Search

, site of ruins in Mesopotamia, on the Western bank of the Ḵh̲ābūr, to the South of the Ḏj̲abal ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, situated under 36° 10′ N. Lat. and 40° 50′ E. Long. (Greenw.). The remains of the old town are hidden under several hills, after one of which the site is also called Tell ʿAd̲j̲āba. It was here that H. A. Layard found several winged bulls with human heads, products of the genuinely Mesopotamian civilization which is closely related to that of …

( ʿAḍēm ), an eastern tributary of the Tigris (Did̲j̲la, [ q.v.]). It is formed of the junction of several rivers which have their sources in the range east of and parallel to the Ḏj̲abal Ḥamrīn and which in their course from N.E. to S.W. break through deeply cut ravines. The most important of these rivers are: the river of Kirkūk, viz. the Ḵh̲āṣa (Kaza, Kissa) -čay (on some maps it figures also under the name of Ḳara-ṣū), which rises from several sources north of Kirkūk; further the river of Tāʾūk (Daḳūkā [ q.v.]), viz. the Tāʾūk-ṣū (or -čay), the most important of all, which joins the…

, the name of several places, generally in districts where Aramaic was once spoken, for al-Bīra is a translation of the Aramaic bīrt̲h̲ā — “fortress”, “citadel”. The best known is al-Bīra on the east bank of the Euphrates in North-west Mesopotamia, the modern Bīred̲j̲ik [ q.v.]: on other places, bearing the name Bīra, cf. Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am (ed. Wüstenfeld), i, 787; Nöldeke in the Nachr. der Götting . Ges. der Wiss. , 1876, 11-12 and in De Goeje, BGA, iv, (gloss.), 441; Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems (1890), 423. (M. Streck)

( Kalāh , Kalā , Kilā , Killah ), the mediaeval Arab geographers’ name for an island or peninsula ( d̲j̲azīra ) which played an important intermediary role in commercial and maritime relations between Arabia, India and China. It was particularly well-known for its tin mines, and the Arabic word ḳalʿī / ḳalaʿī [ q.v.] for this metal derives from Kalah; the place was also portrayed as the centre of trade in camphor, bamboo, aloes, ivory etc. Its capital also was named Kalah (cf. e.g., al-Dīmas̲h̲kī, Cosmographie , 152, 170); so too the sea which washed its shor…

, town in ʿIrāḳ situated in about 33° 35′ N. and 42° 48′ E. on the right bank of the Euphrates, on a hill which may be man-made. The mediaeval Arab travellers estimate the distance between Hit and Bag̲h̲dād at 33 parasangs ( ca. 130 miles) or 5½-6 days’ journey, cf. M. Streck, Babylonien nach den arab. Geographen , i, 8. Some Arab geographers (al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and Ibn Ḥawḳal) include Hīt in the D̲j̲azīra; it was generally considered, however, to be a frontier town of ʿIrāḳ. In al-Muḳaddasī’s time (4th/10th century) it was of some imp…

, Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Sulaymān, Tunisian author of the 19th century (1204-74/1789-1857). He stemmed from a family of scholars in Tūnis, his grandfather having been a manuscript copyist who had gone on the Pilgrimage to Mecca and had then setded at Sennar [see sinnār ] in the Sūdān, thus establishing a family connection between that region, Cairo (where Muḥammad’s father became naḳīb al-riwāḳ , i.e. superintendent of the Mag̲h̲ribī students at al-Azhar) and Tūnis. Muḥammad was born in Tūnis in 1204/1789, and after studying at al-Azhar, made his way to the Sūdān, where …

, a town in Central Babylonia, on the east bank of the Tigris, a few hours’ journey above Kūt al-ʿAmāra, and 5 pavasangs (= c. 20 miles) southeast of Nuʿmāniya (the modern Tell Naʿmān). It is described as a flourishing place by the older Arab geographers; but, by Yāḳūt’s time (the beginning of the viith = xiiith century), it had considerably declined. In course of time — we have no details of its decay — it fell utterly into ruins. This town must date from a very remote period; for the name of the Gambalu, one of the most important Aramaic nomad trib…

, a village, 16 miles south-east of Mosul and 10 north-east of the ruins of Nimrūd (Assyr. Kalḫu); cf. the map by R. Kiepert based an the survey by F. Jones (see Journ. of the Roy. Asiat. Soc, xv. 1855) in v. Oppenheim, Vom Mittelm. z. Pers. Golf (1900), ii. 182, where the name is written Bellawat. Yāḳūt mentions the place as a caravan station situated in the district of Nīnawai (Nineveh), a short day’s journey from Mosul, under the name Balābād̲h̲, possibly = “foundation ( ābād̲h̲) of Bāl” (Bardiya Smerdis); ct. on this point G. Hoffmann, Auszüge aus Syr. Akt. Pers. Märtyrer (1880) p. 219, Note…

(also Basṭām, now usually pronounced Bosṭām) a town in the Persian province of Ḵh̲orāsān (on the slopes of the Alburs), at the northern extremity of the great desert; Long. 55° East (Greenw.) and Lat. 36° 30’ north. During the caliphate, Bisṭām was the most important place in the district of Ḳūmis, next to Damag̲h̲ān (the capital). Bisṭām was apparently founded by Bisṭām, a maternal uncle of the Sāsānian king, Ḵh̲usraw II. Parwīz who was appointed governor of Ḵh̲orāsān, Ḳūmis, Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ān and Ṭabaris…

, plur. ḳanawāt, ḳanan, ḳunī and aḳniya, means in Arabic: (1) canal, aqueduct, (2) lance or stick (see Lisān al-ʿArab, xx. 66; Tād̲j̲ al-ʿArūs, x. 304; Dozy, Supplément, ii. 414). These two conceptions have developed from the original meaning of “reed”. The word may be said with considerable certainty to be borrowed in the western Semitic languages from the Assyrian or Accadian, where ḥanū = reed, bulrush; cf. Zimmern, Akkad. Fremdwörter, Leipzig 1915, p. 56. Hence we have in Hebrew ḳanä, in Aramaic ḳanyā; the word passed through the intermediary of the Aramaic into Arabic; th…

, one of the most important elevations of the Armenian highlands on the borders of the Wilāyets of Erzerum and Bidlīs [q. v.]; the geographical position of the highest peak is about 41° 20’ East Long. (Greenw.) and 39° 20’ N. Lat. Strecker and Radde describe the Bingöldag̲h̲ as a gigantic, extinct volcano, the edges of the crater of which have for the most part fallen in. According to the more recent geological investigations of Oswald, it is not however really a volcano, but only a dome, the ma…

(also Kalāh, Kalā, Kilā and Killah), according to the mediaeval Arab geographers the name of an island or peninsula, which played an important part as au intermediary in the trade and navigation between Arabia, India and China. It was particularly noted for its tin-mines; it is at the same time described as a centre of trade in camphor, bamboo, aloes, ivory, etc. Its capital was likewise called Kalah; cf. e. g. al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī, p. 152, 11, 170, 1; al-Nuwairī (in A. v. d. Lith, op. cit., (see below, Bibl.), p. 281; the sea washing this region, described as difficult to navigate, was …

(Russian Ḏj̲ulf), an ancient, once important town in Armenia, on the north bank of the Araxes, lying approximately in Lat. 59° N., now belonging to the Russian gouvernement of Eriwān. S̲h̲āh Abbās I the Great (see above p. 8) brought about the ruin of the town when in 1014 (1605) he brought the entire population (2000 families) which had won his sympathies by expelling the Turkish garrison during the Turco-Persian war, to Persia, chiefly to the capital Iṣpahān and thereby introduced a new element…

