Table of Contents

  • BACKGAMMON

    Cross-Reference

    See NARD.

  • BACTRA

    Cross-Reference

    See BACTRIA i; BALKH vi.

  • BACTRIA

    P. Leriche, F. Grenet

    Little information has been obtained from Achaemenid sites in Bactria. Bactra is deeply buried under the citadel (bālā-ḥeṣār) of present-day Balḵ. Drapsaca and Aornos, mentioned by the historians of Alexander, are usually identified with Kondūz and Tashkurgan, where excavations have yet to begin.

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  • BACTRIAN LANGUAGE

    N. Sims-Williams

    The Iranian language of ancient Bactria (northern Afghanistan) of the Kushan period is the only Middle Iranian language whose writing system is based on the Greek alphabet.

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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

    This highland has an extremely harsh climate. The annual rainfall, which can be as much as 800 to 1,500 mm on west-facing and northwest-facing massifs, falls to less than 200 mm on sheltered plateaus in the Pamir and less than 100 mm in the Oksu basin, with the result that these areas are highland deserts.

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  • BADAḴŠĀNI, Sayyed SOHRĀB WALI

    Farhad Daftary

    the most prominent Central Asian Nezāri Ismaʿili theologian and author of the early centuries after the fall of Alamut.

  • 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.