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, in mediaeval Islamic times a town, now the city of Madurai, in South India. It lies on the Vaidai river in lat. 9° 55’ N., long. 78° 07’ E. in the region known to the mediaeval Muslims as Maʿbar and to later European traders as Coromandel. For the historical geography and Islamic history of this coastal province, roughly extending from Cape Comorin northwards to Madras, see maʿbar . In 734/1334 S̲h̲arīf Ḏj̲alāl al-Dīn Aḥsan [ q.v.], governor for the Dihlī Sultan Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ [ q.v.], renounced his allegiance, and he and some seven of his successors ruled over a short-l…

, or Kākwayhids , a dynasty of Daylamī origin which ruled over part of D̲j̲ibāl or west-central Persia during the first half of the 5th/11th century as virtually independent sovereigns, and thereafter for more than a century as local lords of Yazd, tributary to the Sald̲j̲ūḳs. The rise of the Kākūyids is one aspect of the “Daylamī interlude” of Iranian history, during which hitherto submerged Daylamī and Kurdish elements rose to prominence. Under the dynamic leadership of the …

, Banū , or Mazyadids , an Arab dynasty of central ʿIrāḳ, which stemmed originally from the clan of Nās̲h̲ira of the Banū Asad [ q. v. ] established in the area between al-Kūfa and Hīt, and which flourished in the 4th-6th/10th-12th centuries. ¶ The origins of the Mazyadids, as established by G. Makdisi (see Bibl .) pace the older view (expressed e.g. in EI 1 mazyadīds ) that the family did not appear in history till the early years of the 5th/11th century, go back to the period soon after the establishment of Būyid domination in ʿIrāḳ. Ibn al-Ḏj̲āwzī relates that the Būyid amīr Muʿizz al-Dawla’s v…

, Ḳuzdār , the name of a town in mediaeval Islamic Balūčistān [ q.v.], modern town and district of Ḵh̲uzdār in the former Kalāt state [see kilāt ] in Pakistan. It lies in lat. 27° 48′ N. and long 66° 37′ E. at an altitude of 4,050 feet, some 85 miles south of Kalāt; the long, narrow valley of the Kolachi River in which it is situated is strategically important as a nodal point of communications, from Karāčī and Las Bēla [ q.vv.] in the south, from Kaččhī in the east, from Kalāt in the north, and from Makrān and K̲h̲ārān [ q.vv.] in the west. Ḳuṣdār was first raided by the Arabs…

, Banū , an Iranian dynasty which reigned in the districts of Rūyān and Rustamdār, the coastal plain and the mountainous interior respectively, of the western parts of the Caspian province of Māzandarān [ q.v.] in the second half of the 9th/15th century and in the 10th/16th century. The dynasty was in fact one of the two branches into which the ancient line of the Bādūspānids [ q.v.], whose genealogy went back to Sāsānid times, split in the middle years of the 9th/15th century. The Bādūspānids had been confined to the fortress of Nūr by the Caspian campaigns of Tīmūr in 794/139…

, a city and port of western India, on the south bank of the Tāptī and some 16 km/10 miles upstream from where the river debouches into the Gulf of Cambay (lat. 21° 10´ N., long 72° 54´ E.). The geographer Ptolemy (A.D. 150), speaks of the trade of Pulipula, perhaps Phulpāda, the sacred part of Sūrat city. Early references to Sūrat by Muslim historians must be scrutinised, owing to the confusion of the name with Sorath (Saurās̲h̲tra), but in 774/1373 F…

(A., also laṣş , luṣṣ , pl. luṣūṣ , with maṣdar s luṣūṣiyya , talaṣṣuṣ (see LA 1, viii, 355-6, and Lane, s.v.), one of the two main words in Arabic for thief robber (the other being sāriḳ ); in Persian we have duzd “thief”, duzdī “theft”, and in old Turkish og̲h̲ri̊ , Ottoman k̲h̲ayrsi̊z , modern hırsız . Arabic liṣṣ and the unassimilated variants li/a/uṣt must have appeared in the language during the Byzantine period, presumably via Syriac leṣtā , whilst there exists the form listīs , closer to the Greek original λῃστής in Mishnaic Hebrew and Palestine Jewish Aramaic (see S. Krauss, Griechische u…