, the name of several places in the ʿIrāḳ and in Mesopotamia: 1. A town in the ʿIrāḳ,on the Eastern bank of the Tigris, 8 miles S. E. of Sāmarrā. With the latter it seems to have been closely connected in its period of prosperity. We do not know what special part al-Ḳādisīya played at that time. Perhaps, as Herzfeld, ( op. cit., p. 107) suggests, it is really identical with the town of al-Ḳāṭūl which Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd or the Caliph al-Muʿtasim began to build before the foundation of Sāmarrā. Yāḳūt and other Arab geographers mention the glassworks of al-Ḳād…

, the capital of Ḵh̲ūzistān, in 32° 25’ N. Lat. and 48° 35’ E. Long (Greenw.), on the bank of the Dizfūl-Rūd or Āb-i Diz, which takes its name from it. This river which rises in the Burūd̲j̲ird district flows into the Kārūn a little below Band-i Ḳīr (ʿAskar Mukram; see above, p. 488). According to Herzfeld, Dizfūl (650 feet above sea-level) is built on conglomerate cliffs 60 feet high, the outermost spur thrust, by the mountains into the Susian plains; the ruins of Susa begin about 15 miles to t…

, i.e. „founded by ʿAbbās“, name of several places: 1. A Persian town in the north of the salt steppe of Ḵh̲orāsān, about half-way between Sebzawār on the east and S̲h̲āhrūd on the west. It owes its foundation to S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās I (died 1628), who settled a hundred Georgian families there. This colony, which he fortified, could, according to his plans, serve as a centre for the North-East of Persia and as a base to make his rule over these regions secure. Comp. Ritter, Erdkunde, viii. 333—336. 2. and 3. There are two places of this name in the Māzanderān country, south of the Caspia…

, a place and administrative district in ʿIrāḳ; with Bādarāyā [q. v.] and the three districts of the great Nahrawān-Canal, ¶ it formed the East Tigris circle ( astān) of Bāzīyān Ḵh̲usraw; cf. Streck, Babylonien nach d. Arab. Geogr., i. 15. Like Bādarāyā, in conjunction with which it is usually mentioned by the Arab geographers, Bākusāyā still exists under the name Baksaieh (Baksā) southeast of Bedrē (= Bādarāyā) below 46° 25′ e. L. (Greenw.), quite near the Persian frontier; see e.g. Stieler’s Handatlas, sheet N°. 59 (1910). In Kusāyā is concealed the name of a people as G. H…

, the name of a place prominent in pre-Muḥammadan times within the area covered in later times by Bag̲h̲dād with which it was naturally later almost entirely absorbed (see also the ¶ article bag̲h̲dād). It lay a short distance from the little town of Muḥawwal (to the southeast of it), just below the point where the Nahr Kark̲h̲āyā, the small canal which waters the commercial quarter of Kark̲h̲, left the great navigable ʿĪsā Canal. This suburb was only separated from Bag̲h̲dād proper, on the southern part of the western half of …

, a town in the Ḏj̲azīra (Mesopotamia), on the right (south or east) bank of the Tigris, in 37° 40′ N. Lat. and 41° 30′ East. Long. (Greenw.), about halfway between Diyār Bakr and Ḏj̲azīrat Ibn ʿUmar, about 3 days’ journey (60—70 miles) from either. Ḥiṣn Kaifā dates from very ancient times. The many ancient caves and grottos still in existence belong to the pre-Armenian (Chaldean) period and show that there was a settlement here as early as about 800 b. c. In the border wars between Romans and Persians during the later Empire the town (ΚίΦαΣ, Cepha) played an important part …

, the name of a district in southern ʿIrāḳ. The origin and significance of this name, which fell into disuse in the late middle ages, is unknown. There is no certain trace of it in the cuneiform inscriptions; for the Babylonian Mis̲h̲, which Hommel ( Ethnogr. und Geogr. des alt. Orients, Munich 1926, p. 261, 263) identifies with it is as little worthy of serious consideration as the Old Testament Mēs̲h̲āʾ ( Gen. x. 30) which Biblical exegists frequently quote. Maisān first appears in the form Μεσήνη in Strabo in the first century a. d. Ptolemy gives ΜαϊσανίτηΣ κóλποΣ , as the name for th…

, a ruined site in the Persian district of Ḵh̲ūzistān or ʿArabistān. At a very early period (from at least the second millenium b. c.) it was the capital of the kingdom of Elam. Its name in the Bible and in cuneiform inscriptions is S̲h̲ūs̲h̲an: Greek Σοῦσα; Late Egypt Sus̲h̲ (see M. V. G., iii. 141; O., 6); Syriac and Armenian S̲h̲ōs̲h̲ (not to be confused with the town of the same name, the see of a bishop, in the region of Mōṣul; cf. e. g. G. Hoffmann, Auszüge aus syrisch. Akten pers. Märtyrer, Leipzig 1880, p. 204; Sachau, Abh. Pr. Ak. IV., 1905, p. 55); modern Pers. S̲h̲ūs̲h̲. When between 642-63…

, a mediaeval Arab town or rather a group of towns in al-ʿIrāḳ (Babylonia) about 20 miles S. E. of Bag̲h̲dād lying on either side of the Tigris in two almost equal portions. The name al-Madāʾin (plur. of al-Madīna) „the towns” is explained from the fact that the two capitals situated opposite one another, Seleucia on the west, the Greek city founded by Seleucus I between 312 and 301 B. C, and Ctesiphon on the east (the first reference to which is in 221 B. C), the winter residence of the Parthian and Sāsānian kings, with several oth…

(Ḏj̲āsek or Ḏj̲ās̲h̲ak), an island in the Persian Gulf. It is only mentioned by Yāḳūt and Ḳazwīnī among Arab geographers. From their statements it should most probably be identified with the island of Lārek in the strait S. E. of Bender-ʿAbbās [q. v., p. 694], and not with the large island of Kis̲h̲m as is done by Le Strange. In the time of these two authors, Ḏj̲āsak belonged to the prince of Kīs (Kīs̲h̲, the modern Ḳais, a small island in 54° E. Long. Greenw.); he kept a small body of men there a…

, the name of a celebrated citadel in Northern Syria, on the right bank of the Euphrates in 36° 53′ N. Lat. and 38° 18′ E. Long. (Greenwich). Its importance lay in the fact that it commanded the passage of the river here, where it was crossed by a bridge. It was here that a caravan route from Syria to Mesopotamia, much used in the middle ages, crossed the river. The route ran from Ḥalab via al-Bāb [q. v.] to Manbid̲j̲, thence in a fairly straight line to the Euphrates, then across the river in a…

(Elvend), is an isolated mountain-group lying to the west and south-west of Hamad̲h̲ān in al-Ḏj̲ibāl (Media), rising to a height of 3746 metres according to the latest calculations of Stahl. For the rest the accounts of travellers and maps differ considerably in the statement of the actual height (3400, 3270 metres, and so on). To the north and north-east the Alwand-Kōh steeply descends to the plain by some rocky spurs and more rounded foot-hills; to the north-west it is united to the Kelagez, a…

, one of the principal rivers of Central Persia. Its source lies about 90 miles W. of Iṣfahān in the province of ʿArabistān (Ḵh̲ūzistān) in the Zardeh-Kūh, “the yellow hills” (so-called after the yellow limestone found there) which are included among the Bak̲h̲tiārī mountains, in which also rises the Kārūn [q. v.], the greatest river of southern Persia. After leaving the mountains the Zende-rūd flows through the district of Iṣfahān after which it is often called Iṣfahān-Rūd, “the river of Iṣfahā…

