Table of Contents

• BEHDĪN

  James R. Russell

  “the Good Religion,” i.e., Zoroastrianism, or one of its adherents, in modern usage, specifically of the laity.

• BEHDINĀN DIALECT

  Gernot L. Windfuhr

  a Central dialect spoken by the Behdīnān “the people of the Good Religion,” i.e., Zoroastrianism, who live in, or came from, the cities of Kermān and Yazd and surrounding towns and villages.  

• BEHEŠT-E ZAHRĀʾ

  Hamid Algar

  the chief cemetery of Teh­ran and principal shrine of the Islamic Revolution of 1357 Š./1978-79.

• BEHĪZAK

  cross-reference

  See CALENDARS.

• BEHRAMSHAH NAOROJI SHROFF

  John R. Hinnells

  (1858-­1927), Parsi religions teacher and founder of the move­ment known as Ilm-i Khshnoom (ʿElm-e ḵošnūm; Path of knowledge).

• BEHRANGĪ, ṢAMAD

  Michael C. Hillmann

  (1939-1968), teacher, social critic, folklorist, translator, and short story writer.

• BEHRŪZ DONBOLĪ

  cross-reference

  AMĪR. See DONBOLĪ, AMĪR BEHRŪZ.

• BEHRŪZ, ḎABĪḤ

  Paul Sprachman

  (1889-1971), Persian satirist,  writer of highly popular parodies and burlesques.

• BEHŠAHR

  Eckart Ehlers

  older Ašraf, a town situated at 36°41′55″ north latitude and 53°32′30″ east longitude in the eastern part of central Māzandarān.

• BEHSOTŪN, ABŪ MANṢŪR

  cross-reference

  See BĪSOTŪN, ABŪ MANṢŪR.

• BEHZĀD

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  in the traditional history, the name of the black horse belonging successively to Sīāvoš, Kay Ḵosrow, and Goštāsb.

• BEHZĀD, ḤOSAYN

  Layla Diba

  (1894-1968), lacquer artist, painter, and book illustrator.

• BEHZĀD, KAMĀL-AL-DĪN

  Priscilla Soucek

  master painter, proverbial for his skill, active in Herat during the reign of the Timurid Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (1470-1506).

• 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.

• BEKTĀŠĪYA

  Hamid Algar

  a syncretic and heterodox Sufi order, found principally in Anatolia and the Balkans, with offshoots in other regions, named after Ḥājī Bektāš and regarding him as its founding elder (pīr).

• BELBĀS

  Pierre Oberling

  a former Kurdish tribal confederacy of northwestern Iran and northeastern Iraq.

• BELDERČĪN

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  (quail, Coturnix coturnix L.). The quail is mentioned in both the Bible and the Koran. Allusions to these Koranic reminiscences are occasionally found in Persian poetry. Various virtues are attributed to the quail in traditional or popular Islamic medicine.

• BELGIAN-IRANIAN RELATIONS

  Annette Destrée

  Official diplomatic relations between Belgium and Iran date from the end of the nineteenth century.

• BELGRĀMĪ, ʿABD-AL-JALĪL

  cross-reference

  See ʿABD-AL­-JALĪL BELGRĀMĪ.

• BELGRĀMĪ, ĀZĀD

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀZĀD BELGRĀMĪ.

• BELL, GERTRUDE Margaret Lowthian

  G. Michael Wickens

  (1868-1926), British traveler, private scholar, archeolo­gist, sometime government servant, and a translator of Ḥāfeẓ.

• BELLES LETTRES i. SASANIAN IRAN

  Werner Sundermann

  Belles lettres, that is, entertaining works, are not lacking in Sasanian Iran but can by no means match with their development in New Persian literature, both for quality and quantity.

• BELLEW, HENRY WALTER

  D. Neil MacKenzie

  (1834-92), surgeon and amateur orientalist. Throughout his service he took a lively interest in the languages and ethnography of the peoples within his charge.

• BELOVED

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  (maʿšūq in Arabic and Persian), together with Lover (ʿāšeq) and Love (ʿešq), making the three concepts that dominate the semantic field of eroticism in Persian literature and mysticism.

