Table of Contents

• BĀJALĀN

  P. Oberling

  a Kurdish tribe in the dehestāns of Qūratū, Ḏohāb and Jagarlū in the šahrestān of Qaṣr-e Šīrīn, on the Iraqi border.

• BĀJARVĀN

  C. E. Bosworth

  a town in the medieval Islamic province of Mūḡān, the area southwest of the Caspian Sea and south of the Kor (Kura) and Aras (Araxes) rivers.

• BĀḴARZ

  C. E. Bosworth

  or Govāḵarz, a district of the medieval Islamic province of Qūhestān/Qohestān in Khorasan.

• BĀḴARZĪ, ABU’L-QĀSEM ʿALĪ

  Z. Safa

  Iranian littérateur of the 11th century who composed poems in both Persian and Arabic, notable in the art of letter-writing (tarassol).

• BAKHSHIEV MISHI

  M. Zand

  (1910-1972), Judeo-Tat author.

• BAḴŠĪ

  P. Jackson

  a Buddhist lama or scholar, in particular during Mongol hegemony in Iran; subsequently, by extension, any kind of scribe or secretary.

• BAḴT

  W. Eilers, S. Shaked

  “fate, destiny,” often with the positive sense of “good luck” (ḵᵛošbaḵtī).  i. The term.  ii. The concept.

• BAḴTAGĀN LAKE

  E. Ehlers

  part of the Lake Nīrīz basin situated about 1,525 m above sea level in the province of Fārs, approximately 50 km east of Shiraz.  At present, it is common to divide the basin of the Nīrīz into a northern portion (daryāča-ye Ṭašk) and a larger southern part (daryāča-ye Baḵtagān).

• BAḴTAK

  F. Gaffary

  a folkloric she-creature of horrible shape, personifying a nightmare. Baḵtak resembles the Āl, another “female devil” of Iranian folklore.

• BĀḴTAR (1)

  A. Tafażżolī

  designation of the geographical “west” in Modern Persian, but its Pahlavi equivalent abāxtar means “north,” probably borrowed from Parthian.

• BĀḴTAR (2)

  N. Parvīn

  name of an educational magazine (Isfahan, 1933-35) and a political newspaper (Isfahan and Tehran, 1935-45).

• BĀḴTAR-E EMRŪZ

  ʿA. M. Š. Fāṭemī

  (Today’s West), daily evening newspaper published in Tehran, 1949-53. The editor-publisher Ḥosayn Fāṭemī (1917-1954) was one of the principal associates of Dr. Moḥammad Moṣaddeq in the National Front (Jebha-ye Mellī).

• BAḴTĀVAR KHAN, MOḤAMMAD

  S. S. Alvi

  (1620?-85), historian and official at the court of the Mughal emperor Awrangzēb (r. 1658-1707) and a patron of literature.

• BAḴTĪĀR, ABŪ ḤARB

  M. Dabīrsīāqī

  B. MOḤAMMAD, the patron of the poet Manūčehrī (d. 1040-41) who praised his bravery, nobility, magnanimity, learning, and eloquence.

• BAḴTĪĀR, TEYMŪR

  S. Zabih

  (1914-1970), Iranian general. His meteoric rise to power began after the fall of Moṣaddeq in August, 1953, when he was called to Tehran, promoted to brigadier general, and put in charge of Tehran’s military governorship.

• BAḴTĪĀR-NĀMA

  W. L. Hanaway, Jr.

  an example of early New Persian prose fiction in the form of a frame story and nine included tales, the earliest version of which seems to be from the late 12th-early 13th centuries.

• BAḴTĪĀRĪ (1)

  ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī, J.-P. Digard, ʿA.-Ḥ. Navāʾī

  the nesba of a number of Baḵtīārī chiefs in the 18th-20th centuries.

• BAḴTĪĀRĪ (2)

  cross-reference

  in music, a gūša. See HOMĀYŪN.

• BAḴTĪĀRĪ MOUNTAINS

  E. Ehlers

  The impressive basin-range-structure of the Baḵtīārī mountains, a result of the geological development of the Zagros system since late Cretaceous time and culminating in the orogenesis of Tertiary upfolding, is accentuated by the complicated and unique drainage system, which itself is the result of geology and topography.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BAḴTĪĀRĪ TRIBE

  J.-P. Digard, G. L. Windfuhr, A. Ittig

  The traditional Baḵtīārī way of life is typical of the long-distance nomadism which evolved in the Zagros highlands from the thirteenth century onward, at first under the impact of the Mongol invasions, in a defensive reaction against increasing fiscal and administrative pressures experienced under successive Iranian régimes.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BAḴTĪĀRĪS of AFGHANISTAN

  D. Balland

  two small Paṧtō-speaking groups in the eastern part of the Irano-Afghan area bearing the name Baḵtīārī or Baḵtīār.

• BAKTOḠDĪ

  cross-reference

  See BEKTOḠDĪ.

• BAKU

  S. Soucek, R. G. Suny

  (Pers. Bādkūba), capital city of the Republic of Azerbaijan and one of the chief ports on the Caspian sea.

• BAKWĀ, DAŠT-E

  D. Balland

  an extensive piedmont alluvial plain in the southwest of Afghanistan, drained by one of the Sīstān rivers, the Ḵospāsrūd. In past times it enjoyed a measure of prosperity based on qanāt irrigation.

• BĀLĀBĀN

  Ch. Albright

  a cylindrical-bore, double-reed wind instrument about 35 cm long with seven finger holes and one thumb hole, played in eastern Azerbaijan in Iran and in the Republic of Azerbaijan.

