Search

, by-name first given to Aḥmad b. ʿUmar (d. 415/1024), of the family of the Āl al-Raḳil, and name by which his descendants were known until the 6th/12th century. The most important member of the family was his grandson, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn, known also by the honorific title of raʾīs al-ruʾasāʾ , vizier to the caliphate from 437 to 450/1045-58, concerning whom there have arisen a number of important questions which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. The conquest of Bag̲h̲dād by the Būyids in 334/945 had led …

, governor of Fārs under the Sald̲j̲ūḳs. Būz-Abeh was one of the amīr s of Mengubars, the governor of Fārs, for whom he administered the province of Ḵh̲ūzistān. He was also in the army of his superior when the latter, accompanied by other amīrs, moved against the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan Masʿūd and was made prisoner at the battle of Kurs̲h̲anba (other sources call the scene of the encounter Pand̲j̲ Angus̲h̲t), later being put to death, in 532/1137-38. Since, after their victory, the sultan’s troops began to plunder the enemy camp, Būz-Abeh attacked and dispersed them. Several prominent amīrs of th…

, the most important of the dynasties which, first in the Iranian plateau then in ʿIrāḳ, side by side with the Sāmānids of Ḵh̲urāsān and of Māwarāʾ al-Nahr, marked the “Iranian intermezzo” (Minorsky) between the Arab domination of early Islam and the Turkish conquest of the 5th/11th century. Its name derives from Buwayh or Būyeh, the father of three brothers who founded it, ʿAlī, al-Ḥasan, and the youngest, Aḥmad. Condottieri of humble birth, they belonged to the population of the Daylamites [ q.v.] who, newly won over to (S̲h̲iʿī) Islam, were at that time enlisting in large …

, Abū Yaʿlā Ḥamza b. Asad ... al-Tamīmī ( ca. 465-555/1073-1160), a member of an important family of Damascus, who for a time was raʾīs of that town, and above all was its historian for the period extending from the middle of the 4th/10th century to 555/1160. The History of Ibn al-Ḳalānisī, known simply by the title D̲h̲ayl tāʾrīk̲h̲ Dimas̲h̲ḳ , consists of two parts, the limits being somewhat imprecise. The first part, the opening pages of which are lost, and which goes down approximately to the time of the author’s youth, is based…

, better known by his laḳab of Rukn al-Dīn, one of the sons and successors of K̲h̲usraw II (1246). It was at the beginning of the period of the Mongol protectorate that, the three sons of the late sovereign all being minors, the senior amirs, in order to safeguard the unity of the state, sought to install, under their own executive power, a sultanate shared jointly between the three young princes; Ḳi̊li̊d̲j̲ Arslan was sent on a mission to the Mongol chief Batu to persuade him to accept this solution. This very mission alone established a…

, the term used to designate the sort of indefinitely renewed contract through which the Muslim community accords hospitality and protection to members of other revealed religions, on condition of their acknowledging the domination of Islam. The beneficiaries of the d̲h̲imma are called d̲h̲immīs , and are collectively referred to as ahl al-d̲h̲imma or simply d̲h̲imma. An account of the doctrinal position of Islam vis-à-vis the religions in question, and of the polemics between the two sides, is given in the article ahl al-kitāb ; for a detailed account of …

(and not Abak), was one of the chiefs of the Turkomāns (perhaps of the tribe of the Īwāī and perhaps at the beginning of the Sald̲j̲ūḳid expansion established in Ḵh̲wārizm), who in 1070 had followed Erisgen (?), husband of a daughter of Alp-Arslan, into Asia Minor in his flight to Byzantine territory; but he refused to take service in the Christian army, and had responded to the appeal made to him by the Fāṭimid government, requesting him to come and bring some of the Palestine Bedouin to heel (…

, pl. ḳaṭāʾīʿ , a Muslim administrative term designating, on the one hand, those concessions made to private individuals on state lands in the first centuries of the Hid̲j̲ra (see ḍayʿa ), and, on the other hand, the fixed sum of a tax or tribute, in contradistinction to taxation by proportional method or some variable means. The verb ḳaṭaʿa is also used to mean “to impose”, normally followed by ḳaṭīʿatan . (C. Cahen)

, son and successor of Masʿūd I, and one of the most important sultans of Rūm (1155-92). Masʿūd had, in dealing with the Greeks, succeeded in restoring the position of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs in relation to the Dānis̲h̲mendids who were divided by quarrels over the succession. Ḳi̊li̊d̲j̲ Arslan at first maintained this policy, and carried it to the extent of offering the Basileus Manuel Comnenus at Constantinople in 1162 a form of allegiance which, in concrete terms, cost him nothing. He was then able to make himself mast…

, in Persian, ‘taster’, title of an official, generally an amīr , at the court of the Muslim sovereigns (including the Mamlūks) from the time of the Sald̲j̲ūkids. It is not always clear in what way he is connected with the overseer of the food, k̲h̲ w ānsalār ; perhaps the two are often confused. The title does not appear to be found, even in Iran, under previous dynasties, although caliphs and princes did undoubtedly have overseers for their food, and even had it tasted before they eat, as the dishes were always suspected of being poisoned. The term čās̲h̲na-gīr is also…

, a mediaeval artillery engine. In general, from Europe to China, there were everywhere in existence two main types of engines of projection which were operated by more than one man. In the case of the one, the heavy type of engine, the projectile was hurled from a great distance by virtue of the centrifugal force produced by the rocking of a great arm: these were the mand̲j̲anīḳ or mangonels; in the case of the other, a lighter engine, the projectile was discharged by the impact of a shaft forcibly impelled by the release of a rope: these were the ʿarrāda . The principle of the ʿarrāda only differs…

