Table of Contents

• GARŌDMĀN

  William W. Malandra

  the Pahlavi name for heaven and paradise.

• GARRETT COLLECTION

  Kambiz Eslami

  one of the finest collections of Near Eastern manuscripts, bequeathed to the Princeton University Library by Robert Garrett (1875-1961), a graduate and a trustee of the university.

• GARRŪS

  Cross-Reference

  See under KURDISTAN, forthcoming online.

• GARRŪSĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See KURDISH DIALECTS, forthcoming online.

• GARRŪSĪ, AMĪR NEẒĀM

  Cross-Reference

  See AMĪR NEẒĀM GARRŪSĪ.

• GARRŪSĪ, FAŻEL KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See FĀŻEL KHAN GARRŪSĪ, MOḤAMMAD

• GARŠĀH

  Cross-Reference

  See GAYŌMART.

• GARŠĀSP

  Cross-Reference

  See KARŠĀSP.

• GARŠĀSP-NĀMA

  François de Blois

  or Karšāsp-nāma; a long heroic epic by Asadī Ṭūsī (d. 1072/73) completed, as the author says in the epilogue, in 1066, and dedicated to a ruler of Naḵjavān by the name of Abū Dolaf.

• GARSĒVAZ

  Cross-Reference

  See KARSĒVAZ.

• GAS, NATURAL

  Cross-Reference

  See NATURAL GAS INDUSTRY IN IRAN.

• ḠAṢB

  Forthcoming

  concept in Shiʿite law, meaning usurpation or unlawful seizure. See Supplement.

• GASTEIGER, ALBERT JOSEPH

  HELMUT SLABY

  In 1870, Nāṣer-al-Dīn Shah decided to make a pilgrimage to Karbalāʾ, and Gasteiger repaired and partially rebuilt the road via Hamadān and Kermānšāh to the Turkish border and also rendered the road from Kangāvar via Qom to Tehran usable.

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• GATE

  Cross-Reference

  See DARVĀZA.

• GATHAS

  Multiple Authors

  or GĀΘĀS; the core of the great Mazdayasnian liturgy, the Yasna, consisting of five gāθās, or modes of song (gā) that comprise seventeen songs composed in Old Avestan language, and arranged according to their five different syllabic meters.

• GATHAS i

  Helmut Humbach

  Each single song covers one chapter (Av. hāiti-, Phl. hā) of the Yasna.

• GATHAS ii

  William W. Malandra

  Of the entire corpus of the Avesta, the Gathas have been translated far more frequently than any of its other divisions.

• GAUB(A)RUVA

  Rüdiger Schmitt

  Old Persian personal name, spelled g-u-b-ru-u-v (DB IV 84 etc.) and reflected in Elamite Kam-bar-ma, Babylonian Gu-ba-ru(-ʾ) (DB etc.), Ku-bar-ra (DNc 1), Gu-ba(r)-ri, etc., Aramaic gwbrw (not gwbrwh, as restored in the past), Greek Gōbrýās, Gōbrýēs, and Latin Gobryas. 

• GAUDEREAU, MARTIN

  Jacqueline Calmard-Compas

  (b. Langeais, 1663; d. Paris, 1743), French missionary priest (and later Abbé) who left valuable observations on Persia and played a part in Franco-Persian relations.

• GAUGAMELA

  Ernst Badian

  site of one of the greatest battles in history, resulting in the decisive victory of Alexander the Great over Darius III on 1 October 331 B.C.E.

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• GAUMĀTA

  Pierre Briant

  according to the Bīsotūn inscriptions, the Magian pretender who seized the Achaemenid throne by claiming to be Bardiya (Smerdis), the son of Cyrus the Great.

• GĀV

  Cross-Reference

  See CATTLE.

• GĀV-ZABĀN

  Hushang Aʿlam

  lit. ”ox-tongue” (in reference to the rough, tongue-shaped leaves of the plant); the popular designation for several medicinal species of the borage family (Boraginaceae).

