Table of Contents

  • BADR ČĀČĪ

    M. Dabīrsīāqī

    a Persian poet of the 14th century, born in the town or district of Čāč (also written Šāš) in Transoxiana.

  • BADR JĀJARMĪ

    M. Dabīrsīāqī

    a 13th-century poet popular in his own time for his rhetorical skills.

  • BADR KHAN

    Cross-Reference

    See BEDIR KHAN.

  • BADR-AL-DĪN EBRĀHĪM

    S. I. Baevskiĭ

    author of the Persian dictionary Farhang-e zafāngūyā wa jahānpūyā (The eloquent and world-seeking dictionary) composed in India in the late 14th or early 15th century.

  • BADR-AL-DĪN SERHENDĪ

    Y. Friedmann

    (b. ca. 1593-94), a Sufi author, translator, and disciple of Aḥmad Serhendī.

  • BADR-AL-DĪN TABRĪZĪ

    H. Crane

    architect and savant active in Konya in Anatolia during the third quarter of the 13th century. 

  • BĀDRANG

    Cross-Reference

    See BĀLANG; CITRUS FRUITS.

  • BADRĪ KAŠMĪRĪ

    Z. Safa

    Persian poet in India in the second half of the 16th century.

  • BĀDRŪDI

    E. Yarshater

    one of the local dialects of the Kāšān region, spoken in Bādrūd, a dehestān (rural district) of Naṭanz.

  • BĀDŪSPĀN

    X. de Planhol

    in medieval geography, a mountainous district of northern Iran on the Caspian side of the Alborz mountains, in Ṭabarestān (Māzandarān).

  • BADUSPANIDS

    W. Madelung

    a dynasty ruling Rūyān and Rostamdār from the late 11th to the 16th century with the title of ostandār and later of king.

  • BĀFQ

    C. E. Bosworth

    a small oasis town of central Iran (altitude 1,004 m) on the southern fringe of the Dašt-e Kavīr, 100 km southeast of Yazd in the direction of Kermān.

  • BĀFQĪ, MOḤAMMAD-TAQĪ

    H. Algar

    AYATOLLAH (1875-1946), a religious scholar known for his forthright opposition to Reżā Shah Pahlavī.

  • BĀḠ (BAGH)

    Multiple Authors

    “garden.”  In Iranian agriculture, the word bāḡ means, more precisely, an enclosed area bearing permanent cultures— all kinds of cultivated trees and shrubs, as opposed to fields under annual crops.

  • BĀḠ i. Etymology

    W. Eilers

    Bāḡ, the Middle and New Persian word for “garden,” as also the Sogdian βāγ, strictly meant “piece” or “patch of land.”

  • BĀḠ ii. General

    M. Bazin

    Whatever the water source may be, the gardens are usually clustered together close to the head-race of the irrigation network, around the village or just below it. This location allows to irrigate them as frequently as possible, every six to twelve days in the hot season, whereas the fields lying underneath are much less often irrigated.

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  • BĀḠ iii. In Persian Literature

    W. L. Hanaway

    Bāḡ appears both as an object of description and as the prime source of nature imagery in Persian literature. 

  • BĀḠ iv. In Afghanistan

    N. H. Dupree

    The people inhabiting this land have cherished all forms of gardens, which have become an integral part of Afghan culture.

  • BAG NASK

    P. O. Skjærvø

    one of the Avestan nasks of the gāhānīg group, that is, texts connected with the Gāθās; it is now lost almost in its entirety. This nask is listed in the survey of the Avesta in Dēnkard 8.1.9.

  • BĀḠ-E BĀLĀ

    cross-reference

    See BĀḠ iv.

  • BĀḠ-E ERAM

    K. Afsar

    a famous and beautiful garden at Shiraz. Its site was formerly on the northwestern fringe of the city but is now well inside the greatly expanded urban area.

  • BĀḠ-E FĪN

    ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

    garden southwest of the city of Kāšān, where subterranean waters from the Dandāna and Haft Kotal mountains emerge to form the Fīn springs.

