Table of Contents

• BRETON, LE

  Cross-Reference

  See LE BRETON.

• BRICK

  Guitty Azarpay

  blocks of tempered mud, either sun-dried (ḵešt) or baked in a kiln (ājor), the traditional building material in most of Iran. It has customarily been made from a mixture of water-soaked earth (gel-čāl), straw, and chaff.

• BRICKS AND CERAMICS INDUSTRY

  Willem Floor

  Traditional brick-kilns  are still found all over the country.  A European established the first modern brick-kiln around 1905. However, it was only in 1935 that a German engineer constructed the so-called “Hoffman brick-kiln,” with its characteristic high chimney, in south Tehran.

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• BRIDGES

  Dietrich Huff, Wolfram Kleiss

  (Pers. pol, Mid. Pers. pohl, Av. pərətu-). i. Pre-Islamic bridges. ii. Bridges in the Islamic period. Bridges may have existed in the Iranian highlands as monuments of vernacular architecture since prehistoric times.

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• BRITAIN

  cross-reference

  See ANGLO-IRANIAN RELATIONS; GREAT BRITAIN.

• BRỊTʾIATỊ (COPANỊ FỊRT) ELBỊZDỊQO

  Fridrik Thordarson

  (Russian: Elbyzdyko Britaev), playwright regarded as the founder of Ossetic drama(1881-1923). His first plays (two short comedies) were published in 1905.

• BRITISH COUNCIL

  EIr

  The first British Council representative was appointed to Iran in 1942. The priority was English language teaching, and by 1944 the Council was teaching over 4,000 students.

• BRITISH MUSEUM and BRITISH LIBRARY

  Cross-Reference

  See Supplement.

• BRITISH PETROLEUM

  cross-reference

  See ANGLO-PERSIAN OIL COMPANY.

• BROACH

  cross-reference

  See BHARUCHAS.

• BROAD BEANS

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀQELĀ.

• BROADBEAN

  cross-reference

  See BĀQELĀ.

• BROCHT

  cross-reference

  See QEŠM.

• BROCKELMANN, CARL

  Rudolph Sellheim

  German orientalist (1868-1956). During a long and serene life as a scholar Brock­elmann produced a wealth of fundamental publications. His monumental output represents the unity of Oriental studies in his time.

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• BRONZE

  Multiple Authors

  an alloy of two metals, copper and tin. When tin is alloyed with copper, it decreases the temperature at which the two metals will melt, increases fluidity during casting, and acts as a deoxidant. Although copper deposits occur with reasonable frequency throughout the highland zones of south­western, sources of tin are far less common.

• BRONZE i. In pre-Islamic Iran

  Vincent C. Pigott

  Current understanding of early developments in copper-base metallurgy on the Iranian plateau is based largely on archeological excavations and archeometallurgical field surveys conducted by a number of scholars. 

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• BRONZE ii. In Islamic Iran

  James W. Allan

  The most common copper alloys in use in Iran were brass and a quaternary alloy of copper, lead, zinc, and tin. As for bronze, two alloys should be differentiated: low-tin bronze, with a tin content of 10 percent or less, and high-tin bronze, with a tin content of about 20 percent.

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• BRONZE AGE

  Robert H. Dyson, Jr., and Mary M. Voigt

  in Iranian archeology a term used informally for the period from the rise of trading towns in Iran, ca. 3400-3300 B.C., to the beginning of the Iron Age, ca. 1400-1300 B.C. It has long since lost any precise meaning in relation to technology.

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• BRONZES OF LURISTAN

  Oscar White Muscarella

  The British Museum had acquired the first of its Luristan bronzes in 1854, followed by others in 1885, 1900, 1914, and 1920. Until the late 1920s such objects continued to appear sporadi­cally, but mass plundering of Luristan tombs seems to have begun in that decade.

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• BROWNE, EDWARD GRANVILLE

  G. Michael Wickens, Juan Cole, Kamran Ekbal

  eminent British Iranologist (1862-1926). i. Browne’s life and academic career. ii. Browne on Babism and Bahaism. iii. Browne and the Persian Constitutional movement.

• BRYDGES, HARFORD JONES

  John Perry

  (1764-1847), Sir, English diplomat and author, ambassador to the court of Fatḥ-ʿAlī Shah Qājār from 1807 to 1811.

• BŪ DOLAF

  cross-reference

  See ABŪ DOLAF.

• BŪ ḤALĪM ŠAYBĀNĪ FAMILY

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (or Bāhalīm),  military commanders and governors in northern India under the later Ghaznavid sultans in the late 5th/11th and early 6th/12th centuries.

• BŪ KORD DYNASTY

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀL-E BŪ KORD.

• BŪ NAṢR MOŠKĀN

  cross-reference

  See ABŪ NAṢR MOŠKĀN.

• BŪ ŠOʿAYB HERAVĪ

  cross-reference

  See ABŪ ŠOʿAYB HERAVĪ.

• BŪDAG

  Mansour Shaki

  Middle Persian term, in Mazdean theological and philosophical texts as “material becoming, genesis,” the counterpart of āfrīdag “spiritually/ideally created."

• BŪDANA

  cross-reference

  See BELDERČĪN.

• BUDĀQ MONŠI QAZVINI

  Tilmann Trausch

  (b. 1510-11), author of the Jawāher al-aḵbār, a universal history of a substantial part of the Persianate world, and member of the Safavid financial administration during the reign of Shah Ṭahmāsb I.