• GAVA

  Cross-Reference

  See SOGHDIA.

• GĀVĀHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See PLOW.

• ḠĀVĀL

  Jean During

  or daf; the most widespread percussion instrument in the Republic of Azerbaijan, played as much in artistic as in popular music and professional ensembles.

• GAVAN

  Cross-Reference

  plant of the genus Astragalus. See TRAGACANTH (pending).

• GĀVĀN GĪLĀNĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See MAḤMŪD GĪLĀNĪ.

• GAVAZN

  Cross-Reference

  See RED DEER.

• GĀVBAND

  Amir Ismail Ajami

  the owner of the oxen (gāv) in the traditional farming system of Persia.

• GĀVBĀRA

  Cross-Reference

  See DABUYIDS.

• GĀVBĀZĪ

  Christian Bromberger

  arranged fights between bulls. These now take place only in the Caspian provinces of Gīlān and Mazandarān. In the past, however, they were common throughout Persia and formed part of the entertainment in local festivities along with other games involving pitting animals and creatures of all kinds against each other.

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• GĀVMĪŠ

  Cross-Reference

  buffalo. See CATTLE.

• GAVOR QALʿA

  Cross-Reference

  See GYAUR KALA.

• GĀW Ī ĒWDĀD

  William W. Malandra

  or ēwagdād; the name of the primordial Bovine in Zoroastrian mythology.

• ḠAWṮ KHAN, NAWWĀB MOḴTĀR-AL-MOLK

  Cross-Reference

  See NAWWĀB-E DAKHAN.

• ḠAWṮĪ, MOḤAMMAD

  K. A. Nizami

  b. Ḥasan b. Mūsā Šaṭṭārī MANDOVĪ (b. Mandu, 1554), author of Golzār-e-abrār, a Persian hagiography of Indian saints.

• ḠAYBA

  Said Amir Arjomand

  (Pers. ḡaybat) lit. "absence"; term used by the Shiʿites to refer to the occultation of the Hidden Imam.

• ḠĀYER KHAN

  Peter Jackson

  b. Tekeš (d. 1220), Turkish general of the Ḵᵛārazmšāh ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn Moḥammad.

• GAYḴĀTŪ KHAN

  Peter Jackson

  (1291-95) fifth Mongol Il-khan of Persia; his coins also bear the name Īrinjīn Dūrjī (Tibetan Rin-chen rDo-rje, lit. “Jewel Diamond”) bestowed upon him by Buddhist lamas.

• GAYŌMART

  Mansour Shaki

  or Gayūmarṯ, Kayūmarṯ; the sixth of the heptad in Mazdean myth of creation, the protoplast of man, and the first king in Iranian mythical history.

• GAYŌMARD (ARTICLE 2)

  Carlo Cereti

  in the Zoroastrian tradition, a primordial giant, the first man from whom mankind descends.

• GAYSĀTA

  Hiroshi Kumamoto

  the name of a town in Khotanese documents in the A. F. R. Hoernle, Mark Aurel Stein, Sven Hedin, and N. F. Petrovsky collections.

• GAZ (1)

  B. Grami, M. R. Ghanoonparvar

  common term in Persian for several species of the genera Tamarix (desert trees) and Astragalus (spiny shrubs of gavan); also the name of a confection made with the sweet exudate (gaz-angobīn) produced on Astragalus.

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• GAZ (2)

  Minu Yusofnezhad

  or Jaz; a town in the province of Isfahan, of the šahrestān of Barḵᵛār and Mayma, situated 18 km north of the city of Isfahan at an altitude of 1,578 m above sea level.

• ḠAZĀ

  Cross-Reference

  See ISLAM IN IRAN xi. JIHAD IN ISLAM.

• GAZA

  Cross-Reference

  See GANZAK.

• GAZACA

  Cross-Reference

  See GANZAK.

