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, Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Mīrzā Ḥasan , Persian scholar of the 19th century and author of a historicalgeographical work on his native province of Fārs, the Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī (the latter part of the book’s title being a reference to the Ḳād̲j̲ār sultan Nāṣir al-Dīn S̲h̲āh, in whose reign Ḥasan Fasāʾī wrote). He was born, according to the autobiography inserted into his book, in 1237/1821-2 in the small town of Fasā [ q.v.] in Fārs, of a family which had been prominent in the intellectual and religious life of S̲h̲īrāz for at least four centuries; various members of it had be…

, the name in Arabic geographical writing for the Araxes River (Perso-Turkish form Aras, Armenian Eraskʿ, Georgian Rak̲h̲s̲h̲ī, modern Aras). It rises in what is now eastern Turkey near Erzurum and flows generally in an eastwards direction for 1,072 km/670 miles into the Caspian Sea. Its middle reaches, from a point near Mount Ararat, today form the boundary between the former Azerbaijan SSR and Persia, with the lower stretch receiving the Kur River and flowing through the Mūḳān [ q.v.] steppes and what is now wholly Azerbaijani territory. The early Arabic name al-Rass led the Musl…

, the Ottoman Turkish form of modern Turkish Payas, a small town at the head of the Gulf of Alexandretta 18 km/12 miles north of Iskandarūn [ q.v.] (lat. 36° 46′ N., long. 36° 10′ E.). Lying as it ¶ does in the very narrow coastal corridor between the sea and the Amanus Mts. or D̲j̲abal al-Lukkām [ q.v.], the modern Turkish Gavur Dağlari, Payās has always been a strategically important point on the route from Cilicia to Antioch; the name itself goes back to that of the classical Greek town of Baiae (see PW, ii/2, col. 2775 (Ruge)). In the early Islamic period, Payās was on the road connecting…

, the name found in pre-modern usage for a region of what is now eastern Afgh̲ānistān, also appearing in mediaeval Arabic usage as its Arabic equivalent Bilād al-Dāwar. The region straddled the courses of the upper Helmand river and the Arg̲h̲andāb to the north of their confluence at Bust, hence it was bounded on the north by Zābulistān and al-Ruk̲h̲k̲h̲ad̲j̲ [ q.vv.] on the south and southeast, but the boundaries of all these regions were indeterminate, and Zamīndāwar, in particular, seems often to have been confused in the sources with that of Zābulistān. The early Arabic geographers …

, scene of a battle in eastern Syria in 73/692-3 between the Arab tribes of Sulaym and Tag̲h̲lib. Ḵh̲ālid b. al-Walīd campaigned here in 12/633 (Ṭabarī, i, 2068, 2072-3). Yāḳūt describes it as a range of hills stretching from ʿUrḍ near Palmyra to the Euphrates, corresponding to the modern D̲j̲ebel el-Bis̲h̲rī. The battle is also sometimes called after al-Raḥūb, a local water-course. The “Day of al-Bis̲h̲r” was the climax of several clashes between the two tribes. This strife lay to some extent outside the Ḳays-Kalb tribal feud of the period; both tribes we…

, the name generally given by the classical Islamic geographers to the Indus river (Skr. Sindhu, Σίνθος, “Ινδς, Lat. Sindus, Indus), but Nahr al-Sind, Sind-Rūdh, Nahr Multān, etc. were also used by them. There was, in fact, considerable confusion over the precise nomenclature of the Indus and its constituents, with, in particular, uncertainty over what was to be regarded as the main river channel. Thus al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, followed by Ibn Ḥawḳal, records the Nahr Multān or Mihrān as rising in the mountains of Central Asia. They compa…

(a., pl. mak̲h̲ālīf ), a term of mediaeval Islamic administrative geography used particularly in Yemen. The sources usually state that it is the equivalent of Arabic kūra [ q.v.] “administrative province” (Nas̲h̲wān al-Ḥimyarī, Die auf Südarabien bezüglichen Angaben im Šams al-ʿulūm , Leiden-London 1916, 34) or Persian rustāḳ [ q.v.] “rural area” (al-K̲h̲alīl b. Aḥmad, cited by Yāḳūt, Buldān , Beirut 1374-6/1955-7, i, 37, tr. Wadie Jwaideh, The introductory chapters of Yāqūt’s Muʿjam al-buldān , Leiden 1959, 56-7), with a fanciful explanation tha…