  • BĀḠ-E JAHĀNNĀMA

    cross-reference

    See SHIRAZ.

  • BĀḠ-E PĪRŪZĪ

    Ḡ.-Ḥ. Yūsofī

    “Garden of Triumph,” a garden constructed in Ḡazna by Sultan Maḥmūd (r. 998-1030), no longer extant.

  • BĀḠ-E ŠĀH

    ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

    (the king’s garden). In the mid-Qajar period, the site was a broad, circular field about 1,000 m in diameter situated on the outskirts of the city and devoted to horseback riding and racing.

  • BĀḠ-E SALṬANATĀBĀD

    cross-reference

    See SALṬANATĀBĀD.

  • BAGA

    H. W. Bailey, N. Sims-Williams, St. Zimmer

    an Old Iranian term for “god,” sometimes designating a specific god. i. General. ii. In Old and Middle Iranian. iii. The use of baga in names.

  • BAGABUXŠA

    cross-reference

    See MEGABYZUS.

  • BAGĀN YAŠT

    P. O. Skjærvø

    (1) one of the dādīg (legal) nasks of the Avesta, which contained descriptions of Ahura Mazdā and the other gods; (2) name of Yasna 19-21 of the Avesta.

  • BAGARAN

    R. H. Hewsen

    (lit. “the god’s place”; Turk. Pakran), a town founded by the Armenian King Orontes (Eruand) II (ca. 212-ca. 200 B.C.) to house the images of the gods and the royal ancestors.

  • BAḠAVĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN

    H. Schützinger

    ʿALĪ B. ʿABD-AL-ʿAZĪZ B. MARZBĀN B. SĀBŪR, traditionist (moḥaddeṯ) and philologist in the 9th century.

  • BAGAWAN (1)

    H. R. Hewsen

    (Arm. Baguan or Aṭʿši Bagawan), ancient district lying along the right bank of the Araxes river and corresponding to the northeastern part of Iranian Azerbaijan.

  • BAGAWAN (2)

    R. H. Hewsen

    an ancient locality in central Armenia situated at the foot of Mount Npat (Gk. Niphates, Turk. Tapa-seyd) in the principality of Bagrewand west of modern Diyadin.

  • BĀGAYĀDIŠ

    R. Schmitt

    name of the seventh month (September-October) of the Old Persian calendar, mentioned in Darius I’s Behistun inscription.

  • BAGAYAṞIČ

    R. H. Hewsen

    site of the great temple of Mihr (Mithras), one of the eight principal pagan shrines of pre-Christian Armenia, traditionally built by Tigranes II the Great (r. 95-56 B.C.).

  • BAGAZUŠTA

    R. Schmitt

    Old Iranian personal name *Baga-zušta- “beloved of the god(s)” attested in the Achaemenid period and after.

  • BAḠDĀD

    cross-reference

    See BAGHDAD.

  • BAḠDĀDI FAMILY

    Kamran Ekbal

    designation of an Arab family of a Bābi, Shaikh Moḥammad Šebl, and his Bahai progeny, his son Moḥammad-Moṣṭafā Baḡdādi, and the latter’s sons, Żiāʾ Mabsuṭ Baḡdādi and Ḥosayn Eqbāl.

  • BAḠDĀDĪ, ʿABD-AL-QĀHER

    J. van Ess

    B. ṬĀHER ŠĀFEʿĪ TAMĪMĪ (ca. 961-1038), mathematician, Shafeʿite jurist, and Asḥʿarite theologian.

  • BAḠDĀDĪ, ABU’L-FAŻL

    H. Algar

    (d. 1155), Sufi whose name appears in the initiatic chain of the Neʿmatallāhī order.

  • BAḠDĀDĪ, BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN

    cross-reference

    See BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN BAḠDĀDĪ.

  • BAḠDĀDĪ, ḴĀLED ŻĪĀʾ-AL-DĪN

    H. Algar

    MAWLĀNĀ (1779-1827), the founder of a significant branch of the Naqšbandī Sufi order that has had a profound impact on his native Kurdistan and beyond.

