Table of Contents

• 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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 in the foothills of the Tien-shan.  

• 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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

  a fortified architectural complex in Hamadān Province, situated 52 km southeast of Hamadān and 33 km northeast of Malāyer.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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 date from before the 8th millennium B.C. They have been excavated at 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.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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

  one of the maqāms of the Perso-Arabian musical system mentioned in medieval treatises on music.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• 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

  Xavier de Planhol, Moḥammad-Taqī Masʿūdīya

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

• 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.

• 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.