(Nuffar), a ruined site in southern ʿIrāḳ, in 32° 7′ N. Lat. and 45° 10′ East Long. (Greenw.), now in the ḳaḍā of ʿAfek in the liwā al-Dīwānīye. Niffar corresponds, as J. Oppert was the first to point out, to the town of Nippur well known from cuneiform inscriptions, one of the oldest and most important places in Babylonia. Its great importance was not political but religious, as the temple of the chief deity of the town formed a kind of central sanctuary or place of pilgrimage for the whole of …

, Ḏj̲ebel Ḏj̲ūdī or Ḏj̲ūdī Dag̲h̲, a lofty mountain mass in the district of Bohtān, about 25 miles or 7 hours journey N.E. of Ḏj̲azīrat ibn ʿOmar, in 37° 30′ N. Lat. It is as yet practically unexplored and is believed to be about 13,500 feet high. Ḏj̲ūdī owes its fame to the Mesopotamian tradition, which identifies it, and not Mount Ararat, with the mountain on which Noah’s ark rested. It is practically certain from a large number of Armenian and other writers that, down to the xth century, Mt Ararat was in no way connected with the Deluge. Ancient Armenian tradition certainly kno…

(also Ḏj̲annābā, Ḏj̲unnāba) a town in Persia. In the middle ages it belonged to the province of Arrad̲j̲ān and played a not inconsiderable part as one of the more important harbours of the Persian Gulf. It did not lie directly on the coast but (in N. Lat. 29° 30’; E. Long. 50° 40’ Greenw.) about 2½ miles from it at the top of a bay (northeast of the island of Ḵh̲ārak), ¶ which connects it with the open seq. Ḏj̲annāba used to be a flourishing industrial centre; the cloths manufactured there were particularly priced and formed one of the principal exports. The town i…

, pl. aklāk and kelekāt, the usual name in the lands of the Euphrates and Tigris for the skin-float used for the transport of goods and persons. The word, frequently written kellek wrongly by European travellers, comes from the Assyrian (Accadian), where we find it as kalaku as early as the Sargonid period (K 689 = Harper N°. 312); cf. on this, independent of each other: ¶ Johnston in Amer. Journ. of Semitic Languages, xxvii. (1911), p. 187 sq. and Klauber in Babyloniaca, iv. (Paris 1911), p. 185-186; Zimmern, Akkadische Fremdwörter (Leipzig 1915), p. 45. This kalaku is the prototype of th…

(Bailān, Bēlān, Beleñ), a village in the Amanus Mountains (Alma-Dag̲h̲, see above, p. 312) in North Syria situated in 36° 16′ East Long. (Greenw.) and 36° 30′ N. Lat. It is the capital of a Ḳazā (and therefore the residence of a Ḳāʾimmaḳām) belonging to the Wilāyet of Ḥalab (Aleppo) with an area of 600 square miles and 10,800 inhabitants; cf. Supan in Petermami’s Geogr. Mitt., Erg. Heft 135 (1901), p. 15. Beilān possesses a picturesque situation and an excellent climate. It fills a deep valley, stretching from east to west between the Ḳara-Dag̲h̲ and Ḏj̲ebel …

, 1. an extensive area of ruins on the eastern bank of the Tigris opposite the town of Mōṣul, the ancient capital of the late Assyrian empire. The name is probably connected with that of the old Babylonian goddess Ninā, an incarnation of Is̲h̲tar, who had her chief place of worship on Assyrian soil here. In the Assyrian inscriptions it is most frequently written Ni-nu-a; we also find Ni-na-a and Ni-nu-u. The Amarna tablets have the forms Ni-i-na-a and Ni-i-nu-u; the reproduction of the name by Ninuwa or Nenuwa in the Mitanni and Ḵh̲atti texts shows that the Hebrew form with consonantal w is just…

(also Buzāʿā), a town in Syria, east of Ḥalab, Long. 37° 65’ E. (Greenw.) and Lat. 36° 13’ N., in the middle ages the most important place in the district of Buṭnān [q. v., p. 806]. The variant pronunciation of the name as Bizāʿa, which meets us as early as Yāḳūt, is the only one in use at the present day. According to the traveller Ibn Ḏj̲ubair (vith = xiith century) Buzāʿa was in his time midway between a town and a village in size. Its abundant water supply, flourishing gardens and fine bazaars are praised. A strong castle ( ḳalʿa) rose above the town; outside of it stood, Abu ’l-Fidā tells…

, the highest point in the mountains on the borders of Northern Persia, the Elburz (cf. the article alburz, p. 251), somewhat below 36° N. Lat and about 50 miles N. E. of Ṭeherān. According to de Morgan it rises out of the Plateau of Rēhne to a height of 13,000 feet above it. The various estimates of its height differ; Thomson estimates it at 21,000 feet (certainly too high), de Morgan at 20,260 feet, Houtum Schindler at 19,646, Sven Hedin at 18,187 and in the last edition of Stieler’s Handatlas (1910) it is given as 18,830 feet. Its summit covered with eternal snow and almost always…

, a town in Babylonia, 17 parasangs (= c. 64 miles) south east of Bag̲h̲dād. In the Arab middle ages the town which had grown up around a Christian monastery was the capital of the district ( ṭassūd̲j̲) of Central Nahrawān and in Muḳaddasī’s time (c. 375 = 985) was regarded as the most important place on the Tigris between Bag̲h̲dād and Baṣra. When Yāḳūt wrote (beginning of the viith = xiiith century) the period of Dair al-ʿĀḳūl’s prosperity was was already past, for which the alterations that had taken place in the course of the Tigris must have been largely to bl…

, a ruined site in the ancient Assyria, the northern portion of the modern ʿIrāḳ, about twenty miles south of Mōṣul, in 36° 5′ North Lat. and 43° 20′ East Long. (Greenwich) in the angle formed by the Tigris and its tributary, the Upper or Great Zāb, six miles above the mouth of the latter. The plateau of Nimrūd rises abruptly from the surrounding country, and the great advantages of this situation caused a settlement to be made here already in remote antiquity. Excavations on the site have estab…

(pl. Ḳilāʿ, Ḳulūʿ) in Arabic the name for a fortress or stronghold built on a hill or small elevation. In Turkish it also means the interior of a city in contrast to the outer suburbs (cf. Zenker, Türk.- arab.- pers. Handwörterbuch, p. 707a). The word which looks good Arabic and is fairly generally regarded as a genuine Arabic word may be a loanword from Īrānian. Fränkel first raised doubts as to its genuineness in Die Aram. Fremdw’orter im Arabisehen (Leiden 1886), p. 237, because it cannot be derived from any Arabic root. Quite recently A. Siddiqi, Studièn über die pers. Fremdwörter im k…

, Muḥammad b. ʿOmar b. Sulaimān, an Arabic author of the xixth century. He belonged to a Tūnisian family devoted to learning, especially to theological studies. His grandfather Sulaimān was a copyist of books and, when he set out on a pilgrimage to Mecca, left his three sons behind under the guardianship of his maternal uncle Aḥmad b. Sulaimān al-Azharī, a learned theologian. On completing his pilgrimage, Sulaimān, as he had lost all his property, did not return to Tūnis, but stayed first of all in Ḏj̲idda…

(= monastery of the Catholic), a Christian monastery in Babylonia, at some distance from the west bank of the Tigris, in the area watered by the canal of al-Dud̲j̲ail which flows off from the latter south of Sāmarrā and runs parallel with it. The old building was built on a piece of high ground near al-Maskin, the capital of a district ( ṭassūd̲j̲) in the province of Astān al-Ālī. Maskin is to be located about 9—10 parasangs (= c. 36—40 miles); its site is perhaps marked by the present ruins of Abū Ṣak̲h̲r. Dair al-Ḏj̲āt̲h̲alīḳ owes its fame in Arab history to the decisive battle fought…

is a name often used at present for the entire mountain-chain of northernmost Syria, which mountains were known to the classical authors as Amanus (in cuneiform writing Ḵh̲amanu). The Alma Dag̲h̲ (Amanus), a branch of the Taurus-system of Asia Minor, breaks off in the neighbourhood of Marʿas̲h̲ to the south of the river Ḏj̲aiḥān (Pyramus) from the dolomite massif of the Ḳaradede Dag̲h̲, runs parallel to the Taurus and Antitaurus-ranges from N. E. to S. W., surrounds with another ridge, branchin…

