Table of Contents

• Borumand - Daramads of šur

  music sample

• BORŪMAND, NŪR-ʿALĪ

  Bruno Nettl

  (1905-1977), one of the foremost authorities on the performance and history of Persian classical music in the 20th century.

• BORZMEHR

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  (Pahlavi, lit. “deep affection”) one of the priests (mōbed) and scribes who served Ḵosrow I (r. 531-79).

• BORZŪ-NĀMA (article 1)

  William L. Hanaway, Jr.

  an epic poem of ca. 65,000 lines recounting the exploits and adventures of the legendary hero Borzū, son of Sohrāb.

• BORZU-NĀMA (article 2)

  Gabrielle van den Berg

  an epic poem named after its main hero, Borzu, son of Sohrāb and grandson of Rostam. The Borzu-nāma belongs to the cycle of epics dealing with the dynasty of the princes of Sistān.

• BORZŪYA

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  (also transcribed Burzōē), a physician of the time of Ḵosrow I (r. 531-79) and responsible for a translation of the Pañcatantra from Sanskrit to Pahlavi, the Persian translation of which is known as the Kalīla wa Demna.

• BOSḤĀQ AṬʿEMA

  Heshmat Moayyad

  (d. 1420s), FAḴR-AL-DĪN ḤALLĀJ ŠĪRĀZĪ, satirical poet who used Persian culinary vocabulary and imagery and kitchen terminology to create a novel style of poetry.

• BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

  Hamid Algar

  The Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina came to assimilate virtually all the cultural habits and interests of the Ottoman Turks; for the learned elite, this included an acquaintance with Persian language and literature.

• BOŠRŪʾĪ, Mollā Moḥammad-Ḥosayn

  Denis M. MacEoin

  Shaikhi ʿālem who became the first convert to Babism, provincial Babi leader in Khorasan, and organizer of Babi resistance in Māzandarān (1814-49).

• BOST

  Klaus Fischer, Xavier de Planhol

  archeological site and town located near the confluence of the Helmand and Arḡandāb rivers in southwest Afghanistan.

• BOSTĀN AL-SĪĀḤA

  ʿAlī-Akbar Saʿīdī Šīrjānī

  a descriptive geography book by a mystic writer of the early 19th century, Mast-ʿAlīšāh, Ḥājī Zayn-al-ʿĀbedīn b. Mollā Eskandar Šīrvānī.

• BOSTĀNAFRŪZ

  Ahmad Parsa

  amaranth, a medicinal and ornamental plant of the family Amaranthaceae.

• BOSTĪ, ABU’L-FATḤ

  Zabihollah Safa

  NEẒĀM-AL-DĪN ʿAMĪD ʿALĪ b. Moḥammad b. Ḥosayn b. Yūsof Kāteb, a notable bilingual secretary and poet of the 10th century.

• BOSTĪ, ABU’L-QĀSEM

  Wilferd Madelung

  ESMĀʿĪL b. Aḥmad JĪLĪ, Muʿtazilite and Zaydī author of the late 10th and early 11th century.

• BOT

  William L. Hanaway, Jr.

  a term frequent in poetry with meanings ranging from an idol in the literal sense to a metaphor for ideal human beauty. These senses have been used since the earliest surviving Persian poetry.

• BOTANICAL JOURNAL OF IRAN

  Valiolla Mozaffarian

  (Žurnāl-e giāhšenāsi-e Irān), begun in 1976 as an outcome of the National Botanical Garden of Iran. The contributions are in English with brief abstracts in Persian.

• BOTANICAL STUDIES

  Hūšang Aʿlam, S.-W. Breckle, Hūšang Aʿlam and Aḥmad Qahramān

  ON IRAN i. The Greco-Islamic tradition. ii. The Western tradition. iii. Persian Studies in the Western tradition. In the Islamic period, generally speaking, botany was an ancillary branch of medicine or, more precisely, pharmacology.

• BOUNDARIES

  Multiple Authors

  i. With the Ottoman empire. ii. With Russia. iii. Boundaries of Afghanistan. iv. With Iraq. v. With Turkey.

• BOUNDARIES i. With the Ottoman Empire

  Keith McLachlan

  shaped by conflict over an ill-defined strip of territory with constantly shifting outlines extending from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf.

• BOUNDARIES ii. With Russia

  Xavier de Planhol

  West of the Caspian. The problem of drawing a stable territorial boundary between the Russian and Iranian powers must have arisen with the first arrival of the Russians in the Caspian area, after the conquest of Astrakhan in 1556.

• BOUNDARIES iii. Boundaries of Afghanistan

  Daniel Balland

  None of these boundaries was established before the last third of the 19th century. It was the “great game,” the rivalry between Britain and Russia in Central Asia, that led the latter two states to contemplate creating a buffer state between their dependencies, a kind of defensive barrier.

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• BOUNDARIES iv. With Iraq

  Joseph A. Kechichian

  Efforts by Algeria to mediate during the summit meeting of OPEC on 6 March 1975 brought the shah together with Ṣaddām Ḥosayn, then vice-president of the Iraqi Revolutionary Council, to redefine their common frontier. In the resulting settlement 593 new border points were designated.

