Table of Contents

  • GEORGIA ii. History of Iranian-Georgian Relations

    Keith Hitchins

    Between the Achaemenid era and the beginning of the 19th century, Persia helped to shape Georgian political institutions, modified social structure and land holding, and enriched literature and culture. 

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  • GEORGIA iii. Iranian elements in Georgian art and archeology

    Gocha R. Tsetskhladze

    Ancient Georgian tribes had close cultural contacts with Near Eastern civilizations from the 18th century BCE. Iranian elements appeared from the middle of the 2nd millennium B.C.E., as they did in the art of the entire Caucasian region.

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  • GEORGIA iv. Literary contacts with Persia

    Aleksandre Gvakharia

    The tribes of Georgia had a well-established and vast literary tradition and folklore long before the Christian era. None of the pre-Christian Georgian literary works have survived, however. Christianity became established in Georgia as an official religion at the beginning of the 4th century.

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  • GEORGIA v. LINGUISTIC CONTACTS WITH IRANIAN LANGUAGES

    Thea Chkeidze

    Due to many centuries of close contacts between Georgia and Persia, a large number of Iranian loanwords came into the Georgian language.

  • GEORGIA vi. Iranian studies and collections in Georgia

    Keith Hitchins

    The institutional foundations of Iranian studies in Georgia were laid after the Russian Revolution of 1917.

  • GEORGIA vii. Georgians in the Safavid Administration

    Rudi Matthee

    Safavid interaction with Georgia and its inhabitants dates from the inception of the state in the early 16th century, when Georgians fought alongside the Qezelbāš in Shah Esmāʿīl I’s arm.

  • GEORGIA viii. Georgian communities in Persia

    Pierre Oberling

    Many thousands of Georgians, Armenians, and Circassians who were transplanted to Persia by Shah ʿAbbās I (996-1038/1588-1629) were peasants, and they were settled in villages in the Persian hinterland.

  • GEORGIEVSK, TREATY OF

    Cross-Reference

    See GEORGIA, iii.

  • GEOY TEPE

    Ezat O. Negahban

    a rich archeological site located in western Azerbaijan about 7 km south of the town of Urmia (Reżāʾīya) plain made known through the aerial survey of ancient sites in Persia carried out by Erich F. Schmidt in the 1930s.

  • GERĀMĪ

    Cross-Reference

    son of Jāmāsp. See JĀMĀSP.

  • GERĀYLĪ

    Pierre Oberling

    a Turkic tribe of Khorasan, Gorgān, and Māzandarān.

  • GERDKŪH

    Farhad Daftary

    a fortress on the summit of an isolated rocky hill in the Alborz mountains, situated some 18 km west of Dāmḡān in northern Persia.

  • GERDŪ

    Cross-Reference

    See WALNUT.

  • GEREH-SĀZĪ

    Marcus Milwright

    (lit. "making knot”), a form of geometric interlaced strapwork ornament that is commonly found in architecture and the minor arts throughout the Islamic world. In Persian Islamic architecture gereh-sāzī designs exist in a variety of media, particularly cut brickwork (bannāʾī), stucco, and cut tilework (mosaic faïence).

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  • GEREŠK

    Daniel Balland

    a small oasis-city on the right bank of the Helmand river in Southern Afghanistan, the headquarters of the district (woloswālī) of Nahr-e Serāj within the province of Helmand.

  • GERMANIKEIA

    Erich Kettenhofen

    city in the ancient country of Commagene in the Roman province of Syria, present-day Maraş in southeast Turkey.

  • GERMANIOI

    Pierre Briant

    (also Karmanians, Carmanians), name of an ancient Persian tribe engaged in farming.

  • GERMANY

    Multiple Authors

    i. German-Persian diplomatic relations, ii. Archeological excavations and studies, iii. Iranian studies in German: Pre-Islamic period, iv. Iranian studies in German: Islamic period, v. German travelers and explorers in Persia, vi. Collections and study of Persian art in Germany, vii. Persia in German literature, viii. German cultural influence in Persia, ix. Germans in Persia, x. The Persian community in Germany.