, a town in Fārs [q. v.,ii. 70]. The real name was probably Stak̲h̲r, as it is written in Pahlavi; the Armenian form Stak̲h̲r and the abbreviation S T on Sāsānian coins point in the same direction. The form with prosthetic vowel is modern Persian; it is usually pronounced Istak̲h̲ar or Isṭaḥar, also with inserted vowel Sitak̲h̲ar, Siṭak̲h̲ar, Siṭark̲h̲; cf. Vullers, Lex. Pers.-Lat., i. 94a, 97a, ii. 223, and Nöldeke in Grundr. der Iran. Philol., ii. 192. The Syriac form is Isṭahr (rarely Isṭaḥr), in the Talmud probably Istahar Megilla 13a, middle). According to the statements of Persian ¶ au…

, the name of a number of places on Iranian soil or within the bounds of the former Sāsānian Empire (ʿIrāḳ). The Mus̲h̲tarik gives ten places of this name; the Arabs usually give the Arabicised form Daskara to those in the ʿIrāḳ; for the meaning of Dastad̲j̲ird = Daskara see the article daskara. The most important was Dastad̲j̲ird (= Daskara 1) on the Diyālā, n. e. of Bag̲h̲dād, 16 parasangs (c. 64 miles) from the latter, just above the 34° N. Lat. The Arab historians ascribe the foundation of this town to the Sāsānian king Hormizd I b. S̲h̲āpūr (383—385 a. d.). This probably was however only a…

, one of the most important tributaries on the left bank of the Tigris. Its sources lie in the centre of the Persian province of Ardilān (see above, p. 427). The main stream (called at first the Gabe or Gāwē-rūd), rises to the west of Asadābād̲h̲ in 34° 50’ N. Lat. (the latitude of Hamad̲h̲ān) and at first flows to the northwest. A little above the 35° N. Lat. it is joined from the north by the Āb-i S̲h̲īrwān which takes its name from a place named S̲h̲īrwān, and rises in the hills southeast of …

, an extensive group of ruins in the wilāyet of Mōṣul, on the right bank of the Tigris in 35° 30′ N. Lat. and 45° 15′ E. Long. (Greenwich). They rise on the edge of the desert on the sharp spur of the hilly lands, cut up by many valleys, which slope from the ridge of the ¶ Ḵh̲anūḳa mountains, an eastern spur of the Ḏj̲abal Ḥamrīn, down towards the Tigris. The name Ḳalʿat S̲h̲erḳāt is not found in the Oriental writers of the middle ages nor, so far as I can see, in those of later centuries either. Whether the spelling = As̲h̲s̲h̲ur s̲h̲ r (d) t (?), which is found in Aramaic inscriptions of the Parthi…

, a Persian seaport situated in 56° 20′ East L. (Greenw.) and about 27° North Lat. in the south-east of the province of Fārs, near the Kermān frontier. From its geographical position it is the most advantageous point on the whole Persian coast; for, built on the northern bend of the strait of Hurmūz (Ormūz) the town with the islands in front of it, commands the entrance to the Persian Gulf as well as to the Gulf of ʿOmān. Just opposite is the long island of Kis̲h̲m (Arabic Ṭawīla = the “long”) w…

, a town in the southwestern part of the district of Ardilān or Persian Kurdistān (cf. ardilān) in 34° 30′ N. Lat. and 45° 30′ E. Long. (Greenwich) on the right bank of the Ḥulwān-rūd or, as the Kurds call it, the Älwän or Älwänd. This river alters its course, hitherto east to west, at Ḳaṣr-i S̲h̲īrīn to a southerly one and enters the Diyālā [q. v.] at Zengābād̲h̲. To the west and south-west of Ḳaṣr-i S̲h̲īrīn lies the great range of Ag̲h̲-Dag̲h̲; in the S. E. also on the left bank of the river run imposing mou…

, a town in the Ḏj̲azīra (Mesopotamia) on the caravan route from Nasībīn (Nisibis) to Mosul; according to the statements of the Arab geographers which vary only in a trifling degree, it was 17—19 parasangs (of 4—5 miles each) or 4 day’s journey (e. g. Yāḳūt) distant from the latter town; Naṣībin was reckoned 10 parasangs from here. According to Yāḳūt, Barḳaʿīd was once the chief town of the circle of Baḳāʾ (probably = biḳʿa “plain”) belonging to the province of Mosul and comprising the district between Mosul and Naṣībin. In consequence of the great amount of traffic p…

, (also Ḏj̲alūlāʾ), a town in the ʿIrāḳ (Babylonia) and, in the mediaeval division of this province, the capital of a district ( ṭassūd̲j̲) of the circle S̲h̲ād̲h̲-Ḳubād̲h̲ in the Eastern Tigris valley. Ḏj̲alūlā was a station on the important Ḵh̲orāsān road, the main route between Babylonia and Irān and was about equally distant (7 parasangs = 28 miles) from Dastad̲j̲ird [q. v., p. 926] in the S. W. and Ḵh̲āniḳīn in the N. E.; it was watered by a canal from the Diyālā [q. v., p. 981] (called Nahr Ḏj̲alūlā), which agai…

, a town in Mesopotamia, about 10 miles S. W. of Mārdīn in Lat. 37° 12’ N. In the middle ages, particularly under the Urtuḳids, it attained great prosperity and importance ¶ as a trading centre, as the considerable ruins that still survive (notably the ruins of two mosques) show. The half ruined Kurd village of Ḳōč Ḥiṣār = “ancient citadel” (abbreviated to Kōsar; the name is often given in a corrupt form by the older travellers) now lies in the area occupied by the ancient town; this name was known even to Yāḳūt. To the east …

(also Ḳaiṣārīya), plur. ḳayāsīr, the name of a large system of public buildings laid out in the form of cloisters with shops, workshops, warehouses and frequently also living-rooms. According to de Sacy, Relation de l’Égypte par Abd Allaṭif (Paris 1810), p. 303 sq., the ḳaisārīya was originally distinguished from the sūḳ or bāzār-street probably only by its greater extent, and by having several covered galleries around an open court, while the sūḳ consists only of a single gallery. At the present day in any case the term ḳaisārīya is not infrequently quite or almost identical in m…

, the name of a mountainous plateau in northern Mesopotamia. It stretches roughly from Mārdīn in the west to Ḏj̲azīrat b. ʿOmar (called briefly Ḏj̲azīra; q. v.) in the east. The Tigris forms the eastern and northern boundary, from Ḏj̲azīra up to the point where it is joined by the Batman-su from the north. A line drawn from the confluence of the two rivers to Mārdīn would roughly mark the western boundary of the area known as Ṭūr ʿAbdīn, while the Koros-Dag̲h̲ which lies in the northern part of …

(also baʿaḳūbā) a town in ʿIrāḳ, according to Yāḳūt a station on the ancient caravan route from the Babylonian plains to the Iranian highlands (the Ḵh̲orāsān road of the Arab geographers) 10 parasangs = about 40 miles east (to be more accurate northeast) of Bag̲h̲dād on the west bank of the Diyālā whose course, from here to Ḏj̲isr Nahrawān, as is clear from Ibn Serapion’s account, formed that part of the great Ḳāṭūl-Nahrawān-Canal, which was called Tāmarrā; cf. on this point Streck, Babylon. n. den Arab. Geogr., I. 37. The place still exists; location: 30° 45′ n. Lat., 44° 40′ e.…

