Search Results for “Sistan”

• SISTĀN ii. In the Islamic period

  C. E. Bosworth

  It was during the governorship in Khorasan of ʿAbdallāh b. ʿĀmer for the caliph ʿOṯmān that the Arabs first appeared in Sistān, when in 31/652 Zarang surrendered peacefully, although Bost resisted fiercely.

• SISTĀNI, MIRZĀ ŠĀH-ḤOSAYN

  Kioumars Ghereghlou

  (1571-after 1627), Persian historian, poet, and bureaucrat whose works include a local history of Sistān, a biographical dictionary of poets, and two maṯnawis.

• HĀMUN, DARYĀČA-YE

  Eckart Ehlers, Gherardo Gnoli

  (or simply Hāmun), lit. “lake of the plain, lowland,” a lake covering the deepest part of the Sistān depression and the Sistān watershed.

• EBN MORSAL, LAYṮ

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  b. Fażl, a client (mawlā) and governor of Sīstān 815-19.

• DERHAM B. NAŻ

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  or Naṣr or Ḥosayn; commander of ʿayyārs or moṭawweʿa, orthodox Sunni vigilantes against the Kharijites in Sīstān during the period immediately preceding the rise of the Saffarid brothers to supreme power there.

• ʿAMR B. YAʿQŪB

  C. E. Bosworth

  great-grandson of the co-founder of the Saffarid dynasty and ephemeral boy amir in Sīstān, 299-301/912-13.

• BASSĀM-E KORD

  Z. Safa

  the Kharijite (fl. mid-9th century), one of the first poets in the New Persian language, active at the court of the Saffarids.

• ABU’L-FARAJ SEJZĪ

  M. Dabīrsīāqī

  4th/10th century poet of Sīstān, author of several lost works on the art of poetry.

• ZARANGIANA

  Cross-Reference

  territory around Lake Hāmun and the Helmand river in modern Sistān. See DRANGIANA.

• ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN B. SAMORA

  M. G. Morony

  Arab general who campaigned in Sīstān (d. 50/670).

• ZRANKA

  Cross-Reference

  territory around Lake Hāmun and the Helmand river in modern Sistan. See DRANGIANA.

• AZHAR-E ḴAR

  L. P. Smirnova

  “Azhar the ass,” nickname of AZHAR B. YAḤYĀ B. ZOHAYR B. FARQAD, third cousin and military commander of the Saffarid amirs Yaʿqūb and ʿAmr b. Layṯ.

• ḤAMZA B. ĀḎARAK

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  or Atrak or ʿAbd-Allāh Abu Ḵozayma (d. 828), Kharijite rebel in Sistān and Khorasan during early ʿAbbasid times.

• ABDĪH UD SAHĪGĪH Ī SAGASTĀN

  A. Tafażżolī

  (“The wonder and remarkability of Sagastān”), short Pahlavi treatise.

• AḤMAD B. QODĀM

  C. E. Bosworth

  a military adventurer who temporarily held power in Sīstān during the confused years following the collapse of the first Saffarid amirate and the military empire of ʿAmr b. Layṯ in 287/900.

• HELMAND RIVER

  Multiple Authors

  the border river of Afghanistan and Persia. It originates in the mountains in the Hazārajāt (q.v) and flows into the Sistān in southeastern Persia and finally drains into the Hāmun Lake.

• KERMAN

  Multiple Authors

  province of Iran located between Fars and Sistan va Balučestān; also the name of its principal city and capital.

• AḤMAD B. MOḤAMMAD

  C. E. Bosworth

  (r. 311-52/923-63), amir in Sīstān of the Saffarid dynasty (that part of it sometimes called “the second Saffarid dynasty”).

• ḴALAF B. AḤMAD

  C. E. Bosworth

  b. Moḥammad, Abu Aḥmad (d. 1009), Amir in Sistān of the “second line” of Saffarids, who ruled between 963 and 1003.

• ABU’L-FAŻL TĀJ-AL-DĪN

  C. E. Bosworth

  amir of the line of later Saffarids, sometimes called the third dynasty of Saffarids and, by a historian like Jūzǰānī, the “Maleks of Nīmrūz and Seǰestān.”

