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Arab. d̲j̲anza , the former Elizavetpol , now Kirovabad , the second largest town in the Azerbaijan S.S.R. ¶ The town was first founded under Arab rule, in 245/859 according to the Ta’rīk̲h̲ Bāb al-abwāb (V. Minorsky,A History of Sharvān and Darband , Cambridge 1958, 25 and 57). It is not mentioned by the oldest Arabic geographers like Ibn Ḵh̲urradād̲h̲bih and Yaʿḳūbī; it seems to have taken its name from the pre-Muslim capital of Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān (now the ruins of Tak̲h̲t-i-Sulaymān). Iṣṭak̲h̲rī. 187 and 193, mentions Gand̲j̲a only as a small town on the road from Bard̲h̲aʿa [ q.v.] to Tif…

or balāsaḳūn , a town in the valley of the Ču, in what is now Kirg̲h̲izia. The medieval geographers give only vague indications as to its position. Barthold, Otčet o poyezdke v Sredniya Aziyu , St. Petersburg 1897, 39, suggests its identity with Aḳ-Pes̲h̲in in the region of Frunze. A. N. Bernshtam, Čuyskaya dolina in Materialī i issledovaniya arkheologii S.S.S.R ., No 14 (1950), 47-55, agrees with Barthold and gives a description of the site. The town was a Soghdian foundation and in Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī’s time, i.e., in the second half of the 11th century, the Soghdian language still …

, a garrison town and administrative centre in Eastern Turkey, situated on 40°37′ N. and 43°06′ E., chef-lieu of the il (province) of the same name, which is bounded by the U.S.S.R. and the ils of Artvin, Erzurum and Aǧri̊ and contains the ilçes (districts) of Posof, Hanak, Çildir, Ardahan, Göle, Susuz, Arpaçay, Selim, Digor, Sarikamiş, Kaǧizman, Tuzluca and Aralik, with that of Kars itself. In 1960 the population of the provinces of Kars was 543,000; in 1965 (provisional), 606,521, of which 20% was urban and 80% agricultural or rural ( Kars Il yilliǧi 1967, Ankara n.d.). The etymologies su…

, in the Arabic sources frequently al-bāmiyān , a town in the Hindu-Kus̲h̲ north of the main range in a mountain valley lying 8,480 feet above sea level, through which one of the most important roads between the lands of the Oxus watershed and the Indus leads; the town is therefore naturally important as a commercial centre and was important in the middle ages as a fortress also. Although the valley, that of the Kunduz river, really belongs to the Oxus watershed and is separated from Kābul by high mountain passes, e.g., the Shibar and Unnai, its political association has often shifted…

, the name of a land-locked river-system in the western part of what is now the Kazakhstan Republic and also of a town on the river Turgay (lat. 49° 38′ N., long. 63° 25′ E.) some 640 km/380 miles east-south-east of Orenburg. It lies in the steppe region now known as the Turgayskay̲a̲ Stolovay̲a̲ Strana. The main river Turgay is formed of the Kari̊nsaldi̊ Turgay, which receives the Tasti̊ Turgay, and the Kara Turgay, and flows into Lake Durukča; north of it runs the Sari̊ Turgay, which is called Ulkuntamdi̊ in its upper course and receives from the …

, the fifth in succession of the Mongol Il-Ḵh̲āns of Persia and a grandson of Hülegü, the founder of the dynasty. He reigned only for a few months since Gayk̲h̲atu, his predecessor, was strangled on Thursday 6 D̲j̲umādā II/21 April 1295 and he himself was put to death on Wednesday 23 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda/5 October of the same year. Insulted by Gayk̲h̲atu, this young and apparently unimportant prince had become involved in a conspiracy of the Mongol amīrs against the Il-Ḵh̲ān whic…

(t. “Red sand”), a desert between the Si̊r-Daryā and Āmū-Daryā rivers [ qq. v., and also ḳarā-ḳum ], falling within the modern Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan SSRs. The country is less uniform, especially in the central part, than in the Ḳarā-Ḳum; the sand desert is crossed by several ranges of hills, and in some places is rocky. The Ḳi̊zi̊l-Ḳum ¶ becomes more and more inhospitable as one goes southwards. The region called Adam-Ḳi̊zi̊lg̲h̲an (“where man perishes”) between the Āmū-Daryā and the cultivated region of Buk̲h̲ārā, consisting of sandhills ( bark̲h̲ān ), is …