, a town near Bag̲h̲dād, one of the most celebrated of S̲h̲īʿa places of pilgrimage. It is a little over a thousand yards from the right bank of the Tigris, which there describes a loop. It is separated from the river by a girdle of gardens. Kāẓimain itself is prettily situated among palm-groves; there are also gardens almost without interruption in the direction of Bag̲h̲dād. It is connected by a horse-tramway with the west side of Bag̲h̲dād (Kars̲h̲īyaḳā; see the art. al-kark̲h̲) about three miles away, which was laid down by the governor Midḥat Pas̲h̲a, who did a great de…

, a town in Mesopotamia, on the left bank of the Euphrates, situated in 38° East Long. (Greenw.) and 37° 2’ North Lat. The name Bīred̲j̲ik, popularly Beled̲j̲ik, in the Ḥalabī dialect (according to Sachau) Bārād̲j̲īk, means “little Bīra”, i. e. “small Fort” (Arabic bīra, with the Turkish diminutive suffix); the etymologies given by Ritter, x. 951, 965 and Moltke, op. cit., p. 214, are wrong. Bīred̲j̲ik (1170 feet above sea-level), is the centre of a plain which is surrounded by a semi-circle of mountains sloping down to the Euphrates. The place itself is overs…

(often also less correctly written Dainawar), in the middle ages one of the most important towns of Ḏj̲ibāl (Media), now in ruins. Its exact location is according to the latest road-map by Th. Strauss (see Bibl.): 48° 25′ East Long. (Greenw.) and 34° 35′ N. Lat. Dīnawar lies on the direct line between Kengawer (Kanguwār) in the S. E. and Kirmāns̲h̲āh (Ḳarmīsān) in the S. W. and is almost equally distant from both, namely 30—32 miles. It lies on the northeast edge of a fertile plain some 5000 feet above sealevel, watered by the Āb…

, the name of a town in the ʿIrāḳ. When al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ [q. v.], the governor of the ʿIrāḳ appointed by the Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik, had put down the rebellion there, he began in 83—86 (702—705) to build a new town which was called Wāsiṭ (“centre”) because it was midway between the two older Arab capitals of this province, Kūfa in the north and Baṣra in the south. For the site of the town he chose the vicinity of the town of Kaskar on the Tigris, which had played a not unimportant part in the Sā…

, is a town to the south of Irbil (Arbela) on the lesser or lower Zāb, which here receives the Had̲j̲ar Cai, coming from the north, at 40° 5′ Long. E., 35° 50′ Lat. N. (Greenwich). Lying as it does 280 metres above the level of the sea, built on a large conglomerate island in the middle of the Zāb, it appears from within narrow and inconsiderable, but from’ without it presents one of the most picturesque sights in Further Asia. Two stone bridges on arches connect it with the main-land; the one c…

, the name of the largest town in the modern ʿIrāḳ (Babylonia); once the brilliant residence of the ʿAbbāsids and the metropolis of the Muḥammadan world and now the chief town of a wilāyet of the same name (formerly a pas̲h̲alik); situated on both banks of the Tigris in 39° 19 N. Lat. and 44° 44 E. L. a. History. The name Bag̲h̲dād, usually now pronounced Bug̲h̲dād, is undoubtedly Iranian and means “given ¶ by God, the gift of God”. In the middle ages a number of variations of this name were in use of which the most frequent was Bag̲h̲dān; cf. M. Streck, Babylonien, i. 49 and de Goeje, Journ. Asiat., Ser…

, a town in the most westerly part of the ʿIrāḳ (Babylonia), situated in about 33° 35′ N. lat. and 42° 48′ E. long (Greenw.), on the right bank of the Euphrates on an eminence which is perhaps of artificial origin. The mediaeval Arab itineraries estimate the distance between Hīt and Bag̲h̲dād at 33 parasangs (about 130 miles) or 5½-6 days’ journey; cf. Streck, Babylonien nach den Arab. Geographen, i. (1900), p. 8. Some Arab geographers like al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and Ibn Ḥawḳal already include Hīt in Ḏj̲azīra (Mesopotamia ); on the whole, however, it has generally been c…

, or Ābiskūn and Āboskūn, a town situated on the south-east shore of the Caspian Sea, in the province of Ḏj̲ord̲j̲ān, about a day’s journey to the north-west of Astarābād, close to the mouth of the river Ḏj̲ord̲j̲ān-Rūd. It was considered in the Middle Ages, if not as the most important, as one of the most important ports of the Caspian Sea, which for this reason was often called the Sea of Ābaskūn; comp. Barbier de Meynard, Diction, géogr. histor. el littér, de la Perse (Paris, 1861), p. 1; G. le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge, 1905), p. 379. (M. Streck)

(t.) = “Camel-back” a frequent name for mountain ridges (particularly mountain passes) in the districts where Turkish is spoken, e. g.: 1. The name of a ridge east of Erzerūm between the latter and Ḥassān-Ḳalʿa, the watershed between the Euphrates and the Araxes (Ar-Rass) according to Brant’s estimate 5637 feet high. In the Russo-Turkish war 1877 this pass played an important part; for the Turkish army had taken up a strongly entrenched position on it. The first attack by the Russians (in the beginning of December 1…

, a little island in the Persian Gulf, in that part of it which the mediaeval Arab geographers call the “sea of ʿOmān”, in 54° E. Long. (Greenw.) and 26° 30′ N. Lat. Ḳais, which next to Kis̲h̲m [q. v.] may now very well be considered the most important of the Persian islands of the Gulf, is about 10 miles long and five broad; it is separated from the mainland by a strait about 12 miles wide, which affords a very secure passage. Apart from a few rocky places, the island is quite flat; it is bette…

in the cosmology of Islām is the name of the mountain range surrounding the earth. On the shape of the earth there were different opinions among the later Muslims: ¶ cf. al-Ḳazwīnī, i. 143 sq.; al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī, Nuk̲h̲bat al-Dahr (ed. Mehren), p. 9; Ibn al-Wardī, op. cit., p. 9 and thereon Zenker in Lane, op. cit., ii. 229, 231 sq.; Reinaud, op. cit., i. p. clxxxi sq. and Radloff-Hochheim in the Zeitschr. der Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellsch., xlvii. 220. Like the Hebrews and the Greeks in the period of Homer, Hesiod and the Ionian physicists, the ancient Arabs usually regard…

= “the Marshland”; the name applied to a meadowlike depression with a channel bottom, which is exposed to more or less regular inundations and is therefore often swampy. In particular it is the name of two districts. I. the small plain hemmed in by mountains on the northeast coast of the sea of Tiberias ( buḥairat Ṭabarīya) in Palestine, south of al-Tell (the Biblical Bethsaida, Julias) which is watered by the Jordan and another perennial river (the (Ḏj̲oramāye). At the present day it is inhabited by G̲h̲awr (G̲h̲ōr) Arabs, the G̲h̲awārin, agricultur…

, or Barḳobād̲h̲, a district of the Babylonian department of the Tigris, a tract of land along the western frontier of Ahwāz (Ḵh̲ūzistān), between Wāsiṭ on the north and Baṣra on the south; see Streck, Babylonien nach dem Arab. Geogr. (Leyden, 1906), i. 15, 19. The name of this country is derived from that of the Sāsānide king Kawād̲h̲ I (Ḳobād̲h̲; reigned from 488 to 531 A. D.); at any rate the first part of the name is Abar and not Abaz (nor Abād̲h̲), as the Arab geographers give it; comp. Nöldeke, Gesch. der Perser u. Araber zur Zeit der Sasaniden (Leyden, 1879), p. 146, note 2. The Persian abar, or a…

