Table of Contents

• EAGLES

  Steven C. Anderson, William L. Hanaway, Jr.

  (Ar. and Pers. ʿoqāb; also obsolete Pers. dāl < Mid. Pers. dālman; also obsolete Pers. and Mid. Pers. āloh), large, diurnal, raptorial birds of the family Accipitridae in several genera (45-90 cm long, wingspan 110-250 cm).

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• EARTH IN ZOROASTRIANISM

  Cross-Reference

  See ELEMENTS i.

• EARTHQUAKES

  Daniel Balland, Habib Borjian, Xavier de Planhol, Manuel Berberian

  in Persia and Afghanistan. Both countries lie on the great alpine belt that extends from the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean through the Indonesian archipelago and forms the world’s longest collision boundary, between the Eurasian plate in the north and several former Gondwanan blocks in the south, including the so-called “Iranian plates” and “Afghan plates.”

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• EAST AFRICA

  Mark Horton, Derek Nurse, Farouk Topan, Will. C. van den Hoonard

  Persian relations with the lands of the East African coast, particularly Somalia, Kenya, and Tanzania. From early times monsoon winds have permitted rapid maritime travel between East Africa and Western Asia. Although large-scale Persian settlement in East Africa is unlikely Persian cultural and religious influences nonetheless were felt.

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• EAST AND WEST

  Antonio Panaino

  an English language quarterly published since 1950 by IsMEO (Istituto Italiano per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente [Italian Institute for Middle and Far East]) and now by the IsIAO (Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente [Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient]).

• EAST INDIA COMPANY (BRITISH)

  R. W. Ferrier, John R. Perry

  a trading company incorporated on 31 December 1600 for fifteen years with the primary purpose of exporting the staple production of English woolen cloths and importing the products of the East Indies.

• EAST INDIA COMPANY (DUTCH)

  Cross-Reference

  See DUTCH-PERSIAN RELATIONS.

• EAST INDIA COMPANY (FRENCH)

  Anne Kroell

  a company established in 1664 to conduct all French commercial operations with the Orient. 

• EAST SYRIAN MONASTERIES IN SASANIAN IRAN

  Florence Jullien

  Traces of monastic foundations in Sasanian Iran can be found in the sources as early as the 4th century CE. In the present review of the main East Syrian monasteries, emphasis is on the reformed monastic settlements of the 6th-7th centuries.

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• EASTERN IRANIAN LANGUAGES

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  term used to refer to a group of Iranian languages most of which are or were spoken in lands to the east of the present state of Persia.

• EASTWICK, EDWARD BACKHOUSE

  Parvin Loloi

  (1814–1883), orientalist and diplomat, best known for his translations from Persian and Indian languages.

• ʿEBĀDĪ, AḤMAD

  Jean During

  (1906-1993), one of the outstanding modern masters of Persian music. He played a leading role in popularizing the setār; the appeal of his performance resulted partly from the development of a new style involving slight technical and acoustical modifications to the instrument.

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• EBĀḤĪYA

  Hamid Algar

  or EBĀḤATĪYA; a polemical term denoting either antinomianism or groups and individuals accused thereof.

• EBER-NĀRI

  Muhammad A. Dandamayev

  the Akkadian name used in Assyrian and Babylonian records of the 8th-5th centuries B.C.E. for the lands to the west of the Euphrates—i.e., Phoenicia, Syria, and Palestine.

• EBERMAN, VASILIĬ ALEKSANDROVICH

  Anas B. Khalidov

  (b. St. Petersburg, 1899, d. Orel, 1937), scholar of early Persian poets writing in Arabic.

• EBIR NĀRĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See EBER-NĀRI.

• EBLĀḠ

  Nassereddin Parvin

  lit. “communication”; title of five Persian language newspapers.

• EBLĪS

  Hamid Algar

  a Koranic designation for the devil in Persian Sufi Tradition, derived ultimately from the Greek diabolos.

• EBN ʿABBĀD

  Cross-Reference

  See ṢĀḤEB B. ʿABBĀD.

• EBN ABHAR, MOḤAMMAD-TAQĪ

  Stephen Lambden

  (1854-1919), Bahai teacher and one of the “hands of the cause."

