Table of Contents
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BĪD
Wilhelm Eilers, Hūšang Aʿlam
common designation in modern Persian for the genus Salix L., willow. Willow trees are found in all the Iranian lands, mainly along streams and canals.
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BĪDĀD
Hormoz Farhat
a melody (gūša) in the modal system (dastgāh) Homāyūn, one of the twelve modal systems of the contemporary tradition of Persian classical music. An important and popular gūša, Bīdād is always included in the performance of Homāyūn, even when the performance is short and selective.
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BĪDAR
S. H. Qasemi
city in the state of Karnataka, India, about 80 miles northwest of Hyderabad, and also the surrounding district. In the 15th-16th centuries, under the Bahmanid dynasty, Bīdar was an important center of Persian cultural influence in the Deccan.
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BĪDĀR
Nassereddin Parvin
(lit. awake) the name of three Persian periodicals, two of which were published in Tehran in 1923 and 1951 and the other in Mazār-e Šarīf in 1925.
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BĪDĀRĪ
Nassereddin Parvin
(lit. wakefulness) the name of three Persian newspapers published in Tehran (1907), Rašt (1920), and Kermān (1923-53) and also the name of several other Persian-language periodicals.
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BĪDĀRĪ-E ĪRĀNĪĀN, TĀRĪḴ-E
cross-reference
See TĀRĪḴ-E BĪDĀRĪ-E ĪRĀNĪĀN.
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BĪDASTAR
Cross-Reference
See BEAVER.
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BIDAXŠ
Werner Sundermann
title of an official, a word of Iranian origin found in various languages from the first to the eighth century.
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BĪDEL, ʿABD-AL-QĀDER
Moazzam Siddiqi
(BĒDIL), the foremost representative of the later phase of the “Indian style” (sabk-e hendī) of Persian poetry and the most difficult and challenging poet of that school (1644-1721).
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BĪDERAFŠ
Aḥmad Tafażżolī
in the traditional history, a Turanian hero of the army of Arjāsp.
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BĪDGOL
Ehsan Yarshater
and BĪDGOLI dialect. Bīdgol and Ārān, two practically contiguous townships in the province of Kāšān, are located some 10 km to the north and slightly to the east of the city of Kāšān.
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BĪDMEŠK
Cross-Reference
See BĪD.
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BIDOḴT
Habib Borjian
the center of a subdistrict (dehestān) in Gonābād šahrestān in central Khorasan and the seat of the Gonābādi Sufi order.
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BĪDPĀY
Cross-Reference
the narrator of the animal fables known as Kalila wa Demna. See KALĪLA WA DEMNA.
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BĪḠAMĪ
William L. Hanaway
MAWLĀNĀ SHAIKH ḤĀJĪ MOḤAMMAD, oral storyteller of the 8th/14th century, narrator of the romance Dārāb-nāma.
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BĪGĀR
Yuri Bregel
and BĪGĀRĪ, a term of taxation in Iran and Central Asia, generally meaning “corvıe,” the duty of supplying workers without pay, such as for the construction and repair of irrigation systems, roads, and public buildings.
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BĪGDELĪ
Gerhard Doerfer
(or Bēgdelī, also Bagdīlū), a former Turkish tribe; the name Bīgdelī appears to have survived only in personal names.
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BĪGDELĪ, ĀḎAR
Cross-Reference
See ĀẔAR BĪGDELĪ.
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BIHAR
Syed Hasan Askari
(Behār), a state in northeastern India, bounded by Nepal in the north, West Bengal in the east, Orissa in the south, and Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh in the west. This article treats the influence of Persian language and culture in Bihar.
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BĪJĀPŪR
Muhammad Baqir
capital city and domain of the ʿĀdelšāhī dynasty (1489-1686), located on the western Deccan plateau. The ʿĀdelšāhīs established Shiʿism in Bījāpūr and actively encouraged the immigration of Persian writers and religious figures.
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BĪJĀR
Eckart Ehlers
a town and a šahrestān (county) in the Kurdistan province of Iran. The town, which has the highest elevation in Iran (1,920 m), lies ca. 120 miles north-northwest of Hamadān.
