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[English edition] المجوس (مفرده مجوسي)، يدلّ في الأصل على طبقة كَهَنوتيّة إيرانيّة قديمة (بالفارسية القديمة ماجوش magush، بالأكاديّة magushu، بالسريانيّة magōshā، بالإغريقيّة μάγος) لكنّه يستعمل في العربيّة ليدلّ في المقام الأوّل على الزرادشتيّين. هذه الطبقة الكهنوتيّة تتطابق تطابقًا تامّا مع النخبة الحاكمة في إيران الساساني حيث كانت عقيدتها هي دين الدولة الرسمي وحيث انتظمت وفق تراتبيّة اجتماعيّة ودينيّة. لقد كان للكهنة الذين لُقّبوا « موبذ»، و« هربذ»، و« دستور»، و« رايث» تبعًا لاختلاف الوضعيّة والوظيفة مهامُّ شعائريّة وقضائيّة وتربويّة. وكانت التراتبيّة الكهنوتيّ…

, "the cities" (pl. of al-madīna ), the Arabic translation of the Aramaic Māḥōzē or Medīnāt̲h̲ā referring to the Sāsānid metropolis on the Tigris about 20 miles southeast of Bag̲h̲dād where several adjacent cities connected by a floating bridge stretched along both banks of the river. This was the imperial administrative capital, the winter residence of the king, the home of the Jewish Exilarch and the seat of the Nestorian Catholikos. Among the mixed population of Aramaeans, Per…

(a.) 1. In pre-Islamic Persia. “the kings of the territorial divisions” is the Arabic phrase used by Muslim historians originally for the regional rulers of the Parthian or Arsacid period, and afterwards also for the rulers of principalities which arose on the ruins of the Umayyad empire of al-Andalus. In the 3rd-4th/9th-10th centuries, their information is said to have come from the lost works of Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, Mūsā b. ʿĪsā al-Kisrawī, the mōbad̲h̲ s of S̲h̲īrāz, (Bī)s̲h̲āpūr, and Fārs, the Ak̲h̲bār al-Furs of ʿUmar Kisrā, the S̲h̲āh-nāma of ʿAbd al-Razzāḳ, a Taʾrīk̲h̲ sīnī m…

, a town and canal system in the lower Diyālā (Tāmarrā) region east of the Tigris River in al-ʿIrāḳ. The lower part of the canal may have been originally the lower course of the Diyālā and irrigated the land east of Ctesiphon, where fan like settlement patterns in the Parthian period already suggest the existence of branch canals. In the 6th century A.D., a major canal system was created by the Sāsānid ruler K̲h̲usraw Anūs̲h̲irwān (531-79) who dug a long feeder canal, the Ḳātūl al-Kisrawī, from …

“chief of the Mad̲j̲ūs”, the Farsi form of MP magupat (OP * magupati ). This title occurs in Manichaean Parthian as magbed , in Armenian as mogpet or movpet , in Syriac as mōpatā and mōhpatē , in Greek as μαυιπτάς, μαυπιτάς, μαύτης, μαύπησ and μάπτα, and in Arabic as mawbad̲h̲ or mūbad̲h̲ with the plural mawābid̲h̲a . The reputation of this Zoroastrian priest for religious learning and legal responsibility led al-Yaʿḳūbī to explain this term as ʿālim al-ʿulamāʾ while al-Masʿūdī explained it as ḥāfiẓ al-dīn and derived it from mu = “religion” and bad̲h̲ = “protector”…

, “the Media of Basra”, the district of Nihāwand [ q.v.], the taxes of which contributed to the support of the military population at al-Baṣra after the Muslim conquest of al-D̲j̲abal. Although Sayf ascribes this arrangement to the time of ʿUmar I (13-23/634-44), according to al-Balād̲h̲urī, al-Dīnawar and Nihāwand were occupied by Baṣran and Kūfan forces respectively after the battle of Nihāwand in 21/642. By the caliphate of Muʿāwiya (41-60/661-80), the Muslim population at al-Kūfa had increased and required an increase ¶ in revenues for their support, so al-Dīnawar was re…

