Table of Contents

• BANĀKAṮ

  C. E. Bosworth

  or BENĀKAṮ, the main town of the medieval Transoxanian province of Šāš or Čāč; it almost certainly had a pre-Islamic history as a center of the Sogdians.

• BANĀKATĪ, Abū Solaymān

  P. Jackson

  Dāwūd b. Abi’l-Fażl Moḥammad (d. 1329-30), poet and historian.

• BANĀN, ḠOLĀM-ḤOSAYN

  M. Caton

  (1911-1986), one of the foremost Persian singers of the 20th century, known for the quality of his voice and vast knowledge of āvāz repertory.  

• BĀNBIŠN

  W. Sundermann

  Middle Persian “queen”: etymology and occurrences in Middle Iranian.

• BAND “DAM”

  X. De Planhol

  “dam, ” something that factually or figuratively binds, ties, or restricts (cf. Av. banda- “bond,” Eng. bond). In geographical nomenclature it is applied to ranges (mainly in Afghanistan),  passes (darband), and old dams and barrages built to store or divert water.

• BAND-E AMĪR (1)

  J. Lerner

  (the amir’s dike) or Band-e ʿAżodī (for the Daylamite ruler ʿAżod-al-Dawla, r. 949-83), a dam or weir constructed across the Kor river at the southeast end of the Marvdašt plain in Fārs.

• BAND-E AMĪR (2)

  X. De Planhol

  the chain of natural lakes 90 km west of Bāmīān in Afghanistan (lat 30°12’ N, long 66°30’ E).

• BAND-E BAHMAN

  K. Afsar

  an ancient dam built on the Qara Āḡāj river nearly sixty km south of Shiraz, attributed to the legendary king Bahman son of Esfandīār.

• BAND-E TORKESTĀN

  X. De Planhol

  (boundary wall of Turkestan), the mountain range in northwestern Afghanistan which runs in a west-east direction for 200 km between the upper valley of the Morḡāb to the south and the plains of the Āmū Daryā to the north.

• BANDA

  W. Eilers, C. Herrenschmidt

  “servant.” i. The term. ii. Old Persian bandaka. Banda (NPers.) and its precursors bandak/bandag (Mid. Pers.) and bandaka (OPers.) meant “henchman, (loyal) servant, vassal,” but not “slave.”