DILL (æeved, æev^d, æebet, etc.), Anethum graveolens L. (fam. Umbellifera), an herb widely cultivated in Persia. The main use of its feathery leaves is as the sole herb in all dishes in which the main ingredient is fava beans (ba@qela@, q.v.), for example, ba@qela@ polow (pilau with fava beans), ku@fta-ye æeved-ba@qela@ (meatballs with dill and fava beans), kòoreæ-e ba@qela@ (a stew with chunks of meat, as well as dill and fava beans) and its well-known G^la@n^ variant ba@qla@ qa@toq, but also in æeved polow (a plain pilau sometimes served as a dietary dish, e.g., for patients with diarrhea), and in gherkin pickles. It is also one of the herbs in sabz^ polow (a rice dish with green herbs; for recipes, see Ramazani, pp. 112-13, 121-22, 192, 263-64; Montazáem^, p. 597; K¨ava@r, pp. 38-40).

Dill seeds, to which properties similar to those of fennel (ra@z^a@na) seeds were ascribed in Galenic medicine, are still sometimes used as a diuretic (cf. Schlimmer, pp. 40-41), stomachic, carminative, etc. (for a full inventory of the medicinal virtues and uses of dill, see ¿Aq^l^, s.v. æebatt, pp. 541-42).

Bibliography: Sayyed Moháammad-H®osayn ¿Aq^l^ K¨ora@sa@n^, Makòzan al-adw^a, Calcutta, 1844. Z. K¨a@var (Mar¿aæ^), Honar-e a@æpaz^-e G^la@n, Tehran, 1366 ˆ./1987. R. Montazáem^, Honar-e a@æpaz^ . . ., 9th ed., Tehran, 1361 ˆ./1982. V. Mozaffarian, The Family of Umbelliferae in Iran. Keys and Distribution, Tehran, 1983, p. 126. N. Ramazani, Persian Cooking, New York, 1974.

(HUÚˆANG A¿LAM)