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(in Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. Minorsky, 111, 121, Ruk̲h̲ud̲h̲; in al-Muḳaddasī, 50, 297, Ruk̲h̲ūd, perhaps to be read as Ruk̲h̲wad̲h̲), the name given in early Islamic times to the region of southeastern Afghanistan around the later city of Ḳandahār [ q.v.] and occupying the lower basin of the ¶ Arg̲h̲andāb river (see D. Balland, EIr art. Arḡandāb ). The Islamic name preserves that of the classical Arachosia, through which Alexander the Great passed on his Indian expedition in 330 B.C. (see PW, ii/1, cols. 367-8 (W. Tomaschek)), which is itself a hellenisation of Old Pers. Harak̲…

, in mediaeval Turkish “[the land of] the seven rivers”, rendered in recent times by Russian scholars as Semirečʾe, a region of Central Asia. It comprised essentially the lands north of Transoxania [see mā warāʾ al-nahr ] which stretched from the basin of the I̊ssi̊k-Kol [ q.v.] lake northwards to Lake Balk̲h̲as̲h̲ [ q.v.], and it derived its name from the numerous rivers draining it, such as the Ču [ q.v.], which peters out in the desert to the northeast of the middle Si̊r Daryā [ q.v.], and several rivers flowing into Lake Balk̲h̲as̲h̲ such as the Ili [ q.v.], which rises in Dzungaria and f…

, Mug̲h̲īt̲h̲ al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn Abu ’l-Ḳāsim , Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ Sultan in western Persia and ʿIrāḳ 511-25/1118-31. The weakening of the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ central power in the west, begun after Malik-S̲h̲āh’s death in the ¶ period of the disputed succession between Berk-yaruḳ and Muḥammad [ q.vv.], but arrested somewhat once Muḥammad had established his undisputed authority, proceeded apace during Maḥmūd’s fourteen-year reign. This arose in part from the latter’s initial youthfulness (he came to the throne, at the age of 13 and as the eldest …

, the regnal name of the Kas̲h̲mīr Sultan S̲h̲āhī K̲h̲ān b. Iskandar, greatest of the line of S̲h̲āh Mīr Swātī, hence called Bud S̲h̲āh “Great King”, r. 823-75/1420-70. It was his merit to put an end to the persecutions of his father Sikandar But-S̲h̲ikan [ q.v.], who had forcibly converted Hindus and destroyed their temples. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn now in effect abolished the d̲j̲izya , allowed the rebuilding of temples, etc. The realm was secured by strong military policies, and internal prosperity secured by such measures as the digging of …

, prince of the Ziyārid dynasty in Persia and author of a well-known “Mirror for Princes” in Persian, the Ḳābūsnāma . ʿUnṣur al-Maʿālī Kay Kāʾūs was the penultimate ruler of the line of Ziyārids [ q.v.] who ruled in the Caspian provinces of Ṭabaristān or Māzandarān and Gurgān in the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries. His main claim to fame lies in the Ḳābūs-nāma , written in 475/1082-3, when the author was 63 years old, for his favourite son and intended successor, Gīlān-S̲h̲āh. The little that we know of his life must be gleaned from historical sources like Ibn Isfandiyār’s Tāʾrīk̲h̲-i Ṭabaris…

(t.) (perhaps also Yavg̲h̲u, the Old Turkish so-called “runic” alphabet not differentiating b and v), an ancient Turkish title, found in the Ork̲h̲on [ q.v.] inscriptions to denote an office or rank in the administrative hierarchy below the Kag̲h̲an. The latter normally conferred it on his close relatives, with the duty of administering part of his dominions. It was thus analogous to the title S̲h̲ad̲h̲, whom the Yabg̲h̲u preceded in the early Türk empire [see turks. I. History. 1. The pre-Islamic period]. It seems to have lost some importance after this time (8th century), …

