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i.—Geography The geological background: The alignments of Iran’s principal topographie features, represented by the Kūhhā-yi Alburz and the Zagros Chain, are west to east and north-west to south-east, respectively. In broad context, the Alburz is a continuation of the European Alpine structures, while the Zagros chain has been linked through Cyprus with the Dinaric Alps (Fisher, 1956). The structure of the mountain rim of the country has been influenced strongly by tectonic movement…

(in Arabic Iṣbahān), a town and province in Persia, whose name, according to Hamza al-Iṣfahānī, means “the armies” (Māfarruk̲h̲ī, Kitāb Maḥāsin Iṣfahān , ed. Sayyid D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Tihrāni, Tehran n.d., 5-6). 1. history The province, whose precise boundaries have varied at different times, is bounded on the north-east and east by the central desert. In the south-east by Yazd and Fārs, in the south and south-west by the Bak̲h̲tiyārī mountains, with pea…

, arabicized form of dehkān , the head of a village and a member of the lesser feudal nobility of Sāsānian Persia. The power of the dihḳāns derived from their hereditary title to the local administration. They were an immensely important class, although the actual area of land they cultivated as the hereditary possession of their family was often small. They were the representatives of the government vis-à-vis the peasants and their principal function was to collect taxes; and, in t…

, Muḥammad b. Asʿad D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn , was born in 830/1427 at Dawān in the district of Kāzarūn, where his father was Ḳāḍī; he claimed descent from the Caliph Abū Bakr whence his nisba al-Ṣiddīḳī. He studied with his father and then went to S̲h̲īrāz where he was a pupil of Mawlānā Muḥyī ’l-Dīn Gūs̲h̲a Kinārī and Mawlānā Humām al-Dīn Gulbārī and Ṣafī al-Dīn Īd̲j̲ī. He held the office of Ṣadr under Yūsuf b. D̲j̲ahāns̲h̲āh, …

The term …

(a., sing, mawkib ), processions. 1. Under the ʿAbbāsids and Fāṭimids The basic meaning of procession (mounted or unmounted), cortège, is found in ḥadīt̲h̲ (al-Buk̲h̲ārī. Badʾ al-k̲h̲alḳ , 6; Ibn Ḥanbal, iii, 213; al-Dārimī, 2695). This is the precise sense given in the dictionaries, and that used by the Umayyads, ʿAbbāsids and Fāṭimids, often to describe the cortège of an amīr , wazīr , or other official (see, e.g., al-Ṭabarī, ii, 1731; Hilāl al-Ṣābī, Rusūm dār al-k̲h̲ilāfa , 9-10, 12, 14ff.). By the 4th/10th century, it had acquired the broader meaning of audience as well …

, municipality, the term used in Turkish ( belediye ), Arabic, and other Islamic languages, to denote modern municipal institutions of European type, as against earlier Islamic forms of urban organisation [see madīna ]. The term, like so many modern Islamic neologisms and the innovations they express, first appeared in Turkey, where Western-style municipal institutions and services were introduced as part of the general reform programme of the Tanẓīmāt [ q.v.]. (1) turkey. The first approaches towards modern municipal administration seems to have been made by Sultan …

, in modern Arabic constitution. A word of Persian origin, it seems originally to have meant a person exercising authority, whether religious or political, and was later specialized to designate members of the Zoroastrian priesthood. It occurs in Kalīla wa-Dimna in the sense of “counsellor”, and recurs with the same sense, at a much later date, in the phrase Dustūr-i mükerrem , one of the honorific titles of the Grand Vizier in the Ottoman Empire. More commonly, dustūr was used in the sense of “rule” or “regulation”, and in particular the code of ru…

(Pers. kalān , “big, great”) is used in the 8th/14th and 9th/15th centuries to mean “leader” (cf. Ḥāfiẓ Abrū, Cinq opuscules de Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū concernant l’histoire de l’Iran au temps de Tamerlan , ed. F. Tauer, Prague 1959, 7; Muʿīn al-Dīn Natanzī, Muntak̲h̲ab al-tawārīk̲h̲-i muʿīnī , ed. J. Aubin, Tehran 1957, 257, 258, 261), and occurs especially with reference to the tribal and military classes. The phrase īl va ulūs va kalāntarān va sar k̲h̲aylān va aʿrāb va aḥs̲h̲ām va farīḳ-i Balūč is found in a document dated 874/1470 issued by Uzun Ḥasan for the ¶ government of K̲h̲urāsān and Trans…

, in modern Arabic “government”. Like many political neologisms in Islamic languages, the word seems to have been first used in its modern sense in 19th century Turkey, and to have passed from Turkish into Arabic and other languages. Ḥukūma comes from the Arabic root ḥ.k.m , with the meaning “to judge, adjudicate” (cf. the related meaning, dominant in Hebrew and other Semitic languages, of wisdom. See ḥikma ). In classical usage the verbal noun ḥukūma means the act or office of adjudication, of dispensing justice, whether by a sovereign, a judge, …

