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, also frequently written bad̲h̲ak̲h̲s̲h̲ān and sometimes in the literary language (with the Arabic plural inflection) badak̲h̲s̲h̲ānāt , a mountainous region situated on the left bank of the upper reaches of the Āmū-Daryā or more accurately of the Pand̲j̲, the source of this great river; the adjective derived from this noun is Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ānī or Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ī . J. Marquart ( Erāns̲h̲ahr , 279) gives this name the meaning of “region of Bad̲h̲ak̲h̲s̲h̲ or Balak̲h̲s̲h̲, a type of ruby, which, it is said, is only found in Bad̲h̲ak̲h̲s̲…

, a town in the aymak of Övör K̲h̲angay in Central Mongolia, now in ruins; in the 7th/13th century it was for a short time the capital of the Mongol World Empire. The fullest accounts of the town are given by the European traveller William of Rubruck and the Persian historian D̲j̲uwaynī [ q.v.]. The ruins were first discovered in 1889 by N. M. Yadrentsey; they were visited and described by the members of the Russian expedition of 1891 led by Radlov; and in 1948-49 an expedition jointly organized by the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People’s Repub…

, a S̲h̲aybānid [ q.v.], the greatest prince of this dynasty, born in 940/1533-4 (the dragon year 1532-3 is given, probably more accurately, as the year of the cycle) at Āfarīnkent in Miyānkāl (an island between the two arms of the Zarafs̲h̲ān). The father (Iskandar Ḵh̲ān), grandfather (Ḏj̲ānī Beg) and great-grandfather (Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Muḥammad, son of Abu ‘l-Ḵh̲ayr [ q.v.]) of this ruler of genius are all described as very ordinary, almost stupid men. Ḏj̲ānī Beg (d. 935/1528-9) had at the distribution of 918/1512-3 received Karmīna and Miyānkāl; Iskandar …

, the largest river in the Caucasus (according to Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī Ḳazwīnī, 200 farsak̲h̲ s = nearly 800 miles in length). The Ḳur, known as Cyrus to the Greeks; Nahr al-Kurr to the Arabs; Kura to the Russians (said to be derived from a-kuara, “river”, in the Abk̲h̲āzī tongue); and Mtkvari to the Georgians (said to be derived from mdinaré , “river” in the Kartlian dialect), rises in Georgia south of Ardahani (west of Ḳārṣ in the Poso district), and flows northwards to Akhaltzikhé, where it turns east (see map in V. Minorksy, A History of Sharvān and Darband in the 10th-11th centuries, Cambridg…

, a ruler of the Čag̲h̲atay Ḵh̲ānate. A grandson of Mö’etüken, who fell before Bāmiyān, his father, Yesün-To’a, had been banished to China for his part in the conspiracy against the Great Ḵh̲an Möngke. Burāḳ himself began his career at the court of Möngke’s successor, Ḳubilay Ḵh̲an (1260-94). When in March 1266 Mubārak-S̲h̲āh, the son of Ḳara-Hülegü, was elected to the Čag̲h̲atay Ḵh̲ānate, Ḳubilay dispatched Burāḳ to Mā warāʾ al-Nahr with a yarlīg̲h̲ or rescript appointing him co-regent with his cousin. Burāḳ at first concealed the yarlīg̲h̲ and then, having gained the support of…

, a Turkish people, mentioned as early as the oldest Chinese accounts of Central Asia (from the 2nd century A.D.) under the name Kien-Kuen, which according to P. Pelliot ( JA, Ser. 2, vol. xv, 137) goes back to a Mongol word, singular ḳirḳun . The lands of the Kirgiz are not exactly defined in these sources; according to a very reliable source, the land of the Kien-Kuen lay north-west of the land of the K’ang-Kiu, i.e. of Sogdiana. The name Ḳi̊rg̲h̲i̊z first appears in the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions of the 8th century; at…

, older form tāzīk or tāžīk (in Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, i., 324: Težik), the name of a people originally used with the meaning “Arab” (later this meaning became confined to the form Tāzī), afterwards “Iranian” in contrast to “Turk”. The word is derived from the Arab tribal name of Ṭaiy. The nearest Arab tribe to the Iranians was the Ṭaiy, hence the name of this tribe came to be applied to the whole Arab people. The Ṭaiy are “mentioned as early as the beginning of the third century by an Edessene along with the Saracens as representatives of all the Beduins” (Cureton, Spicil. Syr., p. 16 ult. in Nö…