, Arabic form of the Persian name K̲h̲usraw, derived from Syriac Kesrō or Kōrsrō by the 6th century A.D. The consonant and vowel changes occurred because was used for both k and kh in Syriac, and used here for the Persian kh, became k in Arabic. The first u became i by vowel dissimilation in Syriac, and the final vowel became an alif maḳṣūra by approximation to the fiʿlā form. Arabic lexicographers said there was no Arabic word ending in wāw with ḍamma after the first consonant, so K̲h̲usraw was put in the fiʿlā form and the kh became k to show that it was Arabicised. Although K̲h̲usraw occurs in Ar…

(a., pl. ṭasāsīd̲j̲ ), a territorial division, a loan word in Arabic from the MP tasōk (“one quarter”). According to Frye, tasōk had been used under the Sāsānids for a subdivision of the city of Nīs̲h̲āpūr [ q.v.], but in the Arabic sources ṭassūd̲j̲ . is normally ¶ used for the rural subdivision of a kūra , mainly in the Sawād [ q.v.] of ʿIrāḳ. There are said to have been 60 such subdivisions in ʿIrāḳ sometimes corresponding to canal districts. A ṭassūd̲j̲. was sometimes equivalent to a rustāḳ [ q.v.] (pl. rasātīḳ ) or a nāḥiya , although the presence of a further sub…

(also Mazdaḳ, Maz̲h̲dak), the leader of a revolutionary religious movement in Sāsānid Iran, during the reign of Ḳubād̲h̲, son of Fīrūz (Kavād, son of Pērōz) 488-96, 498-9 to 531). Klima regarded the name of Mazdak as a conflation of an Iranian name, Mazdak, Mizdak, or Muz̲h̲dak ("the justifier"), with a Semitic name, Mazdeḳ, from the root zdḳ (“righteous”). Klima also suggested that mazdak may have been what the leaders of this movement were called rather than a proper name, or even what its members were called (al-Mazdaḳān, al-Mazādiḳa in Arabic sources as well as al-Mazdaḳiyya). Almost …

(coll., sing. Mad̲j̲ūsī ), originally an ancient Iranian priestly caste (OP magus̲h̲ , Akk. magus̲h̲u , Syriac mgōs̲h̲ā , Greek μάϒος) but used in Arabic primarily for Zoroastrians. This caste was closely identified with the ruling élite in Sāsānid Iran, where their faith was the official religion of the state and where they were organised in a social and religious hierarchy. The priests, called mōbad , hirbad , dastūr , or rat depending on context and function, had ritual, judicial and educational responsibilities. The priestly hierarchy with the mōbadān mōbad …

, a pre-Islamic Persian dynasty that ruled a large part of western Asia from A.D. 224 until 651. In Arabic and modern usage, the dynastic name is derived from Sāsān, who is mentioned as a “lord” in the inscription of S̲h̲āpūr I [ q.v.] on the Kaʿba of Zoroaster (SKZ). The inscription of Narseh at Paikuli also refers to the royal clan of Sāsānagān. Theophoric names in the Parthian period suggest that Sāsān may have been a minor deity or perhaps a deified ancestor. According to the late Sāsānid Kārnāmag , Sāsān was the son-in-law of Pāpak, who gave him his daughte…

, Arabised form Marzubān , “warden of the march”, “markgrave”, from Av. marəza and M. Parth. mrz “frontier”, plus pat “protector”. The MP form marzpān suggests a north Iranian origin. It began to be used as the title of a military governor of a frontier province in the Sāsānid empire in the 4th or 5th centuries A.D. when marz , marzpan , and marzpanutʿin (marzpānate) appear as loan words in Armenian, and marzbanā as a loan word in Syriac. The NP form marzbān , marzvān or marzabān was Arabised as marzubān (pl. marāziba , marāzib ), possibly as early as the 6th century A.D. Arabic also formed a verb marz…

, the region along the lower Tigris River in southeastern al-ʿIrāḳ. This region is called Μεσήνη by Strabo, Mēs̲h̲an in the Babylonian Talmud, Mays̲h̲an in Syriac. Mēs̲h̲ān in Middle Persian, Mēs̲h̲un in Armenian, Maysān in Arabic, and T’iao-tche (Chaldaea) in the Han sources. The earliest references from the first century A.D. indicate that Μεσήνη was an ethnic toponym, the land of the people called Μεσηνός who lived along the Arabian side of the coast at the head of the Persian Gulf (Μαισανιτη…