Table of Contents

• 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.