• EBN ABĪ JOMHŪR AḤSĀʾĪ, Moḥammad

  Todd Lawson

  b. Zayn-al-Dīn Abi’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Ḥosām-al-Dīn Ebrāhīm (b. ca. 1433-34; d. after 4 July 1499), Shiʿite thinker.

• EBN ABĪ ṢĀDEQ, ABU’L-QĀSEM ʿABD-al-RAḤMĀN

  Lutz Richter-Bernburg

  b. ʿAlī b. Aḥmad NAYŠĀBŪRĪ (Nīšāpūr, 11th century), medical author known in the century after his death, at least in Khorasan, as “the second Hippocrates," and reportedly a student of Avicenna.

• EBN ABĪ ṬĀHER ṬAYFŪR, ABU’L-FAŻL AḤMAD

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (819-93), littérateur (adīb) and historian of Baghdad, of a Khorasani family.

• EBN ABI’L ḤADĪD

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿABD-AL-ḤAMĪD B. ABU’L ḤADĪD.

• EBN AL-ʿAMĪD

  Ihsan Abbas

  cognomen of two famous viziers of the 4th/10th century: Abu’l-Fażl and his son Abu’l-Fatḥ.

• EBN AL-ʿARABĪ, MOḤYĪ-al-DĪN Abū ʿAbd-Allāh Moḥammad Ṭāʾī Ḥātemī

  William C. Chittick

  (b. 28 July 1165; d. 10 November 1240), the most influential Sufi author of later Islamic history, known to his supporters as al-Šayḵ al-akbar, “the Greatest Master.”

• EBN AL-AṮĪR, ʿEZZ-AL-DĪN ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ

  D. S. Richards

  b. Moḥammad Jazarī (b. Jazīrat Ebn ʿOmar [modern Cizre, in eastern Turkey] 13 May 1160; d. Mosul, June 1233), major Islamic historian and important source for the history of Persia and adjacent areas from the Samanids to the first Mongol invasion.

• EBN AL-BALḴĪ

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  conventional name for an otherwise unknown author of Fārs-nāma, a local history and geography of the province of Fārs written in Persian during the Saljuq period.

• EBN AL-BAYṬĀR, ŻĪĀʾ-AL-DĪN ABŪ MOḤAMMAD ʿABD-ALLĀH

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  b. Aḥmad (?-1248), Andalusian botanist and pharmacologist.

• EBN AL-BAYYEʿ

  Cross-Reference

  See ABŪ ʿABD-ALLĀH B. AL-BAYYEʿ.

• EBN AL-ʿEBRĪ, ABU’L-FARAJ

  Herman G. B. Teule

  (1225-1286), Syriac historian and polymath. Most of his works were in Syriac, but he also wrote in Arabic. In his Syriac Chronicle,  much attention is given to the vicissitudes of the Jacobite and East Syrian, or Nestorian, churches in the “Persian territories.” 

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• EBN AL-EḴŠĪD, ABŪ BAKR AḤMAD

  Daniel Gimaret

  b. ʿAlī b. Beḡčor (884-938), Muʿtazilite theologian.

• EBN AL-FAQĪH, ABŪ BAKR AḤMAD

  Anas B. Khalidov

  b. Moḥammad b. Esḥāq b. Ebrāhīm HAMADĀNĪ Aḵbārī (fl. second half of the 9th century), man of letters, who wrote in Arabic Ketāb aḵbār al- boldān, a geographic work, in which primarily the Islamic world with its centers in Arabia, Persia, and Iraq are described.

• EBN AL-FOWAṬĪ, KAMĀL-AL-DĪN ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ

  Charles Melville

  (1244-1323), b. Aḥmad, librarian and historian.

• EBN AL-JEʿĀBĪ, ABŪ BAKR MOḤAMMAD

  Wilferd Madelung

  (897-966), b. ʿOmar Tamīmī Ḥāfeẓ, traditionist with Shiʿite leanings.

• EBN AL-JONAYD, ABŪ ʿALĪ MOḤAMMAD

  Wilferd Madelung

  or al-Jonaydī; b. Aḥmad Kāteb Eskāfī, 10th century Imami jurist.