• BELOWHAR O BŪDĀSAF

  Cross-Reference

  See BARLAAM AND IOSAPH.

• BELQĪS

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  the queen of Sheba (Sabā), whose meetings with Solomon (Solaymān) are a favorite theme in Persian and Arabic literature.

• BELTS

  Multiple Authors

  (Mid. Pers, kamar, NPers. kamar-band). Investigation of representations of belts in Iran between the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty in the 4th century BC and the coming of Islam reveals that they were almost exclusively male accessories. Depictions of females wearing belts are rare.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BĒMA

  Werner Sundermann

  the chief festival of the Manicheans. The Greek word bēma meant “platform,” “stage,” or “judge’s seat.” 

• BENDŌY

  Cross-Reference

  See BESṬĀM O BENDŌY.

• BENFEY, THEODOR

  Thomas Oberlies

  German comparative philologist with a focus on Indian languages. His path-breaking research on the Pañcatantra made him one of the pioneers of comparative folklore studies.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BENGAL

  Richard M. Eaton, N. H. Ansari and S. H. Qasemi

  the deltaic region of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers, and the easternmost haven of Indo-Iranian culture on the Indian subcontinent.

• BENNIGSEN, ALEXANDRE

  Michael Rywkin

  (1913-1988), scholar of Soviet Islam. Bennigsen saw the unassimilable quality of Soviet Muslim peoples and the continued strength of Soviet Islam based on the national-religious symbiosis.

• BENVENISTE, ÉMILE

  Gilbert Lazard

  (1902-76), French scholar, eminent Iranist, and one of the greatest linguists of his era. At a very young age he caught the attention of the dean of linguistics in France, Antoine Meillet, and was soon engaged in the research activities that he was to pursue through half a century.

• BERENJ “brass”

  A. Souren Melikian-Chirvani, James W. Allan

  Very few analyses have been carried out on Iranian metalwork. It would seem that brass was used for making many of the wares executed from sheet metal hammered into shape and then engraved and inlaid with silver that were the products of the Khorasan school in the later 12th and early 13th centuries.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BERENJ “rice”

  Marcel Bazin and Christian Bromberger, Daniel Balland, Ṣoḡrā Bāzargān

  Rice farming is a marginal activity in arid regions where it is limited to a few areas with an adequate water supply: namely the lower Aras and Qezel Ozon valleys; the upper Isfahan oasis; some oases in Khorasan, Sīstān, and Baluchistan; parts of the alluvial plain of Ḵūzestān; the Marvdašt plain and other basins in Fārs.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BEREZIN, IL’YA NIKOLAEVICH

  Jean Calmard

  (1818-96), Rus­sian orientalist known for his works on Iranian, Arabic, and Turkish philology and dialectology and on Mongol history,  and for his travel ac­counts.

• BERJĪS

  Wilhelm Eilers

  Arabic word listed in the dictionaries as meaning the planet Jupiter (usually al-Moštarī in Arabic, Hormozd in Persian).

• BERK-YARUQ

  cross-reference

  See BARKĪĀROQ.

• BEROSSUS

  Stanley M. Burstein

  Babylonian 4th-3rd-century priest-chronicler; he took note of Iranian actions insofar as they directly affected Babylon.

• BERTHELS, EVGENIĭ ÈDUARDOVICH

  Michael Zand

  [BERTEL’S] (1890-1957), Soviet Iranologist, head of the Soviet school of Persian and Central Asian Turkic studies in the 1930s-50s.

• BERYĀNĪ

  Ṣoḡrā Bāzargān

  (from beryān “roast”), an Iranian meat dish usually served wrapped in flat bread.

• BĒŠĀPŪR

  Cross-Reference

  See BĪŠĀPŪR.

• BEŠĀRAT

  Nassereddin Parvin

  (Glad tidings), a weekly Persian journal of news and political comment, Mašhad, 1907.

• BESĀṬ

  Cross-Reference

  See CARPETS.