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BĪLAQĀN(Ī)
Cross-Reference
See BAYLAQĀN.
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BILGETIGIN
C. Edmund Bosworth
Turkish name associated with personalities before and during the Ghaznavid period.
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BILIMORIA, NUSHERWANJI FRAMJI
Kaikhusroo M. JamaspAsa
(1852-1922), Zoroastrian journalist, editor, and publisher.
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BĪMA
Willem Floor
(bīme; Hindi bīmā), insurance. “Insurance” activities are referred to for the first time in 1891, by Eʿtemād-al-Salṭana in his diary entry of 13 December.
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BĪMĀRESTĀN
Ṣādeq Sajjādī
"hospital." The oldest Iranian hospital about which we have some information was that at Jondīšāpūr (earlier Bēt Lapaṭ), which, with the attached school of medicine, was founded at an unknown date.
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BĪNĀLŪD, KŪH-E
Eckart Ehlers
mountain range in northeastern Iran between Mašhad in the east and Nīšāpūr in the west with elevations of up to 3,211 m.
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BĪNAMĀZĪ
James R. Russell, Hamid Algar
NPers. “the state of being without prayer,” term for the state of a menstruant woman. i. In Zoroastrianism. ii. In Islam. All bodily discharges are regarded by Zoroastrians as violations of the wholeness of the person.
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BĪNEŠ KAŠMĪRĪ, ESMĀʿĪL
N. H. Ansari
Persian poet of India in the 17th century. He left six maṯnawīs and a dīvān of ḡazals and qaṣīdas.
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BINYON, (ROBERT) LAURENCE
Parvin Loloi
(1869-1943), prolific English poet, translator, art historian and critic, notably of Oriental art.
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BIOGRAPHIES
Cross-Reference
See Supplement.
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BIRCH
Hūšang Aʿlam
(Pers.tūs), the genus Betula L., found in western Azerbaijan, along the Karaj river, and other locations on the southern slopes of the Alborz.
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BIRD, ISABELLA L
C. Edmund Bosworth
also known under her married surname of Bishop (1831-1904), British traveler in western Iran and Kurdistan during the late Victorian period.
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BIRDS
Derek A. Scott
Of 324 breeding species, 131 occur widely in the Palearctic region, 81 are Western Palearctic species, reaching the easternmost extremities of their ranges in Iran, while 19 are typically Eastern Palearctic species, reaching the westernmost tip of their ranges in Iran.
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BĪRĪ
Cross-Reference
or BĪRĪTEKĪN. See BÖRI.
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BĪRJAND
Moḥammad-Ḥasan Ganjī
town and district in the southeastern part of the province of Khorasan (lat 32°52′ N, long 59°13′ E).
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BIRJAND
Multiple Authors
the capital and a sub-province in Khorasan-e Jonubi Province.
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BIRJAND ii. Population, 1956-2011
Mohammad Hossein Nejatian
This article deals with the following population characteristics of Birjand: population growth from 1956 to 2011, age structure, average household size, literacy rate, and economic activity status.
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BĪRŪNĪ
Mohammad Ali Djamalzadeh and Ḥasan Javādī
the public or male quarters of wealthy households, used for the conduct of business, male religious ceremonies, and parties for men.
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BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN
Multiple Authors
scholar and polymath of the period of the late Samanids and early Ghaznavids and one of the two greatest intellectual figures of his time in the eastern lands of the Muslim world (973-after 1050).
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BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN i. Life
C. Edmund Bosworth
Bīrūnī was born in the outer suburb (bīrūn, hence his nesba) of Kāṯ, the capital of the Afrighid Ḵᵛārazmšāhs, and spent the first twenty-five years of his life in Ḵᵛārazm.
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BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN ii. Bibliography
David Pingree
Ca. 1035-36 Bīrūnī wrote a Resāla fī fehrest kotob Moḥammad b. Zakarīyāʾ al-Rāzī in two parts, the first devoted to Rāzī and his works, the second to the books that he himself had authored up to that time.
