robert H. Dyson, Jr.

    The excavations revealed a mass of handmade, chaff-­tempered pottery with fine grit inclusions, fired to orange or pink, frequently with a gray core. A few sherds have smoothed, undecorated surfaces and have been labeled “Dalma plain ware.”

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  • DALQAK

    Farrokh Gaffary

    buffoon, court jester, also sometimes known as masḵara.

  • DAL’VERZIN TEPE

    G. A. Pugachenkova

    a large site in southern Uzbekistan located not far from the bank of the Surkhan­darya river near Denau, a small city approximately 60 km northeast of Termez; it has yielded valuable data on the civilization and arts of northern Bactria and Tokharistan.

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  • DAM (1)

    Cross-Reference

    See BAND.

  • DAM (2)

    Klaus Fischer

    archeological site in Afghanistan, 30°55’ N, 62°01’ E, located approximately 20 km east of the Helmand delta.

  • DĀM PEZEŠKĪ

    Mansour Shaki, Ḥasan Tājbaḵš, and Ṣādeq Sajjādī

    veterinary medicine.

  • DĀM-DĀRĪ

    Jean-Pierre Digard

    animal husbandry. In gen­eral, livestock raising in the Persian-speaking world is dominated by small animals, with a large proportion of goats, which in certain provinces of Persia itself are even more numerous than sheep. Cattle and equines, especially donkeys, are far less important.

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  • DĀMĀD, MĪR(-E), SAYYED MOḤAMMAD BĀQER

    Andrew J. Newman

    b. Mīr Šams-al-Dīn Moḥammad Ḥosaynī Astarābādī (d. 1041/1631), leading Twelver Shiʿite theologian, philosopher, jurist, and poet of 17th-century Persia.

  • DAMASCUS, Zoroastrians at

    Mary Boyce

    The earliest evi­dence for the presence of Zoroastrians at Damascus is provided by Berossus, who stated that this was one of the cities of the Achaemenid empire at which Artaxerxes II (404-358 b.c.e.) had a statue set up for “Anaitis”

  • DAMASPIA

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    name of a Persian queen, wife of Artaxerxes I and mother of his legal heir, Xerxes II (424/3 B.C.E.).

  • DAMĀVAND

    Bernard Hourcade, Aḥmad Tafażżolī

    mountain, town, and administrative district (šahrestān) in the central Alborz region.

  • DĀMDĀD NASK

    D. N. MacKenzie

    the Middle Persian (Pahlavi) name of one of the lost nasks of the Avesta. 

  • DAMELĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See DARDESTĀN.

  • DĀMḠĀN

    Chahryar Adle

    (Damghan) Persian town located on a plain south of the Alborz range, 342 km east of Tehran. Situated on the main highway from Tehran to Nīšāpūr, Mašhad, and Herat, it  also dominates less important roads north to Sārī and Gorgān, as well as tracks leading south to Yazd and Isfahan via Jandaq.

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  • DĀMḠĀNĪ (1)

    EIr

    nesba of a leading family of jurists of Persian origin, descendants of Abū ʿAbd-Allāh Moḥammad Kabīr (b. Dāmḡān 1007, d. Baghdad 1085), a well-known exponent of Hanafite law, who served as the chief magistrate (qāżī al-qożāt) of Baghdad.

  • DĀMḠĀNĪ (2)

    Sheila S. Blair

    nesba of a father and two sons from Dāmḡān who worked as engineers, builders, and stucco carvers in the early 14th century.

  • DĀMḠĀNĪ, ABŪ ʿALĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ABŪ ʿALĪ DĀMḠĀNĪ.

  • DĀMI

    Jean Kellens

    Avestan word, probably the noun of agency connected with Old Avestan dāman- “stake," thus “the one who drives the stake.”

  • DAMIRI, MOḤAMMAD

    G. A. Russell

    b. Musā b. ʿIsā Kamāl al-Din Ebn Elyās b. ʿAbd-Allāh al-Damiri (b. Cairo, A.H. 745/A.D. 1342, d. Cairo, A.H. 808/ A.D. 1405), a tailor turned Shāfiʿi theologian, is best known for his Ḥayātal-ḥayawān (Animal Life).

  • DAMPOḴT(AK)

    Mohammad R. Ghanoonparvar

    or DAMĪ, terms referring to rice cooked in a single pot.

  • DANCE

    A. Shapur Shahbazi, Robyn C. Friend

    (raqṣ). Single dancers or groups of dancers represented on pottery from prehistoric Iranian sites (e.g., Tepe Siyalk, Tepe Mūsīān) attest the antiquity of this art in Iran. According to Duris of Samos (apud Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae), the Achaemenid Persians learned to dance, just as they learned to ride horseback.

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  • DANDĀN ÖILÏQ (“ivory houses”)

    Gerd Gropp

    lit. “ivory houses”; ruined city located about 50 km north of the Domoko oasis in the eastern portion of the oasis complex of Khotan, in Chinese Turkestan.

  • DANDĀNQĀN

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    a small town of medieval Khorasan, in the Qara Qum, or sandy desert, between Marv and Saraḵs, 10 farsaḵs from the former, on which it was administratively dependent.

  • DĀNEŠ (1)

    ʿAlī-Akbar Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

    pen name of MOʿĪN-AL-WEZĀRA MĪRZĀ REŻĀ KHAN ARFAʿ (Arfaʿ-al-Dawla; ca. 1846-1937), also known as Prince Reżā Arfaʿ, diplomat and poet of the late Qajar period.

  • DĀNEŠ (2)

    Nassereddin Parvin

    lit., “knowledge”; title of seven newspa­pers and journals published in Persia and the Indian subcontinent, presented here in chronological order.

  • DĀNEŠ, AḤMAD MAḴDŪM

    Vincent Fourniau

    b. Mīr b. Yūsof ḤANAFĪ ṢEDDĪQĪ BOḴĀRĪ (1242-1314/1827-97), known as Aḥmad Kallā and Mohandes (lit., “engineer”), a historian and progressive Tajik writer of Bukhara.

  • DĀNEŠ, ḤOSAYN

    Peter J. Chelkowski

    (b. Istanbul 1870, d. Ankara 1943), a leading Turco-Persian poet, journalist, and scholar who wrote on literary, political, and social issues for many Persian newspapers.

  • DĀNEŠ, TAQĪ

    Īraj Afšār

    (b. Tabrīz, 1861, d. Tehran 24 February 1948), poet and govern­ment official.