• BESĀṬĪ SAMARQANDĪ

  Zabihollah Safa

  SERĀJ AL-DĪN, Per­sian poet (14th-15th centuries).

• BESMEL ŠĪRĀZĪ

  Cross-reference

  See NAWWĀB ŠIRĀZI, ʿALI-AKBAR.

• BESMELLĀH

  Philippe Gignoux, Hamid Algar

  Islamic formula meaning “in the name of God,” more fully Besmellāh al-raḥmān al-raḥīm “in the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.”

• BESSOS

  Michael Weiskopf

  satrap of Bactria and last Achaemenid king (ca. 336-329 BC). From his capital at Bactra (Zariaspa), in the area of modern Balḵ, Bessos exercised control over Bactria, Sogdia to the north, and border regions of India.

• BESṬĀM (1)

  Wilhelm Eilers

  (or Bestām), an Iranian man’s name; as a result of its past popularity, it is a fairly common component of place names.

• BESṬĀM (2)

  Wolfram Kleiss

  (or Basṭām), Elamite Rusa-i Uru.Tur, the name of a village at the foot of the ruins of an ancient Urartian hill fortress in the province of West Azerbaijan (85 km southeast of Mākū and 54 km northwest of Ḵᵛoy; altitude ca. 1,300 m above sea level).

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BESṬĀM (3)

  Chahryar Adle

  or Basṭām, a small town in the medieval Iranian province of Qūmes and modern Ostān-e Semnān. It is located in a large valley on the southern foothills of the Alborz.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BESṬĀM O BENDŌY

  A. Shapur Shahbazi

  maternal uncles of Ḵosrow II Parvēz and leading statesmen and soldiers under Hormozd IV and Ḵosrow Parvēz.

• BESṬĀMĪ family

  Richard W. Bulliet

  leading family among the Shafeʿites of Nīšāpūr from the late 4th/10th through the early 6th/12th century.

• BESṬĀMĪ, BĀYAZĪD

  Hamid Algar

  [Basṭāmī], ABŪ MOḤAMMAD BĀYAZĪD b. ʿEnāyat-Allāh, a 16th-century faqīh and Sufi of Khorasan.

• BESṬĀMĪ, ŠEHĀB-AL-DĪN

  Hamid Algar

  [Basṭāmī], SHAIKH (d. 1405), a Sufi of Herat during the Timurid period.

• BESṬĀMĪ, ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN

  Hamid Algar

  b. Moḥammad b. ʿAlī [Basṭāmī], al-Ḥanafī, al-Ḥorūfī (d.1454), Ottoman polymath of Khorasanian ancestry.

• BESṬĀMĪ, BĀYAZĪD

  Gerhard Böwering

  [Basṭāmī] (Abū Yazīd Ṭayfūr b. ʿĪsā b. Sorūšān), early (9th-century) Muslim mystic of Iran. Much of his fame is owing to ecstatic utterances, which he was the first to employ consistently as expressions of Sufi experience.

• BĒṮ ĀRAMAYĒ

  Michael Morony

  lit. “land of the Arameans,” the region and Sasanian province of Āsōristān in Iraq between the Jabal Ḥamrīn and Maysān.

• BĒṮ DARAYĒ

  Michael Morony

  (Arabic Bādarāyā), a district southeast of the lower Nahrawān canal in Gōḵē (Arż Jūḵā), Iraq.

• BĒṮ GARMĒ

  Michael Morony

  a region and province in northeastern Iraq named after a people, possibly a Persian tribe.

• BĒṮ LAPAṬ

  Michael Morony

  the Syriac name for Vēh Antiōk Šāpūr (Gondēšāpūr), founded in ca. 260 by Šāpūr I in Ḵūzestān with the Roman captives from Valerian’s army.

• BĒṮ SELŌḴ

  Michael Morony

  “house of Seleucos,” abbreviation of Karkā ḏe Bēṯ Selōḵ, “fortress of the house of Seleucos,” modern Kirkuk in Iraq.