• BŪḎARJOMEHR

  cross-reference

  See BOZORGMEHR.

• BŪḎARJOMEHRĪ, Karīm Āqā

  Bāqer ʿĀqelī

  (1886-1951), Major General (sar-laškar), military officer, mayor of Tehran, and minister of Public Welfare. 

• BUDDHISM

  Multiple Authors

  Among Iranian peoples. This series of articles covers Buddhism in Iran and Iranian lands: i.  In pre-Islamic times. ii.  InIslamic times. iii. Buddhist Literature in Khotanese and Tumshuqese. iv. Buddhist Sites in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

• BUDDHISM i. In Pre-Islamic Times

  Ronald E. Emmerick

  Origin and early spread of Buddhism. Buddhism arose in northeast India in the sixth century b.c. as the result of the teaching of the historical Buddha Śākyamuni, who died about 483 b.c.

• BUDDHISM ii. In Islamic Times

  Asadullah Souren Melikian-Chirvani

  The Muslim conquerors of eastern Iran, Afghanistan, and Transoxania in the mid-8th century found Buddhism flourishing in a series of prosperous trading communities along the old caravan routes to India and China.

• BUDDHISM iii. Buddhist Literature in Khotanese and Tumshuqese

  Ronald F. Emmerick and Prods Oktor Skjærvø

  Khotan played an important role in the transmission of Buddhism during the period represented by the extant material (probably from around 700 to the end of the kingdom of Khotan ca. 1000). 

• BUDDHISM iv. Buddhist Sites in Afghanistan and Central Asia

  Boris A. Litvinsky

  The spread of Buddhism beyond the Indian subcontinent accelerated under the Mauryan king Aśoka (r. 265–238 BCE). An active proponent of Buddhism, he sent out religious missions.

• BŪF

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  owl, commonly called joḡd. Eleven species, from two families, occur in Iran.

• BŪF-E KŪR

  Michael C. Hillmann

  (The blind owl), the chef d’œuvre of Ṣādeq Hedāyat (1903-51) and one of the first major modernist Persian novels. 

• BŪKĀN

  Amir Hassanpour

  (Kurd. Bōkān), name of a town, a baḵš (district), and a river in the šahrestān (county) of Mahābād, West Azerbaijan.

• BUKHARA

  Multiple Authors

  i. In pre-Islamic times. ii. From the Arab invasions to the Mongols. iii. After the Mongol invasion. iv. The khanate of Bukhara and Khorasan. v. Archeology and monuments. vi. The Bukharan school of miniature painting. vii. Bukharan Jews.

• BUKHARA i. In Pre-Islamic Times

  Richard N. Frye

  one of many settlements in the large oasis formed by the mouths of the Zarafshan (Zarafšān) river in ancient Sogdiana.

• BUKHARA ii. From the Arab Invasions to the Mongols

  C. E. Bosworth

  The first appearance of Arab armies there is traditionally placed in Moʿāwīa’s caliphate when, according to Naršaḵī, ʿObayd-Allāh b. Zīād b. Abīhe crossed the Oxus and appeared at Bukhara (673-74).

• BUKHARA iii. After the Mongol Invasion

  Yuri Bregel

  conquered by Chingiz Khan on 10 February 1220, and the citadel fell twelve days later. All the inhabitants were driven out, their property pillaged, and the city burned; the defenders of the citadel were slaughtered.

• BUKHARA iv. Khanate of Bukhara and Khorasan

  Yuri Bregel

  The first distinctive political separation of Transoxania from Persia took place in 873/1469 when the Timurid empire was finally divided into two independent states, Transoxania and Khorasan, ruled by the descendants of Abū Saʿd and ʿOmar Shaikh, respectively.

• BUKHARA v. Archeology and Monuments

  G. A. Pugachenkova and E. V. Rtveladze

  The earliest settlement levels at Bukhara can be dated to the 5th-2nd centuries B.C. During this period Bukhara consisted of a citadel on a hill and a large, sprawling settlement.

• BUKHARA vi. Bukharan School of Miniature Painting

  Barbara Schmitz

  As far as is known, illustrated manuscripts were produced in Bukhara only under the Shaibanid (1500-98) and Janid (also known as Tughay -Timurid; 1599-1785) dynasties. Partly as a result of frequent raids on Herat by ʿObayd-Allāh Khan (918-46/1512-39) Persian manuscripts, artists, and calligraphers were brought to Bukhara.

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• BUKHARA vii. Bukharan Jews

  Michael Zand

  “Bukharan Jews” is the common appellation for the Jews of Central Asia whose native language is the Jewish dialect of Tajik.

• BUKHARA viii. Historiography of the Khanate, 1500-1920

  Anke von Kügelgen

  About 70 extant works of Persian historiography focus on the politics of the Shïbanid–Abulkhayrid (Shaybanid) dynasty (r. 1500-99), the Janids (also known as Toqay-Timurids or Ashtarkhanids, r. 1599-1747), and the Manḡïts (r. 1747-1920).

• BULAYÏQ

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  town in eastern Turkestan, modern Chinese Sinkiang, situated about ten km north of Turfan. At the nearby ruin of Shüī-pang, a library of fragmentary Christian manuscripts (thought to be of the 9th-10 cents.) was discovered in 1905, and the site is judged to be that of a Nestorian monastery.

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• BULLAE

  Richard N. Frye

  the sealings, usually of clay or bitumen, on which were impressed the marks of seals showing ownership or witness to whatever was attached to the sealing.