Table of Contents
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DEMAŠQ ḴᵛĀJA
Charles Melville
third son of the amir Čobān, possibly born in 1300, when his father was on campaign in Damascus.
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DEMETRIUS
A. D. H. Bivar
name of two Greco-Bactrian kings.
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DEMOCEDES
RÜDIGER SCHMITT
(Gk. Dēmokḗdēs), Greek physician attached to the court of Darius I and praised as “the most skillful physician of his time” by Herodotus.
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DEMOCRACY
Cross-Reference
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DEMOCRAT PARTY
Cross-Reference
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DEMOGRAPHY
Bernard Hourcade, Daniel Balland
the statistical study of characteristics of human populations. Since World War II Persia, formerly a rural and tribal country dominated by elderly notables and with low population growth, has come to have a majority of young urban dwellers, mostly literate and multiplying rapidly.
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DEMOTIC CHRONICLE
Edda Bresciani
Egyptian papyrus document of the early 2nd century B.C.E. in which anti-Persian themes, especially focused on Cambyses, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes III, were elaborated in Ptolemaic Egyptian sacerdotal and intellectual surroundings.
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DEMOTTE ŠĀH-NĀMA
Priscilla P. Soucek
illustrated manuscript, now dispersed, of Ferdowsī’s epic poem, often identified by the name of a former owner, the Paris dealer Georges Demotte (active ca. 1900-23). It is generally believed to have been produced for a patron associated with the Il-khanid court and is renowned for the quality of its paintings.
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DĒN
Mansour Shaki
theological and metaphysical term with a variety of meanings: “the sum of man’s spiritual attributes and individuality, vision, inner self, conscience, religion.”
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DĒN YAŠT
Jean Kellens
a relatively short text, consisting for the most part of repetitive or formulaic sentences.
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DĒN-DIBĪRĪH
Cross-Reference
See DABĪRE, DABĪRĪ.
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DĒNAG
Philippe Gignoux
name of several Sasanian queens; it was not feminine by derivation but was clearly reserved for feminine prosopography.
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DENIKE
Anatol Ivanov
(b. Kazan, 15 January 1885, d. Moscow, 13 October 1941), the first Russian historian of the medieval art of the Near and Far East.
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DENḴA TEPE
Oscar White Muscarella
a Bronze and Iron Age site situated in the Ošnū valley of Azerbaijan, southwest of Lake Urmia, and 15 miles west of the major Iron Age site of Hasanlu (Ḥasanlū) in the Soldūz valley.
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DĒNKARD
Philippe Gignoux
lit., “Acts of the religion”; written in Pahlavi, a summary of 10th-century knowledge of the Mazdean religion; the editor, Ādurbād Ēmēdān, entitled the final version “The Dēnkard of one thousand chapters.”
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DENMARK
Fereydun Vahman, Jes P. Asmussen
: relations with Persia. Danish-Persian relations have been concentrated in three main areas: politics and diplomacy; trade and other economic relations; and Iranian studies in Denmark, including collections of Persian art in Danish museums.
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DENŠAPUH
James Russell
short form of Vehdenšapuh; Sasanian hambārakapet (quartermaster) involved in the campaign of Yazdagerd II (438-57) to force Christian Armenians to abjure their faith and return to Zoroastrianism; a gem bearing his name is preserved in the British Museum in London.
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DENTISTRY
Ṣādeq Sajjādī
(dandān-pezeškī) in Persia.
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DEOBAND
Barbara Daly Metcalf
country town northeast of Delhi in what is now the Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India, where an influential Dār al-ʿolūm was founded by a group of religious scholars in 1867 as an expression of a major religious reform movement partly inspired by British educational models.
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DEPORTATIONS
A. Shapur Shahbazi, Erich Kettenhofen, John R. Perry
forced transfers of population from one region to another.
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DERAFŠ
A. Shapur Shahbazi
lit. “banner, standard, flag, emblem,” in ancient Iran. In the Avesta Bactria “with tall banners,” a fluttering “bull banner,” and enemy banners are mentioned. In the Achaemenid period each Persian army division had its own standard (Herodotus, 9.59), and “all officers had banners over their tents" (Xenophon, Cyropaedia 8.5.13).
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DERAFŠ-E KĀVĪĀN
Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh
the legendary royal standard of the Sasanian kings.
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DERAḴT
Hūšang Aʿlam
tree, shrub.
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DERAḴT-E ANJIR-E MAʿĀBED
LOQMĀN TADAYON-NEŽĀD
the last and highly acclaimed work of fiction by Ahmad Mahmud.
