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BAYT-AL-ʿADL (House of Justice), a Bahai administrative institution. In the Bahai faith all spiritual and administrative authority rests with institutions rather than individuals. These institutions exist in a hierarchy according to the area (local, national, and international) over which they hold jurisdiction. At present in the Bahai world, the institutions…

BAYTUZ, a Turkish commander who controlled the town of Bost in southern Afghanistan during the middle years of the 4th/10th century. Turkish control of the town dated from the time when the Samanid slave (ḡolām) commander Qaratigin Esfījābī had withdrawn to Bost and the adjacent region of Roḵḵaj (at some time…

BAYŻĀ, a town of medieval Islamic Fārs, the modern village of Tall-e Bayżā. The name stems from Arabic bayżā “white,” the name of several places in the medieval Islamic world (Yāqūt, Moʿjam al-boldān, Beirut, I, pp. 529-31, names no fewer than 16) from Sind and Iran to Sicily and the…

BAYŻĀWĪ, NĀṢER-AL-DĪN ABU’L-ḴAYR (or ABŪ SAʿĪD) ʿABD-ALLĀH B. ʿOMAR B. MOḤAMMAD, Shafeʿite jurist, Asḥʿarite theologian, and renowned Koran commentator. Information about his life is scanty and at times contradictory. He was born at a date unknown in Bayżā north of Shiraz to a family of jurists. His father Emām-al-Dīn (d….

BĀZ (Mid. Pers. bāz; for the controversial etymology of this word, see Schapka, s.v.), a common name formerly applied to some diurnal birds of prey (eškaragān-e paranda or morḡān-e šekār-konanda, the terms used by the 5th/11th-century Persian scholar and professional falconer ʿAlī Nasavī in his authoritative Bāz-nāma, pp. 79, 81),…

BĀZ-NĀMA, books or treatises on the keeping and training of falcons containing information concerning various kinds of birds of prey, how to capture and tame them, how to feed and train them, diseases afflicting them and their treatment. Aside from discussions of this subject in general works like Rāzī’s Jāmeʿ…

BĀZA-ḴŪR (Baz-e Hur), a village and site of some important Sasanian structures on the road from Mašhad to Torbat-e Ḥaydarīya, near Rebāṭ-e Safīd, 35°48’ north latitude, 59°22’ east longitude (Gazetteer of Iran II, pp. 72, 572, Map II-23-A). Southeast of the village, at the entrance of a gorge, are the…

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BĀZĀR “market (place),” Middle Persian wāzār (wʾcʾr), Armenian vačaṟ, Sogdian wʾcrn, wʾcn “street,” hence bāzargān (Arm. vačarākan) “merchant”; Sasanian inscription of Šāpūr I on the Kaʿba-ye Zardošt, Mid. Pers. (1. 35) wʾcʾlpt “master of the bāzār,” Parth. (1. 28) wʾšrpty, Gk. (1. 66) agoranomou. The word is possibly to be…

BAZAR i. General The Iranian bāzār is a unified, self-contained building complex of shops, passageways, and caravanserais, interspersed with squares (meydān), religious buildings, bathhouses (ḥammām), and other public institutions. This traditional commercial center is usually roofed with vaulted ceilings made from fired brick, although the outer branches may be open…

BAZAR ii. Organization and Function 1. Rural market. Both weekly market days and regular fairs occurred in pre-Islamic times. Among the latter, for example, was the bāzār of Māḵ in Bukhara (Naršaḵī, p. 29, tr. Frye, pp. 20-21). There was an annual fair in Ṭawāyes, a borough of Bukhara: “In…

BAZAR iii. Socioeconomic and Political Role of the Bāzār 1. The bāzār in the Islamic Iranian city. The bāzār in the Islamic city has been (1) a central marketplace and craft center located in the old quarters of the town; (2) a primary arena, along with the mosque, of extrafamilial…

BAZAR iv. The Bāzārs in Afghanistan In Afghanistan a bāzār is a collection of shops and workshops forming a topographic unit. As regards size and layout, however, there can be great differences. The name bāzār is given (1) to a relatively small group of shops in a country town or…

BAZAR v. Temporary Bāzārs in Iran and Afghanistan Periodic bāzārs. Periodic markets, and especially weekly markets, are generally presented as an intermediate stage between a subsistence economy and net­works of permanent trading centers, and are an almost universal feature of “peasant societies” in less-developed countries (Berry, p. 93). But the…

BĀZĀR-E WAKĪL, an architectural monument of Shiraz from the reign of Karīm Khan Zand (Wakīl, r. 1163-93/1750-79) and still an important center of business. No contemporary historian gives the exact date of its completion, but Moḥammad Ṣādeq Nāmī (d. 1204/1789-90) states that during the four years beginning in 1183/1769-70, four…