, Arab commander in the service of Abū Muslim at the time of the ʿAbbāsid Revolt (d. 135/752-3). He was one of the naḳībs [ q.v.] chosen by Abū Muslim from the leaders of the Arabs in K̲h̲urāsān in 1340/747-8. With the triumph of the ʿAbbāsid cause, Abū Muslim appointed Ziyād governor of Buk̲h̲ārā and Sogdia, where he suppressed a rebellion of the discontented Arab garrison in Buk̲h̲ārā led by S̲h̲arīk (or S̲h̲urayk) b. S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Mahrī (133/750-1). Shortly afterwards he commanded the Arab expedition sent into the la…

Ḵh̲ārs̲h̲ād̲h̲ b. ʿAḍud al-Dawla Fanā-Ḵh̲usraw , Būyid supreme amīr , who ruled in ʿIrāḳ and then in southern Persia also from 379/989 to 403/1012) after 381/992 with the further honorific, granted by the caliph al-Ḳādir, of G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Umma, and towards the end of his life, those of Ḳiwām al-Dawla and Ṣafī Amīr al-Muʾminīn). He was the third son, after Ṣamṣām al-Dawla Marzubān and S̲h̲araf al-Dawla S̲h̲īrzīl, of the great amīr ʿAḍud al-Dawla [ q.v.], who had built up the Būyid confederation into the mightiest empire of its time in the Islamic east. On ʿAḍud al-Dawla’s death in S̲h̲…

, a technical term of fiscal practice in the hydraulic civilisation of early Islamic ʿIrāḳ, doubtless going back to earlier periods there. It is defined by al-K̲h̲wārazmī in his Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm , 70, as “a chain or cable which is fastened right across a river and which prevents boats from getting past”, and more specifically by Ibn Rusta, 185, tr. Wiet, 213, as a barrier across the Tigris at Ḥawānīt near Dayr al-ʿĀḳūl [ q.v.] consisting of a cable stretched ¶ between two ships at each side of the river, preventing ships passing by night (and thus evading the tolls levied b…

, rūdbār , meaning literally in Persian, a district along a river or a district intersected by rivers, and a frequent toponym in Islamic Persia. Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 770-8, and al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābad, vi, 187-90, list Rūd̲h̲bārs at Iṣfahān, Ṭūs, Balk̲h̲, Marw, Hamad̲h̲ān and Bag̲h̲dād, and in the provinces of S̲h̲āsh and Daylam. As homes or places of origin of noted scholars, the most significant of these were the Rūd̲h̲bār by the gate of Ṭābarān, one of the two townships making up Ṭūs [ q.v.]; the one near Bag̲h̲dād; and the one near Hamad̲h̲ān. In the historical geog…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, littérateur of the Fāṭimid period, and librarian and boon-companion to the caliph al-ʿAzīz (365-86/975-96 [ q.v.]), died at Fusṭāṭ in 388/988 or possibly in the succeeding decade. Ibn K̲h̲allikān explains the unusual cognomen S̲h̲ābus̲h̲tī as being a name of Daylamī origin, and not a nisba ; an origin in s̲h̲āh pus̲h̲tī “he who guards the king’s back” has been somewhat fancifully suggested. Al-S̲h̲ābus̲h̲ī’s works included a K. al-Yusr baʿd al-ʿusr , a Marātib al-fuḳahāʾ , a K. al-Tawḳīf wa ’l-tak̲h̲wīf , a K. al-Zuhd wa ’l-mawāʿiẓ …

, a river of the northern part of what is now the Mongolian People’s Republic; it joins the Selenga to flow northwards eventually into Lake Baikal. ¶ For Turcologists, the banks of this river are of supreme importance as the locus for the Old Turkish inscriptions, carved in the middle decades of the 8th century in a so-called “runic” script, in fact derived ultimately from the Aramaic one [see turks. Languages]. These inscriptions are the royal annals of the Köktürk empire, centred on this region till its fall in 744 and supersession by a Uyg̲h̲ur [ q.v.] grouping based on Ḳara Balg̲h̲asun…