  • BAGHDAD i. The Iranian Connection: Before the Mongol Invasion

    H. Kennedy

    Baghdad, whose official name was originally Madīnat-al-Salām, the City of Peace, was founded in 762 by the second ʿAbbasid caliph, Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr as his official capital.

  • BAGHDAD ii. From the Mongol Invasion to the Ottoman Occupation

    ʿAbbās Zaryāb

    The Persian influence had increased in recent decades through Iranian viziers and officials serving the caliphs, the rise of Shiʿite power and their theological literature.

  • BAGHDAD PACT

    J. A. Kechichian

    popular name for the 1955 pro-Western defense alliance between Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom.

  • BAGINA

    F. Grenet

    reconstructed Old Iranian word for a temple housing a cult image; and BAGINAPATI, the master of such a temple. They have descendants in various Middle Iranian languages.

  • BAḠLĀN

    A. D. H. Bivar, D. Balland, X. de Planhol

    The temple excavated at this site appeared to be a fire-temple of dynastic character, dedicated for the rulers of the Kushan dynasty. It was founded perhaps early in the reign of Kanishka, and restored in the year 31 of a different era, probably of Kanishka I’s own enthronement.

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  • BAGLEY, FRANK RONALD CHARLES

    EIr.

    (1915-1997), British diplomat, translator, and professor of Persian and Arabic at Durham University and McGill University.

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  • BAGŌAS

    M. Dandamayev

    the chief eunuch and general under the Achaemenid Artaxerxes III, and kingmaker of his successors.

  • BAGRATIDS

    C. Toumanoff

    The partition of Armenia in 387 into an Iranian and a Roman vassal state, then the annexation of the Western kingdom by the Empire, and finally the abolition of the East Armenian Monarchy in 428 placed these princes in the necessity of choosing between the two rival imperial allegiances.

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  • BAHĀʾ-AL-DAWLA, ABŪ NAṢR FĪRŪZ

    cross-reference

    See BUYIDS.

  • BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN ʿĀMELĪ

    E. Kohlberg

    (1547-1621), SHAIKH MOḤAMMAD B. ḤOSAYN BAHĀʾĪ, Imami scholar and author, a prolific writer, in Imami circles regarded as one of the leading lights of his age.

  • BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN BAḠDĀDĪ

    Z. Safa

    (d. after 1289), MOḤAMMAD B. MOʾAYYAD, a master of the art of Persian letter-writing (tarassol).

  • BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN ḴARAQĪ

    D. Pingree

    (d. 1138-39), ABŪ BAKR MOḤAMMAD, author of a work was on astronomy, geography, and chronology.

  • BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD WALAD

    H. Algar

    B. ḤOSAYN B. AḤMAD ḴAṬĪB BALḴĪ (1151-1231), scholar, father of the great Sufi poet Mawlānā Jalāl-al-Dīn Rūmī.

  • BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN NAQŠBAND

    H. Algar

    (1318-91), ḴᵛĀJA MOḤAMMAD B. MOḤAMMAD BOḴĀRĪ, eponym of the Naqšbandīya, one of the most vigorous and widespread Sufi orders.

  • BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN SOLṬĀN WALAD

    M. I. Waley

    (1226-1312), MOḤAMMAD, Sufi shaikh and poet, son and eventual successor of Mawlānā Jalāl-al-Dīn Rūmī.

  • BAHĀʾ-ALLĀH

    Juan Cole

    (1817-92), MĪRZĀ ḤOSAYN-ʿALĪ NŪRĪ,  founder of the Bahai religion or Bahaism. 

  • BAHĀDOR

    C. Fleischer

    a Turco-Mongol honorific title, attached to a personal name, signifying “hero, valiant warrior.”

  • BAHĀDOR JANG, AMIR

    A. Gheissari

    ḤOSAYN PASHA KHAN, the head of the royal guards (kešīkčībāšī) and minister of court under Moẓaffar-al-Dīn Shah (r. 1896-1907).

  • BAHĀDOR KHAN

    cross-reference

    See ABŪ ḠĀZĪ.