• ʿALĪ B. ḤARB

  C. E. Bosworth

  (or ʿAlī b. ʿOṯmān b. Ḥarb), ephemeral Saffarid amir of the so-called “third Saffarid dynasty”.

• HELMAND RIVER i. GEOGRAPHY

  M. Jamil Hanifi and EIr

  At approximately 1,300 km, the Helmand River is the longest river in Afghanistan. Originating from the Koh-e Bābā heights of the Hindu Kush mountain range (about 40 km west of Kabul), the Helmand receives five tributaries—Kajrud (Kudrud), Arḡandāb, Terin, Arḡastān, and Tarnak.

• ĀZĀDSARV

  Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

  Two bearers of this name are known.

• BAYTUZ

  C. E. Bosworth

  a Turkish commander who controlled the town of Bost in southern Afghanistan during the middle years of the 10th century.

• AMĪRAK ṬŪSĪ

  Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

  4th/10th century notable of the ʿAbd-al-Razzāqī family of Ṭūs.

• ASFEZĀR

  C. E. Bosworth

  (or ASFŌZAR), designation of a district (kūra) and later its chief town in the Herat quarter of Khorasan.

• HELMAND RIVER iii. IN THE MEDIEVAL PERIOD

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  The early Islamic geographers refer variously to the Helmand River as Hendmand, Hilmand, Hirmid, Hidmand, Hermand, or Hirmand, the usual name in Persian down to the present time.

• IRĀNŠAHR (2)

  EIr

  city, formerly Fahraj, and sub-province (šahrestān) in the province of Sistān and Baluchistan.

• DĪVĀL-E ḴODĀYDĀD

  Klaus Fischer

  an extensive area of historic remains in the center of an ancient canal system fed by the rivers Helmand and Ḵāšrūd and located between the eastern border of the Hāmūn-e Aškīnʿām and the lower Ḵāšrūd, about 45 km to the northeast of Zaranj in southwest Afghanistan.

• ḴOJESTĀNI, Aḥmad b. ʿAbd-Allāh

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (d. 882), commander of the Taherids in Khorasan, and after the Ṣaffarid occupation of Nishapur in 873, a contender for power.

• TĀRIḴ-E SISTĀN

  C. E. Bosworth

  an anonymous local history in Persian of the eastern Iranian region of Sistān, the region that straddles the modern Iran-Afghanistan border. It forms a notable example of the flourishing genre of local histories in the pre-modern Iranian lands.

• GANJ-ʿALĪ KHAN

  Mohammad-Ebrahim Bastani Parizi

  a military leader and governor of Kermān, Sīstān, and Qandahār under Shah ʿAbbās I (996-1038/1588-1629). 

• FARĀMARZ

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  son of Iran’s national hero Rostam, and himself a renowned hero of the Iranian national epic whose adventures were very popular, especially during the 10th and 11th centuries.

• ABŪ NAṢR AḤMAD

  C. E. Bosworth

  Samanid amir in Transoxania and Khorasan (295-301/907-14).

• ABU’L-MOʾAYYAD BALḴĪ

  G. Lazard

  An early Persian poet and writer of the Samanid period, whose works have almost entirely disappeared.

• KHARIJITES IN PERSIA

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  sect of early Islam which arose out of the conflict between ʿAli b. Abi Ṭāleb (r. 656-61) and Moʿāwiya b. Abi Sufyān (r. 661-80).

• AḤMAD B. SAHL B. HĀŠEM

  C. E. Bosworth

  governor in Khorasan during the confused struggles for supremacy there between the Saffarids, Samanids, and various military adventures in the late 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th century, d. 307/920. 

• ČAḴĀNSŪR

  Daniel Balland

  principal town of the large Ḵāšrūd delta oasis in northeastern Sīstān.

• ʿAMR B. LAYṮ

  C. E. Bosworth

  ṢAFFĀRĪ, military commander and second ruler of the Saffarid dynasty of Sīstān (r. 879-900).

• MUSĀ YABḠU

  Osman G. Özgüdenli

  the eponymous strongman of a Ḡozz clan, whose nephew Toḡrel founded the Saljuq dynasty.