(p.) as a general term designates a present, usually from an inferior to a superior. As a technical term it denotes a “regular” tax ( pīs̲h̲kas̲h̲-i mustamarrī ) and an ad hoc tax levied by rulers on provincial governors and others, and an ad hoc impost laid by governors and officials in positions of power on the population under their control. The offering of presents to rulers and others was known from early times (cf. Abu ’l-Faḍl Bayhaḳī, Tārīk̲h̲-i Bayhaḳī , ed. A.A. Fayyāḍ, Mas̲h̲had 1350 s̲h̲ /1971, 655, 679, 705, 734-5, 789, 815). With the proliferatio…

, Naḳāra-K̲h̲āna (p.), kind of military band. The origins of the naḳḳāra-k̲h̲āna , so-called after the naḳḳāra or kettle-drum, which was one of the instruments of the military band belonging to rulers and military leaders, are obscure. There are references to it from an early period when it appears to have been synonymous with the ṭabl-k̲h̲āna [ q.v.]. Originally, its purpose was probably military and it retained this function in the Persian army until modern times. It also had ceremonial functions and these tended in the course of time to overshadow …

b. muḥammad al-kās̲h̲ānī , s̲h̲araf al-dīn abū naṣr , was treasurer and ʿāriḍ al-d̲j̲ays̲h̲ to the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan, Muḥammad b. Maliks̲h̲āh. After being succeeded by S̲h̲ams al-Mulk b. Niẓām al-Mulk as ʿāriḍ al-d̲j̲ays̲h̲ he went to Bag̲h̲dād. He was imprisoned during the reign of Maḥmūd b. Maliks̲h̲āh for a short period but subsequently appointed wazīr by Maḥmūd (521/1127-522/1128). From 526/1132-528/1134 he was wazīr to the caliph, al-Mustars̲h̲id. In 529/1134 he became wazīr to Masʿūd b. Muḥammad and held office until 530/1135-6. He died in Bag̲h̲dād in 533/113…

, commercial privileges, capitulations. i. The earliest documentary evidence for commercial privileges emanating from Muslim chanceries in the Mediterranean world dates from the 6th/12th century. While it is unlikely that these documents represent the earliest manifestation of that diplomatic and commercial activity between rulers of Islam and Christendom which culminated in the Ottoman Capitulations, it is probably useless to speculate upon either the form or the language of chancery instruments bef…

(a.), an administrative-military term in the mediaeval eastern Islamic world. From the end of the 3rd/9th century, the term, which in a general sense meant a body of armed men, sufficing for the guarding and control of a town or district on the part of the sultan, is occasionally found in the specific sense of the s̲h̲urṭa [ q.v.] (Tyan, L’organisation judicaire en pays d’Islam , Paris 1938-43, ii, 366, n. 5). As the designation for a military governor of a town or province, the term s̲h̲iḥna belongs primarily to the period of the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳs, though Ab…

, a town and district north-west of Tehran and south of Gīlān. The town is situated in 36° 15 N. and 50° E., at a height of 4,165 ft. above sea level, about 90 miles from Tehran, on the edge of a wide alluvial plain with mountains about five miles to the north. It stands on the site of an ancient city built by S̲h̲āpūr II, which according to tradition was in turn on the site of a city built by S̲h̲āpūr b. Ardas̲h̲īr (Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, Taʾrīk̲h̲-i guzīda , ed. E. G. Browne and R. A. Nicholson, 1910-13, 830, French tr. Barbier de Meynard, Description historique de la ville de Kazvin , in JA (1857)). Its po…

(a.), pasture. 1. In nomadic Arab life. The word marʿā is used only twice in the Ḳurʾān, where it has the purpose of praising the divine power (LXXIX, 31, and LXXXVII,4). In ḥadīt̲h̲ there are also two uses of this substantive to be noted (cf. Wensinck, Concordance ); one of them touches incidentally on the problem of the exploitation of pastures, but ḥadīt̲h̲ is more explicit with reference to kalaʾ , dry and green forage. In fact, a tradition asserts that “the Muslims are united ( s̲h̲urakāʾ ) in three things: water, forage and fire”; it is the principle of…

(a), official court ceremonies, both processional and non-processional. The whole range of ceremonial, including protocol and etiquette, is called also rusūm other terms found frequently are mawsim [ q.v.] and mawkib . Mawākib [ q.v.] refer specifically to solemn processions, but seem also to have had the more general meaning of audiences (for the ʿAbbāsids, see references in D. Sourdel, Le vizirat ʿabbāside de 749 à 946, Damascus 1960, ii, 684, n. 3; for the Fāṭimids, see e.g. al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ṣubḥ , iii, 494: d̲j̲ulūs [ al-k̲h̲alīfa ] fi ’l-mawākib; ayyām al-mawākib ). 1. Under the …

(a) Woman. 1. In the Arab world. For a long time, the problem of woman has been avoided or dealt with only partially or in a biased way, but now a general twinge of conscience has brought it to the focus of our attention. Not just one but many different problems confront the Arab woman and affect how she is seen by society. There is the legal aspect, defining the precise relationship between divine and human law; there is the collection of “distorted pictures” (the expression used by Etiemble ¶ with which literature in particular presents the “myth” of woman; and there is feminine b…