Table of Contents

  • BALUCHISTAN i. Geography, History and Ethnography

    Brian Spooner

    Baluchistan is generally understood by the Baluch and their neighbors to comprise an area of over half a million square kilometers in the southeastern part of the Iranian plateau, south of the central deserts and the Helmand river.

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  • BALUCHISTAN i. Geography, History and Ethnography (cont.)

    Brian Spooner

    appears to have been divided throughout history between Iranian (highland) and Indian (lowland) spheres of influence, and since 1870 it has been formally divided among Afghanistan, Iran, and India (later Pakistan). Parts 8-11.

  • BALUCHISTAN ii. Archeology

    J. G. Shaffer

    may have been inhabited first during the Pleistocene as proposed by Hume (1976), based on Paleolithic sites found in the Ladiz valley.

  • BALUCHISTAN iii. Baluchi Language and Literature

    J. Elfenbein

    Baluchi is the principal language of an area extending from the Marv (Mary) oasis in Soviet Turkmenistan southward to the Persian Gulf, from Persian Sīstān eastward along the Helmand valley in Afghanistan, throughout Pakistani Makrān eastward nearly to the Indus river, including in the south the city of Karachi.

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  • BALUCHISTAN iiia. Baluchi Poetry

    Joseph Elfenbein

    divided into 4 periods: (1) classical, from ca. 1550-1700; (2) post-classical, from 1700-1800; (3) 19th century to early 20th century; (4) modern, after ca. 1930.

  • BALUCHISTAN iv. Music of Baluchistan

    M. T. Massoudieh

    usually connected with particular ceremonies (marāsem), religious rites, festivals, or holidays. The relationships between melodies and particular ceremonies are reflected in their names.

  • BALUCHISTAN v. Baluch Carpets

    S. Azadi

    a distinct group of carpets, woven by Baluch tribes in the northeastern Iranian province of Khorasan and the Sīstān area. These were not made in Makrān, where the main body of the Baluch tribes live.

  • BALŪHAR O BŪDĀSAF

    cross-reference

    See BARLAAM AND IOSAPH.

  • BALŪṬ

    H. Aʿlam

    common designation in New Persian both for acorn and oak, Quercus L. In west and southwest Iran, where well-defined stands of oak exist, their total surface area has been estimated at 3,448,000 hectares, divided into two main areas: west Kurdistan and the Sardašt region, and on the southwestern slopes of the Zagros.

  • BALYĀNI, AMIN-AL-DIN

    Denise Aigle

    (d. 1345), a famous Sufi who lived at the time of the Inju dynasty in Fars. The principle source for his life is Meftāḥ al-hedāyat va meṣbāḥ al-ʿenāyat, written in 1346 by his disciple Maḥmud b. ʿOṯmān.

  • BALYSA-

    H. W. Bailey

    (Khotan Saka), bārza- (Tumšuq Saka), a word adapted to Buddhist use for the transcendental Buddha, translating Buddhist Sanskrit buddha- and also several epithets of the Buddha.

  • BĀLYŪZĪ, ḤASAN MOWAQQAR

    M. Momen

    (1908-1980), Bahai author and administrator.

  • BAM (1)

    W. Eilers

    (also written bām) “bass,” the lowest-pitched string in music. The etymology is discussed.

  • BAM (2)

    X. De Planhol, M.-E Bāstānī Pārīzī

    (in Arabic, Bamm), a town in southeastern Iran, located on the southwestern rim of the Dašt-e Lūt basin at an altitude of 1,100 m. i. History and modern town. ii. Ruins of the old town.

  • BAM EARTHQUAKE

    Manuel Berberian

    OF DECEMBER 26, 2003  A moderate-magnitude (Mw 6.6) earthquake struck the city of Bam and its surroundings at 05:26 AM local time (01:56 GMT) on Friday, 5 Dey 1382 Š./26 December 2003, resulting in the highest casualty rate and the most profound social impact in the recorded post-1900 history of devastating urban earthquakes in Iran.

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  • BĀMBIŠN

    cross-reference

    See BĀNBIŠN.

  • BĀMDĀD

    N. Parvīn

    a weekly Persian newspaper published in Tehran, 1907.

  • BĀMDĀD, MAHDĪ

    ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

    (d. 1973), civil servant, author of the multi-volume dictionary of national biography of Iran.

