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, a small and ancient town situated on the north-eastern bank of Lake Van, which in the Middle Ages was still called the Lake of Ard̲j̲īs̲h̲. Its existence seems to be vouched for since the Urartaean period, and more expressly by the Graeco-Roman geographers. It was occupied for a time by the Arabs during the time of ʿUt̲h̲mān, but remained an integral part of the Armenian principalities up to the 8th century A.D.; from 772 onwards, it was incorporated into the Ḳaysite emirate of Ak̲h̲lāṭ [ q.v.]. In the 10th century A.D., it belonged to the Marwānids, but about 1025 it was taken…

(Ar. pl. umanā ), "trustworthy, in whom one can place one’s trust", whence al-Amīn, with the article, as an epithet of Muḥammad in his youth. As a noun, it means "he to whom something is entrusted, overseer, administrator": e.g. Amīn al-Waḥy , "he who is entrusted with the revelation", i.e. the angel Gabriel. The word also frequently occurs in titles, e.g. Amīn al-Dawla (e.g. Ibn al-Tilmīd̲h̲ others), Amīn al-Dīn (e.g. Yāḳūt), Amīn al-Mulk, Amīn al-Salṭana. In addition to these general and undefined uses of the word amīn , there are other more technical uses,…

Name of the dynasty founded by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn b. Ayyūb, which, at the end of the 6th/12th century and in the first half of the 7th/13th century, ruled Egypt, Muslim Syria-Palestine, the major part of Upper Mesopotamia, and the Yemen. The eponym of the family, Ayyūb b. S̲h̲ād̲h̲ī b. Marwān, born in the village of Ad̲j̲danaḳān near Dvin (Dabīl) in Armenia, belonged to the Rawwādī clan of the Kurdish tribe of the Had̲h̲bānī, and, at the beginning of the 6th/12th century, had been in the service of the S̲h̲addādid dynasty, likewise Kurdish,…

, name of three Sald̲j̲ūḳid sultans of Rūm. Kayḳubād i , ʿalāʾ al-dīn was the most distinguished of the Sald̲j̲ūḳid sultans of Rūm, to whom many later sovereigns would connect themselves. Removed from power by his brother and predecessor Kaykāʾūs I [ q.v.], he succeeded him in 618/1220. His foreign policy made his dynasty one of the most powerful of his time. In the south he expanded his power, from the very beginning of his reign, over a great part of the Cilician Taurus, where he settled Turkmens. He enlarged his maritime frontiers, i…

, prince, son; heir apparet (344/955) and successor (356/967) of Muʾizz al-Dawla in ʿIrāḳ, with the laḳab of ʿIzz al-Dawla. He appears to have had little talent for government, which, unlike his father, he entrusted to wazīrs (chosen without any great discernment) so as to be free to amuse himself, though he still impeded the conduct of affaire by his impetuous verbal or active intervention. At the beginning of his reign he continued his father’s policy of hostility to the Ḥamdānid Abū Tag̲h̲lib of Mawṣil and to the autonomous chieftain ¶ of the Baṭīḥa, ʿImrān b. S̲h̲āhīn. Furthermor…

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, Claudias, a locality of ancient origin (the Claudiopolis of Pliny? cf. Pauly-Wissowa, s.v.), the exact site of which has not been determined but which almost certainly commanded the entrance to the Euphrates gorges below Malaṭya/Melitene, between the eastern Taurus and the K̲h̲anzit [ …

ʿaḍud al-dawla abū s̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ muḥammad b. dāʾūd čag̲h̲ribeg , celebrated Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan, the second of the dynasty (455/1063-465/1073). Born probably in 421/1030, at an early age he led the armies of his father Čag̲h̲ribeg with great success, especially against the G̲h̲aznawids, and in 450/1058 he saved his uncle, the sultan Ṭug̲h̲rilbeg, from the revolt of Ibrāhīm Inal in Persia. Two or three years later he succeeded Čag̲h̲ribeg, who had been ill for a long time, and at the end…

, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Salām b. al-Ḥasan . . . al-Ḳaysarānī al-Miṣrī (525-617/1130-1220), high-ranking official of the later Fāṭimids, wrote in the reign of Salāḥ al-Dīn a “History of the two dynasties”, Nuzhat al-muḳlatayn fī ak̲h̲bār al-dawlatayn , an important work now unfortunately lost, to which the great compilers of the Mamlūk period, Ibn al-Furāt, al-Maḳrīzī, al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ibn Tag̲h̲rībirdī, and even before them Ibn K̲h̲aldūn, owe the most important part of their knowledge of the history of the later Fāṭimids and of the general institutions of the régime. (Cl. Cahen) Bibl…

, 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 …

, 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…