(Eastern Turkish = “badger”), one of the chief officers of the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳs, whose descendants also played a notable rôle at the beginning of the 6th/12th century. Bursuḳ, ¶ although youthful, entered history as one of the principal amīrs in the service of Ṭug̲h̲ril-Beg, who after restoring control in Bag̲h̲dād following the tragedies of the years 450-51/1058-59, made Bursuḳ his first s̲h̲iḥna (military commander) in Bag̲h̲dād. However, under the pacified Sald̲j̲ūḳid organisation, the essential power belonged to the ʿamīd , the civil administrator…

(Ar.), title of high officials of the Sāmānid-G̲h̲aznawid administration, which the Sald̲j̲ūḳids, the inheritors of their institutions and personnel, extended throughout their empire. The word, properly speaking, does not denote a function, but the rank of the class of officials from whom the civil governors, ʿāmil (as opposed to the military governors, sallār , s̲h̲iḥna ), were recruited; thus Sibṭ Ibn al-Ḏj̲awzī, Mirʾāt al-Zamān , MS Paris 1503, 193v: "one of the ʿumadā " is appointed governor; the same author, supplemented by Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, …

Originally applied to military and religious expeditions organized in Western Europe and intended to take back from and defend against Islam the Holy Places of Palestine and nearby Syria, the term was later extended to all wars waged against "infidels" and even to any undertaking carried out in the name of a worthy or supposedly worthy cause; naturally these extensions of meaning are not part of our present concern. The first Crusade (1096-99), following on from expeditions against the Muslims in the West, led to the establishment around Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antio…

, al-malik al-amd̲j̲ad , b. Farruk̲h̲ S̲h̲āh b. S̲h̲āhāns̲h̲āh b. Ayyūb, grand nephew of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, was appointed by the latter to succeed his father at Baʿlbak when the latter died in 578/1182 (ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, al-Barḳ al-S̲h̲āmī , Bodl. MS. Marsh 425, 36r°, followed by Abū S̲h̲āma, Rawḍatayn 1, Cairo, 33-4), and kept Baʿlbak when the Ayyūbid territories were divided up after the death of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn. From then on he seems always to have been a faithful vassal of the Ayyūbid ruling at Damascus (Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrid̲j̲ , years 599, 603, 606, 618, 62…

(a.), pl. of k̲h̲iṭṭa , the various quarters of the newly-founded early Islamic towns which the Arab-Islamic chiefs laid out (root k̲h̲.ṭ.t ) for the population groups which they attracted thither or for their respective leaders. Historical-administrative concerns led fairly quickly to the appearance of a literary genre which consisted of a description of the historical topography of these k̲h̲iṭaṭ . This happened in regards to Bag̲h̲dād, and one finds chapters of this nature in the “geographical” works of Ibn al-Faḳīh al-Hamad̲h̲ān…

( abū saʿīd sayf al-dīn ḳasīm al-dawla ), originally a mamlūk of Bursuḳ [ q.v.], and one of the principal officers of the Sald̲j̲uḳid sultans Muḥammad and Maḥmūd. He became prominent firstly through his activities as military governor ( s̲h̲iḥna ) of al-ʿIrāḳ, and later, at the end of his life, as governor of Mosul, which office he held simultaneously with the former. Appointed s̲h̲iḥna in 498/1105. his main task was to oppose the Mazyadite Arabs of Dubays [ q.v.], who were infesting the environs of Bag̲h̲dād. In his first government of Mosul (507/1113) his chief duty was …

(not Mīsar) Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Yūsuf . . . . b. D̲j̲alab Rāg̲h̲ib . 628-77/1231-78, Egyptian historian. He was descended, hence his by-name, from a Tunisian “imported” at the beginning of the 6th/12th century by an Egyptian amīr named Rāg̲h̲ib; under Saladin, the family, being excluded from the military career by the formation of the new army, had entered civilian life. Ibn Muyassar owed his name to a maternal ancestor who had apparently himself been ¶ an amīr under the Fāṭimids. His Annales d’Égypte (ed. H. Massé, Cairo 1919; cf. G. Wiet, in JA, 1921) have survived in a unique ma…

important right tributary of the Orontes (al-ʿĀṣī [ q.v.]), which it reaches after joining with the Nahr Yāg̲h̲rā (Murād Pas̲h̲a) in the Lake of Antioch and the Nahr al-Aswad (Ḳara-sū), in the ʿAmk. Its wide middle valley, between the Djabal Simān and the Kurd-dag̲h̲, was known in the Middle Ages as the district of the Ḏj̲ūma. The importance of the valley was due to the crossing of the road, which used it to connect Antioch with the districts of the upper Euphrates, with the roads which led from Cilicia…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan , born in about 341/952, third son of the Buwayhid Rukn al-Dawla [ q.v.] and of a daughter of the Daylamī chief al-Ḥasan b. Fayzurān, a cousin of Mākān b. Kākī [ q.v.], received his laḳab in 364/975 and was summoned in 365/976, with his brothers ʿAḍud al-Dawla [ q.v.], the eldest, and Muʾayyid al-Dawla, to his father’s sick-bed, in order to agree what share each would receive of their father’s possessions, under the suzerainty of ʿAḍud al-Dawla; as his portion, Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla received the provinces of Hamad̲h̲ān and…