  • BĀMDĀD-E ḴOMĀR

    Ali Ferdowsi

    The book’s title is taken from a famous line by Saʿdi: Šab-e šarāb nayarzad be bāmdād-e ḵomār (The night of inebriation is not worth the morning of hangover). Encased by a frame story within which the main story is narrated, Bāmdād-e ḵomār, a love story with a moral lesson, is set in Tehran in the 20th century.

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  • BĀMDĀD-E ROWŠAN

    N. Parvīn

    a Persian journal of news and political comment published in Tehran, 1915-24.

  • BĀMĪA

    H. Aʿlam, N. Ramazani

    (or bāmīā), okra, the edible unripe seed-pods of Hibiscus esculentus of the Malvaceae or mallows. i. The plant. ii. In cooking. iii. The sweet.  It was introduced into the culinary art of Persians by Arabs from Baghdad in the 19th century.

  • BĀMĪĀN

    Multiple Authors

    town and province in central Afghanistan. Bāmīān’s position midway between Balḵ and Peshawar at the approach to the most difficult passes and the resultant opportunities to purvey provisions and accommodation for caravans explain why it became a particularly important stopping place.

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  • BAMPŪR

    B. de Cardi, ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

    i. Prehistoric Site. ii. In Modern Times. Bampūr is a baḵš and qaṣaba (borough) in the šahrestān of Īrānšahr in the province of Balūčestān o Sīstān. The plain of Bampūr is encircled by several high mountains.

  • BAMPUR ia. PREHISTORIC SITE (Continued)

    Daniel T. Potts

    Since Beatrice de Cardi’s excavations in 1966 (de Cardi, 1968; idem, 1970) no new work has taken place there. Nevertheless, objects recovered at Bampur in the 1960s can now be better dated and understood, thanks to discoveries in recent years at sites in Central Asia, the Indo-Iranian borderlands, and southeastern Arabia..

  • BĀMŠĀD

    A. Tafażżolī

    named as a musician at the court of the Sasanian king Ḵosrow II Parvēz (r. 591-628).

  • BĀMŠĀD newspaper

    N. Parvīn

    a Persian newspaper and a news and public affairs magazine published in Tehran, 1956-68.

  • BAN-e SORMA

    L. Vanden Berghe

    a necropolis of the Early Bronze Age, excavated in 1967 by the Belgian Mission in Iran. By analogy with the funeral furnishings from the Old Elamite period at Susa IV, the  tombs must be situated in the Early Dynastic III period, about 2600-2400 B.C. 

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  • BĀNA

    ʿA. Mardūḵ

    a šahrestān in the province of Kurdistan, located in a mountainous, well-forested region of western Iran (lat 35°59′ N,  long 45°53′ E).

  • BANAFŠA

    H. Aʿlam

    “violet,” common name for the genus Viola L. in New Persian. From certain botanical features of violas there have developed some violet-based similes and metaphors in classical Persian literature.

  • BANĀʾĪ HERAVĪ

    Z. Safa

    (1453-1512), KAMĀL-AL-DĪN ŠĪR-ʿALĪ, noted poet at various courts of Persia and Transoxania.

  • BANĀKAṮ

    C. E. Bosworth

    or BENĀKAṮ, the main town of the medieval Transoxanian province of Šāš or Čāč; it almost certainly had a pre-Islamic history as a center of the Sogdians.

  • BANĀKATĪ, Abū Solaymān

    P. Jackson

    Dāwūd b. Abi’l-Fażl Moḥammad (d. 1329-30), poet and historian.

  • BANĀN, ḠOLĀM-ḤOSAYN

    M. Caton

    (1911-1986), one of the foremost Persian singers of the 20th century, known for the quality of his voice and vast knowledge of āvāz repertory.  

  • BĀNBIŠN

    W. Sundermann

    Middle Persian “queen”: etymology and occurrences in Middle Iranian.

  • BAND “DAM”

    X. De Planhol

    “dam, ” something that factually or figuratively binds, ties, or restricts (cf. Av. banda- “bond,” Eng. bond). In geographical nomenclature it is applied to ranges (mainly in Afghanistan),  passes (darband), and old dams and barrages built to store or divert water.

  • BAND-E AMĪR (1)

    J. Lerner

    (the amir’s dike) or Band-e ʿAżodī (for the Daylamite ruler ʿAżod-al-Dawla, r. 949-83), a dam or weir constructed across the Kor river at the southeast end of the Marvdašt plain in Fārs.

  • BAND-E AMĪR (2)

    X. De Planhol

    the chain of natural lakes 90 km west of Bāmīān in Afghanistan (lat 30°12’ N, long 66°30’ E).

