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Gīlān-s̲h̲āh , ispahbad of Ṭabaristān, known as the Great ( buzurg ) and the Virtuous ( d̲h̲u ’l-manāḳib ), son of Dābūya, conquered Māzandarān and restored peace to the frontiers. When defeated by the Daylamīs in their revolt, he fled to Āmul and entrenched himself in the castle of Fīrūzābād; he saved himself by the ruse of making his besiegers believe that he had enormous stocks of bread. He gave asylum to the K̲h̲ārid̲j̲īs when they were being pursued by al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲, but fought aga…

, daughter of Aḥmad Pas̲h̲ā, wife of Sulaymān Pas̲h̲a Mizrāḳli̊ ("Abū Laylā"), Ottoman governor of Bag̲h̲dād. During the lifetime of her husband she took part in the government of the province, holding audiences where the petitions were presented to her through the intermediary of an eunuch. She had also a mosque and a caravanseray built, bearing her name. When on the death of Sulaymān (1175/1761) power was about to slip from her hands, she stirred up against his successor, ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a, first t…

, the third mythical ruler of the Iranian dynasty of the Kayānids [ q.v.], corresponding to Kavi Haosrovah of the religious tradition (see A. Christensen, Les Kayanides , Copenhagen 1931, 90-2 and index). He is reckoned as the son of Siyāwus̲h̲/Siyāwak̲h̲s̲h̲ [ q.v.] and the grandson, through his mother, of Afrāsiyāb [ q.v.], and according to the national tradition (Christensen, 114-17) was born after his father’s death and was brought up amongst the mountain shepherds of Ḳalū near Bāmiyān, in ignorance of his illustrious origin. This, however, s…

al-anṣāri , asʿad b. naṣr , minister and poet, hailing from Abzār, south of S̲h̲īrāz. He was in the service of Saʿd b. Zangī, atabeg of Fārs; was sent by his master as an ambassador to Muḥammad Ḵh̲wārizms̲h̲āh, refused the offers which were made to him, succeeded Rukn al-Dīn Salāḥ Kirmānī as minister and held his position until the death of Saʿd. Saʿd’s son and successor, Abū Bakr, had him arrested on the charge of having held a correspondence with the ruler of Ḵh̲wārizm and of having acted as a spy for him. He was imprisoned in the fortress of Us̲h̲kunwān, near Iṣṭak̲h̲r and …

(t. “Red River”), the ancient Halys (῞Αλυς) or Alys(῎Αλυς), the largest river in Asia Minor. It rises in the mountains which separate the wilāyet of Sīwās from that of Erzerūm, waters the towns of Zarra (4,530 feet high) and Sīwās (4,160 feet high), then enters the province of Anḳara where it meets the mountain of Ard̲j̲īs̲h̲ and the Ḳod̲j̲a Dāg̲h̲ range which force it to make an immense detour of over 160 miles. Its course is at first southeast, then it turns northwards, and finally it reaches t…

(t.) (a word which has passed into French in the form tabor ), from Eastern Turkī tapḳūr and ṭapḳūr , denoting a pallisade formed of waggons arranged in a circle or square; a body of troops sent out for reconnaissance; a battalion; or a body of about 1,000 men commanded by a biñbas̲h̲i̊ (chief of a thousand). In Morocco, from the mid-19th century, it denoted the first permanent military units. Under the French Protectorate, the term was applied to a group made up of several goums ( gūm , an armed group of ca. 150 men commanded by officers of the Indigenous Affairs Department), hence par…

, mythical second king of the line of Kayānids [ q.v.] whose name contains twice over the royal title kay (Kay Ūs> Kāʾūs). His history has been delineated by A. Christensen from the Iranian religious tradition and from the national tradition echoed by the later Muslim historians ( Les Kayanides , Copenhagen 1931, 73-90, 108-14). This Islamic historical tradition makes him the son of Kay Abīwēh > Abīh (except for Balʿamī, Firdawsī and al-T̲h̲aʿālibī, who make him the son of Kay Kubād [ q.v.]). He was a warrior-king who, according to Firdawsī, led a campaign into Māzandarān, whi…

