CINEMA
Multiple Authors
This series of articles treats the history of cinema in Persia, Persian feature film, Persian documentary films, film censorship in Persia, and filmography in Persia.
ABŪ MANṢŪR MAʿMARĪ
Dj. Khalegi-Motlagh
minister (dastūr) of Abū Manṣūr b. ʿAbd-al-Razzāq (d. 350/961), a military commander of Khorasan under the Samanids.
SHAHID SALESS, Sohrab
Pardis Minuchehr
Iranian cinematographer and award-winning filmmaker.
CHROMITE
Raḥmat-Allāh Ostovār
FeCr2O4, a dark-brown or black mineral from which chromium is refined.
BAHAISM xiv. Nineteen Day Feast
Moojan Momen
a gathering of the Bahai community every nineteen days that has devotional, administrative, and social aspects and is the core of community life.
ESFANDĪĀR KHAN BAḴTĪĀRĪ, ṢAMṢĀM-AL-SALṬANA, SARDĀR(-E) ASʿAD
G. R. Garthwaite
(1844-1902), important leader of the Baḵtīārī tribe in southwestern Persia and grandfather of Queen Ṯorayyā.
LESĀN-AL-DAWLA
Nader Nasiri-Moghaddam
(1862-ca. 1920), MIRZĀ ʿALI KHAN, royal librarian. His career at the royal court began in Tabriz in 1891.
ʿALĪ-MOḤAMMAD KHAN BAHĀDOR
Hameed ud-Din
Historian of the Mughals and author of Merʾāt-e Aḥmadī (ca. 1111/1700-1177/1763).
EBRĀHĪM SHAH AFŠĀR
John R. Perry
nephew of Nāder Shah, claiming the Afsharid throne briefly (1748-49)
EUSEBIUS OF CAESAREA
Philip Huyse
(260-339), Greek ecclesiastical historian and theologian.
AŠTARAK
KAMRAN EKBAL
a village in the Ābārān district about six miles northwest of Yerevan (Iravān) in a mountainous region of the Caucasus.
FRĀXKARD
Ahmad Tafazzoli
name of the cosmic ocean in Iranian mythology.
ALEXANDER, PRINCE
G. Bournoutian
(known in Persian as ESKANDAR MĪRZĀ), pro-Persian member of the royal family of Georgia (b. 1770, d. after 1830).
BADAŠT
M. Momen
small village of about 1,000 inhabitants, site of a conference convened on the instructions of the Bāb in 1848.
CLEARCHUS OF SPARTA
Rüdiger Schmitt
(b. Sparta ca. 450 BCE, d. Babylon 401 BCE), son of Rhamphias, Greek general in the service of Cyrus the Younger.
ḴĀKI ḴORĀSĀNI, EMĀMQOLI
S. J. Badakhchani
Ismaʿili poet and preacher of 17th-century Persia (d. after 1646).He was born in Dizbād, a village in the hills half way between Mashhad and Nišāpur.
ANṢARĪ, ʿALĪ-QOLĪ KHAN
M. Kasheff
MOŠĀWER-AL-MAMĀLEK (1868-1940), a career diplomat under the late Qajars.
BAḴTĪĀR, TEYMŪR
S. Zabih
(1914-1970), Iranian general. His meteoric rise to power began after the fall of Moṣaddeq in August, 1953, when he was called to Tehran, promoted to brigadier general, and put in charge of Tehran’s military governorship.
ʿASKARĀN
KAMRAN EKBAL
village in Qarābāḡ about seven miles northeast of Stepanakert in the eastern Caucasus, where peace negotiations between Russia and Persia took place in 1225/1810.
DEYLAMĪ, ABU’L-FATḤ NĀṢER
Wilferd Madelung
b. Ḥosayn b. Moḥammad b. ʿĪsā b. Moḥammad b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd-Allāh b. ʿAlī b. Ḥasan b. Zayd b. Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭāleb, Zaydī imam with the title Nāṣer le-Dīn Allāh (d. 1052-53).
JAŽN-Ā JAMĀʿIYA
Khalil Jindy Rashow
(Feast of the Assembly), the great communal festival of the Yazidis.
ḎU’L-FAQĀR KHAN AFŠĀR
J. R. PERRY
governor (ḥākem) of Ḵamsa province (ca. 1763-80) under the Zand dynasty.
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.