  • BAND-E BAHMAN

    K. Afsar

    an ancient dam built on the Qara Āḡāj river nearly sixty km south of Shiraz, attributed to the legendary king Bahman son of Esfandīār.

  • BAND-E TORKESTĀN

    X. De Planhol

    (boundary wall of Turkestan), the mountain range in northwestern Afghanistan which runs in a west-east direction for 200 km between the upper valley of the Morḡāb to the south and the plains of the Āmū Daryā to the north.

  • BANDA

    W. Eilers, C. Herrenschmidt

    “servant.” i. The term. ii. Old Persian bandaka. Banda (NPers.) and its precursors bandak/bandag (Mid. Pers.) and bandaka (OPers.) meant “henchman, (loyal) servant, vassal,” but not “slave.”

  • BANDAR

    W. Eilers

    “harbor, seaport; commercial town.” The concept of bandar probably continues an old Oriental tradition. Its double meaning of “harbor” on a river or a sea and “town, center of commerce and communications” (also in the inland) agrees well with that of Akkadian kārum.

  • BANDAR ABBAS ii. Basic Population Data, 1956-2011

    Mohammad Hossein Nejatian

    Bandar Abba has experienced a very high rate of population growth, increasing more than twenty five-fold from a population of 17,710 in 1956 to 435,751 in 2011.

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  • BANDAR-E ʿABBAS(I) i. The City

    X. De Planhol

    At the entrance to the Persian Gulf, Bandar-e ʿAbbās extends about 2 km along the shallow Clarence (ūrān) strait between Qešm island and the mainland.

  • BANDAR-E ʿABBAS(I)

    Multiple Authors

    a port city and capital of Hormozgan province on the Persian Gulf.

  • BANDAR-E GAZ

    X. De Planhol

    a port on the southern shore of Astarābād Bay in the southeastern Caspian Sea, a few kilometers from a group of nine hamlets known collectively as Gaz. The installation of Russians on the Āšūrāda islands after 1837 made it very important strategically.

  • BANDAR-E LENGA

    D. T. Potts

    (lat 26° 33’ N, long 54° 53’ E), a small port on the coast of Lārestān.

  • BANDAR-E MĀHŠAHR

    X. De Planhol

    (Bandar-e Maʿšūr), a port at the western end of the Persian Gulf, on the northern bank of the Ḵor-e Mūsā tideway, which forms the lower course of the Jar(r)āḥī river.

  • BANDAR-E PAHLAVĪ

    cross-reference

    See ANZALĪ.

  • BANDAR-E ŠĀH

    X. De Planhol

    (now Bandar-e Torkaman), a port on the southeastern Caspian Sea at the entrance of Astarābād Bay and about eight km south of the mouth of the Atrak. It was constructed from scratch during the 1930s at the terminus of the trans-Iranian railroad.

  • BANDAR-E ŠĀHPŪR

    X. De Planhol

    (Bandar-e Emām Ḵomeynī since the revolution of 1979), a port at the terminus of the trans-Iranian railroad, about 70 km from the Gulf along the northern shore of the Ḵor Mūsā, the outlet of the Jarāḥī river, which flows down from the Zagros mountains.

  • BANDARI

    Mikhail Pelevin

    the dialect spoken by the native population of Bandar ʿAbbās, administrative center of the Hormozgān province, and of its environs. Bandari belongs to the southwestern group of the Iranian languages. It is tightly encircled by a number of other, less known dialects located between Lārestān and Bašākerd.

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  • BANG

    G. Gnoli, ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

    a kind of narcotic plant. In older Arabic and Persian sources banj is applied to three different plants: hemp (Cannabis sativa or indica), henbane (Hyoseyamus niger, etc.), and jimsonweed (Datura stramonium). i. In ancient Iran.  ii. In modern Iran.

  • BANG KAUP, JOHANN WILHELM MAX JULIUS

    P. Zieme

    (known as Willy), German orientalist (1869-1934). From 1893 onward Bang Kaup also devoted time to research in the promising area of the Old Turkish stone inscriptions.

  • BANGĀLA

    Cross-Reference

    See BENGAL.

  • BANGAṦ

    D. Balland

    one of the least-known Pashtun tribes in the Solaymān range, Pakistan, and one of the few that are not named after eponymous ancestors.  

  • BANĪ ARDALĀN

    P. Oberling

    a Kurdish tribe of northwestern Iran, now dispersed in Sanandaj (Senna) and surrounding villages.