, also written S̲h̲irwān and S̲h̲arwān (e.g. in Yāḳūt, iii. 282, 7, according to al-Samʿānī, ed. Margoliouth, f. 333a), a district on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, east of the Kura, originally a part of the ancient Albania or the Arrān [q. v.] of the early middle ages. According to Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, p. 192 = Yāḳūt, iii. 317 19, the road from Bard̲h̲aʿa [q. v.] led via S̲h̲īrwān and S̲h̲amāk̲h̲iya (in Yāḳūt: S̲h̲amāk̲h̲ī) to Derbend [q. v.]. The distance between S̲h̲amāk̲h̲iya and “S̲h̲arwān”, according to Iṣṭak…

(usually written Akkerman, Akjerman) is the capital of a district in the Government of Bessarabia. The name signifies “white castle”. In the Middle Ages the place was called Mon Castro, in Polish and Russian authorities Byelgorod (“white city”). It was first in the possession of the Venetians, afterwards of the Genoese. In 1484 it was captured by the Turks. The cossacks took it several times after that, and in 1595 it was destroyed by German troops. By the peace of Bucarest Akkerman along with the rest of Bessarabia was yielded to Russia. (W. Barthold).

, a name for Siberia in the Mongol period; in this form in S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn al-ʿOmarī (cf. Brockelmann, G. A. L., ii. 141), text in W. Tiesenhausen, Sbornih materialov, otnosyas̲h̲čik̲h̲sya k istorii Zolotoi Ordi̊, p. 217 at top; the same source has also Bilād Sibir or al-Sibir (ibid., l. 6 and 221 below). More frequently Ibir-Sibir; e. g. Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn, Ḏj̲āmiʿ-al-Tawārīk̲h̲, ed. Berezin, in Trudi̊ Vost. Otd. Ark̲h̲-Obs̲h̲č., vii. 168 (Ibīr Sībīr, mentioned in connection with the Ḳīrḳīz people and the river Angara) and the Chinese Yüans̲h̲i ¶ (I-bi-rh Si-bi-rh, quoted in Bretsch…

, a prince of the house of Tīmūr, grandson of its founder. He was 12 years old at the death of his grandfather (S̲h̲aʿbān 807 = February 1405) so he must have been born about 795 (1392-1393) His father ʿOmar S̲h̲aik̲h̲ had predeceased Tīmūr. Baiḳarā is celebrated by Dawlat-S̲h̲āh (ed. Browne, p. 374) for his beauty as a second Joseph and for his courage as a second Rustam; he was prince of Balk̲h̲ for a long period. In the year 817 (1414) he was granted Lūristān, Hamadān, Nihāwand and Burūd̲j̲īr…

, Arabic name for Talas, a river in Central Asia and the town on it probably near the modern Awliyā Atā [q. v.]. The town was of pre-Muḥammadan, presumably Sog̲h̲dian origin [cf. sog̲h̲d]; Sog̲h̲dian and Turkī were spoken in Ṭarāz and in Balāsāg̲h̲ūn [q.v.] as late as the fifth (eleventh) century (Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, Dīwān Lug̲h̲āt al-Turk, i. 31). As a town ( k̲h̲ōron) Talas is first mentioned in the report of the embassy of the Greek Zēmark̲h̲os ( Fragm. Hist. Greac., iv. 228) in 568. About 630 Talas (Chin. Ta-lo-sse) was described by Hiuen-Thsang as an important commercial town ( Mémoires…

an Uig̲h̲ur word for “castle, palace”, probably borrowed from a native language of Eastern Turkestān and later adopted by the Mongols. The town of Nak̲h̲s̲h̲ab or Nasaf [q. v.] has taken its modern name of Kars̲h̲ī from a palace built for the Ḵh̲ān Kabak (1318—1326; see the art. čag̲h̲atāi k̲h̲ān), 2 farsak̲h̲ from the town, all trace of which has long since disappeared. Cf. S̲h̲araf ad-Dīn Yazdī, Ẓafar Nāme, ed. Muḥ. Ilāhdād, Calcutta 1887—1888, i. 111; G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Cambridge 1905, p. 470 sq. (W. Barthold)

