BURMA
BURMA. See Myanmmar.
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BURHANUDDIN, SAYYIDNA MUHAMMAD (b. AH 1333/1915 CE), head of the Da’udi Bohra Isma’ili community and fifty-second occupant of the office of da`i mutlaq (“absolute summoner”). The office held by Burhanuddin originated in Yemen in AH 532/1138 CE when the heir to the Fatimid caliphate, the twenty-first imam al-Tayyib, chose seclusion. The Isma’ili community believes that
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BUNYAD. Dehkhoda’s Dictionary of Persian Vocabularies defines the term bunyad as “base, root, origin, and foundation.” In this article, bunyad refers to a certain type of grassroots, putatively nonprofit institutions that were organized for particular purposes after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. A few bunyads antedated the revolution but never acquired the immense size or
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BUKHARA KHANATE. This important Central Asian state existed for nearly four centuries until 1920. It had its roots in the conquest of Ma Ward’ al-Nahr (Mawarannahr, Transoxiana) by the Uzbeks under Muhammad Shaybani Khan around 1500. Ousting the Timurid dynasts from Central Asia, the Uzbeks initially formed a decentralized polity based in several cities (the
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BRUNEI. Islam is the national religion of the tiny but oil-rich sultanate of Brunei on the northwest coast of Borneo. An estimated 65 percent of the population of about 230,000 is Muslim, virtually all Sunnis of the Shafi’i school, with most of these being Brunei Malays (55 percent of the population). Most of the other
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BRAZIL The history of Islam in Brazil begins in Portugal, which conquered and colonized Brazil from 1500 to 1822. Colonial customs such as the seclusion of women and their wearing of the veil have been traced to Muslim influence in Portugal. However, a deep seated anti-Muslim sentiment was expressed by the Portuguese crown in its
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BOUHIRED, DJAMILA (b. 1937), Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN; National Liberation Front) militant whose role in the 1957 Battle of Algiers gained her international notoriety as a symbol of resistance to French rule and of the more active role anticipated for women in independent Algeria. Through members of her family involved in the nationalist
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BORUJERDI, MOHAMMAD HOSAYN (also rendered Muhammad Husayn Burujirdi; 1875-1962), Iranian theologian and religious leader who by the time of his death became the sole source of emulation (marja` al-taghd) for all Iranian Shi’is. Born in Borujerd (Burujird) Province in western Iran, Ayatollah Borujerdi came from a family known for its religious learning and piety. At
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BOOK PUBLISHING. A distinction must be maintained between printing and publishing in Islamic countries, and Islamic printing and publishing. The former comprises Christian printing from the seventeenth century to our own day, publication of books on secular subjects such as textbooks, belles-lettres, and popular magazines, all of which trace their roots to eighteenth century Istanbul
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BOHRAS. This Muslim community of Gujarat in western India traces its spiritual ancestry to early conversions to Isma’ili Shiism during the reign of the Fatimid caliph-imam al-Mustansir (AH 427-487/1036-1094 CE). When schisms occurred in the Isma’ili da’wah (mission) in the eleventh and twelfth centuries in Egypt, the Isma’ilis in India followed the Fatimi Tayyibi da`wah
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