Table of Contents

  • BĀBORĪ

    D. Balland

    (or Bābor, Bābar; sing. Bāboray), a Paṧtūn tribe originally from the Solaymān mountains, now widely dispersed.

  • BABR

    P. Joslin

    “tiger.” The little evidence suggests only tentative differences between the Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) and the Indian tiger (P. t. tigris) or the Siberian tiger (P. t. altaica).

  • BABR-E BAYĀN

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    (or babr, also called palangīna), in the traditional history, the name of the coat which Rostam wore in combat.

  • BABYLON

    G. Cardascia

    The economic and cultural history of Babylon under the Persian Achaemenids rule matched the vicissitudes of its political life.

  • BABYLONIA

    Multiple Authors

    ancient state in southern Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq.

  • BABYLONIA i. History of Babylonia in the Median and Achaemenid periods

    M. A. Dandamayev

    The Medes, under their king Cyaxares, first seized the Assyrian province of Arrapha in 614 B.C. Then, in the autumn of the same year, and after a fierce battle, they gained control of Assyria’s ancient capital, Assur. Nabopolassar brought his Babylonian army and joined the Medes after Assur had fallen.

  • BABYLONIA ii. Babylonian Influences on Iran

    G. Gnoli

    In the Achaemenid period, the influence of Babylonia was strong in the fields of the arts, science, religion, and religious policies, even affecting the concept of kingship.

  • BABYLONIAN CHRONICLES

    M. Dandamayev

    as sources for Iranian history. In a number of cases Babylonian chronicles provide valuable information about the political history of Iran. They began with the reign of Nabu-nāṣir (747-734 BCE) and continued as far as the reign of Seleucus II (245-226 BCE).

  • BAČČA-YE SAQQĀ

    D. Balland

    “the water-carrier’s child,” the derogatory name given to the leader of a peasants’ revolt which succeeded in placing him on the throne of Afghanistan in 1929.

  • BACHER, WILHELM

    A. Netzer

    (1850-1913), Hungarian scholar of Persian and Judeo-Persian language and literature.

  • BACKGAMMON

    Cross-Reference

    See NARD.

  • BACTRA

    Cross-Reference

    See BACTRIA i; BALKH vi.

  • BACTRIA

    P. Leriche, F. Grenet

    Little information has been obtained from Achaemenid sites in Bactria. Bactra is deeply buried under the citadel (bālā-ḥeṣār) of present-day Balḵ. Drapsaca and Aornos, mentioned by the historians of Alexander, are usually identified with Kondūz and Tashkurgan, where excavations have yet to begin.

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  • BACTRIAN LANGUAGE

    N. Sims-Williams

    The Iranian language of ancient Bactria (northern Afghanistan) of the Kushan period is the only Middle Iranian language whose writing system is based on the Greek alphabet.

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  • BĀD (1)

    X. de Planhol

    “wind.” On the plateau of Iran and Afghanistan winds depend on a general regime of atmospheric pressures characterized, in the course of the year, by the succession of markedly distinct seasons with relatively stable barometric gradients.

  • BĀD (2)

    L. Richter-Bernburg

    (“wind”) in Perso-Islamic medicine: 1. wind as a medically relevant environmental factor; 2. “airiness” as internal physiological and pathological agent.

  • BADʾ WAʾL-TAʾRĪḴ

    M. Morony

    (The book of creation and history), an encyclopedic compilation of religious, historical, and philosophical knowledge written in Arabic by Abū Naṣr Moṭahhar b. al-Moṭahhar (or Ṭāher) Maqdesī in 966.

  • BĀDA

    J. W. Clinton

    one of several terms used in Persian poetry to mean wine, and, by extension, any intoxicating liquor.  

  • BADĀʾ

    W. Madelung

    (Ar. appearance, emergence), as a theological term denotes a change of a divine decision or ruling in response to the emergence of new circumstances.  It is upheld in Imami Shiʿite doctrine.

  • BADAḴŠĀN

    X. de Planhol, D. Balland, W. Eilers

    This highland has an extremely harsh climate. The annual rainfall, which can be as much as 800 to 1,500 mm on west-facing and northwest-facing massifs, falls to less than 200 mm on sheltered plateaus in the Pamir and less than 100 mm in the Oksu basin, with the result that these areas are highland deserts.

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  • BADAḴŠĀNI, Sayyed SOHRĀB WALI

    Farhad Daftary

    the most prominent Central Asian Nezāri Ismaʿili theologian and author of the early centuries after the fall of Alamut.

  • BADAḴŠĪ SAMARQANDĪ

    Z. Safa

    the poet laureate (malek-al-šoʿarāʾ) of the Timurid Mīrzā Uluḡ Beg (murdered 1449).

  • BADAḴŠĪ, MOLLĀ SHAH

    H. Algar

    (also known as Shah Moḥammad; 1584-1661), a mystic and writer of the Qāderī order, given both to the rigorous practice of asceticism and to the ecstatic proclamation of theopathic sentiment.

  • BADAL

    Cross-Reference

    See PAṦTŪNWĀLĪ.