, ʿAlā al-Dīn ʿAṭā Malik b. Muḥammed, a Persian governor and historian, author of the Tāʾrīk̲h̲-i Ḏj̲ihān-Kus̲h̲āi; it is from this work that almost all our knowledge of the author (to 654 = 1256) and his ancestors is derived. The family belonged to the village of Āzādwār in the district of Ḏj̲uwain [q. v., N°. 2], ¶ in the western part of Ḵh̲orāsān (it is mentioned as early as the ivth (xth) century and was a day’s journey north of the town of Bahmanabād which still exists under this name, cf. Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, ed. de Goeje, p. 284); according to Ibn al-Ṭiḳṭaḳā ( at-Fak̲h̲rī, ed. Ahlwardt, p. 209) ʿA…

(Arab.) «that which (lies) beyond the river”; the name for the lands conquered by the Arabs and subjected to Islām north of the Amū-Daryā [q. v.]. The frontiers of Mā warāʾ al-Nahr on north and east were where the power of Islām ceased and depended on political conditions; cf. the statements of the Arab geographers on Mā warāʾ al-Nahr in G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Cambridge 1905, p. 433 sq.; W. Barthold, Turkestan (G. M. S., N. S., v., London 1928), p. 64 sqq. The phrase Mā warāʾ al-Nahr passed from Arabic literature into Persian. As late as the ninth (xvth) century, Ḥāfiẓ-…

A Central Asian Turkī word of uncertain etymology (it does not seem to appear in other dialects), which is applied to the predatory raids of Turkish nomads. The importance of this peculiar feature of nomad life as well as the conditions of warfare ( Ḏj̲au) necessitated thereby has been most fully described by W. Radloff ( Aus Sibirien, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1893, i. 509 et seq. and Kudatku Bilik, Part i., St. Petersburg, 1891, p. LII et seq.). As long as there was no strong governing authority in the steppes, as long as the force of legal decisions depended only on the perso…

or Derbend-i Āhanīn, Arabic Bāb al-Ḥadīd, Old Turkish Tamir-Ḳapig̲h̲ = “Iron Gate” — a frequently recurring name in the Muḥammadan world for important passes and ravines. The best known is the ravine, about 2 miles long and only 12—20 yards broad, in the Baisun-taw range, through which runs the main road from Samarḳand and Buk̲h̲ārā to Balk̲h̲. This ravine is first mentioned under its Persian name by Yaʿḳūbī (ed. de Goeje, p. 290, 5); Yaʿḳūbī’s statement that a “town” bore this name is not confirmed by …

b. Sahl b. Hās̲h̲im, of the aristocratic Dihḳān family Kāmkāriyān (who had settled near Merw), which boasted of Sāsānian descent, ¶ governor of Ḵh̲orāsān. In order to avenge the death of his brother, fallen in a fight between Persians and Arabs (in Merw), he had under ʿAmr b. al-Lait̲h̲) stirred up a rising of the people. He was taken prisoner and brought to Sīstān, whence he escaped by means of an adventurous flight, and after a new attempt of a rising in Merw he fled for refuge to the Sāmānide Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmed in…

(Turkish “warm lake”), the most important mountain lake in Turkistan and one of the largest in the world, situated in 42° 30′ N. Lat. and between 76° 15′ and 78° 30′ E. Long., 5116 feet above sea level; the length of the lake is about 115 miles, the breadth up to 37 miles, the depth up to 1381 feet, and the area 2400 square miles. From the two chains of the Thian-S̲h̲an, the Kungei-Alatau (in the north) and the Terskei-Alatau (in the south) about 80 large and small mountain streams pour into th…

Muḥammad Ḵh̲wārizms̲h̲āh, founder of a dynasty in Ḵh̲wārizm [q. v.]. His father Anūs̲h̲tagīn (or Nūs̲h̲tagīn) G̲h̲arča was in charge of the silver and crockery ( ṭas̲h̲t-k̲h̲āna) at the court of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs; the expenses of this branch of the court household were defrayed out of the tribute from Ḵh̲wārizm just as the expenses of administration of the clothing-depot ( d̲j̲āma-k̲h̲āna) were defrayed by the tribute from Ḵh̲ūzistān; Anūs̲h̲tagīn therefore, without actually governing Ḵh̲wārizm. held the title of a military governor ( s̲h̲ak̲h̲ne) of this country. He had his so…