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, a district in the north-western part of modern Afg̲h̲ānistan, in the province of Harāt; the name is explained as being derived from the Persian bādk̲h̲īz (“a place where the wind rises”) on account of the strong winds prevailing there. By the geographers of the 4th/10th century only the district to the north-west of Harāt, between this town and Sarak̲h̲s, is called Bādg̲h̲īs. The author of the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam , probably writing from personal knowledge, describes it as a prosperous and pleasant place of three hundred villages. Later the name…

, ancient Armenian capital, whose ruins lie on the right bank of the Arpa-Čay (called by the Armenians Ak̲h̲uryan) at about 20 miles from the point where that river joins the Araxes. A suggestion has been made that the town may owe its name to a temple of the Iranian goddess Anāhita (the Greek Anaďtis). The site was inhabited in the pre-Christian period, for pagan tombs have been found in the immediate vicinity of the town. As a fortress Ānī is mentioned as early as the 5th century A.D. Its foun…

The word ḳazaḳ in the Turkic language can be first documented in the 8th/14th century in ¶ the meaning “independent; vagabond”. These and similar meanings, such as “free and independent man, vagabond, adventurer, etc.” are known in the modern Turkic languages too. During the turmoils under the Tīmūrids, the word signified the pretenders in contrast to the actual rulers, and also their supporters, who led the life of an adventurer or a robber at the head of their men. At the same time, the word began also to be …

b. hās̲h̲im , of the aristocratic dihḳān family Kāmkāriyān (who had settled near Marw), which boasted of Sāsānian descent, governor of Ḵh̲urāsān. In order to avenge the death of his brother, fallen in a fight between Persians and Arabs (in Marw), he had under ʿAmr b. al-Layt̲h̲ stirred up a rising of the people. He was taken prisoner and brought to Sīstān, whence he escaped by means of an adventurous flight, and after a new attempt at a rising in Marw he fled for refuge to th…

, a Mongol prince and ruler of the Golden Horde, grandson of Čingiz-Ḵh̲an and third son of Ḏj̲oči. Little is known of his early career. He took no part in the wars in Russia and Eastern Europe in the years 634-639/1237-1242 but was more frequently in Mongolia than Batu, whom he represented at the enthronement of Güyük (644/1246) and that of Möngke (649/1251). His yurt of appanage was originally situated, according to Rubruck, in the direction of Darband but by 653/1255 had on Batu’s orders been removed to the east of the Volga in order …

, steppe of Western Siberia, situated in the oblast ’ of Novosibirsk of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, between lat. 54° and 57° North, and bounded on the East and West by the ranges of hills which skirt the banks of the Irti̊s̲h̲ and the Ob’. This steppe, which extends for 117,000 sq. km., has numerous lakes, most of which are sait; the biggest is Lake Čani̊. The ground, which is partly marshland, also has some fertile zones, but it is essentially a cattle-rearing region. It has a cold continental climate. The population (over 500,000 inhabitants in 1949) is unequally d…

, S̲h̲arwān S̲h̲āh , the title in mediaeval Islamic times of the rulers of S̲h̲īrwān [ q.v.] in eastern Transcaucasia. The title very probably dates back to pre-Islamic times. Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 17-18, mentions the S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āh as one of the local rulers who received his title from the Sāsānid emperor Ardas̲h̲īr. Al-Balād̲h̲urī mentions the S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āh, together with an adjacent potentate, the Layzān S̲h̲āh, as amongst those encountered by the first Arab raiders into the region; he further records that…

, the modern s̲h̲ahr-i sabz (“green town”) on account of the fertility of its surroundings), a town in Özbekistān on what was once the great trade route between Samarḳand and Balk̲h̲. According to Chinese authorities, Kas̲h̲ (Chinese transcription Kʾia-s̲h̲a or Kié-s̲h̲uang-na, also Kʾius̲h̲a, as a town Ki-s̲h̲e) was founded at the beginning of the seventh century A.D.; cf. J. Marquart, Chronologie der alttürkischen Inschriften , Leipzig 1898, 57; Ērānšahr etc., Berlin 1901, 304; E. Chavannes, Documents sur les Toukiue ( Turcs ) occidentaux , St. Petersbu…

, the first of the Ḳutlug̲h̲ Ḵh̲āns of Kirmān. By origin a Ḳara-Ḵh̲itayan he was, according to Ḏj̲uwaynī, brought to Sulṭān Muḥammad Ḵh̲wārazm-S̲h̲āh after the defeat of the Ḳara-Ḵh̲itay on the Talas in 1210 and taken into his service, in which he rose to the rank of ḥād̲j̲ib or Chamberlain. According to Nasawī he had held this same office at the court of the Gür-Ḵh̲an or ruler of the Ḳara-Ḵh̲itay. Being sent on an embassy to Sulṭān Muḥammad he was forcibly detained by the latter until the final collapse of the Ḳara-Ḵh̲…

, usually written Tās̲h̲kend or Tas̲h̲kend in Arabic and Persian manuscripts, a large town in Central Asia, in the oasis of the Čirčik, watered by one of the right bank tributaries of the Si̊r Daryā [ q.v.] or Jaxartes now, since the break-up of the USSR, in the Uzbekistan Republic (lat. 41° 16’ N., long. 69° 13’ E.). 1. History till 1865. Nothing is known of the origin of the settlement on the Čirčik. According to the Greek and Roman sources, there were only nomads on the other side of the Jaxartes. In the earliest Chinese sources (from the 2nd century B.…

The Central Asian Ḵh̲ānate to which Čag̲h̲atay gave his name was really not founded till some decades after the Mongol prince’s death. Čag̲h̲atay was succeeded by his grandson Ḳara-Hülegü, the son of Mö’etüken who fell at Bāmiyān. Ḳara-Hülegü had been designated as Čag̲h̲atay’s heir both by Čingiz-Ḵh̲ān himself and by Ögedey; he was however deposed by the Great Ḵh̲ān Güyük (1241-1248) in favour of Yesü-Möngke, the fifth son of Čag̲h̲atay, with whom Güyük was on terms of personal friendship. In 1…

, Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Ḥayy b. al-Ḍaḥḥāk b. Maḥmūd , Persian historian who flourished in the middle of the 5th/11th century. Nothing is known of his life. His nisba shows that he came from Gardīz [ q.v.]; since he says that he received information about Indian festivals from al-Bīrūnī [ q.v.], he may have been his pupil. His work, entitled Zayn al-ak̲h̲bār, was written in the reign of the G̲h̲aznawid Sultan ʿAbd al-Ras̲h̲īd (440/1049-443/1052). It contains a history of the pre-Islamic kings of Persia, of Muḥammad and the Caliphs to the year 423/1032, and a d…

, after the Aral [ q.v.], the largest inland lake of Central Asia (18,432 sq. km.), into which the Ili and several other less important rivers flow. The lake’s existence was unknown to the Arab geographers of the Middle Ages. The anonymous author of the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam (372/982-983; comp. J. Marquart, Osteuropäische und ostasiatische Streifzüge , xxx, makes the Ili (Īlā) flow into the Issi̊ḳ-Ḳul. Of all the Muslim authors, Muḥammad Ḥaydar is the only one, to our knowledge, who, towards the middle of the 10th/16th century ( Taʾrik̲h̲-i Ras̲h̲īdī , trans. by E. D. …

, a town on the north bank of the Oxus river [see āmū daryā ] near the mouth of its tributary, the Surk̲h̲ān river (lat. 37° 15’ N., long. 67° 15’ E.), now the town of Termez in the southernmost part of the Uzbekistan Republic. As Samʿānī, who spent 12 days there, testifies, the name was pronounced Tarmīd̲h̲ in the town itself ( K. al-Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābad, iii, 41) which is confirmed by the Chinese Ta-mi (e.g. Hüan Tsang, tr. St. Julien, Mémoires sur les contrées occidentales, i, 25). Russian officers in 1889 also heard the pronunciation Termiz or Tarmi̊z ( Sbornik materialov po Azii …