• ARDAŠĪR SAKĀNŠĀH

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  a vassal king of the first Sasanian king of kings, Ardašīr I.

• HĀMUN, DARYĀČA-YE ii. IN LITERATURE AND MYTHOLOGY

  Gherardo Gnoli

  In the literature and mythology of ancient Persia, Lake Hāmun occupied, along with the Helmand Riiver, a position of particular importance, especially in Zoroastrian eschatology.

• ABŪ ṢĀLEḤ MANṢŪR

  C. E. Bosworth

  Samanid prince, the cousin of the amir Aḥmad b. Esmāʿīl (295-301/907-14) and uncle of his successor Naṣr b. Aḥmad (301-31/914-43).

• BAHMAN-NĀMA

  W. L. Hanaway, Jr.

  epic poem in Persian of about 9,500 lines recounting the adventures of Bahman son of Esfandīār.

• MAWDUD B. MASʿUD

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  sultan of the Ghaznavid dynasty, recorded on his coins with the honorifics Šehāb-al-Din wa’l-Dawla and Qoṭb-al-Mella.

• DEŽ-E BAHMAN

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  lit. "fortress of Bahman"; according to legend a fortress in Azerbaijan conquered by the Kayānian king Kay Ḵosrow, son of Sīāvaš and grandson of Kāvūs, king of Iran.

• JOVAYN

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  name of three historical localities: a village in Fārs, a fortress o the northeast of Lake Zereh in Sistān, and especially the district of that name in Khorasan.

• HĀMUN, DARYĀČA-YE i. GEOGRAPHY

  Eckart Ehlers

  The Sistān basin is the easternmost endorheic basin in Persia, draining a watershed 350,000 km2.

• KAYĀNSĪH

  A. Panaino

  Pahlavi form of the name of a mythical sea, Av. Kąsaoiia-, connected in tradition with the Hāmun lake. According to Later Av. sources it is from the Kąsaoiia that the Saošiiaṇt Astuuat̰.ərəta- will rise. 

• 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.

• ʿALAM, Moḥammad Ebrāhim

  Hormoz Davarpanah

  (1881-1944), one of the most eminent local magnates and landowners of the late Qajar and early Pahlavi period.

• CHRISTIE, CHARLES

  Kamran Ekbal

  Captain (d. 1812), of the Bombay Regiment, an Anglo-Indian officer under the command of Sir John Malcolm.

• HELMAND RIVER ii. IN ZOROASTRIAN TRADITION

  Gherardo Gnoli

  According to Avestan geography, the region of the Haētumant River extends in a southwest direction from the point of confluence of the Arḡandāb with the Helmand.

• YAʿQUB b. LAYṮ b. MOʿADDAL

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (r. 247-65/861-79), founder of what may be distinguished as the Laythids, or the “first line” within the Saffarid dynasty.

• ABDĀLĪ

  C. M. Kieffer

  ancient name of a large tribe, or more particularly of a group of Afghan tribes, better known by the name of Dorrānī since the reign of Aḥmad Šāh Dorrānī (1747-72). 

• ESMĀʿĪL, b. Aḥmad b. Asad SĀMĀNĪ, ABŪ EBRĀHĪM

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (849-907), the first member of the Samanid dynasty to rule over all Transoxania and Farḡāna.

• AḤMAD SOLṬĀN AFŠĀR

  R. M. Savory

  Qizilbāš amir in the Safavid service.  

• ʿABD-AL-RAŠĪD, ABŪ MANṢŪR

  C. E. Bosworth

  Ghaznavid sultan, r. 441-44/1050-53.

• DAM (2)

  Klaus Fischer

  archeological site in Afghanistan, 30°55’ N, 62°01’ E, located approximately 20 km east of the Helmand delta.

• ARSLĀNŠĀH

  C. E. Bosworth

  Ghaznavid sultan (r. 509-11/1116-18).

• BALUCHISTAN v. Baluch Carpets

  S. Azadi

  a distinct group of carpets, woven by Baluch tribes in the northeastern Iranian province of Khorasan and the Sīstān area. These were not made in Makrān, where the main body of the Baluch tribes live.