  • BANĪ ḤARDĀN

    J. Perry

    a Shiʿite Arab tribe of Howayza (Ḥawīza) district in Ḵūzestān.

  • BANĪ LĀM

    J. Perry

    a numerous and historically important Shiʿite Arab tribe of northwestern Ḵūzestān, southern Lorestān, and adjacent parts of Iraq.

  • BANĪ SĀLA

    J. Perry

    a Shiʿite Arab tribe of Howayza (Ḥawīza) district in Ḵūzestān.

  • BANĪ TAMĪM

    J. Perry

    an Arab tribe of western Ḵūzestān, both settled and nomadic, raising sheep and camels. Their range lies between Howayza and Ahvāz.

  • BANĪ ṬOROF

    J. Perry

    (Banu Turuf), a large Shiʿite Arab tribe of Howayza (Ḥawīza) district in Ḵūzestān, mostly sedentary, centered north of Howayza between Sūsangerd and Bostān (Besaytīn).

  • BANISTER, Thomas

    Parvin Loloi

    (d. Arrash, 20 July 1571), British merchant and traveler to Persia who commanded the fifth voyage from Britain to Persia via Russia for the purpose of establishing trade. 

  • BĀNK-E MARKAZĪ-E ĪRĀN

    M. Yeganeh

    (Central Bank of Iran), a bank established under the Iranian Banking and Monetary Act of 28 May 1960 to undertake the central banking activities in the country. The functions and powers of Bānk-e Markazī were revised following the Islamic Revolution of February, 1979, which led to the nationalization of private banking.

  • BANKING

    P. Basseer, P. Clawson and W. Floor

    The first modern bank in Iran was the British-owned New Oriental Bank, which in 1888 opened in Tehran, Mašhad, Tabrīz, Rašt, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Būšehr. The New Oriental Bank was shortly replaced by another British-owned bank, the Imperial Bank of Persia.

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  • BANNĀʾĪ

    C. Bromberger

    While the term bannāʾī covers the entire construction field, in this brief study domestic building techniques, in particular, which are more or less part of the traditional crafts, and the recent evolution of popular housing will be emphasized.

  • BANNERS

    A. S. Melikian-Chirvani

    (ʿalam, derafš). Countless references in epic literature as well as in chronicles show that, in the clouds of dust that enveloped troops as they fought in sandy land, the glitter of the banner was the only way that warriors had of following the moves of their commanders or of identifying the enemy.

  • BĀNŪ

    W. Eilers

    originally “lady,” now also in common use as an alternative to ḵānom “Madam, Mrs.” (from Turkish xan-ım “my lord”).

  • BANŪ ʿABBĀS

    Cross-Reference

    See ABBASID CALIPHATE.

  • BANŪ AMĀJŪR

    D. Pingree

    (or MĀJŪR), ABU’L-QĀSEM ʿABD-ALLĀH  and his son Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī, 10th-century astronomers.

  • BANŪ ʿANNĀZ

    cross-reference

    See ʿANNAZIDS.

  • BANŪ LAḴM

    Cross-Reference

    See ḤIRA.

  • BANŪ MĀJŪR

    cross-reference

    See BANŪ AMĀJŪR.

  • BANŪ MONAJJEM

    D. Pingree

    a family of intellectuals, closely connected to the caliphs of the 9th-10th centuries and claiming descent from an ancient Iranian lineage.

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  • BANŪ MŪSĀ

    D. Pingree

    name applied to three brothers, 9th-century ʿAbbasid astronomers and engineers.

  • BANŪ OMAYYA

    cross-reference

    See OMMAYADS.

  • BĀNŪ PĀRS

    M. Boyce

    “Lady of Pārs,” the name of a Zoroastrian shrine in the mountains at the northern end of the Yazd plain.

  • BANŪ SĀJ

    W. Madelung

    a family named after its ancestor Abu’l-Sāj which served the ʿAbbasid caliphate (9th-10th centuries).

  • BANŪ SĀSĀN

    C. E. Bosworth

    a name frequently applied in medieval Islam to beggars, rogues, charlatans, and tricksters of all kinds, allegedly so called because they stemmed from a legendary Shaikh Sāsān.

  • BAQĀʾ WA FANĀʾ

    G. Böwering

    Sufi term signifying “subsistence and passing away,” that is, passing away from worldly reality and being made subsistent in divine reality.