, a town in Ḵh̲ūzistān, also called Dawraḳ al-Furs, = “D. of the Persians”, in the middle ages capital of a district which was sometimes called after it and sometimes after Surraḳ. Dawraḳ lay on the bank of the river of the same name, which flows parallel to the Kārūn, in approximately 48° 37’ E. Long, and 30° 35’ N. Lat. The veils made here used to be famous; a sulphur spring was used for medicinal purposes (baths). A few remarkable buildings dated from the Sāsānian period. In recent times Dawr…

, plur. ḳanāṭir, means in Arabic (1) bridge, particularly a bridge of masonry or stone; also (2) aqueduct (especially in the plural), dam, and finally (3) high building, castle (similarly ḳasātil = aqueduct from ḳastal = castellum; see ḳanāt); cf. Tād̲j̲ al-ʿArūs, iii. 509; Dozy, Supplément, ii. 412; de Goeje, B. G. A., iv. 334; and particularly R. Geyer in the S. B. Ak. Wien, 1905, vol. cxlix. N°. 6, p. 114—119. The original meaning of the word, “arch”, is found in the earliest Arabic lexicographers; cf. Dozy-de Goeje, Description de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne par Edrîsî, p. 369. Ḏj̲isr, a br…

, a town in the ʿIrāḳ. According to the Arab geographers it was situated 4 parasangs (= about 16 miles) north of Bag̲h̲dād on the main road to Sāmarrā and at some distance from the east bank of the Tigris, a little above the confluence of the Nahr al-Ḵh̲āliṣ and the ¶ latter. The Ḵh̲āliṣ canal, a branch of the Nahrawān (or Diyāla) flowed immediately past Baradān. The Caliph al-Manṣūr held his court here for a brief period, before he definitely resolved on building a new capital on the site of the modern Bag̲h̲dād (Cf. Yaʿḳūbī, Bibl. geogr. arab., ed. de Goeje, vii. 256). There was a bridge i…

(or al-ʿAmḳ) a vast plain of northern Syria, surrounded on all sides by mountains and situated at an elevation of 111 m. above the level of the sea. It is bounded on the west by the Amanus (Alma-Dag̲h̲, q.v.), and on the east by the most southerly spurs of the Kurd-Dag̲h̲ (“Kurd mountains”). Numerous water-courses, belonging to the basin of the ʿAfrīn (ʿlfrīn, Ufrenos) and to that of the Ḳara-Ṣu (“black stream”), drain this plain, which is one of the most dismal and desolate districts in Syria an…

, a ruined site in southern ʿIrāḳ, in 45° 25′ N. Lat. and 31° 19′ East Long. (Greenw.). Yāḳūt ( Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfeld, iv. 922) knows al-Warkāʾ as a place which belonged to the district of Kaskar and the circle of Zawābī in the area of the two south Babylonian Euphrates canals called Zāb (cf. Streck, Babylonien nach den arab. Geograph., i., Leyden 1900, p. 32; G. Le ¶ Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Cambridge 1905, p. 37, 73). According to a Muslim tradition, Ibrāhīm, the Abraham of the Bible, was born in al-Warkāʾ (see Yāḳūt, iv. 922, 14 sq. and cf. also Loftus, op. cit., p. 161 sq.). …

, the name of an important quarter of old Bag̲h̲dād. The word Kark̲h̲, which comes from the Aramaic ( Kark̲ā), is found in Greek and Roman writers as Carcha, Charcha and Charase (see Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzykl. d. ¶ klass. Altertumswiss., Suppl. i. 275, 283) and means town; cf. Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfeld, iv. 252, 18; Streck, op. cit. (see Bibl.), p. 92, 186; G. Le Strange, Bag̲h̲dad, p. 63). There was still in the Muslim period a whole series of places or parts of towns called al-Kark̲h̲ within the area of influence of Aramaic culture, in the ʿIrāḳ, Ḵh̲…

, more accurately Māl-i Amīr, a ruined site in Lūristān. It lies in the centre of a flat plain about 3,100 feet above sea-level, in 49° 45’ East Long, and 31° 50’ N. Lat., 3-4 days’ journey east of S̲h̲ūstar [q. v.] and marks the site of a mediaeval town for which during the caliphate the name Īd̲h̲ad̲j̲ (sometimes vocalized hid̲h̲ad̲j̲) was exclusively used. The modern name Māl-i Amīr seems to be first used in the Mongol period; at least the first known occurrence is in the first half of the xivth century in Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (ii. 29) in the Arabic form Māl al-Amīr = “estate of the prince”…

, formerly one of the most important cities in Armenia, now an unimportant village south of Eriwān, a little above the ruins of Artaxata (Artas̲h̲aṭ), in Lat. 40° N. The etymology of the Armenian name Dwīn, Syriac Dewīn, Greek ΔούβιοΣ (Procopius), Arab. Dabīl, is unknown; the forms Dovin and Tovin, which frequently occur, are wrong. The city was founded by the Sāsānid Ḵh̲usraw II, who built it in 350 as the capital of the Persian section of Armenia. When, on the deposition of the last Arsakid, Artatīs̲h̲ in 429, Persian Armenia was…

, the name of three places in the ʿIrāḳ, viz.: 1. a town on the Diyālā, N. E. of Bag̲h̲dād; 2. a village in the district of Nahr al-Malik, W. of Bag̲h̲dād; 3. a village near Ḏj̲abbūl, on the road to Ḵh̲ūzistān. Cf. Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am (ed. Wüstenfeld), ii. 575; Marāṣid al-Iṭṭilāʿi, Lexic. Geogr., ed. Juynboll, (Lugduni, 1850 et seq.), i. 402; iv. 468. Daskara is a word borrowed from the Iranian and arabicised from the Pehlevi dast (i/a) karta, mod. Pers. dast (i/a) gard = literally “handmade, a work of the hands”, whence it means also “building, village, town”. On this word s. Ḏj̲awāliḳī, al-Muʿarrab…

(or al-ʿAlt̲h̲), a locality on the northern frontier of the Sawād or ʿIrāḳ (somewhat corresponding to the old Babylonia), to the south-east of al-Ḳādisīya (south of Sāmarrā). Al-Muḳaddasī describes it as a large and populous town. The place known to Ptolemy as Altha (v. 20), still exists; in H. Kiepert’s map of the ruins of Babylon ( Zeitschr. der Gesellsch. f. Erdkunde zu Berlin, 1883) it is to be found on the authority of the survey of J. F. Jones a little to the north of Lat. N. 34, near the bend of the Tigris. Yet to-day the position of ʿAlt̲h̲ appears …

, the most southern town of Babylonia. Originally it was on an island in the Persian Gulf and was still there in the tenth century; but now it is more than twenty miles from the coast; comp. G. le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge, 1905), pp. 44, 48 et seq.; idem, in the Journ. of the Roy. As. Soc., 1895, p. 302; Ch. Schefer, Sefer-Name (Paris, 1881), pp. 245 et seq., and especially note 2 on page 245. As to the situation of ʿAbbādān, comp. especially H. Wagner, in the Nachr. d. Kgl. Gesellsch. d. Wissensch. zu Göttingen, Phil.-hist. Kl., 1902, fasc. 2, p. 255. (M. Streck)

(also Ḳarḳīsiya), a town in al-Ḏj̲azϊra on the left bank of the Euphrates, close to the confluence of the Ḵh̲ābūr, a little above 35° N. Lat. Ḳarḳīsiyā is simply an Arabic reproduction of the Graeco-Rornan name (τὸ) Κιρκήσιον, (τὸ) Kιρκήσιον κάστρον or Κιρκίσιον (Κιρκισία in the Nolit. episcop., ed. Parthey, p. 87), Circesium, Syriac Kerkusion, Latin = castrum Circense, “the castle with the circus”; cf. Nöldeke, op. cit. (see Bibl.), p. 3. Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī in Yāḳūt, iv. 65, si sq., still knew the etymology of the place-name (Ḳarḳīsiyā, arabicised from Ḳirḳīsiyā, from kirkīs = arab. ḥalba…

