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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