Table of Contents

• BEDLĪSĪ, ŻĪĀʾ-AL-DĪN ʿAMMĀR

  Edward Badeen

  Sufi shaikh (d. between 1194 and 1207-08), teacher of Najm-al-Din Kobrā.

• BEDŽỊZATỊ ČERMEN

  Fridrik Thordarson

  (Russ.: Chermen Begizov; DAUỊTỊ FỊRT;  1899-1941), Ossetic writer and editor.

• BEECH

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  Fagus L. Modern Iranian botanists tend to refer to this tree as rāš. Its timber is used more than any other wood for making doors, windows, inexpensive furni­ture, and tools.

• BEET

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  Beta vulgaris L., PERS. čoḡondar. The present distinction of beet varieties into vegetable (or red) beet, sugar beet, and fodder beet was unknown to the early Islamic botanists-pharmacologists.

• BEG

  Peter Jackson

  (Pers. also beyg) a Turkish title meaning “lord” or “chief,” later “prince,” equivalent to the Arabic-Persian amīr, fem. BEGOM.

• BEGGING

  C. Edmund Bosworth, Hamid Algar, ʿAlī-Akbar Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

  (Pers. gadāʾī, takaddī, soʾāl).  i. In the early centuries of the Islamic period. ii. In Sufi literature and practice. iii. In later Iran.

• BEGLERBEGĪ

  Peter Jackson

  a Turkish title meaning “beg of begs,” “commander of commanders,” In the Il-khanid period sometimes employed to designate the leading amir in the state.

• BEGRĀM

  Martha L. Carter

  the site of ancient Kāpiśa, located 80.5 km north of Kabul overlooking the Panjšīr valley at the confluence of the Panjšīr and Ḡorband rivers.

• BEGTOḠDÏ

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  Turkish slave com­mander of the Ghaznavid sultans Maḥmūd and Masʿūd (d. 1040).

• BEGTUZUN

  C. Edmund Bosworth

  (Pers. Baktūzūn), a Turkish slave general of the Samanids prominent in the confused struggles for power during the closing years of the Samanid amirate (end of the 10th century).

• BEH

  Wilhelm Eilers, Hūšang Aʿlam, Nesta Ramazani

  “quince, Cydonia.”  i. The word.  ii. The tree.  iii. Culinary uses of the fruit. Wild quince trees are found in the Caucasus, and the cultivated variety may have originated there.

• BEH-ARDAŠĪR

  Michael Morony

  (Mid. Pers. Vēh-Ardaxšēr, Ar. Bahorasīr), name of two cities founded by the first Sasanian king of kings, Ardašīr I (r. 226-41).

• BEH-QOBĀD

  Michael Morony

  (Mid. Pers. Vēh-Kavāt), an administrative district created by the Sasanian king Qobād I in the early sixth century along the Babylon branch of the Euphrates.

• BEHĀFARĪD

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  Zoroastrian heresiarch and self-styled prophet, killed 748-49.

• BEḤĀR AL-ANWĀR

  Etan Kohlberg

  (Oceans of light) by Mollā Moḥammad-Bāqer b. Moḥammad-Taqī Majlesī (d. 1699 or 1700), an encyclopedic compilation in Arabic of Imamite traditions.

• BEHAZIN

  ḤASSAN MIRʿĀBEDINI

  noted translator, editor, fiction writer, and active Marxist, who, in different stages of his literary career, assumed other pseudonyms: Nowruz ʿAli Āzād, and Hormoz Malekdād. In January 1938, he returned to Iran to serve in the navy and was posted in Ḵorramπahr, where he found ample leisure time to pursue his literary interests.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BEHBAHĀN

  Aḥmad Eqtedārī

  Iranian city and county (šahrestān) in the province of Ḵūzestān.

• BEHBAHĀNĪ, ʿABD-ALLĀH

  cross-reference

  See ʿABD-ALLĀH BEHBAHĀNĪ.

• BEHBAHĀNĪ, MOḤAMMAD

  Hamid Algar

  , AYATOLLAH (1874-1963), a leading mojtahed of Tehran who played a role of some importance in the events of the first two postwar decades.

• BEHBAHĀNĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ʿALĪ

  Hamid Algar

  B. MOḤAMMAD-BĀQER, ĀQĀ  (1731-1801), Shiʿite mojtahed celebrated primarily for his ferocious hatred of Sufis.

• BEHBAHĀNĪ, MOḤMMAD-BĀQER

  Hamid Algar

  , ĀQĀ SAYYED, Shiʿite mojtahed and champion of the Oṣūlī school in Shiʿite law (feqh).

• BEHBŪDĪ

  Yuri Bregel

  , MOLLĀ MAḤMŪD ḴᵛĀJA (1875-1919), one of the leaders of the Jadīd movement in Central Asia in the 1900s-1910s, journalist and playwright.