• BAKWĀ, DAŠT-E

  D. Balland

  an extensive piedmont alluvial plain in the southwest of Afghanistan, drained by one of the Sīstān rivers, the Ḵospāsrūd. In past times it enjoyed a measure of prosperity based on qanāt irrigation.

• ĀFRĪD

  J. P. Asmussen

  5th-century Christian bishop of Sagastān.

• FARZĀN, Sayyed Moḥammad

  EIr

  (b. near Birjand, 1894; d. Bābolsar, 1970), an eminent scholar of classical literature.

• ESFARĀYEN

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  or ESFARĀʾĪN; a district, and in pre-modern Islamic times, a town, of northwestern Khorasan.

• ARJĀSP

  A. Tafażżolī

  a chief of the Iranian tribe of the Xyōns and an enemy of Kay Goštāsp, patron of Zoroaster.

• DRANGIANA

  R. Schmitt

  or Zarangiana; territory around Lake Hāmūn and the Helmand river in modern Sīstān.

• KAYFI SABZAVĀRI

  Sunil Sharma

  Persian poet, also known as Kayfi Sistāni and Kayfi Now-Mosalmān.

• GOLDSMID, Major-General Sir Fredrick John

  Denis Wright

  (b. Milan, 1818; d. Hammersmith, England, 1909), British scholar, negotiator and arbitrator of Perso-Afghan boundary dispute.

• SIMJURIDS

  Luke Treadwell

  a family of Turkish mamluks who over four generations, from the late 9th century to the Qarakhanid conquest (389/999), played a leading role in the Samanid state.

• HELMAND RIVER iv. IN THE LATE 19TH AND 20TH CENTURIES

  Arash Khazeni

  The late 19th and 20th centuries saw a number of colonial and national schemes, including boundary commisions and large-scale irrigation projects, that aimed to demarcate the Iran-Afghan borderlands.

• ʿABDALLĀH B. ʿĀMER

  J. Lassner

  Arab general and governor active in Iran, b. in Mecca in 4/626.

• DAHAN-E ḠOLĀMĀN

  Gherardo Gnoli

  “Gateway of the slaves,” site  ca. 30 km southeast of Zābol in Sīstān. It is the sole large provincial capital surviving from the Achaemenid empire; excavations there have brought to light a combination of “imperial” elements, identified in the public buildings, and local elements.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BOJNŪRD

  Eckart Ehlers, C. Edmund Bosworth

  a town and district in Khorasan. i. The town and district. ii. History. The town (1976: 47,719 inhabitants; lat  37°29’ N, long 57°17’ E)  is situated at the foot of the Ālādāḡ.

• ZĀL

  A. Shapur Shahbazi and Simone Cristoforetti

  legendary prince of Sistān, father of Rostam, and a leading figure in Iranian traditional history. His story is given in the Šāh-nāma.

• MAKRĀN

  C. E. Bosworth

  (also Mokrān) the coastal region of Baluchistan, extending from the Somniani Bay to the northwest of Karachi in the east westwards to the fringes of the region of Bashkardia/Bāšgerd in the southern part of the Sistān and Balučestān province of modern Iran.

• RUDĀBA

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  princess of Kabul, wife of Zāl, and mother of Rostam in the Šāh-nāma.
  

• FARĀHRŪD

  Daniel Balland

  river in southwestern Afghanistan, rising at about 3,300 meters above sea level in the Band-e Bayān, and, after a course of 712 km in a south-western direction, ending in the Hāmūn-e Ṣāberī (Sīstān) at an altitude of 475 m.

• DEŽ-E GONBADĀN

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  lit. "fortress of Gonbadān"; a fortress where the Iranian hero Esfandīār, son of the Kayānian king Goštāsb, was imprisoned.

• CHROMITE

  Raḥmat-Allāh Ostovār

  FeCr2O4, a dark-brown or black mineral from which chromium is refined.

• FARĀMARZ-NĀMA

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  a Persian epic recounting the adventures of the hero Farāmarz.

• BAMPŪR

  B. de Cardi, ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

  i. Prehistoric Site. ii. In Modern Times. Bampūr is a baḵš and qaṣaba (borough) in the šahrestān of Īrānšahr in the province of Balūčestān o Sīstān. The plain of Bampūr is encircled by several high mountains.

