Table of Contents

  • WACKERNAGEL, JACOB

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    (1853-1938), Swiss classicist and scholar of Indo-European and Indo-Iranian studies. His scholarship in the field of Old Indo-Aryan is best reflected in his large-scale Altindische Grammatik, a work of fundamental significance for Indo-Iranian and Iranian studies.

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  • WAKIL-AL-RAʿĀYĀ

    John Perry

    regnal title assumed by Karim Khan Zand (r. 1164-93/1751-79) after he established himself at Shiraz in 1765. It is recorded in variants wakil-al-raʿiya, wakil-e raʿiat, and wakil-al-ḵalāʾeq, all meaning “deputy of the people.”

  • WAKIL-al-RAʿĀYĀ, Ḥāji Shaikh Taqi Irāni

    John R. Perry

    (1868-1939), a prominent merchant and the Majles deputy of Hamadān, who, in October 1906, was the first provincial deputy to take his place in the First Majles (parliament) to be established after the Constitutional Revolution.

  • WALDMAN, Marilyn

    Dick Davis

    (b. Dallas, Texas, April 13th 1943-d. Columbus, Ohio, July 8th, 1996), scholar of Islamic history.

  • WALDSCHMIDT, ERNST

    Multiple Authors

    (1897-1985), Indologist whose research focused on Sanskrit manuscripts in the Turfan collection and co-authored a couple of probing contributions to Manichean Studies.

  • WALDSCHMIDT, ERNST i. Life

    Dagmar Riedel

    In 1924, Waldschmidt was awarded a Ph.D. and joined the curatorial staff of the Museum of Ethnography as assistant to Albert von Le Coq (1860-1930), who had participated in the German Turfan Expeditions between 1903 and 1914.  The Museum sent Waldschmidt from October 1932 until June 1934 on a research trip to Sri Lanka and India.

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  • WALDSCHMIDT, ERNST ii. Research

    Thomas Oberlies

    Since Waldschmidt had a masterly knowledge of Chinese, he was asked to prepare with the Iranian studies scholar Wolfgang Lentz (1900-1986) the edition and translation of a Manichean  hymns scroll which Aurel Stein (1862-1943) had brought from Dunhuang to London.

  • WAQF

    Cross-Reference

    a charitable endowment: article pending.  See  AMLĀK, ḴĀṢṢA.

  • WAR KABUD

    Bruno Overlaet

    an archeological site to the north of Čavār in Ilām Province (Pošt-e kuh, Lorestān). Two hundred and three individual tombs of a large plundered graveyard (more than 1,000 tombs estimated to have been plundered) were excavated in 1965 and 1966. They all date to the Iron Age III (ca. 800/750-600 BCE).

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  • WARŠTMĀNSR NASK

    Cross-Reference

    See SŪDGAR NASK AND WARŠTMĀNSR NASK.

  • WĀṢEFI, ZAYN-AL-DIN MAḤMUD

    Keith Hitchins

    (1485-d. 1551-1566), Persian memoirist, historian, and poet.

  • WAṢF

    A. A. Seyed-Gohrab

    a literary term meaning “description;” but it can carry several other connotations, including “quality,” “attribute,” “characterization,” “distinguishing mark,” and “adjective.”

  • WATER

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀB.

  • WATERMILL

    Cross-Reference

    See  ĀSIĀ.

  • WAṬWĀṬ, RAŠID-AL-DIN

    Natalia Chalisova

    bilingual poet, philologist, and prose writer in Persian and Arabic, as well as a high-ranking official of the Khwarazmian court in the 12th century.

  • WEBLOGS

    Alireza Doostdar

    The vast majority of Iranian bloggers write in Persian, although other languages – chief among them English – are also used.

  • WEIGHTS AND MEASURES i. PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD

    A. D. H. Bivar

    Evidence for ancient standards is provided by examination of weights surviving from antiquity, and from inspection of certain specimens of ingot currency. There are six surviving, well-preserved Achaemenid weights with inscriptions.