, a town on the Murg̲h̲āb river in mediaeval K̲h̲urāsān, five or six stages up river from the city of Marw al-S̲h̲āhid̲j̲ān [ q.v.], where the river leaves the mountainous region of G̲h̲arčistān [see g̲h̲ard̲j̲istān ] and enters the steppe lands of what is now the southern part of the Ḳara Ḳum [ q.v.]. The site seems to be marked by the ruins at the modern Afg̲h̲ān town of Bālā Murg̲h̲āb (inlat. 35° 35′ N. and long 63° 20′ E.) described by C. E. Yate in his Northern Afghanistan or letters from the Afghan Boundary Commission , Edinburgh and London 1888, 208; the modern…

, a place in the desert fringes of the early Islamic region of the Balḳāʾ [ q.v.], in what is now Jordan, some 22 km./14 miles southeast of ʿAmmān and 16 km./10 miles northeast of the Umayyad palace of Ms̲h̲attā or Mus̲h̲attā [ q.v.]. Visible there are the remains of an Umayyad settlement. These include traces of a palace, a tower which may have been part of a mosque, and signs of an extensive irrigation system in the form of sites of three dams nearby plus a fine stone-lined cistern, still much used by Bedouins of the Banū Ṣak̲h̲r for wa…

, a small town in northeastern Persia in the modern province of K̲h̲urāsān. It is on the Mas̲h̲had-Harāt highway, 150 km/96 miles from Mas̲h̲had and 75 km/48 miles from the Afg̲h̲ān frontier (lat. 35° 16′ N., long. 60° 36′ E.). The earlier Islamic name of Turbat-i D̲j̲ām was Būzad̲j̲ān or Pūčkān (both names in Mustawfī, Nuzha , 177, tr. 171, cf. also 143-4, tr. 151-2, where he calls it D̲j̲ām); it was here that the great mathematician Abu ’l-Wafāʾ al-Būzad̲j̲ānī (d. 368/998 [ q.v.]) was born. The geographers describe it being four stages from Nīs̲h̲āpūr, in a fertile agricultu…

, Mohammed Marmaduke William (1875-1936), English traveller, novelist, polemicist and educationist, who became a convert to Islam at a time when British converts to Islam were much rarer than later in the 20th century, and is now best remembered for his Ḳurʾān translation, The meaning of the Glorious Koran . Born in London, the son of an Anglican clergyman and with two step-sisters who were Anglican nuns, his boyhood and formative years were spent in rural Suffolk, from which he acquired a nostalgic view of a countryside way of life which was t…

, the tak̲h̲alluṣ or pen-name of Yūsuf b. Muḥammad b. Yūsuf K̲h̲urāsānī, native of K̲h̲wāf and émigré to India, where he became physician to the Mug̲h̲al emperors Bābur and Humāyūn [ q.vv.] and a prolific writer on medical topics. It is also very probably the same Yūsufī who is the author of an ins̲h̲āʾ collection (see below). Several of his Persian medical works are extant, including a Dalāʾil al-bawl on diagnosis through examination of the urine; a Dalāʾil al-nabḍ on interpretation of the pulse; various ḳaṣīda s and ḳiṭʿa s on medical topics; rubāʿiyyāt , on which…

, modern Vezirköprü, a small town of northern Anatolia, situated 35 km/21 miles north of Merzifon [see merzifūn ] and 18 km/12 miles south of the lowest stretch of the Kizil Irmak [see Ḳi̊zi̊l-i̊rmāḳ ] (lat. 41° 09’ N, long. 35° 27’ E). There was apparently a town there or nearby, in classical times, in what was then southern Pamphylia, and in Byzantine times, the town of Gedegara (in Kātib Čelebi’s Ḏj̲ihān-nümā , Kedeg̲h̲ara). In high Ottoman times, from the 10th/16th century onwards, it came within the sand̲j̲aḳ of Amasya in the eyālet of Sivas. Ewliyā Čelebi vi…

, abū ʿalī al-ḥasan b. būya , second in age of the three brothers that founded the Būyid dynasty [see buwayhids ]. His fortunes followed those of the elder brotherʿAlī (later ʿImād al-Dawla [ q.v.]) up to the latter’s occupation of Fārs in 322/934; Rukn al-Dawla was then given the governorship of Kāzarūn and other districts. But shortly afterwards he was forced by the ʿAbbāsid general Yāḳūt, at whose expense the Būyid conquest of Fārs had been made, to seek refuge with his brother; and when Yāḳūt was in turn defeated by the Ziyārid Mardāwīd̲j̲ [ q.v.], the Būyids’ former overlord, against …