Table of Contents

  • BARĀQ KHAN

    cross-reference

    See NOWRŪZ AḤMAD KHAN.

  • BARAQĪ

    H. Algar

    ḴᵛĀJA ʿABD-ALLĀH, 12th-century Sufi of Bukhara.

  • BARAŠNOM

    M. Boyce

    the chief Zoroastrian purification rite, consisting of a triple cleansing, with gōmēz (cow’s urine), dust, and water, followed by nine nights’ seclusion.

  • BARĀ’A

    E. Kohlberg

    an Imami theological term denoting dissociation from the enemies of the imams. During the conflict between ʿAlī and Moʿāwīa, formulas of dissociation were used by both parties.

  • BĀRBAD

    A. Tafażżolī

    minstrel-poet of the court of the Sasanian king Ḵosrow II Parvēz (r. 591-628 A.D.).

  • BARBARO, GIOSAFAT

    A. M. Piemontese

    Venetian merchant, traveler, and diplomat (1413-94), appointed Venetian ambassador to Persia (1473-78); author of a travel account.

  • BARBAṬ

    J. During

    the prototype of a family of short-necked lutes characterized by a rather flat, pear-shaped sound box.

  • BARBERRY

    EIr

    (zerešk; Berberis spp., family Berberidaceae). Species of this genus are found in the northern, eastern, and southeastern highlands of Iran.

  • BARBIER DE MEYNARD, CHARLES ADRIEN CASIMIR

    Ch. Pellat

    French orientalist (1826-1908). Among his works, the Tableau littéraire du Khorassan and Dictionnaire géographique attest the excellence of his Persian scholarship.

  • BARD-E BAL

    L. Vanden Berghe

    a necropolis excavated in 1969-70 by the Belgian archeological mission in Iran, Īlām Province.

  • BARD-E BOT

    Cross-Reference

    See ELYMAIS.

  • BARD-E NEŠĀNDA

    K. Schippmann

    a complex of ancient ruins in Ḵūzestān, situated 18 km northwest of the town of Masjed-e Solaymān (where similar ruins exist) at 675 m altitude on the edge of the Baḵtīārī mountains.

  • BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI

    Multiple Authors

    Slaves and slavery.  i. In the Achaemenid period. ii. In the Sasanian period. iii. In the Islamic period up to the Mongol invasion. iv. From the Mongols to the abolition of slavery. v. Military slavery in Islamic Iran.

  • BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI i. Achaemenid Period

    Muhammad A. Dandamayev

    At the beginning of the Achaemenid period, the institution of slavery was still poorly developed in Iran. In Media a custom existed whereby a poor man could place himself at the disposal of a rich person if the latter agreed to feed him. The position of such a man was similar to that of a slave.

  • BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI ii. In the Sasanian period

    Maria Macuch

    The most commonly used expressions designating slaves in the Middle Persian sources are anšahrīg, literally “foreigner,” and bandag, literally “bound.” The latter term does not exclusively designate the slave but is used of every subject of the sovereign.

  • BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI iii. In the Islamic period up to the Mongol invasion

    C. E. Bosworth

    Early Islamic society was essentially a slave-holding one, and it seems likely that Iranian society of the time exhibited two of the types of slavery known elsewhere in the pre-modern Old World—agricultural/industrial slavery and domestic slavery.

  • BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI iv. From the Mongols to the abolition of slavery

    Willem Floor

    After the Mongol period, the manner in which white slaves were obtained basically remained unchanged, that is, warfare and raids continued to be the main slave-producing activities.

  • BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI v. Military slavery in Islamic Iran

    C. E. Bosworth

    Military slavery may have been known in the Sasanian period, but, as the Sasanian army was based essentially on the free, mailed cavalryman, any slaves within it can only have been in the little-regarded following of infantrymen.

  • BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI vi. Regulations Governing Slavery in Islamic Jurisprudence

    Hamid Algar

    Slavery is designated in feqh (religious law) as reqq “weakness.” The weakness in question is extrinsic to the person of the slave and results from his legal debarment (ḥejr).

  • BARḎAʿA

    C. E. Bosworth

    or BARDAʿA (Arm. Partav, Georgian Bardavi, Mid. Pers. Pērōzāpāt), the chief town until the 10th century of the Islamic province of Arrān, the classical Caucasian Albania.

  • BARDAŠĪR

    cross-reference

    old name of the city of Kermān.

  • BARDESANES

    P. O. Skjærvø

    (Syr. Bar Dayṣān, Ar. Ebn Dayṣān), gnostic thinker (154-222) who occupies a position between the Syriac gnostic systems of the first two centuries A.D. and the Iranian gnostic system of Mani of the third century.