, Zakārīyā b. Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd Abū Yaḥyā. For his genealogy, praenomina, etc., regarding which tradition varies (e.g. as early as Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Ḵh̲alīfa, Kas̲h̲f al-Ẓunūn, ed. Flügel, iv. 189), cf. S. de Sacy, Chrestom. Arabc 2, iii. 445 sq.; Reinaud, Géographie d’Abulféda, i., Paris 1848, p. cxlviii. sq.; Wüstenfeld in the G. G. A., 1848, i. 347, and in his edition of al-Ḳazwīnī, vol. ii., p. iii.; Ahlwardt, Verzeichn. d. arab. Hss. d. kgl. Biblioth. zu Berlin, v. 453. We learn very little about his life from the Arabic biographical works and the brief references in his t…

, a ruined site on the Upper Kārūn in Ḵh̲ūzistān in the territory of the Lūr tribe of the Bak̲h̲tiyārīs [q. v.], 5 hours’ journey from Dizfūl; cf. above, ii., p. 779a. The place is also called ʿArūd̲j̲ (or ʿArūḥ?) and Ḏj̲ābaliḳ by the Persian geographers. H. Rawlinson discovered these ruins in 1836; Layard then visited them twice (1840, 1841) and made several important corrections in his predecessor’s description, which was in part based only on the information of natives. No later European traveller seems to have made a thorough examination of the locality. According to Layard the ruins…

, a town in the north east of Ad̲j̲iarbaid̲j̲ān. According to the mediaeval Arab geographers it belonged to the district of Mūg̲h̲ān, the extensive marshy plain between the river al-Rās (Araxes) in the north, the Ṭālis̲h̲ mountains in the south and the Caspian sea in the east. Although many authorities on Arab geography (cf. e. g. Yāḳūt, loc. cit.) place Barzand in Armenia, this appears to be due to a confusion with Barzand̲j̲ (south east of Bard̲h̲aʿa); on the latter cf. le Strange, op. cit. p. 178, 230. Barzand was 14 parasangs (Yāḳūt 15) = about 50 (or 54) miles distant from…

, a town in Persia, situated in 59° 10’ East Long. (Greenw.) and just below 30° North Lat. on a plateau 4440 feet high. The older Arab geographers do not mention it. Yāḳūt (c. 623= 1225) is the first to note it and describes it as one of the finest towns in the district of Kūhistān, which in the time of the Caliphate was a dependency of the province of Ḵh̲orāsān. At the present day Bird̲j̲and is regarded as the chief town of Kūhistān, while in the middle ages this honour fell to Ḳāʾin which is about 70 miles ¶ farther north. Mustawfī (740=1340) describes Bird̲j̲and as an important town, the s…

or Bitlīs, a town in Turkis̲h̲ Armenia, capital of the district of Kurdistān, situated in 42° 4′ East Long. (Greenw.) and 38° 23′ North Lat., 14 miles from the western shore of the Sea of Van, and 35 miles north east of Siʿird (Seʿört); according to Ḳudāma ( Bibl. geogr. arab., vi. 229), it was four post-stations ( sikkas) from Ak̲h̲lāt [q. v., p. 233 et seq.]. Bitlīs (br Bidlīs) is the Turkish pronunciation of the name; arabic Badlīs and Armenian Baλēš. The appearance of the town is described as very striking and most picturesque. It is built at the bottom of a deep valley a…

, a place in ʿIrāḳ the exact situation of which cannot now be fixed. According to Masʿūdī it belonged to the Ṭaff [q. v.], the frontier district between Babylonia and Arabia and was 16 parasangs (about 60 miles) from Kūfa. Yāḳūt says it was nearer Kūfa than Wāṣiṭ. Bāk̲h̲amrā is famous in the history of the ʿAbbāsids from the decisive battle which took place there between the army of the Caliph al-Manṣūr commanded by ʿĪsā b. Mūsā and the troops of the ʿAlid Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd Allāh, in which the lat…

(in Arabie authors also Ḳaiṣārīya and Ḳaiṣārīya), a town in Asia Minor (Rūm), in 35° E. Long. (Greenwich) and 33° 15′ N. Lat. at the northern base of the Ard̲j̲īs̲h̲-Dag̲h̲ [q. v.], 3,500 feet above sea-level on a treeless plateau, watered by the Ḳara-Ṣū, a tributary of the Ḳizil Yrmaḳ (Halys) — the latter flows about 14 miles North of Ḳaiṣarīya. At the present day it is the chief town of a sand̲j̲aḳ of the wilāyet of Angora [q. v.]. The mediaeval and modern town is the successor of the ancient Mazaca…

, the name of various places in Mesopotamia: 1. a town in the wilāyet of Mōṣul, about 50 miles E. S. E. of Mōṣul, 12 hours N. of Altyn Köprü (see i. 322b) in 36° 11′ N. Lat. and 42° 2′ E. Long. (Greenw.). Irbil (Erbil, in the common language also Arbīl) is the Arba-ilu of the Babylonian-Assyrian and the Arbira of the Old Persian cuneiform inscriptions. This place, which is mentioned as early as in Assyrian documents of the ixth century b. c, played no special political role in antiquity. Its main importance was rather based in the pre-Achaemenid period on the possession of a h…

, the name of several places, generally in districts where Aramaic was once spoken, for al-Bīra is a translation of the Aramaic bīrt̲h̲ā = “fortress”, “citadel”. The best known is al-Bīra on the east bank of the Euphrates in North-west Mesopotamia, the modern Bīred̲j̲ik [q.v.]: on other places, bearing the name Bīra, cf. Yāḳūt, Muʾd̲j̲am (ed. Wüstenfeld), i. 787; Nöldeke in the Nachr. der Götting. Ges. der Wiss., 1876, p. II—12 and in de Goeje, Bibl. geogr. arab., iv. (gloss.), p. 441; Te Strange, Palestine under the Moslems (1890), p. 423. (M. Streck)

1. The name for tin, or for a specially good quality of tin among the Arabs, occasionally also called al-raṣāṣ al-ḳalʿī and al-raṣāṣ al-abyaḍ, i. e. “Ḳalʿī-lead” or “white lead”; see Lisān al-ʿArab, x. 167, 16; Dozy, Supplément aux Dict. arab., ii. 397a; Vullers, Lex. Pers.-Lat., ii. 735a; Quatremère in the Journ. des Savants 1846, p. 731. For other names of tin in Arabic (Ḳaṣdīr = ΚασσίτεροΣ, etc.) see e. g. al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī, Nuk̲h̲bat al-Dahr (Cosmography, ed. Mehren), p. 54, 1. The word apparently comes from the Far East, from which the Arabs may possibly have got it …

, the largest river in Southern Persia. It rises in the north-eastern part of the district of ʿArabistān (earlier called Ḵh̲ūzistān), a little above 32° N. Lat. on the Zardeh-Kūh (Kūh-i Zard, mentioned as early as the xvth century by Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī; see the Bibliography), which belongs to the Bak̲h̲tiyārī mountain system, to be more accurate on one of the range named Kūh-i Rang, one of the highest mountains in S. W. Persia (estimated at 13,000 feet). The actual source of the river, according to Sawyer ( Bibl.; op. cit., p. 486, with a picture), is about 10 miles above the place …

