, a town in central Syria in the district of Orontes (Nahr al-ʿĀṣī), about 25 miles south-east of Ḥamāt and 35 miles north-east of Ḥimṣ (for the town’s exact situation, see Kiepert’s map in M. von Oppenheim, Vom Mittelmeer zum Persischen Golf , Berlin 1899, i. 124 ff., and ii, 401; National Geographic Atlas of the World , 5th ed., Washington D.C. 1981, 178-9). Salamiyya lies in a fertile plain 1,500 feet above sea level, south of the D̲j̲abal al-Aʿlā and on the margin of the Syrian steppe. The older and more correct pronunciation…

, with the laḳab sayf al-dawla , ruler of Ḥimṣ and Afāmiya in the late 5th/11th century. He was ¶ accused of various misdeeds, including brigandage, and is said, during a siege of Salamiyya, to have thrown the S̲h̲arīf Ibrāhīm al-Hās̲h̲īmī against the tower from a mangonel. In 483/1090, complaints were sent to the Sultan Maliks̲h̲āh, who ordered his brother Tutus̲h̲, the ruler of Damascus, and other rulers of Syrian cities to proceed against him. A joint expedition captured Ḥimṣ, and K̲h̲alaf was sent in an iron c…

, one of the earliest Ismāʿīlī missionaries in ʿIrāḳ. In modern literature, the name, a Persian diminutive of Zakariyyāʾ (originally Zakarōye), is often misread as Zikrawayh. Zakarawayh came from the village of al-Maysāniyya near Kūfa and was the son of one of ʿAbdān’s [ q.v.] first missionaries; he propagated the Ismāʿīlī doctrine among the Bedouin of the tribe of Kulayb on the fringes of the desert west of Kūfa. When in 286/899 a schism split the Ismāʿīlī community, he was instrumental in doing away with his master ʿAbdān who had aposta…

, ʿabd al-salām b. salīm al-faytūrī , 16th century revivalist of the ʿArūsiyya order, was born on 12 Rabīʿ I 880/16 July 1475 in the coastal oasis of Zlīṭen (Zalīṭan, Zlīṭan; obsolete forms, Zalītan, Yazlītan, Yazlītīn, Izlītan) in Tripolitania. He belonged to the Faytūriyya (Fawātir) tribe, whence his laḳab , while the nickname al-Asmar was given to him by his mother who had been ordered to do so in a dream. He received his early mystical training from ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Dūkālī, a k̲h̲alīfa [ q.v.] of the ʿArūsiyya order, who initiated him into this ṭarīḳa [ q.v.] and to whose circle of dis…

, the first “manifested” ( ẓāhir ) Ismāʿīli Imām and the first caliph of the Fāṭimid dynasty in Ifrīḳiya; while the historicity of this fact is conclusively established, there is doubt as to the Fāṭimid origin of ʿUbayd Allāh and subsequently as to the authenticity of his imāmate in the Ismāʿīli line. It would be pointless however, before giving an account of his activity as a sovereign, to digress upon the thorny subject of the nasab of the first Fāṭimid monarch, to which the author of the present article has, moreover, elsewhere devoted substantial consideration (see Bibl …

, a ruined site of ancient Assyria, now in northern ʿIrāḳ some 30 km/20 miles south of al-Mawṣil [ q.v.] in lat. 36°5′N. and long. 43°20′E. The ruins on the plateau of Nimrūd are those of the ancient Assyrian city of Kalk̲h̲ū, apparently mentioned in Gen. x. 11-12 as Calah. It is mentioned in Syriac sources, but the mediaeval Islamic geographers mention it only incidentally and under differing names; thus Yāḳūt, i, 119, iii, 113, says that al-Salāmiyya is in the vicinity of the ruins of the town of At̲h̲ūr, which can onl…

b. al-as̲h̲ʿat̲h̲ , the leader of the Ḳarmaṭian movement in the sawād of al-Kūfa. Originally a carrier from the village of al-Dūr in the ṭassūd̲j̲ Furāt Bādaḳlā, he was converted to the early Ismāʿīlī movement by the dāʿī [ q.v.] al-Ḥusayn al-Ahwāzī. The date 264/877-8 given in this connexion by a much later report may be approximately correct. When al-Ḥusayn died or left the district, Ḥamdān became his successor. He organized the movement throughout the sawād and appointed the dāʿīs for the major districts. His main assistant was his brother-in-law ʿAbdān [ q.v.], who soon became the …

