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BOSTĪ, ABU’L-QĀSEM ESMĀʿĪL b. Aḥmad JĪLĪ, Muʿtazilite and Zaydī author of the late 4th/10th and early 5th/11th century. Little is known about his life. He or his family presumably came from Bost in Sīstān. He seems, however, to have lived for some time, probably in his youth, in eastern Gīlān…

BOT, a term which appears frequently in poetry with meanings ranging from an idol in the literal sense to a metaphor for ideal human beauty. These senses are found in the earliest surviving poetry and have been used continually since then. In its literal sense it is used in descriptions…

BOTANICAL JOURNAL OF IRAN (Žurnāl-e giāhšenāsi-e Irān). According to its publishers, “an international botanical journal open to botanists for presentation of original research in plant taxonomy and related subjects…in sofar as they have a bearing on plants occurring in Persia or neighboring countries, i.e. Southwest Asia” (quoted verbatim). Occasionally it…

BOTANICAL STUDIES ON IRAN i. The Greco-Islamic tradition. ii. The Western tradition. iii. Persian Studies in the Western tradition.   i. The Greco-Islamic Tradition In the Islamic period, generally speaking, botany was an ancillary branch of medicine or, more precisely, pharmacology. Interest in studying the medicinal virtues of plants developed…

BOUNDARIES  i. With the Ottoman empire. ii. With Russia. iii. Boundaries of Afghanistan. iv. With Iraq. v. With Turkey.   Search terms:  مرزها marzha    

BOUNDARIES i. With the Ottoman Empire The boundary separating the Ottoman and Iranian empires was shaped by conflict over an ill-defined strip of territory with constantly shifting outlines extending from the Caucasus to the Persian Gulf. The consolidation of expansionist Ottoman power and the establish­ment of the Safavids in Iran…

BOUNDARIES ii. With Russia West of the Caspian. The problem of drawing a stable territorial boundary between the Russian and Iranian powers must have arisen with the first arrival of the Russians in the Caspian area, after the conquest of Astrakhan (Haštarḵān, Ḥājī Tarḵān) in 1556. In fact, because of…

BOUNDARIES iii. Boundaries of Afghanistan Afghanistan, the seventh largest landlocked country in the world in area (652,626 km2) is delineated by a boundary some 5,600 km long, over which it has never exercised more than partial control. It is surrounded by four countries: the USSR on the north (2,140 km…

BOUNDARIES iv. With Iraq In 1921, after the dismemberment of the Ottoman empire, Iraq became a state under British mandate, inheriting the old Ottoman dispute with Iran over the Šaṭṭ al-ʿArab (Figure 24). Relations between Iran and Iraq were thus strained from the beginning. On 29 November 1934, two years…

BOUNDARIES v. With Turkey Following the signature of the Mudros Armistice on 30 October 1918, Turkey ceased to have any responsibility for Mesopotamia, which held the status of occupied enemy territory until the establishment of the Hashemite kingdom of Iraq after the Cairo Conference of March 1921. After this territorial…

Search terms:  بویه bouyeh boyeh  

Search terms:  بوییان booean boeian  

BOXTREE, Buxus L. spp., šemšād, common name for numerous species of evergreen shrubs or trees of the family Buxaceae. The species B. sempervirens Wall. (= B. hyrcana Pojark.), designated as šemšād-e jangalī (forest boxtree) in modern Persian botanical terminology (see Ghahre­man, III, no. 160), grows wild in lowland or plain…

BOYCE, Nora Elizabeth Mary (b. Darjeeling, India, 2 August 1920; d. London, 4 April 2006), scholar of Zoroastrianism and its relevant languages, and Professor of Iranian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London (FIGURE 1). Mary Boyce was born in India where her…

BOYEKAN, the name of a mec naxarar “great satrap,” defeated and killed at Ṭʿawrēš (Tabrīz) by the Armenian general Vasak under Šāpūr II (r. 309-79). See Faustus, Venice ed., IV, p. 39 = Langlois, Historiens, p. 264; and cf. Hübschmann, Armenische Grammatik, p. 33; Justi, Namenbuch, p. 70. The name…