, a Christian monastery in Babylonia, 7 parasangs (c. 28 miles) from Kūfa, according to Yāḳūt, on the edge of the desert on the road to Baṣra. Near it was another monastery, called Dair al-Ḳurra, which may be identified with the al-Ḳurra in Ḳādisīya (cf. Yāḳūt, ii. 685; iv. 76). The distance between Ḳādisīya and Kūfa was 5 parasangs (20 miles); cf. H. Wagner in the Nachr. der Götting. Gesellsch. der Wissensch., 1902, p. 257 et seq. From a story in the Kitāb al-Ag̲h̲ānī it may be deduced that Dair al-Ḏj̲amād̲j̲im was near the bank of the Euphrates and apparently on its west sid…

, the mediaeval name of three districts (Pers. astān = Arabic kūra) o f S awād or ʿIrāḳ (Babylonia). The division of this area in Sāsānian times, adopted by the Arabs, was as follows: I. Upper Bihḳubād̲h̲ with six divisions ( ṭassūd̲j̲ī), including Bābil, Ḵh̲uṭarniya, Upper- and Lower-Fallūd̲j̲a and ʿAin al-Tamr; 2. Central-Bihḳubād̲h̲ with four divisions including Sūrā and Nahr al-Malik; 3. Lower Bihḳubād̲h̲ with five divisions, among them Furāt Bādaḥlā and Nistar. All three districts are occasionally comprised under the plural form B…

, a district in Syria, east of Ḥalab (Aleppo). In the middle ages, the Arabs understood by the Wādī Būṭnān the land watered by the Nahr al-Ḏh̲ahab and its branches. Buṭnān is certainly a very ancient name for the district. The Aramaic form Baṭnān (in Syriac authors) might, as Sachau suggests ( op. cit.), be a corruption of the Bīt-Adini (the Bibl. Benē ʿEden) of the cuneiform inscriptions, the name of a small state, frequently mentioned in Assyrian times, on both sides of the Euphrates (defined roughly by lines drawn from ʿAintāb to Edessa in the …

or Ḳaiṣārīya = Καισάρεια (Caesarea), a name bestowed in the reign of Augustus and Tiberius on a whole series of towns of the Roman East, and also in North Africa and Spain. 17 places of the name are known; see Pauly-Wissowa, Realenzykl. d. Mass. Altertumsivissensch., iii. 1288 sq. The Arab writers only know of two towns named Ḳaisārīya, viz.: I. a town in Palestine, on the coast in 35° N. Lat. about 24 miles south of Ḥaifā. Its earlier name ΣτράτωνοΣ πύργοΣ (cf. Stark, Gaza und die philistäische Küste, 1852, p. 450 sq.; Neubauer, op. cit., p. II—15) is of uncertain etymology. To distingui…

, a town in Persia, north of Iṣṭak̲h̲r, about halfway between that town and Yezd. Another form of the name is Abarḳūya; the abbreviation Barḳūh (also Warḳūh) is often met with. In the Middle Ages the population of Abarḳūh was about the third of that of Iṣṭak̲h̲r; comp. P. Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter nach den arab, Geogr. (Leipsic, 1896), i. 17 et seq., and G. le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge, 1905), pp. 284 et seq., 294, 297. It still exists under the name of Abargūh; see A. de Bode in the Journ. of the Roy. Geogr. Soc. (London), 1843, p. 78, and H. L. Wells, in Proceed, of the …

(Buhtān), the name ofa Kurdish district south of the Lake of Van. The name is applied to the whole district between the Tigris and the Bohtān-ṣu and the (little) Ḵh̲ābūr, which flows into the Tigris at Meg̲h̲āra (about 42° 20′ East Long Greenw.). This area which is separated from the surrounding country by large ¶ rivers has the form of a triangle with unequal sides, the base of which is the Bohtān-ṣu and the sides the Tigris and the Ḵh̲ābūr, continued by a line to Ṣānō. In the north, Bohtān is bounded by S̲h̲īrwān, in the south by the district of …

, once one of the most important cities of the ʿIrāḳ in the centre of which it stood. The city was a creation of al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ b. Yūsuf [q. v.]. As to the date of its foundation, the statements of the Arab writers vary between 83 (702) to 84 (703). Yāḳūt is probably right in saying that the building of it occupied the years 83—86 (702—705). Al-Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ was certainly living in his new city by the year 84. On the date of its foundation cf. Streck, op. cit. (see Bibl.), p. 324—325; Périer, op. cit., p. 208; Masʿūdī, B. G. A., viii. 360. On the immediate reasons which led to the building…

(al-Mas̲h̲had), capital of the Persian province of Ḵh̲urāsān (q. v., ii., p. 966), the greatest place of pilgrimage for the S̲h̲īʿīs in Persia. It lies 3,000 feet above sea level in 59° 35′ E. Long. (Greenw.) and 16° 17′ N. Lat. in the valley from 10 to 25 miles broad of the Kes̲h̲ef-Rūd, which runs from N. W. to S. E. This river, also called Āb-i Mes̲h̲hed (the “river of Mes̲h̲hed”), rises about 12 miles N.W. of the ruins of Ṭus [q. v.] in the little lake of Čes̲h̲me-i Gīlās (cf. Fraser, op. cit., p. 350; Khanikoff, op. cit., p. no; Yate, op. cit., p. 315) and joins the Herī (Harī)-Rūd (q. v., a…

, or Abād̲h̲ah, a town in Persia situated on the road from Iṣṭak̲h̲r to Iṣpahān. Mention of it is found in oriental writings of the Middle Ages; see G. le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate (Cambridge, 1905) pp. 282, 284, 297. At the present time it contains about 5000 inhabitants; comp. Reclus, Nouv. géogr. univ., ix. 270. Celebrated for the Persian wood carvings produced there; see Brugsch, Reise der Kgl. Preuss. Gesandtsch. nach Persien (Leipsic, 1862—1863), ii. 126, 222. — Arab geographers mention another Persian town of the same name situated in the distr…

(Būs̲h̲ehr) the chief seaport of Persia, in the province of Fārs, Long. 50° 51’ E, (Greenw.) and Lat. 29° N, The town is built on the north end of a narrow island (the Mesambria and ΧερόνησοΣ of the ancients) lying north and south, which is connected with the mainland by a tongue of swampy land which is regularly covered by the tides (it is called Mäs̲h̲īläl, cf. Stolze-Andreas, op. cit., p. 46). On the south end of this island or rather peninsula are the ruins of Rīs̲h̲ehr. The neighbourhood of Būs̲h̲īr is a cheerless desert only relieved by a few palm-trees; hi…

town in al-Ḏj̲ibāl, 7 farsak̲h̲s or 54 kms. southwest of Hamad̲h̲ān. on the western slope of the Alwand Kūh at the entrance to a fruitful well-tilled plain (5659 ft. high). As a permanent caravan-station on the famous, ancient highway Hamad̲h̲ān (Ekbatana)-Bag̲h̲dād (or Babylon), it is a settlement reaching back into antiquity, and (according to Tomaschek) is probably the ’Αδραπάνα of Isidor of Charax and the Beltra of the Tabula Peutingeriana (cf. Weissbach, in Pauly-Wissowa’s iii, 264). In the Arab Middle ages, and even into the Mongol per…

, a town in ʿIrāḳ (Babylonia) and, in the mediaeval division of this province, the capital of a district ( ṭassūd̲j̲ ) of the S̲h̲ād̲h̲-Ḳubād̲h̲ circle to the east of the Tigris, was a station on the important K̲h̲urāsān road, the main route between Babylonia and Īrān, and was at about an equal distance (7 parasangs = 28 miles) from Dastad̲j̲ird [ q.v.] in the south-west and from K̲h̲āniḳīn in the northeast. It was watered by a canal from the Diyālā (called Nahr D̲j̲alūlāʾ), which rejoined the main stream a little further down near Bād̲j̲isrā [ q.v.]. Near this town, which seems from the s…