  • BĀQELĀ

    H. Aʿlam

    broad beans, the grains of Vicia faba L. In Iran, this crop is grown rather extensively in the Caspian provinces and, to a lesser extent, in the south and southwest.

  • BĀQER KHAN SĀLĀR-E MELLI

    A. Amanat

    one of the popular heroes of the Constitutional Revolution during the defense of Tabrīz in the period of the Lesser Autocracy (June, 1908-July, 1909).

  • BĀQER, ABŪ JAʿFAR MOḤAMMAD

    W. Madelung

    The fifth imam of the Twelver Shiʿites (7th-8th century).

  • BĀQĪBELLĀH NAQŠBANDĪ

    J. G. J. Ter Haar

    (d. 1603), ḴᵛĀJA ABU’L-MOʾAYYAD RAŻĪ-AL-DĪN OWAYSĪ; As a Naqšbandi, he represents the sober type of Sufi, adhering to the Islamic law (šarīʿa) and averse to ecstatic mystical experiences.

  • BĀQLAVĀ

    W. Eilers, N. Ramazani

    i. The word. ii. The sweet. Bāqlavā is a sweet pastry known throughout the Middle East, in Iran commonly made with almonds (bādām), less frequently with pistachios (pesta).

  • BAQLĪ, RŪZBEHĀN

    cross-reference

    SHAIKH. See RŪZBEHĀN.

  • BAQQĀL-BĀZĪ

    F. Gaffary

    (lit. grocer play), a form of improvised, popular slapstick comedy; it is distinguished among the various forms of popular comedy in Iran by its own set of rules.

  • BĀR

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh, Ḥ. Farhūdī

    “audience.” The royal audience was one of the most important and enduring of the court ceremonies practiced in Iran.  i. From the Achaemenid through the Safavid period.  ii. The Qajar and Pahlavi periods.

  • BAR HEBRAEUS

    Cross-Reference

    (b. Malaṭīa, 1225; d. Marāḡa, 1286), Syriac historian and polymath. See EBN AL-ʿEBRĪ, ABU’L-FARAJ.

  • BAR KŌNAY, THEODORE

    J. P. Asmussen

    8th-9th-century Nestorian teacher and writer from Kaškar in Mesopotamia. His The Book of Scholiais notable for its sections on Zarathustra and Mani.

  • BAR-E MEHR

    cross-reference

    a fire temple in Yazd. See DAR-E MEHR.

  • BARĀDŪST

    A. Hassanpour

    name of a Kurdish tribe, region, mountain range, river, and amirate. The tribespeople, mostly settled now, are Shafeʿite Sunnis and speak the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish mixed with the neighboring Sorani dialects.

  • BARAḠĀNĪ, MOḤAMMAD-TAQĪ

    D. M. MacEoin

    QAZVĪNĪ, ŠAHĪD-E ṮĀLEṮ, MOLLĀ, an important Shiʿite ʿālem of Qazvīn (d. 1847).

  • BARAK

    T. Bīneš

    a kind of firm and durable woven cloth used for coats, overcoats (labbāda), shawls (in Afghanistan), čūḵas (surcoats for shepherds) and leggings.

  • BARAKĪ BARAK

    C. M. Kieffer

    locality in the province of Lōgar, Afghanistan,  the abode of the country’s last Ōrmuṛī speakers.

  • BĀRAKZAY DYNASTY

    cross-reference

    See AFGHANISTAN x. Political History ; and DORRĀNĪ.

  • BĀRAKZĪ

    D. Balland

    (singular Bārakzay), an ethnic name common among the Pashtun of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Baluch of southeastern Iran. The oldest settlement area is between Herat and the approaches to the Helmand valley.

  • BARĀMEKA

    Cross-Reference

    See BARMAKIDS.

  • BĀRĀN

    D. Balland

    It is interesting to note that in modern Iranian languages violent and dangerous rainfall events are often designated by borrowings from Arabic (ṭūfān for typhoon, barq for lightning, raʿd for thunder, sayl for sudden deluge), whereas for phenomena considered beneficial a terminology of Iranian origin has been preserved.

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  • BARANĪ, ŻĪĀʾ-AL-DĪN

    P. Hardy

    Indian-born Muslim historian who wrote in the period of the Delhi sultanate (ca. 1285-1357).

  • BARĀQ BĀBĀ

    H. Algar

    (b. 1257-58, d. 1307-08), a crypto-shamanic Anatolian Turkman dervish close to two of the Mongol rulers of Iran.