ECONOMY iii. IN THE ACHAEMENID PERIOD
Muhammad A. Dandamayev
The Achaemenid empire, extending from the Indus river to the Aegean sea, comprised such economically developed countries as Egypt, Syria, Phoenicia, Babylonia, Elam, and Asia Minor, lands which had their long traditions of social institutions, as well as Sakai, Massagetai, Lycians, Libyans, Nubians and other tribes undergoing the disintegration of the primitive-communal phase.
ČARḴĪ, Mawlānā Yaʿqūb
Hamid Algar
an early shaikh of the Naqšbandī order and author of several works in Persian (d. 851/1447).
KĀRGOZĀR
Morteza Nouraei
a term used from the early 19th century until the abolishment of capitulation (kāpitulāsion) in 1927 to refer specifically to an agent of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who was charged with regulating relations between Iranian subjects and foreigners.
BEHRANGĪ, ṢAMAD
Michael C. Hillmann
(1939-1968), teacher, social critic, folklorist, translator, and short story writer.
GHAFFARY, FARROKH
Michele Epinette
(1922-2006), Iranianartist 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.
ẒOHUR-AL-ḤAQQ
Moojan Momen
(also called Tāriḵ-e Ẓohur-al-Ḥaqq and Ketāb-e Ẓohur-al-Ḥaqq) the most comprehensive history of the first century of the Bahai faith yet written, compiled in nine volumes by Mirzā Asad-Allāh,
FARĀMARZ-NĀMA
Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh
a Persian epic recounting the adventures of the hero Farāmarz.
JAUBERT, PIERRE AMÉDÉE ÉMILIEN-PROBE
Nader Nasiri-Moghaddam
In June 1806 Jaubert was received in audience by the shah in Tehran and presented a letter from Napoleon. Negotiations were carried out, and the court offered him a large portrait of the shah.
This Article Has Images/Tables.SOPURḠĀN
David G. Malick
Neo-Aramaic Sipūrḡān, Assyrian village in the Urmia plain, situated on the Nazlu river, 26 km northeast of the city of Urmia.
This Article Has Images/Tables.ARCHELAUS
M. Tardieu
the assumed author of a Christian polemic against the Manicheans composed before 348 CE.
BANŪ SĀSĀN
C. E. Bosworth
a name frequently applied in medieval Islam to beggars, rogues, charlatans, and tricksters of all kinds, allegedly so called because they stemmed from a legendary Shaikh Sāsān.
LANGARUD
Marcel Bazin and Christian Bromberger
a city and sub-provincial district (šahrestān) in Gilān located at lat 37°11′ N, long 50°09′ E on the Langarud River, which cuts through the city, dividing it into two parts.
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.
MAḤFEL-E RUḤĀNI
Moojan Momen
current designation of the Bahai governing councils elected at local and national level.
ḤOSAYNQOLI KHAN SARDĀR-E IRAVĀNI
George A. Bournoutian
important governor in the early Qajar period (b. ca. 1742, d. 1831).
KĀNUN-E PARVAREŠ-E FEKRI-E KUDAKĀN VA NOWJAVĀNĀN i. Establishment of Kanun
Fereydoun Moezi Moghadam
Kanun’s goal was to produce and offer support and services for children in better settings than the grim and austere school classrooms.
This Article Has Images/Tables.FESTIVALS ix. Assyrian
WILLIAM PIROYAN and EDEN NABY
The adoption of Christianity by the Assyrians in the latter part of the 1st century led to the harmonization of older community celebrations and commemorations with Christian doctrine as well as the introduction of specifically Christian religious holidays.
EXILARCH
Isaiah M. Gafni
(Hebrew resh galuta), the leading authority in the Jewish community in Babylonia.
CINEMA iii. Documentary Films
Hamid Naficy
Before World War I most Persian documentaries were sponsored and viewed only by the Qajar ruling family and the upper classes. They were apparently technically primitive and in a simple narrative format, consisting of footage of news events, topics of current interest, and spectacles, usually filmed in long shot.
ḤĀJI VĀŠANGTON
Hossein Kamaly
In his dispatches to Persia Ḥāji Vāšangton presented information about the American political system and society. He openly admired the Americans’ disdain for Europeans and regarded Americans as “alert, intelligent, learned, polite, and wealthy.” He stressed that all government dignitaries were “servants of the people.”
