Table of Contents

• BABYLON

  G. Cardascia

  :  under the Achaemenids. The economic and cultural history of Babylon under Persian rule matched the vicissitudes of its political life.

• BABYLONIA

  Multiple Authors

  ancient state in southern Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq.

• BABYLONIA i. History of Babylonia in the Median and Achaemenid periods

  M. A. Dandamayev

  The Medes, under their king Cyaxares, first seized the Assyrian province of Arrapha in 614 B.C. Then, in the autumn of the same year, and after a fierce battle, they gained control of Assyria’s ancient capital, Assur. Nabopolassar brought his Babylonian army and joined the Medes after Assur had fallen.

• BABYLONIA ii. Babylonian Influences on Iran

  G. Gnoli

  In the Achaemenid period, the influence of Babylonia was strong in the fields of the arts, science, religion, and religious policies, even affecting the concept of kingship.

• BABYLONIAN CHRONICLES

  M. Dandamayev

  as sources for Iranian history. In a number of cases Babylonian chronicles provide valuable information about the political history of Iran. They began with the reign of Nabu-nāṣir (747-734 BCE) and continued as far as the reign of Seleucus II (245-226 BCE).

• BAČČA-YE SAQQĀ

  D. Balland

  “the water-carrier’s child,” the derogatory name given to the leader of a peasants’ revolt which succeeded in placing him on the throne of Afghanistan in 1929.

• BACHER, WILHELM

  A. Netzer

  (1850-1913), Hungarian scholar of Persian and Judeo-Persian language and literature.

• BACKGAMMON

  Cross-Reference

  See NARD.

• BACTRA

  Cross-Reference

  See BACTRIA i; BALKH vi.

• BACTRIA

  P. Leriche, F. Grenet

  Bactria, the territory of which Bactra was the capital, originally consisted of the plain between the Hindu Kush and the Āmū Daryā with its string of agricultural oases dependent on water taken from the rivers of Balḵ (Bactra), Tashkurgan, Kondūz, Sar-e Pol, and Šīrīn Tagāō.

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• BACTRIAN LANGUAGE

  N. Sims-Williams

  the Iranian language of ancient Bactria (northern Afghanistan), attested by coins, seals, and inscriptions of the Kushan period (first to third centuries A.D.) and the following centuries and by a few later manuscript fragments. Bactrian is the only Middle Iranian language whose writing system is based on the Greek alphabet, a fact ultimately attributable to Alexander’s conquest of Bactria and to the maintenance of Greek rule for some 200 years after his death (323 B.C.).

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• BĀD (1)

  X. de Planhol

  “wind.” On the plateau of Iran and Afghanistan winds depend on a general regime of atmospheric pressures characterized, in the course of the year, by the succession of markedly distinct seasons with relatively stable barometric gradients.

• BĀD (2)

  L. Richter-Bernburg

  (“wind”) in Perso-Islamic medicine: 1. wind as a medically relevant environmental factor; 2. “airiness” as internal physiological and pathological agent.

• BADʾ WAʾL-TAʾRĪḴ

  M. Morony

  (The book of creation and history), an encyclopedic compilation of religious, historical, and philosophical knowledge written in Arabic by Abū Naṣr Moṭahhar b. al-Moṭahhar (or Ṭāher) Maqdesī in 966.

• BĀDA

  J. W. Clinton

  one of several terms used in Persian poetry to mean wine, and, by extension, any intoxicating liquor.  

• BADĀʾ

  W. Madelung

  (Ar. appearance, emergence), as a theological term denotes a change of a divine decision or ruling in response to the emergence of new circumstances.  It is upheld in Imami Shiʿite doctrine.

• BADAḴŠĀN

  X. de Planhol, D. Balland, W. Eilers

  the name of an area and modern province of northeastern Afghanistan, situated between the upper Amu Darya to the north, the Hindu Kush to the south, and the Kondūz river to the west.  i. Geography and ethnography. ii. Modern province.  iii. The name.

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• BADAḴŠĪ SAMARQANDĪ

  Z. Safa

  the poet laureate (malek-al-šoʿarāʾ) of the Timurid Mīrzā Uluḡ Beg (murdered 1449).

• BADAḴŠĪ, MOLLĀ SHAH

  H. Algar

  (also known as Shah Moḥammad; 1584-1661), a mystic and writer of the Qāderī order, given both to the rigorous practice of asceticism and to the ecstatic proclamation of theopathic sentiment.

• BADAL

  Cross-Reference

  See PAṦTŪNWĀLĪ.

• BĀDĀM

  X. de Planhol, N. Ramazani

  “almond.”  i. General.  ii. As food.  The genus Amygdalus is very common in Iran and Afghanistan and throughout the Turco-Iranian area.

• BĀDĀN B. SĀSĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See ABNĀʾ.

• BĀDĀN PĪRŪZ

  Cross-Reference

  See ARDABĪL.

• BADAŠT

  M. Momen

  small village of about 1,000 inhabitants, site of a conference  convened on the instructions of the Bāb in 1848.

