Table of Contents

  • 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.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • 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

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

  • BĪA-PAS, BĪA-PĪŠ

    Cross-Reference

    See GĪLĀN.

  • BĪĀBĀN

    Brian Spooner

    name of the coastal plain that extends south from the mouth of the Mīnāb river for 88 miles to the cape Raʾs al-Kūh, which is 30 miles west of the Jask promontory.

  • BĪĀBĀN

    Cross-Reference

    Persian word meaning “desert.” See DESERT.

  • BĪĀBĀNAK

    Eckart Ehlers

    a group of isolated oasis settlements in central Iran, stretching over an area of 70 by 90 miles of what is mostly desert.

  • BĪĀR

    C. Edmund Bosworth

    (from Ar. plur. of beʾr “well, spring”), a small settlement of medieval Islamic times on the northern fringe or the Dašt-e Kavīr, modern Bīārjomand.

  • BĪBĪ KHANOM MOSQUE

    Bernard O’Kane

    named after Bībī Khanom, otherwise known as Sarāy-Molk Khanom, chief wife of Tīmūr (r. 7/1370-1405).

  • BĪBĪ ŠAHRBĀNŪ

    Mary Boyce

    the dedication of a Moslem shrine on a hillside by Ray to the south of Tehran. The legend attached to it is that of Šahrbānū, a daughter of the last Sasanian king, Yazdegerd III (r. 632-51).

  • BĪBĪ ZAYNAB, MAUSOLEUM OF

    Bernard O’Kane

    named after Bībī Zaynab, its legendary occupant, together with her mother Oljā Aīm, the wet nurse of Tīmūr (r. 1370-1405). It is in the Šāh-e Zenda necropolis in Samarkand.

  • BIBLE

    Multiple Authors

    This series of articles covers various aspects of the Bible, as pertaining to Iran and Iranian lands.

  • BIBLE i. As a Source for Median and Achaemenid History

    M. A. Dandamayev

    The old biblical texts arose in various historic periods. Except for some parts of the books of Ezra and Daniel, composed in Aramaic, all these texts are written in Hebrew.

  • BIBLE ii. Persian Elements in the Bible

    Morton Smith

    Identification of Persian elements in the Bible is difficult because: (1) nobody knows just what was “Persian” when the biblical books were being written. (2) many things then “Persian” were also elements of other cultures.

  • BIBLE iii. Chronology of Selected Persian Translations of Parts or the Whole of the Bible

    Kenneth J. Thomas and Fereydun Vahman

    The following selection of translations, for which there are existing manuscripts, represents the diversity of translators as well as versions of particular historical significance or usage.

  • BIBLE iv. Middle Persian Translations

    Shaul Shaked

    The only extant Middle Persian Bible version is represented by fragments of a translation of the Psalms. The Christians of Iran were dependent largely on the Syriac versions of the Bible, but the activity of creating new versions in the current vernacular must have been part of the missionary effort.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • BIBLE v. Sogdian Translations

    Nicholas Sims-Williams

    The following manuscripts containing biblical texts in Sogdian have been made known. None of them survives in anything like complete form, and some are mere fragments.

  • BIBLE vi. Judeo-Persian Translations

    Jes P. Asmussen

    Judeo-Persian or Jewish-Persian is the common designation for, Persian written with Hebrew characters. Among the earliest and most important Judeo-Persian texts are the Bible translations.

  • BIBLE vii. Persian Translations of the Bible

    Kenneth J. Thomas and Fereydun Vahman

    The Pentateuch, the books of the prophets, and the writings (Heb. ketūbīm), including the Psalms, from the Hebrew scriptures, collectively known as the Old Testament, and the Gospels and other writings in Greek, collectively known as the New Testament, have all been translated into Persian.

    This Article Has Images/Tables.
  • BIBLE viii. Translations into other Modern Iranian Languages

    Kenneth J. Thomas

    John Leyden, a gifted Scottish linguist and poet who went to Calcutta in 1803 as a surgeon’s assistant for the East India Company and subsequently became a professor at the College of Fort William, was involved in translating the Gospels into a number of languages, including both Pashto and Bal­uchi.

  • BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES

    Multiple Authors

    i. In the West. ii. In Iran. This series of articles covers the catalogues of manuscripts and bibliographies of printed works on Iran compiled by scholars in Iran, Europe (including Russia) and North America.

  • BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES i. In the West

    J. T. P. de Bruijn

    European interest in Iranian bibliography was awakened in the 16th and early 17th centuries, when manuscripts were brought to the West in ever-increasing numbers and became much sought after by humanists engaged in Oriental studies.

  • BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES ii. In Iran

    Aḥmad Monzawī and ʿAlī Naqī Monzawī

    Persian-language catalogues of manuscripts preserved in libraries in Iran and elsewhere range from detailed works in book form to articles in journals and short lists published separately or as supplements to other publications.

  • BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CATALOGUES ii. In Iran (continued)

    Aḥmad Monzawī and ʿAlī Naqī Monzawī

    fehrest (lit. list, index).  The word has now generally been superseded in Persian by ketāb-šenāsī.

  • BĪČAGĀN LAKE

    cross-reference

    See BAḴTAGĀN LAKE.

  • BICKERMAN, ELIAS JOSEPH

    Muhammed A. Dandamayev

    (1897-1981), a leading scholar of Greco-Roman history and the Hellenistic world, whose research interests extended to Judaism and some aspects of Iranian history.

  • BICKNELL, HERMAN

    Michael C. Hillmann

    (1830-1875), a translator of Ḥāfeẓ. Some of his metered and rhymed translations replicate, or at least giving the impression of, Persian monorhyme patterns.