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Search terms:  بلوهر و بوداسف Barlam and Josaph beloher va boudasef blooher va boodasef

BELQĪS, the queen of Sheba (Sabā) whose meetings with Solomon (Solaymān) are a favorite theme in Persian and Arabic literature. Accounts of the meetings appear in the Old Testament and the Koran, but in neither is the queen’s name, Belqīs, mentioned. The Old Testament account in I Kings 10:1-10 and…

BELTS (Mid. Pets, kamar, NPers. kamar-band) i. In ancient Iran. ii. In the Parthian and Sasanian periods.   i. In Ancient Iran Our knowledge of the early history of garments and accessories, including the belt, is rather restricted. Before the production of metal belts in Urartu we have no extant…

BĒMA, the chief festival of the Manicheans. The name. The Greek word bēma meant “platform,” “stage,” or “judge’s seat.” A raised throne called the bēma was of great importance in the Manichean festival, so much so that the name was also given to the festival itself. As a Manichean term,…

Search terms:  بندوی bendoy    

BENFEY, THEODOR (b. Nörten, Lower Saxony, Germany, 28 January 1809; d. Göttingen, 26 June 1881; Figure 1, Figure 2), German comparative philologist with a focus on Indian languages. His path-breaking research on the Pañcatantra made him one of the pioneers of comparative folklore studies. Benfey was born into a Jewish…

BENGAL i. Persian Muslim elements in the history of Bengal. (For Persian elements in Bengali language and literature, see Supplement.) ii. Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal.   i. Persian Muslim Elements in the History of Bengal Bengal, the deltaic region of the Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Meghna rivers, is the easternmost…

BENNIGSEN, ALEXANDRE (1913-1988), scholar of Soviet Islam. Born in St. Petersburg, the son of Count Bennigsen, a colonel of the Horse Guards who fought on the side of the Whites during the Russian Civil War, he was taken out of Russia by his parents in 1919. After two years in…

BENVENISTE, ĒMILE (1902-76), French scholar, eminent Iranist, and one of the greatest linguists of his era. He was born at Aleppo and studied in Paris. His biography is entirely bound up in the stages of his career as a scholar. At a very young age he caught the attention of…

BERENJ (Mid. Pets. brinǰ and bring) “brass,” an alloy of copper and zinc. i. General. ii. In the Islamic period.   i. General The earliest dated reference in lexicography to berenj occurs in Adīb Kordī Nīšāpūrī’s Arabic-Persian dictionary Ketāb al-balāḡa, completed in 438/1046-47 (ed. M. Mīnovī and F. Ḥarīṛčī, Tehran,…

BERENJ “rice” (also gorenj; see Dehḵodā s.v.), Middle Persian brinǰ, Sogdian ryzʾkh, Khotanese rrīysua-, Pashto wrīžī (plur.), etc. (see Bailey, Dictionary, I p. 364), related to Old Indian vrīhí, Greek oruza (etc.), English rice, etc., see Mayrhofer, Dictionary III, p. 282. i. In Iran. ii. In Afghanistan. iii. In cooking….

BEREZIN, IL’YA NIKOLAEVICH (1818-96), Rus­sian orientalist known for his works on Iranian, Arabic, and Turkish philology and dialectology and on Mongol history (mainly on Rašīd-al-Dīn) and for his travel ac­counts of Transcaucasia and northern Persia. He was born to a government official, at Yugokamsk, in the region of Perm, on…

BERJĪS, Arabic word listed in the dictionaries as meaning the planet Jupiter (usually al-Moštarī in Arabic, Hormozd in Persian). Perhaps the most likely explanation of the word is that Berjīs was an original Bedouin name for the big, bright planet and had the astrological connotation of “water giving” or “milk…

Search terms:  برک یاروق berk yarough berk yarogh berk yaroogh

BEROSSUS, Babylonian 4th-3rd-century priest-chronicler whose work has some bearing on Iranian history. The sources identify him (Berossus T 1-3) as a Babylonian, a Chaldean, a priest of Bel (i.e., of Mar­duk), and a contemporary of Alexander the Great (336-­23 b.c.) who survived into the reign of Antiochus I Soter (281-61…