(in Āzerī Turkish “Red River”), the ancient Amardus, a river which flows through Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲an and enters the Caspian Sea forty miles east of Sefīd-Rūd, “White River”, at its junction with the river S̲h̲āh-Rūd at Mend̲j̲il. Its source lies in the province of Ārdilān, and it begins by crossing ʿIrāḳ ʿAd̲j̲amī to the north; its right-bank tributary is the Zand̲j̲ān, on the left it receives the Ḳara-göl at Miyāne, then it runs along the southern slopes of Elburz, describing a great arc 125 miles…

(p.), charm, incantation; for etymology and usage in old Persian, see Salemann, in Gr.I.Ph . i/1, 304, and especially H. W. Bailey, in BSOAS, 1933-5, 283 ff. This word is now used in Persia to designate especially a charm against the biting of poisonous animals; certain darwīs̲h̲es who pretend to have the power to charm serpents, scorpions etc., will, for some gratuity, communicate their invulnerability to other persons. Often it is one part of the body which is so protected, as for instance the right or the left hand, and it is with this that the animals of this kind must be seized (Polak, Persie…

, a Persian word denoting an oval bowl of metal, wood or coconut (calabash), worn suspended by a chain from the shoulder, in which the dervishes put the alms they receive and the food which is given them. The etymology of this word is obscure; a popular one is given by the Persians: kas̲h̲ “draw” (imperative) and kūl “shoulder”, “what one draws over the shoulder”; but as we find a form k̲h̲ačkūl attested in the older poets (Anwārī, Sayf Isfarangī), this explanation can hardly be accepted. The dictionaries give as the first sense “beggar” and t…

“fortress of the bridge”, a village in the Ottoman province of K̲h̲udāwendigār [ q.v.] in northwestern Anatolia, and situated on the Čürük Ṣū river near Yeñis̲h̲ehir. It owes its historical fame to its being the site of a Byzantine fortress taken in 688/1289 by ʿOt̲h̲mān b. Ertog̲h̲rul, chief of the ʿOt̲h̲mānli̊ group of Türkmens based on Eskis̲h̲ehir, after the previous capture of Biled̲j̲ik and during the course of the extension of Ottoman influence within the province towards Bursa [ q.v.]; cf. H. A. Gibbons, The foundation of the Ottoman empire, Oxford 1916, 32-3. (Cl. Huart) Bibliogr…

the ceremony of raising the bride’s veil, and the present made by the husband to the wife on This occasion. According to al-Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ānī who bases himself on Muḥyi ’l-Dīn al-ʿArabī ( Definitiones , ed. Flugel, 80, 294), d̲j̲ilwa is the name of the state in which the mystic is on coming out of the k̲h̲alwa: filled with the emanations of divine attributes, his own personality has disappeared and mingles with the being of God (cf. Guys, Un derviche Algérien , 203). One of the two sacred books of the Yazīdīs is called Kitāb al-Ḏj̲ilwa [ q.v.]. (Cl. Huart)

, Turkish name for the Abazes (see abk̲h̲āz ), given as a surname to many persons in Ottoman history who descended from those people. 1) Ābāza pas̲h̲a , taken prisoner at the defeat of the rebel Ḏj̲anbulād, whose treasurer he was, was brought before Murād Pas̲h̲a and had his life spared only through the intercession of Ḵh̲alīl, ag̲h̲a of the Janissaries, who, having become ḳapūdān-pas̲h̲a , gave him the command of a galley, and conferred upon him the government of Marʿas̲h̲ when he was promoted to the dignity of grand vizier. Later he be…

, Persian historian, lived probably in the 16th-17th centuries. Entering into government service in Fūman, the old capital of Gīlān (Ch. Schefer, Christ . pers ., ii, 93) he was appointed controller of accounts by the vizier of the place, Behzād-beg, about 1018 or 1019/1609-10. After serving under several other vizers, he was taken to ʿIrāk by ʿĀdil S̲h̲āh. He wrote in Persian Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Gīlān , a history of Gīlān from 923/1517 to 1038/1628. This book, published by B. Dorn (with a résumé in his introduction), completes the histories of Ẓahīr al-Dīn [ q.v.] and ʿAlī b. S̲h̲ams al-Dīn [ q.v.]. (…