• ḠAŻĀʾERĪ

  Etan Kohlberg

  nesba of two Imami authors and traditionists (10th-11th centuries).

• ḠAŻĀʾERĪ RĀZĪ, ABŪ ZAYD MOḤAMMAD

  François de Blois

  or ḠAŻĀYERĪ RĀZĪ, b. ʿALĪ, Persian poet of the early 11th century.

• ḠAZAL

  Multiple Authors

  the most important Persian lyric, adopted also by literatures influenced by the classical Persian tradition, in particular Turkish and Urdu poetry.

• ḠAZAL i. HISTORY

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  The basic meaning of the word in Arabic is “spinning.” At a very early stage, the figurative sense of “having amorous talks with women, flirting” must have led to the association with erotic poetry.

• ḠAZAL ii. CHARACTERISTICS AND CONVENTIONS

  Ehsan Yarshater

  The Persian ḡazal, especially the Hafezian and the post-Hafezian, does not usually follow a sustained narrative, but consists of a number of lines and statements largely independent of each other.

• ḠAZĀLĪ MAŠHADĪ

  Munibur Rahman

  (b. Mašhad, 1526-27, d. Ahmadabad, 1572), poet laureate in Persian (malek-al-šoʿarāʾ) at the court of the Mughal emperor Akbar.

• ḠAZĀLĪ, ABŪ ḤĀMED MOḤAMMAD

  Multiple Authors

  b. Moḥammad Ṭūsī (1058-1111), one of the greatest systematic Persian thinkers of medieval Islam and a prolific Sunni author on the religious sciences (Islamic law, philosophy, theology, and mysticism) in Saljuq times. Overview of entry: i. Biography, ii. The Eḥyāʾ ʿolum al-dīn, iii. The Kīmīā-ye saʿādat, iv. Minor Persian works, v. As a Faqīh, vi. Ḡazālī and Theology, vii. Ḡazālī and the Bāṭenīs, viii. Impact on Islamic Thought.

• ḠAZĀLĪ, ABŪ ḤĀMED MOḤAMMAD i

  Gerhard BÖWERING

  (variant name Ḡazzālī; Med. Latin form, Algazel; honorific title, Ḥojjat-al-Eslām"The Proof of Islam”), born at Ṭūs in Khorasan in 450/1058 and grew up as an orphan together with his younger brother Aḥmad Ḡazālī (d. 520/1126; q.v.).

• ḠAZĀLĪ, ABŪ ḤĀMED MOḤAMMAD, ii, iii

  W. Montgomery Watt

  ii. The Eḥyāʾ ʿolum al-dīn, iii. The Kīmīā-ye saʿādat. 

• ḠAZĀLĪ, ABŪ ḤĀMED MOḤAMMAD, iv

  Nasrollah Pourjavady

  iv. Minor Persian works.

• ḠAZĀLĪ, ABŪ ḤĀMED MOḤAMMAD, v

  Wael B. Hallaq

  v. As a Faqīh.

• ḠAZĀLĪ, ABŪ ḤĀMED MOḤAMMAD, vi

  Michael E. Marmura

  vi. Ḡazālī and Theology.

• ḠAZĀLĪ, ABŪ ḤĀMED MOḤAMMAD, vii, viii

  Wilferd Madelung

  vii. Ḡazālī and the Bāṭenīs, viii. Impact on Islamic thought.

• ḠAZĀLĪ, MAJD-AL-DĪN Abu’l-Fotūḥ AḤMAD

  Nasrollah Pourjavady

  b. Moḥammad b. Aḥmad (ca. 1061-1126), outstanding mystic, writer, and eloquent preacher.

• ḠĀZĀN KHAN, MAḤMŪD

  R. Amitai-Preiss

  (1271-1304), oldest son of Arḡūn Khan and his eventual successor as the seventh Il-khanid ruler of Persia (r. 1295-1304).

