Table of Contents

• JĀ-YE ḴĀLI-E SOLUČ

  Ehsan Siahpoush

  (Missing Soluch, 2007), a novel by Mahmud Dowlatabadi, details the quotidian drudgery that plagues the Iranian peasantry, as well as the impact of land reform on rural families of meager means.

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• JABA

  Peter Jackson

  (Jebe), 13th-century Mongol general of the Besüt (Bisut) tribe under Čengiz Khan. His original name was Jirḡoʾadai.

• JABAL ʿĀMEL

  RULA ABISAAB

  SHIʿITE ULAMA OF, in the Safavid Period. The Safavid monarchs sought prominent clerics who would strengthen their rule by promoting a standard urban system of  Shiʿite worship.

• JABAL-E SERĀJ

  Erwin Grötzbach

  a small town in the province of Parvān in Afghanistan, located at the mouth of the Sālang valley in Kabul Kohestān to the north of the city of Charikar (Čārikār).

• JABBĀR ḴĒL

  M. Jamil Hanifi

  the leading lineage of the Solaymān Ḵēl Paxtun tribe of the Ḡalzi/Ḡilzi tribal confederation of eastern and southeastern Afghanistan.

• JABBĀRA

  P. Oberling

  a group of Shiʿite Arabs in Fārs province who, together with the Šaybāni, form the Arab tribe of the Ḵamsa tribal confederation.

• JĀBER JOʿFI

  Maria Dakake

  ABU ʿABD-ALLĀH, a Kufan traditionist and companion of the fifth and sixth Shiʿite Imams, Moḥammad al-Bāqer and Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq.

• JĀBERI

  Colin Paul Mitchell

  MIRZĀ SALMĀN, vizier and prominent statesman during the reigns of Shah Esmāʿil II (1576-77) and Shah Moḥammad Ḵodābanda (1577-88).

• JABḠUYA

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  Arabo-Persian form of the Central Asian title yabḡu. Although it is best known as a Turkish title of nobility, it was in use many centuries before the Turks appear in the historical record.

• JACKAL

  Steven C. Anderson

  Golden or Asiatic (Canis aureus, MPers. tōrag, NPers. tura, šaḡāl), a medium-size member of the dog family (Canidae) occurring throughout Afghanistan and Iran. Scavenging supplies a small percentage of the diet, especially in habitats away from humans; and carrion consists mainly of road kill and, around villages, garbage.

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• JACKSON, ABRAHAM VALENTINE WILLIAMS

  William W. Malandra

  (1862-1937), pioneer of Iranian studies in America and prominent Iranist for half a century. The most important book of Jackson perhaps was Zoroaster, the Prophet of Ancient Iran (1898). He was not among those who belittled indigenous traditions. He had an abiding faith in the basic historicity of these sources.

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• JACOBS, SAMUEL AIWAZ

  Eden Naby

  (1890-1971), Assyrian intellectual and publisher. In New York, he created fonts for Syriac typography, designed books for major literary publishers, and at his own press produced artistic and surprising limited-editions, most often of poetry. He is best remembered for his typography of E. E. Cummings’ books of verse.

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• JADE

  Manuel Keene

  (nephrite; Pers. yašm, yašb, yašf, yaṣb). An extremely small range of pre-Islamic Iranian jades have thus far been published, despite the very ancient employment of jade in eastern Iran. The known material is often of extraordinary refinement, and testifies to an extensive influence on other jadecarving cultures, including the Chinese.

• JADE i. Introduction

  Manuel Keene

  carvings in pre-Islamic Central and Western Asia was largely an east Iranian and Turkic phenomenon, and the same holds true for the Islamic tradition.

• JADE ii. Pre-Islamic Iranian Jades

  Manuel Keene

  Extant scabbard slides of softer and more brittle stones (e.g., lapis lazuli, rock crystal), as well as wood, suggest that the toughness of jade was not an essential requirement for this function. Other types of jade fittings on the warrior and his horse would often accompany the weapon’s mounts.

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• JADE iii. Jade Carving, 4th century B.C.E to 15th century C.E.

  Manuel Keene

  The eleven ancient and medieval jades illustrated in the plates are representatives of a very large and expanding corpus of ancient and medieval Iranian jades. 

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• JADIDISM

  K. Hitchins

  a movement of reform among Muslim intellectuals in Central Asia, mainly among the Uzbeks and the Tajiks, from the first years of the 20th century to the 1920s.

• JAF (JĀF)

  M. Reza Fariborz Hamzeh’ee

  a once large Kurdish nomadic confederation living in south Iraqi Kurdistan and in the Sanandaj area of Iranian Kurdistan.