, Abū Ibrāhīm , called al-Amīr al-Māḍī or al-Amīr al-ʿĀdil, the first member of the Sāmānid family effectively to rule all Transoxania and Farg̲h̲āna as an independent sovereign. Born in 234/849, he spent 20 years as governor of. Buk̲h̲ārā on behalf of his brother Naṣr, who himself resided at Samarḳand (260/874-279/892). The unsettled conditions in Ḵh̲urāsān during the years between the fall of the Ṭāhirids and the final establishment there of ʿAmr b. al-Layt̲h̲ [ q.v.] were reflected in Transoxania also. Ismāʿīl had in Buk̲h̲ārā to fight off an invading army from Ḵh̲wārazm under one Ḥ…

the ancient capital of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.], situated on the east bank of the main channel of the Amū Daryā or Oxus a short distance from modern K̲h̲īwa. According to Yāḳūt, Buldān , iv, 222, Kāt̲h̲ meant in K̲h̲wārazmian a wall or rampart within the steppe, even if it enclosed no buildings, but there is nothing in what we know of K̲h̲wārazmian to confirm this; it is conceivable that there is some connection with Sogdian kat̲h̲ , kant̲h̲ , “town”, though this is wholly conjectural. The site of Kāt̲h̲ was affected by changes in the channels of the river, and was accordingly moved at various times. Litt…

, Quetta , a town and district of northern Balūčistān, now in Pakistan. In both the former British India and now in Pakistan, Quetta and Pīs̲h̲īn, some 20 miles to its north, have formed an administrative district. The region is geologically complex and is very mountainous, with peaks rising up to nearly 12,000 feet/3,850 metres, and it is centred upon the basin of the Pīs̲h̲īn-Lora river and its tributaries. The climate is temperate, with cold winters. Crops—wheat being the chief rabīʿ or spring crop and sorghum the chief k̲h̲arīf or autumn one—can only be gr…

b. Abi ’l-ʿAṣ , Abu ’l-Ḳāsim and then Abū ʿAbd al-Malik, first caliph of the Marwānid branch of the Umayyad dynasty [ q.v.], reigned for several months in 64-5/684-5. Marwān, born of al-Ḥakam’s wife Āmina bt. ʿAlḳama al-Kināniyya, stemmed from the same branch of the Umayyad clan of Ḳurays̲h̲, se. Abu ’l-ʿĀṣ, as the Rightly-guided caliph ʿUt̲h̲mān, and was in fact ʿUt̲h̲mān’s cousin. The sources generally place his birth in A.H. 2 or 4 ( ca. 623-6), but it may well have occurred before the Hid̲j̲ra in any case, he must have known the Prophet and was accounte…

, Abū Manṣūr , Daylamī soldier of fortune who played an important part in the tortuous politics and military operations in northern Persia, involving local Daylamī chiefs, the ʿAlids of Ṭabaristān and the Sāmānids, during the first half of the 4th/10th century. The house of Kākī were local rulers of As̲h̲kawar in Rānikūh, the eastern part of Gīlān in the Caspian coastlands. Mākān rose to prominence in Ṭabaristān in the service of the ʿAlid princes there, and as the ʿAlids themselves dissolved into internecine rivalries, he became the co…

, Maʿalt̲h̲ā (Syriac “gate, entrance”, Payne Smith, Thesaurus syriacus , col. 2881), modern Malthai, the name given to two villages in the former ḳaḍāʾ of Dehōk (Duhūk) in the wilāyet of Mawṣil in Ottoman times, now in the Autonomous Region of Dehōk in Republican ʿIrāḳ. The second of these two villages was formerly distinguished as Maʿalt̲h̲ā al-Naṣārā “M. of the Christians”, but has recently become largely Kurdish and Muslim, like its fellow-village. Maʿalt̲h̲āyā lies on a small affluent of the Tigri…

