, nūr al-dawla balak b. bahrām b. artuḳ , one of the first Artuḳids, known chiefly as a tough warrior. He appears in history in 489/1096 as commander of Sarud̲j̲ on the Middle Euphrates. This locality being taken from him by the Crusaders in the following year, and his uncle Ilg̲h̲āzī having been appointed governor of ʿIrāḳ by Sulṭān Muḥammad, he accompanied him, and is found in the following years struggling vainly for the little towns of ʿĀna and Ḥadīt̲h̲a, against Arabs, or prot…

[see ʿūd̲j̲ b. ʿanāḳ ].

b. baʿūr (ā), Bilʿam b. Beʿor of the Hebrew Bible. The Ḳurʾān does not mention him, unless perhaps in an allusion in vii, 175 [174] 176 [175]. The commentators and historians keep the main elements of the Biblical story in their accounts of him (Numbers xxii-xxiv, xxxi, 8) and following the Jewish Aggada which likewise has given other features of his portrait, make him responsible for the fornication of the Israelites with the daughters of Moab and Midian (Numbers xxv); note that he tends to absor…

( Mangūd̲j̲ak ), a Turkmen chief who was the eponym of a minor dynasty which appears in history with his son Isḥāḳ in 512/1118 in eastern Anatolia around the town of Erzind̲j̲ān [ q.v.], but including also Diwrigi and Kog̲h̲onia/Colonia-Ḳara Ḥiṣār S̲h̲arḳī. His territory accordingly lay between that of the Dānis̲h̲mendids [ q.v.] on the west, of the Saltuḳids [ q.v.] of Erzerum on the east, of the Byzantine province of Trebizond on the north and of the Artuḳid principalities [see artuḳids ] on the south; it thus commanded the traditional highway for inva…

, place in northern Syria, belonging to what is called the region of the “dead towns”, in the centre of the limestone plateau, some fifteen kms. west of the important township of Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān. In the Middle Ages, as attested by the Arabic and Western texts, it served as a fortified cathedral town and its site is stilJ marked today by extensive ruins, among which the modern villages of al-Kafr and al-Bāra (names corresponding to the ancient Greek and Syriac terms, Kapropēra and kpr’d brt’) rise on both sides of a wādī . In bygone days, local trade as well as …

(a.) “street-porter”, “bearer”. In old towns with narrow winding streets, the use of porters is indispensable for the transport of packages, cases, furniture, etc., which elsewhere is effected by means of beasts of burden, carts or, at the present day, by motor vehicles. The most elementary equipment used by the ḥammāl is a simple rope, fairly thick, which he first ties round the object to be carried and then loops over his forehead; in this way the burden is held on the porter’s back, and he controls its lateral movement …

, second Artuḳid ruler of Mārdīn, was born probably ca. 487/1094 (Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, 418). On Il-G̲h̲āzī’s death in 515/1122, Timurtās̲h̲ took Mārdīn without opposition (Ibn al-Azraḳ, 47; Anon . Syr . Chron ., 89; Ibn al-Ḳalānisī, 208; Kāmil , x, 426; Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Zubda , 209; Michael the Syrian, 218), whilst his brother Sulaymān ruled at Mayyāfāriḳīn. In the service of his energetic cousin, Balak, Timurtās̲h̲ was present at Balak’s siege of Manbid̲j̲ in 518/1124. That same year, Timurtās̲h̲ took possession of Aleppo (Ibn al-ʿAdīm, Zubda, 220; Ibn al-Azraḳ, 50). After a short, disastro…

, a town of northern Syria, situated to the north of Aleppo between the two rivers ʿAfrīn and Ḳuwayḳ, north of Aʿzāz and on the road from Aleppo to ʿAyntāb. It was apparently known to the Assyrians, since a letter in cuneiform script (Harper, no. 1037, Brit. Mus. K 13073, obv. 3) mentions a town Ki-li-zi. In Roman times, Killiz was called Ciliza sive Urmagiganti ( Itin. Ant. , ed. Pinder-Parthey, 84). In the mediaeval period it seems to have been of no importance. It is mentioned by Ps. Denys of Tell-Mahré at the time of the revolt against …

, a stronghold of eastern Anatolia situated on a rock (Armenian, pert ) 350 m./1,100 ft. above the plain of K̲h̲anzit [ q.v.], to be identified with the Ḥiṣna Zayt of the Aramaic texts (and already in Ammianus Marcellinus, castellum Ziata , whence, through a confusion, the Arabic Ḥiṣn Ziyād, a term in use till the 16th century). The corrupted form K̲h̲arput is found in colloquial Armenian (whence already in the Byzantine author Cedrenos, ii, 419) and in modern Turkish. The Latin and French authors at the time of t…

, a Turcoman dynasty which reigned in northern Cappadocia from the last quarter of the 5th/11th century until 573/1178. The origins and first conquests of its founder, Amīr Dānis̲h̲mend, are obscure. Appearing in Cappadocia during the years of anarchy which followed the death, in 781/1085, of the Sald̲j̲ūḳid Sulaymān b. Kutlumi̊s̲h̲, he became involved in the events of the First Crusade. When historians became interested in him they resorted to legends or imagination to fill the gaps in their kn…

