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).

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • 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

     See ISMAʿILISM xvi. MODERN ISMAʿILI COMMUNITIES.

  • 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.

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  • 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

    See ʿABD-AL-­KARĪM BOḴĀRĪ.

  • 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.

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  • BOLBOL, AŠRAF DAYRĪ

    Giri L. Tikku

    Persian poet of Kashmir (1682-1775-6).