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BĀFQ, a small oasis town of central Iran (altitude 3,293 feet/1,004 m) on the southern fringe of the Dašt-e Kavīr, 62 miles/100 km southeast of Yazd in the direction of Kermān. Brackish water is supplied from qanāts and springs, and the main local activities are agriculture and weaving; some well-known…

BĀFQĪ, AYATOLLAH MOḤAMMAD-TAQĪ (1292-1365/1875-1946), a religious scholar known for his forthright opposition to Reżā Shah Pahlavī. Born to a merchant, Ḥājj Moḥammad Bāqer, in the small town of Bāfq near Yazd, Bāfqī, began his religious studies at the age of 14 when he went to Yazd to study feqh and…

BĀḠ “garden.“ i. Etymology ii. General iii. In Persian Literature iv. In Afghanistan (For Bāḡ in Persian art, see GARDEN)       Search terms:  باغ  bagh  baagh  

BĀḠ i. Etymology Bāḡ, the Middle and New Persian word for “garden,” as also the Sogdian βāγ, strictly meant “piece” or “patch of land,” corresponding to the Gathic Avestan neuter noun bāga- “share,” “lot” (Y. 51.1; see Ch. Bartholomae, Altiranisches Wörterbuch, Strasburg, 1904, col. 952) and to the Old Indian…

BĀḠ ii. General In Iranian agriculture, the word bāḡ, though usually translated as “garden,” means more precisely an enclosed area bearing permanent cultures—i.e., all kinds of cultivated trees and shrubs, as opposed to fields under annual crops (zamīn-e zīr-e kešt or kešt-e sālāna)—in land-use statistics (the Village Gazetteer of 1966)…

BĀḠ iii. In Persian Literature Bāḡ appears both as an object of description and as the prime source of nature imagery in Persian literature. As a poetic image, bāḡ stands for order and beauty, and the link between man and nature. In modern poetry it can be a locus for…

BĀḠ iv. In Afghanistan Much of Afghanistan consists of treeless craggy mountains, dry sandy deserts, or semi-desert plains. The people inhabiting this land have consequently cherished all forms of gardens, which have become an integral part of Afghan culture. Villagers hold meetings and socialize in their orchards, middle-class urbanites delight…

BAG NASK, one of the Avestan nasks of the gāhānīg group, i.e., texts connected with the Gāθās, now lost almost in its entirety (see avesta). This nask is listed in the survey of the Avesta in Dēnkard 8.1.9, is briefly described in 8.4, and its contents are resumed in Dēnkard…

Search terms:  باغ بالا bagh e bala bagh baalaa    

BĀḠ-E ERAM, a famous and beautiful garden at Shiraz. Its site close to the embankment of the Rūdḵāna-ye Ḵošk was formerly on the northwestern fringe of the city but is now well inside the greatly expanded urban area. The present garden and mansion are not very old but, like the…

BĀḠ-e FĪN, known also as Bāḡ-e Šāh-e Kāšān and Bāḡ-e Šāh-e Fīn, a royal garden at about one parasang to the southwest of the city of Kāšān, where subterranean waters from the Dandāna and Haft Kotal mountains emerge to form the Fīn springs (Sohayl Kāšānī, p. 49). More than 22,608…

Search terms:  باغ جهان نما bagh e jahannama bagh jahan nama  baaghe jahaan namaa

BĀḠ-e PĪRŪZĪ (or Fīrūzī), literally “Garden of Triumph,” a royal garden in Ḡazna lying beside the Fīrūzī palace and the ʿArūs-al-Falak mosque, founded and built by Sultan Maḥmūd of Ḡazna. Maḥmūd was a great builder and possessed palaces and gardens in every important city (see Šabānkāraʾī, pp. 68, 70; Nāẓim,…

BĀḠ-e ŠĀH (the king’s garden), currently the name of a garrison (pādgān) in the western part of present-day Tehran. In the mid-Qajar period, the site was a broad, circular field about 1,000 m in diameter situated on the outskirts of the city near one of its west gates and devoted…

Search terms:  باغ سلطنت آباد bagh e saltanat abad  baagh e saltanat aabaad