  • BĀDĀM

    X. de Planhol, N. Ramazani

    “almond.”  i. General.  ii. As food.  The genus Amygdalus is very common in Iran and Afghanistan and throughout the Turco-Iranian area.

  • BĀDĀN B. SĀSĀN

    Cross-Reference

    See ABNĀʾ.

  • BĀDĀN PĪRŪZ

    Cross-Reference

    See ARDABĪL.

  • BADAŠT

    M. Momen

    small village of about 1,000 inhabitants, site of a conference  convened on the instructions of the Bāb in 1848.

  • BADĀʾŪNĪ, ʿABD-AL-QĀDER

    A. S. Bazmee Ansari

    (1540-ca. 1615), polyglot man of letters, historian, and translator of Arabic and Sanskrit works into Persian during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar.

  • BĀDĀVARD

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    (windfall), the name of one of the seven treasures of Ḵosrow Parvēz in the Šāh-nāma.

  • BADĀYEʿ

    Cross-Reference

    collection of ḡazals by Saʿdī. See SAʿDĪ.

  • BADĀYEʿNEGĀR, ĀQĀ MOḤAMMAD-EBRĀHĪM

    Cross-Reference

    See NAWWĀB-E TEHRĀNĪ.

  • BAḎḎ

    Ḡ. -Ḥ. Yūsofī

    or BAḎḎAYN (perhaps two places), a mountainous region (kūra) in Azerbaijan, site of the castle  headquarters of Bābak Ḵorramī during his revolt against the ʿAbbasid caliphate (816-37).

  • BĀDENJĀN

    F. Aubaile-Sallenave, ʿE. Elāhī

    “eggplant, aubergine.” Solanum melogena L. of the Solanaceae family. i. The plant.  ii. Uses of cooking.

  • BĀDGĪR

    S. Roaf

    (wind-tower), literally “wind catcher,” a traditional structure used for passive air-conditioning of buildings. Yazd is known as šahr-e bādgīrhā (the city of wind catchers) and is renowned for the number and variety of them, some of which date from the Timurid period.

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  • BĀḎḠĪS

    C. E. Bosworth, D. Balland

    During the first century of Islam, Bāḏḡīs passed into Arab hands, together with Herat and Pūšang, around 652-53, under the caliph ʿOṯmān, for already in that year there is mentioned a rebellion against the Arabs by an Iranian noble Qāren, followed by further unrest in these regions in 661-62.

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  • BĀDHĀ ḴABAR AZ TAḠYIR-e FAṢL MIDĀDAND

    Soheila Saremi

    (The winds presaged the changing of season), novel by the fiction writer and literary critic, Jamal Mirsadeqi. Set in the 1960s in Tehran, it revolves around the novel’s narrator and his friends and neighbors, of poverty-stricken families.

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  • BADĪʿ (1)

    J. T. P. de Bruijn

    rhetorical embellishment. During the early Islamic period the word developed into a technical term through its use in discussions about Arabic poetry and ornate prose.

  • BADĪʿ (2)

    D. M. MacEoin

    designation of the calendar system of Babism and Bahaism, originally introduced by the Bāb.

  • BADĪʿ BALḴĪ

    Z. Safa

    Persian poet of the 10th century.

  • BADĪʿ KĀTEB JOVAYNĪ, MOḤAMMAD

    Cross-Reference

    See KĀTEB JOVAYNĪ.

  • BADĪʿ, ĀQĀ BOZORG

    M. Momen

    (d. 1869), a young Bahai martyr who has gained a certain distinction in Bahai lore.

  • BADĪʿ-AL-ZAMĀN

    M. E. Subtelny

    (d. ca. 1514), Timurid prince, who rebelled against his father,  Sultan Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (r. Herat 1469-1506).

  • BADĪʿ-AL-ZAMĀN HAMADĀNĪ

    F. Malti-Douglas

    (968-1008), Arabic belle-lettrist and inventor of the maqāma genre. His maqāmāt are a set of adventures narrated in rhymed prose and poetry, revolving around a rogue hero and a narrator.

  • BADĪʿ-AL-ZAMĀN MĪRZĀ

    R. D. McChesney

    by most accounts the last of the Chaghatay/Timurid rulers of Badaḵšān (d. ca. 1603). 

  • BADĪʿ-AL-ZAMĀN NAṬANZĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ADĪB NAṬANZĪ.

  • BADĪHA-SARĀʾĪ

    F. R. C. Bagley

    composition and utterance of something improvised (badīh), usually in verse. Among the Arabs, poetic improvisation was practiced and admired from pre-Islamic times. Among the Iranians, it has been a mark of poetical talent and skill.

  • BADĪLĪ, AḤMAD

    H. Algar

    SHAIKH, a Sufi shaikh in 12th-century Sabzavār, renowned for his mastery of the exoteric as well as the esoteric science. 

  • BĀDKŪBA

    Cross-Reference

    See BAKU.

  • BĀDPĀYĀN

    Cross-Reference

    See ARTHROPODS.