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• BOUNDARIES v. With Turkey

  Richard N. Schofield

  The Mixed Commission of 1914, on which Britain and Russia were vested with powers to arbitrate, had settled the line of the Perso-Ottoman frontier in detail for almost its whole length from the Persian Gulf to Mount Ararat.

• BOWAYH

  cross-reference

  See BŌĒ; BUYIDS.

• BOWAYHIDS

  cross-reference

  See BUYIDS.

• BOXTREE

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  Buxus L. spp., šemšād, common name for numerous species of evergreen shrubs or trees of the family Buxaceae. The species B. sempervirens grows wild in lowland or plain forests of the Caspian provinces.

• BOYCE, MARY

  John Hinnells

  (1920-2006), scholar of Zoroastrianism and its relevant languages, and Professor of Iranian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London. In addition to her own contribution, Boyce was an outstanding teacher and supervised the research of many who went on to hold professorships.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BOYEKAN

  Marie Louise Chaumont

  the name of a mec naxarar “great satrap,” defeated and killed at Ṭʿawrēš (Tabrīz) by the Armenian general Vasak under Šāpūr II (r. 309-79).

• BOYLE, JOHN ANDREW

  Peter Jackson

  (1916-78), British orientalist, will perhaps best remembered for his work on the Mongol period of Iranian history.

• BOYŪTĀT-E SALṬANATĪ

  Birgitt Hoffmann

  (lit. royal houses), in the Safavid period (1501-1732) departments and production workshops within the royal household serving primarily the needs of the court.

• BOZ

  Jean-Pierre Digard

  the domestic goat. The earliest evidence for domestication of the goat has been found in Iran (ca. 10,000 B.C.), as have the largest number of prehistoric sites (ca. 7000 B.C.) showing traces of the systematic breeding of this animal.

• BOZBĀŠ

  Mohammad R. Ghanoonparvar

  Azeri Turkish name for an Iranian dish usually called ābgūšt-e sabzī (green vegetable stew).

• BOZGŪŠ

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  the traditional reading of the name of a mythical tribe in Māzandarān mentioned in the Šāh-nāma.

• BOZKAŠĪ

  G. Whitney Azoy

  (lit. “goat-dragging”), an equestrian folk game played by Turkic groups in Central Asia. Its origins are obscure; quite probably the game first developed as a recreational extension of livestock raiding.

• BOZORG

  Jean During

  one of the modes in traditional Iranian and Arabic music, mentioned for the first time by Ṣafī-al-Dīn ʿOrmavī among the twelve šodūd, later on called maqāmāt.

• BOZORG, MĪRZĀ

  cross-reference

  See QĀʾEMMAQĀM, MĪRZĀ BOZORG.

• BOZORG-OMĪD, KĪĀ

  Wilferd Madelung

  the second Ismaʿili ruler of Alamūt (1124-38). He was of Deylami origin from the region of Rūdbār.

• BOZORGĀN

  Aḥmad Tafażżolī

  the third class-rank of the four or five divisions of the early Sasanian aristocracy, namely šahryār “landholders,” wispuhr “princes” or members of the royal house, wuzurg “grandees,” āzād “nobles,”  and kadag-xwadāy “householders.”

• BOZORGMEHR-E BOḴTAGĀN

  Djalal Khaleghi Motlagh

  identified in literature and legend as a vizier of Ḵosrow I Anōšīravān (r. 531-78). According to Persian and Arabic sources, he was characterized by ex­ceptional wisdom and sage counsels.

• BOZPAR

  Louis Vanden Berghe

  a valley situated about 100 km southwest of Kāzerūn and 11 km by donkey path through the mountains from Sar Mašhad, Fārs. The most important ruin in the Bozpār valley is the building known locally as Gūr-e Doḵtar.

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• BOZPAYIT

  James R. Russell

  Middle Persian name, attested only in Armenian, of a Zoroastrian school or body of religious teaching in the Sasanian period.

• BRAHM

  Werner Sundermann

  “manner, fashion, costume,” Middle Persian word used in connection with human beings, referring either to mode of behavior or to outward appearance.

• BRĀHMĪ

  Douglas A. Hitch

  Indian script used for a variety of languages in Chinese Turkestan, including Iranian languages. From the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang, China) we have first-millennium documents in Brāhmī script in several Iranian languages.

• BRAHUI

  Josef Elfenbein

  As “long-distance cattle-herders” in 1880 no fewer than 80 percent of these tribesmen were tent-dwelling nomads; fewer than 20 percent were described as settled. In 1975 the proportions were almost exactly the reverse, and Brahui settlement in large towns has been increas­ing ever more rapidly.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BRASS

  cross-reference

  See BERENJ.

• BRAZIER

  Asadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani, Jaʿfar Šahrī

  two distinct types of utensil traditionally used in Iran. One type is a closed container on legs, a kind of stove that holds slowly burning coals for heating.

• BRAZMANIY(A)

  cross-reference

  See AŠA ii.

• BREAD

  Hélène Desmet-Grégoire

  Persian nān. In modern Iran bread is the dietary staple food for the population and accounts, on the average, for 70 percent of the daily caloric intake.

• BRĒLVĪ

  cross-reference

  See BARĒLVĪ.

• BREST-LITOVSK TREATY

  Joseph A. Kechichian

  treaty signed by the Central Powers and Soviet Russia on 3 March 1918 that was consequential in the history of modern Iran.