  • BARDIYA

    M. A. Dandamayev

    the younger son of Cyrus the Great. Tarius in his Behistun inscription (DB 1.30-33) says that Cambyses, after becoming king, but before his departure to Egypt, slew Bardiya and that the assassination was kept a secret from the people.

  • BAṚĒC(Ī)

    D. Balland

    a Pashtun tribe in southern Afghanistan. Location of the Baṛēc at the southern extremity of Pashtun territory and at the limits of the Baluch has allowed multiple contacts with the latter and Brahui, including intermarriages, as well as linguistic or even genealogical assimilation.

  • BARĒLVĪ, AḤMAD ŠAHĪD

    Q. Ahmad

    Indo­-Muslim saint, author of Persian works, known for his reformist ideas, military ventures, and eventual martyr­dom (1786-1831).

  • BARƎSMAN

    Cross-Reference

    See BARSOM.

  • BĀREZĀNĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See BĀRZĀNĪ.

  • BARF “SNOW”

    D. Balland, B. Hourcade, and C. M. Kieffer

    On the tropical margins of the Irano-Afghan plateau, snow is in fact exceptional below an altitude of 1,000 meters. Not that it cannot fall in abundance there, but then it is a memorable event. In the remaining two-thirds of the territory of Iran and Afghanistan snow is a common occurrence.

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  • BĀRFORŪŠĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ʿALĪ

    D. M. MacEoin

    (1823-49), MOLLĀ, important figure in early Babism.

  • BARG-E BŪ

    A. Parsa

    (or deraḵt-e ḡār; Eng. laurel and sweet bay), Laurus nobilis, the most popular species of the family Lauraceae, the one used for laurel wreaths. The tree is common in Persian gardens.

  • BARḠAŠI, ABU’L MOẒAFFAR MOḤAMMAD b. EBRAHIM

    C. E. Bosworth

    vizier to two of the last Samanid Amirs of Transoxiana and Khorasan. 

  • BARGOSTVĀN

    A. S. Melikian-Chirvani

    horse armor, a distinctive feature of Iranian warfare from very early times on. The earliest known helmet (chamfron) has been excavated at Ḥasanlū from a 9th-century B.C. stratum.

  • BĀRHANG

    Hakim M. Said

    (also bārtang), plantain, general name for about 27 species of Plantago L. (family Plantaginaceae) in Iran, particularly the greater plantain,  the lesser plantain, and fleawort.

  • BARĪD

    C. E. Bosworth

    the official postal and intelligence service of the early Islamic caliphate and its successor states. The service operated by means of couriers mounted on mules or horses or camels or traveling on foot.

  • BARĪDŠĀHĪ DYNASTY

    R. M. Eaton

    The Barīdšāhī dynasty achieved its cultural apex in the mid-16th century, under the thirty-seven-year rule of ʿAlī Barīd. The first Barīdšāhī to adopt the title “king,” ʿAlī presided over the apogee of Barīdšāhī architecture, the most important specimens of which were his tomb and the Rangīn Maḥal, a palace adorned with wood carving and mother-of-pearl.

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  • BARIKĀNU

    M. A. Dandamayev

    a town in Media, which was conquered and forced to pay a tribute by the Assyrian king Sargon II ca. 716 B.C.

  • BARIŠ NASK

    P. O. Skjærvø

    one of the lost nasks of the Haδamąθra group of the Avesta, analyzed in Dēnkard 8.9.

  • BARKĪĀROQ

    C. E. Bosworth

    ROKN-AL-DĪN ABU’L-MOẒAFFAR B. MALEKŠĀH, Great Saljuq sultan (r. 1092-1105); his reign convention­ally marks the opening stages of the decline of Great Saljuq unity.

  • BARḴᵛARDĀR TORKMĀN

    R. D. McChesney

    MĪRZĀ, author of Aḥsan al-sīar, a history of Shah Esmāʿīl Ṣafawī, completed 1523-24 or 1530-31.

  • BARLAAM AND IOSAPH

    J. P. Asmussen

    Persian Belawhar o Būdāsaf, a Greek Christian or Christianized novel of Buddhist origins. All the manuscripts are later than 1500. Being extremely popular it received various accretions and was often translated.

  • BARLEY

    M. Bazin, D. Balland

    The cultivation of barley in Iran, like that of wheat, goes back to the origin of agriculture itself. Both botanical and archeological data locate the beginning of the “Neolithic revolution” in the Fertile Crescent, where both wild barley, Hordeum spontaneum, and a wide-grain kind of wild wheat, Triticum dicoccoides can still be found.