  • GERMANY i. German-Persian diplomatic relations

    Oliver Bast

    Around 1555 a man coming from Italy, who called himself the son of the “king of Persia,” turned up at the University of Wittenberg.

  • GERMANY ii. Archeological excavations and studies

    Dietrich Huff

    The first Germans who reported on the historical and archeological monuments of the ancient Persian world, were, as in other nations, adventurers and travelers of a different kind. 

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  • GERMANY iii. Iranian studies in German: Pre-Islamic period

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    This contribution aims at presenting an overview of the studies on all aspects of the culture of pre-Islamic Iran as conducted by German, Austrian, and Swiss scholars.

  • GERMANY iv. Iranian studies in German: Islamic Period

    Bert G. Fragner

    Until World War I, there were only a few scholars concentrating on subjects specifically Iranian, but many Orientalists did not refrain from dealing with Iranian, particularly Persian, affairs.

  • GERMANY v. German travelers and explorers in Persia

    Oliver Bast

    Hans Schiltberger, a Bavarian soldier, was the first German to give an eyewitness account of his travels in Persia. Initially captured by the Ottomans in 1396, he later became a prisoner of Tīmūr at the battle of Ankara (1402).

  • GERMANY vi. Collections and Study of Persian Art in Germany

    Jens Kröger

    From the 19th century on, Persian works of art were collected systematically to acquire knowledge of the world and to educate and inspire artists and craftsmen. Collecting, exhibiting, and studying Persian art reached an unprecedented scale in the 20th century.

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  • GERMANY viii. German cultural influence in Persia

    Christl Catanzaro

    A lasting influence was mainly exercised on Persians who either attended a German school in Persia, had other personal contacts with Germans, studied in Germany, or worked there.

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  • GERMANY ix. Germans in Persia

    Oliver Bast

    The Germans in Persia who have risen to a certain prominence fall mainly into one or more of the following categories: a) travelers and explorers (see above); b) experts in the service of the Persian government; c) agents and soldiers; d) members of German institutions in Persia.

  • GERMANY x. The Persian community in Germany

    Asghar Schirazi

    Only a small number of Persians resided in Germany before World War I. They were for the most part students besides several merchants and a few political emigrants.

  • GERMANY xi. Iranian Coins in the Federal Bank of Germany

    Karin Mosig-Walburg

    The collection of Iranian coins in the Deutsche Bundesbank comprises a number of pieces of rare or very rare specimens, almost all minted in precious metal, from Achaemenids to Pahlavi dynasties.

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  • GEROWGĀN-GĪRĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See HOSTAGE CRISIS; IRAN-CONTRA AFFAIR.

  • GEŠNĪZ

    Cross-Reference

    See CORIANDER.

  • GĒSŪ-DARĀZ

    Cross-Reference

    See GĪSŪ-DARĀZ.

  • GĒTĪG AND MĒNŌG

    SHAUL SHAKED

    a pair of Middle Persian terms that designate the two forms of existence according to the traditional Zoroastrian view of the world as expressed in the Pahlavi books.

  • GƎUŠ TAŠAN

    William W. Malandra

    (the fashioner of the Cow), a divine craftsman who figures prominently in the Gathas of Zoroaster but falls into obscurity in the Younger Avesta, being there associated with the fourteenth day of the month, known in Middle Persian simply as Gōš.

  • GƎUŠ URUUAN

    William W. Malandra

    “the soul of the Cow,” the name of the archetypal Bovine, whose plight is a subject of Zoroaster’s gāθā, often identified as “the Cow’s Lament.”

  • GĒV

    Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

    one of the foremost heroes of the national epic in the reigns of Kay Kāvūs and Kay Ḵosrow.