, S̲h̲irwān or S̲h̲arwān , a region of eastern Caucasia, known by this name in both mediaeval Islamic and modern times. S̲h̲īrwān proper comprised the easternmost spurs of the Caucasus range and the lands which sloped down from these mountains to the banks of the Kur river [ q.v.]. But its rulers strove continuously to control also the western shores of the Caspian Sea from Ḳuba (the modern town of Kuba) in the district of Maskat (< *Maskut, Mas̲h̲kut, to be connected with the ancient Eurasian steppe people of the Massagetes) in the north, to Bākū [ q.v.] (modern Baku) in the south. To the …

pre-Islamic title borne by the native princes of Us̲h̲rūsana. the mountainous district between Samarḳand and Ḵh̲ud̲j̲anda, including the upper course of the Zarafs̲h̲ān river (Barthold, Turkestan 2, 165-9). The province was subjected to the Arab governors of Ḵh̲urāsān by an expedition commanded by al-Faḍl b. Yaḥyā al-Barmakī in 178/794-5, but it was only after an internal conflict and a second expedition under Aḥmad b. Abī Ḵh̲ālid in 207/822 that the ruling afs̲h̲īn Kāwūs accepted Islām. Kāwūs was succeeded by his son Ḵh̲…

, a city in a large oasis in present day Uzbekistān on the lower course of the Zarafs̲h̲ān River. The city is 722 ft. (222.4 m.) above sea level and is located at 64° 38′ E. long. (Greenw.) and 39° 43′ N. Lat. We have few references to the city in pre-Islamic times. In the time of Alexander the Great there was ariother town in Sogdiana besides Marakanda (Samarḳand) on the lower course of the river but it probably did not correspond to the modern city of Buk̲h̲ārā. The oasis was inhabited from early times and towns certainly existed there. The earliest literary occurrence of the name is in Chin…

, Gökče-göl or Gökče-deniz ; otherwise Sevan, from Armenian Sew-vank , ‘Black monastery’; a great lake in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic, approx. 40° 20° N and 45′ 30′ E. Triangular in shape, Lake Gökče lies 6,000 feet/1830 metres above sea level and is surrounded by barren mountains; its area was formerly reckoned at 540 sq. miles and maximum depth 67 fathoms, but the level of the lake is being systematically …

, on the western bank of the Amu Daryā, site of the last capital of the k̲h̲ānate of K̲h̲wārazm, subsequently called the k̲h̲ānate of K̲h̲īwa. Its origins are bound up in the history of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.]. K̲h̲īwa was the third capital, after Gurgānd̲j̲ (385-515/995-1221) and Kāt̲h̲ [ q.vv.]; the latter was the capital during the 8th/14th century, in which period, with K̲h̲īwa. it was governed by the Čag̲h̲atay, and Gurgānd̲j̲ (subsequently called Urgenč) by the Golden Horde. After the restoration of unity (under the rule of the S̲h̲aybanids)…

or al-Ṣug̲h̲d, the name in early Islamic geographical and historical sources for the Soghdia of classical Greek authors, a region of Central Asia lying beyond the Oxus and extending across the modern Republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kirghizia in its wider acceptation. The same name (Old. Pers. Sugudu, late Avestan Sug̲h̲da, Greek Sogdioi or Sogdianoi (the people) and Sogdianē (the country) was applied in ancient times to a people of Iranian origin subject to the Persians (at least from the time of Darius I, 522-486 B.C.) whose lands stretched from the Oxus [see āmū daryā …

, 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.…

, 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…

, conventional form Syr Darya, a river of Central Asia and the largest in that region. The Turkish element in the name, si̊r , is not actually found before the 10th/16th century; in the following century, the K̲h̲īwan ruler and historian Abu ’l-G̲h̲āzī Bahādur K̲h̲ān [ q.v.] calls the Aral Sea “the Sea of Sir” (Si̊r Teñizi). 1. In the early and mediaeval periods. The Si̊r Daryā flows through the present republics of Kirgizia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan down from the northwestern slopes of the Tien Shan Mountains to the Aral Sea [ q.v.]. It is formed by the confluence in the e…

, Turkestan , a Persian term meaning “land of the Turks”. 1. As a designation for the Central Asian lands to the north of modern Persia and Afg̲h̲ānistān. This roughly corresponded to the older Transoxania or Mā warāʾ al-nahr [ q.v.] and the steppe lands to its north, although these last were from Mongol times onwards (sc. the 13th century) often distinguished as Mog̲h̲olistān [ q.v.]. To the Persians, of course, only the southern frontier of the land of the Turks, the frontier against Īrān, was of importance and this frontier naturally depended on political conditions. On ¶ their very firs…

, Tibbat , Tibat , the most frequent vocalisations in the medieval Islamic sources for the consonant ductus T.b.t denoting the Inner Asian land of Tibet (with Tubbat , e.g. in Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, ii, 10, also preferred by Minorsky in his Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 92-3, and his edition and tr. of Marwazī, see below). The origin of the name has recently been examined by L. Bazin and J. Hamilton in a very detailed and erudite study, L’origine du nom Tibet , in Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde , xxvi [1991], 244-62, repr. in Bazin, Les Turcs , des mots, des hommes, Paris 1994. They…