• EBN AL-MOQAFFAʿ, ABŪ MOḤAMMAD ʿABD-ALLĀH RŌZBEH

  J. Derek Latham

  (721-757), b. Dādūya/Dādōē, chancery secretary (kāteb) and major Arabic prose writer.

• EBN AL-MOṬAHHAR

  Cross-Reference

  See ḤELLĪ, ʿALLĀMA.

• EBN AL-NADĪM

  Cross-Reference

  Shi'ite scholar and bibliographer of the 10th century, famous as the author of Ketāb al-fehrest. See under FEHREST.

• EBN AL-QAṢṢĀB, ABŪ ʿABD-ALLĀH ABU’L-MOẒAFFAR MOʾAYYAD-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

  Richard W. Bulliet

  (b. ca. 1128), b. ʿAlī, Shiʿite vizier of the caliph al-Nāṣer from 1194 to 1195.

• EBN AL-ṬEQṬAQĀ, ṢAFĪ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

  Charles Melville

  (1262 ?-after 1309 ?), b. ʿAlī b. Ṭabāṭabā, historian and naqīb of the ʿAlids in Ḥella.

• EBN AMĀJŪR

  Cross-Reference

  See BANŪ AMĀJŪR.

• EBN ʿĀMER

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿABD-ALLĀH B. ʿĀMER.

• EBN ʿARABŠĀH, ŠEHĀB-AL-DĪN ABU’L-ʿABBĀS AḤMAD

  John E. Woods

  (1389-Cairo, 1450), b. Moḥammad … Ḥanafī ʿAjamī, literary scholar and biographer of Tamerlane (Tīmūr).

• EBN AṢDAQ, MĪRZĀ ʿALĪ-MOḤAMMAD

  Stephen Lambden

  (b. Mašhad 1850; d. Tehran, 1928), prominent Bahai missionary.

• EBN AŠTAR

  D.M. Dunlop

  (d. at Maskin on the Tigris, in September-October 691), Arab chief and Shiʿite military leader.

• EBN ʿAṬṬĀŠ

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿAṬṬĀŠ.

• EBN ʿAYYĀŠ, ABŪ ESḤĀQ EBRĀHĪM

  Daniel Gimaret

  b. Moḥammad Baṣrī, Muʿtazilite theologian (d. late 10th century), member of the so-called “school of Baṣra” and a partisan of the ideas of Abū Hāšem Jobbāʾī.

• EBN BĀBĀ KĀŠĀNĪ (Qāšānī), ABU’L-ʿABBĀS

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (d. Marv, 1116-17), Persian writer and boon-companion (nadīm), whose manual for courtiers preserves otherwise lost information on the later Ghaznavids.

• EBN BĀBAWAYH (1)

  Sheila S. Blair

  (Bābūya), family of Persian builders, luster potters, and tile makers, descended from the Shiʿite scholar Ebn Bābūya al-Ṣadūq (d. 991) and active in the 12th-14th centuries.

• EBN BĀBAWAYH (2)

  Martin McDermott

  (Bābūya), SHAIKH ṢADŪQ ABŪ JAʿFAR MOḤAMMAD b. Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī... Mūsā Qomī (b. Qom after 305, probably about 311/923; d. Ray, 381/991), author of one of the authoritative four books of Imami Shiʿite Hadith, Man lā yaḥżoroho’l-faqīh.

• EBN BĀKŪYA

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀBĀ KŪHĪ.

• EBN BAQIYA

  C. E. Bosworth

  called Naṣir-al-Dawla and Nāṣeḥ "Counselor,” vizier of the Buyids in Iraq, b. 314/926, d. 367/978.

• EBN BAṬṬŪṬA

  Charles F. Beckingham

  (1304-1368/9), the most famous Muslim traveler.

• EBN BAZZĀZ

  Roger Savory

  author of the Ṣafwat al-ṣafāʾ, a biography of Shaikh Ṣafī-al-Dīn Esḥāq Ardabīlī (d. 935/1334), founder of the Safavid order of Sufis and the eponym of the Safavid dynasty.

• EBN BĪBĪ, NĀṢER-AL-DĪN ḤOSAYN

  Tahsin Yazici

  b. Moḥammad b. ʿAlī Jaʿfarī Roḡadī, Persian historian and man of letters.