• BADĀʾŪNĪ, ʿABD-AL-QĀDER

  A. S. Bazmee Ansari

  (1540-ca. 1615), polyglot man of letters, historian, and translator of Arabic and Sanskrit works into Persian during the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar.

• BĀDĀVARD

  Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

  (windfall), the name of one of the seven treasures of Ḵosrow Parvēz in the Šāh-nāma.

• BADĀYEʿ

  Cross-Reference

  collection of ḡazals by Saʿdī. See SAʿDĪ.

• BADĀYEʿNEGĀR, ĀQĀ MOḤAMMAD-EBRĀHĪM

  Cross-Reference

  See NAWWĀB-E TEHRĀNĪ.

• BAḎḎ

  Ḡ. -Ḥ. Yūsofī

  or BAḎḎAYN (perhaps two places), a mountainous region (kūra) in Azerbaijan, site of the castle  headquarters of Bābak Ḵorramī during his revolt against the ʿAbbasid caliphate (816-37).

• BĀDENJĀN

  F. Aubaile-Sallenave, ʿE. Elāhī

  “eggplant, aubergine.” Solanum melogena L. of the Solanaceae family. i. The plant.  ii. Uses of cooking.

• BĀDGĪR

  S. Roaf

  (wind-tower), literally “wind catcher,” a traditional structure used for passive air-conditioning of buildings. Yazd is known as šahr-e bādgīrhā (the city of wind catchers) and is renowned for the number and variety of them, some of which date from the Timurid period.

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• BĀḎḠĪS

  C. E. Bosworth, D. Balland

  also BĀDḠĪS, region in eastern Khorasan, between Herat and the middle course of the Harīrūd in the south, and Marv al-Rūḏ and the headwaters of the Morḡāb in the north. i. General and the early period.  ii. The modern province.

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• BĀDHĀ ḴABAR AZ TAḠYIR-e FAṢL MIDĀDAND

  Soheila Saremi

  (The winds presaged the changing of season), a novel by the eminent fiction writer and literary critic, Jamal Mirsadeqi. Set in the 1960s in Tehran and revolves around the turbulent life of Ḥamid, the novel’s narrator, and his cast of friends and neighbors of poverty-stricken families.

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• BADĪʿ (1)

  J. T. P. de Bruijn

  rhetorical embellishment. During the early Islamic period the word developed into a technical term through its use in discussions about Arabic poetry and ornate prose.

• BADĪʿ (2)

  D. M. MacEoin

  designation of the calendar system of Babism and Bahaism, originally introduced by the Bāb.

• BADĪʿ BALḴĪ

  Z. Safa

  Persian poet of the 10th century.

• BADĪʿ KĀTEB JOVAYNĪ, MOḤAMMAD

  Cross-Reference

  See KĀTEB JOVAYNĪ.

• BADĪʿ, ĀQĀ BOZORG

  M. Momen

  (d. 1869), a young Bahai martyr who has gained a certain distinction in Bahai lore.

• BADĪʿ-AL-ZAMĀN

  M. E. Subtelny

  (d. ca. 1514), Timurid prince, who rebelled against his father,  Sultan Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (r. Herat 1469-1506).

• BADĪʿ-AL-ZAMĀN HAMADĀNĪ

  F. Malti-Douglas

  (968-1008), Arabic belle-lettrist and inventor of the maqāma genre. His maqāmāt are a set of adventures narrated in rhymed prose and poetry, revolving around a rogue hero and a narrator.

• BADĪʿ-AL-ZAMĀN MĪRZĀ

  R. D. McChesney

  by most accounts the last of the Chaghatay/Timurid rulers of Badaḵšān (d. ca. 1603). 

• BADĪʿ-AL-ZAMĀN NAṬANZĪ

  Cross-Reference

  See ADĪB NAṬANZĪ.

• BADĪHA-SARĀʾĪ

  F. R. C. Bagley

  composition and utterance of something improvised (badīh), usually in verse. Among the Arabs, poetic improvisation was practiced and admired from pre-Islamic times. Among the Iranians, it has been a mark of poetical talent and skill.

• BADĪLĪ, AḤMAD

  H. Algar

  , SHAIKH, a Sufi shaikh in 12th-century Sabzavār, renowned for his mastery of the exoteric as well as the esoteric science. 

• BĀDKŪBA

  Cross-Reference

  See BAKU.

• BĀDPĀYĀN

  Cross-Reference

  See ARTHROPODS.

• BADR ČĀČĪ

  M. Dabīrsīāqī

  a Persian poet of the 14th century, born in the town or district of Čāč (also written Šāš) in Transoxiana.

• BADR JĀJARMĪ

  M. Dabīrsīāqī

  a 13th-century poet popular in his own time for his rhetorical skills.

• BADR KHAN

  Cross-Reference

  See BEDIR KHAN.

• BADR-AL-DĪN EBRĀHĪM

  S. I. Baevskiĭ

  author of the Persian dictionary Farhang-e zafāngūyā wa jahānpūyā (The eloquent and world-seeking dictionary) composed in India in the late 14th or early 15th century.