Welcome to Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation
The Encyclopaedia Iranica Foundation was established in 1990 with the mission to guarantee the Encyclopædia Iranica's intellectual independence and ensure its ongoing publication both in digital and print versions. Learn More
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Cinema Iranica
Cinema Iranica provides historical articles on movies, genres, film movements, filmographies, directors, composers, stars, cinematographers ...
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Women Poets Iranica
Women Poets Iranica is an integrative encyclopedia of postclassical, modern, and contemporary women poets.
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Encyclopædia Iranica
The Encyclopædia Iranica is a comprehensive research tool dedicated to the study of Iranian civilization in the Middle East, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent.
Featured Articles
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JALĀL-AL-DIN MIRZĀ
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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CARPETS vii. Islamic Persia to the Mongols
Because of the scarcity of surviving materials it is difficult to separate the history of carpet making in Iran from that of the rest of the Islamic world before the Mongol invasion (656/1258). Furthermore, the kind of rigid distinction between carpet and other textile designs that characterizes later production probably did not exist in the early Islamic period.