• BĒṬANĪ

  Daniel Balland

  a Pash­tun tribe on the eastern edge of the Solaymān moun­tains. The recent history of the Bēṭanī has been largely determined by the land that they now inhabit, adjacent to the plains of the middle Indus and the Wazīr uplands.

• BETLĪS

  cross-reference

  See BEDLĪS.

• BĒVARASP

  cross-reference

  See ŻAḤḤĀK.

• BHADRA

  Ronald E. Emmerick

  a magician, who according to Buddhist legend tried to deceive the Buddha by means of his magic powers in order to disprove the Buddha’s claim to omniscience.

• BHADRACARYĀDEŚANĀ

  Ronald E. Emmerick

  the name of a Buddhist text belonging to the Mahāyāna Tantric tradition of which a Khotanese translation is extant.

• BHADRAKALPIKASŪTRA

  Ronald E. Emmerick

  the name of a Buddhist Mahayanist text (Sanskrit sutra) concerning the names of the Buddhas to appear in the good aeon (Sanskrit bhadrakalpa).

• BHAGARIAS

  Mary Boyce and Firoze M. P. Kotwal

  lit. “Sharers,”  one of the five groups (panth) of Parsi Zoroastrian priests on the coast of Gujarat.

• BHAGVĀN DĀS HENDĪ

  N. H. Ansari

  Indian poet and author writing in Persian. He belonged to the Hindu Srīvāstava Kāyastha community, which is known for its deep interest in Persian.

• BHAIṢAJYAGURUVAIḌŪRYAPRABHARĀJASŪTRA

  Ronald E. Emmerick

  the name of a Buddhist Mahayanist text of which a number of fragments in Old Khotanese and Sogdian are extant.

• BHANDĀRĪ

  N. H. Ansari

  putative author of Ḵolāṣat al-tawārīḵ, a general history of India written in Persian during the reign of Awrangzēb (r. 1658-1707), with special emphasis on the rulers of Delhi.

• BHARUCHA, SHERIARJI DADABHAI

  Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa

  Parsi scholar (1843-1915). During the last years of his life he was criticized for his reformist views that the Zoroastrian religion was not meant for a particular fold but was open for all.

• BHARUCHAS

  Mary Boyce and Firoze M. P. Kotwal

  the name of a group (panth) of Parsi Zoroastrian priests who had their headquarters at the ancient port of Bharuch (Broach) in Gujarat.

• BHAVĀṄGA

  Ronald E. Emmerick

  the name assigned by H. W. Bailey to ten fragmentary Khotanese folios, a transcription of which he published.

• BHOWNAGGREE, Mancherjee Merwanjee

  John McLeod

  (1851-1933), Sir, Parsi statesman; His ancestors were from the principality of Bhāvnagar in Gujarat, whence his surname originates.

• BĪA-PAS, BĪA-PĪŠ

  Cross-Reference

  See GĪLĀN.

• BĪĀBĀN

  Brian Spooner

  name of the coastal plain that extends south from the mouth of the Mīnāb river for 88 miles to the cape Raʾs al-Kūh, which is 30 miles west of the Jask promontory.

• BĪĀBĀN

  Cross-Reference

  Persian word meaning “desert.” See DESERT.

• BĪĀBĀNAK

  Eckart Ehlers

  a group of isolated oasis settlements in central Iran, stretching over an area of 70 by 90 miles of what is mostly desert.

• BĪĀR

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (from Ar. plur. of beʾr “well, spring”), a small settlement of medieval Islamic times on the northern fringe or the Dašt-e Kavīr, modern Bīārjomand.

• BĪBĪ KHANOM MOSQUE

  Bernard O’Kane

  named after Bībī Khanom, otherwise known as Sarāy-Molk Khanom, chief wife of Tīmūr (r. 7/1370-1405).

• BĪBĪ ŠAHRBĀNŪ

  Mary Boyce

  the dedication of a Moslem shrine on a hillside by Ray to the south of Tehran. The legend attached to it is that of Šahrbānū, a daughter of the last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd III (r. 632-51).

