Table of Contents

  • EKEŁEACʿ

    James Russell

    Gk. Akilisēnē, region along the Euphrates in northwest Armenia.

  • EKRĀM, MOḤAMMAD

    J. Bečka

    or Ekrom, b. ʿAbd-al-Salām (1847-1925), known as Dāmollā Ekrāmče, a Bukharan scholar and madrasa teacher.

  • EKRĀMĪ, JALĀL

    J. Bečka

    or Jalol Ikromī (1909-93), considered to be Tajikistan’s most important fiction writer and playwright of the Soviet period.

  • EḴŠĪD

    F. Grenet and N. Sims-Williams

    Arabo-Persian form of a Sogdian royal title attested in Sogdian script as (ʾ)xšyδ and in Manichean script as (ʾ)xšy(y)δ.

  • EKSĪR

    Cross-Reference

    See KĪMĪĀ.

  • EḴTESĀN, TĀJ-AL-MOLK MOḤAMMAD

    Iqtidar Husain Siddiqi

    b. Aḥmad b. Ḥasan ʿAbdūsī Dehlavī (1300-51), author in Persian and secretary (dabīr) at the courts of the Tughluqid sultans Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Tōḡloq and his son Ḡīāṯ-al-Dīn Mo-ḥammad.

  • EḴTĪĀR MONŠĪ, ḴᵛĀJA

    W. Thackston

    (fl. mid 10th/16th cent.), a master calligrapher of the chancery taʿlīq style from Herat.

  • EḴTĪĀR-AL-DĪN

    Maria Eva Subtelny

    the citadel of Herat located on an elevation adjacent to the north wall of the old city and actually consisting of two parts, the stronghold proper—a rectangle of fired brick and a larger area to the west of unfired brick—that were originally buttressed by 25 towers which reflect various periods of construction.

  • EḴTĪĀRĀT

    David Pingree

    lit. "choices, elections"; a term used in Islamic divination and astrology in at least four principle meanings.

  • EḴWĀN AL-MOSLEMĪN, JAMʿĪYAT AL-

    Rudi Matthee

    lit. "Society of Muslim brethren"; the first modern religio-political movement in the Islamic world, founded in 1928 by Ḥasan Bannāʾ in Esmāʿīlīya Egypt.

  • EḴWĀN AL-ṢAFĀʾ

    Paul E. Walker

    a self-professed brotherhood of piously ascetic scholars.

  • ELĀHĪ

    Hamid Algar, J. W. Morris, Jean During

    or ʿAlīšāh (1895-1974), innovative and charismatic leader of one branch of the Ahl-e Ḥaqq and author of several texts on its teachings. The most complete presentation is to be found not in his Persian books, destined for circulation among Twelver Shiʿites, but in his unpublished writings in Gūrānī, intended to be read only by Ahl-e Ḥaqq initiates.

  • ELĀHĪ HAMADĀNĪ, SAYYED MĪR ʿEMĀD-AL-DĪN MAḤMŪD

    M. Asif Naim-Siddiqi

    b. Ḥojjat-Allāh Asadābādī, a poet of the 17th century from Asadābād, a village near Hamadān.

  • ELĀHĪ QOMŠA’Ī, MAHDĪ

    S. Moḥammad Dabīrsīāqī

    b. Abu’l-Ḥasan (b. in Qomša, 1902; d. in Tehran, 1975), poet and professor of Islamic law and philosophy.

  • ELAHI, BIJAN

    Mahdi Ganjavi

    (1945-2010), modernist Persian poet and translator.

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  • ELĀHĪ-NĀMA

    Cross-Reference

    See ʿAṬṬĀR.

  • ELĀHĪYĀT

    Cross-Reference

    See PHILOSOPHY.

  • ELAM

    Multiple Authors

    ancient country encompassing a large part of the Persian plateau at the end of the 3rd millennium B.C.E. but reduced to the territory of Susiana in the Achaemenid period.

  • ELAM i. The history of Elam

    F. Vallat

    During the several millennia of its history the limits of Elam varied, not only from period to period, but also with the point of view of the person describing it. It seems that Mesopotamians in the late 3rd millennium B.C.E. considered Elam to encompass the entire Persian plateau.

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  • ELAM ii. The archeology of Elam

    Elizabeth Carter

    The archeological use of the term “Elam” is based on a loose unity recognizable in the material cultures of the period 3400-525 BCE at Susa in Ḵūzestān, at Anshan in Fārs, and at sites in adjacent areas of the Zagros mountains. Text-based definitions often lead to interpretations that are at odds with those derived from the study of material culture.

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  • ELAM iii. Proto-Elamite

    R. K. Englund

    "Proto-Elamite” is the term for a writing system in use in the Susiana plain and the Iranian highlands east of Mesopotamia between ca. 3050 and 2900 B.C.E., a period generally considered to correspond to the Jamdat Nasr/Uruk III through Early Dynastic I periods in Mesopotamia.

