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BANĀN, ḠOLĀM-ḤOSAYN (b. Tehran, Ordībehešt, 1290 Š./May, 1911, d. Tehran, 10 Esfand 1364 Š./29 February 1986) one of the foremost Persian singers of the twentieth century. He was known for the quality of his voice, vast knowledge of āvāz repertory, exactness of style, ability to match poetry with music, and…

BANĀʾĪ HERAVĪ, KAMĀL-AL-DĪN ŠĪR-ʿALĪ, son of Ostād Moḥammad Sabz Meʿmār, poet and musicologist (857-918/1453-1512). The son of an architect and master builder (meʿmār), he chose the pen name Banāʾī; the frequently given reading Bannāʾī (e.g., Browne, Lit. Hist. Persia III, p. 457; Cat. Bib. Nat. III, p. 318) is incorrect,…

BĀNBIŠN, Middle Persian “queen.” The Pahlavi ideogram for bānbišn is MLKTA (see Frahang ī pahlavīk, chap. 12, l. 4, where the variant bʾnbwšn, bānbušn, is listed). In Manichean Middle Persian the word is spelled bʾnbyšn and it was borrowed into Armenian as bambišn (Hübschmann, Armenische Grammatik, pp. 116f.). A substandard…

BAND “dam.” General remarks. The word means something that factually or figuratively binds, ties, or restricts (cf. Av. banda- “bond,” Eng. bond). In geographical nomenclature it is applied to ranges (mainly in Afghanistan, e.g., Band-e Torkestān), passes (darband) and, above all, old dams and barrages built to store or divert…

BAND-E AMĪR (the amir’s dike) or Band-e ʿAżodī, a dam or weir constructed across the Kor river at the southeast end of the Marvdašt plain in Fārs, approximately 15 km south of the town of Marvdašt and 20 km northeast of Shiraz. It takes its name from the Daylamite ruler…

BAND-E AMĪR, the chain of natural lakes 90 km west of Bāmīān in Afghanistan (30°12’ north latitude and 66° 30’ east longitude). Physiography. The lakes lie in beds of Cretaceous clay and limestone at 2,900 m altitude on the course of small rivers coming from the east (the headwaters of…

BAND-E BAHMAN, an ancient dam built on the Qara Āḡāj river nearly sixty km south of Shiraz. The river, known in classical sources as the Zakān, is the longest river in Fārs, beginning in the mountains west of Shiraz and, after sprouting several tributaries, ending near the Persian Gulf port…

BAND-E TORKESTĀN (boundary wall of Turkestan), or less commonly Tīrband-e Torkestān, the mountain range in northwestern Afghanistan which runs in a west-east direction for 200 km between the upper valley of the Morḡāb to the south and the plains of the Āmū Daryā to the north. It is a horst…

BANDA “servant.” i. The term. ii. Old Persian bandaka.   i. The Term Banda (NPers.) and its precursors bandak/bandag (Mid. Pers.) and bandaka (OPers.) meant “henchman, (loyal) servant, vassal,” but not “slave” (for which see barda and bardadārī). Occurrences of the word bandaka in the inscription of Darius I at…

BANDAR “harbor, seaport; commercial town.” The word is presumably derived from the root band “to bind” (Pers. bastan), but probably not in the sense of “binding,” i.e., “mooring” (ships) but rather as the enclosed (bound up) area of the harbor, like Ar. sadd “jetty, mole.” Vullers (Lexicon Persico-Latinum I, p….

BANDAR ABBAS  ii. Basic population data, 1956-2011 This article deals with the following population characteristics of Bandar Abbas: population growth from 1956 to 2011, age structure, average household size, literacy rate, and economic activity status for 2006 and/or 2011 (different dates for the categories are determined by the availability of…

BANDAR-e GAZ, a port on the southern shore of the Astarābād bay in the southeastern Caspian Sea, a few kilometers from a group of nine hamlets known collectively as Gaz. In the mid-nineteenth century, this shoreline (called Kenāra, cf. Curzon, I, p. 185 and Rabino, p. 66; and Kenār Gaz, cf….

BANDAR-(E) LENGA, (lat 26° 33’ N, long 54° 53’ E), a small port on the coast of Lārestān. It first appeared as part of the political landscape of coastal Persia during the Afghan crisis. In May-June 1734, Moḥammad Khan Baluči, governor of Kuh-galu and an Afghan supporter, retreated to Lenga…

BANDAR-e MĀHŠAHR (Bandar-e Maʿšūr), a port at the western end of the Persian Gulf, on the northern bank of the Ḵor-e Mūsā tideway, which forms the lower course of the Jar(r)āḥī river. At the end of the 19th century, Bandar-e Māhšahr was a small port used exclusively by native boats…