• JAʿFAR AL-ṢĀDEQ

  Multiple Authors

  ABU ʿABD-ALLĀH (ca. 702-765), the sixth imam of the Imami Shiʿites. He spent most of his life in Medina, where he built up a circle of followers primarily as a theologian, Ḥadith transmitter, and jurist (faqih).

• JAʿFAR AL-ṢĀDEQ i. Life

  Robert Gleave

  life spanned the latter half of the Umayyad dynasty ruling from Damascus, which was marked by various rebellions, the rise of the ʿAbbasids, and the establishment of the ʿAbbasid caliphate in Baghdad.

• JAʿFAR AL-ṢĀDEQ ii. Teachings

  Robert Gleave

  teaching is hampered by the fact that his views are reported in support of a number of contradictory theological and legal positions. 

• JAʿFAR AL-ṢĀDEQ iii. And Sufism

  Hamid Algar

  all the Sufi orders claim initiatic descent from the Prophet exclusively through ʿAli b. Abi Ṭāleb, the first imam of the Ahl al-Bayt, and many speak also of a selselat al-ḏahab (golden chain), linking them with all of the first eight of the Twelve Imams.

• JAʿFAR AL-ṢĀDEQ iv. And Esoteric sciences

  Daniel De Smet

  a major figure in Shiʿite esotericism, is purported to be the founder of occult science in Islam. According to Imami-Shiʿite tradition, his knowledge concerned “the exoteric (al-ẓāher), the esoteric (al-bāṭen), and the esoteric of the esoteric (bāṭen al-bāṭen).” 

• JAʿFAR AL-ṢĀDEQ v. And herbal medicine

  Ahmad Kazemi Moussavi

  work on medicine (Ṭebb al-Emām al-Ṣādeq) belongs to a genre of traditional herbal medicine attributed to the Shiʿite imams and known as the Medicine of the imams (ṭebb al-aʾemma), whose salient figure is Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādeq.

• JAʿFAR B. MANṢUR-AL-YAMAN

  Hamid Haji

  a high-ranking Ismaʿili author who flourished in the 10th century, during the reigns of the first four Fatimid caliphs.

• JAʿFAR B. MOḤAMMAD B. ḤARB

  Joseph van Ess

  (d. 850), ABU’L-FAŻL AL-HAMDĀNI, also called al-Ašajj ("scar-face" or "skull-broken"), Muʿtazilite theologian who lived in Baghdad.

• JAʿFAR B. YAḤYĀ BARMAKI

  cross-reference

  See BARMAKIDS.

• JAʿFAR ḴĀN AZ FARANG ĀMADA

  MARYAM SHARIATI

  acclaimed satirical drama in one act by ʿAli Nowruz, a pen name of the playwright Ḥasan Moqaddam (1895-1925).

• JAʿFAR KHAN BAḴTIĀRI

  cross-reference

  See BAḴTIĀRI (1).

• JAʿFARI, ŠAʿBĀN

  H. E. Chehabi

  (1921-2006), a luṭi of the jāhel variety, athlete, and rightwing political agent from the early 1940s to the early 1950s, who later headed Persia’s traditional sports establishment (zur-ḵāna).

• JAʿFARQOLI KHAN BAḴTIĀRI

  cross-reference

  See BAḴTIĀRI (1).

• JAFR

  Gernot Windfuhr

  a term of uncertain etymology used to designate the major divinatory art in Islamic mysticism and gnosis—the art  of discovering the predestined fate of nations, dynasties, religions, and individuals by a variety of methods.

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• JAGARḴWIN

  Keith Hitchins

  (or Cegerxwin), pseudonym of Şêxmûs Hesen (1903-1984), considered by many the leading Kurdish poet of the 20th century writing in Kurmanji.

• JAḠATU

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  an archeological site in Ḡazni province, Afghanistan, situated about 20 km north of Ḡazni on the route between Ḡazni and Wardak.

• JAGHATAY

  cross-reference

  See CHAGHATAYID DYNASTY.

• JAḠMINI, MAḤMUD

  Lutz Richter-Bernburg

  b. Moḥammad b. ʿOmar  (d. 1344), an astronomer from Jaḡmin, a village in Ḵᵛārazm. The author of a brief Arabic survey of mathematical astronomy.

• JĀḠORI

  A. Monsutti

  a term of uncertain etymological origin for both a tribal section of the Hazāras and a district (woluswāli) of Ḡazni province in Afghanistan.

