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Malik Kāfūr (d. 715/1316) was a eunuch converted to Islam, reportedly of Marāťhā origin, who went on to become a high-ranking minister and powerful military commander during the reign of Sulṭān ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad Shāh Khaljī (r. 695–715/1296–1316). Acquired as a young slave during the conquest of Gujarat in 698/1299—his sobriquets hazār dinārī and al-alfī (lit., of a thousand dinars) ostensibly referred to the price paid for him—Kāfūr’s advance over the following years is undocumented, although his later career was very successful. In about 705–…

Damat (Şehit) Ali Paşa (Dāmād (Şehīd) ʿAlī Pasha, c.1079–1128/c.1667–1716), an Ottoman grand vizier, was born at Sölöz, near İznik, in present-day Turkey. After serving in several posts at the imperial palace, he became silahtar (silāḥdār) in 1116/1704. In Rebiyülevvel (Rabīʿ I) 1121/May 1709, Sultan Ahmed III (Sulṭān Aḥmed III, r. 1115–43/1703–30) appointed him vizier and married him to his daughter Fatma Sultan (Fāṭ(i)ma Sulṭān), making him damat ( dāmād, the “sovereign’s son-in-law”). Ali Paşa held great sway over the sultan, and he even played a role in appo…

Amasya is a town in the Pontic mountains of present-day northern Turkey, roughly 80 km southwest of the Black Sea port of Samsun, and the capital of a vilayet/ilçe of the same name (Illustration 1). It preserves the name of Amaseia, under which it was known in antiquity. Amasya is situated on the main branch of the Yeşil Irmak (ancient Iris River) above the confluence of the Tersakan Çay, c. 400 m above sea-level, in a narrow and rocky gorge, running from east to west; the gorge widens above and below the town, where its r…

Hotin (Ott. Khōtīn; Turk. and Romanian Hotin; Ukrainian Khotyn; Polish Chocim; Russian Khotin) is a fortress and town on the right bank of the Dniester (Turk. Turla) River. Formerly in Moldavia, Hotin is now in Ukraine and is the administrative centre of the raĭon of Hotin, in Chernivtsi Oblast. At the turn of the fourteenth century, a castle was constructed by Moldavian rulers at an older fortified site, where the mediaeval trade route from the Baltic to Constantinople crossed the Dniester. Because it guarded the border between Moldavia and P…

The ʿĀnāniyya was a Jewish group comprising the followers of ʿĀnān b. David (fl. c.142/760), who has been incorrectly considered by some to be the founder of the Karaite movement; his schism was one of many that affected rabbinical Judaism during the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries. While ʿĀnān rejected specifically the authority of rabbinic tradition (which was accepted by the Rabbanites, whence their name) in favour of an alternative tradition, the early Karaites rejected in principle the authority of all traditions. While all the surviving fragments of ʿĀnān’s Book of la…

Aḥmad b. Ibrāhīm al-Ghāzī, nicknamed in Amharic Grāñ (“the left-handed”; fl. 912–50/1506–43) was imām of the sultanate of Adāl, in the Horn of Africa. Long perceived as the bête noire of the Christian state, church, and population of northern and central Ethiopia and as a traitor and villain par excellence in traditional Christian historiography and folklore, he was an ambitious soldier of fortune who, by dint of his extraordinary military skill, political manipulation, successful propaganda, and fortuitous …

ʿAbdallāh b. Jaḥsh (d. 3/625) was a leader among the early Muslims who migrated with the prophet Muḥammad to Medina in the year 1/622. His sister Zaynab, who married the Prophet in the year 5/626 after her divorce from his adopted son Zayd b. Ḥāritha, was also part of this group. ʿAbdallāh b. Jaḥsh belonged to the Banū Asad b. Khuzayma and was a confederate (ḥalīf) of the Banū Umayya of Quraysh. His mother was Umayma bt. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, the aunt of the Prophet. ʿAbdallāh’s two brothers, ʿUbaydallāh and Abū Aḥmad, took part in the migration of early Muslims …

Al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAmr al-Ghanawī (fl. end of the third century/ninth century) was an ʿAbbāsid commander and governor. The sources say nothing directly about his origins, although Yāqūt describes a “Qaṣr al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAmr al-Ghanawī” (4:359–60), located between Naṣībīn and Sinjār, which lie in Diyār Rabīʿa. He first appears in historical accounts on campaign in 286/899, against tribesmen of the Banū Shaybān in al-Anbār, during the reign of the caliph al-Muʿtaḍid (r. 279–89/892–902), then later against other Arab tribal forces in southern Iraq. The sources know al-ʿAbbās best in re…

ʿAmr b. Masʿada b. Saʿīd b. Ṣūl (d. probably 217/832) was a secretary and man of letters under the caliph al-Maʾmūn (r. 198–218/813–33). Probably of Turkish origin, he was a cousin of Ibrāhīm b. al-ʿAbbās al-Ṣūlī (d. 243/857), a prominent ʿAbbāsid kātib. His father, said by al-Jahshiyārī (d. 331/942) to have been a client (mawlā) of Khālid b. ʿAbdallāh al-Qasrī (d. 126/743), a major Umayyad figure, had been secretary of the chancellery under the caliph al-Manṣūr (r. 136–58/754–75). ʿAmr himself served the Barmakids and was later, for many years, on…

Bahāʾ al-Dīn Abū l-Faḍl Zuhayr b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Muhallabī al-Azdī, usually known as al-Bahāʾ Zuhayr, was a celebrated Arab poet of the Ayyūbid period. He was born in Mecca on 5 Dhū l-Ḥijja 581/27 February 1186 and died in Cairo in 656/1258. While young, al-Bahāʾ Zuhayr travelled to Qūṣ, in Upper Egypt, where he studied the Qurʾān and Arabic language and literature. He later settled in Cairo, in about 625/1227. He served the Ayyūbid prince al-Ṣāliḥ as his confidential secretary, and then, after…