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, a ruined site in Transcaspia (the modern Türkmenistan SSR) north-west of the confluence of the Atrak and its right bank tributary the Sumbar, or more exactly, on the road which runs from Čat at right angles to the road connecting Čikis̲h̲ler with the railway station of Aydi̊n. The ruins are surrounded by a wall of brick and a ditch and have an area of 320 acres. The old town, situated in the steppes which are now peopled by Turkomans, received its water from a canal led from the Atrak about 40 miles above Čat. Near the latter place, the can…

, literally, “land of the S̲h̲ūl” [see s̲h̲ūl. 1. above], a district, formerly a bulūk , in the southern Persian province of Fārs. Three epochs must be distinguished in the history of the district: one before the arrival of the S̲h̲ūl, the period of their rule (from the 7th/13th centuries), and the period of its occupation by the Mamassanī Lurs about the beginning of the 12th/18th century. During the Sāsānid period, the district was included in the kūra of S̲h̲āpūr-k̲h̲ūra. The founding of its capital Nawbandagan (Nawband̲j̲ān) is attributed to S̲h̲…

¶ i.—General Introduction The Kurds, an Iranian people of the Near East, live at the junction of more or less laicised Turkey, S̲h̲īʿi Iran, Arab and Sunnī ʿIrāḳ and North Syria, and Soviet Transcaucasia. The economic and strategic importance of this land, Kurdistān, is undeniable. Since the end of the First World War, the Kurdish people, like all the rest of their neighbours, have undergone considerable transformations as much in the political order as in the economic, social and cultural domain. …

, Süldüz , a Mongol tribe which played a considerable role in mediaeval Islamic history of the Mongol and II K̲h̲ānid periods. According to Berezin, the correct Mongol form would be Süldes (pl. of sülde “good fortune”; Vladimirtsov interpreted sülde as “le génie-protecteur habitant le drapeau”). L. Ligeti, Die Herkunft des Volksnamens Kirgis , in Körösi Csoma Archivum , i (1925), saw in the ending of Suld-uz, as in Ḳi̊rḳ-i̊z, the remains of an ancient Turkish plural suffix (cf. biz “we”, siz “you”, etc.) and as a hypothetical singular quoted the name of a Ḳi̊rg̲h̲i̊z clan Su…

(called in Nog̲h̲ay Turkish, Ḳuman , in Čerkes, Phs̲h̲iz ), one of the four great rivers of the Caucasus (Rion, Kura, Terek and Ḳuban). It is about 450 miles long. It rises near Mount Elburz at a height of 13,930 feet. Its three constituents (K̲h̲urzuḳ, Ulu-Ḳam, Uč-Ḳulan) join together before reaching the defile through which the Ḳuban enters the plains (at a height of 1,075 feet). The Ḳuban at first runs through the wooded outer spurs of the mountains and then, taking a westerly di…

, a Persian corruption of sog̲h̲uḳ bulaḳ “cold spring”, Kurdish Sā-blāg̲h̲, the name of a district in southwestern Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, to the south of Lake Urmiya, and also the former name of its chef-lieu, the modern Mahābād [ q.v.]. The district comprises essentially Mukrī Kurdistān, inhabited by the sedentary Mukrī and Debok̲h̲rī tribes of Kurds, speaking the Kurmānd̲j̲ī form of the Kurdish language (classically described by O. Mann in his Die Mundart der Mukri-Kurden . Kurdisch-persische Forschungen , 4th ser. vol. iii/1-2, Berlin 1906-9. Cf. Min…

, name of a Turkish tribe in Persia. In particular, the name refers to the ruling faroily of the Ḳarā-Ḳoyūnlū federation of Türkmen tribes (also called Bārānī). It is most probable that the name (“those of Bahār”) is connected with the village of Bahār (Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, x, 290: W. hān , read Vahār ) situated at 13 kms. north of Hamadān. According to Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, Nuzha , 107 (Eng. transl. 106) the castle of Bahār served as residence to Sulaymān-s̲h̲āh b. Parčam Īwāʾī, who later became one of the three chief ministers of the caliph al…

