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BAGA, an Old Iranian term for “god,” sometimes designating a specific god. i. General. ii. In Old and Middle Iranian. iii. The use of baga in names.   i. General Baga- is attested in early and late Iranian with two meanings (1) agent noun “distributor,” glossed by Parsi Sanskrit vibhaktar-…

Search terms:  بگبوخشه bagabukhshe      

BAGĀN YAŠT (1) one of the dādīg (legal) nasks of the Avesta; (2) name of Y. 19-21 (see bag nask). The Bagān yašt (the Dēnkard has yast for yašt or yasn; the Persian Rivayats have Baḡān yašt and Bayān yašt), according to the brief account of it in the Dēnkard…

BAGARAN (Turk. Pakran), a town and fortress of the Armenian principality of Aršarunikʿ (40°12’ north latitude, 43°39’ east longitude) 5 km (3 miles) west of the right bank of the Axurean river (Arpaçai). Bagaran, lit. “the god’s place,” was founded at the end of the third century B.C. by the…

BAḠAVĪ, ABU’L-ḤASAN ʿALĪ B. ʿABD-AL-ʿAZĪZ B. MARZBĀN B. SĀBŪR, traditionist (moḥaddeṯ) and philologist in the 3rd/9th century. He came from Baḡšūr, a town near Marv-al-Rūḏ. Since he was more than ninety years old when he died in 286/899 or 287/900, his birth can be placed in the last decade of…

BAGAWAN (Baguan or Aṭʿši Bagawan), a district of the land of Kaspianē (Arm. Kaspʿkʿ, later Pʿaytakaran) lying along the right bank of the Araxes river and corresponding to the northeastern part of Iranian Azerbaijan. Here was located the town of Bagaran or Aṭʿši Bagawan (Ar. and Pers. Bāgarvān or Bājarvān)…

BAGAWAN, an ancient locality in central Armenia situated at the foot of Mount Npat (Gk. Niphates, Turk. Tapa-seyd) in the principality of Bagrewand west of modern Diyadin. The name means literally “town of the gods.” It is attested in Greek as Sakauana (for *Bagauana) in Ptolemy (Geography 5.12.7). Agathangelos (par….

BĀGAYĀDIŠ (b-a-g-y-a-di-i-š, attested only in gen. °yādaiš/°y-a-d i-š), name of the seventh month (September-October) of the Old Persian calendar, mentioned in Darius I’s Behistun inscription 1.55 (see Kent, Old Persian, p. 161a). It is equivalent to Akkadian Tašrītu and Elamite Manšarki (several attestations only in the Persepolis tablets; see R….

BAGAYAṞIČ, also BAGAṞIČ or BAGAṞINČ; Gk. *Bagaris (Strabo, 11.14.14), Basgoidariza (ibid., 12.3.28), and *Bagarizaka (Ptolemy, 5.13.4); Turk. Pekeric; a locality in the district of Daranałi in northwestern Armenia; about 91.6 km (55 miles) west of Erzerum 40° 53’ north latitude, 40° 13’ east longitude) Bagayarīč lay on the main road…

BAGAZUŠTA, Old Iranian personal name. *Baga-zušta- “beloved of the god(s)” is the Median counterpart of Old Persian *baga-dušta-, which is attested in Elamite Ba-ka-du-iš-da and Greek Megadóstes (Benveniste, Titres et noms propres en iranien ancien, Paris, 1966, p. 117; Hinz, Altiranisches Sprachgut der Nebenüberlieferungen, Wiesbaden, 1975, p. 55). 1. The…

Search terms:  بغداد baghdad baghdaad    

BAḠDĀDI FAMILY, designation of an Arab family of a Bābi, Shaikh Moḥammad Šebl, and his Bahai progeny, his son Moḥammad-Moṣṭafā Baḡdādi, and the latter’s sons, Żiāʾ Mabsuṭ Baḡdādi and Ḥosayn Eqbāl. Shaikh Moḥammad Šebl (d. Baghdad, 1 Ramażān 1266/11 July 1850) was a student of Sayyed Kāẓem Rašti, the head…

BAḠDĀDĪ, ABU’L-FAŻL (d. 550/1155), sixth/twelfth century Sufi whose name appears in the initiatic chain of the Neʿmatallāhī order. Together with Shaikh Abu’l-Najīb ʿAbd-al-Qāher Sohrawardī (d. 563/1168), he is said to have been a morīd of the celebrated mystic and writer, Aḥmad Ḡazālī (d. 520/1126). In his versified account of the…

Search terms: بغدادی ، بهاءالدین baghdadi baha al din      

BAḠDĀDĪ, MAWLĀNĀ ḴĀLED ŻĪĀʾ-AL-DĪN (1193-1242/1779-1827), the founder of a significant branch of the Naqšbandī Sufi order—named Ḵāledī after him—that has had a profound impact not only on his native Kurdistan but also on many other regions of the western Islamic world. Mawlānā Ḵāled apparently acquired the nesba Baḡdādī through his…