, a small town in South India (lat. 18° 26′ N., long. 77° 11′ E.), in British Indian times the chef-lieu of a taluk in the Bīdar District of Ḥaydarābād State [ q.v.], now coming within the Maharashtra State of the Indian Union. It has a fort dating back to the end of the 9th/15th century. It was part of the lands of the Barīd S̲h̲āhs of Bīdar [ q.vv.], and then of their successors the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhs of Bīd̲j̲apur [ q.vv.] until it was besieged by S̲h̲āh Ḏj̲ahān’s army in 1044/1635 and then incorporated into the Mug̲h̲al empire. Its chief fame stems from the fiercely-fought ba…

, older orthography (e.g. in Ibn Rusta, 171) K̲h̲wāb, a rustāḳ or rural district of Ḳūhistān in eastern Persia, lying between the district of Bāk̲h̲arz [ q.v.] to the north and that of Ḳāʾin to the southwest, and adjacent to the modern Iran-Afg̲h̲ānistān border. The geographers of the 4th/10th century mention the towns there of Salūmak ( Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 103, Salūmīd̲h̲), Fard̲j̲ird and Kusūy(a), the latter being especially populous. Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut 1374-6/1955-7, ii, 399, describes the district as having 200 villages and three si…

, Abū Muḥammad al-Marwazi al-Tamīmī, faḳīh who had been a pupil of al-S̲h̲āfiʿī. judge and counsellor of ʿAbbāsid caliphs, d. 242/857. A native of Marw, he became Grand Judge ( ḳāḍī ’l-ḳuḍāt ) of Bag̲h̲dād after having been being appointed judge in Baṣra by al-Ḥasan b. Sahl [ q.v.] in 202/817-18. He soon became a member of al-Maʾmūn’s court circle as an adviser and boon-companion, thus exemplifying a trend under this caliph to take legal scholars rather than administrators as political counsellors. He accompanied al-Maʾmūn to Syria and Egypt …

, in mediaeval Islamic times a town, now the city of Madurai, in South India. It lies on the Vaidai river in lat. 9° 55’ N., long. 78° 07’ E. in the region known to the mediaeval Muslims as Maʿbar and to later European traders as Coromandel. For the historical geography and Islamic history of this coastal province, roughly extending from Cape Comorin northwards to Madras, see maʿbar . In 734/1334 S̲h̲arīf Ḏj̲alāl al-Dīn Aḥsan [ q.v.], governor for the Dihlī Sultan Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ [ q.v.], renounced his allegiance, and he and some seven of his successors ruled over a short-l…

, or Kākwayhids , a dynasty of Daylamī origin which ruled over part of D̲j̲ibāl or west-central Persia during the first half of the 5th/11th century as virtually independent sovereigns, and thereafter for more than a century as local lords of Yazd, tributary to the Sald̲j̲ūḳs. The rise of the Kākūyids is one aspect of the “Daylamī interlude” of Iranian history, during which hitherto submerged Daylamī and Kurdish elements rose to prominence. Under the dynamic leadership of the …

, Banū , or Mazyadids , an Arab dynasty of central ʿIrāḳ, which stemmed originally from the clan of Nās̲h̲ira of the Banū Asad [ q. v. ] established in the area between al-Kūfa and Hīt, and which flourished in the 4th-6th/10th-12th centuries. ¶ The origins of the Mazyadids, as established by G. Makdisi (see Bibl .) pace the older view (expressed e.g. in EI 1 mazyadīds ) that the family did not appear in history till the early years of the 5th/11th century, go back to the period soon after the establishment of Būyid domination in ʿIrāḳ. Ibn al-Ḏj̲āwzī relates that the Būyid amīr Muʿizz al-Dawla’s v…