(variant: Ḳumiḳ) a people of the eastern Caucasus. The Ḳumuḳs belong to the Ḳipčaḳ Turkic ethnic group, along with the Nog̲h̲ay, Karačay and Balkar. They live north of the main chain of the Great Caucasus, on the northern, north-eastern and eastern slopes of the Dāg̲h̲istānian Caucasus between the foothills and the Caspian Sea, from Derbend to Adz̲h̲i-Su (near the lower Terek River). Although confined to a narrow strip of land in the south, they inhabit a wider area near the Terek in the north. The Ḳumuḳs are bordered by the Nog̲h̲ays in the north, the Avars [ q.v.] and Darg̲h̲ins [ q.v.] in th…

, a district on both sides of the middle course of the Wak̲h̲s̲h̲ or Surk̲h̲āb (Turk. Ḳi̊zi̊l Ṣū), one of the rivers which form the Āmū Daryā, called Rās̲h̲t by the Arab geographers (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih 34, 211 f.; Ibn Rusta, 92 f., 290; Yaʿḳūbī, Buldān , 260). The principal place (or “the fortress”, al-Ḳalʿa , al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 340) of Rās̲h̲t corresponded as regards its situation perfectly with the modern Garm or Harm, the only town in Ḳaratigin. Rās̲h̲t then formed one of the frontier lands of Islām and was ¶ defended on the east against the inroads of the Turks by a wall built by Faḍl b. Barmak [ q…

al-ḥād̲j̲ib , abū saʿīd (his alleged second name Hārūn which occurs in a single passage of Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, ix, 294, is probably due to an error of the author or of a copyist), Turkish slave, later general of the G̲h̲aznawid Sebuk Tegīn and his two successors and governor of Ḵh̲wārizm. Already under Sebuk Tegīn he attained the highest rank in the bodyguard, that of a "great ḥād̲j̲ib "; under Maḥmūd he commanded the right wing in the great battle against the Ḳarak̲h̲ānids (22 Rabīʿ II 398/4 Jan. 1008, and in 401/1010-1 he is mentioned as governor of Harāt. After the conquest of k̲h̲wārizm in 408/1…

, a Persian historian, wrote in 1233/1818 a short summary of the geographical relations of Central Asiatic countries (Afg̲h̲ānistān, Buk̲h̲ārā, Ḵh̲īwā, Ḵh̲oḳand, Tibet and Kas̲h̲mīr), and of historical events in those countries from 1160 (accession of Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Durrānī) down to his own times. ʿAbd al-Karīm had already left his native country in 1222/1807-8 and accompanied an embassy to Constantinople; he remained there till his death, which took place after 1246/1830, and wrote his book for t…

, (T., "holy father") is the old name of the city called since 1938 Ḏj̲ambul after the Ḳazak̲h̲ poet Džambul Džabaev (1846-1945), which lies on the left bank of the Ṭalās in the Ḳazak̲h̲ SSR. Until 1917 it was the capital of the district of the Si̊r Daryā in Russian Turkistān and obtained its name from the grave of the holy man Ḳara Ḵh̲ān (which is mentioned as early as the 17th century; see Maḥmūd b. Walī, Baḥr al-Asrār , MS India Office 545, fol. 1191). His mausoleum dates from the 19th century and bears no inscription. On the other hand the grave of the "little holy one" ( Kičik Awliyā …

, the name of two amīr s of the Sāmānid dynasty of Tranoxania and K̲h̲urāsān. 1. Manṣūr b. Nūḥ I, Abū Ṣaliḥ, ruler of K̲h̲urāsān and Transoxania (350-65/961-76), succeeded his brother ʿAbd al-Malik b. Nūḥ I. Ibn Ḥawḳal is able ¶ to describe the internal conditions of the Sāmānid kingdom under Manṣūr as an eye-witness; cf. especially BGA, ii, 341: fī waḳtinā hād̲h̲ā ; 344 on the character of Manṣūr “the justest king among our contemporaries, in spite of his physical weakness and the slightness of his frame”. On the vizier Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad Balʿamī, see balʿamī , where a…

, a term found in the history and ethnography of the Persian and Central Asian worlds. Originally an old Turkic word for “merchant”, it occurs with this meaning in the 11th-century sources, such as Maḥmūd al-Kāshg̲h̲arī’s encyclopaedic dictionary Dīwān lug̲h̲āt al-Turk ( Compendium of the Turkic dialects, tr. R. Dankoff and J. Kelly, 3 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1982-5, i, 269), and the ¶ Ḳarak̲h̲ānid mirror for princes, Ḳutadgu bilig by Yūsuf K̲h̲āṣṣ Ḥād̲j̲ib (ed. R.R. Arat, Istanbul 1947, i, 571). For references to other editions of both works, see Drevnetyurkskiy slovar’, Leningrad …

(his real name was Muḥammad Ḥaydar; as he himself says, he was known as Mīrzā Ḥaydar; Bābur calls him Ḥaydar Mīrzā), a Persian historian, author of the Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Ras̲h̲īdī , born in 905/1499-1500, died in 958/1551 (for his descent see dūg̲h̲lāt ); through his mother he was a grandson of the Čag̲h̲atāy K̲h̲ān Yūnus and a cousin of Bābur. Most of our knowledge of his life is gleaned from his own work; Bābur (ed. Beveridge, p. 11) devotes a few lines to him; the Indian historians Abu ’l-Faḍl and Firis̲h̲ta give some information about his later years. After the assassination of his father (91…

(in Arabic script bātū ), a Mongol prince, the conqueror of Russia and founder of the Golden Horde (1227-1255), born in the early years of the 13th century, the second son of D̲j̲oči [see d̲j̲ūčī ]. During Čingiz-Ḵh̲ān’s lifetime D̲j̲oči, as his eldest son, had received as his yurt or appanage the territory stretching from the regions of Ḳayalïḳ and Ḵh̲wārazm to Saḳsïn and Bulg̲h̲ār on the Volga “and as far in that direction as the hoof of Tartar horse had penetrated”. The eastern part of this vast area, i.e., Western Siberia, the present-day Kazak̲h̲stān and the lower basin of the …

, Turko-Mongol word for “town” = or “castle” (also written bāliḳ and bālig̲h̲ ); appears frequently in compound names of towns, such as Bīs̲h̲bāliḳ (“Five Towns”, at the present day in ruins at Gučen in Chinese Turkestan), Ḵh̲ānbāliḳ (the “Ḵh̲ān’s Town”), Turko-Mongol name for Pekin (also frequently used by European travellers in the middle ages in forms like (Cambalu), Ilibāliḳ (on the River Ili, the modern Iliysk) etc. As the town of Bās̲h̲bāliḳ is mentioned as early as the Ork̲h̲on i…

, ruler of the Özbegs [see uzbeks ] and founder of the power of this nation, descendant of S̲h̲aybān, Ḏj̲uči’s youngest son [see s̲h̲aybānids ], born in the year of the dragon (1412; as the year of the hid̲j̲ra 816/1413-4 is erroneously given). At first he is said to have been in the service of another descendant of S̲h̲aybān, Ḏj̲amaduḳ Ḵh̲ān. The latter met his death in a revolt; Abu ’l-Ḵh̲ayr was taken prisoner, but was released and shortly after proclaimed k̲h̲ān in the territory of Tura (Siber…