• BALADĪYA

  N. Parvīn

  (Municipality), the name or part of the name of several newspapers and journals published in Iran and Afghanistan ca. 1907-39.

• BALĀḎORĪ

  C. E. Bosworth

  ABU’L-ḤASAN or ABŪ BAKR AḤMAD B. YAḤYĀ B. JĀBER, leading Arab historian of the 9th century, whose Ketāb fotūḥ al-boldān, in particular, contains much original information on the Arab conquests of Iran.

• BALĀḠAT

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  (Ar. balāḡa), one of the most general terms to denote eloquence in speech and writing. The branches of literary criticism which developed within Muslim civilization became known collectively as the science (ʿelm) or art (ṣenāʿa) of balāḡat.

• BALĀḠĪ, MOḤAMMAD-JAWĀD

  E. Kohlberg

  B. ḤASAN B. ṬĀLEB B. ʿABBĀS RABAʿĪ NAJAFĪ (d. 1933), Imami author, poet, and polemicist.

• BALʿAMĪ, ABŪ ʿALĪ MOḤAMMAD

  cross-reference

  B. MOḤAMMAD. See AMĪRAK BALʿAMĪ.

• BALʿAMĪ, ABU’L-FAŻL MOḤAMMAD

  C. E. Bosworth

  B. ʿOBAYD-ALLĀH B. MOḤAMMAD BALʿAMĪ TAMĪMĪ, vizier to the Samanid amir Naṣr b. Aḥmad (r. 913-42), father of the vizier and historian Amirak Baḷʿamī.

• BĀLANG

  W. Eilers

  citron, the fruit of a species of citrus tree (Citrus medica cedrata). This article discusses the history of the word.

• BALĀŠ

  M. L. Chaumont, K. Schippmann

  the name of a number of kings and several dignitaries and notables during the Parthian and Sasanian periods. The Parthian form of the name, the oldest, is Walagaš. In Middle Persian it is Wardāxš, in Pahlavi Walāxš.

• BALĀSAGĀN

  M. L. Chaumont, C. E. Bosworth

   “country of the Balās,” designating a region located for the most part south of the lower course of the rivers Kor (Kura) and the Aras (Araxes), bordered on the south by Atropatene and on the east by the Caspian Sea.  i. In pre-Islamic times.  ii. In Islamic times.

• BALĀSĀḠŪN

  C. E. Bosworth

  a town of Central Asia, in early Islamic times the main settlement of the region known as Yeti-su or Semirechye “the land of the seven rivers,” now mainly within the eastern part of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

• BALĀSĀNĪ, MAJD-AL-MOLK ABU’L-FAŻL ASʿAD

  C. E. Bosworth

  B. MOḤAMMAD QOMĪ (d. 1099), mostawfī or financial intendant to the Saljuq sultan Berk-yaruq (Barkīāroq) b. Malekšāh and then vizier.

• BĀLĀSARĪ

  D. M. MacEoin

  term used by the Shaikhis to distinguish ordinary Shiʿites from members of their own sect. The history of conflicts between the Shaikhi and Shiʿite communities is reviewed.

• BĀLAVĪ

  cross-reference

  See BĀLAWĪ FAMILY.

• BALAWASTE

  G. Gropp

  a ruin site in the eastern part of the Khotan oasis, near the village of Domoko. Fragments of manuscripts, pottery, and plaster were found at this site by Sir Mark Aurel Stein on his first and second expeditions in 1900.

• BĀLAWĪ FAMILY

  R. W. Bulliet

  prominent scholars in Nīšāpūr in the 10th-11th centuries.

• BĀLAYBALAN LANGUAGE

  C. G. Häberl

  an a priori constructed language combining elements of the grammar of Arabic, Persian, and Turkish, and known principally from a single text, a dictionary.

• BALDARČĪN

  cross-reference

  See BELDERČĪN.

• BĀLEḠ

  S. H. Amin

  Ar. “of full age, adult, mature,” in contrast to the term ṣaḡīr (minor): coming of age in Islamic law.

• BALḴ

  X. de Planhol, C. E. Bosworth, V. Fourniau, D. Balland, F. Grenet

  Within this area and on the irrigated alluvial fan, at a distance of about 12 km from the mountains, the city was built on a site (the Bālā Ḥeṣār of today) which was probably coextensive with a slight rise in the plain and perhaps adjacent to an old arm of the river.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BALḴĀB

  D. Balland

  (Bactros of the classical authors), the river of Balḵ. This perennial river is a major feature of the geography of northern Afghanistan.

• BALḴĪ, ABŪ ʿALĪ ABD-ALLĀH

  H. Schützinger

  B. MOḤAMMAD B. ʿALĪ (d. 907-08), a traditionist (moḥaddeṯ) and author.

• BALḴĪ, ABŪ ʿALĪ-MOḤAMMAD

  cross-reference

  B. AḤMAD. See ʿALĪ B. AḤMAD BALḴĪ.

• BALḴI, ABU’L-MOʾAYYAD

  Cross-Reference

  See ABU’l-MOʾAYYAD BALḴI.

• BALḴĪ, ABU’L-QĀSEM ʿABD-ALLĀH AḤMAD

  cross-reference

  B. AḤMAD. See ABU’L-QĀSEM KAʿBĪ.

• BALUCHISTAN

  Multiple Authors

  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, and in the arid coastal lowlands between the Iranian plateau and the Gulf of Oman.