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BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN iii. Mathematics and Astronomy
George Saliba
Ninety-five of 146 books known to have been written by Bīrūnī were devoted to astronomy, mathematics, and related subjects like mathematical geography.
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BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN iv. Geography
David Pingree
Bīrūnī’s conceptions of the spherical shape of the earth and of the geographical features on its surface are those of Greek scientists, especially Ptolemy, as modified by earlier Muslim geographers.
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BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN v. Pharmacology and Mineralogy
Georges C. Anawati
Bīrūnī, a traveler proficient in several Asian languages and an inquisitive and attentive observer, was interested all his life in gathering precise information on plants and their medicinal uses.
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BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN vi. History and Chronology
David Pingree
Bīrūnī’s main essay on political history is now known only from quotations. Discussions of historical events and methodology are found in connection with the lists of kings in his al-Āṯār al-bāqīa and Qānūn, in India, and scattered throughout his other works.
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BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN vii. History of Religions
François de Blois
In this article some of his remarks on pre-Islamic Iranian religions, on Christianity and Judaism, and on Muslim sects will be discussed.
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BĪRŪNĪ, ABŪ RAYḤĀN viii. Indology
Bruce B. Lawrence
Bīrūnī’s magnum opus in Indology is Ketāb taḥqīq mā le’l-Hend men maqūla maqbūla fi’l-ʿaql aw marḏūla (The book confirming what pertains to India, whether rational or despicable).
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BĪŠĀPŪR
Edward J. Keall
ancient and medieval town in Fārs, in the Sasanian period the administrative center of one of the five districts in the province of Fārs.
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BISHOP, ISABELLA L.
cross-reference
See BIRD, ISABELLA L.
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BISOTUN
Multiple Authors
(Bīsetūn, Bīstūn, Behistun), the modern name of a cliff rising on the north side of the age-old caravan trail and main military route from Babylon and Baghdad over the Zagros mountains to Hamadān).
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BISOTUN i. Introduction
R. Schmitt
Bagistanon (óros). As shown by its name, Bisotun had been holy from time immemorial and Darius’s monument was well known to the ancients.
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BISOTUN ii. Archeology
Heinz Luschey
Although the relief and inscription of Darius on the cliff have made Bīsotūn famous, there are also various other remains in the neighborhood, including some that were discovered or identified only in 1962 and 1963. Some Paleolithic cave finds are the earliest evidence of human presence at the spring-fed pool of Bīsotūn.
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BISOTUN iii. Darius's Inscriptions
R. Schmitt
Over the millennia all the inscriptions on the rock at Bīsotūn, especially the Babylonian version, have suffered severe damage from erosion. Calcareous deposits on the engraved cuneiform characters caused by water seepage have obscured several passages, but have also preserved them from weathering.
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BĪSOTŪN, ABŪ MANṢŪR
C. Edmund Bosworth
b. Vošmgīr, ẒAHĪR-AL-DAWLA, Ziyarid amir in Ṭabarestān and Gorgān (r. 967-78). Much of his reign was spent in fending off Samanid claims to sovereignty over the Caspian provinces.
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BĪSTGĀNĪ
Ḡolām-Ḥosayn Yūsofī
Persian term for pay and rations of troops used in classical texts, corresponding to Arabic ʿešrīnīya.
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BĪT BUNAKKI
Louis D. Levine
(or Bīt Burnakki/Purnakki), the name of an Elamite border city mentioned frequently in the eighth and seventh centuries in neo-Assyrian texts.
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BĪT HAMBAN
Louis D. Levine
(also Bīt Habban), a district on the Iranian-Iraqi frontier which appears in Akkadian cuneiform sources after the fall of the Kassite dynasty (1157 B.C.) and disappears with the fall of the Assyrian empire in 612 B.C.
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BĪT RAMATIYA
Louis D. Levine
a place name and personal name associated with Media in Asyrian sources.
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BĪTĀB, ʿABD-AL-ḤAQQ
Nāṣer Amīrī
b. Mollā ʿAbd-al-Aḥmad ʿAṭṭār, scholar and poet laureate (malek al-šoʿarāʾ) of Afghanistan (1883-1968).