, two mountain ranges east of the Caspian Sea, which enclose the dried-out river-bed of the Özboi (cf. Āmū Daryā). To the north of this river lies the Great Balk̲h̲ān, a high plateau of limestone, difficult of access, with steep slopes; the highest elevation is at the Düines̲h̲ Ḳalʿe, about 1880 metres. The Little Balk̲h̲ān, south of the Özboi and cut with numerous ravines, attains (in the west) a height of no more than 800 metres. These mountains, where according to Muḳaddasī, 285, l. 14 ff., w…

, according to Radloff ( Versuch eines Wörterbuches der Türk-Dialecte , St. Petersburg 1899, ii, 924) “a Turkish tribe in Turkistan”; the same authority gives the Kirgiz (i.e. Ḳazaḳ) word ḳurama (from ḳura , “to sew together pieces of cloth”) with the meaning “a blanket made of pieces of cloth sewn together”. In another passage ( Aus Sibirien 2, Leipzig 1893, i, 225) Radloff himself says that the Kurama are “a mixed people of Özbegs and Kirgiz” and their name comes from the fact, asserted by the Kirgiz, that “they are made up of patches from many tribes” ( kura to “patch…

, Ḳazān , a town on the middle Volga, now the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Tatarstan in the USSR, and in the 15th and 16th centuries capital of the K̲h̲ānate of the same name. According to legendary accounts, the town was founded by Batu K̲h̲ān in a Turkish and Muslim region which had been part of the ancient kingdom of Bulg̲h̲ār [ q.v.] before the Mongol invasions. The K̲h̲ānate of Ḳāzān was founded in the first half of the 15th century by a Čingizid descendant, Ulu Muḥammad, son of D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn and grandson of Toḳtami̊s̲h̲, at the time when the Gold…

, also frequently written bad̲h̲ak̲h̲s̲h̲ān and sometimes in the literary language (with the Arabic plural inflection) badak̲h̲s̲h̲ānāt , a mountainous region situated on the left bank of the upper reaches of the Āmū-Daryā or more accurately of the Pand̲j̲, the source of this great river; the adjective derived from this noun is Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ānī or Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ī . J. Marquart ( Erāns̲h̲ahr , 279) gives this name the meaning of “region of Bad̲h̲ak̲h̲s̲h̲ or Balak̲h̲s̲h̲, a type of ruby, which, it is said, is only found in Bad̲h̲ak̲h̲s̲…

, a town in the aymak of Övör K̲h̲angay in Central Mongolia, now in ruins; in the 7th/13th century it was for a short time the capital of the Mongol World Empire. The fullest accounts of the town are given by the European traveller William of Rubruck and the Persian historian D̲j̲uwaynī [ q.v.]. The ruins were first discovered in 1889 by N. M. Yadrentsey; they were visited and described by the members of the Russian expedition of 1891 led by Radlov; and in 1948-49 an expedition jointly organized by the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People’s Repub…

, a S̲h̲aybānid [ q.v.], the greatest prince of this dynasty, born in 940/1533-4 (the dragon year 1532-3 is given, probably more accurately, as the year of the cycle) at Āfarīnkent in Miyānkāl (an island between the two arms of the Zarafs̲h̲ān). The father (Iskandar Ḵh̲ān), grandfather (Ḏj̲ānī Beg) and great-grandfather (Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Muḥammad, son of Abu ‘l-Ḵh̲ayr [ q.v.]) of this ruler of genius are all described as very ordinary, almost stupid men. Ḏj̲ānī Beg (d. 935/1528-9) had at the distribution of 918/1512-3 received Karmīna and Miyānkāl; Iskandar …

, the largest river in the Caucasus (according to Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī Ḳazwīnī, 200 farsak̲h̲ s = nearly 800 miles in length). The Ḳur, known as Cyrus to the Greeks; Nahr al-Kurr to the Arabs; Kura to the Russians (said to be derived from a-kuara, “river”, in the Abk̲h̲āzī tongue); and Mtkvari to the Georgians (said to be derived from mdinaré , “river” in the Kartlian dialect), rises in Georgia south of Ardahani (west of Ḳārṣ in the Poso district), and flows northwards to Akhaltzikhé, where it turns east (see map in V. Minorksy, A History of Sharvān and Darband in the 10th-11th centuries, Cambridg…

, a ruler of the Čag̲h̲atay Ḵh̲ānate. A grandson of Mö’etüken, who fell before Bāmiyān, his father, Yesün-To’a, had been banished to China for his part in the conspiracy against the Great Ḵh̲an Möngke. Burāḳ himself began his career at the court of Möngke’s successor, Ḳubilay Ḵh̲an (1260-94). When in March 1266 Mubārak-S̲h̲āh, the son of Ḳara-Hülegü, was elected to the Čag̲h̲atay Ḵh̲ānate, Ḳubilay dispatched Burāḳ to Mā warāʾ al-Nahr with a yarlīg̲h̲ or rescript appointing him co-regent with his cousin. Burāḳ at first concealed the yarlīg̲h̲ and then, having gained the support of…

, a Turkish people, mentioned as early as the oldest Chinese accounts of Central Asia (from the 2nd century A.D.) under the name Kien-Kuen, which according to P. Pelliot ( JA, Ser. 2, vol. xv, 137) goes back to a Mongol word, singular ḳirḳun . The lands of the Kirgiz are not exactly defined in these sources; according to a very reliable source, the land of the Kien-Kuen lay north-west of the land of the K’ang-Kiu, i.e. of Sogdiana. The name Ḳi̊rg̲h̲i̊z first appears in the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions of the 8th century; at…

, older form tāzīk or tāžīk (in Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, i., 324: Težik), the name of a people originally used with the meaning “Arab” (later this meaning became confined to the form Tāzī), afterwards “Iranian” in contrast to “Turk”. The word is derived from the Arab tribal name of Ṭaiy. The nearest Arab tribe to the Iranians was the Ṭaiy, hence the name of this tribe came to be applied to the whole Arab people. The Ṭaiy are “mentioned as early as the beginning of the third century by an Edessene along with the Saracens as representatives of all the Beduins” (Cureton, Spicil. Syr., p. 16 ult. in Nö…

, also written S̲h̲irwān and S̲h̲arwān (e.g. in Yāḳūt, iii. 282, 7, according to al-Samʿānī, ed. Margoliouth, f. 333a), a district on the western shore of the Caspian Sea, east of the Kura, originally a part of the ancient Albania or the Arrān [q. v.] of the early middle ages. According to Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, p. 192 = Yāḳūt, iii. 317 19, the road from Bard̲h̲aʿa [q. v.] led via S̲h̲īrwān and S̲h̲amāk̲h̲iya (in Yāḳūt: S̲h̲amāk̲h̲ī) to Derbend [q. v.]. The distance between S̲h̲amāk̲h̲iya and “S̲h̲arwān”, according to Iṣṭak…

(usually written Akkerman, Akjerman) is the capital of a district in the Government of Bessarabia. The name signifies “white castle”. In the Middle Ages the place was called Mon Castro, in Polish and Russian authorities Byelgorod (“white city”). It was first in the possession of the Venetians, afterwards of the Genoese. In 1484 it was captured by the Turks. The cossacks took it several times after that, and in 1595 it was destroyed by German troops. By the peace of Bucarest Akkerman along with the rest of Bessarabia was yielded to Russia. (W. Barthold).

