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(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 peaks rising to over 11,000 ft., in the north-west by Luristān, Kazzāz, Kamara, a…

, 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 the opinion of Chr…

, 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 Ḳarā Ḳoyūnlū, and after resigning this office became Mudarris of the Begum Madrasa, also known as the Dār al-Aytām . Under the Āḳ Ḳoyūnlū he beca…

The term īlāt (pl. of īl ), first used in Persian in Ilk̲h̲ānid times, denotes nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes. ʿAs̲h̲āʾir , ḳabāʾil and tawāʾif ¶ are also used in this sense, and for tribes generally, whether strictly speaking nomadic or not. The combination īlāt wa ʿas̲h̲āʾir is a phrase frequently encountered in both medieval and modern times, and suggests that the two terms are broadly synonymous. In medieval times īlāt also occurs in conjunction with ulūs , i.e. tribal followers, and oymaḳ . From early times the population of many parts of Persia has derived its living fro…

, 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 collection of poetry or prose [see ʿarabiyya ; persian literature ; turkish literature ; urdū literature and s̲h̲iʿr ], a register, or an office. Sources differ about linguistic roots. Some ascribe to it a Persian origin from dev , ‘mad’ or ‘devil’, to describe secretaries. Others consider it Arabic from dawwana , to collect or to register, thus meaning a collection of records or sheets. (See Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ṣubḥ , i, 90; LA, xvii, 23-4; Ṣūlī, Adab al-kuttāb , 187; Māwardī, al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya , 175; D̲j̲ahs̲h̲iyārī, Wuzarāʾ , ¶ 16-17; cf. Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ ,…

(a.), two terms of mediaeval Islamic finance and land tenure. The first denotes special items consisting of immoveable property selected from booty by the leader [see fayʾ and g̲h̲anīma ], while the second is the term for land which the Imām selects from the conquered territories for the treasury with the consent of those who had a share in the booty (al-Māwardī, al-Aḥkām al-sulṭāniyya , Cairo 1966, 192). In pre-Islamic Arabia the leader was also entitled to one-fourth ( rubʿ ) or onefifth ( k̲h̲ums ) of the booty in addition to the ṣafī . The custom of k̲h̲ums was upheld by the prophet and …

, 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…

, 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…

, a town and province in western Persia. The province is situated between lat. 34° N. and 35° N. long. 44° 5′ to 48° 0′ E. It lies to the east and north of ʿIrāḳ and Lurīstān-i Kūčik (or Pus̲h̲t-i Kūh) and to the south and west of Kurdistān and Asadābād. In the early 20th century the province was divided into nineteen bulūks . These were Bālādih, Wastām, Miyān Darband or Bīlawar, Pus̲h̲t-i Darband or Bālā Darband, Dīnawar, Kuliyāʾī Saḥna, Kanguwār, Asadābād, Harsīn, Čamčamāl, Durū Faramān, Māhīdas̲h̲t, Hārūnābād, Gūrān, ¶ Kirind, Zuhāb, Aywān and Hulaylān (Gove…

, agriculture. Falḥ , the act of cleaving and cutting, when applied to the soil has the meaning of “to break up in order to cultivate”, or “to plough”. Fallāḥ “ploughman”, filāḥa “ploughing”. But from pre-Islamic times the word filāḥa has assumed a wider meaning to denote the occupation of husbandry, agriculture. In this sense it is synonymous with zirāʿa , to which the ancients preferred filāḥa (all the earlier writers called their works on agriculture Kitāb al-Filāḥa ). At the present time this latter word is very widely used in North Africa, both …

(a.), nationalism. 1. In the Arab world east of the Mag̲h̲rib. The term derives from ḳawm , a term of tribal provenance used to denote a group of people having or claiming a common ancestor, or a tribe descended from a single ancestor. One’s ḳawm is simply one’s people, either genealogically determined or mythologically and folklorishly depicted. In this century, ḳawmiyya refers to the movement of nationalism among the Arabs of the Ottoman dominions in the Fertile Crescent that were conquered by the Allies in the Great War. The use …

, formerly the name of a district to the west of Nīs̲h̲āpūr in Ḵh̲urāsān. In Ṭāhirid times it contained 390 villages with a revenue assessment of some 236,000 dirhams . The chief towns were Sabzawār and Ḵh̲usrawd̲j̲ird. It capitulated to a Muslim army under ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿĀmir in 30/650-1. In 548-6/1153-4 it was devastated by Yanāltegīn. According to Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī its people were It̲h̲nā ʿAs̲h̲arī S̲h̲īʿīs. Among its famous men were Niẓām al-Mulk, the wazīr of Alp Arslān and Maliks̲h̲āh, Abū ’l-Faḍl Muḥammad b. Ḥusayn Bayhaḳī, the author of the Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Bayhaḳī …

(a.), pl. ḳanawāt , ḳanā , ḳunī , aḳniya , “canal, irrigation system, water-pipe”. Used also for a baton, a lance, etc., the term originally meant “reed” [see ḳaṣab ] and it is with this meaning and that of “rush” that the word ḳanū is known in Akkadian (cf. Zimmern, Akkad. Fremdwörter , Leipzig 1915, 56); becoming ḳanä in Hebrew and ḳanyā in Aramaic, it passed into Arabic and was also borrowed in Greek and Latin in the forms χάννα χάννη (χάνη), canna ; by an evolution parallel to that of ḳanāt , the Latin word canalis “in the shape of a reed”, acquired the meaning of “pipe, canal”. In Persian ḳanāt is u…

The word is derived from the Mongol daru-, ‘to press, to seal’ and was used to denote a chief in the Mongol feudal hierarchy (K. H. Menges, Glossar zu den Volkskundlichen Texten aus Ost. Turkistan , ii, Wiesbaden 1955, 714 s.v. dor γ a; B. Vladimirtsov, Le régime social des Mongols , Paris 1948, 181, 209, 214; P. Pelliot, Notes sur l’histoire de la Horde d’or , Paris 1950,73). In 617-8/1221 there was a Mongol dārūk̲h̲ačī , or representative of the head of the empire, in Almālīg̲h̲ beside the native ruler. The duties laid upon him included the makin…

This term, commonly used in modern Arabic to mean a “society” or “association”, is derived from the root D̲J̲ - M - ʿ, meaning “to collect, join together, etc.”. In its modern sense it appears to have come into use quite recently, and was perhaps first used to refer to the organized monastic communities or congregations which appeared in the eastern Uniate Churches in Syria and Lebanon at the end of the seventeenth and beginning of the eighteenth centuries ( e.g., D̲j̲amʿiyyat al-Muk̲h̲alliṣ , the Salvatorians, a Greek Catholic order founded c. 1708). In …