Table of Contents

  • BANDARI

    Mikhail Pelevin

    the dialect spoken by the native population of Bandar ʿAbbās, administrative center of the Hormozgān province, and of its environs. Bandari belongs to the southwestern group of the Iranian languages. It is tightly encircled by a number of other, less known dialects located between Lārestān and Bašākerd.

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  • BANG

    G. Gnoli, ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

    a kind of narcotic plant. In older Arabic and Persian sources banj is applied to three different plants: hemp (Cannabis sativa or indica), henbane (Hyoseyamus niger, etc.), and jimsonweed (Datura stramonium). i. In ancient Iran.  ii. In modern Iran.

  • BANG KAUP, JOHANN WILHELM MAX JULIUS

    P. Zieme

    (known as Willy), German orientalist (1869-1934). From 1893 onward Bang Kaup also devoted time to research in the promising area of the Old Turkish stone inscriptions.

  • BANGĀLA

    Cross-Reference

    See BENGAL.

  • BANGAṦ

    D. Balland

    one of the least-known Pashtun tribes in the Solaymān range, Pakistan, and one of the few that are not named after eponymous ancestors.  

  • BANĪ ARDALĀN

    P. Oberling

    a Kurdish tribe of northwestern Iran, now dispersed in Sanandaj (Senna) and surrounding villages.

  • BANĪ ḤARDĀN

    J. Perry

    a Shiʿite Arab tribe of Howayza (Ḥawīza) district in Ḵūzestān.

  • BANĪ LĀM

    J. Perry

    a numerous and historically important Shiʿite Arab tribe of northwestern Ḵūzestān, southern Lorestān, and adjacent parts of Iraq.

  • BANĪ SĀLA

    J. Perry

    a Shiʿite Arab tribe of Howayza (Ḥawīza) district in Ḵūzestān.

  • BANĪ TAMĪM

    J. Perry

    an Arab tribe of western Ḵūzestān, both settled and nomadic, raising sheep and camels. Their range lies between Howayza and Ahvāz.

  • BANĪ ṬOROF

    J. Perry

    (Banu Turuf), a large Shiʿite Arab tribe of Howayza (Ḥawīza) district in Ḵūzestān, mostly sedentary, centered north of Howayza between Sūsangerd and Bostān (Besaytīn).

  • BANISTER, Thomas

    Parvin Loloi

    (d. Arrash, 20 July 1571), British merchant and traveler to Persia who commanded the fifth voyage from Britain to Persia via Russia for the purpose of establishing trade. 

  • BĀNK-E MARKAZĪ-E ĪRĀN

    M. Yeganeh

    (Central Bank of Iran), a bank established under the Iranian Banking and Monetary Act of 28 May 1960 to undertake the central banking activities in the country. The functions and powers of Bānk-e Markazī were revised following the Islamic Revolution of February, 1979, which led to the nationalization of private banking.

  • BANKING

    P. Basseer, P. Clawson and W. Floor

    The first modern bank in Iran was the British-owned New Oriental Bank, which in 1888 opened in Tehran, Mašhad, Tabrīz, Rašt, Isfahan, Shiraz, and Būšehr. The New Oriental Bank was shortly replaced by another British-owned bank, the Imperial Bank of Persia.

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  • BANNĀʾĪ

    C. Bromberger

    While the term bannāʾī covers the entire construction field, in this brief study domestic building techniques, in particular, which are more or less part of the traditional crafts, and the recent evolution of popular housing will be emphasized.

  • BANNERS

    A. S. Melikian-Chirvani

    (ʿalam, derafš). Countless references in epic literature as well as in chronicles show that, in the clouds of dust that enveloped troops as they fought in sandy land, the glitter of the banner was the only way that warriors had of following the moves of their commanders or of identifying the enemy.

  • BĀNŪ

    W. Eilers

    originally “lady,” now also in common use as an alternative to ḵānom “Madam, Mrs.” (from Turkish xan-ım “my lord”).

  • BANŪ ʿABBĀS

    Cross-Reference

    See ABBASID CALIPHATE.

  • BANŪ AMĀJŪR

    D. Pingree

    (or MĀJŪR), ABU’L-QĀSEM ʿABD-ALLĀH  and his son Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī, 10th-century astronomers.

  • BANŪ ʿANNĀZ

    cross-reference

    See ʿANNAZIDS.

  • BANŪ LAḴM

    Cross-Reference

    See ḤIRA.

  • BANŪ MĀJŪR

    cross-reference

    See BANŪ AMĀJŪR.

  • BANŪ MONAJJEM

    D. Pingree

    a family of intellectuals, closely connected to the caliphs of the 9th-10th centuries and claiming descent from an ancient Iranian lineage.

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  • BANŪ MŪSĀ

    D. Pingree

    name applied to three brothers, 9th-century ʿAbbasid astronomers and engineers.

  • BANŪ OMAYYA

    cross-reference

    See OMMAYADS.

  • BĀNŪ PĀRS

    M. Boyce

    “Lady of Pārs,” the name of a Zoroastrian shrine in the mountains at the northern end of the Yazd plain.