• ḠĀZĀN-NĀMA

  Charles Melville

  a verse chronicle of the reign of the Il-khan Ḡāzān Khan (1295-1304), by Ḵᵛāja Nūr-al-Dīn b. Šams-al-Dīn Moḥammad Aždarī.

• ḠAŻĀYERĪ RĀZĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ḠAŻĀʾERĪ RĀZĪ.

• GAŽDAHAM

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  an Iranian hero of Dež-e Safīd, a fortress near the border seperating Iran from Tūrān, during the reigns of the Kayanid kings Nōḏar and Kay Kāvūs.

• GAZELLE

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀHŪ, CHINKARA.

• GAZĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ISFAHAN xxii.

• GAZMA

  Cross-Reference

  See CITIES.

• ḠAZNAVĪ, ABŪ RAJĀʾ

  EIr

  b. Masʿūd III, a poet at the court of the Ghaznavid sultan Bahrāmšāh (r. ca. 1117-1157).

• ḠAZNĪ

  Xavier de Planhol, Roberta Giunta

  or Ḡazna, Ḡaznīn; province and city in southeastern Afghanistan. The earliest known monuments of Ḡaznī belong to the Ghaznavid period (366-583/977-1187), the best representative of which are the two minarets standing east of the citadel, close to two large mounds resembling mosques.

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• GAZOPHYLACIUM LINGUAE PERSICAE

  Cross-Reference

  See DICTIONARIES iii.

• GĀZORGĀH

  Lisa Golombek

  a village approximately 2.5 miles northeast of the city of Herat in present-day northwestern Afghanistan at 34°22′ N and 62°14′ E, situated at an elevation of 4,100 feet.

• GĀZORGĀHĪ, MĪR KAMĀL-AL-DĪN ḤOSAYN

  Shiro Ando

  b. Šeḥāb-al-Dīn Esmāʿīl Ṭabasī (b. 1469/70), a Timurid ṣadr and author of a collection of biographies of Sufis known as the Majāles al-ʿoššāq.

• GEBER

  Cross-Reference

  See GABR, MAJŪS.

• GEDROSIA

  Willem J. Vogelsang

  or Kedrosia; a place-name known only from Classical sources.

• GEIGER, BERNHARD

  RÜDIGER SCHMITT

  Geiger studied Hebrew and Arabic before being persuaded by Leopold von Schroeder to turn to Indian and Iranian studies. Among his teachers in Vienna, Bonn, Prague, Göttingen, and Heidelberg were the Indologists Leopold von Schroeder, Moriz Winternitz, and Franz Kielhorn and the Iranists Friedrich Carl Andreas (q.v.) and Jacob Wackernagel.

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• GEIGER, WILHELM

  Bernfried Schlerath

  Geiger’s first publication (1877) was an edited version and annotated translation of the Pahlavi version of the first chapter of the Vidēvdād, the first part of which was his doctoral thesis. Later in 1880 he published a translation with commentary of the third chapter.

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• GĒL

  Cross-Reference

  tribes in the Arsacid and Sasanian periods. See GĪLĀN.

• GELDNER, KARL FRIEDRICH

  Bernfried Schlerath

  Geldner’s first significant work appeared in 1874 while he was still a student, in the form of an answer to a prize essay question posed by the Philosophical Faculty at Tübingen. The essay was expanded and published in 1877 under the title Über die Metrik des jüngeren Avesta.

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• GELĪM

  Cross-Reference

  See KELIM; see also CARPETS v. Flat-woven carpets: Techniques and structures; and  vii. Islamic Persia to the Mongols.

• GELPKE, RUDOLF

  HERMANN LANDOLT

  Rudolf Gelpke was educated at the universities of Basel, Zürich, and Berlin. He became a noted writer in his early twenties, and his novel Holger und Mirjam was published in Zürich in 1951. His interests in the Islamic world began after a visit to Tunisia in 1952.