This Article Has Images/Tables.CUNAXA
A. Shapur Shahbazi
the Greek form of the name of a village located some 50 miles north of Babylon, where a decisive battle was fought on 3 September 401 B.C.E. between Cyrus the Younger and his brother Artaxerxes II.
BAHMAN MĪRZĀ
ʿA. Navāʾī
(d. 1883-84), the fourth son of ʿAbbās Mīrzā and brother of Moḥammad Shah (r. 1834-48). Throughout his relatively long exile, he enjoyed the protection and support of the Czarist government.
BAḴTĪĀRĪ (1)
ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī, J.-P. Digard, ʿA.-Ḥ. Navāʾī
the nesba of a number of Baḵtīārī chiefs in the 18th-20th centuries.
SAND GROUSE
Eskandar Firouz
a family (Pteroclididae) of game birds of which seven species are found in Persia, characteristic of Persia’s vast deserts and steppes. They have no affinity with true grouse and are included in the same order as pigeons (Columbiformes).
This Article Has Images/Tables.KHAN
Gene R. Garthwaite
(ḵān), a Turkish high title indicating nobility.
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.
This Article Has Images/Tables.ʿABDALLĀH HERAVĪ
P. P. Soucek
Calligrapher active in Herat, Samarqand, and Mashad (mid-15th century).
KĀNUN-E PARVAREŠ-E FEKRI-E KUDAKĀN VA NOWJAVĀNĀN v. Film Production: 1970-77
Fereydoun Moezi Moghadam
Kanun productions were the first experience of film direction for a number of today’s best-known Iranian directors. All internationally recognized Iranian animation film directors started their work at Kanun, and many have continued to cooperate with it.
This Article Has Images/Tables.JAMKARĀN
Jean Calmard
village near Qom, located 6 km south of it on the Qom-Kashan highway.It includes themazraʿas of Gorgābi (Hādi-Mehdi) and Zangābād, the ruins of Gabri castle, and the Jamkarān or Ṣāḥeb-al-Zamān mosque.
BRAZIER
Asadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani, Jaʿfar Šahrī
two distinct types of utensil traditionally used in Iran. One type is a closed container on legs, a kind of stove that holds slowly burning coals for heating.
GILAN xvii. Gender Relations
Christian Bromberger
In Gilan roles and tasks are distributed according to a more flexible pattern: to a large extent, women take an important part in agricultural work; in their homes, the line between male and female spaces is blurred; craftwork, industrial, and commercial activities are not the exclusive prerogative of men in this region.
This Article Has Images/Tables.URGUT
Alexei Savchenko
town ca. 30 km southeast of Samarkand, Uzbekistan, containing monuments of significance. Urgut is first mentioned as the location of a monastery of the Church of the East. Finds include wearable crosses of iron, ceramic wares with Christian motifs, a bronze censer, and fragments of stucco decoration.
This Article Has Images/Tables.NĀDERA
Evelin Grassi
(1792-1842), Transoxianan poetess of Ḵᵛoqand, who wrote in both Persian–with the pen name Maknuna–and Čaḡatāy under the pseudonyms of Nādera and Kāmela.
BĀṢERĪ
F. Barth
a pastoral nomadic tribe of Fārs belonging to the Ḵamsa confederacy. The nomads keep sheep, intermingled with 10-20 percent goats, and use donkeys for transport.
FESTIVALS x. IN AFGHANISTAN
NANCY HATCH DUPREE
Festive ceremonies in Afghanistan mark special religious days and major events in individual life cycles. Few are formally organized, being celebrated primarily to keep family bonds strong and community ties congenial.
CITY COUNCILS
Ḥosayn Farhūdī
(anjoman-e šahr) in Persia.
ḴOSROW MIRZĀ QĀJĀR
George Bournoutian
(1813-1875),the seventh son of Crown Prince ʿAbbās Mirzā, who led an official Iranian delegation to the Tsarist court in St. Petersburg.
BĪGĀR
Yuri Bregel
and BĪGĀRĪ, a term of taxation in Iran and Central Asia, generally meaning “corvıe,” the duty of supplying workers without pay, such as for the construction and repair of irrigation systems, roads, and public buildings.
COMMERCE ii. In the Achaemenid period
Muhammad A. Dandamayev
The longest of many caravan routes was the Royal Road, which stretched for nearly 2,400 km from Sardis in Asia Minor through Mesopotamia and down the Tigris to Susa; stations with service facilities were located every 25-30 km along its length.