• JAHĀN TIMÜR

  Charles Melville

  recognized briefly as Il-khan in Iraq and Mesopotamia in 1339-40 during the period of the collapse of the Il-khanate.

• JAHĀN-E ZANĀN

  Nassereddin Parvin

  (Women’s World), short-lived magazine, 1921. Published first in Mašhad (four issues) and, after a lapse of about five months, in Tehran (one issue only). 

• JAHĀN-MALEK ḴĀTUN

  Dominic Parviz Brookshaw

  (d. after 1382), Injuid princess, poet, and contemporary of Ḥāfeẓ. The style and quality of her poetry suggest that she was acquainted with famous male contemporaries Ḥāfeẓ and ʿObayd Zākāni.

• JAHĀNĀRĀ BEGUM

  Stephen Dale

  (1614-81), the eldest surviving daughter of the Mughal Emperor Šāh Jahān and his favorite wife, Momtāz Mahal.

• JAHĀNBEGLU

  P. Oberling

  (or Jānbeglu), one of several Kurdish tribes transplanted from northwestern Persia to Māzandarān by Āḡā Moḥammad Khan Qajar (r. 1789-97).

• JAHĀNGAŠT

  cross-reference

   See BOḴĀRI, SHAIKH JALĀL-AL-DIN.

• JAHĀNGIR

  Lisa Balabanlilar

  the fourth Mughal emperor, the first of his dynasty to have been born in India (1569-1627).

• JAHĀNGIR KHAN ŠIRĀZI

  cross-reference

  See ṢUR-E ESRĀFIL "pending".

• JAHĀNGOŠĀ-YE JOVAYNI

  Charles Melville

  TĀRIḴ-E, title of the history of the Mongols composed in 1252-60 by the Il-khanid Persian vizier, ʿAlāʾ-al-Din Abu’l-Moẓaffar ʿAṭā-Malek Jovayni.

• JAHĀNGOŠĀ-YE NĀDERI

  Ernest Tucker

  TĀRIḴ-E (or Tāriḵ-e nāderi), one of the most important chronicles of the reign of Nāder Shah Afšār (r. 1736-47) by his court secretary, Mirzā Moḥammad-Mahdi Khan Estrābādi/Astarābādi.

• JAHĀNŠĀH QARĀ QOYUNLU

  Cross-Reference

  See QARĀ QOYUNLU DYNASTY. Forthcoming.

• JĀḤEẒ

  Michael Cooperson

  (b. ca. 776; d. 868-9), ABU ʿOṮMĀN ʿAMR B. BAḤR, the leading Arabic prose writer of the 9th century.

• JAHM B. ṢAFWĀN

  Joseph van Ess

  (d. 746), ABU MOḤREZ, Islamic theologian of the Umayyad period. Documentation about him is scarce and not entirely reliable.

• JAHN, KARL EMIL OSKAR

  J. T. P. DE Bruijn

  (1906-1985), Czech orientalist who specialized in Central Asian history, Persian historiography, and Turcology.

• JAHROM

  SHIVA JA’FARI

  city and sub-province (šahrestān) in central Fārs Province, covering an area of 4,517 sq. km.

• JAIPUR

  Catherine B. Asher

  city in northwestern India, founded in 1727 by the Kachhwaha prince (raja) and Mughal officer Sawai Jai Singh Kachhwaha (1688-1743). He built an observatory in Jaipur with enormous instruments for observing and calculating celestial phenomena

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• JĀJARMI

  Anna Livia Beelaert

  MOḤAMMAD B. BADR, 14th-century Persian poet and anthologist.

• JĀJRUD

  Bernard Hourcade

  a major river of the southern slopes of the central Alborz in the Central Plateau (140 km. long, basin of 1,890 km²),  running from the mountains of Šami-rānāt at Rudbār-e Qaṣrān to the plain of Varāmin and eventually joins the salt lake of Qom (Daryāča-ye Qom), at about 89 km to the northwest of the city.

• JĀKI

  P. Oberling

  a group of Lor tribes in the Kuhgiluya region of eastern Khuzesan. They comprise the tribal confederations of the Čahārboniča (or Čarboniča) and the Lirāvi.

• JAKKADI

  Maria Sabaye Moghaddam

  a dance style performed by Persian women, as documented in Sanskrit treatises of the 16th and 17th centuries.

• JALĀL-AL-DIN ABU’L-QĀSEM TABRIZI

  Farhan Nizami

  (d. 1244-45), a prominent Sufi of the Sohravardiya Order. Started his education in Tabriz under Badr-al-Din Abu Saʿid Tabrizi.