  • GHAFFARY, FARROKH

    Michele Epinette

    (1922-2006), Iranian artist and one of the founders of the National Archives of Iranian Cinema; he served as one of the directors of the National Iranian Radio-Television, worked as the chief organizer of the Shiraz Festival of Arts.

  • GHAZNAVIDS

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    an Islamic dynasty of Turkish slave origin 977-1186, which in its heyday ruled in the eastern Iranian lands, briefly as far west as Ray and Jebāl; for a while in certain regions north of the Oxus, most notably, in Kᵛārazm; and in Baluchistan and in northwestern India.

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  • GHILAIN, Antoine

    Aloïs van Tongerloo

    In addition to his demanding teaching responsibilities, Ghilain continued with his academic work at the University of Leuven. The commitment documents his intellectual stamina and iron will, as he had to travel by train between La Louvière and Leuven, even in the dark days of World War II when Belgium was under German occupation.

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  • GHIRSHMAN, ROMAN

    Laurianne Martinez-Sève

    Ghirshman came from an affluent family in Kharkov and was enlisted in 1914 into the Russian army. In 1917, he joined the counter-revolutionary camp, and after the Communist victory took refuge in Istanbul, where he earned a living as a violinist.

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  • GHURIDS

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    There were at least three raids by the early Ghaznavids into Ḡūr, led by Sultan Maḥmūd and his son Masʿūd, in the first decades of the 11th century; these introduced Islam and brought Ḡūr into a state of loose vassalage to the sultans.

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  • GĪĀH-ŠENĀSĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See BOTANICAL STUDIES.

  • GĪĀʾĪ, ḤAYDAR

    Mina Marefat

    or Heydar Ghiaï-Chamlou (b. Tehran, 1922; d. Cap d’Antibe, 1985), an influential pioneer of modern architecture in Persia and professor at the University of Tehran. Stylistically, his work was thoroughly “modern,” introducing aspects of the contemporary and International Style architecture of Europe.

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  • GĪĀN TAPPA

    Cross-Reference

    See GIYAN TEPE.

  • GĪĀNĪ

    Cross-Reference

    a Lori dialect. See GĪŌNĪ.

  • GIANTS, THE BOOK OF

    Werner Sundermann

    a book mentioned as a canonical work of Mani in the Coptic Kephalaia, in the Homilies and Psalms, as well as in the Chinese compendium of Mani’s teachings.

  • ḠĪĀṮ AL-LOḠĀT

    Solomon Bayevsky

    lit. "Aid in [the explication of] vocabulary," punning on the author’s name; a Persian dictionary compiled in India in 1827 by the linguist, philologist, and poet Moḥammad Ḡiāṯ- al-Din b. Jamāl-al-Din b. Jamāl-al-Din b. Šaraf-al-Din Rāmpuri Moṣṭafā-ābādi.

  • ḠĪĀṮ BEG, ʿEʿTEMĀD-AL-DAWLA

    Mehrdad Shokoohy

    or Gīāṯ-al-Dīn Moḥammad Tehrānī (d. 1622), prime minister of the Mughal emperor Jahāngīr and father of the emperor’s wife, Nūr Jahān.

  • ḠĪĀṮ-AL-DĪN BALBAN

    Cross-Reference

    See DELHI SULTANATE.

  • ḠĪĀṮ-AL-DĪN DAŠTAKĪ

    Cross-Reference

    (1462-1541), scholar, philosopher, and motakallem (theologian) of the late Timurid and early Safavid period, and, for a brief interval under Shah Ṭahmāsb, one of two ṣadrs (chief clerical overseers). See DAŠTAKI, ḠĪĀṮ-AL-DĪN.

  • ḠĪĀṮ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

    Peter Jackson and Charles Melville

    (d. 1336), Il-khanid vizier, the son of Rašīd-al-Dīn Fażl-Allāh Hamadānī (executed 1318), the celebrated historian and vizier of Ḡāzān Khan.