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  • ELAM iv. Linear Elamite

    MIRJO SALVINI

    a system of writing used at the end of the 3rd millennium B.C.E. by Puzur-Inšušinak, the last of the twelve “kings of Awan,” according to a king list found at Susa. He ruled ca. 2150 B.C.E. and was a contemporary of Ur-Nammu, the first ruler of the Ur III dynasty in Mesopotamia.

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  • ELAM v. Elamite language

    FRANÇOISE GRILLOT-SUSINI

    is known from texts in cuneiform script, most of them found at Susa but some from other sites in western and southwestern Iran and, in the east, in Fārs and ranging in date from the 24th to the 4th century B.C.E.

  • ELAM vi. Elamite religion

    F. Vallat

    The information furnished by archeological excavations in Persia and by cuneiform documents permit a summary description of some aspects of Elamite religion from the end of the 3rd millennium B.C.E. until the Achaemenid period.

  • ELAM vii. Non-Elamite texts in Elam

    SYLVIE LACKENBACHER

    Most non-Elamite texts inscribed on Elamite territories have been found in Susiana, that is, the region nearest to Mesopotamia and most exposed to Mesopotamian political and cultural influences.

  • ELBURZ

    Cross-Reference

    See ALBORZ.

  • ELBURZ COLLEGE

    Cross-Reference

    See ALBORZ COLLEGE.

  • ELČĪ

    David O. Morgan

    (īlčī) envoy, messenger, or official traveling on government business during the Mongol period and thereafter. 

  • ELECTIONS

    Fakhreddin Azimi, Shaul Bakhash, M. Hassan Kakar

    i. Under the Qajar and Pahlavi monarchies. ii. Under the Islamic republic, 1979-92. iii. In Afghanistan. 

  • ELEGY

    J. T. P. de Bruijn

    (Ar. marṯīa, Pers. mūya), poetry of mourning in Persian literature. 

  • ELEMENTS

    Mansour Shaki

    i. In Zoroastrianism. ii. In Manicheism. iii. In Persian.

  • ELEPHANT i. IN THE NEAR EAST

    François De Blois

     i. IN THE NEAR EAST

  • ELEPHANT ii. In the Sasanian Army

    Michael B. Charles

    ii. IN THE SASANIAN ARMY

  • ELEPHANTINE

    Edda Bresciani

    the largest island in the Nile, opposite Syene.

  • ELGOOD, CYRIL LLOYD

    F. R. C. Bagley

    (1893-1970), British historian of medicine in Persia.

  • ELIAS OF NISIBIS

    Cross-Reference

    See ELĪJĀ BAR ŠĪNĀJĀ.

  • ELĪF EFENDI, Ḥaṣīrīzāda

    Tahsin Yaziçi

    (b. in Sütlüce, May 1850; d. 4 December 1926), Turkish poet and scholar.

  • ELĪJĀ BAR ŠĪNĀJĀ

    Wolfgang Felix

    (975-1049) prominent Nestorian polyhistor. 975-1049). His work is an important source for Sasanian history. In 1002 he was made bishop of Bēṯ Nuhādrē in Adiabene, and in 1008 metropolitan of Nisibis (Naṣībīn). He wrote in Syriac and Arabic on theological issues.

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  • ELIKEAN, GRIGOR E.

    Aram Arkun

    (1880-1951), an active figure in Persian and Armenian politics, the press, and literature. 

  • EŁIŠĒ

    Robert W. Thomson

    or Elisaeus, fifth century author of the History of Vardan and the Armenian War, a detailed account of the Armenian rebellion against Yazdegerd II in 450, which was prompted by his persecution of their Christian faith.

  • ELJIGIDEI

    Peter Jackson

    or Īlčīktāy, Īljīkdāy; the name of two Mongol generals.

  • ELLIPI

    Cross-Reference

    See ASSYRIA.

  • ELM

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    any of several species of hardy deciduous ornamental or forest trees of the genus Ulmus L. (fam. Ulmaceae), typically called nārvan in Persian.

  • ʿELM AL-KETĀB

    Cross-Reference

    See DARD, ḴᵛĀJA MĪR.

  • ʿELM O HONAR

    Nassereddin Parvin

    title of two Persian magazines.

  • ʿELMĪ

    Eqbāl Yaḡmāʾī

    a high school in Tehran with 500 students studying experimental sciences, mathematics, and economy.

  • ELOQUENCE

    Cross-Reference

    (Faṣāḥāt). See BAYĀN (1).

  • ELPHINSTONE, MOUNTSTUART

    Malcolm E. Yapp

    (1779-1859), author of an important description of Afghanistan; a British Indian official who rose to become governor of Bombay.

  • ELQĀNIĀN, ḤABIB

    Shaul Bakhash

    Jewish merchant, industrialist, and philanthropist, who rose from modest beginnings to become one of Iran’s leading entrepreneurs.

  • ELTON, JOHN

    John Perry

    (?-1751), English merchant, seaman and shipbuilder for Nāder Shah Afšār.