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BABR “tiger.” The little evidence remaining suggests no more than tentative differences between the Caspian tiger (Panthera tigris virgata) and that of either the Indian tiger (P. t. tigris) or the Siberian tiger (P. t. altaica). Skins and photographs would suggest that it was of intermediate size. The stripes have…

BABR-e BAYĀN (or babr, also called palangīna), the name of the coat which Rostam wore in combat. It was fire-proof, water-proof, weapon-proof, dark-colored, and apparently hairy, because Rostam when wearing it is said to have looked as if he had “sprouted feathers” (Šāh-nāma, Moscow ed., II, p. 89 v. 244,…

BABYLON under the Achaemenids. The economic and cultural history of Babylon under Persian rule matched the vicissitudes of its political life. Its citizens welcomed the first Achaemenids as liberators. Having been deeply offended by the sacrilegious innovations of Nabonidus, they opened its gates in 538 B.C. to Cyrus, who had…

BABYLONIA i. History of Babylonia in the Median and Achaemenid periods. ii. Babylonian influences on Iran.

BABYLONIA i. History of Babylonia in the Median and Achaemenid Periods   I. Political history. Babylonia came into being early in the second millennium B.C. and lasted until it was conquered by the Persians in 539 B.C. For the early history of Babylonia see ASSYRIA and ELAM. In 729 B.C….

BABYLONIA ii. Babylonian Influences on Iran Introduction. We can distinguish three periods in the influence of Mesopotamian civilization on pre-Islamic Iran: (1) the pre-Achaemenid period: before the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great; (2) the Achaemenid period: before the conquest of the Persian empire by Alexander the Great; and…

BABYLONIAN CHRONICLES, as sources for Iranian history. In a number of cases Babylonian chronicles provide valuable information about the political history of Iran. These chronicles, which are closely connected to one another, began with the reign of Nabu-nāṣir (747-734 B.C.E.) and continued as far as the reign of Seleucus II…

BAČČA-YE SAQQĀ (popularly Bače Saqqāw), “the water-carrier’s child,” the derogatory name given to the leader of a peasants’ revolt which succeeded in placing him on the throne of Afghanistan in 1307 Š./1929. He reigned for nine months with the title Amīr Ḥabīb-Allāh Khan Ḵādem-e Dīn-e Rasūl Allāh. Ḥabīb-Allāh was his…

BACHER, WILHELM (Bīnyāmīn Ze’ev) 1850-1913), was born in Liptószentmiklós, Hungary (today in Czechoslovakia). His father, Simon, was a Hebrew poet who translated a part of Saʿdī’s Golestān into Hebrew (Hebräische Dichtungen, Vienna, 1894). In 1867 Bacher was admitted to the University of Budapest where he studied Oriental languages, history, and…

Search terms:  تخته نرد takhte nard takhteh nard    

Search terms:   باکترا  باختر،بلخ baktra    

BACTRIA i. Pre-Islamic period. ii. In the Avesta and in Zoroastrian tradition. (See also AFGHANISTAN vii and ix; and BALḴ.) i. Pre-Islamic Period Bactria, the territory of which Bactra was the capital, originally consisted of the plain between the Hindu Kush and the Āmū Daryā with its string of agricultural…

BACTRIAN LANGUAGE, 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 manuscript fragments from a much later period, perhaps the eighth or ninth century. Instead of “Bactrian” some…

BĀD (wind), phenomenon at ground level resulting from modifications of general airflows by local topographic factors. 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…

BĀD (wind) in Perso-Islamic medicine: 1. wind as a medically relevant environmental factor; 2. “airiness” as internal physiological and pathological agent. 1. Following Hippocrates’ “On airs, waters, places,” Galen stressed the influence on human health of wind as of other ecological and climatic factors; the winds prevailing in a given…