Table of Contents

• BUDDHISM iv. Buddhist Sites in Afghanistan and Central Asia

  Boris A. Litvinsky

  The spread of Buddhism beyond the Indian subcontinent accelerated under the Mauryan king Aśoka (r. 265–238 BCE). An active proponent of Buddhism, he sent out religious missions.

• BŪF

  Hūšang Aʿlam

  owl, commonly called joḡd. Eleven species, from two families, occur in Iran.

• BŪF-E KŪR

  Michael C. Hillmann

  (The blind owl), the chef d’œuvre of Ṣādeq Hedāyat (1903-51) and one of the first major modernist Persian novels. 

• BŪKĀN

  Amir Hassanpour

  (Kurd. Bōkān), name of a town, a baḵš (district), and a river in the šahrestān (county) of Mahābād, West Azerbaijan.

• BUKHARA

  Multiple Authors

  i. In pre-Islamic times. ii. From the Arab invasions to the Mongols. iii. After the Mongol invasion. iv. The khanate of Bukhara and Khorasan. v. Archeology and monuments. vi. The Bukharan school of miniature painting. vii. Bukharan Jews.

• BUKHARA i. In Pre-Islamic Times

  Richard N. Frye

  one of many settlements in the large oasis formed by the mouths of the Zarafshan (Zarafšān) river in ancient Sogdiana.

• BUKHARA ii. From the Arab Invasions to the Mongols

  C. E. Bosworth

  The first appearance of Arab armies there is traditionally placed in Moʿāwīa’s caliphate when, according to Naršaḵī, ʿObayd-Allāh b. Zīād b. Abīhe crossed the Oxus and appeared at Bukhara (673-74).

• BUKHARA iii. After the Mongol Invasion

  Yuri Bregel

  conquered by Chingiz Khan on 10 February 1220, and the citadel fell twelve days later. All the inhabitants were driven out, their property pillaged, and the city burned; the defenders of the citadel were slaughtered.

• BUKHARA iv. Khanate of Bukhara and Khorasan

  Yuri Bregel

  The first distinctive political separation of Transoxania from Persia took place in 873/1469 when the Timurid empire was finally divided into two independent states, Transoxania and Khorasan, ruled by the descendants of Abū Saʿd and ʿOmar Shaikh, respectively.

• BUKHARA v. Archeology and Monuments

  G. A. Pugachenkova and E. V. Rtveladze

  The earliest settlement levels at Bukhara can be dated to the 5th-2nd centuries B.C. During this period Bukhara consisted of a citadel on a hill and a large, sprawling settlement.

• BUKHARA vi. Bukharan School of Miniature Painting

  Barbara Schmitz

  As far as is known, illustrated manuscripts were produced in Bukhara only under the Shaibanid (1500-98) and Janid (also known as Tughay -Timurid; 1599-1785) dynasties. Partly as a result of frequent raids on Herat by ʿObayd-Allāh Khan (918-46/1512-39) Persian manuscripts, artists, and calligraphers were brought to Bukhara.

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• BUKHARA vii. Bukharan Jews

  Michael Zand

  “Bukharan Jews” is the common appellation for the Jews of Central Asia whose native language is the Jewish dialect of Tajik.

• BUKHARA viii. Historiography of the Khanate, 1500-1920

  Anke von Kügelgen

  About 70 extant works of Persian historiography focus on the politics of the Shïbanid–Abulkhayrid (Shaybanid) dynasty (r. 1500-99), the Janids (also known as Toqay-Timurids or Ashtarkhanids, r. 1599-1747), and the Manḡïts (r. 1747-1920).

• BULAYÏQ

  Nicholas Sims-Williams

  town in eastern Turkestan, modern Chinese Sinkiang, situated about ten km north of Turfan in the foothills of the Tien-shan.  

• BULLAE

  Richard N. Frye

  the sealings, usually of clay or bitumen, on which were impressed the marks of seals showing ownership or witness to whatever was attached to the sealing.  

• 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.

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