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  • BARM-e DELAK

    L. Vanden Berghe

    a site with a spring about 10 km southeast of Shiraz, where three panels bearing two Sasanian rock reliefs are carved in the mountain at a height of about 6.5 m above the ground.  

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  • BARMAKIDS

    I. Abbas

    or Barāmeka,  fam­ily stemming from Balḵ, secretaries and viziers under the early ʿAbbasids, not before Hešām b. ʿAbd al-Malek (723-42), until 802 (under Hārūn al-Rašīd).

  • BĀRMĀN

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    the son of Vīsa, one of the Turanian heroes mentioned in the Šāh-nāma as a member of the army that Afrāsīāb led into Iran during the reign of Nowḏar.

  • BARMĀYA

    Dj. Khaleghi Motlagh

    in the traditional history, the name of a cow associated with Ferēdūn and eventually killed by Żaḥḥāk.

  • BARNĀMA-RĪZĪ

    F. Daftary

    “planning.” Among the countries of the Middle East Iran has a relatively long history of economic development planning. By the time of the revolution in 1979, five development plans of various durations had been implemented in ran over a thirty-year period.

  • BARNAVĪ, ʿALĀ-AL-DĪN ČEŠTĪ

    Cross-Reference

    See ČEŠTĪYA.

  • BARQ

    W. Floor and B. Hourcade, D. Balland

    The electrification of individual government build­ings appears to have begun during the reign of Nāṣer-al-­Dīn Shah with the state armory and the shah’s residence in Tehran It was only in 1900 that the first electrical plant (of 6,6 kw) was built in Iran, in the city of Mašhad.

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  • BARQ newspapers

    L. P. Elwell-Sutton

    (Lightning), the name of three Persian newspapers, 1910-17,  1943, 1950s.

  • BARQĀNĪ, ABŪ BAKR AḤMAD

    H. Schützinger

    B. MOḤAMMAD B. AḤMAD B. ḠĀLEB (948-1034), a traditionist (moḥaddeṯ), philologist, and lawyer of the Shafeʿite school.

  • BARR, KAJ

    J. P. Asmussen

    Danish orientalist (1896-1970). Among his publications are an edition from F. C. Andreas’s papers of the Pahlavi Psalter fragments discovered at Turfan and a collaboration with A. Christensen and W. B. Henning to publish Andreas’s notes on Iranian dialects.

  • BARRA

    G. Cardascia

    or bāru, an Iranian loanword designating a tax in Babylonian texts. The word appears nearly seventy times between 442 and 417 B.C. almost exclusively in tax receipts.

  • BARRASĪHĀ-YE TĀRĪḴĪ

    N. Parvīn

    journal of historical studies of Iran, 1966-78. Some of the articles, particularly those bearing on the eighteenth and nineteenth cen­turies and descriptive geography, were well researched and original. The journal also published a number of historical documents.

  • BARŠABBĀ

    N. Sims-Williams

    legendary bishop of Marv and founder of the Christian church in eastern Iran. The only completely preserved versions of the legend are found in Arabic sources.

  • BARṢAUMĀ

    A. Vööbus

    a 5th-century bishop of Nisibis. As a convinced Nestorian, he believed that the Persian church should follow this course, as it was in the interest of the Sasanian state to wean the church away from the West.

  • BARSĪĀN

    W. Kleiss

    a village in the dehestān of Barāʾān 45 km southeast of Isfahan on the north bank of the Zāyandarūd; situated on the old caravan route from Isfahan to Yazd, it prospered quickly in Saljuq times.

  • BARSḴĀN

    C. E. Bosworth

    or Barsḡān, a place in Central Asia, on the southern shores of the Ïsïq-Göl, in the region known as Semirechye or Yeti-su “the land of the seven rivers,” in what is now the Kyrgyz Republic.

  • BARSOM

    M. F. Kanga

    (Av. barəsman), sacred twigs that form an important part of the Zoroastrian liturgical apparatus. The number varies according to the ceremony to be performed. Today brass or silver wires are used in place of twigs.

  • BARSOM YAŠT

    P. O. Skjærvø

    in the liturgical manuscripts of the Avesta the name of the second hād (chapter) of the Yasna.

  • BARTANGĪ

    G. Buddruss

    The first text in Bartangī, a specimen of folk poetry, was published by Zarubin in 1924. The text corpus available now is limited: Zarubin, 1937 (poetry; prose text in Bartangī and Rōšanī); Sokolova, 1953 (text with versions in Šuḡnī, Rōšānī, Ḵūfī, and Bar­tangī); Sokolova, 1960.

