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BARUCH (Barūḵ, Bārūḵin Ar. sources), the son of Neriah, was the scribe and disciple of the prophet Jeremiah, who lived at the time of the Babylonian occupation of Judea and the first Jewish exile to Babylonia (586 B.C.). Despite the relatively modest position which this Baruch might be supposed to…

BĀRŪT (also bārūṭ and bārūd) “gunpowder” is a loanword from Arabic; it passed from Turkish into Persian usage. This is also clear from the subsidiary Arabic term for gunpowder, dawāʾ or “remedy,” which in fact is the first word used in Arabic to denote gunpow­der. In India and Afghanistan, where…

BARZAN, part of a town, quarter (maḥalla), street (kūča). The word is listed in the old dictionaries and is preserved in the common expression kūy o barzan “street and quarter.” Loḡat-e fors (ed. Dabīrsīāqī, p. 153) quotes Rūdakī’s verse parnīān gašt bāḡ o barzan o kūy “the garden, quarter, and…

BĀRZĀNĪ, the name of a Kurdish tribe from Bārzān, a town in the former Hakkārī-Bahdīnān ter­ritory of northeastern Iraq (lat 36°50’ N, long 44° E). Originally followers of the Naqšbandī order, the tribesmen now have little awareness of this past. The shaikhs of Bārzān came to prominence in the wake…

BARZĪN (from Pahlavi Burzēn), the name of several figures in the Šāh-nāma. Barzīn, a wealthy dehqān who lived at the time of Bahrām Gōr; he had three daughters (Māhāfarīd, Farānak, and Šanbalīd) skilled respectively in singing poetry, playing the harp, and dancing for Bahrām Gōr when he was their father’s…

BAŠĀKERD (also Bašāgerd), a roughly rectan­gular mountainous district (dehestān) east of Mīnāb and north of Jāsk. Bašākerd proper is bounded on the west by the district of Rūdān and the coastal strip known as Bīābān, by Fannūč in Baluchistan to the east, by Manūjān to the north and by the…

BASAWAL, the site of a Buddhist cave temple complex in eastern Afghanistan, first visited and de­scribed in 1878 by William Simpson and completely measured and partly excavated in 1965 by the Kyoto University Archeological Mission; it extends about 3 km along the schist cliff facing to the south and on…

BĀṢERĪ, a pastoral nomadic tribe of Fārs belong­ing to the Ḵamsa confederacy. Traditional location and area are best understood through the tribal con­cept of the īl-rāh,the tribal road and schedule. Winter pastures (garmsīr)were between Jahrom and Lār; by Nowrūz the tribe used to gather on the plain of Manṣūrābād near…

BĀŠGĀH-E AFSARĀN (officers’ club), an impres­sive building on the northwestern corner of the former Cossacks’ parade ground in Tehran. The club was designed by Gevorkian, a French architect of Armenian descent who was general manager of government buildings. Gevorkian also supervised the main part of the construction work but abruptly…

BĀŠGĀH-e ARĀMENA (the Armenian club), a non-profit, non-political club, founded 1 January 1918 by Armenians in Tehran in accordance with legal provisions allowing religious communities and foreign citizens to establish clubs or associations with exclusive membership rights. The purpose of the club was to promote congeniality and solidarity among members…

BĀŠGĀH-e MEHRAGĀN (Mehragān Club), an organization founded in 1952 in Tehran by the execu­tive committee of the Iran Teachers Association (Jāmeʿa-ye Moʿallemān-e Īrān, q.v.); membership in the club was open to teachers, students, and other in­tellectuals in Tehran and eventually in the provinces where branches were established. Prior to the…

BASIL, Ocimum L. ssp. (fam. Labiatae), now commonly called rayḥān in Persian, an aromatic plant. The word basil goes back ultimately to Gk. basilikón, lit. “royal,” with okimon understood, thus “royal [okimon],” which, according to Laufer (pp. 586-87), is a Greek calque of the Pers. šāh-separam/-esfaram, “the basil, [lit.] fragrant…

BASILIUS of CAESAREA or Basilius the Great (ca. a.d. 330-79), bishop in Caesarea in Cappadocia from 370, after Eusebius. Basilius was born in Caesarea into a distinguished family in the history of the early church. He, his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of Nazianzus are the famous “three…

BAŠKARDI (Bašākerdī),collective designation for numerous dialects spoken in southeastern Iran from Bandar-e ʿAbbās eastward, forming a transition from the dialects spoken in Fārs and Lārestān to Baluchi. History of research.Words and sentences from Baškardi dialects were quoted for the first time by R. A. Floyer in his book Unexplored Balūchistan…