KĀNUN-E PARVAREŠ-E FEKRI-E KUDAKĀN VA NOWJAVĀNĀN iv. International Film Festivals
Fereydoun Moezi Moghadam
Many world-renowned artists and masters were invited to to participate as International Jury members for the festivals.
This Article Has Images/Tables.FOLKLORE STUDIES ii. OF AFGHANISTAN
Margaret A. Mills and Abdul Ali Ahrary
Folklore may be defined as roughly comprising the oral-traditional component of culture, complementary or competitive with an official, canonical “written” culture, but this definition presents certain problems.
ASB-SAVĀRĪ
J.-P. Digard
"horse-riding." The Iranian lands, in the course of their long history, have been the source of major advances in the techniques of equitation.
MANJIL
Marcel Bazin
town in the Rudbār district, Gilān province. Located at lat 36°44′ N, long 49°24′ E, where the Qezel-owzan (Kızıl-uzun) and Šāhrud rivers unite into the Safidrud.
ALBORZ ii. In Myth and Legend
M. Boyce
stories about the Alborz mountains in Iran and Zorastrianism.
BURIAL ii. Remnants of Burial Practices in Ancient Iran
Frantz Grenet
The burial practices of pre-Islamic Iran are known partly from archeological evidence, partly from the Zoroastrian scriptures, namely the Avesta and the later Pahlavi and Persian literature.
BAZAR v. Temporary Bazars in Iran and Afghanistan
M. Bazin
The most firmly established form of periodic bāzār is certainly the one observed in the Caspian lowlands of Iran and especially in the central plain of Gīlān, where weekly bāzārs (bāzār-e haftagī) are part of a particularly long tradition.
This Article Has Images/Tables.ĀSTĀN-E QODS-E RAŻAWĪ
ʿA.-Ḥ. Mawlawī, M. T.Moṣṭafawī, and E. Šakūrzāda
the complex of buildings surrounding the tomb of the Imam ʿAlī al-Reżā at Mašhad.
D'ARCY, WILLIAM KNOX
Fuad Rouhani
(b. Newton Abbot, Devonshire, England, 11 October 1849, d. Stanmore, Middlesex, England, 1 May 1917), petroleum entrepreneur and founder of the oil industry in Persia and the Middle East.
COFFEEHOUSE
ʿAlī Āl-e Dawūd
a shop and meeting place where coffee is prepared and served.
BOUNDARIES v. With Turkey
Richard N. Schofield
The Mixed Commission of 1914, on which Britain and Russia were vested with powers to arbitrate, had settled the line of the Perso-Ottoman frontier in detail for almost its whole length from the Persian Gulf to Mount Ararat.
INSTITUTE OF ISMAILI STUDIES
Paul E. Walker
founded in 1977 by H. H. Prince Karim Aga Khan, a gathering point for the Ismaili community’s interest in its own history and in its relationship with the larger world of Islamic scholarship and contemporary thought.
BEKTĀŠ, ḤĀJĪ
Hamid Algar
(d. 1270-71?), Khorasanian Sufi and eponym of the Bektāšī order, once widespread in Anatolia and the Balkans, with offshoots in Egypt, Iraq, and Western Iran.
IL-KHANIDS iii. Book Illustration
Stefano Carboni
The Il-khanid period (ca. 1260-ca. 1335) is no doubt the historical moment during which the art of painting, in particular in illustrated manuscripts, witnessed a dramatic increase in number, subject matter, artistic output, and patronage. The late 13th century and especially the first quarter of the 14th can be regarded as perhaps the most important formative period in the history of Persian painting, an epoch of great changes.
This Article Has Images/Tables.ḤOSAYN B. ʿALI iii. THE PASSION OF ḤOSAYN
Peter Chelkowski
The taʿzia (literally “mourning”) is a dramatic form which Shiʿite Muslims in Persia have created to commemorate the tragedy of Ḥosayn ebn ʿAli, and thus it is comparable to the Christian passion play. See also TA'ZIA.
This Article Has Images/Tables.CYRUS vi. Cyrus the Younger
Rüdiger Schmitt
(ca. 423-01 b.c.e.), the second of the four sons of Darius II (ca. 424-05) and Parysatis and a younger brother of Arsaces/Arsicas, later Artaxerxes II (405/4-359/8).
AQD
A. H. Betteridge and H. Javadi
marriage contract, marriage contract ceremony.