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  • BARTHÉLEMY, ADRIEN

    F. Richard

    French orientalist (1859-1949). A devoted linguist, he published a study of the Pahlavi Gujastag Abāliš, before a career in diplomacy led him to a monumental dictionary of eastern Arabic dialects.

  • BARTHOLD, VASILIĭ VLADIMIROVICH

    Yu. Bregel

    Russian orientalist (1869-1930). He was the first who put the study of the history of Central Asia on a firm scholarly basis and actually founded this branch of Oriental studies. But he never studied Central Asia in isolation.

  • BARTHOLOMAE, CHRISTIAN

    R. Schmitt

    German scholar of Iranian and Indo-European studies (1855-1925). Bartholomae devoted the main part of his life and work to Iranian linguistics, his chief endeavor being directed toward the integration of Iranian into the framework of Indo-European languages.

  • BARTHOLOMAE’S LAW

    M. Mayrhofer

    the name given to a rule of phonetic assimilation in the Indo-Iranian and probably also the proto-Indo-European languages first noted by Christian Bartholomae in 1882.

  • BARTUS, BERNARD AUGUST THEODOR LUDWIG

    Aloïs van Tongerloo

    (1858-1941), technician and a key figure of the Turfan expeditions because of his autodidactical development of methods of removing inscriptions and works of art from rock walls and ruins without their getting damaged, as well as methods of their conservation and preservation.

  • BĀRŪ

    W. Kleiss

    (or bāra), fortress in general, defensive wall, rampart. Defensive walls and earthworks dating from the start of human settlement in Iran still survive. Their forms evolved in parallel with the development of offensive and defensive weapons.

  • BARUCH

    Sh. Shaked

    scribe and disciple of the prophet Jeremiah, at the time of the first Jewish exile to Babylonia (586 B.C.).  Baruch was identified with Zoroaster by some Syriac authors, followed by some Arab historians.

  • BĀRŪT

    W. Floor

    “gunpowder.” Guns and cannon, and thus gunpowder, probably were first introduced in Iran during Uzun Ḥasan Āq Qoyunlū’s reign; in 1473 he asked Venice for “artillery, arquebuses, and gunners.”

  • BARZAN

    W. Eilers

    part of a town, quarter (maḥalla), street (kūča). In modern Iranian place names the forms Varzan and Varzana are common.

  • BĀRZĀNĪ

    W. Behn

    a Kurdish tribe from Bārzān, a town of northeastern Iraq. The shaikhs of Bārzān came to prominence in the disorder following sup­pression of the semi-independent Kurdish principalities in the mid-19th century.

  • BARZĪN

    Dj. Khaleghi-Motlagh

    (from Pahlavi Burzēn), the name of several figures in the Šāh-nāma.

  • BAŠĀKERD

    B. Spooner

    a roughly rectan­gular mountainous district (dehestān) east of Mīnāb and north of Jāsk. The topography and the natural conditions are similar to Makrān to the immediate east.

  • BASAWAL

    Sh. Kuwayama

    the site of a Buddhist cave temple complex in eastern Afghanistan. The caves, 150 in all, are partly hewn out in two rows and arranged in seven groups, which presumably corre­spond to the seven monastic institutions of Buddhist times.

  • BĀṢERĪ

    F. Barth

    a pastoral nomadic tribe of Fārs belonging to the Ḵamsa confederacy. The nomads keep sheep, intermingled with 10-20 percent goats, and use donkeys for transport.

  • BĀŠGĀH-E AFSARĀN

    M. Ṣāneʿī

    (Officers’ Club), an impressive building in Tehran, built in 1939.

  • BĀŠGĀH-E ARĀMENA

    ʿA.-A. Saʿīdī Sīrjānī

    (the Armenian Club), a non-profit, non-political social club, founded 1 January 1918 by Armenians in Tehran.

  • BĀŠGĀH-E MEHRAGĀN

    Ḥ. Maḥmūdī

    (Mehragān Club), an organization of the Iran Teachers Association open to teachers, students, and other in­tellectuals in Tehran and eventually in the provinces, 1952-62.

  • BASIL

    Hušang Aʿlam

    Ocimum L. ssp. (fam. Labiatae), now commonly called rayḥān in Persian, an aromatic plant. Ocimum basilicum L., sweet basil or basil royal, is named šāh-esparam “the royal herb.”

  • BASILIUS OF CAESAREA

    J. P. Asmussen

    or Basilius the Great (ca. A.D. 330-79), bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia from 370, after Eusebius, who wrote regarding the Magi.