  • BAHĀDOR SHAH I, II

    cross-reference

    See MUGHALS.

  • BAHĀʾI TABRIZI

    Tahsin Yazici

    (1874-1925), AḤMAD, Persian calligrapher and poet.

  • BAHAISM

    Multiple Authors

    or Bahai faith, a religion founded in the nineteenth century by Bahāʾ-Allāh that grew out of the Iranian messianic movement of Babism and developed into a world religion with internationalist and pacifist emphases.

  • BAHAISM ii. Bahai Calendar and Festivals

    A. Banani

    The Bahai year consists of 19 months of 19 days each, i.e., 361 days, with the addition of four intercalary days between the 18th and the 19th months in order to adjust the calendar to the solar year. The Bāb named the months after the attributes of God.

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  • BAHAISM iii. Bahai and Babi Schisms

    D. M. MacEoin

    Although it never developed much beyond the stage of a sectarian movement within Shiʿite Islam, Babism experienced a number of minor but interesting divisions, particularly in its early phase.

  • BAHAISM iv. The Bahai Communities

    P. Smith

    Bahai expansion beyond the Middle East and the Iranian diaspora only began after the passing of Bahāʾ-Allāh (1892) and the succession of his son, ʿAbd-al-Bahāʾ (1844-1921), as leader. In the 1890s, an active community developed in North America, Americans in turn establishing Bahai groups in England, France, Germany, Hawaii, and Japan.

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  • BAHAISM v. The Bahai Community in Iran

    V. Rafati

    With the Declaration of the Bāb in 1844, followed by his being accepted as the promised Qāʾem (the Hidden Imam) by a handful of early believers, the first Babi community was born in the city of Shiraz.

  • BAHAISM vi. The Bahai Community of Ashkhabad

    V. Rafati

    Attracted by religious freedom and economic opportunities unavailable to them in Iran, Iranian Bahais began to settle in Ashkhabad around 1884; the community prospered and reached its peak during the period 1917-28.

  • BAHAISM vii. Bahai Persecutions

    D. M. MacEoin

    Bahai persecutions were a pattern of continuing discriminatory measures against adherents and institutions of the Bahai religion, punctuated by outbreaks of both random and organized violence.

  • BAHAISM viii. Bahai Shrines

    J. Walbridge

    Of the Bahai sites of pilgrimage and visitation, the most important are the tombs of Bahāʾ-Allāh and the Bāb in Israel and the houses of the Bāb and Bahāʾ-Allāh in Shiraz and Baghdad.

  • 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.

  • BAHAISM i. The Faith

    J. Cole

    Bahaism as a religion had as its background two earlier and much different movements in nineteenth-century Shiʿite Shaikhism (following Shaikh Aḥmad Aḥsāʾī) and Babism.

  • BAHAISM xii. Bahai Literature

    D. M. MacEoin

    This article is concerned primarily with poetry and belles lettres rather than apologetic, didactic, historiographical, liturgical, or scriptural materials.

  • BAHAISM ix. Bahai Temples

    V. Rafati and F. Sahba

    Although the faith originated in Iran, no Bahai temple was ever built in that country, due to local antagonism. However,  since the time of Bahāʾ-Allāh, the Bahais of Iran have gathered in private Bahai homes to pray and to read the writings of the faith.

  • BAHAISM x. Bahai Schools

    V. Rafati

    The Bahai schools were a series of government-recognized educational institutions conducted on Bahai principles from 1897 until 1929 in Ashkhabad and until 1934 in Iran.

  • BAHAISM xi. Bahai Conventions

    M. Momen

    The first Bahai convention in the world was probably the meeting convened by the Chicago Spiritual Assembly on 26 November 1907 for the purpose of choosing a site for the House of Worship that was to be built.

  • BAHAISM xiii. Bahai Pioneers

    Moojan Momen

    “Pioneer” (in English) and mohājer (in Persian) are terms used in Bahai literature to designate those who leave their homes to settle in another locality with the intention of spreading the Bahai faith or supporting existing Bahai communities.

