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 BEHZĀD, the name of the black horse belonging successively to Sīāvoš, Kay Ḵosrow, and Goštāsb. Like Raḵš, Rostam’s horse, Behzād understood human language and feelings. As he was dying, Sīāvoš whispered in Behzād’s ear that he should let no one mount him other than Sīāvoš’s son Kay Ḵosrow (Šāh-nāma, Moscow,…

BEHZĀD, ḤOSAYN (1273/1894-1347 Š./1968), lacquer artist, painter, and book illustrator. Born in Tehran, he was the son of Mīrzā Fażl-Allāh Eṣfahānī, painter and penbox maker and grandson of Mīrzā Loṭf-­Allāh Wāʿeẓ, a religious orator in Shiraz who had moved to Tehran in the late 13th/19th century. After a brief stay…

BEHZĀD, KAMĀL-AL-DĪN, master painter, proverbial for his skill, active in Herat during the reign of the Timurid Ḥosayn Bāyqarā (875-912/1470-1506). Behzād’s name has become synonymous with the high level of artistic skill displayed by the painters of this period, although the precise nature of his personal contribution is a matter…

BEKTĀŠ, ḤĀJĪ (d. 669/1270-71?), Khorasanian Sufi and eponym of the Bektāšī order (see bektāšǰya), once widespread in Anatolia and the Balkans, with offshoots in Egypt, Iraq, and Western Iran. His life is still more thickly shrouded in legend than that of many other Sufis because of the multitude of extraneous…

BEKTĀŠĪYA, a syncretic and heterodox Sufi order, found principally in Anatolia and the Balkans, with offshoots in other regions, named after Ḥājī Bektāš and regarding him as its founding elder (pīr). Generally the order was known in Turkish as ṭarīqat-e Bektāšīya, but at a fairly late date the Bektāšīs began…

BELBĀS, a former Kurdish tribal confederacy of northwestern Iran and northeastern Iraq. According to C. J. Edmonds, it consisted of the tribes Mangūr, Māmaš, Pīrān, Senn, and Rāmk (Kurds, Turks and Arabs, London, 1957, p. 220). According to C. J. Rich, there was an additional tribe by the name of…

BELDERČĪN (quail, Coturnix coturnix L.; fam. Phasianidae). The wide distribution of the quail in the Near and Middle East (see Hüe and Etchécopar, pp. 225-26) and its relative abundance as both a migra­tory and sedentary bird are reflected in a great number of Arabic and especially Iranian names, “standard” and…

BELGIAN-IRANIAN RELATIONS: diplomatic relations and Belgian officials in Iran. Official diplomatic relations between Belgium and Iran date from the end of the nineteenth century. It is known that at that period Belgium was very eager to broaden its relations with the countries of Asia and Africa but also that it…

Search terms:  بلگرامی،عبدالجلیل belgrami abd al jalil belgraami abd al jalil belgramy abd al jalil

BELL, GERTRUDE Margaret Lowthian, 1868-1926, British traveler, private scholar, archeolo­gist, sometime government servant, and a translator of Ḥāfeẓ, whose concern with the Middle East generally, as well as with Iran, extended over a whole third of a century from 1890 to 1925. Born in the north of England, at Washington…

BELLES LETTRES i. SASANIAN IRAN Belles lettres in Middle Iranian literatures. Belles lettres, that is, entertaining works, are not lacking in Sasanian Iran but can by no means match with their development in New Persian literature, both for quality and quantity. Among the Middle Iranian literatures the most important specimens…

BELLEW, HENRY WALTER (1834-92), surgeon and amateur orientalist, born at Nāṣrābād in India, son of a captain in the Bengal army. After his medical studies in London and short service in the Crimean War he was gazetted assistant surgeon in the Bengal medical service. On his arrival in India in…

BELOVED (maʿšūq in Arabic and Persian) belongs, together with Lover (ʿāšeq) and Love (ʿešq), to the three concepts that dominate the semantic field of eroticism in Persian literature and mysticism. The interrelation among these concepts makes it almost impossible to treat any one of the concepts separately. In this article…