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BĪṬARAF
Nassereddin Parvin
(The impartial), a news and political affairs journal published in Persian and French in Tehran (1913-14).
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BĪŽAN
Djalal Khaleghi-Motlagh
in the traditional history, son of Gīv by Rostam’s daughter Bānū Gošasp; he figures prominently in the Šāh-nāma as a hero in Kay Ḵosrow’s reign.
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BĪŽAN-NAMA
William Hanaway, Jr.
an epic poem of about 1,900 lines relating the adventures of the legendary hero Bīžan son of Gīv.
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BLACK SEA
Rüdiger Schmitt
an almost entirely landlocked sea (lat 40°55’ to 46°32’ N, long 27°27’ to 41°42’ E). Its surface is more than 423,000 km2, and its maximum depth is 2,244 m. In this article only the Achaemenid period is considered.
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BLACK SHEEP DYNASTY
Forthcoming
Forthcoming online.
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BLEEDING
Cross-Reference
See BLOODLETTING.
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BLOCHET (Gabriel Joseph) EDGARD
Francis Richard
French orientalist (1870-1937). His published works include editions and catalogues of manuscripts in Arabic and Turkish, but his main focus was the Iranian world.
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BLOCHMANN, HEINRICH FERDINAND
J. T. P. de Bruijn
(also Henry), a German orientalist and scholar of Persian language and literature who spent most of his career in India (1838-1878).
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BLOOD TRANSFUSION SERVICES IN IRAN
Ali Ameri
A centralized, state-funded organization was established in 1974 for the recruitment of safe, voluntary, non-remunerated blood donors and the subsequent collection, testing, processing, and distribution of blood and blood products to hospitals.
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BLOODLETTING
Willem Floor
(Ar.-Pers. ḥejāmat, faṣd; Pers. ragzanī, ḵūn gereftan), a common medical treatment throughout Iranian history, though applied only in exceptional circumstances by modern medical practitioners.
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BOAR
Paul Joslin
(Sus scrofa, Pers. gorāz). The wild boar is found in a broad cross-section of habitats and has a range that extends over much of Europe and Asia.
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BOARD GAMES in pre-Islamic Persia
Ulrich Schädler and Anne-Elizabeth Dunn-Vaturi
Aside from chess and backgammon, due to the perishable material such as textile, leather, and wood used in making the artifacts, as well as because often the games were simply drawn on the ground, evidence is lacking in most cases, but many of them are still played nowadays.
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BOČĀQČĪ
Pierre Oberling
a Turkic tribe of Sīrjān in Kermān province.
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BODHISATTVA
Werner Sundermann
in the Middle Iranian languages. The Sanskrit word Bodhisat(t)va, literally a being (blessed with) understanding, designates someone destined for Buddhahood later in life or in a future existence.
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BŌĒ
Marie Louise Chaumont
(Gk. Boēs), the name of two of Kavād’s (r. 488-96 and 498-531) generals.
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BOḠĀ
Cross-Reference
See BŪQĀ.
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BOḠRĀ KHAN
C. Edmund Bosworth
ABŪ MŪSĀ HĀRŪN, the first Qarakhanid khan to invade the Samanid emirate from the steppes to the north in the 990s.
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BOHLŪL
L. P. Elwell-Sutton
a weekly comic illustrated paper, published in Tehran from 1911.
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BOHLŪL, ABŪ WOHAYB
Ulrich Marzolph
(d. ca. 805), b. ʿAmr b. Moḡīra Majnūn Kūfī, variously cited in later Persian literature as Bohlūl-e majnūn (Bohlūl the fool) or Bohlūl-e dānā (Bohlūl the wise), the archetype of the "wise fool" genre.
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BOHRĀS
cross-reference
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BOḤŪR AL-ALḤĀN
Taqī Bīneš, Jean During
(Meters of melodies), a treatise on Persian music and prosody by Sayyed Mīrzā Moḥammad-Naṣīr Forṣat Šīrāzī (1855-1920).
