Table of Contents
-
BISOTUN
Multiple Authors
(Bīsetūn, Bīstūn, Behistun), the modern name of a cliff rising on the north side of the age-old caravan trail and main military route from Babylon and Baghdad over the Zagros mountains to Hamadān).
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
BISOTUN i. Introduction
R. Schmitt
Bagistanon (óros). As shown by its name, Bisotun had been holy from time immemorial and Darius’s monument was well known to the ancients.
-
BISOTUN ii. Archeology
Heinz Luschey
Although the relief and inscription of Darius on the cliff have made Bīsotūn famous, there are also various other remains in the neighborhood, including some that were discovered or identified only in 1962 and 1963. Some Paleolithic cave finds are the earliest evidence of human presence at the spring-fed pool of Bīsotūn.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
BISOTUN iii. Darius's Inscriptions
R. Schmitt
Over the millennia all the inscriptions on the rock at Bīsotūn, especially the Babylonian version, have suffered severe damage from erosion. Calcareous deposits on the engraved cuneiform characters caused by water seepage have obscured several passages, but have also preserved them from weathering.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
BĪSOTŪN, ABŪ MANṢŪR
C. Edmund Bosworth
b. Vošmgīr, ẒAHĪR-AL-DAWLA, Ziyarid amir in Ṭabarestān and Gorgān (r. 967-78). Much of his reign was spent in fending off Samanid claims to sovereignty over the Caspian provinces.
-
BĪSTGĀNĪ
Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī
Persian term for pay and rations of troops used in classical texts, corresponding to Arabic ʿešrīnīya.
-
BĪT BUNAKKI
Louis D. Levine
(or Bīt Burnakki/Purnakki), the name of an Elamite border city mentioned frequently in the eighth and seventh centuries in neo-Assyrian texts.
-
BĪT HAMBAN
Louis D. Levine
(also Bīt Habban), a district on the Iranian-Iraqi frontier which appears in Akkadian cuneiform sources after the fall of the Kassite dynasty (1157 B.C.) and disappears with the fall of the Assyrian empire in 612 B.C.
-
BĪT RAMATIYA
Louis D. Levine
a place name and personal name associated with Media in Asyrian sources.
-
BĪTĀB, ʿABD-AL-ḤAQQ
Nāṣer Amīrī
b. Mollā ʿAbd-al-Aḥmad ʿAṭṭār, scholar and poet laureate (malek al-šoʿarāʾ) of Afghanistan (1883-1968).
-
BĪṬARAF
Nassereddin Parvin
(The impartial), a news and political affairs journal published in Persian and French in Tehran (1913-14).
-
BĪŽAN
Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh
in the traditional history, son of Gīv by Rostam’s daughter Bānū Gošasp; he figures prominently in the Šāh-nāma as a hero in Kay Ḵosrow’s reign.
-
BĪŽAN-NAMA
William Hanaway, Jr.
an epic poem of about 1,900 lines relating the adventures of the legendary hero Bīžan son of Gīv.
-
BLACK SEA
Rüdiger Schmitt
an almost entirely landlocked sea (lat 40°55’ to 46°32’ N, long 27°27’ to 41°42’ E). Its surface is more than 423,000 km2, and its maximum depth is 2,244 m. In this article only the Achaemenid period is considered.
-
BLACK SHEEP DYNASTY
Forthcoming
Forthcoming online.
-
BLEEDING
Cross-Reference
See BLOODLETTING.
-
BLOCHET (Gabriel Joseph) EDGARD
Francis Richard
French orientalist (1870-1937). His published works include editions and catalogues of manuscripts in Arabic and Turkish, but his main focus was the Iranian world.
-
BLOCHMANN, HEINRICH FERDINAND
J. T. P. de Bruijn
(also Henry), a German orientalist and scholar of Persian language and literature who spent most of his career in India (1838-1878).
-
BLOOD TRANSFUSION SERVICES IN IRAN
Ali Ameri
A centralized, state-funded organization was established in 1974 for the recruitment of safe, voluntary, non-remunerated blood donors and the subsequent collection, testing, processing, and distribution of blood and blood products to hospitals.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
BLOODLETTING
Willem Floor
(Ar.-Pers. ḥejāmat, faṣd; Pers. ragzanī, ḵūn gereftan), a common medical treatment throughout Iranian history, though applied only in exceptional circumstances by modern medical practitioners.
-
BOAR
Paul Joslin
(Sus scrofa, Pers. gorāz). The wild boar is found in a broad cross-section of habitats and has a range that extends over much of Europe and Asia.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
BOARD GAMES in pre-Islamic Persia
Ulrich Schädler and Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi
Aside from chess and backgammon, due to the perishable material such as textile, leather, and wood used in making the artifacts, as well as because often the games were simply drawn on the ground, evidence is lacking in most cases, but many of them are still played nowadays.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
BOČĀQČĪ
Pierre Oberling
a Turkic tribe of Sīrjān in Kermān province.
-
BODHISATTVA
Werner Sundermann
in the Middle Iranian languages. The Sanskrit word Bodhisat(t)va, literally a being (blessed with) understanding, designates someone destined for Buddhahood later in life or in a future existence.
-
BŌĒ
Marie Louise Chaumont
(Gk. Boēs), the name of two of Kavād’s (r. 488-96 and 498-531) generals.