, a name for Siberia in the Mongol period; in this form in S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn al-ʿOmarī (cf. Brockelmann, G. A. L., ii. 141), text in W. Tiesenhausen, Sbornih materialov, otnosyas̲h̲čik̲h̲sya k istorii Zolotoi Ordi̊, p. 217 at top; the same source has also Bilād Sibir or al-Sibir (ibid., l. 6 and 221 below). More frequently Ibir-Sibir; e. g. Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn, Ḏj̲āmiʿ-al-Tawārīk̲h̲, ed. Berezin, in Trudi̊ Vost. Otd. Ark̲h̲-Obs̲h̲č., vii. 168 (Ibīr Sībīr, mentioned in connection with the Ḳīrḳīz people and the river Angara) and the Chinese Yüans̲h̲i ¶ (I-bi-rh Si-bi-rh, quoted in Bretsch…

, a prince of the house of Tīmūr, grandson of its founder. He was 12 years old at the death of his grandfather (S̲h̲aʿbān 807 = February 1405) so he must have been born about 795 (1392-1393) His father ʿOmar S̲h̲aik̲h̲ had predeceased Tīmūr. Baiḳarā is celebrated by Dawlat-S̲h̲āh (ed. Browne, p. 374) for his beauty as a second Joseph and for his courage as a second Rustam; he was prince of Balk̲h̲ for a long period. In the year 817 (1414) he was granted Lūristān, Hamadān, Nihāwand and Burūd̲j̲īr…

, Arabic name for Talas, a river in Central Asia and the town on it probably near the modern Awliyā Atā [q. v.]. The town was of pre-Muḥammadan, presumably Sog̲h̲dian origin [cf. sog̲h̲d]; Sog̲h̲dian and Turkī were spoken in Ṭarāz and in Balāsāg̲h̲ūn [q.v.] as late as the fifth (eleventh) century (Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, Dīwān Lug̲h̲āt al-Turk, i. 31). As a town ( k̲h̲ōron) Talas is first mentioned in the report of the embassy of the Greek Zēmark̲h̲os ( Fragm. Hist. Greac., iv. 228) in 568. About 630 Talas (Chin. Ta-lo-sse) was described by Hiuen-Thsang as an important commercial town ( Mémoires…

an Uig̲h̲ur word for “castle, palace”, probably borrowed from a native language of Eastern Turkestān and later adopted by the Mongols. The town of Nak̲h̲s̲h̲ab or Nasaf [q. v.] has taken its modern name of Kars̲h̲ī from a palace built for the Ḵh̲ān Kabak (1318—1326; see the art. čag̲h̲atāi k̲h̲ān), 2 farsak̲h̲ from the town, all trace of which has long since disappeared. Cf. S̲h̲araf ad-Dīn Yazdī, Ẓafar Nāme, ed. Muḥ. Ilāhdād, Calcutta 1887—1888, i. 111; G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Cambridge 1905, p. 470 sq. (W. Barthold)

, ʿAlā al-Dīn ʿAṭā Malik b. Muḥammed, a Persian governor and historian, author of the Tāʾrīk̲h̲-i Ḏj̲ihān-Kus̲h̲āi; it is from this work that almost all our knowledge of the author (to 654 = 1256) and his ancestors is derived. The family belonged to the village of Āzādwār in the district of Ḏj̲uwain [q. v., N°. 2], ¶ in the western part of Ḵh̲orāsān (it is mentioned as early as the ivth (xth) century and was a day’s journey north of the town of Bahmanabād which still exists under this name, cf. Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, ed. de Goeje, p. 284); according to Ibn al-Ṭiḳṭaḳā ( at-Fak̲h̲rī, ed. Ahlwardt, p. 209) ʿA…

(Arab.) «that which (lies) beyond the river”; the name for the lands conquered by the Arabs and subjected to Islām north of the Amū-Daryā [q. v.]. The frontiers of Mā warāʾ al-Nahr on north and east were where the power of Islām ceased and depended on political conditions; cf. the statements of the Arab geographers on Mā warāʾ al-Nahr in G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Cambridge 1905, p. 433 sq.; W. Barthold, Turkestan (G. M. S., N. S., v., London 1928), p. 64 sqq. The phrase Mā warāʾ al-Nahr passed from Arabic literature into Persian. As late as the ninth (xvth) century, Ḥāfiẓ-…

A Central Asian Turkī word of uncertain etymology (it does not seem to appear in other dialects), which is applied to the predatory raids of Turkish nomads. The importance of this peculiar feature of nomad life as well as the conditions of warfare ( Ḏj̲au) necessitated thereby has been most fully described by W. Radloff ( Aus Sibirien, 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1893, i. 509 et seq. and Kudatku Bilik, Part i., St. Petersburg, 1891, p. LII et seq.). As long as there was no strong governing authority in the steppes, as long as the force of legal decisions depended only on the perso…

or Derbend-i Āhanīn, Arabic Bāb al-Ḥadīd, Old Turkish Tamir-Ḳapig̲h̲ = “Iron Gate” — a frequently recurring name in the Muḥammadan world for important passes and ravines. The best known is the ravine, about 2 miles long and only 12—20 yards broad, in the Baisun-taw range, through which runs the main road from Samarḳand and Buk̲h̲ārā to Balk̲h̲. This ravine is first mentioned under its Persian name by Yaʿḳūbī (ed. de Goeje, p. 290, 5); Yaʿḳūbī’s statement that a “town” bore this name is not confirmed by …

b. Sahl b. Hās̲h̲im, of the aristocratic Dihḳān family Kāmkāriyān (who had settled near Merw), which boasted of Sāsānian descent, ¶ governor of Ḵh̲orāsān. In order to avenge the death of his brother, fallen in a fight between Persians and Arabs (in Merw), he had under ʿAmr b. al-Lait̲h̲) stirred up a rising of the people. He was taken prisoner and brought to Sīstān, whence he escaped by means of an adventurous flight, and after a new attempt of a rising in Merw he fled for refuge to the Sāmānide Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmed in…

(Turkish “warm lake”), the most important mountain lake in Turkistan and one of the largest in the world, situated in 42° 30′ N. Lat. and between 76° 15′ and 78° 30′ E. Long., 5116 feet above sea level; the length of the lake is about 115 miles, the breadth up to 37 miles, the depth up to 1381 feet, and the area 2400 square miles. From the two chains of the Thian-S̲h̲an, the Kungei-Alatau (in the north) and the Terskei-Alatau (in the south) about 80 large and small mountain streams pour into th…

Muḥammad Ḵh̲wārizms̲h̲āh, founder of a dynasty in Ḵh̲wārizm [q. v.]. His father Anūs̲h̲tagīn (or Nūs̲h̲tagīn) G̲h̲arča was in charge of the silver and crockery ( ṭas̲h̲t-k̲h̲āna) at the court of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs; the expenses of this branch of the court household were defrayed out of the tribute from Ḵh̲wārizm just as the expenses of administration of the clothing-depot ( d̲j̲āma-k̲h̲āna) were defrayed by the tribute from Ḵh̲ūzistān; Anūs̲h̲tagīn therefore, without actually governing Ḵh̲wārizm. held the title of a military governor ( s̲h̲ak̲h̲ne) of this country. He had his so…

, a town in Mongolia on the Ork̲h̲on, in the thirteenth century for a short time (about 1230—1260) the capital of the Mongol Emperors, now in ruins. The fullest accounts of the town are given among European travellers by Rubruk (Latin edition in Recueil de Voyages et de Mémoires, 1839, iv. 345 sq.; transl. by W. W. Rockhill, Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, especially p. 220 with the translator’s notes) and among Muslim historians by Ḏj̲uwainī [q. v.], Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Ḏj̲ihān Gus̲h̲āi, ed. Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḳazwīnī, especially i. 169 sq. and 192. The fullest account of the ruins (by the memb…

