Table of Contents

  • DEMAŠQ ḴᵛĀJA

    Charles Melville

    third son of the amir Čobān, possibly born in 1300, when his father was on campaign in Damascus.

  • DEMETRIUS

    A. D. H. Bivar

    name of two Greco-Bactrian kings.

  • 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.

  • DEMOCRACY

    Cross-Reference

    See ANJOMAN; CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION i-v; ELECTIONS.

  • DEMOCRAT PARTY

    Cross-Reference

    See CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION v.

  • 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.

  • 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.”

  • DĒN YAŠT

    Jean Kellens

    a relatively short text, consisting for the most part of repetitive or formulaic sentences.

  • DĒN-DIBĪRĪH

    Cross-Reference

    See DABĪRE, DABĪRĪ.

  • DĒNAG

    Philippe Gignoux

    name of several Sasanian queens; it was not feminine by derivation but was clearly reserved for feminine prosopography.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • 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.”

  • 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.

  • DENTISTRY

    Ṣādeq Sajjādī

    (dandān-pezeškī) in Persia.

  • 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.

  • DEPORTATIONS

    A. Shapur Shahbazi, Erich Kettenhofen, John R. Perry

    forced transfers of population from one region to another.

  • 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.

  • DERAḴT

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    tree, shrub.

  • DERAḴT-E ANJIR-E MAʿĀBED

    LOQMĀN TADAYON-NEŽĀD

    the last and highly acclaimed work of fiction by Ahmad Mahmud.

  • DERĀZ-DAST

    Aḥmad Tafażżolī

    having long hands.

  • DERBEND

    Cross-Reference

    See DARBAND.

  • DERHAM

    Cross-Reference

    See DIRHAM.

  • 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.

  • DEŚANĀ

    Hiroshi Kumamoto

    Khotanese term with two meanings: “showing," that is, “preaching” the law, and “profession” of faith or “confession” of sins.

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • DĒV

    Cross-Reference

    See DAIVA, DĒW, DĪV.

  • DEVECSERI, Gábor

    ANDRÁS BODROGLIGETI

    (1917-1971), Hungarian poet, scholar, and translator. 

  • DEVIL

    Cross-Reference

    See AHRIMAN; DĪV; EBLĪS.

  • DĒW

    A. V. Williams

    lit. "demon" in the Pahlavi books.

  • 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.

  • DEYHĪM

    Cross-Reference

    See CROWN.

  • 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.

  • DEYLAM, JOHN OF

    Nicholas Sims-Williams

    or Yoḥannān Daylomāyā (d. 738), Eastern Syrian saint and founder of monasteries in Fārs.

  • DEYLAMĀN (District)

    Ezat O. Negahban

    or Daylamān, district and town in Gīlān.

  • 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.

  • DEYLAMĪ, ʿABD-AL-RAŠĪD

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿABD-AL-RAŠĪD DAYLAMĪ.

  • DEYLAMĪ, ABŪ MOḤAMMAD ḤASAN

    Etan Kohlberg

    b. Abi’l-Ḥasan (b.) Moḥammad b. ʿAlī b. ʿAbd-Allāh (or Moḥammad), Shiʿite author and traditionist.

  • DEYLAMĪ, ABUʾL-ḤASAN ʿALĪ

    Gerhard BÖWERING

    b. Moḥammad (fl. 10th century), an obscure yet important author on the early Persian Sufism prevalent in Fārs.

  • 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).

  • 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.

  • DEYLAMITES

    Wolfgang Felix & Wilferd Madelung

    people inhabiting a shifting region in northern Persia and adjacent territories, including the Deylamān uplands.

  • DEYM

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀBYĀRĪ; AGRICULTURE In Iran; BĀRĀN; FARMING.

  • DEZ

    Cross-Reference

    or DEŽ, (fortress, castle; Mid. Pers. diz; OPers. didā- “wall, fortress”; Av. daēz-; Yidgha lizo“fort”). See BĀRŪ; CASTLES.