• BEHDĀRĪ

  Mohammad Ali Faghih

  (“maintaining health”), Persian term for the entire health care system provided by government or other agencies.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BEHDĀŠT BARĀ-YE HAMA

  Akbar Moarefi

  (“Health for All”), a magazine published by the Division of Public Health Education in Tehran, 1953-56.

• BEHDĪN

  James R. Russell

  “the Good Religion,” i.e., Zoroastrianism, or one of its adherents, in modern usage, specifically of the laity.

• BEHDĪNĀN DIALECT

  Gernot L. Windfuhr

  a Central dialect spoken by the Behdīnān “the people of the Good Religion,” i.e., Zoroastrianism, who live in, or came from, the cities of Kermān and Yazd and surrounding towns and villages.  

• BEHEŠT-E ZAHRĀʾ

  Hamid Algar

  the chief cemetery of Teh­ran and principal shrine of the Islamic Revolution of 1357 Š./1978-79.

• BEHĪZAK

  cross-reference

  See CALENDARS.

• BEHRAMSHAH NAOROJI SHROFF

  John R. Hinnells

  (1858-­1927), Parsi religions teacher and founder of the move­ment known as Ilm-i Khshnoom (ʿElm-e ḵošnūm; Path of knowledge).

• BEHRANGĪ, ṢAMAD

  Michael C. Hillmann

  (1939-1968), teacher, social critic, folklorist, translator, and short story writer.

• BEHRŪZ DONBOLĪ

  cross-reference

  , AMĪR. See DONBOLĪ, AMĪR BEHRŪZ.

• BEHRŪZ, ḎABĪḤ

  Paul Sprachman

  (1889-1971), Persian satirist,  writer of highly popular parodies and burlesques.

• BEHŠAHR

  Eckart Ehlers

  older Ašraf, a town situated at 36°41′55″ north latitude and 53°32′30″ east longitude in the eastern part of central Māzandarān.

• BEHSOTŪN, ABŪ MANṢŪR

  cross-reference

  See BĪSOTŪN, ABŪ MANṢŪR.

• BEHZĀD

  Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh

  in the traditional history, the name of the black horse belonging successively to Sīāvoš, Kay Ḵosrow, and Goštāsb.

• BEHZĀD, ḤOSAYN

  Layla Diba

  (1894-1968), lacquer artist, painter, and book illustrator.

• BEHZĀD, KAMĀL-AL-DĪN

  Priscilla Soucek

  master painter, proverbial for his skill, active in Herat during the reign of the Timurid Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (1470-1506).

• BEKTĀŠ, ḤĀJĪ

  Hamid Algar

  (d. 1270-71?), Khorasanian Sufi and eponym of the Bektāšī order, once widespread in Anatolia and the Balkans, with offshoots in Egypt, Iraq, and Western Iran.

• BEKTĀŠĪYA

  Hamid Algar

  a syncretic and heterodox Sufi order, found principally in Anatolia and the Balkans, with offshoots in other regions, named after Ḥājī Bektāš and regarding him as its founding elder (pīr).

• BELBĀS

  Pierre Oberling

  a former Kurdish tribal confederacy of northwestern Iran and northeastern Iraq.

• BELDERČĪN

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  (quail, Coturnix coturnix L.). The quail is mentioned in both the Bible and the Koran. Allusions to these Koranic reminiscences are occasionally found in Persian poetry. Various virtues are attributed to the quail in traditional or popular Islamic medicine.

• BELGIAN-IRANIAN RELATIONS

  Annette Destrée

  Official diplomatic relations between Belgium and Iran date from the end of the nineteenth century.

• BELGRĀMĪ, ʿABD-AL-JALĪL

  cross-reference

  See ʿABD-AL­-JALĪL BELGRĀMĪ.

• BELGRĀMĪ, ĀZĀD

  Cross-Reference

  See ĀZĀD BELGRĀMĪ.

• BELL, GERTRUDE Margaret Lowthian

  G. Michael Wickens

  (1868-1926), British traveler, private scholar, archeolo­gist, sometime government servant, and a translator of Ḥāfeẓ.

• BELLES LETTRES i. SASANIAN IRAN

  Werner Sundermann

  Belles lettres, that is, entertaining works, are not lacking in Sasanian Iran but can by no means match with their development in New Persian literature, both for quality and quantity.

• BELLEW, HENRY WALTER

  D. Neil MacKenzie

  (1834-92), surgeon and amateur orientalist. Throughout his service he took a lively interest in the languages and ethnography of the peoples within his charge.

• BELOVED

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  (maʿšūq in Arabic and Persian), together with Lover (ʿāšeq) and Love (ʿešq), making the three concepts that dominate the semantic field of eroticism in Persian literature and mysticism.

• BELOWHAR O BŪDĀSAF

  Cross-Reference

  See BARLAAM AND IOSAPH.

• BELQĪS

  Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī

  the queen of Sheba (Sabā), whose meetings with Solomon (Solaymān) are a favorite theme in Persian and Arabic literature.