, Ḳuzdār , the name of a town in mediaeval Islamic Balūčistān [ q.v.], modern town and district of Ḵh̲uzdār in the former Kalāt state [see kilāt ] in Pakistan. It lies in lat. 27° 48′ N. and long 66° 37′ E. at an altitude of 4,050 feet, some 85 miles south of Kalāt; the long, narrow valley of the Kolachi River in which it is situated is strategically important as a nodal point of communications, from Karāčī and Las Bēla [ q.vv.] in the south, from Kaččhī in the east, from Kalāt in the north, and from Makrān and K̲h̲ārān [ q.vv.] in the west. Ḳuṣdār was first raided by the Arabs…

, Banū , an Iranian dynasty which reigned in the districts of Rūyān and Rustamdār, the coastal plain and the mountainous interior respectively, of the western parts of the Caspian province of Māzandarān [ q.v.] in the second half of the 9th/15th century and in the 10th/16th century. The dynasty was in fact one of the two branches into which the ancient line of the Bādūspānids [ q.v.], whose genealogy went back to Sāsānid times, split in the middle years of the 9th/15th century. The Bādūspānids had been confined to the fortress of Nūr by the Caspian campaigns of Tīmūr in 794/139…

(A., also laṣş , luṣṣ , pl. luṣūṣ , with maṣdar s luṣūṣiyya , talaṣṣuṣ (see LA 1, viii, 355-6, and Lane, s.v.), one of the two main words in Arabic for thief robber (the other being sāriḳ ); in Persian we have duzd “thief”, duzdī “theft”, and in old Turkish og̲h̲ri̊ , Ottoman k̲h̲ayrsi̊z , modern hırsız . Arabic liṣṣ and the unassimilated variants li/a/uṣt must have appeared in the language during the Byzantine period, presumably via Syriac leṣtā , whilst there exists the form listīs , closer to the Greek original λῃστής in Mishnaic Hebrew and Palestine Jewish Aramaic (see S. Krauss, Griechische u…

(p.), literally “the holder of an ustān [ q.v.] or province”, an administrative term originally found in Sāsānid Persia for the governor of a province or for the official in charge of state domains (see Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Araber , 448). When the Arabs conquered ʿIrāḳ, the old Sāsānid state lands were taken over as ṣawāfī al-ustān and administered by ustāndārs for the caliph ʿUmar (see M.J. Morony, Iraq after the Muslim conquest , Princeton 1984, 68-9 and index s.v. ustāndār). The title probably continued to be used meanwhile by local potentates in the un-Islami…

(t.), lit. rain stone, in Arabic texts appearing as ḥad̲j̲ar al-maṭar , this being a magical stone by means of which rain, snow, fog, etc., could be conjured up by its holder(s). In particular, knowledge and use of such stones has been widespread until very recent times in Inner Asia. Belief in the existence of stones and other means of controlling the weather has been widespread throughout both the Old and New Worlds (see Sir J.G. Frazer, The golden bough, a study in magic and religion, abridged ed., London 1922, 75-8). Belief in a stone seems to have been general amongst the e…

, a town and district in Central Asia, now the town and oblast of Leninabad in the Tadzhik SSR, the town lying in 40° 17′ lat. N. and 69° 37′ long. E. The mediaeval town was strung out along the left bank of the middle Si̊r Daryā at the southernmost bend of its course and at the entrance to the Farg̲h̲āna valley. It lay in the ill-defined borderlands between the Transoxanian districts of Īlāḳ [ q.v. in Suppl.] and Us̲h̲rūsana [ q.v.], and was generally reckoned as being connected administratively with one or other of these two in the early middle ages. Its destinies were, ho…

or al-Naws̲h̲ari , Abū Mūsā ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad, general (said to be Turkish, but perhaps an Iranian from K̲h̲urāsān, since al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, xiii, 201-2, derives the nisba al-Nūs̲h̲ārī ( sic) from Nūs̲h̲ār, a village in the district of Balk̲h̲) from the guard of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs at Sāmarrā and governor of Damascus on various occasions during the caliphates of al-Muntaṣir, al-Mustaʿīn and al-Muʿtazz [ q.vv.] from 247/861 onwards. At the accession of al-Muʿtazz in 252/866, he expanded southwards into Palestine, displacing the Arab governor of Ramla [ q.v.], ʿĪsā b. …

