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.  

  • BULSARA, SOHRAB JAMSHEDJI

    Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa

    (1877-1945), Parsi scholar of Avestan, Pahlavi, Pazand, and Persian and Iranian history, born to a middle class family in Bulsar, Gujarat.  

  • BŪM

    cross-reference

    See BŪF.

  • BUN-XĀNAG

    Prods Oktor Skjærvø

    term in the inscriptions of Kirdīr at Naqš-e Rostam (KKZ and KNRm), variously interpreted.

  • BUNDAHIŠN

    D. Neil MacKenzie

    “Primal creation,” traditional name of a major Pahlavi work of compilation, mainly a detailed cosmogony and cosmography based on the Zoroastrian scriptures.

  • BUNTING, Basil Cheesman

    Parvin Loloi

    (1900-1985), British poet, linguist, translator, journalist, diplomat, and spy.

  • BŪQĀ

    Bertold Spuler

    (Būqāy, Boḡā), Mongolian Boḡa, Mongol general who took part in the fighting between the il-khans Aḥmad Takūdār (Tegüder) and Arḡūn in 1284 and then became the vizier.

  • BŪQALAMŪN

    Hūšanḡ Aʿlam

    term applied to a variety of objects or animals exhibiting changing colors, such as (silk) fabrics, the gemstone jasper, the chameleon, and the turkey. 

  • BŪRĀN

    Ihsan Abbas

    (Middle Pers. Bōrān) also called Ḵadīja (807-84), wife of al-Maʾmūn and daughter of Ḥasan b. Sahl, probably so named after the Sasanian queen Bōrān.

  • BŪRĀNĪ

    Mohammad R. Ghanoonparvar

    (rarely būlānī), generic term for a category of Iranian dishes, now usually prepared with yogurt and cooked vegetables and served either hot or cold.

  • BURBUR CASTLE

    Dariush Borbor

    The village has changed hands several times between Burbur family members, the Qajar aristocracy, and the central government in the last few centuries. In the 1840s, Esmāʿil Khan Burbur bought back the estate from ʿIsā Khan Biglarbegi Qajar, the governor of Malāyer, Nehāvand, and Tuyserkān, for 36,000 tomans.

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  • BURBUR TRIBE

    Dariush Borbor

    a Lor tribe dispersed throughout Persia, especially in Azerbaijan, Varāmin, northern Khorasan, Fārs, and Kermān.

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  • BURBUR, ʿALI

    Dariush Borbor

    administrative and military official under the Qajars.

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  • BURDAR

    James R. Russell

    Pahl. burdār “carrier, sustainer,  bringer,” attested in Armenian as a proper name. 

  • BURHANPUR

    Nisar Ahmed Faruqi

    (Borhānpūr), city in Madhya Pradesh (formerly Central Provinces and Berar), India, on the Tapti river, 275 miles northeast of Bombay.

  • BURIAL

    Multiple Authors

    This series of articles covers burial practices in Iran and Iranian lands.

  • BURIAL i. Pre-Historic Burial Sites

    Ezzatollah Negahban

    The earliest human skeletal remains found in Persia (pre-8th millennium B.C.) are from several cave dwelling sites: Hotu Cave (Angel) and Belt Cave, both on the south­eastern shore of the Caspian Sea; Behistun (Bīsotūn) Cave near Kermānšāh; and Konjī and Arjana Caves in Luristan.

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  • BURIAL ii. Remnants of Burial Practices in Ancient Iran

    Frantz Grenet

    The burial practices of pre-Islamic Iran are known partly from archeological evidence, partly from the Zoroastrian scriptures, namely the Avesta and the later Pahlavi and Persian literature.

  • BURIAL iii. In Zoroastrianism

    James R. Russell

    Death being regarded as an evil brought about by Aŋra Mainyu, the Destructive Spirit, the corpse of a holy creature, particularly man or dog, is considered to be greatly infested by the druj Nasu.

  • BURIAL iv. In Islam

    Hamid Algar

    In the handbooks of feqh that the detailed procedures for washing, enshrouding, praying over, and burying the dead are expounded, with little variation among the different schools of Islamic law.

  • BURIAL v. In Bahai Communities

    Vahid Rafati

    Bahai laws on burial are limited to a few basic principles that are binding on all Bahai communities around the world.

  • BURNES, ALEXANDER

    Malcolm E. Yapp

    (1805-41), author of Travels into Bukhara (published in 1834), an account of his exploratory mission to Afghani­stan, Turkestan, and Iran.

  • BURNOUF, EUGÈNE

    Clarisse Herrenschmidt

    (1801-52), virtually the founder of Iranian linguistics, as well as of the study of the history of Buddhism.