(a., pl. mawālīyāt ) or mawālīyyā , also reportedly mawālī and muwālayāt , a non-classical Arabic verse form. Together with the cognate mawwāl , this is best considered in three contexts. 1. In written sources. Among the “seven arts” al-funūn al-sabʿa [see kān wa-kān ])—non-classical verse forms are always made to number seven, although the lists are not identical—the mawāliyā is given pride of place next to the muwas̲h̲s̲h̲aḥ and the zad̲j̲al , on the ground that its metre is classical and its language either classical or colloquial. Two traditions place its beginnings in ʿIrāḳ in…

, (not urṭukids ), a Turkish dynasty which reigned over the, whole or part of Diyār Bakr, either independently or under Mongol protectorate, from the end of the 5th/11th to the beginning of the 9th/15th century. Artuḳ, son of Ekseb, belonged to the Turkoman tribe Döger [ q.v.]. In 1073 he was in Asia Minor, operating for and against the Byzantine Emperor ¶ ¶ Michael VII, but he later appears principally as an officer in the service of the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ Maliks̲h̲āh. In 1077 he brought the Carmathians of Baḥrayn under the rule of Maliks̲h̲āh; in 1079 Maliks̲…

, an ancient town of Syria which was situated to the north-east of Aleppo. It appears that an urban settlement with the name Nappigi or Nampīgi existed on this site in the Assyrian period. In the time of Shalmaneser, it was known as Lita As̲h̲ūr, The Syriac appears to refer back to the Assyrian root; in fact the name became Mabbog or Mambog which signifies “gushing water”, linked, according to Yāḳūt, to the root nabad̲j̲a . “to gush”, which would hardly be surprising in a region of abundant springs. The following spellings are encountered: in the …

, Maʾrib ( mryb or mrb in the ancient South Arabian inscriptions), in classical antiquity, capital of the Sabaean realm in South-West Arabia, now the chef-lieu of the muḥāfaẓa of the same name in the Yemeni Arab Republic, lying some 135 km. to the east of Ṣanʿāʾ. At the last census in 1975, the muḥāfaẓa of Mārib counted 70,000 inhabitants, and the ḳaḍāʾ of Mārib—with a population density of 2.4 inhabitants per km.2—13,000 inhabitants, consisting of about 10,000 residents, 2,000 Bedouins and 1,000 refugees. The ʿuzla of Mārib counted 1,900 residents, and the…

(atabeg), title of a high dignitary under the Sald̲j̲ūḳids and their successors. The term is Turkish and first makes its appearance in Muslim history with the Sald̲j̲ūḳids; it is therefore reasonable to enquire whether any precedents exist in the Turkish societies of Central Asia. So far no occurrence of the actual word seems to have been reported and the fact that in the Ork̲h̲on civilisation there is apparently a person called ata , father, acting as a tutor to a young prince, is too vague to enable one to affirm a connexion; the same is true…

(a.), tomb was first applied to the pit used as a burial place for a corpse, as was the term ḍarīḥ , giving rise to its habitual use in the text of numerous epitaphs containing the expression hād̲h̲ā ḳabru ... “This is the grave of . . .”. Originally distinguished from the term ṣandūḳ , “cenotaph” (cf., J. Sauvaget, “ Les perles choisies” d’Ibn ach-Chihna , Beirut 1933, 212 and “ Les trésors d’or ” de Sibt al-ʿAjamī , Beirut 1950, 184), it had the more general meaning of the tumulus or construction covering the grave to bring it to notice, a custom c…

, Muslims in. Historical background. Islam is not a recent phenomenon in the interior East African state of Malawi (the former British protectorate of Nyasaland), since traders from Arabia, the Persian Gulf, India and Indonesia had dealings with the East African Coast since time immemorial and Islam was carried into the interior by such traders. The name Malawi was first used by the Portuguese to denote a variety of distinct ethnic groups. Amongst these, the Marawi established a hegemony over a considerable area, including the Makua on the coast around Mozambique [ q.v.]. The penetrati…

, in Turkish Halep, in Italian, English and German Aleppo, in French Alep; town in Syria, the most important after Damascus. It is situated in 38°68′5″ E. and 40°12′ N., and at an altitude of 390 metres/1275 ft., at the north-west extremity of the inland plateau of Syria and on the banks of a small river, the Ḳuwayḳ (average rate of flow from 2 to 3 cubic metres per second) which descends from the last foothills of the Taurus. It is surrounded by a vast chalk plain with a healthy though severe sub-desert climate wit…

(according to lexicographers the only correct form) or Kabd , Kibd , “the liver”. 1. Names for the liver and their semantic field. The Muslim peoples, like all others, recognised the internal organs of the human body and identified them with the analogous organs of animals. They also attributed to them one or another physiological and psychosomatic function based on observations which they interpreted according to mental structures that are only partially clear to us. Language itself testifies to these early identifications. As E. Bargheer says, “these are significant …

, Arabic term often translated by “satire”, but more precisely denoting a curse, an invective diatribe or insult in verse, an insulting poem, then an epigram, and finally a satire in prose or verse. The etymological sense of the Arabic root h.d̲j̲.w may perhaps be deduced from the Hebrew root the basic sense of which is “to utter a sound in a low voice, to murmur” and hence “to meditate” (so too in Syriac), but also “to pronounce incantations in a low voice” (see L. Koehler, Lexicon in Vet . Test . libros , 1949, 224; König, Hebräisches Wörterbuch , 75; Genesius, Lexicon, Leipzig 1833, 266; Jast…