( al-Malik ), title of two Ayyūbid princes. 1) al-Malik al-Kāmil Nāṣir al-Dīn Abu ’l-Maʿālī Muḥammad , the eldest son of al-ʿĀdil [ q.v.] Abū Bakr b. Ayyūb, born 573/1177 or 576/1180. In 595/1199 he left the Ḏj̲azīra, where he had begun his political career as his father’s representative (from 587/1191), to come to the aid of al-ʿĀdil at Damascus in his struggle against al-Afḍal b. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn. After the latter’s defeat, father and son marched into Egypt, entering Cairo on 22 Ramaḍān 596/6 July 1200. Al-ʿĀdil was pro…

, modem ḳalʿat s̲h̲arḳāt , a large ancient mound on the west bank of the River Tigris in the vilāyet of Mawṣil, about 250 km. north of Bag̲h̲dād and about 100 km. south of Mawsil, in 35° 30′ N and 45° 15′ E. It is strategically placed on a spur of the D̲j̲abal Ḥamrīn and is identified with Ashur, one of the capital cities of ancient Assyria. In the middle of the 3rd millennium, it was occupied by migratory tribes coming either from the west or the s…

, d. 683/1248, appointed Amir al-ʿArab by the Mamlūk sultan, was the chief of the Āl Faḍl, a Bedouin clan of Bādiyat al-S̲h̲a’m. His genealogy is usually given as ʿĪsā b. Muhannā b. Mānīʿ b. Ḥadīt̲h̲a b. ʿAṣaba (var. ʿUḳba) b. Faḍl b. Rabīʿa; his laḳab was S̲h̲araf al-Dīn al-Ṭā’ī. The Āl Faḍl, connected to the Rabīʿa and hence to the Tayy (for their early history see Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn, al-ʿIbar , Cairo 1284, v, 436 f.; al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ṣubḥ , Cairo 1914, iv, 203 f., 206), were very wealthy (see al-ʿUmarī, al-Taʿrīf , Cairo 1312, 79) and ranged from Ḥimṣ as far as Ḳalʿat D̲j̲aʿbar and Raḥba ( Ṣubḥ, iv, 20…

, a district in Nad̲j̲d [ q.v.], the central province of Saudi Arabia. Al-K̲h̲ard̲j̲ stretches from al-ʿĀriḍ [ q.v.] in the north southwards to the area east of the oasis of al-Ḥawṭa [ q.v.] in Wādī Burayk (Wādī ’l-Ḥawṭa). To the west the crags of ʿUlayya, a section of the range of Ṭuwayḳ [ q.v.], rise above the vale of al-K̲h̲ard̲j̲, which is closed in on the east by the steppe desert of al-Bayāḍ. As the confluence of many wādīs (also called s̲h̲aʿībs ), al-K̲h̲ard̲j̲ is one of the most fertile places in Saudi Arabia. Wādī Ḥanīfa (classical al-ʿIrḍ) and …

, Raḥbat Mālik b. Ṭawḳ or Raḥbat al-S̲h̲aʾm , a town on the right bank of the Euphrates, the modern al-Miyādīn. Hardly anything definite is known about the history of the town before the Muslim era. In the Middle Ages it was usually identified as the Reḥōbōt han-Nāhār of the Bible (Gen. xxxvi, 37) i.e. Reḥōbōt on the river (Euphrates) especially in the Talmud and by the Syriac authors (e.g. Mich. Syr., cf. index, 63*; Barhebraeus, Chron . syr ., ed. Bedjan, 273 and passim), who usually call it Rehabōt, Raḥabat (M. Hartmann, in ZDPV, xxiii, 42, n. 1). A. Musil ( The Middle Euphrates …

(also ḳayṣāriyya ), plur. ḳayāsīr , the name of a large system of public buildings laid out in the form of cloisters with shops, workshops, warehouses and frequently also living-rooms. According to de Sacy, Relation de l’Egypte par Abd Allaṭif , Paris 1810, 303-4, the ḳaysāriyya was originally distinguished from the sūḳ probably only by its greater extent, and by having several covered galleries around an open court, while the sūḳ consists only of a single gallery. At the present day in any case, the term ḳaysāriyya is not infrequently quite or almost identical in meaning with th…