(p.), literally “the holder of an ustān [ q.v.] or province”, an administrative term originally found in Sāsānid Persia for the governor of a province or for the official in charge of state domains (see Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Araber , 448). When the Arabs conquered ʿIrāḳ, the old Sāsānid state lands were taken over as ṣawāfī al-ustān and administered by ustāndārs for the caliph ʿUmar (see M.J. Morony, Iraq after the Muslim conquest , Princeton 1984, 68-9 and index s.v. ustāndār). The title probably continued to be used meanwhile by local potentates in the un-Islami…

(t.), lit. rain stone, in Arabic texts appearing as ḥad̲j̲ar al-maṭar , this being a magical stone by means of which rain, snow, fog, etc., could be conjured up by its holder(s). In particular, knowledge and use of such stones has been widespread until very recent times in Inner Asia. Belief in the existence of stones and other means of controlling the weather has been widespread throughout both the Old and New Worlds (see Sir J.G. Frazer, The golden bough, a study in magic and religion, abridged ed., London 1922, 75-8). Belief in a stone seems to have been general amongst the e…

, a town and district in Central Asia, now the town and oblast of Leninabad in the Tadzhik SSR, the town lying in 40° 17′ lat. N. and 69° 37′ long. E. The mediaeval town was strung out along the left bank of the middle Si̊r Daryā at the southernmost bend of its course and at the entrance to the Farg̲h̲āna valley. It lay in the ill-defined borderlands between the Transoxanian districts of Īlāḳ [ q.v. in Suppl.] and Us̲h̲rūsana [ q.v.], and was generally reckoned as being connected administratively with one or other of these two in the early middle ages. Its destinies were, ho…

or al-Naws̲h̲ari , Abū Mūsā ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad, general (said to be Turkish, but perhaps an Iranian from K̲h̲urāsān, since al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, xiii, 201-2, derives the nisba al-Nūs̲h̲ārī ( sic) from Nūs̲h̲ār, a village in the district of Balk̲h̲) from the guard of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs at Sāmarrā and governor of Damascus on various occasions during the caliphates of al-Muntaṣir, al-Mustaʿīn and al-Muʿtazz [ q.vv.] from 247/861 onwards. At the accession of al-Muʿtazz in 252/866, he expanded southwards into Palestine, displacing the Arab governor of Ramla [ q.v.], ʿĪsā b. …

“Ṭalḥa of the Ṭalḥas”, the name by which the early Islamic Arab commander Abū Muḥammad Ṭalḥa b. ʿAbd Allāh b. K̲h̲alaf al-K̲h̲uzāʿī was known. Ibn K̲h̲allikān, ed. ʿAbbās, iii, 88, tr. de Slane, ii, 53, explains that he got this cognomen because his mother’s name was Ṭalḥa bt. Abī Ṭalḥa. On his mother’s side he was connected with Ḳurays̲h̲ (Caskel-Strenziok, Ğamharat an-nasab , ii, 555). He appears in Umayyad history as governor of Sīstān around the end of the caliphate of Yazīd I, being appointed by the governor of K̲h̲urāsān Salm b. Ziyād [ q.v.] just after an Arab raid into eastern Af…

, a town in northern Afg̲h̲ānistān, situated in lat. 36° 42′ N. and long. 67° 06′ E., at an altitude of 1,235 feet/380 m. in the foothills of the northern outliers of the Hindū-Kus̲h̲ [ q.v.]. The great classical and mediaeval Islamic town of Balk̲h̲ [ q.v.], modern Wazīrābād, lay some 14 miles/20 km. to the west of Mazār-i S̲h̲arīf, and until the Tīmūrid period was the most important urban centre of the region. Previously to that time, the later Mazār-i S̲h̲arīf was marked by the village of Ḵh̲ayr, later called Ḵh̲ōd̲j̲a Ḵh̲ayrān. On two d…