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  • WELLHAUSEN, JULIUS

    Ludmila Hanisch

    scholar of Biblical studies, who primarily gained renown as an Old Testament scholar and Semitist.

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  • WERTIME, Theodore

    Roya Arab

    (b. Chambersburg, Pa., 31 August 1919; d. Chambersburg, 8 April 1982), diplomat and scholar, expert on the history of technology in the ancient Middle East.

  • WESTERGAARD, NIELS LUDVIG

    Rüdiger Schmitt

    (1815-1878), Danish orientalist scholar with special interest in Indology.

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  • WHEAT

    Cross-Reference

    See GANDOM.

  • WHITE SHEEP DYNASTY

    Cross-Reference

    A confederation of Turkman tribes who ruled in eastern Anatolia and western Iran until the Safavid conquest in 1501. See AQ QOYUNLU.

  • WIDENGREN, GEO

    Anders Hultgård

    (b. 24 April 1907; d. 28 January 1996), historian of religions, particularly those of the ancient Near East and Iran.

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  • WIKANDER, Oscar Stig

    Bo Utas; Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin

    Wikander soon became known as a brilliant young scholar with wide interests and a deep knowledge of many fields. In 1935 and 1936, he and Geo Widengren (1907-1996) were among the members of the Avesta seminars, held by his older compatriot, the professor of Semitic languages at Uppsala University, H. S. Nyberg (1889-1974).

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  • WILD RUE

    Cross-Reference

    See ESFAND.

  • WILD THYME

    Cross-Reference

    See ĀVĪŠAN.

  • WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK

    Peter Jackson

    a Flemish Franciscan missionary who traveled through the lands that the Mongols had conquered in the Crimea, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and Asia Minor between 1253 and 1255.

  • WILLOW

    Cross-Reference

    See BĪD.

  • WISDOM LITERATURE

    Cross-Reference

    See  ANDARZ, APHORISM, IRAN viii. PERSIAN LITERATURE (1) Pre-Islamic.

  • WIZĀRIŠN Ī ČATRANG UD NIHIŠN Ī NĒW-ARDAXŠĪR

    Antonio Panaino

    a minor Pahlavi text on chess and backgammon.

  • WOLFF, FRITZ

    Jürgen Ehlers

    (1880-1943), German Iranologist and the author of Glossar zu Firdosis Schahname.

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  • WOLSKI, JÓZEF

    Marek Jan Olbrycht

    distinguished Polish historian, whose research has had an enduring effect on the study of ancient Iranian history.

  • WOMEN i. In Pre-Islamic Persia

    Maria Brosius

    To learn about women, we depend on the often hostile secondary sources of the Greek and Roman periods which, however, are of limited historical value, as they tend to focus on particular aspects of the lives of royal Persian women or use specific descriptions for historiographical purposes.

  • WOMEN ii. In the Avesta

    Leon Goldman

    The egalitarian ideals of Zoroastrianism—in particular, the recognition of women as “men’s partners in the common struggle against evil” have long served to protect the dignified status of women within the Mazdayasnian community.

  • WOMEN iii. In Shiʿism

    Moojan Momen

    In theory, Shiʿism has a more favorable attitude towards women than Sunni Islam. These favorable differences are largely annulled, however, by some specific Shiʿite practices as well as the social realities of women’s lives in Shiʿite communities. 

  • WOMEN iv. in the works of the Bab and in the Babi Movement

    Moojan Momen

    The Bab elevated the status of women in his writings and confirmed this in his actions. The Babi community reflected this change in the actions of the Babi women.

  • WOOL

    Willem Floor

    (Pers. pašm), the oldest fiber to have been used for the making of textiles in Persia. Archeological finds have shown that sheep wool and goat hair were already woven around 6500 BCE, although some doubt this data. Spinning whorls and warp weights dating from 5000 BCE have also been found.

  • W~ CAPTIONS OF ILLUSTRATIONS

    Cross-Reference

    list of all the figure and plate images in the W entries