Table of Contents

  • BACTRIAN LANGUAGE

    N. Sims-Williams

    the Iranian language of ancient Bactria (northern Afghanistan), attested by coins, seals, and inscriptions of the Kushan period (first to third centuries A.D.) and the following centuries and by a few later manuscript fragments. Bactrian is the only Middle Iranian language whose writing system is based on the Greek alphabet, a fact ultimately attributable to Alexander’s conquest of Bactria and to the maintenance of Greek rule for some 200 years after his death (323 B.C.).

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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

    the name of an area and modern province of northeastern Afghanistan, situated between the upper Amu Darya to the north, the Hindu Kush to the south, and the Kondūz river to the west.  i. Geography and ethnography. ii. Modern province.  iii. The name.

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  • 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.