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.