  • BAHĀʾĪYA ḴĀNOM

    M. Momen

    (1846-1932), eldest daughter of Bahāʾ-Allāh, considered by Bahais as the “outstanding heroine of the Bahai Dispensation.”

  • BAHĀR (1)

    Ḡ.-Ḥ. Yūsofī

    a Persian literary, scientific, political, and social-affairs monthly, 1910-11, 1921-22. Bahār represented a departure from traditional Persian journalism; readers found its willingness to discuss contemporary literature and literary criticism a refreshing change.

  • BAHĀR (2)

    Esmāʿil Jassim

    a newspaper founded by Shaikh Aḥmad Tehrāni (d. 1957), known as Aḥmad Bahār, in 1917, in Mašhad.

  • BAHĀR, MOḤAMMAD-TAQĪ

    M. B. Loraine, J. Matīnī

    poet, scholar, journalist, politician, and historian (1886-1951). i. Life and work. ii. Bahār as a poet.

  • BAHĀR-E KESRĀ

    M. G. Morony

    “The spring of Ḵosrow,” one of the names of a huge, late Sasanian royal carpet measuring 60 cubits (araš, ḏerāʿ) square (ca. 27 m x 27 m). It was divided among the conquering Muslims after Madāʾen was captured in 637.

  • BAHĀRESTĀN (1)

    G. M. Wickens

    (Spring garden, Abode of spring), an anecdotal and moralistic work of belles-lettres in prose (both plain and rhythmic-rhyming) and verse, by ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān Jāmī, composed in the poet’s old age, in 1487.

  • BAHĀRESTĀN (2)

    ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

    the name of a garden, public square, and complex of buildings in central Tehran.

  • BAHĀRESTĀN-E ḠAYBĪ

    I. H. Siddiqui

    a detailed history in Persian of Bengal and Orissa for the period 1608-24 composed by Mīrzā Nathan ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn Eṣfahānī.

  • BAHĀRI

    Mortażā Varzi

    (1905-1995), (ʿALI-) AṢḠAR, master of the kamānča (long-necked bowed lute).

  • BAHĀRLŪ

    P. Oberling

    a Turkic tribe of Azerbaijan, Khorasan, Kermān, and Fārs.  

  • BAHĀRVAND

    P. Oberling

    a Lur tribe now living mostly in the dehestāns (districts) of Kargāh and Bālā Garīva, south and southwest of Ḵorramābād.  

  • BAHDĪNĀN

    A. Hassanpour

    (Kurdish Bādīnān), name of a Kurdish region, river, dialect group, and amirate.  

  • BAḤĪRĪ FAMILY

    R. W. Bulliet

    a major Shafiʿite family of Nishapur in the eleventh century.  

  • BAHMAʾĪ

    P. Oberling

    a Lur tribe of the Kohgīlūya (Kūh[-e] Gīlūya).  

  • BAHMAN (1)

    J. Narten, Ph. Gignoux

    the New Persian name of the Avestan Vohu Manah (Good Thought) and Pahlavi Wahman.

  • BAHMAN (2) SON OF ESFANDĪĀR

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    son of ESFANDĪĀR, a Kayanian king of Iran in the national epic.  

  • BAHMAN (3)

    cross-reference

    author of Qeṣṣa-ye Sanjān.

  • BAHMAN (4)

    cross-reference

    “avalanche." See BARF.

  • BAHMAN JĀDŪYA

    M. Morony

    (or Jāḏōē), Sasanian general engaged in the defense of the Sawād of ʿErāq during the Muslim conquest in the 630s.  

  • 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.

  • BAHMAN MĪRZĀ BAHĀʾ-AL-DAWLA

    ʿA. Navāʾī

    37th son of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah, born 1811 of Golbadan Bājī, originally a (Georgian?) slave girl of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah’s mother Mahd-e ʿOlyā. His diary contains notes on Qajar history.

  • BAHMAN YAŠT

    W. Sundermann

    Middle Persian apocalyptical text preserved in  Pahlavi script, a Pāzand (i.e., Middle Persian in Avestan script) transliteration, and a garbled New Persian translation.