Table of Contents

• BĀMDĀD, MAHDĪ

  ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

  (d. 1973), civil servant, author of the multi-volume dictionary of national biography of Iran.

• BĀMDĀD-E ḴOMĀR

  Ali Ferdowsi

  (The Morning After, 1995), the first and popular novel by Fattāna Hājseydjavādi.

  This Article Has Images/Tables.

• BĀMDĀD-E ROWŠAN

  N. Parvīn

  a Persian journal of news and political comment published in Tehran, 1915-24.

• BĀMĪA

  H. Aʿlam, N. Ramazani

  (or bāmīā), okra, the edible unripe seed-pods of Hibiscus esculentus of the Malvaceae or mallows. i. The plant. ii. In cooking. iii. The sweet.  It was introduced into the culinary art of Persians by Arabs from Baghdad in the 19th century.

• BĀMĪĀN

  Multiple Authors

  town and province in central Afghanistan. Bāmīān’s position midway between Balḵ and Peshawar at the approach to the most difficult passes and the resultant opportunities to purvey provisions and accommodation for caravans explain why it became a particularly important stopping place and a chosen site for monumental religious sanctuaries.

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• BAMPŪR

  B. de Cardi, ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

  i. Prehistoric Site. ii. In Modern Times. Bampūr is a baḵš and qaṣaba (borough) in the šahrestān of Īrānšahr in the province of Balūčestān o Sīstān. The plain of Bampūr is encircled by several high mountains.

• BAMPUR ia. PREHISTORIC SITE (Continued)

  Daniel T. Potts

  Since Beatrice de Cardi’s excavations in 1966 (de Cardi, 1968; idem, 1970) no new work has taken place there. Nevertheless, objects recovered at Bampur in the 1960s can now be better dated and understood, thanks to discoveries in recent years at sites in Central Asia, the Indo-Iranian borderlands, and southeastern Arabia..

• BĀMŠĀD

  A. Tafażżolī

  named as a musician at the court of the Sasanian king Ḵosrow II Parvēz (r. 591-628).

• BĀMŠĀD newspaper

  N. Parvīn

  a Persian newspaper and a news and public affairs magazine published in Tehran, 1956-68.

• BAN-e SORMA

  L. Vanden Berghe

  a necropolis of the Early Bronze Age, excavated in 1967 by the Belgian Mission in Iran. By analogy with the funeral furnishings from the Old Elamite period at Susa IV, the  tombs must be situated in the Early Dynastic III period, about 2600-2400 B.C. Since written sources are lacking, it is difficult to determine which population occupied this necropolis.

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• BĀNA

  ʿA. Mardūḵ

  a šahrestān in the province of Kurdistan, located in a mountainous, well-forested region of western Iran (lat 35°59’ N,  long 45°53’ E).

• BANAFŠA

  H. Aʿlam

  “violet,” common name for the genus Viola L. in New Persian. From certain botanical features of violas there have developed some violet-based similes and metaphors in classical Persian literature.

• BANĀʾĪ HERAVĪ

  Z. Safa

  , KAMĀL-AL-DĪN ŠĪR-ʿALĪ (1453-1512), noted poet at various courts of Persia and Transoxania.

• BANĀKAṮ

  C. E. Bosworth

  or BENĀKAṮ, the main town of the medieval Transoxanian province of Šāš or Čāč; it almost certainly had a pre-Islamic history as a center of the Sogdians.

• BANĀKATĪ, Abū Solaymān

  P. Jackson

  Dāwūd b. Abi’l-Fażl Moḥammad (d. 1329-30), poet and historian.

• BANĀN, ḠOLĀM-ḤOSAYN

  M. Caton

  (1911-1986), one of the foremost Persian singers of the 20th century, known for the quality of his voice and vast knowledge of āvāz repertory.  

• BĀNBIŠN

  W. Sundermann

  Middle Persian “queen”: etymology and occurrences in Middle Iranian.

• BAND “DAM”

  X. De Planhol

  “dam, ” something that factually or figuratively binds, ties, or restricts (cf. Av. banda- “bond,” Eng. bond). In geographical nomenclature it is applied to ranges (mainly in Afghanistan),  passes (darband), and old dams and barrages built to store or divert water.

• BAND-E AMĪR (1)

  J. Lerner

  (the amir’s dike) or Band-e ʿAżodī (for the Daylamite ruler ʿAżod-al-Dawla, r. 949-83), a dam or weir constructed across the Kor river at the southeast end of the Marvdašt plain in Fārs.

• BAND-E AMĪR (2)

  X. De Planhol

  the chain of natural lakes 90 km west of Bāmīān in Afghanistan (lat 30°12’ N, long 66°30’ E).

• BAND-E BAHMAN

  K. Afsar

  an ancient dam built on the Qara Āḡāj river nearly sixty km south of Shiraz, attributed to the legendary king Bahman son of Esfandīār.

• BAND-E TORKESTĀN

  X. De Planhol

  (boundary wall of Turkestan), the mountain range in northwestern Afghanistan which runs in a west-east direction for 200 km between the upper valley of the Morḡāb to the south and the plains of the Āmū Daryā to the north.

• BANDA

  W. Eilers, C. Herrenschmidt

  “servant.” i. The term. ii. Old Persian bandaka. Banda (NPers.) and its precursors bandak/bandag (Mid. Pers.) and bandaka (OPers.) meant “henchman, (loyal) servant, vassal,” but not “slave.”

• BANDAR

  W. Eilers

  “harbor, seaport; commercial town.” The concept of bandar probably continues an old Oriental tradition. Its double meaning of “harbor” on a river or a sea and “town, center of commerce and communications” (also in the inland) agrees well with that of Akkadian kārum.