• ʿAMMĀRLŪ

  P. Oberling

  a Kurdish tribe of Gīlān and Khorasan. 

• ḎORRAT

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  maize or (Indian) corn, Zea mays L. (fam. Gramineae), with many varieties and hybrids.

• GONDOPHARES

  A. D. H. Bivar

  Indo-Parthian king (20-46 C.E.) in Drangiana, Arachosia, and especially in the Punjab.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ĒRĀN, ĒRĀNŠAHR

  D. N. MacKenzie

  ērānšahr properly denotes the empire, while ērān signifies “of the Iranians.”

• HERAT ii. HISTORY, PRE-ISLAMIC PERIOD

  W. J. Vogelsang

  The present town of Herat dates back to ancient times, but its exact age remains unknown. In Achaemenid times (ca. 550-330 BCE), the surrounding district was known as Haraiva.

• GORDON, THOMAS EDWARD

  Rose L. Greaves

  (1832–1914), General Sir, British intelligence officer, director of the Imperial Bank of Persia (Bānk-e šāhi-e Irān) from 1893 to 1914, author, and apparently the first person to use the term Middle East, which meant particularly Persia and Afghanistan.

• BADʾ WAʾL-TAʾRĪḴ

  M. Morony

  (The book of creation and history), an encyclopedic compilation of religious, historical, and philosophical knowledge written in Arabic by Abū Naṣr Moṭahhar b. al-Moṭahhar (or Ṭāher) Maqdesī in 966.

• FARĀH

  Daniel Balland

  Farāh has retained practically the same name since the first millennium B.C.E. At the end of the first century B.C.E, the “very great city” of Phra in Aria was reckoned as a major stage on the overland route between the Levant and India.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• ĀZĀDVĀR

  C. E. Bosworth

  (or Āzaḏvār), a small town of Khorasan in the district (kūra, rostāq) of Jovayn, which flourished in medieval Islamic times, apparently down to the Il-khanid period.

• ḤASAN-ʿALI BEG BESṬĀMI

  Ernest Tucker

  one of Nāder Shah’s closest associates, who held the title moʿayyer al-mamālek or “chief assayer” and played an important advisory role throughout Nāder’s reign.

• ABŪ KĀLĪJĀR GARŠĀSP (II)

  C. E. Bosworth

  member of the Dailamite dynasty of the Kakuyids (d. 536/1141?).

• DAYR AL-ʿĀQŪL

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  lit., “the monastery at the bend in the river”; a medieval town in Iraq situated on the Tigris 15 farsangs (= 80 km) southeast of Baghdad.

• ABŪ DOLAF AL-YANBŪʿĪ

  R. W. Bulliet

  Arab traveler, poet, and frequenter of the Buyid court (ca. mid-4th/10th century).

• DURAND, HENRY MORTIMER

  Rose L. Greaves

  (b. Sehore, Bhopal State, India, 14 February 1850, d. Polden, Somerset, England, 8 June 1924), British diplomat and envoy to Tehran at the end of the 19th century.

• HERAT i. GEOGRAPHY

  Arash Khazeni and EIr

  The province of Herat constitutes roughly the northern one-third of the western lowlands of Afghanistan, bordering on Persia and comprising the eastern extensions of the province of Khorasan.

• BORZU-NĀMA (article 2)

  Gabrielle van den Berg

  an epic poem named after its main hero, Borzu, son of Sohrāb and grandson of Rostam. The Borzu-nāma belongs to the cycle of epics dealing with the dynasty of the princes of Sistān.

• ʿABD-AL-RAZZĀQ b. AḤMAD b. ḤASAN MEYMANDI

  C. E. Bosworth

  vizier to the Ghaznavid sultans Mawdud b. Masʿud and ʿAbd-al-Rašid b. Maḥmud, remaining in official service under the latter’s successor Farroḵzād b. Masʿud.

• BĀḴARZ

  C. E. Bosworth

  or Govāḵarz, a district of the medieval Islamic province of Qūhestān/Qohestān in Khorasan.