CAMPBELL, JOHN NICHOLL ROBERT ii. The Archives
Roya Arab
(1799-1870), British envoy to Iran from 1831 to 1835. The archives left behind by Campbell provide scholars with a comprehensive first-hand account of British and foreign involvement in Iran and Central Asia in the 1800s.
CADMAN, JOHN
Kamran Eqbal
Director and later chairman of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) during the reign of Reżā Shah (b. Silverdale, Staffordshire, England, 7 September 1877, d. Bletchley, Buckingham, 31 May 1941).
FĀRĀBĪ i. Biography
Dimitri Gutas
No one among Fārābī’s successors and their followers, or even unrelated scholars, undertook to write his full biography.
NAḴJAVĀN
C. Edmund Bosworth
the administrative center of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic (NAR) with its own elected representative assembly, within the Republic of Azerbaijan but separated from it by Armenia.
APĄM NAPĀT
M. Boyce
(Son of the Waters), Zoroastrian divinity of mysterious character whose true identity, like that of his Vedic counterpart, Apām Napāt, has been much debated.
ESPAHBOD, ALI-REZA
Hengameh Fouladvand
(1951-2007), painter and graphic designer who aimed to represent ideals of equality and justice; he was banned from exhibiting his paintings from 1991 to 2001.
This Article Has Images/Tables.KELIDAR
Mohammad Reza Ghanoonparvar
a monumental novel of nearly three thousand pages in five volumes consisting of ten books published over the period 1978-84 by Maḥmud Dawlatābādi, the noted Iranian novelist and ardent social realist.
SCERIMAN FAMILY
Sebouh Aslanian and Houri Berberian
a wealthy Persian-Armenian merchant family.
Asia Institute
Richard N. Frye
founded in 1928 in New York City as the American Institute for Persian Art and Archaeology, incorporated 1930 in the state of New York and active in Shiraz 1965-79. In its affiliation, functions, and publications, the Institute has had a complicated and eventful career, illustrating some of the vicissitudes of Iranian studies during the twentieth century.
This Article Has Images/Tables.IVANOV, PAVEL PETROVICH
Yuri Bregel
(1893-1942), scholar in Central Asian studies at the Institute of Oriental Studies (Institut Vostokovedeniya) of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. His book Arkhiv khivinskikh khanov XIX v. (1940) contains detailed description of 137 documents, mostly tax registers (daftars), written in Čaḡatay.
This Article Has Images/Tables.KĀŠḠARI, SAʿD-AL-DIN
Hamid Algar
(d. 1456), propagator of the Naqšbandi order in Timurid Herat, noteworthy primarily as the initiator ofʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Jāmi into the path.
FARROḴZĀD, FORŪḠ-ZAMĀN
Farzaneh Milani
(b. Tehran, 1935; d. Tehran, 1967), usually known as Forūḡ, Persian poet.
KĀKAGI
Arley Loewen
the customs and characteristics of a kāka—a vagabond or vigilante characterized by the ideals of chivalry, courage, generosity, and loyalty.
ESKANDARĪ, ĪRAJ
Cosroe Chaqueri
(1907-1985), prominent leader of the Tudeh Party. From 1948 he worked for the Tudeh party in Paris, Vienna, Budapest, Moscow, and finally Leipzig. His lukewarm attitude toward the Islamic Revolution and refusal of a Soviet offer to help turn Persia into another Afghanistan cost him his leadership position in 1979.
This Article Has Images/Tables.HERAT v. LOCAL HISTORIES
Jürgen Paul
Local histories of Herāt belong to three distinct literary genres: the biographical dictionary, the dynastic history, and the guide for pilgrims.
ARMAITI
M. Boyce
one of the six great Aməša Spəntas in Zoroastrianism.
ĀTAŠKADA
M. Boyce
“house of fire,” a Zoroastrian term for a consecrated building in which there is an ever-burning sacred fire.
HARRIMAN MISSION
Fakhreddin Azimi
The American diplomat W. Averell Harriman was sent to Tehran in July 1951 to mediate between Persia and Great Britain after Persian nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
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.
JERUSALEM AND IRAN
Hagith Sivan
Twice Jerusalem came under Persian rule, the first time in the sixth century BCE, the second during the westward expansion of the Sasanian state in the early seventh century CE.
POSTERS
Christiane Gruber
in Iran.
This Article Has Images/Tables.