  • BAŠKARDI

    P. O. Skjærvø

    (Bašākerdī), collective designation for numerous dialects spoken in southeastern Iran from Bandar-e ʿAbbās eastward, forming a transition from the dialects spoken in Fārs and Lārestān to Baluchi.

  • BASKERVILLE, HOWARD C.

    K. Ekbal

    a teacher at the American mission in Tabrīz, killed 19 April 1909 during the siege of Tabrīz by royalist troops.

  • BĀSMA

    M. Dabīrsīāqī

     a Turkish word which originally referred to a design applied (e.g., with a wood block) in ink, silver, and gold to paper, cloth, and other materials.

  • BASRA

    F. M. Donner

    (Ar. al-Baṣra), town located near the Šaṭṭ al-ʿArab river in southern Iraq, predominantly Arab, possessing a rich political, cultural, and economic history. This article concentrates mainly on describing the town’s many significant ties with Iran.

  • BASSĀM-E KORD

    Z. Safa

    the Kharijite (fl. mid-9th century), one of the first poets in the New Persian language, active at the court of the Saffarids.

  • BAŠŠĀR-E MARḠAZĪ

    Z. Safa

    a Persian poet of the 10th century, apparently from Marv in Khorasan.

  • BAST

    J. Calmard

    (sanctuary, asylum), the designation of cer­tain sanctuaries in Iran that are considered inviolable and were often used by people seeking refuge from prosecution.

  • BASṬĀM, BASṬĀMĪ

    cross-reference

    See BESṬĀM, BESṬĀMĪ FAMILY.

  • BASTANEGĀR

    J. During

    a gūša in the instrumental repertory (radīf) of classical Persian music.

  • BASTŪR

    A. Tafażżolī

    (Mid. Pers. Bastwar, Av. Bastauuairi), a hero of the Iranian national epic, son of Zarēr, King Goštāsp’s brother.

  • BĀṬĀS

    R. M. Boehmer

    a village in Iraq, Arbīl province. The nearby rock relief, no longer in good preservation, may  depict Izates II, the king of Adiabene (ca. 36-62 A.D.), who was converted to Judaism. He is likely to have ordered the carving after the unexpected retreat of the Parthian king of kings, Vologases I.

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  • BĀṬEN

    B. Radtke

    (inner, hidden), the opposite of ẓāher (outer, visible). Both terms can be predicated of living beings. Most frequently, however, they are associated with the concept ʿelm (knowledge).

  • BĀṬENĪYA

    H. Halm

    a generic term for all groups and sects which distinguished the bāṭen (inner, hidden) and the ẓāher (outer, visible) of the Koran and the Islamic law (Šarīʿa).

  • BATHHOUSES

    W. Floor, W. Kleiss

    In 1890 there were 72 bathhouses in Isfahan, which were of different quality and cleanliness; this is possibly an estimate, because only 31 public baths have been identified as remaining historical monuments. However, around 1920 there were some 85 bathhouse keepers.

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  • BĀTMAN

    Yu. Bregel

    a measure of weight, the same as mann but more common in Central Asia, especially in modern times. There was a great variety of bātmans in different regions and for weighing different goods.

  • BATRAKATAŠ

    H. Koch

    place name, apparently the same as Pasargadae, which appears on the Elamite fortification tablets found at Persepolis.

  • BATS

    A. F. DeBlase

    (Pers. šabpara, mūš(-e)kūr; Ar. ḵoffāš). All but two Iranian bat species fall into one of three geographic groups in Iran. Rousettus aegyptiacus is known from Baluchistan, Qešm island, and three sites near Jahrom in Fārs. Records indicate that it ranges across southern Iran wherever dates and other fruits are grown.

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  • BAṬṬAI YAZDĀNĪ

    W. Madelung

    the 5th-century founder or reformer of the Kantheans, a sect related to the Mandeans.

  • BATTLE-AXES in Eastern Iran

    Boris A. Litvinsky

    Battle-axes made of bronze appeared in Eastern Iran during the Bronze Age. One such object comes from a burial at the Sapalli-tepa settlement in southern Uzbekistan.

  • BAUR, FERDINAND CHRISTIAN

    W. Sundermann

    (1792-1860), German theologian and scholar of Manicheism. Most important was Baur’s view of Manicheism, as a religion born at the watershed of the ancient and Christian worlds.

  • BAUSANI, ALESSANDRO

    Biancamaria Scarcia Amoretti

    (1921-1988), prolific Italian orientalist in several fields: Persian literature, Islam, linguistics, the history of Islamic science, Urdu, Indonesian, and other Islamic literatures.