“Ṭalḥa of the Ṭalḥas”, the name by which the early Islamic Arab commander Abū Muḥammad Ṭalḥa b. ʿAbd Allāh b. K̲h̲alaf al-K̲h̲uzāʿī was known. Ibn K̲h̲allikān, ed. ʿAbbās, iii, 88, tr. de Slane, ii, 53, explains that he got this cognomen because his mother’s name was Ṭalḥa bt. Abī Ṭalḥa. On his mother’s side he was connected with Ḳurays̲h̲ (Caskel-Strenziok, Ğamharat an-nasab , ii, 555). He appears in Umayyad history as governor of Sīstān around the end of the caliphate of Yazīd I, being appointed by the governor of K̲h̲urāsān Salm b. Ziyād [ q.v.] just after an Arab raid into eastern Af…

, the ancient title of the rulers of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.], used regularly in the early Islamic period (cf. Ṭabarī, ii, 1238, events of 93/712) until the Mongol invasions, and sporadically thereafter; hence as with the designations Afs̲h̲īn and Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īd [ q.vv.], this is an example of the survival of what was probably an ancient Central Asian Iranian title well into Islamic times. The K̲h̲wārazmian scholar Bīrūnī gives the names and genealogical sequence of the first line of K̲h̲wārazm-S̲h̲āhs, the house of Afrīg̲h̲, which began, so he says, in 305 A.D. and continued unti…

, an ancient town of northern India in the K̲h̲ad̲j̲uhā taḥṣīl of Fatḥpūr District in the former British United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh. It lies in lat. 26° 7′ N. and long. 80° 22′ E. on the Rind River some 12 miles/20 km. from the Ḏj̲amnā (Jumna) River between Kānpūr (Cawnpore) and Fatḥpūr. In early times it was apparently held by the Rād̲j̲put line of the Rād̲j̲ās of Argal, and the fortress there may have been their ancestral centre. Under the Mug̲h̲als, Kōŕā (sometimes spelt in Marāt́hi and Persian sources as Kurrah, and to be distinguished from Kārā Manīkpūr, an adjacent but separate sar…

, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad al-Bayhaḳī, historian of the Sāmānid period, who flourished in the middle decades of the 4th/10th century but whose exact dates of birth and death are unknown. According to the local historian of Bayhaḳ, Ibn Funduḳ [see al-bayhaḳī , ẓahīr al-dīn ... b. funduḳ ], he was a pupil of the rather shadowy nadīm and adīb Ibrahīm b. Muḥammad al-Bayhaḳī [ q.v.], author of the K. al-Maḥāsin wa ’l-masāwī , and according to al-T̲h̲aʿālibī, he was in the service of the Muḥtād̲j̲id amīr s of Čag̲h̲āniyān [see muḥtād̲j̲ids ], Abū Bakr Muḥammad and Abū…

b. Ḏj̲ahān-S̲h̲āh b. S̲h̲āh ʿĀlam i , Nāṣir al-Dīn (1131-61/1719-48), surnamed Raws̲h̲an Ak̲h̲tar, “Brillant Star”, the last of the Mug̲h̲al emperors in Dihlī to enjoy real power. His father had been one of three brothers who perished in disputing the crown with their eldest brother D̲j̲ahān-dār S̲h̲āh b. S̲h̲āh ʿĀlam Bahādur. Muḥammad S̲h̲āh was born on 24 Rabīʿ I 1114/7 August 1702, and hailed as emperor by the two Sayyid brothers, Sayyid ʿAbd Allāh and Sayyid Ḥusayn, after the two brief reigns of Muḥammad S̲h̲āh’s cousin…