(p., in Tkish., ney ), a rim-blown flute made of reed ( arundo donax L.). The name, meaning basically “reed”, is known from Pahlavi, in which it was a loanword from Aramaic qnʾ (cf. Assyrian qanūʾ , qanuʾu , Hebr. qnh ). However in early Arabic sources, such as the Kitāb al-Ag̲h̲ānī , the term nāy most probably denoted not a flute but a double-reed woodwind instrument of the mizmār [ q.v.] family. The mizmār, because of its colour, was also called nāy siyāh “black nāy” in contrast to the nāy safīd “white nāy” , i.e. the flute. The rim-blown flute has been known since the 3rd millennium B.C. …

(The battle of). The first great trial of strength between the Mamlūks and the Mongols took place more than twenty years after the battle of ʿAyn Ḏj̲ālūt [ q.v.] at Ḥimṣ in 680/1281. Though this battle was won by Ḳalāwūn, the real architect of the victory was undoubtedly Sultan Baybars [ q.v.], who, in the seventeen years of his rule (658/1260-676/1277), built a war-machine which, in spite of the decline it underwent during the four years following his death, proved to be strong enough to break one of the mightiest armies which the Mongol Īlk̲h̲āns ever put into the field. In the battle of ʿAy…

, Banū , better known in the sources as the Āl Muhannā, an Arab Bedouin branch of the Banū Rabīʿa, descendants of a minor line of the D̲j̲arrāḥ family, who in return belonged to the larger tribe of Ṭayyiʾ. In genealogical terms, Ṭayyiʾ was part of Ḳaḥṭān, and consequently the Banū Muhannā were treated as Yamanī in their general allegiance. It is known that Ṭayyiʾ, who were well-established in southern Bilād al-S̲h̲ām, formed part of the Ḳarāmiṭa [see ḳarmaṭī ] army, which in 360/971 took over al-Ramla [ q.v.] in Palestine. The Ṭayyiʾ’s power increased to the extent that they were a…

(Latin Emesa, French and English Homs, Turkish Humus), town in Syria (36° E. and 34° 20′ N.) 500 m above sea level on the eastern bank of the Orontes (Nahr al-ʿĀṣī), in the centre of a vast cultivated plain which is bounded in the east by the desert and in the west by volcanic mountains. Situated at the entrance to a depression between the mountains of Lebanon and the D̲j̲abal Anṣāriyya, Ḥimṣ benefits from the climatic influences of the sea which come …

, a major branch of the S̲h̲īʿa with numerous subdivisions. It branched off from the Imāmiyya [see it̲h̲nā ʿas̲h̲ariyya ] by tracing the imāmate through Imām D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ’s son Ismāʿīl, after whom it is named. History: Pre-Fāṭimid and Fāṭimid times. After the death of D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ in 148/765 a group of his followers held fast to the imāmate of his son Ismāʿīl, who had been named by him as his successor but had predeceased him. Some of them maintained that Ismāʿīl had not died and would reappear a…

, pl. Ḳarāmiṭa, name given to the adherents of a branch of the Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.]. Originally it is generally reported to have referred to the followers of Ḥamdān Ḳarmaṭ [ q.v.], an Ismāʿīlī leader in the sawād of al-Kūfa, whose surname Ḳarmaṭ (also Ḳarmaṭūya) is variously explained in the sources as meaning short-legged or red-eyed. It is to be noted, however, that the Imāmī scholar al-Faḍl b. S̲h̲ād̲h̲ān of Naysābūr, who died in 260/873-4, already wrote a refutation of the Ḳarāmiṭa ( al-Radd ʿalā ’l-Ḳarāmiṭa ). Thus either the missionary activity of Ḥamdā…

(bi-amr Allāh ), second caliph of the Fāṭimid [ q.v.] dynasty. One of the less illustrious members of the dynasty, his name evokes the memory of grave defeats and is eclipsed by that of the “man on the donkey”, the famous Abū Yazīd [ q.v.]. As a ruler, however, al-Ḳāʾim does not appear to have been inadequate for his task nor to have lacked energy in exercising authority. Before his accession to power in 322/934, he had already had long experience of public affairs since from his youth he had been entrusted by al-Mahdī [ q.v.] with a share in governing Ifrīḳiya. While still a child, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim…