Table of Contents

  • BELTS

    Peter Calmeyer, Elsie H. Peck

    (Mid. Pets, kamar, NPers. kamar-band). Investigation of representations of belts in Iran between the fall of the Achaemenid dynasty in the 4th century BC and the coming of Islam reveals that they were almost exclusively male accessories. Depictions of females wearing belts are rare, and most are heavily influenced by Hellenistic and Roman styles.

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  • BĒMA

    Werner Sundermann

    the chief festival of the Manicheans. The Greek word bēma meant “platform,” “stage,” or “judge’s seat.” 

  • BENDŌY

    Cross-Reference

    See BESṬĀM O BENDŌY.

  • BENGAL

    Richard M. Eaton, N. H. Ansari and S. H. Qasemi

    the deltaic region of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers, and the easternmost haven of Indo-Iranian culture on the Indian subcontinent.

  • BENNIGSEN, ALEXANDRE

    Michael Rywkin

    (1913-1988), scholar of Soviet Islam. Bennigsen saw the unassimilable quality of Soviet Muslim peoples and the continued strength of Soviet Islam based on the national-religious symbiosis.

  • BENVENISTE, ÉMILE

    Gilbert Lazard

    (1902-76), French scholar, eminent Iranist, and one of the greatest linguists of his era. At a very young age he caught the attention of the dean of linguistics in France, Antoine Meillet, and was soon engaged in the research activities that he was to pursue through half a century.

  • BERENJ “brass”

    A. Souren Melikian-Chirvani, James W. Allan

    (Mid. Pers. brinǰ and bring) “brass,” an alloy of copper and zinc. i. General. ii. In the Islamic period.

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  • BERENJ “rice”

    Marcel Bazin and Christian Bromberger, Daniel Balland, Ṣoḡrā Bāzargān

    “rice," Middle Persian brinǰ, Sogdian ryzʾkh, Khotanese rrīysua-, Pashto wrīžī (plur.), etc., related to Old Indian vrīhí, Greek oruza (etc.). 

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  • BEREZIN, IL’YA NIKOLAEVICH

    Jean Calmard

    (1818-96), Rus­sian orientalist known for his works on Iranian, Arabic, and Turkish philology and dialectology and on Mongol history,  and for his travel ac­counts.

  • BERJĪS

    Wilhelm Eilers

    Arabic word listed in the dictionaries as meaning the planet Jupiter (usually al-Moštarī in Arabic, Hormozd in Persian).

  • BERK-YARUQ

    cross-reference

    See BARKĪĀROQ.

  • BEROSSUS

    Stanley M. Burstein

    Babylonian 4th-3rd-century priest-chronicler; he took note of Iranian actions insofar as they directly affected Babylon.

  • BERTHELS, EVGENIĭ ÈDUARDOVICH

    Michael Zand

    [BERTEL’S] (1890-1957), Soviet Iranologist, head of the Soviet school of Persian and Central Asian Turkic studies in the 1930s-50s.

  • BERYĀNĪ

    Ṣoḡrā Bāzargān

    (from beryān “roast”), an Iranian meat dish usually served wrapped in flat bread.

  • BĒŠĀPŪR

    Cross-Reference

    See BĪŠĀPŪR.

  • BEŠĀRAT

    Nassereddin Parvin

    (Glad tidings), a weekly Persian journal of news and political comment, Mašhad, 1907.

  • BESĀṬ

    Cross-Reference

    See CARPETS.

  • BESĀṬĪ SAMARQANDĪ

    Zabihollah Safa

    , SERĀJ AL-DĪN, Per­sian poet (14th-15th centuries).

  • BESMEL ŠĪRĀZĪ

    Zabihollah Safa

    , ḤĀJĪ ʿALĪ-AKBAR, also known as Nawwāb, Persian writer and poet of note of the 18th-19th centuries.

  • BESMELLĀH

    Philippe Gignoux, Hamid Algar

    Islamic formula meaning “in the name of God,” more fully Besmellāh al-raḥmān al-raḥīm “in the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful.”

  • BESSOS

    Michael Weiskopf

    satrap of Bactria and last Achaemenid king (ca. 336-329 BC). From his capital at Bactra (Zariaspa), in the area of modern Balḵ, Bessos exercised control over Bactria, Sogdia to the north, and border regions of India.

  • BESṬĀM (1)

    Wilhelm Eilers

    (or Bestām), an Iranian man’s name; as a result of its past popularity, it is a fairly common component of place names.

  • BESṬĀM (2)

    Wolfram Kleiss

    (or Basṭām), Elamite Rusa-i Uru.Tur, the name of a village at the foot of the ruins of an ancient Urartian hill fortress in the province of West Azerbaijan (85 km southeast of Mākū and 54 km northwest of Ḵᵛoy; altitude ca. 1,300 m above sea level).

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  • BESṬĀM (3)

    Chahryar Adle

    or Basṭām, a small town in the medieval Iranian province of Qūmes and modern Ostān-e Semnān. It is located in a large valley on the southern foothills of the Alborz.

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  • BESṬĀM O BENDŌY

    A. Shapur Shahbazi

    maternal uncles of Ḵosrow II Parvēz and leading statesmen and soldiers under Hormozd IV and Ḵosrow Parvēz.