• JALĀL-AL-DIN DAVĀNI

  cross-reference

  See DAVĀNI.

• JALĀL-AL-DIN ḤASAN III

  FARHAD DAFTARY

  (b. 1166-67; d. 1221), Nezāri Ismaʿili imam and the sixth lord of Alamut. He succeeded to the leadership of the Nezāridaʿwa (‘propaganda’ or ‘mission,’ see DĀʿI) and state on the death of his father, Nur-al-Din Moḥammad II b. Ḥasan II.

• JALĀL-AL-DIN ḴvĀRAZMŠĀH(I) MENGÜBIRNI

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  the last Ḵᵛārazmšāh of the line of Anuštigin Ḡarčaʾi, reigned in 1220-31 as the eldest son and successor of ʿAlāʾ-al-Din Moḥammad.

• JALĀL-AL-DIN MIRZĀ

  Abbas Amanat and Farzin Vejdani

  Qajar historian and freethinker (1827-1872), son of Fatḥ-ʿAli Shah (r. 1797-1834). Besides European influences, the intellectual sources of his freethinking are not entirely known. He associated with Mirzā Malkom Khan (1833-1908) and his secret society, the Farāmuš-ḵāna (‘house of oblivion’), which labored to recruit members.

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• JALĀL-AL-DIN MOḤAMMAD BALḴI, MAWLAWI

  cross-reference

  See RUMI. Forthcoming, online.

• JALĀL-AL-DIN TURĀNŠĀH

  cross-reference

  See MOZAFFARIDS.

• JALĀL-AL-MOLK

  cross-reference

  See IRAJ MIRZĀ.

• JALĀLĀBĀD

  Shah Mahmoud Hanifi

  a city, a valley, and an administrative unit of fluctuating scope within the Afghan state structure. The city is located in eastern Afghanistan at 1,885 feet above sea level in the north-central portion of an elongated oval valley that stretches approximately 80 miles east to west.

• JALĀLI

  Pierre Oberling

  a Kurdish tribe of eastern Anatolia and northwestern Persia.

• JALĀLZĀDA

  Tahsın Yazici

  (b. ca. 1490-94; d. 1567), MOṢṬAFĀ ÇELEBI, also known as “Koja Nişancı” (Ḵᵛāja Nešānči), Ottoman historian and administrator.

• JALĀYER

  cross-reference

  See KHORASAN i. ETHNIC GROUPS.

• JALĀYER, ESMĀʿIL KHAN

  Manouchehr Broomand

  a prominent painter of the Qajar era, during the reign of Nāṣer-al-Din Shah (r. 1848-96). He was  noted for his work in the genres of irāni-sāzi (Iranian subjects, relatively unaffected by European influences) and ṭabiʿat-sāzi (fauna and flora in a European naturalistic mode).

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• JALAYERIDS

  Peter Jackson

  (sometimes called the Ilakāni by Persian historians), a dynasty of Mongol origin which ruled over Iraq, and for several decades also over north-western Persia, from the collapse of the Il-khanate in the late 1330s until the early 15th century.

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• JALIL, RAHIM

  K. Hitchins

  Soviet Tajik writer (1909-1989), a master of the short story.

• JALILAVAND

  Pierre Oberling

  a small Laki-speaking tribe inhabiting the Kermānšāh and Lorestān regions, most of whom belong to the Ahl-e Haqq sect.

• JĀLINUS

  Hormoz Ebrahimnejad

  (Galen), the Arabic form of Greek Galenos, the name of the illustrious 2nd-century authority on medicine of ancient Greece.

• JALULĀʾ

  Klaus Klier

  the site of a major battle between the Sasanian and Muslim forces. This locale is a medium-sized town in the Diāla Province of Iraq, situated on the middle course of the Diāla River.

• JAM

  M. Reza Fariborz Hamzeh’ee

  name given to a religious ceremony performed among two important religious communities living traditionally in the same historical region on the Zagros Mountain chain.

• JĀM (1)

  Majd-al-din Keyvani

  a mountainous region on the way from Kabul to Herat, and a historically important village in the province of Ghur (Ḡur) in western Afghanistan.

• JĀM (2)

  Pending

  “cup”: in Persian art and literature. Pending online.

• JĀM MINARET

  F. B. Flood

  pre-eminent 12th-century monument of the Šansabāni sultans of Ḡur in central Afghanistan. The minaret stands 65 meters high near the confluence of the Harirud and Jāmrud rivers in a remote mountain valley once protected by a series of defensive towers.

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• JAM, MAḤMUD

  Ali Sadeghi

  (1885-1969), titled Modir-al-Molk, prime minister under Reżā Shah.