-
BOḠĀ
Cross-Reference
See BŪQĀ.
-
BOḠRĀ KHAN
C. Edmund Bosworth
ABŪ MŪSĀ HĀRŪN, the first Qarakhanid khan to invade the Samanid emirate from the steppes to the north in the 990s.
-
BOHLŪL
L. P. Elwell-Sutton
a weekly comic illustrated paper, published in Tehran from 1911.
-
BOHLŪL, ABŪ WOHAYB
Ulrich Marzolph
(d. ca. 805), b. ʿAmr b. Moḡīra Majnūn Kūfī, variously cited in later Persian literature as Bohlūl-e majnūn (Bohlūl the fool) or Bohlūl-e dānā (Bohlūl the wise), the archetype of the "wise fool" genre.
-
BOHRĀS
cross-reference
-
BOḤŪR AL-ALḤĀN
Taqī Bīneš, Jean During
(Meters of melodies), a treatise on Persian music and prosody by Sayyed Mīrzā Moḥammad-Naṣīr Forṣat Šīrāzī (1855-1920).
-
BOIR AḤMADĪ
Reinhold Loeffler, Gernot L. Windfuhr
the largest of the six tribal groups of Kūhgīlūya, inhabiting the mountainous territory from east of Behbahān and north of Dogonbadān to the Kūh-e Denā range in the northeast, an area of some 2,500 sq miles.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
BOJNŪRD
Eckart Ehlers, C. Edmund Bosworth
a town and district in Khorasan. i. The town and district. ii. History. The town (1976: 47,719 inhabitants; lat 37°29’ N, long 57°17’ E) is situated at the foot of the Ālādāḡ.
-
BOJNURD iii. Basic Population Data, 1956-2011
Mohammad Hossein Nejatian
Bojnurd has experienced a high rate of population growth, increasing more than tenfold from 1956 to 2011. During the period 1956-76, the average annual growth rate was approximately 4.5 percent. From 1976 to 1986, the population growth rate almost doubled. After the war with Iraq ended, the population growth started to decline. Since 1996, it has continued to decrease, falling to 2.48 percent in the years 2006-2011.
-
BOḴĀRĀ
cross-reference
See BUKHARA.
-
BOḴĀRĀ-YE ŠARĪF
Michael Zand
“Boḵārā the noble,” the first Central Asian newspaper published in Persian, 1912 to 1913.
-
BOḴĀRĪ, ʿABD-AL-KARĪM
Cross-Reference
-
BOḴĀRĪ, ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN
Wilferd Madelung
ABŪ ʿABD-ALLĀH MOḤAMMAD b. ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān b. Aḥmad, Hanafite scholar of feqh, legal method, kalām theology, and preacher and moftī in Bukhara (d. 1151).
-
BOḴĀRĪ, ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD
Hamid Algar
b. Moḥammad (d. 1400), close associate and primary successor of Bahāʾ-al-Dīn Naqšband, the eponym of the Naqšbandī Sufi order.
-
BOḴĀRĪ, AMĪR AḤMAD
Hamid Algar
(d. 1516), a Sufi instrumental in establishing the Naqšbandī order in Turkey.
-
BOḴĀRĪ, JALĀL-AL-DĪN
Richard M. Eaton
(1308-84), SHAIKH, popularly known as Maḵdūm-e Jahānīān and Jahāngašt, a celebrated Indo-Persian Sufi of Uch in the southern Punjab.
-
BOḴĀRĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ŠARĪF
Robert D. McChesney
ĀḴŪND MOLLĀ, also known as Šarīf-e Boḵārī and Mollā Šarīf, the leading Koran exegete and traditionist in Transoxiana (late 17th century).
-
BOKĀVOL
David O. Morgan
(büke’ül), a term used in the Il-khanid period and after for a royal food taster or, later and more commonly, a military commissariat officer.
-
BOKAYR B. MĀHĀN
ʿAbbās Zaryāb
MARVAZĪ, ABŪ HĀŠEM (d. 745-46), a leading ʿAbbasid propagandist (dāʿī).
-
BOḴT-ARDAŠĪR
Jes P. Asmussen
name of a town (Mid. Pers. rōstāg) that Ardašīr I is said to have founded as an expression of his gratitude to God during his flight from the court of the last Parthian king, Ardawān.
-
BOḴT-NARSA
cross-reference
See NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
-
BOḴTĪŠŪʿ
Lutz Richter-Bernburg
the name of the eponymous ancestor of a Syro-Persian Nestorian family of physicians from Gondēšāpūr, Ḵūzestān, 8th-11th centuries, and of several of its members.
-
BOLANDMĀZŪ
cross-reference
See BALŪṬ.
-
BOLBOL “nightingale”
Hūšang Aʿlam, Jerome W. Clinton
“nightingale.” i. The bird. ii. In Persian literature. The term bolbol is applied to at least three species of the genus Luscinia (fam. Turdidae). To Persian poets, however, all refer to a single bird, characterized by its sweet or plaintive song, supposedly sung for its beloved, the rose.
This Article Has Images/Tables. -
BOLBOL, AŠRAF DAYRĪ
Giri L. Tikku
Persian poet of Kashmir (1682-1775-6).