, in Turkish ‘castle, fortress, citadel, stronghold’, a common component of place-names in Turkey. The best-known are the two castles which control the narrowest point of the Bosphorus [see bog̲h̲az-i̇či̇ ]: on the Asiatic side Anadolu Ḥiṣārī [ q.v.], also called in earlier times Güzel Ḥiṣār (ʿbeautiful castle’), on the European side Rumeli Ḥiṣāri̊ [ q.v.], also called Bog̲h̲az-Kesen (ʿthe barrier of the Bosphorus’). The former, situated between Kandilli and Kanhca, was built by the Ottoman sultan Bāyezīd I in 797/1395 in preparation for the siege o…

(Old Persian: Ahuramazda, “wise lord”; Pahlavi: Auharmazd; Persian: Hurmazd, Hurmuzd, Hurmuz), supreme god of the ancient Iranians, whose name was later given to the planet Jupiter and to the first day of each month of the ¶ Zoroastrian year. In the works of Muslim writers (especially the Iranians and particularly the poets) are found allusions which display a very imprecise knowledge of Mazdaism; although there occurs the name of Zoroaster (Zardus̲h̲t), one searches in vain for the name of Hurmuzd (cf. M. Moīn, Mazdayasna , parts 7 & 8 and the introd. by …

(originally dew , Avestan daeva , Sanskrit dēva ), in Persian the name of the spirits of evil and of darkness, creatures of Ahriman, the personification of sins; their number is legion; among them are to be distinguished a group of seven principal demons, including Ahriman, opposed to the seven Ams̲h̲aspand (Av. aməša spənta , the “Immortal Holy Ones”). “The collective name of the daiva designates ... exclusively the inimical gods in the first place, then generally other supernatural beings who, being by nature evil, are opposed to the good and true faith .... These daiva, these dēv …

, the name of the grey mule of the Prophet, which had been given to him by the Muḳawḳis [ q.v.], at the same time as the ass called Yaʿfūr/ʿUfayr. After serving as his mount during his campaigns, she survived him and died at Yanbuʿ so old and toothless that in order to feed her the barley had to be put into her mouth. According to the S̲h̲īʿī tradition, ʿAlī rode upon her at the battle of the Camel [see al-d̲j̲amal ] and at Ṣiffīn. As Duldul in Arabic means a porcupine, it is possible that she derived her name from her gait, but This is far from certain. For…

(p.), the bearded vulture ( Gypaetus barbatus), the largest of the birds of prey of the Old World, which is usually found in the regions of perpetual snow; it carries off the bones of dead animals, breaks them on rocks and eats the fragments, which led the Persian poet Saʿdī to say that the humā was superior to all the other birds because instead of feeding on ¶ living flesh it ate only bones ( Gulistān , i, story 15). It was thought that anyone who intentionally killed a humā would die within forty days. That this bird was considered to be of good omen is illustrated by another verse of the Gulistān (i, …

( Amīr ) b. ʿAlaʾ al-Dawla Bak̲h̲tīs̲h̲āh , a Persian writer from a family owning estates at Isfarāʾ in in the K̲h̲urāsān. His father was one of the most intimate courtiers of S̲h̲āh-Ruk̲h̲. son of Tīmūr; he himself took part in the battle fought by the Timurids Abu’l-G̲h̲āzī Sulṭan Ḥusayn and Sulṭan Maḥmūd near Andak̲h̲ūd. He was about fifty years of age when he began to write his Tad̲h̲kirat al-s̲h̲uʿarāʾ (“Memorial to the Poets”), which he finished in about 892/1487 towards the end of his life, the date of his death being unknown. In his Mad̲j̲ālis al-nafāʾis (chap…