Table of Contents

• BAGHDAD PACT

  J. A. Kechichian

  popular name for the 1955 pro-Western defense alliance between Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom.

• BAGINA

  F. Grenet

  reconstructed Old Iranian word for a temple housing a cult image; and BAGINAPATI, the master of such a temple. They have descendants in various Middle Iranian languages.

• BAḠLĀN

  A. D. H. Bivar, D. Balland, X. de Planhol

  district and town of Afghanistan, in the upper valley of the Sorḵāb (Qondūz) river on the northern slope of the Hindu Kush range.  i. The Kushan period.  ii. The modern province.  iii. The modern town.

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• BAGŌAS

  M. Dandamayev

  the chief eunuch and general under the Achaemenid Artaxerxes III, and kingmaker of his successors.

• BAGRATIDS

  C. Toumanoff

  possibly the most important princely dynasty of Caucasia (Bagratuni in Armenia, Bagrationi in Georgia), attaining to the kingly status in the ninth century and retaining it in Georgia to the 19th century.

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• BAHĀʾ-AL-DAWLA, ABŪ NAṢR FĪRŪZ

  cross-reference

  See BUYIDS.

• BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN ʿĀMELĪ

  E. Kohlberg

  , SHAIKH MOḤAMMAD B. ḤOSAYN BAHĀʾĪ, Imami scholar and author, a prolific writer, in Imami circles regarded as one of the leading lights of his age (1547-1621).

• BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN BAḠDĀDĪ

  Z. Safa

  , MOḤAMMAD B. MOʾAYYAD, a master of the art of Persian letter-writing (tarassol) (d. after 1289).

• BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN ḴARAQĪ

  D. Pingree

  , ABŪ BAKR MOḤAMMAD (d. 1138-39), author of a work was on astronomy, geography, and chronology.

• BAHĀʾ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD WALAD

  H. Algar

  B. ḤOSAYN B. AḤMAD ḴAṬĪB BALḴĪ (1151-1231), scholar, father of the great Sufi poet Mawlānā Jalāl-al-Dīn Rūmī.