Table of Contents

• BARG-E BŪ

  A. Parsa

  (or deraḵt-e ḡār; Eng. laurel and sweet bay), Laurus nobilis, the most popular species of the family Lauraceae, the one used for laurel wreaths. The tree is common in Persian gardens.

• BARḠAŠI, ABU’L MOẒAFFAR MOḤAMMAD b. EBRAHIM

  C. E. Bosworth

  vizier to two of the last Samanid Amirs of Transoxiana and Khorasan. 

• BARGOSTVĀN

  A. S. Melikian-Chirvani

  horse armor, a distinctive feature of Iranian warfare from very early times on. The earliest known helmet (chamfron) has been excavated at Ḥasanlū from a 9th-century B.C. stratum.

• BĀRHANG

  Hakim M. Said

  (also bārtang), plantain, general name for about 27 species of Plantago L. (family Plantaginaceae) in Iran, particularly the greater plantain,  the lesser plantain, and fleawort.

• BARĪD

  C. E. Bosworth

  the official postal and intelligence service of the early Islamic caliphate and its successor states. The service operated by means of couriers mounted on mules or horses or camels or traveling on foot.

• BARĪDŠĀHĪ DYNASTY

  R. M. Eaton

  Indo-Muslim kings of the Deccan plateau, ruled from 1491-92 to 1619 in one of the five successor states to the Bahmanid kingdom (1347-1538).

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• BARIKĀNU

  M. A. Dandamayev

  a town in Media, which was conquered and forced to pay a tribute by the Assyrian king Sargon II ca. 716 B.C.

• BARIŠ NASK

  P. O. Skjærvø

  one of the lost nasks of the Haδamąθra group of the Avesta, analyzed in Dēnkard 8.9.

• BARKĪĀROQ

  C. E. Bosworth

  ROKN-AL-DĪN ABU’L-MOẒAFFAR B. MALEKŠĀH, Great Saljuq sultan (r. 1092-1105); his reign convention­ally marks the opening stages of the decline of Great Saljuq unity.

• BARḴᵛARDĀR TORKMĀN

  R. D. McChesney

  , MĪRZĀ, author of Aḥsan al-sīar, a history of Shah Esmāʿīl Ṣafawī, completed 1523-24 or 1530-31.