, the fourth sovereign of the dynasty of the Ḏj̲alāirides (784—813 = 1382—1410) was the fourth son of Sultan Uwais. During the reign of his elder brother Ḥusain he became governor of Baṣra in 776 (1374-1375). In 784 (1382) he raised the banner of insurrection, took possession of the capital, Tibrīz, and had his brother executed. He was not however recognized as sovereign in all parts of the realm until after severe combats with his other brothers (786 = 1384). During the course of the following …

, Russian Azow, a town near the mouth of the Don; it is first mentioned in the fourteenth century (after 1316) as a Genoese, then (after 1332) as a Venetian colony under the name of Tana (from the ancient Tanaïs). The Turkish name has appeared on coins since 717 (1317). In the year 797 (1395) the town was destroyed by Tīmūr and taken possession of by the Ottomans in 880 (1475). The Russians (Cossacks) appeared before Azaḳ for the first time in 1589; in 1637 the town was captured and the whole Mu…

, sovereign of the Özbegs and founder of the power of this nation, a descendant of S̲h̲aiban, Ḏj̲uči’s youngest son, born in the year of the dragon (1412; as the year of the Hegira 816 = 1413-1414 is erroneously given). At first he is said to have been in the service of another descendant of S̲h̲aibān, Ḏj̲amaduḳ Ḵh̲ān. The latter found his death in a revolte; Abu ’l-Ḵh̲air was taken prisoner, but was released and shortly after proclaimed k̲h̲ān in the territory of Tura (Siberia) at the age of 17…

, properly Aḥmad b. Faḍlān b. al-ʿAbbās b. Rās̲h̲id b. Ḥammād, Arab author, composer of an account ( risāla) of the embassy sent by the Caliph al-Muḳtadir to the king of the Volga Bulg̲h̲ārs [cf. bulg̲h̲ār, i. 786 sqq.]. As he was a client ( mawlā) of the Caliph and of the conqueror of Egypt Muḥammad b. Sulaimān [see Cairo, i. 818a] he was certainly not of Arab origin. He seems to have taken part in the embassy as a theologian and authority on religious matters. The real ambassador appointed by the government was Sūsan al-Rassī, a client of Nud̲h̲air al-Ḥ…

b. al-Lait̲h̲ al-Ṣaffār, the Ṣaffārid; he is said to have been in his youth first a mule-driver, then later a mason, and later to have attached himself to his brother Yaʿḳūb. Proclaimed commander at his death by the latter’s army (265 = 879), ʿAmr submitted to the Caliph and was invested with the provinces of Ḵh̲orāsān, Fārs, Iṣpahān, Sīstān, Karmān and Sind. He only obtained unquestioned mastery of Ḵh̲orāsān after strenuous struggles with his opponents Aḥmed b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḵh̲ud̲j̲ustānī, Rāfiʿ…

(Barmecides), a Persian family, which produced the first Persian ministers of the Caliphate. “Barmak” was not a personal name but denoted the rank of hereditary chief priest in the temple of Nawbahār in Balk̲h̲. The lands belonging to the temple were also in the hands of this family. These estates comprised an area of about 740 square miles (8 farsak̲h̲s long by ¶ 4 broad), or somewhat more than the principalities of Lippe and Schaumburg-Lippe together. These estates or part of them remained the property of the Barmakids at a later period; Yāḳūt (ii. 942) …

a large river in Siberia, in the basin of the Ob. Its two sources, the Blue and the White Irtis̲h̲, rise in the Great Altai; after their junction the river as far as Lake Zaisan bears the name “Black Irtis̲h̲”; after leaving the lake it flows for about 180 miles through steppe country as the “White” or “Slow Irtis̲h̲”, then for 60 miles with a stronger current as the “Rapid Irtis̲h̲” through a hilly country. At the town of Ustkamenogorsk it enters the Great Siberian plain which sinks away towar…

, a town in the upper Ili [q. v.] valley. A Muḥammadan kingdom is first mentioned in this region in the viith (xiiith) century: its founder, who is said to have previously been a brigand and horse-thief, is called Ōzār in Ḏj̲uwainī ( G. M. S., xvi., p. 57) and Būzār in Ḏj̲amāl Ḳuras̲h̲ī (in Barthold, Turkestan, i. 135 sq.). According to the latter, he assumed the title of Tog̲h̲rul Ḵh̲ān as ruler. The capital of the kingdom was Almali̊g̲h̲, first mentioned in this connection and later a great and wealthy commercial city. We owe our information about its…

, usually written bāṭmān or bātmān, in Ḳirghiz batpan, a Turkī word, applied to a “heavy weight” ( batpandai = “weighing a hundredweight”); it is probably connected with the verbal root bat “to sink” although F. W. K. Müller ( Sitzungsberichte Preuss. Akad., 1907, p. 847) says that the word is Middle Persian and “like many other Iranian words has reached Mongolian through Uigur” (examples are not given). What weight was originally meant by this word, is unknown; at the present day in the Turkī dialects as elsewhere (cf. the European “pound”, the Arabic “ mann” and “ riṭl” etc.), the same wor…

b. Iskandar, a S̲h̲aibānide, the greatest prince of this dynasty, born in 940 (1533-1534; the dragon year 1532-1333 is probably more accurately given as the year of the cycle) at Āfarīnkent in Miyānkāl (an island between the two arms of the Zarafs̲h̲ān). The father (Iskandar Ḵh̲ān), grandfather (Ḏj̲ānī Beg) and great-grandfather (Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Muḥammed, son of Abu ’l-Ḵh̲air [s. d.]) of this ruler of genius are all described as very ordinary, almost stupid men. Ḏj̲ānī Beg (d. 935 = 1528-1529) had at the distribution of 918 (1512-1513) received Karmī…

, an Armenian town, the ruins of which are found on the right bank of the Arpa-Cai (called by the Armenians Ak̲h̲uryan) at a distance of about 20 miles from the point where that river flows into the Araxes. The origin of the name is unknown, though the suggestion has been made that the town may owe its name to a temple of the Irānian goddess Anāhita (the Greek Anaϊtis). It is certain at any rate that the district was inhabited in the pre-christian period, pagan tombs having been found in the imm…

, a Turkish people in Persia. The name is said to be the Turkish ḳas̲h̲ḳā “horse with a white spot on its forehead” (W. Radloff, Versuch eines Wörter buches der türk. Dialecte, ii. 395). The Ḳas̲h̲ḳāi are said to be descended from the Turkish Ḵh̲alad̲j̲ (cf. also B. G. A., i. 158: Ḵh̲ald̲j̲) mentioned by al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī ( B. G. A., vol. i.) and later writers in the country between India and Slstān. The Ḵh̲alad̲j̲ are said to have migrated first to the Persian ʿIrāḳ where a district near Sāwa is still called Ḵh̲alad̲j̲istān; there is still said to be a Turkish speaking people there ¶ (private informa…

, a ruler of the Tīmūrid dynasty, grandson of Tīmūr, son of Mīrān-s̲h̲āh and Suyūn-beg Ḵh̲ānzāda, grand-daughter of the Ḵh̲ān of the Golden Horde, Özbeg; born in 786 ¶ (1384), died Wednesday, Rad̲j̲ab 16, 814 (Nov. 4, 1411), reigned in Samarḳand 807—812 (1405—1409). His education was entrusted to Tīmūr’s eldest wife, Sarāi Mulk Ḵh̲ānum. He is said to have distinguished himself on Tīmūr’s India campaign (1399) when only 15 years of age; he also took part in the so-called “Seven Years” (actually only 802—807=1399—1404) war i…

