Table of Contents

• BAAT

  N. Sims-Williams, J. Russell

  Middle Iranian personal name, borrowed in Armenian. i. Baat in Iranian sources. ii. Armenian Bat. Baat is the name of a disciple of Mani mentioned several times in the Coptic “crucifixion narrative.”

• BĀB (1)

  D. M. MacEoin

  “door, gate, entrance,” a term of varied application in Shiʿism and related movements.

• BĀB (2)

  H. Algar

  Title given to certain Sufi shaikhs of Central Asia.

• BĀB AL-ABWĀB

  cross-reference

  Ancient city in Dāḡestān on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, located at the entrance to the narrow pass between the Caucasus foothills and the sea. See DARBAND (1).

• BĀB AL-BĀB

  cross-reference

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

• BĀB, ʿAli Moḥammad Širāzi

  D. M. MacEoin

  the founder of Babism (1819-1850).

• BĀB-E FARḠĀNĪ

  cross-reference

  title given to certain Sufi shaikhs of Central Asia. See BĀB (2).

• BĀB-E HOMĀYŪN

  A. Sh. Shahbazi

  (august [royal] gate), name of a gate and its connecting street in the Qajar citadel of Tehran.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BĀB-E MĀČĪN

  cross-reference

  title given to certain Sufi shaikhs of Central Asia. See BĀB (2).

• BĀBĀ AFŠĀR

  cross-reference

  , MĪRZĀ. See ḤAKĪMBĀŠĪ.

• BĀBĀ AFŻAL-AL-DĪN

  William Chittick

  poet and author of philosophical works in Persian (d. ca. 1213-14).

• BĀBĀ BEG

  cross-reference

  See JŪYĀ.

• BĀBĀ FAḠĀNI

  Z. Safa

  Persian poet of the 15th-16th centuries.

• BĀBĀ FARĪD

  Cross-Reference

  a major Shaikh of the Češtīya mystic order, born in the last quarter of the 12th century in Kahtwāl near Moltān, Punjab. See GANJ-E ŠAKAR, Farid-al-Din Masʿud.

• BĀBĀ ḤĀTEM

  A. S. Melikian-Chirvani

  11th-century mausoleum in northern Afghanistan, some 40 miles west of Balḵ. It follows the simple plan of the earliest Islamic mausoleums in the Iranian world—a single square room with a cupola resting on squinches.

• BĀBĀ JĀN ḴORĀSĀNI

  Priscilla Soucek

  16th-century calligrapher, poet, and craftsman.

• BĀBĀ JĀN TEPE

  R. C. Henrickson

  archeological site in northeastern Luristan, important primarily for excavations of first-millennium B.C. levels.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BĀBĀ KUHI

  M. Kasheff

  popular name of Shaikh Abū ʿAbdallāh Moḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿObaydallāh Bākūya Šīrāzī, Sufi of the 10th-11th centuries.

• BĀBĀ ŠAMAL

  L. P. Elwell-Sutton

  weekly satirical periodical, 1943-45, founded by Reżā Ganjaʾī. It was impartially opposed to all foreign intervention and influence in Iran.

• BĀBĀ SAMMĀSĪ

  H. Algar

  , ḴᵛĀJA MOḤAMMAD (d. 1354), Central Asian Sufi of the line known as selsela-ye ḵᵛājagān (line of the masters).

• BĀBĀ SANKŪ

  H. Algar

  ecstatic Central Asian dervish of disorderly habits, contemporary with Timur (d. 1405) and one of several Sufis with whom Timur chose to associate for reasons of state.

• BĀBĀ SHAH ESFAHĀNI

  Pricilla Soucek

  calligrapher and poet who lived in Isfahan and Baghdad where he died in 1587-88. He was famous as a writer of the nastaʿlīq script.

• BĀBĀ ṬĀHER ʿORYĀN

  L. P. Elwell-Sutton

  medieval dervish poet from the area of Hamadān, best known for his do-baytīs, quatrains composed  in a simpler meter still widely used for popular verse.

• BĀBĀ-YE DEHQĀN

  Anna Krasnowolska

  a mythological and ritual character whose cult has been reported in agrarian communities of mountainous and lowland Tajikistan, northern Afghanistan, and adjacent countries.