• JAMĀL-AL-DIN ʿASADĀBĀDI

  cross-reference

  See AFGANI, JAMĀL-AL-DIN.

• JAMĀL-AL-DIN MOḤAMMAD EṢFAHĀNI

  D. DURAND-GUÉDY

  poet and painter of the second half of the 12th century.

• JAMĀLI ṢUFI

  Maryam Ekhtiari

  PIR YAḤYĀ, calligrapher of the mid-8th/14th century who worked in Shiraz in the 740s/1340s.

• JAMĀLI, ḤĀMED B. FAŻL-ALLĀH

  A. A. Seyed-Gohrab

  Persian-speaking Indian poet (b. Delhi, ca. 862/1457; d. Gujarat, 942/1535).

• JAMALZADEH, MOHAMMAD-ALI

  Multiple Authors

  prominent Iranian intellectual, a pioneer of modern Persian prose fiction and of the genre of the short story (1892-1997).

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• JAMALZADEH, MOHAMMAD-ALI i. Life

  Nahid Mozaffari

  (b. Isfahan, 1892; d. Geneva, 1997) Mohammad-Ali, was a writer, researcher, and translator. Influenced by his father as a defender of freedom and social justice, Jamalzadeh was among the youngest members of the opposition group against the British and Russian interference in Iran. He established the Persian journal Kāveh.

• JAMALZADEH, MOHAMMAD-ALI ii. Work

  Hassan Kamshad and Nahid Mozaffari

  Jamalzadeh, an innovator of the modern literary language, was the first to introduce the techniques of European short-story writing in Persian literature.

• JAMALZADEH, MOHAMMAD-ALI iii. Bibliography

  Nahid Mozaffari

  a bibliography of Jamalzadeh’s work.

• JĀMĀSP

  Jamsheed K. Choksy, Nikolaus Schindel

  Sasanian king. He ascended to the throne in 496 (or possibly early 497) when his brother, the king of kings Kawād I, was deposed.  Jāmāsp, like Kawād, was a son of the Sasanian ruler Pērōz (r. 459-84).  

• Jāmāsp i. REIGN

  JAMSHEED K. CHOKSY

  Jāmāsp or Zāmāsp (Middle Persian yʾmʾsp, zʾmʾsp; Greek Zamásphēs; Arabic Jāmāsb, Zāmāsb, Zāmāsf; New Persian Jāmāsp, Zāmāsp) ascended to the Sasanian throne in 496.

• Jāmāsp ii. Coinage

  NIKOLAUS SCHINDEL

  No gold coins are attested so far for Jāmāsp. Apart from the silver drachms, sixths of a drachm, or obols, are known from the mints DA and LD. All the DA specimens are dated to regnal year one, and perhaps are connected with the king’s coronation, which thus may have taken place in Dārābḡerd.

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• JĀMĀSP-NĀMA

  Cross-Reference

  See AYĀDGĀR I JĀMĀSPIG.

• JĀMĀSPA

  W. W. Malandra

  an official at the court of Vīštāspa and an early convert of Zarathushtra, who, in the tradition became widely known for his wisdom.

• JĀMĀSPASA, Dastur JAMASPJI MINOCHERJI

  Ramiyar P. Karanjia and Michael Stausberg

  (1830-1898), Parsi priest and Iranologist. As a high priest he guided and supervised the consecration of several fire temples. He possessed a collection of important Zoroastrian manuscripts, and his publication Pahlavi texts (1897-1913) made these  available to a larger audience.

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• JĀMĀSPI

  Cross-Reference

  See AYĀDGĀR I JĀMĀSPIG.

• JĀMEʿ AL-ḤEKĀYĀT

  Dariush Kargar

  (lit. Compiler of stories), one of the oldest and most common titles of mostly anonymous Persian story collections, dating from the 13th to the 19th century.

• JĀMEʿ AL-ḤEKMATAYN

  cross-reference

  See NĀṢER-E ḴOSROW.

• JĀMEʿ AL-ʿOLUM

  cross-reference

  See ENCYCLOPAEDIAS, PERSIAN.

• JĀMEʿ AL-TAMṮIL

  Ulrich Marzolph

  a collection of Persian proverbs and their stories compiled in 1045/1644 by Moḥammad-ʿAli Ḥablarudi.

• JĀMEʿ AL-TAVĀRIḴ-E ḤASANI

  İlker Evrim Binbaş

  a Timurid universal chronicle up to December 1451-January 1452, with a valuable final section on events in Kerman up to 1453.