, a district of the Caspian coastlands region of Persia comprising the western half of Māzandarān [ q.v.]. Iranian tradition. According to Darmesteter, Avesta , ii, 416, Rūyān corresponds to the mountain called Raodita (“reddish”) in Yas̲h̲t , 19, 2, and Rōyis̲h̲nōmand in Bundahis̲h̲n , xii, 2, 27 (tr. West, 34). Al-Bīrūnī, Chronologie , ed. Sachau, 220, makes Rūyān the scene of the exploits of the archer Āris̲h̲ (cf. Ẓahīr al-Dīn Marʿas̲h̲ī, Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Ṭabaristān u Rūyān u Māzandarān , ed. Dorn, 18 [ Yas̲h̲t 8, 6, in this connection mentions the hill Aryō-xs̲h̲nθa]). In the …

, a town in the mediaeval Islamic province of northern D̲j̲ibāl some 50 km/32 miles to the southeast of Zand̲j̲ān [ q.v.] (lat. 36° 24′ N., long. 48° 50′ E.). 1. History. Sulṭāniyya was founded towards the end of the 7th/13th century by the Mongol Il K̲h̲ānids and served for a while in the following century as their capital. The older Persian name of the surrounding district was apparently S̲h̲āhrūyāz or S̲h̲ārūyāz/S̲h̲arūbāz (which was to be the site, adjacent to Sulṭāniyya, of the tomb which the Il K̲h̲ānid Abū Saʿīd [ q.v.] built for himself, according to Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū). It was orig…

( banū ʿannāz ), a dynasty (c. 381-511/991-1117) in the frontier region between ʿIrāḳ and Iran, which was one of the manifestations of the period "between the Arabs and the Turks" when, in the wake of the westward expansion of the Būyids, numerous principalities of Iranian origin sprang up in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān and Kurdistān. As the rise of the Banū ʿAnnāz was based on the S̲h̲ād̲h̲and̲j̲ān Kurds, the dynasty should be considered as Kurdish, although the Arabic names and titles of the majority of the rulers indicate the Arab links of the ruling fami…

1. Town in the Persian province of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. Position. The town lies about 40 miles north of Tabrīz, halfway between it and the Araxes or Aras in lat. 38° 25′ 30″ N. and 45° 46″ E. at an altitude of ca. 4,400 feet/1,360m. (it is 42 miles from Marand to D̲j̲ulfā). The road from Tabrīz to K̲h̲oy also branches off at Marand. A shorter road from Tabrīz to K̲h̲oy follows the north bank of Lake Urmiya and crosses the Mis̲h̲owdag̲h̲ range by the pass between Tasūd̲j̲ [ q.v.] and Ḍiyā al-Dīn. Marand, which is surrounded by many gardens, occupies the eastern corner of a rather beau…

, a district in Eastern Transcaucasia. In Armenian it is called S̲h̲akʿē, in Georgian S̲h̲akʿa (and S̲h̲akik̲h̲?); the Arabs write S̲h̲akkay = S̲h̲akʿē (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 123, al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 183, al-Balād̲h̲urī, 206), S̲h̲akkī (Yāḳūt, iii, 311), S̲h̲akkan (Ibn al-Faḳīh, 293, al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ , 194), S̲h̲akīn (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ ii, 68-9 = § 500). The usual boundaries of S̲h̲akkī were: on the east, the Gök-čay which separates it from S̲h̲īrwān [ q.v.] proper; on the west, the Alazan (Turk. Ḳani̊ḳ?) and its left tributary the Ḳas̲h̲ḳa-čay, which separ…

, or Bāward , a town and district on the northern slopes of the mountains of Ḵh̲urāsān in an area now belonging to the autonomous Turkoman republic which forms part of the U.S.S.R. The whole oasis region including Nasā [ q.v.], Abīward etc. (known by the Turkish name of Ātāk "foothills") played a great part in ancient times as the first line of defence of Ḵh̲urāsān against the nomads. In the Arsacid period this region was in the ancestral country of the dynasty. Isidore of Charax, par. 13 (at the beginning of the Christian era) mentions between Παρθυηνή (with the…

, conventionally Van , the name of a lake and of a town (lat. 38° 28’ N., long. 43° 21’ E.) in what is now the Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey. 1. The lake (modern Tkish., Van Gölü). This is a large stretch of water now spanning the ils of Van and Bitlis. It lies at an altitude of 1,720 m/5,640 feet, with a rise in level during the summer when the snows on the surrounding mountain ranges melt. Its area is 3,737 km2/1,443 sq. miles. Being landlocked, with no outlet, it has a high content of mineral salts, especially sodium carbonate, which makes its water undrinkable, but…