, a city in Turkestān, on the lower course of the Zarafs̲h̲ān. We have only the scantiest notices of the history of the city in pre-Muḥammadan times. There can be little doubt, however, that the Iranians had settlements and even towns on the Zarafs̲h̲ān at a very early period; even in the time of Alexander the Great of Macedon there was another town in Sogdiana besides Matakanda (Samarḳand) on the lower course of the river; but whether this town corresponded to the modern Buk̲h̲ārā may be questi…

al-Ḥād̲j̲ib (Abū Saʿid; his alleged second name Hārūn is only mentioned in one passage by Ibn al-At̲h̲īr (ed. Tornb., ix. 294), probably as the result of an oversig̲h̲t of the ¶ author or of a copyist), was a Turkish slave, later general to the G̲h̲aznawid Sebuk-Tegīn and to his two successors. Even while under Sebuk-Tegīn he attained the highest rank in the bodyguard of his sovereign, that of a “Great Ḥād̲j̲ib”; under Maḥmūd be commanded the right wing in the great battle against the Ḳarak̲h̲ānids (22 Rabīʿ II 398 = 4 Jan. …

, the ancient capital of Ḵh̲wārizm, the modern Ḵh̲īva; according to Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfeld, iv. 222, the name meant a wall ( ḥāʾiṭ) in the desert in the language of the Ḵh̲wārizmīs, even if there were no buildings within this. The fullest accounts of the old town and citadel of Fīl or Fīr, which was gradually washed away by the Āmū-Daryā (the last traces of it are said to have disappeared in 384 = 994), are given in al-Bīrūnī’s [q.v.] Kitāb al-Āt̲h̲ār al-Bāḳiya, p. 35, on which E. Sachau based his Zur Geschichte una Chronologie von Ḵh̲wārizm ( Sitzungsber. der phil. hist. Cl. d. K.K…

, a town on the north bank of the Āmū Daryā [q. v.] near the mouth of the Surk̲h̲ān. As Samʿānī, who spent 12 days there, testifies, the name was pronounced Tarmīd̲h̲ in the town itself ( G. M. S., xx., fol. 105b) which is confirmed by the Chinese Ta-mi (e. g. Hiouen Thsang, Mémoires sur Its contrées occidentales, I, 25). Russian officers in 1889 also heard the pronunciation Termiz or Tarmi̊z ( Sbornik materialov po Azii, lvii. 393 and 399). The town is now officially known as Termez. Tirmid̲h̲ does not seem to have been touched by Alexander the Great and is not mentioned in antiqui…

, a Mongol prince in Central Asia, great-grandson of Čag̲h̲atāi [q. v.] grandson of the Mütügen who had fallen at Bāmiyān in 1221 [see above, p. 644]. His father Yisūn-Tuwa had taken part in the events of the year 1251 [cf. the article bātū k̲h̲ān, p. 681] and shared the fate of the other rebellious princes. Like the rest of the children of Čag̲h̲atāi and Ügedei, Burāḳ and his brothers were educated in Mongolia; some years after the accession of the Great Ḵh̲ān Ḵh̲ubilāi (1260—1294) they received permission to return to their home and to …

, originally an old Turkish word for “merchant”: it is used with this meaning in the Ḳuḍatḳu-Bilik (quotations in Radloff, Versuch eines Wörtcrbuches der Türk. Dialecte, iv. 335) and by Maḥmūd Kas̲h̲g̲h̲ārī (e. g. i. 286). In the Uighur translation (from the Chinese, of the Saddharma puṇḍarīḳa the Sanskrit word sārthavāha or sārthalūha “caravan-leader” is translated sartpau; this word is explained as the “senior merchant” sati̊ḳči̊ uludg̲h̲i). Radloff therefore concludes that Turk, sart is an Indian loan-word ( Kuan-si-in Pusar, Bibl. Buddh, St. Petersburg 1911, xiv. p. 37).…

3rd pers. plur. of the Persian personal pronoun. The word, which has always had an honorific significance, was formerly used in Central Asia ( i.e., what is now Soviet Central Asia and the Sinkiang-Uygur Autonomous Region of China) in the sense of s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ or murs̲h̲id (teacher or guide) in contrast to murīd (disciple or pupil). It has still to be established when the term first appeared in this sense. It certainly existed in the middle ages; the celebrated Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Aḥrār (died 895/1490 in Samarḳand) is always referred to as is̲h̲ān in his biography. The rank of is̲h̲ān was frequently …

, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAṭā-Malik b. Muḥammad (623/1226-681/1283), a Persian governor and historian, author of the Taʾrīk̲h̲-i d̲j̲ahāngus̲h̲āy , a work which is almost our only source on the details of his life. His family belonged to Āzādwār, then the chief town of Ḏj̲uwavn ([ q.v.], No. 2). According to Ibn al-Ṭiḳṭaḳā ( al-Fak̲h̲rī , ed. Ahlwardt, 209) they claimed descent from Faḍl b. Rabīʿ, the vizier of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd. ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn’s great-grandfather, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, had waited on the K̲h̲wārazm-S̲h̲āh Tekis̲h̲ [ q.v.] when in 588/1192 he passed through Āzādwār…

, an Özbek chief of the family of the Keneges, who was till 1870 prince of S̲h̲ahrisabz. This town having been conquered by the Russians, he fled with a small body of those faithful to him. Finally he was seized in Ferg̲h̲ānā and obliged to reside at Tas̲h̲kent. In 1875 he entered Russian military service and took part in the campaign against Ḵh̲oḳand. He died about 1898 at Tas̲h̲kent. (W. Barthold [B. Spuler])

, a large river of the northeastern Caucasus region (length 600 km/373 miles, with a breadth in some places of up to 547 m/1,500 feet). It rises from the glaciers of Mount Kazbek in the central Caucasus, and cuts its way through spectacular gorges, eventually into the Noghay steppe to a complex delta on the western shore of the Caspian Sed. Even the lower course through the plains is too swift for navigation to be possible on it, but much water is now drawn off for irrigation purposes. During the golden period of Arabic geographical knowledge (4th/10th century), the land of Terek m…

, Arabic orthography, K̲h̲wāḳand, later written K̲h̲uḳand (which is given a popular etymology, k̲h̲ūḳ + kand = town of the boar), a town in Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.], where see also for the other spellings and the foundation of an independent Özbeg kingdom with K̲h̲oḳand as capital in the 12th/18th century. The accession of the first ruler of this Miñ dynasty, S̲h̲āhruk̲h̲, was followed by the building of a citadel; another citadel later called Eski Urda was built by his son, ʿAbd al-Karīm (d. 1746). ʿAbd al-Karīm and his nephe…

(a.) “the land which lies beyond the river”, i.e. beyond the Oxus or Āmū-Daryā [ q.v.], the classical Transoxiana or Transoxania, so-called by the conquering Arabs of the 1st/7th century and after in contrast to Mā dūn al-Nahr, the lands of K̲h̲urāsān [ q.v.] this side of the Oxus, although the term K̲h̲urāsān was not infrequently used vaguely to designate all the eastern Islamic lands beyond western Persia. 1. The name The frontiers of Ma warāʾ al-nahr on the north and east were where the power of Islam ceased and depended on political conditions; cf. the statemen…

“land of the mountains”; this name is an unusual linguistic phenomenon, since it consists of the Turkish word dāg̲h̲ , mountain, and of the suffix which, in the Persian language, distinguishes the names of countries; this name seems to have appeared for the first time in the 10th/16th century). An autonomous Republic of the R.S.F.S.R. with an area of 19,500 sq. miles and a population of 958,000 inhabitants (1956), it is made up of two quite distinct parts: the Caucasian Range and the cis-Casp…

