Table of Contents

  • BEANS

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    term applied to plants (and their seeds) of different genera of the vast family Leguminosae. In this article, discussion is confined to what is commonly called lūbīā in Persian.

  • BEAR

    Paul Joslin

    (Pers. ḵers, Av. arša-). Two varieties of bears are found on the Iranian plateau: the Eurasian brown bear and the Baluchistan black bear. The Eurasian brown bear is the most common of all bears. 

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  • BEAUSOBRE, ISAAC DE

    Werner Sundermann

    (1659-1738), Huguenot pastor, scholar and pioneer of modern studies of Manicheism.

  • BEAVER

    Hūšang Aʿlam

    Castor fiber L., semiaquatic mammalian rodent, in Persian commonly sag-e ābī (lit. “aquatic dog”), no longer extant in Iran. There appear to be references to beavers in Avestan and Pahlavi literatures.

  • Bečka, Jiři

    Manfred Lorenz

    (1915-2004), a noted Czech scholar of Iran, Afghanistan, and particularly, Tajikistan.

  • BĒDIL

    cross-reference

    See BĪDEL.

  • BEDIR KHAN

    Mehmed Uzun

    (Badr Khan; d. 1867), last ruler of the principality of Cizre-Botan, by extension, name of a Kurdish clan that has played important political, social, and cultural roles since the mid-19th century.

  • BEDLĪS

    Robert Dankoff

    (Turk. Bitlis, Arm. Bałēš, Ar. Badlīs), town and province of Turkey, of Kurdish population, situated twenty km southwest of Lake Van, commanding the passes between the Armenian highlands and the Mesopotamian lowlands.

  • BEDLĪSĪ, ḤAKĪM-AL-DĪN EDRĪS

    Cornell H. Fleischer

    B. ḤOSĀM-AL-DĪN ʿALĪ, MAWLĀNĀ (d. 1520), scholar, his­torian, poet, and statesman under the Ottoman Sultan Salīm I (r. 1512-20).

  • BEDLĪSĪ, ŠARAF-AL-DĪN KHAN

    Erika Glassen

    (b. 1543, d. 1603-04?), chief of the Rūzagī tribe of Kurds, whose traditional center was the town of Bedlīs; author of the Šaraf-nāma, a history of the Kurds in Persian.