• BANDAR-E ʿABBĀS(Ī)

  X. De Planhol

  a port city in the ostān of Hormozgān, on the Persian Gulf, 16 km northwest of Hormoz island and 85 km from the coast of Oman. It is successor to the emporium of old Hormoz, the seaport of Kermān and Sejestān.

• BANDAR-E GAZ

  X. De Planhol

  a port on the southern shore of Astarābād Bay in the southeastern Caspian Sea, a few kilometers from a group of nine hamlets known collectively as Gaz. The installation of Russians on the Āšūrāda islands after 1837 made it very important strategically.

• BANDAR-E LENGA

  D. T. Potts

  (lat 26° 33’ N, long 54° 53’ E), a small port on the coast of Lārestān.

• BANDAR-E MĀHŠAHR

  X. De Planhol

  (Bandar-e Maʿšūr), a port at the western end of the Persian Gulf, on the northern bank of the Ḵor-e Mūsā tideway, which forms the lower course of the Jar(r)āḥī river.

• BANDAR-E PAHLAVĪ

  cross-reference

  See ANZALĪ.

• BANDAR-E ŠĀH

  X. De Planhol

  (now Bandar-e Torkaman), a port on the southeastern Caspian Sea at the entrance of Astarābād Bay and about eight km south of the mouth of the Atrak. It was constructed from scratch during the 1930s at the terminus of the trans-Iranian railroad.

• BANDAR-E ŠĀHPŪR

  X. De Planhol

  (Bandar-e Emām Ḵomeynī since the revolution of 1979), a port at the terminus of the trans-Iranian railroad, about 70 km from the Gulf along the northern shore of the Ḵor Mūsā, the outlet of the Jarāḥī river, which flows down from the Zagros mountains.

• BANDARI

  Mikhail Pelevin

  the dialect spoken by the native population of Bandar ʿAbbās, administrative center of the Hormozgān province, and of its environs. Bandari belongs to the southwestern group of the Iranian languages. It is tightly encircled by a number of other, less known dialects located between Lārestān and Bašākerd.

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• BANG

  G. Gnoli, ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

  a kind of narcotic plant. In older Arabic and Persian sources banj is applied to three different plants: hemp (Cannabis sativa or indica), henbane (Hyoseyamus niger, etc.), and jimsonweed (Datura stramonium). i. In ancient Iran.  ii. In modern Iran.

• BANG KAUP, JOHANN WILHELM MAX JULIUS

  P. Zieme

  (known as Willy), German orientalist (1869-1934). From 1893 onward Bang Kaup also devoted time to research in the promising area of the Old Turkish stone inscriptions.

• BANGĀLA

  Cross-Reference

  See BENGAL.

• BANGAṦ

  D. Balland

  one of the least-known Pashtun tribes in the Solaymān range, Pakistan, and one of the few that are not named after eponymous ancestors.  

• BANĪ ARDALĀN

  P. Oberling

  a Kurdish tribe of northwestern Iran, now dispersed in Sanandaj (Senna) and surrounding villages.

• BANĪ ḤARDĀN

  J. Perry

  a Shiʿite Arab tribe of Howayza (Ḥawīza) district in Ḵūzestān.

• BANĪ LĀM

  J. Perry

  a numerous and historically important Shiʿite Arab tribe of northwestern Ḵūzestān, southern Lorestān, and adjacent parts of Iraq.

• BANĪ SĀLA

  J. Perry

  a Shiʿite Arab tribe of Howayza (Ḥawīza) district in Ḵūzestān.

• BANĪ TAMĪM

  J. Perry

  an Arab tribe of western Ḵūzestān, both settled and nomadic, raising sheep and camels. Their range lies between Howayza and Ahvāz.

• BANĪ ṬOROF

  J. Perry

  (Banu Turuf), a large Shiʿite Arab tribe of Howayza (Ḥawīza) district in Ḵūzestān, mostly sedentary, centered north of Howayza between Sūsangerd and Bostān (Besaytīn).

• BANISTER, Thomas

  Parvin Loloi

  (d. Arrash, 20 July 1571), British merchant and traveler to Persia who commanded the fifth voyage from Britain to Persia via Russia for the purpose of establishing trade. 

• BĀNK-E MARKAZĪ-E ĪRĀN

  M. Yeganeh

  (Central Bank of Iran), a bank established under the Iranian Banking and Monetary Act of 28 May 1960 to undertake the central banking activities in the country. The functions and powers of Bānk-e Markazī were revised following the Islamic Revolution of February, 1979, which led to the nationalization of private banking.

• BANKING

  P. Basseer, P. Clawson and W. Floor

  IN IRAN  This article traces the historical development of banking in Iran, from the establishment of the first modern banks, by foreign concerns in the late 1880s, to the nationalization and consolidation of banks in 1979.

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• BANNĀʾĪ

  C. Bromberger

  While the term bannāʾī covers the entire construction field, in this brief study domestic building techniques, in particular, which are more or less part of the traditional crafts, and the recent evolution of popular housing will be emphasized.

• BANNERS

  A. S. Melikian-Chirvani

  (ʿalam, derafš). Countless references in epic literature as well as in chronicles show that, in the clouds of dust that enveloped troops as they fought in sandy land, the glitter of the banner was the only way that warriors had of following the moves of their commanders or of identifying the enemy.

• BĀNŪ

  W. Eilers

  originally “lady,” now also in common use as an alternative to ḵānom “Madam, Mrs.” (from Turkish xan-ım “my lord”).

• BANŪ ʿABBĀS

  Cross-Reference

  See ABBASID CALIPHATE.

• BANŪ AMĀJŪR

  D. Pingree

  (or MĀJŪR), ABU’L-QĀSEM ʿABD-ALLĀH  and his son Abu’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī, 10th-century astronomers.