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DERĀZ-DAST
Aḥmad Tafażżolī
having long hands.
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DERBEND
Cross-Reference
See DARBAND.
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DERHAM
Cross-Reference
See DIRHAM.
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DERHAM B. NAŻ
C. Edmund Bosworth
or Naṣr or Ḥosayn; commander of ʿayyārs or moṭawweʿa, orthodox Sunni vigilantes against the Kharijites in Sīstān during the period immediately preceding the rise of the Saffarid brothers to supreme power there.
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DEŚANĀ
Hiroshi Kumamoto
Khotanese term with two meanings: “showing," that is, “preaching” the law, and “profession” of faith or “confession” of sins.
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DESERT
Brian Spooner
bīābān. As throughout most of the arid zone agriculture and settlement depend upon sustained investment, Persians generally expect to find bīābān where ābādī (settled, irrigated agriculture) ends. The term bīābān covers a broad range of different types of desert, from completely barren expanses to plains with significant percentages of vegetation cover.
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DESMAISONS, JEAN-JACQUES-PIERRE
CATHÉRINE POUJOL
or Petr Ivanovich Demezon (b. Chambéry, in the kingdom of Sardinia, 1807, d. Paris, 1873) diplomat and compiler of an important Persian-French dictionary.
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DEUTSCHES ARCHÄOLOGISCHES INSTITUT
Wolfram Kleiss
or D.A.I., research institution administered by the German foreign ministry, with a number of branches, including the Abteilung Teheran in Persia.
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DĒV
Cross-Reference
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DEVECSERI, Gábor
ANDRÁS BODROGLIGETI
(1917-1971), Hungarian poet, scholar, and translator.
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DEVIL
Cross-Reference
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DĒW
A. V. Williams
lit. "demon" in the Pahlavi books.
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DĒWĀŠTĪČ
Boris Marshak
ruler of Sogdia (706?-22), referred to as “prince of Panč” (Panjīkant) and as “king of Sogdia, ruler of Samarkand” in the portion of his archives discovered at the castle on Mount Mug (Mōḡ), east of Samarkand, on the upper course of the Zarafšān river.
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DEYHĪM
Cross-Reference
See CROWN.
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DEYLAM, BANDAR-E
Sayyed ʿAlī Āl-e Dāwūd
a port on the Persian Gulf (30° 3’ N, 50° 9’ E) in the province of Būšehr at an elevation a little above 1 m.
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DEYLAM, JOHN OF
Nicholas Sims-Williams
or Yoḥannān Daylomāyā (d. 738), Eastern Syrian saint and founder of monasteries in Fārs.
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DEYLAMĀN (District)
Ezat O. Negahban
or Daylamān, district and town in Gīlān.
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DEYLAMĀN (Melody)
Jean During
melody (gūša) incorporated into the radīf of Āvāz-e Daštī by Abu’l-Ḥasan Ṣabā (1957), who borrowed it from the regional repertoire of northern Persia.
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DEYLAMĪ, ʿABD-AL-RAŠĪD
Cross-Reference
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DEYLAMĪ, ABŪ MOḤAMMAD ḤASAN
Etan Kohlberg
b. Abi’l-Ḥasan (b.) Moḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd-Allāh (or Moḥammad), Shiʿite author and traditionist.
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DEYLAMĪ, ABUʾL-ḤASAN ʿALĪ
Gerhard BÖWERING
b. Moḥammad (fl. 10th century), an obscure yet important author on the early Persian Sufism prevalent in Fārs.
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DEYLAMĪ, ABU’L-FATḤ NĀṢER
Wilferd Madelung
b. Ḥosayn b. Moḥammad b. ʿĪsā b. Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. ʿAlī b. Ḥasan b. Zayd b. Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb, Zaydī imam with the title Nāṣer le-Dīn Allāh (d. 1052-53).
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DEYLAMĪ, ŠAMS-AL-DĪN ABŪ ṮĀBET MOḤAMMAD
Gerhard Böwering
b. ʿAbd-al-Malek ṬŪSĪ (d. ca. 1197), original though obscure Sufi author of the 12th century.
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DEYLAMITES
Wolfgang Felix & Wilferd Madelung
people inhabiting a shifting region in northern Persia and adjacent territories, including the Deylamān uplands.
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DEYM
Cross-Reference
See ĀBYĀRĪ; AGRICULTURE In Iran; BĀRĀN; FARMING.
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DEZ
Cross-Reference
or DEŽ, (fortress, castle; Mid. Pers. diz; OPers. didā- “wall, fortress”; Av. daēz-; Yidgha lizo“fort”). See BĀRŪ; CASTLES.