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BOIR AḤMADĪ
Reinhold Loeffler, Gernot L. Windfuhr
the largest of the six tribal groups of Kūhgīlūya, inhabiting the mountainous territory from east of Behbahān and north of Dogonbadān to the Kūh-e Denā range in the northeast, an area of some 2,500 sq miles.
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BOJNŪRD
Eckart Ehlers, C. Edmund Bosworth
a town and district in Khorasan. i. The town and district. ii. History. The town (1976: 47,719 inhabitants; lat 37°29’ N, long 57°17’ E) is situated at the foot of the Ālādāḡ.
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BOJNURD iii. Basic Population Data, 1956-2011
Mohammad Hossein Nejatian
Bojnurd has experienced a high rate of population growth, increasing more than tenfold from 1956 to 2011. During the period 1956-76, the average annual growth rate was approximately 4.5 percent. From 1976 to 1986, the population growth rate almost doubled. After the war with Iraq ended, the population growth started to decline. Since 1996, it has continued to decrease, falling to 2.48 percent in the years 2006-2011.
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BOḴĀRĀ
cross-reference
See BUKHARA.
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BOḴĀRĀ-YE ŠARĪF
Michael Zand
“Boḵārā the noble,” the first Central Asian newspaper published in Persian, 1912 to 1913.
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BOḴĀRĪ, ʿABD-AL-KARĪM
Cross-Reference
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BOḴĀRĪ, ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN
Wilferd Madelung
ABŪ ʿABD-ALLĀH MOḤAMMAD b. ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān b. Aḥmad, Hanafite scholar of feqh, legal method, kalām theology, and preacher and moftī in Bukhara (d. 1151).
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BOḴĀRĪ, ʿALĀʾ-AL-DĪN MOḤAMMAD
Hamid Algar
b. Moḥammad (d. 1400), close associate and primary successor of Bahāʾ-al-Dīn Naqšband, the eponym of the Naqšbandī Sufi order.
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BOḴĀRĪ, AMĪR AḤMAD
Hamid Algar
(d. 1516), a Sufi instrumental in establishing the Naqšbandī order in Turkey.
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BOḴĀRĪ, JALĀL-AL-DĪN
Richard M. Eaton
(1308-84), SHAIKH, popularly known as Maḵdūm-e Jahānīān and Jahāngašt, a celebrated Indo-Persian Sufi of Uch in the southern Punjab.
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BOḴĀRĪ, MOḤAMMAD-ŠARĪF
Robert D. McChesney
ĀḴŪND MOLLĀ, also known as Šarīf-e Boḵārī and Mollā Šarīf, the leading Koran exegete and traditionist in Transoxiana (late 17th century).
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BOKĀVOL
David O. Morgan
(büke’ül), a term used in the Il-khanid period and after for a royal food taster or, later and more commonly, a military commissariat officer.
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BOKAYR B. MĀHĀN
ʿAbbās Zaryāb
MARVAZĪ, ABŪ HĀŠEM (d. 745-46), a leading ʿAbbasid propagandist (dāʿī).
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BOḴT-ARDAŠĪR
Jes P. Asmussen
name of a town (Mid. Pers. rōstāg) that Ardašīr I is said to have founded as an expression of his gratitude to God during his flight from the court of the last Parthian king, Ardawān.
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BOḴT-NARSA
cross-reference
See NEBUCHADNEZZAR.
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BOḴTĪŠŪʿ
Lutz Richter-Bernburg
the name of the eponymous ancestor of a Syro-Persian Nestorian family of physicians from Gondēšāpūr, Ḵūzestān, 8th-11th centuries, and of several of its members.
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BOLANDMĀZŪ
cross-reference
See BALŪṬ.
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BOLBOL “nightingale”
Hūšang Aʿlam, Jerome W. Clinton
“nightingale.” i. The bird. ii. In Persian literature. The term bolbol is applied to at least three species of the genus Luscinia (fam. Turdidae). To Persian poets, however, all refer to a single bird, characterized by its sweet or plaintive song, supposedly sung for its beloved, the rose.
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BOLBOL, AŠRAF DAYRĪ
Giri L. Tikku
Persian poet of Kashmir (1682-1775-6).