( Hülegü or rather Hüleʾü , the intervocalic g being purely graphie), the Mongol conqueror and founder of the dynasty of the II-K̲h̲āns [ q.v.] of Persia, born ca. 1217, was the grandson of Čingiz-K̲h̲ān [ q.v.] by the latter’s youngest son Toluy [ q.v.]. Sent by his brother the Great K̲h̲ān Möngke at the head of an army against the Ismāʿīlīs and the Caliph, he left Mongolia in the autumn of 1253, proceeding at a leisurely pace along a carefully prepared route, the roads having been specially cleared and levelled and bridges built across …

, the name found in earlier mediaeval Islamic sources for the region along the southern banks of the middle and upper Oxus river, in the wider sense of the term (see below), with the ancient of the Balk̲h̲ as the centre of its western part and such towns as Ṭālaḳān, Andarāb and Walwālīd̲j̲ [ q.vv.] as its centres in the narrower acceptation of the term, sc. the eastern part. It comprised in its wider sense the modern Afg̲h̲an provinces of Fāryāb, D̲j̲ūzd̲j̲ān, Balk̲h̲, Sanangān, Ḳunduz, Tak̲h̲ār and Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān. The name of the region obviously preserves a memory of the people k…

, Maḥmūd , Ilk̲h̲an [ q.v.] from 694/1295 until 713/1304, was born on 20 Rabiʿ I 670/5 November 1271, being the eldest son of Arg̲h̲ūn [ q.v.], then only in his thirteenth year. Upon his father’s accession G̲h̲āzān was appointed governor of Ḵh̲urāsān, Māzandarān and Ray, which provinces he continued to administer during the reign of Gayk̲h̲ātū [ q.v.]. He had been brought up as a Buddhist and, whilst governor, had ordered the construction of Buddhist temples in Ḵh̲abūshān (Ḳūčān); but shortly before his accession, during the war with Bāydū [ q.v.], he had been persuaded by his general…

, 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 name of two Ḵh̲āns of the Crimea in the eighteenth century. 1. Ḳaplān Girāy I reigned three times: 1119—1120 (1707—1708), 1125—1128 (1713—1716) and 1143—1149 (1730—36). He died on the island of Chios in S̲h̲aʿbān, 1151 (Nov.-Dec, 1738). Immediately after the death of his father Salīm I, in S̲h̲aʿbān, 1116 (Nov.-Dec., 1704), he set up as a claimant to the throne but was not proclaimed Ḵh̲ān till after the death of his brother G̲h̲āzī III. His own three depositions were on each occasion the result of the u…

(literally Great China), Arabic and Persian name (the Arabic ṣīn is of course for the Persian čīn) for the seaport of Canton in the Mongol period; it is known especially from the travels of Ibn Baṭṭūṭa [q. v.] (ed. Defrémery and Sanguinetti, iv. 271 sq.) but is used by other Muslim (Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn, Waṣṣāf) and also by Western writers (Odoric de Pordenone, Marignolli, also in the Cartu Catalana; cf. the quotations in Yule, Cathay and the Way Thither, London 1866, p. 105, and Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn, Ḏj̲āmiʿ al-Tawārīk̲h̲, ed. Blochet, 1911, p. 493). For Ṣīn-i Kalān Ibn Baṭṭūṭa also has Ṣ…

(Turḳ, “father-herdsman”), a ridge of hills on the south bank of the Zarafs̲h̲ān near Samarḳand. The modern name is apparently connected with the legend given in the Kitāb-i Ḳandīya. Samarḳand is said to have been attacked by a hostile force over a 1000 years before Muḥammad; the inhabitants prayed to God and his prophets for help; when they awoke on the following morning, nota trace was left of the enemy’s army, but before the city was a mountain which no had seen before and on it a shepherd was grazing his sheep. It appe…

, Russian Kura, in the Arab geographers Kurr, the largest river in the Caucasus, over 600 miles in length, according to Ḥamd Allāh Ḳazwīnī ( Nuzhat al-Ḳulūb, G.M.S., XXIII/i., p. 218) 200 farsak̲h̲. Iṣṭak̲h̲rī ( B.G.A., i. 189) describes the Kur as navigable and full of fish; even at the present day very little would require to be done to make the river accessible to modern steamers from Mingečaur (a little below the mouth of the Alazan) to the Caspian Sea. The Araxes, regarded as a separate river in ancient times, always appears…

, a district on the upper course of Āmū-Daryā between the rivers Pand̲j̲ and Wak̲h̲s̲h̲, called Ḏj̲aryāb and Wak̲h̲s̲h̲āb in the middle ages; on the situation cf. also i., p. 339 sq. The pronunciation Ḵh̲uttal is given by Yāḳūt ( Muʿd̲j̲am, ii. 402); for the frequently used plural form we have evidence for the pronunciation Ḵh̲uttalān in the lampoon preserved by Ṭabarī (ii. 1492, 1494 and 1602) on the reverses suffered by the governor Asad b. ʿAbd Allāh (d. 120 = 738). On the other hand in later Persian poetry the pronunciation Ḵh̲atl…

(usually written Ḳūbīlāi but also “Ḳublāi”), Mongol emperor (1260—1294), brother and successor of Ḵh̲ān Möngke. He was probably born in 1214; when Čingiz Ḵh̲ān returned in 1225 to Mongolia from his campaign in Western Asia, Ḳubilai, who was then eleven years old, had just gained his first trophy of the chase; after the Mongol fashion, Čingiz Ḵh̲ān himself smeared his thumb wilh flesh and fat (Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn, ed. Berezin, Trudi̊ Vost. Otd. Ark̲h̲. Obs̲h̲č., xv. 141, text). In the reign of his brother he was governor of China from 1251 and devoted himself to the conqu…

, al-Sog̲h̲d or al-Ṣog̲h̲d, a district in Central Asia. The same name (Old. Pers. Suguda, late Avestan Sug̲h̲da, Greek Sogdioi or Sogdianoi [the people] and Sogdiane [the country]) was applied in ancient times to a people of Īrānian origin subject to the Persians (at least from the time of Darius I, 522—486 b. c.) whose lands stretched from the Oxus (cf. āmū-daryā) to the Yaxartes (cf. si̊r-daryā), according to the Greek sources. The language and especially the terms relating to the calendar and festivals of the Sog̲h̲dian Zoroastrians are very fully dealt wit…

Kamāl al-Dīn b. Isḥāḳ al-Samarḳandī, a Persian historian, author of the well-known Maṭlaʿ al-saʿdain wa-mad̲j̲maʿ al-baḥrain, born at Herāt in 816 (1413), where he died in 887 (1482). His father was ḳāḍī and Imām at the court of Sultan S̲h̲āhruk̲h̲ [q. v.]. In 845 (1441) ʿAbd al-Razzāḳ went to India as an ambassador (returned in 848 = 1444), and in 850 (1446) to Gīlān; he died in the reign of the sultan Ḥusain Baiḳarā [q. v.] as governor of the Ḵh̲ānḳāh of S̲h̲āhruk̲h̲. His work depicts, with a ¶ brief mention of the birth (704 = 1304-1305) and accession (716 = 1316-1317) of the Īl…

, an Uzbeg chief of the family of the Keneges, was till 1870 prince of S̲h̲ahrisabz and had taken part, in the summer of 1868, in the siege of the citadel of Samarḳand then held by the Russians. In the summer of 1870 S̲h̲ahrisabz was conquered by the Russians under General Abromow. Bābā Beg had to flee with a small body of those faithful to him, first to the upper valley of the Zarafs̲h̲ān then to Farg̲h̲āna where he was seized by order of Ḵh̲ān Ḵh̲udāyār and handed over to the Russians. An annu…