, conventionally Qayen, etc., a town of eastern Persia (lat. 33° 43′ N., long. 59° 06′ E.), now in the administrative province of K̲h̲urāsān but in mediaeval Islamic times falling within the region known as Ḳūhistān [ q.v.]. It lies on the road connecting the urban centres of northern K̲h̲urāsān (Mas̲h̲had, Turbat-i Ḥaydariyya, etc.) with Bird̲j̲and, Persian Sīstān and Zāhidān. Ḳāʾin must be an ancient town, but virtually nothing is known of it before the descriptions of the 4th/10th century geographers. The 8th century Armenian geo…

(II) b. Manṣūr b. Nūḥ , Sāmānid amīr initially in Transoxania and K̲h̲urāsān. latterly in the first province only (366-87/977-97), given after his death the honorific al-Amīr al-Raḍī (“the Wellpleasing”). The last of his line to enjoy a reign of any significant length, Nūḥ succeeded his father Manṣūr (I) [ q.v.] at the age of 13, real power being in the hands of his mother and the vizier Abu ’l-Ḥusayn ʿUtbī, the last vizier to the Sāmānids worthy of the title. However, authority in the state fell more and more into the hands of the great milita…

, Maham , a town in the district and ¶ taḥṣīl of Rohtak in India, on the road connecting Dihlī and Hānsī, situated in lat. 28° 58′ N. and long. 76° 18′ E.; it was formerly in the Pand̲j̲āb, but since 1947 has fallen within the Indian Union (Hariana State). It was probably founded by Rād̲j̲pūt princes, but was allegedly destroyed at the end of the 12th century by Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad G̲h̲ūrī [see g̲h̲ūrids ]. The D̲j̲āmiʿ Masd̲j̲id has an inscription from the reign of Humāyūn, recording its construction by Bēgam Sulṭān in 1531, and another from A…

(a.), said to be an Arabised form of Pers. čawgān “polo stick” [see čawgān ]. The intrusive l makes this difficult, but D.N. MacKenzie, A concise dictionary of Pahlavi , London 1971, 22, has * caw ( l) agān (“of doubtful transcription”). At all events, the curve of a polo stick makes it a suitable figurative expression, either as a simile [see tas̲h̲bīh ] or as a metaphor [see istiʿāra ], in classical Arabic, Persian and Turkish literatures, for the curving eyebrows and locks or tresses of hair of a beautiful girl; see Annemarie Schimmel, The two-colored brocade. The imagery of Persian poetry, C…

, later form Marg̲h̲elān , a town of Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.] in Central Asia, situated to the south of the Ṣi̊r Daryā [ q.v.] or Jaxartes, on a small river now called the Margelan Say. ¶ It was a place of modest importance in the first Islamic centuries as one of the main towns, with inter alia Andid̲j̲ān [ q.v.], of the district of Farg̲h̲āna known as Lower Nasyā; according to al-Mukaddasī, 272 (see also Le Strange, Lands , 479; Ibn Ḥawḳal 2, 513-14, tr. 491; al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , facs. ed. f. 522a), it had a Friday mosque and markets. Coins were first minted there …

, Abū Ayyūb Sulaymān b. Mak̲h̲lad (the nisba stemming from Mūriyān in Ahwāz, see Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am , ed. Beirut, v, 221), secretary of the second ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr [ q.v.]. Various stories are given in the sources about how he came to enjoy al-Manṣūr’s confidence: that in the time of the last Umayyad caliph Marwān b. Muḥammad he had saved the ʿAbbāsid Abū D̲j̲aʿfar from a flogging for embezzling state funds (al-Yaʿḳūbī, al-D̲j̲ahs̲h̲iyārī): that he was a freed slave of al-Saffah’s, taken into his successor’s service (…

, Narmāsīr , a town and a district of eastern Kirmān [ q.v.] in mediaeval Islamic Persia, lying to the south-east of Bam [ q.v.], adjacent to the southern end of the Das̲h̲t-i Lūṭ and on the road connecting Kirmān with Sīstān. The classical Islamic geographers list the district as one of the five kūras of Kirmān and describe the town as prosperous and populous, the resort of merchants who travelled from K̲h̲urāsān to ʿUmān and an emporium for Indian goods. It had a protective wall with four gates, a citadel and a congregationa…