  • BESṬĀMĪ family

    Richard W. Bulliet

    leading family among the Shafeʿites of Nīšāpūr from the late 4th/10th through the early 6th/12th century.

  • BESṬĀMĪ, BĀYAZĪD

    Hamid Algar

    [Basṭāmī], ABŪ MOḤAMMAD BĀYAZĪD b. ʿEnāyat-Allāh, a 16th-century faqīh and Sufi of Khorasan.

  • BESṬĀMĪ, ŠEHĀB-AL-DĪN

    Hamid Algar

    [Basṭāmī], SHAIKH (d. 1405), a Sufi of Herat during the Timurid period.

  • BESṬĀMĪ, ʿABD-AL-RAḤMĀN

    Hamid Algar

    b. Moḥammad b. ʿAlī [Basṭāmī], al-Ḥanafī, al-Ḥorūfī (d.1454), Ottoman polymath of Khorasanian ancestry.

  • BESṬĀMĪ, BĀYAZĪD

    Gerhard Böwering

    [Basṭāmī] (Abū Yazīd Ṭayfūr b. ʿĪsā b. Sorūšān), early (9th-century) Muslim mystic of Iran. Much of his fame is owing to ecstatic utterances, which he was the first to employ consistently as expressions of Sufi experience.

  • BĒṮ ĀRAMAYĒ

    Michael Morony

    lit. “land of the Arameans,” the region and Sasanian province of Āsōristān in Iraq between the Jabal Ḥamrīn and Maysān.

  • BĒṮ DARAYĒ

    Michael Morony

    (Arabic Bādarāyā), a district southeast of the lower Nahrawān canal in Gōḵē (Arż Jūḵā), Iraq.

  • BĒṮ GARMĒ

    Michael Morony

    a region and province in northeastern Iraq named after a people, possibly a Persian tribe.

  • BĒṮ LAPAṬ

    Michael Morony

    the Syriac name for Vēh Antiōk Šāpūr (Gondēšāpūr), founded in ca. 260 by Šāpūr I in Ḵūzestān with the Roman captives from Valerian’s army.

  • BĒṮ SELŌḴ

    Michael Morony

    “house of Seleucos,” abbreviation of Karkā ḏe Bēṯ Selōḵ, “fortress of the house of Seleucos,” modern Kirkuk in Iraq.

  • BĒṬANĪ

    Daniel Balland

    a Pash­tun tribe on the eastern edge of the Solaymān moun­tains. The recent history of the Bēṭanī has been largely determined by the land that they now inhabit, adjacent to the plains of the middle Indus and the Wazīr uplands.

  • BETLĪS

    cross-reference

    See BEDLĪS.

  • BĒVARASP

    cross-reference

    See ŻAḤḤĀK.

  • BHADRA

    Ronald E. Emmerick

    a magician, who according to Buddhist legend tried to deceive the Buddha by means of his magic powers in order to disprove the Buddha’s claim to omniscience.

  • BHADRACARYĀDEŚANĀ

    Ronald E. Emmerick

    the name of a Buddhist text belonging to the Mahāyāna Tantric tradition of which a Khotanese translation is extant.

  • BHADRAKALPIKASŪTRA

    Ronald E. Emmerick

    the name of a Buddhist Mahayanist text (Sanskrit sutra) concerning the names of the Buddhas to appear in the good aeon (Sanskrit bhadrakalpa).

  • BHAGARIAS

    Mary Boyce and Firoze M. P. Kotwal

    lit. “Sharers,”  one of the five groups (panth) of Parsi Zoroastrian priests on the coast of Gujarat.

  • BHAGVĀN DĀS HENDĪ

    N. H. Ansari

    Indian poet and author writing in Persian. He belonged to the Hindu Srīvāstava Kāyastha community, which is known for its deep interest in Persian.

  • BHAIṢAJYAGURUVAIḌŪRYAPRABHARĀJASŪTRA

    Ronald E. Emmerick

    the name of a Buddhist Mahayanist text of which a number of fragments in Old Khotanese and Sogdian are extant.

  • BHANDĀRĪ

    N. H. Ansari

    putative author of Ḵolāṣat al-tawārīḵ, a general history of India written in Persian during the reign of Awrangzēb (r. 1658-1707), with special emphasis on the rulers of Delhi.

  • BHARUCHA, SHERIARJI DADABHAI

    Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa

    Parsi scholar (1843-1915). During the last years of his life he was criticized for his reformist views that the Zoroastrian religion was not meant for a particular fold but was open for all.

  • BHARUCHAS

    Mary Boyce and Firoze M. P. Kotwal

    the name of a group (panth) of Parsi Zoroastrian priests who had their headquarters at the ancient port of Bharuch (Broach) in Gujarat.

  • BHAVĀṄGA

    Ronald E. Emmerick

    the name assigned by H. W. Bailey to ten fragmentary Khotanese folios, a transcription of which he published.

  • BHOWNAGGREE, Mancherjee Merwanjee

    John McLeod

    , Sir, Parsi statesman (1851-1933). His ancestors were from the principality of Bhāvnagar in Gujarat, whence his surname originates.

  • BĪA-PAS, BĪA-PĪŠ

    Cross-Reference

    See GĪLĀN.