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• GELŠĀH

  Cross-Reference

  See GAYŌMART.

• GEMCUTTING

  Parviz Mohebbi

  (Pers. ḥakkākī); the first-known reference in Persian to gem cutting is found in an anonymous treatise on jewelry, Jowhar-nāma-ye neẓāmī.

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• GENÇOSMAN, MEHMED NURÎ

  Tahsın Yazici

  (b. Ağın district of Elazığ, 1897; d. Istanbul, 1976), Turkish poet and translator of Persian works.

• GENDARMERIE

  Stephanie Cronin

  the first modern highway patrol and rural police force in Persia. The Government Gendarmerie (Žāndārmerī-e dawlatī) was established in 1910 by the second Majles and proved the most enduring in a series of official projects for the modernization of the armed forces under the leadership of foreign officers.

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• GENDER RELATIONS i

  Farzaneh Milani

  Gender relations in Persia.  Overview of article: i. In Modern Persia, ii. In the Islamic Republic.

• GENDER RELATIONS ii

  Hammed Shahidan

  ii. In the Islamic Republic.

• GENGHIS KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See ČENGĪZ KHAN.

• GENIE

  Mahmoud Omidsalar

  name of a category of supernatural beings believed to have been created from smokeless fire and to be living invisibly side-by-side the visible creation.

• GENOA

  Michele Bernardini

  an important port city in Liguria, in northwestern Italy, which during the Middle Ages played a significant role between Europe and the East, including Persia. Genoa was sacked by Muslim raiders from North Africa in 935 but became an economic and commercial power during the First Crusade (1096-1101).

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• GEOGRAPHY

  Multiple Authors

  Geography of Persia and Afghanistan. Overview of the entry: i. Evolution of geographical knowledge, ii. Human geography, iii. Political geography, iv. Cartography of Persia.

• GEOGRAPHY i. Evolution of geographical knowledge

  Xavier de Planhol

  Geography of Persia and Afghanistan. The concept of Iran and ancient Iranian geography (Justi; Spiegel, I, pp. 188-243 and especially pp. 210-12; Herzfeld, pp. 671-720; Gnoli, 1980, 1989).

• GEOGRAPHY ii. Human geography

  Xavier de Planhol

  The primordial component of the land of Iran, since it was a sedentary world as opposed to the nomadic Tūrān, must have been situated above the level of the internal steppes and deserts, in the highland river valleys having both arable alluvial soils and plenty of water from the rainfall in the mountains.

• GEOGRAPHY iii. Political Geography

  Xavier de Planhol

  The territory of Tajikistan corresponds with the predominantly Iranian ethnic sector of the mountainous southeastern periphery of the Bukhara emirate, which came under Russian influence at the end of the 19th century. 

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• GEOGRAPHY iv. Cartography of Persia

  CYRUS ALAI

  The world’s oldest known topographical map is a Babylonian clay tablet (ca. 2300 B.C.E.) found at Nuzi in northeastern Iraq. The site covered by this map may have lain between the Zagros mountains and the hills running through Kirkuk.

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• GEOLOGY

  Eckart Ehlers

  This article is concerned with those aspects of the geology of Persia that are of immediate economic and cultural significance for the country and its inhabitants, primarily (1) geological structure and orohydrographic differentiation of Persia, (2) geology and natural hazards, and (3) geology and natural resources.

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• GEOPOTHROS

  Cross-Reference

  See GŌDARZ.

• GEORGIA

  Multiple Authors

  (Pers. Gorjestān; Ar. al-Korj). This series of entries covers Georgia and its relations with Iran.

• GEORGIA i. The land and the people

  Keith Hitchins

  At a crossroads of great empires to the east, west, and north throughout their history, the Georgians absorbed and adapted elements from the cultures of diverse peoples, while at the same time defending their political and cultural independence against all comers. The Georgians are today distinguished by a unique cultural heritage.

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