Table of Contents

  • 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.

  • 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

    The village has changed hands several times between Burbur family members, the Qajar aristocracy, and the central government in the last few centuries. In the 1840s, Esmāʿil Khan Burbur bought back the estate from ʿIsā Khan Biglarbegi Qajar, the governor of Malāyer, Nehāvand, and Tuyserkān, for 36,000 tomans.

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  • BURBUR TRIBE

    Dariush Borbor

    a Lor tribe dispersed throughout Persia, especially in Azerbaijan, Varāmin, northern Khorasan, Fārs, and Kermān.

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  • BURBUR, ʿALI

    Dariush Borbor

    administrative and military official under the Qajars.

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  • 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 (pre-8th millennium B.C.) are from 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.

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  • 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

    a maqām in Arabian, Turkish, and Persian musical traditions to this day; however, the contemporary form of the maqām of Būsalīk differs from that which is given by the classical scholars.

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  • 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

    Multiple Authors

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

  • BŪŠEHR i. THE CITY

    Xavier de Planhol

    Ar. Būšahr, European spellings Bushire, Busheer, Bouchir), port city in southern Iran on the Persian Gulf.

  • BŪŠEHR ii. MUSIC OF BŪŠEHR

    Moḥammad-Taqī Masʿūdīya

    local styles of music known as šarva and yazla.

  • 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.

  • BŪTĪMĀR

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    a semilegendary aquatic bird; in Persian literature its lore that can be traced back at least as far as the time of Jāḥeẓ (d. 255/868).

  • 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. 

  • BYZANTINE-IRANIAN RELATIONS

    A. Shapur Shahbazi

    From the middle of the 1st century B.C. the Middle East was dominated by the political rivalries of the empires of Rome and Iran.  In 298 a treaty of peace had been signed between the Roman and Sasanian emperors; it lasted until after Constantine’s conversion to Christianity.

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  • BYZANTIUM

    Jack Martin Balcer

    (Byzantion): contact with the Achaemenids (ca. 513-439 BCE). The Greek polis of Byzantium, in the European province of Thrace (OPers. Skudra), played a pivotal role in the Greco-Persian wars.

  • Bahrām Yašt

    music sample

  • Baktiāri karnā

    music sample

  • Baluchistan Ḏekr

    music sample

  • Banān - Kasi ke dar sar-e u

    music sample

  • Bandbāz

    music sample

  • Bastanegār

    music sample

  • Battle between Rostam and Sohrāb, The

    music sample

  • Bayāt-e Kord

    music sample