• EBN BOḴTĪŠŪʿ

  Lutz Richter-Bernburg

  prominent family of physicians of Gondēšāpūr at court during the early ʿAbbasid period.

• EBN DĀʿĪ RĀZĪ, ABŪ TORĀB ṢAFĪ-AL-DĪN MORTAŻĀ

  Marco Salami

  b. Dāʿī b. Qāsem Rāzī Ḥosaynī (or Ḥasanī), known as ʿAlam-al-Hodā (d. after 1132), Imami traditionist and author of a heresiography in Persian.

• EBN DĀROST, MAJD-AL-WOZARĀʾ MOḤAMMAD

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  b. Manṣūr (d. Ahvā, 1074), vizier to the ʿAbbasid caliph al-Qāʾem from 9 May 1061 to 9 December 1062.

• EBN DĀROST, TĀJ-AL-MOLK ABU’L-ḠANĀʾEM MARZBĀN

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  b. Ḵosrow-Fīrūz Šīrāzī (1046-93), last vizier of the Great Saljuq Sultan Malekšāh.

• EBN DAYṢĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See BARDESANES.

• EBN DOROSTAWAYH, ABŪ MOḤAMMAD ʿABD-ALL

  Seeger A. Bonebakker

  b. Jaʿfar b. Dorostawayh b. Marzbān (b. Fasā, 871; d. Baghdad, May 958), grammarian and lexicographer of Persian origin.

• EBN ELYĀS, MANṢŪR

  Gul A. Russell

  (fl. late 14th-early 15th cent.), author of two extant Persian works: a medical compilation titled Kefāya-ye mojāhedīya and an illustrated anatomy text known as the Tašrīḥ-e manṣūrī. The five full-page drawings, corresponding to the five treatises in the Tašrīḥ, are unique in the history of Islamic medicine.

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• EBN ESFANDĪĀR, BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

  Charles Melville

  b. Ḥasan, historian, probably from Āmol, who flourished around the turn of the 13th century.

• EBN FAHD ḤELLĪ, ABU’L-ʿABBĀS JAMĀL-AL-DĪN AḤMAD

  Marco Salami

  b. Šams-al-Dīn Moḥammad (1355-1437), Imami scholar and jurist.

• EBN FARĪḠŪN

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀL-E FARĪḠŪN.

• EBN FAŻLĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See AḤMAD B. FAŻLĀN.

• EBN FONDOQ

  Cross-Reference

  See BAYHAQĪ, ẒAHĪR-AL-DĪN.

• EBN FŪLĀD

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (or Ebn Pūlād), military adventurer, probably of Daylamī origin, active in northern Persia during the Buyid period (early 11th century) and typical of the soldiers of fortune characterizing the “Daylamī intermezzo” of medieval Persian history.

• EBN FŪRAK

  Forthcoming

  EBN FŪRAK. See Supplement.

• EBN ḤAWQAL, ABU’L-QĀSEM MOḤAMMAD

  Anas B. Khalidov

  b. ʿAlī Naṣībī, traveler and geographer of the 10th century.

• EBN ḤAWŠAB, ABU’L-QĀSEM ḤASAN

  Heinz Halm

  b. Faraj (or Faraḥ) b. Ḥawšab b. Zāḏān Najjār Kūfī, known also as Manṣūr al-Yaman (d. 914), Ismaʿili dāʿī and founder of the Ismaʿili community in northern Yemen.

• EBN HENDŪ, ABU’L-FARAJ ʿALĪ

  Lutz Richter-Bernburg

  b. Ḥosayn, also known as Ostāḏ (b. in Ṭabarestān, no later than the early 960s; d. in or after 1031), author of, inter alia, propaedeutic epistles on philosophy and medicine and of a gnomology of Greek wisdom, and generally renowned as a litterateur.

• EBN ḤOSĀM ḴᵛĀFĪ, MOḤAMMAD

  Ḏabīḥ-Allāh Ṣafā

  or Ḵūsfī, a poet of the 15th century.

• EBN ḴAFĪF

  Forthcoming

  See Supplement.

• EBN ḴĀLAWAYH, ABŪ ʿABD-ALLĀH ḤOSAYN

  Michael G. Carter

  b. Aḥmad b. Ḥamdān Hamaḏānī, philologist and Koran scholar.