, a small town in Persia, on the eastern (winter) road from S̲h̲īrāz to Iṣfahān. By the present-day highway Ābādah lies at 280 km. from S̲h̲īrāz, at 204 km. from Iṣfahān, and by a road branching off eastwards (via Abarḳūh) at 100 km. from Yazd. In the present-day administration (1952) Ābādah is the northernmost district ( s̲h̲ahristān ) of the province ( astān ) of Fārs. The population is chiefly engaged in agriculture and trade (opium, castor-oil; sesame-oil). Iḳlīd (possibly * kilid "key [to Fārs]") is another small town belonging to Ābādah. The whole…

, the name of two places in Persia. I. Tihrān, a city of northern Persia. 1. Geographical position. 2. History to 1926. 3. The growth of Tihrān. (a). To ca 1870. (b). Urbanisation, monuments, cultural and socioeconomic life until the time of the Pahlavīs. (c). Since the advent of the Pahlavīs. II. Tihrān, the former name of a village or small town in the modern province of Iṣfahān. I. Tihrān, older form (in use until the earlier 20th century) Ṭihrān (Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 51, gives both forms, with Ṭihrān as the head word; al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, i…

(written in Arabic as Māridīn, in Greek as Μάρδης, Μάργδις, in Syriac as Mardē and in modern Turkish as Mardin), a town in what was in mediaeval Islamic times Upper Mesopotamia or al-D̲j̲azīra, in the region of Diyār Rabīʾa [ q.v.] lying on a slope rising to an altitude of 3780 ft./1152 m. in lat. 37° 18′ N. and long. 40° 44′ E. The modern town, in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border, is the chef-lieu of the il (formerly vilayet ) of the same name. Position. In Upper Mesopotamia, the watershed between the Tigris and Euphrates is formed by the heights …

(i.e. Ilčī-yi Niẓām-s̲h̲āhī “ambassador of the Niẓām-S̲h̲āh” of the Dakhan), a Persian historian whose real name was K̲h̲wūrs̲h̲āh b. Ḳubād al-Ḥusaynī. Born in Persian ʿIrāḳ, he entered the service of Sultan Burhān [see niẓām-s̲h̲āhīs ]. The latter being converted to the S̲h̲īʿa, sent K̲h̲wūrs̲h̲āh as ambassador to Ṭahmāsp S̲h̲āh Ṣafawī. Reaching Rayy in Rad̲j̲ab 952/September 1545, he accompanied the S̲h̲āh to Georgia and S̲h̲īrwān during the campaign of 953/1546 against Alḳāṣ Mīrzā. He stayed in Persia till 971/1563, perhaps with occas…

, a dynasty of Atābegs [see atabak ] which flourished in eastern and ¶ southern Luristān between 550/1155 and 827/1423, the capital of which was Īd̲h̲ad̲j̲ [ q.v.] or Mālamīr. The eponymous founder of the dynasty, also known as Faḍlawī, was a Kurd chief of Syria named Faḍlūya. His descendants (the D̲j̲ihān-ārā mentions 9 predecessors of Abū Ṭāhir) migrated from Syria, and passing through Mayyafāriḳīn and Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān (where they made an alliance with the Amīra Dībād̲j̲ [?] of Gīlān), they arrived about 500/1006 in the plains north of Us̲h̲turān-Kūh (Luristān). Their (1) chief Abū…

(Mūnd, Mund), the longest river in Far s ( Nuzhat al-ḳulūb 50 farsak̲h̲s E.C. Ross: over 300 miles in length). The name..As a rule in Persia, sections of a river are called after the districts through which they flow. Mānd is the name of the last stretch near its mouth. The name seems to appear for the first time in the Fārs-nāma (before 510/1116), but only in the composite Māndistān (cf. below). The old name of the river is usually transcribed in Arabic characters Sakkān (al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī. 120; Ibn Ḥawḳal, 191; al-Idrīsī, tr. Jaubert, i, 401), but the orthography varies: T̲h̲akān. Fārs-nāma, GMS…