, the ancient title of the rulers of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.], used regularly in the early Islamic period (cf. Ṭabarī, ii, 1238, events of 93/712) until the Mongol invasions, and sporadically thereafter; hence as with the designations Afs̲h̲īn and Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īd [ q.vv.], this is an example of the survival of what was probably an ancient Central Asian Iranian title well into Islamic times. The K̲h̲wārazmian scholar Bīrūnī gives the names and genealogical sequence of the first line of K̲h̲wārazm-S̲h̲āhs, the house of Afrīg̲h̲, which began, so he says, in 305 A.D. and continued unti…

, an ancient town of northern India in the K̲h̲ad̲j̲uhā taḥṣīl of Fatḥpūr District in the former British United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh. It lies in lat. 26° 7′ N. and long. 80° 22′ E. on the Rind River some 12 miles/20 km. from the Ḏj̲amnā (Jumna) River between Kānpūr (Cawnpore) and Fatḥpūr. In early times it was apparently held by the Rād̲j̲put line of the Rād̲j̲ās of Argal, and the fortress there may have been their ancestral centre. Under the Mug̲h̲als, Kōŕā (sometimes spelt in Marāt́hi and Persian sources as Kurrah, and to be distinguished from Kārā Manīkpūr, an adjacent but separate sar…

Res̲h̲t , a town of the Persian province of Gīlān [ q.v.], in the Caspian Sea lowlands and lying on a branch of the Safīd Rūd [ q.v.] in lat. 37° 18ʹ N. and 49° 38ʹ E. It has long been the commercial centre of Gīlān, with its fortunes fluctuating with the state of sericulture and silk manufacture. However, the town is not mentioned by the early Arabic geographers, who localise the silk industry in ¶ the province of Ṭabaristān to the east [see māzan darān ], and it is the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam which first gives the name, but as a district, not a town (tr. Minorsky, 137, §…

, term which may be translated approximately as chamberlain, used in Muslim countries for the person responsible for guarding the door of access to the ruler, so that only approved visitors may approach him. The term quickly became a title corresponding to a position in the court and to an office the exact nature of which varied considerably in different regions and in different periods. Basically the Master of Ceremonies, the ḥād̲j̲ib often appears as being in fact a superintendent of the Palace, a chief of the guard or a righter of wrongs, s…

, Abū Isḥāḳ Muḥammad b. Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 218-27/833-42, son of the caliph Hārūn by a slave concubine Mārida. During the reign of his brother and predecessor al-Maʾmūn [ q.v.], al-Muʿtaṣim achieved a reputation as a skilful commander in Anatolia and as governor in Egypt. When al-Maʾmūn died in the Byzantine marches in Rad̲j̲ab 218/August 833, al-Muʿtaṣim was recognised as caliph despite support within the army for his nephew al-ʿAbbās b. al-Maʾmūn (who was, in fact, later to conspire against al-Muʿta…

, the name of two places in India. 1. A port on the southwestern coast of the Kāt́hiāwāŕ peninsula, in lat. 21° 28′ N. and long 70° 14′ E., formerly coming within the native state of D̲j̲unāgaŕh [ q.v.] and with a Muslim local chief there tributary to the Nawwāb of D̲j̲unāgaŕh; the mosque there carries a date 785/1383. Bibliography Imperial gazetteer of India 2, xvii, 180. 2. A town in the former British Indian territory of Rajputana, within the native state of Kotah, in lat. 25° 20′ N. and long. 70° 31′ E. and 44 miles/70 km. to the northeast of Kotah city. He…

(p.), the term applied to the days of abstinence from eating meat introduced by the Mug̲h̲al emperor of India, Akbar (963-1014/1556-1605 [ q.v.]). His chronicler Abu ’l-Faḍl ʿAllāmī [ q.v.] notes in his Āʾīn-i Akbarī (tr. H. Blochmann, i, 51-2, more accurately tr. in Shireen Moosvi, Episodes in the life of Akbar. Contemporary records and reminiscences, New Delhi 1994, 100-1) that Akbar abstained thus on Fridays and Sundays, and then on various other days of the year, including the first day of each solar month and the whole of the first month Farwar…