• EBN ḴALDŪN, ABŪ ZAYD ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN

  Franz Rosenthal

  b. Moḥammad (b. 27 May 1332; d. 17 March 1406), the historian famous for the general theory of history and civilization brilliantly expounded in his Moqaddema.

• EBN ḴALLĀD, ABŪ ʿALĪ MOḤAMMAD BAṢRĪ

  Daniel Gimaret

  (d. 2nd half of 10th century), Muʿtazilite theologian of the so-called “school of Baṣra,” partisan of the ideas of Abū Hāšem Jobbāʾī.

• EBN ḴAMMĀR, ABU’L-ḴAYR ḤASAN

  W. Montgomery Watt

  b. Savār (or Sovār), b. Bābā b. Bahrām (or Behnām) Ḵᵛārazmī, philosopher.

• EBN ḴĀQĀN, FATḤ

  Cross-Reference

  See FATḤ B. ḴĀQĀN.

• EBN ḴARMĪL

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  early 13th century military commander of the Ghurids, and connected, according to Jūzjānī, with the district of Gorzevān on the headwaters of the Morḡāb in the province of Gūzgān in northern Afghanistan.

• EBN ḴĀZEM

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿABDALLĀH B. ḴĀZEM.

• EBN ḴORDĀḎBEH, ABU’L-QĀSEM ʿOBAYD-ALLĀH

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  b. ʿAbd-Allāh (fl. 9th century), author of the earliest surviving Arabic book of administrative geography.

• EBN MAFANA

  C. E. Bosworth

  vizier to the Buyid ruler of Fars and Khuzestan.

• EBN MĀHĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿALĪ B. ʿĪSĀ B. MĀHĀN.

• EBN MĀJŪR

  Cross-Reference

  See BANŪ AMĀJŪR.

• EBN MĀKŪLA

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀL-E MĀKŪLĀ.

• EBN MARDAWAYH, AHMAD

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  b. Mūsā b. Mardawayh b. Fūrak Eṣfahānī (935-1019), scholar of Isfahan in the Buyid period, who wrote in the fields of tradition, tafsīr (Koranic exegsis), history, and geography.

• EBN MARZOBĀN, ABŪ AḤMAD ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN

  D. M. Dunlop

  b. ʿAlī b. Marzbān Ṭabīb Marzbānī (d. Tostar, February-March 1006), administrative official under the Buyids.

• EBN MATTAWAYH, ABŪ MOḤAMMAD ḤASAN

  Martin McDermott

  b. Aḥmad b. Mattawayh, Muʿtazilite theologian of the Basran school, a student of Qāżī ʿAbd-al-Jabbār (d. 1025).

• EBN MESKAWAYH

  Cross-Reference

  Persian chancery official and treasury clerk of the Buyid period, boon companion, litterateur and accomplished writer in Arabic on a variety of topics, including history, theology, philosophy and medicine (d. 421/1030). See MESKAWAYH, ABU ʿALI AḤMAD.

• EBN MOʿĀVĪA

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿABDALLAH B. MOʿĀVĪA.

• EBN MOBĀRAK

  Cross-Reference

  See ʿABDALLAH B. MOBĀRAK.

• EBN MOHALHEL

  Cross-Reference

  See ABŪ DOLAF  AL-YANBŪʿĪ.

• EBN MOLJAM

  Forthcoming

  Ebn Moljam will be discussed in a future online entry.

• EBN MORSAL, LAYṮ

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  b. Fażl, a client (mawlā) and governor of Sīstān 815-19.

• EBN MOSTAWFĪ, ABU’L-BARAKĀT ŠARAF-AL-DĪN MOBĀRAK

  Ihsan Abbas

  b. Aḥmad b. Mobārak Erbelī (1168-1239), historian of Erbel.

• EBN MOṬARREF

  Cross-Reference

  See ABU’L-WAZĪR MARVAZĪ.

• EBN NAWBAḴT, ABŪ ESḤĀQ EBRĀHĪM

  Cross-Reference

  See NAWBAḴTĪ FAMILY.

• EBN NAWBAḴT, ABŪ SAHL

  Cross-Reference

  See ABŪ SAHL NAWBAḴTĪ.