, written Ṣag̲h̲āniyān by the Arabs, a district on the upper course of the Oxus; the capital of the district bore the same name, whence the nisbas Čag̲h̲āniyānï and Čag̲h̲ānī; the name of the river Čag̲h̲ānrūd (the modern Surk̲h̲an), which flows through Čag̲h̲āniyān, and the title Čag̲h̲ān-Ḵh̲ud̲h̲āt of the ruler of the land are of course derived from the same root. On the geography, cf. the article āmū-daryā, p. 339. The capital Čag̲h̲āniyān was four days’ journey or 24 farsak̲h̲ from Tirmid̲h̲ and three days’ journey from Kuwādiyān (the modern Kabadian). The town has bee…

, the modern S̲h̲ahr-i Sabz (“green town”, on account of the fertility of its surroundings) a town in Buk̲h̲ārā on what was once the great trade route between Samarḳand and Balk̲h̲. According to Chinese authorities, Kas̲h̲ (Chinese transcription K’ia-s̲h̲a or Kié-s̲h̲uang-na, also K’ius̲h̲a, as a town Ki’-s̲h̲e) was founded at the beginning of the seventh century a. d.; cf. J. Marquart, Chronologie der alttürkisehen Inschriften, Leipzig 1898, p. 57; Ērānšahr etc., Berlin 1901, p. 304; E. Chavannes, Documents sur les Toukiue (Turcs) occidentaux, St. Petersburg 1903, p. 146. Yā…

, a town in Central Asia, whose situation cannot now be exactly determined. In Muḳaddasī (ed. de Goeje, pp. 264 and 275) Balāsakūn (sic) or Walāsakūn is mentioned among the towns dependent on Asbid̲j̲āb (the modern Sairam, east of Čimkent). According to Yāḳūt, i. 708 Balāsāg̲h̲ūn lay “on the other side of the Saiḥūn (Sir Daryā) not far from Kās̲h̲g̲h̲ar”; on the other hand Yāḳūt, iii. 833, says that the town of Fārāb (the modern ruined site of Otrar), not far from the confluence of the Aris and …

, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Muḥammad, brother of the preceding, a Persian statesman; as Ṣāḥib-Dīwān, he was at the head of the administration of Persia under Mongol rule in the reigns of Hūlāgū (to 1265), Abāḳā (1265— 1282) and Aḥmad (1282—1284); according to Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn (ed. Quatremère, p. 392 et seq., 402), he was appointed to the office in 661 = 1262-1263. It is not known whether he was older or younger than his brother; nor do we know anything of his career before the year 661; he is not mentioned by his brother. In 677 = 1278 he was …

, a Mongol prince ( īlk̲h̲ān) of Persia (690—694 = 1291—1295), brother and successor of Arg̲h̲ūn (q.v., i. 430b et seq.); he received the name Īrand̲j̲īn Dūrd̲j̲ī (in Waṣṣāf Tūrd̲j̲ī) “most precious jewel”, which he bears on his coins, after his accession from his Buddhist priests (according to Waṣṣāf from Chinese); the same name was, according to Waṣṣāf, also placed on the currency notes issued in Gaik̲h̲ātū’s reign. Before his accession he was governor of Asia Minor. Muslims were particularly favoured in his reig…

, a steppe in Western Siberia, between 52° and 57° N. lat., is bounded on the west and east by the ranges of hills on the banks of the Irtis̲h̲, and Ob (Obi). The largest of the numerous salt lakes of this steppe is the Čani. The ground is as a rule marshy, so that traffic is rendered very difficult in the wet season, but not generally unfertile; the Russian villages on the border districts of the steppe are described as being particularly prosperous. The native Tatar (Turkish) population is called Barabintsi by the ¶ Russians; in the xviith century they were driven into the unfertile parts …

, a town in Persia, in the northern part of the province of Ḵh̲orāsān [q. v.] on the upper course of the Atrek [q. v.], perhaps the ancient As̲h̲ak or Arsaka, in the older Arab geographers Ḵh̲abūs̲h̲ān, later Ḵh̲ūd̲j̲ān, e.g. Muḳaddasī, B.G.A., iii. 319, 3 and Baihaḳī, ed. Morley, p. 761; also Yāḳūt under Ustuwā (i. 243, 20) according to Samʿānī ( G.M.S., xx., f. 31a); according to Yāḳūt, ii. 487, 21, the usual local pronunciation was Ḵh̲ūs̲h̲ān; Samʿānī, f. 211a, here also has only the form Ḵh̲ūd̲j̲ān (Samʿānī had himself been there). The origin of the pronunciation Ḳučan …

, the name of a lake and of a river flowing from it into the Buyir-Nor on the frontier between Manchuria and Mongolia. The river Ḵh̲alk̲h̲a is mentioned in the xiiith century in the “Secret History of the Mongols” (Russian translation by Palladius in Trudi̊ Ross, Duk̲h̲ovnoi Missii v Pekinie, iv., St. Petersburg 1866, p. 90, 91, 102 and 118 (the edition of the text promised by Pelliot has not yet appeared); in Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn, ed. Berezin, in Trudi̊ Vost. Otd. Russkago Ark̲h̲. Obs̲h̲č., xiii., St. Petersburg 1868, Pers. text, p. 216, vol. xv., ibid. 1889, Pers. text, p. 3 sq.: Ṛalā. Since the xvit…

, Muḥammad b. Sulaimān, Ḳarak̲h̲ānid, Prince of Transoxania. His father Sulaimān-Tegīn, grandson of the “great” Tamg̲h̲ās̲h̲-Ḵh̲ān Ibrahīm, had governed the country for a short time about 490 (1097) as vassal of the Sultan Barkiyāruḳ. On the conquest of Transoxania by Ḳadr-Ḵh̲ān Ḏj̲ibraʾîl of Turkistān the young Prince Muḥammad fled to Ḵh̲orāsān; after this Ḳarāk̲h̲ānid had been defeated by the Sultan Sand̲j̲ar the Prince was appointed ruler in Samarḳand with the title Arslān-Ḵh̲ān (495 = 1102); hi…

, a tribe of West Caucasia, on the Black Sea. The country of Abk̲h̲āzia comprises the region extending from the main ridge of the Caucasus to the sea-coast, between Gagry in the north and the mouth of the Ingur in the south. Before the union with Russia it was divided politically into three parts: 1) Abk̲h̲āzia proper, on the coast from Gagry to the Galidzga under the princely family of S̲h̲erwas̲h̲idze; 2) the Highlands of Tzebelda (without any centralized government); 3) the country of Samurza…

, a district on the Wak̲h̲s̲h̲ or Surk̲h̲āb (Turk. Ḳizil Ṣū), one of the rivers which form the Āmū Daryā, called Rās̲h̲t by the Arab geographers [cf. i. 339]. The principal place (or “the fortress”, al-Ḳalʿa, al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, p. 340) of Rās̲h̲t corresponded as regards its situation perfectly with the modern Garm, the only town in Ḳarategin. Rās̲h̲t then formed one of the frontier lands of Islām and was defended on the east against the inroads of the Turks by a wall built by Faḍl b. Barmak [on him cf. i. 665, ii. 37]. In ancient tim…

, Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn Abū Sulaimān Dāwud b. Muḥammad, Persian poet and historian (died 730 = 1329-1330). According to his own statement he was appointed “king of poets” ( malik al-s̲h̲uʿarāʾ by G̲h̲āzān-Ḵh̲ān, Mongol ruler of Persia, in the year 701 (1301-1302); one of his poems is given by Dawlats̲h̲āh (ed. Browne, p. 227). His history bears the title Rawḍat ūli ’l-albāb fī tawārīk̲h̲ al-akābir wa ’l-ansāb and was composed in 717 (1317-1318) in the reign of Ḵh̲ān Abū Saʿīd [q. v., p. 103]; the preface is dated 25th S̲h̲awwāl of this year (31st Dec. 1317). With the exception of some short n…