Table of Contents

• BADR ČĀČĪ

  M. Dabīrsīāqī

  a Persian poet of the 14th century, born in the town or district of Čāč (also written Šāš) in Transoxiana.

• BADR JĀJARMĪ

  M. Dabīrsīāqī

  a 13th-century poet popular in his own time for his rhetorical skills.

• BADR KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See BEDIR KHAN.

• BADR-AL-DĪN EBRĀHĪM

  S. I. Baevskiĭ

  author of the Persian dictionary Farhang-e zafāngūyā wa jahānpūyā (The eloquent and world-seeking dictionary) composed in India in the late 14th or early 15th century.

• BADR-AL-DĪN SERHENDĪ

  Y. Friedmann

  (b. ca. 1593-94), a Sufi author, translator, and disciple of Aḥmad Serhendī.

• BADR-AL-DĪN TABRĪZĪ

  H. Crane

  architect and savant active in Konya in Anatolia during the third quarter of the 13th century. 

• BĀDRANG

  Cross-Reference

  See BĀLANG; CITRUS FRUITS.

• BADRĪ KAŠMĪRĪ

  Z. Safa

  Persian poet in India in the second half of the 16th century.

• BĀDRŪDI

  E. Yarshater

  one of the local dialects of the Kāšān region, spoken in Bādrūd, a dehestān (rural district) of Naṭanz.

• BĀDŪSPĀN

  X. de Planhol

  in medieval geography, a mountainous district of northern Iran on the Caspian side of the Alborz mountains, in Ṭabarestān (Māzandarān).

• BADUSPANIDS

  W. Madelung

  a dynasty ruling Rūyān and Rostamdār from the late 11th to the 16th century with the title of ostandār and later of king.

• BĀFQ

  C. E. Bosworth

  a small oasis town of central Iran (altitude 1,004 m) on the southern fringe of the Dašt-e Kavīr, 100 km southeast of Yazd in the direction of Kermān.

• BĀFQĪ, MOḤAMMAD-TAQĪ

  H. Algar

  AYATOLLAH (1875-1946), a religious scholar known for his forthright opposition to Reżā Shah Pahlavī.

• BĀḠ (BAGH)

  Multiple Authors

  “garden.”  In Iranian agriculture, the word bāḡ means, more precisely, an enclosed area bearing permanent cultures— all kinds of cultivated trees and shrubs, as opposed to fields under annual crops.

• BĀḠ i. Etymology

  W. Eilers

  Bāḡ, the Middle and New Persian word for “garden,” as also the Sogdian βāγ, strictly meant “piece” or “patch of land.”

• BĀḠ ii. General

  M. Bazin

  Whatever the water source may be, the gardens are usually clustered together close to the head-race of the irrigation network, around the village or just below it. This location allows to irrigate them as frequently as possible, every six to twelve days in the hot season, whereas the fields lying underneath are much less often irrigated.

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• BĀḠ iii. In Persian Literature

  W. L. Hanaway

  Bāḡ appears both as an object of description and as the prime source of nature imagery in Persian literature. 

• BĀḠ iv. In Afghanistan

  N. H. Dupree

  The people inhabiting this land have cherished all forms of gardens, which have become an integral part of Afghan culture.

• BAG NASK

  P. O. Skjærvø

  one of the Avestan nasks of the gāhānīg group, that is, texts connected with the Gāθās; it is now lost almost in its entirety. This nask is listed in the survey of the Avesta in Dēnkard 8.1.9.

• BĀḠ-E BĀLĀ

  cross-reference

  See BĀḠ iv.

• BĀḠ-E ERAM

  K. Afsar

  a famous and beautiful garden at Shiraz. Its site was formerly on the northwestern fringe of the city but is now well inside the greatly expanded urban area.

• BĀḠ-E FĪN

  ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

  garden southwest of the city of Kāšān, where subterranean waters from the Dandāna and Haft Kotal mountains emerge to form the Fīn springs.

• BĀḠ-E JAHĀNNĀMA

  cross-reference

  See SHIRAZ.

• BĀḠ-E PĪRŪZĪ

  Ḡ.-Ḥ. Yūsofī

  “Garden of Triumph,” a garden constructed in Ḡazna by Sultan Maḥmūd (r. 998-1030), no longer extant.

• BĀḠ-E ŠĀH

  ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

  (the king’s garden). In the mid-Qajar period, the site was a broad, circular field about 1,000 m in diameter situated on the outskirts of the city and devoted to horseback riding and racing.

• BĀḠ-E SALṬANATĀBĀD

  cross-reference

  See SALṬANATĀBĀD.

• BAGA

  H. W. Bailey, N. Sims-Williams, St. Zimmer

  an Old Iranian term for “god,” sometimes designating a specific god. i. General. ii. In Old and Middle Iranian. iii. The use of baga in names.

• BAGABUXŠA

  cross-reference

  See MEGABYZUS.