  • BANŪ SĀJ

    W. Madelung

    a family named after its ancestor Abu’l-Sāj which served the ʿAbbasid caliphate (9th-10th centuries).

  • BANŪ SĀSĀN

    C. E. Bosworth

    a name frequently applied in medieval Islam to beggars, rogues, charlatans, and tricksters of all kinds, allegedly so called because they stemmed from a legendary Shaikh Sāsān.

  • BAQĀʾ WA FANĀʾ

    G. Böwering

    Sufi term signifying “subsistence and passing away,” that is, passing away from worldly reality and being made subsistent in divine reality.

  • BĀQELĀ

    H. Aʿlam

    broad beans, the grains of Vicia faba L. In Iran, this crop is grown rather extensively in the Caspian provinces and, to a lesser extent, in the south and southwest.

  • BĀQER KHAN SĀLĀR-E MELLI

    A. Amanat

    one of the popular heroes of the Constitutional Revolution during the defense of Tabrīz in the period of the Lesser Autocracy (June, 1908-July, 1909).

  • BĀQER, ABŪ JAʿFAR MOḤAMMAD

    W. Madelung

    The fifth imam of the Twelver Shiʿites (7th-8th century).

  • BĀQĪBELLĀH NAQŠBANDĪ

    J. G. J. Ter Haar

    (d. 1603), ḴᵛĀJA ABU’L-MOʾAYYAD RAŻĪ-AL-DĪN OWAYSĪ; As a Naqšbandi, he represents the sober type of Sufi, adhering to the Islamic law (šarīʿa) and averse to ecstatic mystical experiences.

  • BĀQLAVĀ

    W. Eilers, N. Ramazani

    i. The word. ii. The sweet. Bāqlavā is a sweet pastry known throughout the Middle East, in Iran commonly made with almonds (bādām), less frequently with pistachios (pesta).

  • BAQLĪ, RŪZBEHĀN

    cross-reference

    SHAIKH. See RŪZBEHĀN.

  • BAQQĀL-BĀZĪ

    F. Gaffary

    (lit. grocer play), a form of improvised, popular slapstick comedy; it is distinguished among the various forms of popular comedy in Iran by its own set of rules.

  • BĀR

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh, Ḥ. Farhūdī

    “audience.” The royal audience was one of the most important and enduring of the court ceremonies practiced in Iran.  i. From the Achaemenid through the Safavid period.  ii. The Qajar and Pahlavi periods.

  • BAR HEBRAEUS

    Cross-Reference

    (b. Malaṭīa, 1225; d. Marāḡa, 1286), Syriac historian and polymath. See EBN AL-ʿEBRĪ, ABU’L-FARAJ.

  • BAR KŌNAY, THEODORE

    J. P. Asmussen

    8th-9th-century Nestorian teacher and writer from Kaškar in Mesopotamia. His The Book of Scholiais notable for its sections on Zarathustra and Mani.

  • BAR-E MEHR

    cross-reference

    a fire temple in Yazd. See DAR-E MEHR.

  • BARĀDŪST

    A. Hassanpour

    name of a Kurdish tribe, region, mountain range, river, and amirate. The tribespeople, mostly settled now, are Shafeʿite Sunnis and speak the Kurmanji dialect of Kurdish mixed with the neighboring Sorani dialects.

  • BARAḠĀNĪ, MOḤAMMAD-TAQĪ

    D. M. MacEoin

    QAZVĪNĪ, ŠAHĪD-E ṮĀLEṮ, MOLLĀ, an important Shiʿite ʿālem of Qazvīn (d. 1847).

  • BARAK

    T. Bīneš

    a kind of firm and durable woven cloth used for coats, overcoats (labbāda), shawls (in Afghanistan), čūḵas (surcoats for shepherds) and leggings.

  • BARAKĪ BARAK

    C. M. Kieffer

    locality in the province of Lōgar, Afghanistan,  the abode of the country’s last Ōrmuṛī speakers.

  • BĀRAKZAY DYNASTY

    cross-reference

    See AFGHANISTAN x. Political History ; and DORRĀNĪ.

  • BĀRAKZĪ

    D. Balland

    (singular Bārakzay), an ethnic name common among the Pashtun of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Baluch of southeastern Iran. The oldest settlement area is between Herat and the approaches to the Helmand valley.

  • BARĀMEKA

    Cross-Reference

    See BARMAKIDS.

  • BĀRĀN

    D. Balland

    It is interesting to note that in modern Iranian languages violent and dangerous rainfall events are often designated by borrowings from Arabic (ṭūfān for typhoon, barq for lightning, raʿd for thunder, sayl for sudden deluge), whereas for phenomena considered beneficial a terminology of Iranian origin has been preserved.

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  • BARANĪ, ŻĪĀʾ-AL-DĪN

    P. Hardy

    Indian-born Muslim historian who wrote in the period of the Delhi sultanate (ca. 1285-1357).

  • BARĀQ BĀBĀ

    H. Algar

    (b. 1257-58, d. 1307-08), a crypto-shamanic Anatolian Turkman dervish close to two of the Mongol rulers of Iran.