• BĀBĀʾĪ BEN FARHĀD

  Amnon Netzer

  18th-century author of a versified history of the Jews of Kāšān with brief references to the Jews of Isfahan and one or two other towns.

• BĀBĀʾĪ BEN LOṬF

  Amnon Netzer

  Jewish poet and historian of Kāšān during the first half of the 17th century (d. after 1662).

• BĀBĀʾĪ BEN NŪRĪʾEL

  Amnon Netzer

  rabbi (ḥāḵām) from Isfahan;  at the behest of Nāder Shah Afšār (r. 1736-47), he translated the Pentateuch and the Psalms of David from Hebrew into Persian.

• BABĀJĀʾĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See KURDISTAN TRIBES.

• BĀBAK (1)

  R. N. Frye

  (Mid. Pers. Pāpak, Pābag), a ruler of Fārs at the beginning of the third century, father of Ardašīr, the founder of the Sasanian dynasty.  

• BĀBAK

  Touraj Daryaee

  reformer of the Sasanian military and in charge of the department of the warriors (Diwān al-moqātela) during the reign of Ḵosrow I Anušervān in the 6th century CE. 

• BĀBAK ḴORRAMI

  Ḡ. -Ḥ. Yūsofī

  leader of the Ḵorramdīnī or Ḵorramī uprising in Azerbaijan in the early 9th century (d. 838), which engaged the forces of the caliph for 20 years before it was crushed in 837.

• BĀBAKĪYA

  Cross-Reference

  See ḴORRAMĪS.

• BABAN

  C. E. Bosworth

  (or Bavan), a small town in the medieval Islamic province of Bāḏḡīs, to the north and west of Herat.

• BĀBĀN

  W. Behn

  (or Baban), Kurdish princely family in Solaymānīya, ruling an area in Iraqi Kurdistan and western Iran (17th—19th centuries) and actively involved in the Perso-Ottoman struggles.

• BĀBĀN DYNASTY

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀL-E BĀBĀN.

• BĀBAY

  A. Vööbus

  catholicos of the Persian Church elected at the synod at Seleucia in 497 (d. 502).

• BĀBAY OF NISIBIS

  N. Sims-Williams

  Christian Syriac writer who flourished about the beginning of the seventh century CE; a homily of his is attested in Sogdian.

• BĀBAY THE GREAT

  A. Vööbus

  (d. 628), abbot and prominent leader in the Nestorian church in Iran under Ḵosrow II.

• BĀBEL

  Cross-Reference

  See BABYLON.

• BABILLA, ASHUR BANIPAL IBRAHIM

  Khosro Shayesteh

  actor, director, playwright, and visual artist.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BĀBIRUŠ

  Cross-Reference

  See BABYLON.

• BABISM

  D. M. MacEoin

  a 19th-century messianic movement in Iran and Iraq under the overall charismatic leadership of Sayyed ʿAlī-Moḥammad Šīrāzī, the Bāb (1819-1850). Babism was the only significant millenarian movement in Shiʿite Islam during the 19th century.

• BĀBŌĒ

  A. Vööbus

  catholicos (d. 481 or 484), orthodox leader of the Christian church in Iran under Pērōz, one of Barṣaumā’s chief opponents. 

• BĀBOL

  X. de Planhol, S. Blair

  town in Māzandarān, occupying a central position in the coastal plain. i. The town.  ii. Islamic monuments.

• BĀBOLSAR

  X. de Planhol

  town on the Caspian coast in the province of Māzandarān.

• BĀBOR

  M. E. Subtelny

  Timurid prince (1422-1457), the youngest son of Bāysonqor and a great-grandson of the conqueror Tīmūr.

• BĀBOR, ẒAHĪR-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD

  F. Lehmann

  (1483-1530), Timurid prince, military genius, and literary craftsman, founder of the Mughal Empire in India.

• BĀBORĪ

  D. Balland

  (or Bābor, Bābar; sing. Bāboray), a Paṧtūn tribe originally from the Solaymān mountains, now widely dispersed.

• BABR

  P. Joslin

  “tiger.” The little evidence suggests only tentative differences between the Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) and the Indian tiger (P. t. tigris) or the Siberian tiger (P. t. altaica).

• BABR-E BAYĀN

  Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

  (or babr, also called palangīna), in the traditional history, the name of the coat which Rostam wore in combat.