• BAGĀN YAŠT

  P. O. Skjærvø

  (1) one of the dādīg (legal) nasks of the Avesta, which contained descriptions of Ahura Mazdā and the other gods; (2) name of Yasna 19-21 of the Avesta.

• BAGARAN

  R. H. Hewsen

  (lit. “the god’s place”; Turk. Pakran), a town founded by the Armenian King Orontes (Eruand) II (ca. 212-ca. 200 B.C.) to house the images of the gods and the royal ancestors.

• BAḠAVĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN

  H. Schützinger

  ʿALĪ B. ʿABD-AL-ʿAZĪZ B. MARZBĀN B. SĀBŪR, traditionist (moḥaddeṯ) and philologist in the 9th century.

• BAGAWAN (1)

  H. R. Hewsen

  (Arm. Baguan or Aṭʿši Bagawan), ancient district lying along the right bank of the Araxes river and corresponding to the northeastern part of Iranian Azerbaijan.

• BAGAWAN (2)

  R. H. Hewsen

  an ancient locality in central Armenia situated at the foot of Mount Npat (Gk. Niphates, Turk. Tapa-seyd) in the principality of Bagrewand west of modern Diyadin.

• BĀGAYĀDIŠ

  R. Schmitt

  name of the seventh month (September-October) of the Old Persian calendar, mentioned in Darius I’s Behistun inscription.

• BAGAYAṞIČ

  R. H. Hewsen

  site of the great temple of Mihr (Mithras), one of the eight principal pagan shrines of pre-Christian Armenia, traditionally built by Tigranes II the Great (r. 95-56 B.C.).

• BAGAZUŠTA

  R. Schmitt

  Old Iranian personal name *Baga-zušta- “beloved of the god(s)” attested in the Achaemenid period and after.

• BAḠDĀD

  cross-reference

  See BAGHDAD.

• BAḠDĀDI FAMILY

  Kamran Ekbal

  designation of an Arab family of a Bābi, Shaikh Moḥammad Šebl, and his Bahai progeny, his son Moḥammad-Moṣṭafā Baḡdādi, and the latter’s sons, Żiāʾ Mabsuṭ Baḡdādi and Ḥosayn Eqbāl.

• BAḠDĀDĪ, ʿABD-AL-QĀHER

  J. van Ess

  B. ṬĀHER ŠĀFEʿĪ TAMĪMĪ (ca. 961-1038), mathematician, Shafeʿite jurist, and Asḥʿarite theologian.

• BAḠDĀDĪ, ABU’L-FAŻL

  H. Algar

  (d. 1155), Sufi whose name appears in the initiatic chain of the Neʿmatallāhī order.

• BAḠDĀDĪ, BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN

  cross-reference

  See BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN BAḠDĀDĪ.

• BAḠDĀDĪ, ḴĀLED ŻĪĀʾ-AL-DĪN

  H. Algar

  MAWLĀNĀ (1779-1827), the founder of a significant branch of the Naqšbandī Sufi order that has had a profound impact on his native Kurdistan and beyond.

• BAGHDAD i. The Iranian Connection: Before the Mongol Invasion

  H. Kennedy

  Baghdad, whose official name was originally Madīnat-al-Salām, the City of Peace, was founded in 762 by the second ʿAbbasid caliph, Abū Jaʿfar al-Manṣūr as his official capital.

• BAGHDAD ii. From the Mongol Invasion to the Ottoman Occupation

  ʿAbbās Zaryāb

  The Persian influence had increased in recent decades through Iranian viziers and officials serving the caliphs, the rise of Shiʿite power and their theological literature.

• BAGHDAD PACT

  J. A. Kechichian

  popular name for the 1955 pro-Western defense alliance between Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom.

• BAGINA

  F. Grenet

  reconstructed Old Iranian word for a temple housing a cult image; and BAGINAPATI, the master of such a temple. They have descendants in various Middle Iranian languages.

• BAḠLĀN

  A. D. H. Bivar, D. Balland, X. de Planhol

  The temple excavated at this site appeared to be a fire-temple of dynastic character, dedicated for the rulers of the Kushan dynasty. It was founded perhaps early in the reign of Kanishka, and restored in the year 31 of a different era, probably of Kanishka I’s own enthronement.

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• BAGLEY, FRANK RONALD CHARLES

  EIr.

  (1915-1997), British diplomat, translator, and professor of Persian and Arabic at Durham University and McGill University.

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• BAGŌAS

  M. Dandamayev

  the chief eunuch and general under the Achaemenid Artaxerxes III, and kingmaker of his successors.

• BAGRATIDS

  C. Toumanoff

  The partition of Armenia in 387 into an Iranian and a Roman vassal state, then the annexation of the Western kingdom by the Empire, and finally the abolition of the East Armenian Monarchy in 428 placed these princes in the necessity of choosing between the two rival imperial allegiances.

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