• BĪBĪ ZAYNAB, MAUSOLEUM OF

  Bernard O’Kane

  named after Bībī Zaynab, its legendary occupant, together with her mother Oljā Aīm, the wet nurse of Tīmūr (r. 1370-1405). It is in the Šāh-e Zenda necropolis in Samarkand.

• BIBLE

  Multiple Authors

  This series of articles covers various aspects of the Bible, as pertaining to Iran and Iranian lands.

• BIBLE i. As a Source for Median and Achaemenid History

  M. A. Dandamayev

  The old biblical texts arose in various historic periods. Except for some parts of the books of Ezra and Daniel, composed in Aramaic, all these texts are written in Hebrew.

• BIBLE ii. Persian Elements in the Bible

  Morton Smith

  Identification of Persian elements in the Bible is difficult because: (1) nobody knows just what was “Persian” when the biblical books were being written. (2) many things then “Persian” were also elements of other cultures.

• BIBLE iii. Chronology of Selected Persian Translations of Parts or the Whole of the Bible

  Kenneth J. Thomas and Fereydun Vahman

  The following selection of translations, for which there are existing manuscripts, represents the diversity of translators as well as versions of particular historical significance or usage.

• BIBLE iv. Middle Persian Translations

  Shaul Shaked

  The only extant Middle Persian Bible version is represented by fragments of a translation of the Psalms. The Christians of Iran were dependent largely on the Syriac versions of the Bible, but the activity of creating new versions in the current vernacular must have been part of the missionary effort.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BIBLE v. Sogdian Translations

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  The following manuscripts containing biblical texts in Sogdian have been made known. None of them survives in anything like complete form, and some are mere fragments.

• BIBLE vi. Judeo-Persian Translations

  Jes P. Asmussen

  Judeo-Persian or Jewish-Persian is the common designation for, Persian written with Hebrew characters. Among the earliest and most important Judeo-Persian texts are the Bible translations.

• BIBLE vii. Persian Translations of the Bible

  Kenneth J. Thomas and Fereydun Vahman

  The Pentateuch, the books of the prophets, and the writings (Heb. ketūbīm), including the Psalms, from the Hebrew scriptures, collectively known as the Old Testament, and the Gospels and other writings in Greek, collectively known as the New Testament, have all been translated into Persian.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BIBLE viii. Translations into other Modern Iranian Languages

  Kenneth J. Thomas

  John Leyden, a gifted Scottish linguist and poet who went to Calcutta in 1803 as a surgeon’s assistant for the East India Company and subsequently became a professor at the College of Fort William, was involved in translating the Gospels into a number of languages, including both Pashto and Bal­uchi.

• BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES

  Multiple Authors

  i. In the West. ii. In Iran. This series of articles covers the catalogues of manuscripts and bibliographies of printed works on Iran compiled by scholars in Iran, Europe (including Russia) and North America.

• BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES i. In the West

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  European interest in Iranian bibliography was awakened in the 16th and early 17th centuries, when manuscripts were brought to the West in ever-increasing numbers and became much sought after by humanists engaged in Oriental studies.

• BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES ii. In Iran

  Aḥmad Monzawī and ʿAlī Naqī Monzawī

  Persian-language catalogues of manuscripts preserved in libraries in Iran and elsewhere range from detailed works in book form to articles in journals and short lists published separately or as supplements to other publications.

• BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES ii. In Iran (continued)

  Aḥmad Monzawī and ʿAlī Naqī Monzawī

  fehrest (lit. list, index).  The word has now generally been superseded in Persian by ketāb-šenāsī.

• BĪČAGĀN LAKE

  cross-reference

  See BAḴTAGĀN LAKE.

• BICKERMAN, ELIAS JOSEPH

  Muhammed A. Dandamayev

  (1897-1981), a leading scholar of Greco-Roman history and the Hellenistic world, whose research interests extended to Judaism and some aspects of Iranian history.

• BICKNELL, HERMAN

  Michael C. Hillmann

  (1830-1875), a translator of Ḥāfeẓ. Some of his metered and rhymed translations replicate, or at least giving the impression of, Persian monorhyme patterns.