  • BURUSHASKI

    Hermann Berger

    language spoken in Hunza-Karakorum, North Pakistan, containing some Iranian loanwords of various origins.

  • BURZĒNMIHR

    cross-reference

    See ĀDUR BURZĒNMIHR.

  • BŪSALĪK

    Hormoz Farhat

    a maqām in Arabian, Turkish, and Persian musical traditions to this day; however, the contemporary form of the maqām of Būsalīk differs from that which is given by the classical scholars.

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  • BŪŠĀSP

    Allan V. Williams

    demon of slothfulness and procrastination in Zoroastrianism.

  • BUSCARELLO DE GHIZOLFI

    Jean Richard

    Genoese merchant and diplomat who served the il-khan Arḡūn (r. 1284-91). Buscarello belonged to a great family of Genoa that played an important role in the maritime trade of the city.  

  • BŪŠEHR

    Multiple Authors

    (Ar. Būšahr, European spellings Bushire, Busheer, Bouchir), port city in southern Iran on the Persian Gulf. i. The city. ii. Music of Būšehr. 

  • BŪŠEHR i. THE CITY

    Xavier de Planhol

    Ar. Būšahr, European spellings Bushire, Busheer, Bouchir), port city in southern Iran on the Persian Gulf.

  • BŪŠEHR ii. MUSIC OF BŪŠEHR

    Moḥammad-Taqī Masʿūdīya

    local styles of music known as šarva and yazla.

  • BŪŠEHRĪ, ḤĀJĪ MOḤAMMAD

    Bāqer ʿĀqelī

    MOʿĪN-AL-TOJJĀR (1859-1933), a merchant active in the Constitutional Revolution.  

  • BŪSTĀN

    G. Michael Wickens

    in early sources referred to as Saʿdī-nāma, a moralistic and anecdotal verse work consisting of some 4,100 maṯnawī couplets by Shaikh Moṣleḥ-al-Dīn Saʿdī, completed in 1257. 

  • BŪSTĀNĪ, MĪRZĀ MOḤAMMAD

    Yuri Bregel

    ʿABD-AL-ʿAẒĪM SĀMĪ, poet and historian of Bukhara (b. ca. 1840, d. after 1914).

  • BUSTARD

    Hūšang Aʿlam and Derek A. Scott

    any of a family (Otididae) of game birds of which three species, generally called hūbar(r)a in contemporary Persian, occur in Iran.

  • BŪTĪMĀR

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    a semilegendary aquatic bird; in Persian literature its lore that can be traced back at least as far as the time of Jāḥeẓ (d. 255/868).

  • BUYIDS

    Tilman Nagel

    (also Bowayhids, Buwaihids, etc.; Pers. Āl-e Būya), dynasty of Daylamite origin ruling over the southern and western part of Iran and over Iraq from the middle of the 4th/10th to the middle of the 5th/11th centuries.

  • BŪZĪNA

    Maḥmūd Omīdsālār

    monkeys. Other names: meymūn (common), ʿantar (vulgar), kappī (Mid. Pers. kabīg, from Indian kapi). Two myths of the creation of monkeys exist in the Zoroastrian literature.

  • BŪZJĀNĪ, ABU’L-WAFĀʾ

    Cross-reference

    See ABU’L-WAFĀʾ BŪZJĀNĪ.

  • BŪZJĀNĪ, DARWĪŠ ʿALĪ

    Heshmat Moayyad

    (d. after 1522), a Sufi scholar of Khorasan attached to Aḥmad-e Jām.

  • BYRON, ROBERT

    Robert Irwin

    (1905-1941), British travel writer and amateur historian of architecture. 

  • BYZANTINE-IRANIAN RELATIONS

    A. Shapur Shahbazi

    From the middle of the 1st century B.C. the Middle East was dominated by the political rivalries of the empires of Rome and Iran.  In 298 a treaty of peace had been signed between the Roman and Sasanian emperors; it lasted until after Constantine’s conversion to Christianity.

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  • BYZANTIUM

    Jack Martin Balcer

    (Byzantion): contact with the Achaemenids (ca. 513-439 BCE). The Greek polis of Byzantium, in the European province of Thrace (OPers. Skudra), played a pivotal role in the Greco-Persian wars.

  • Bahrām Yašt

    music sample

  • Baktiāri karnā

    music sample

  • Baluchistan Ḏekr

    music sample

  • Banān - Kasi ke dar sar-e u

    music sample

  • Bandbāz

    music sample

  • Bastanegār

    music sample

  • Battle between Rostam and Sohrāb, The

    music sample

  • Bayāt-e Kord

    music sample