, a small town in the s̲h̲ahrastān of Ardakān [ q.v.] in the modern Persian ustān or province of Yazd, situated 32 miles/48 km. to the northwest of Yazd. The mediaeval geographers (e.g. Ibn Ḥawḳal 2, 263, 287, tr. Kramers and Wiet, 260, 281; Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. Minorsky, 29, § 29.45; Le Strange, Lands , 285) describe it as being on the Iṣfahān-Yazd road, 10 farsak̲h̲s from Yazd. Lying as it does on the southern fringe of the Great Desert, its irrigation comes from ḳanāts [ q.v.] (see Lambton, Landlord and peasant in Persia 1, 219). Its population in ca. 1950 was 3,798. (C.E. Bosworth) Bibliography I…

, Ik̲h̲tiyār al-Dīn , Afg̲h̲ān adventurer and commander active in the Muslim conquest of northern India under the generals of the G̲h̲ūrids [ q.v.] and the one who first established Muslim power in Bengal. Having failed to find preferment in G̲h̲azna with Sultan Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Sām [ q.v.] of G̲h̲ūr and then in Dihlī, allegedly on account of his unprepossessing appearance, Muḥammad Bak̲h̲tiyār began as a local g̲h̲āzī leader in the districts of Badāʾūn and Awadh [ q.vv.] until he was able, under the aegis of Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Aybak [ q.v.] of Dihlī, to make important conquests in Bihār ca. …

(a.), correctly muns̲h̲iʾ , a secretary, an exponent of the high-flown epistolary style general in mediaeval Islamic chanceries from the 2nd/8th century onwards and known as ins̲h̲āʾ [ q.v.]. In the Persian and Indo-Muslim worlds, the term muns̲h̲ī was used for secretaries in the ruler’s chancery, e.g. among the Ṣafawids, for the whom the State Scribe, the muns̲h̲ī al-mamalīk , was a very important official who apparendy shared responsibility for the S̲h̲āh’s correspondence with the wāḳiʿa-nuwīs or Recorder (see Tad̲h̲kirat al-mulūk , tr. Minorsky, Lond…

, the name of a mediaeval Hindu power which covered large parts of the Deccan from the mid-14th century to the later 17th century and which is relevant to this Encyclopaedia because of the incessant warfare between its Rād̲j̲ās (some sixty of whom, from various, distinct lineages, issued royal inscriptions claiming sovereignty over India south of the Krishna river) and the Muslim sultanates of the Deccan. It appears in Indo-Muslim sources as Bid̲j̲anagar. The name Vid̲j̲ayanagara, meaning “City of victory”, was that of the state’s original capital on the upper Tungab…

, the coastal region of southern Balūčistān, extending roughly from the Somniani Bay in the East to the eastern fringes of the region of Bas̲h̲kardia [see bas̲h̲kard in Suppl.] in the west. The modern political boundary between Pakistan and Iran thus bisects the mediaeval Makrān. The east-to-west running Siyāhān range of mountains, just to the north of the Mas̲h̲kēl and Rak̲h̲s̲h̲ān valleys, may be regarded as Makrān’s northern boundary. In British Indian times, this range formed the boundary between the southwestern part of the Kalāt native state [see kilāt ] and the K̲h̲ārān one [ q.v.]…

, modern Turkish Simav , a town of northwestern Anatolia, lying on the river of the same name and just to the south-east of the Simav Gölü, 90 km/58 miles as the crow flies to the southwest of Kütahya [ q.v.] and on the road connecting Balıkesir with Usak (lat. 39° 05′ N., long. 28° 59′ E., altitude 823 m/2,700 feet). In later Ottoman times, it was the chef-lieu of a ḳaḍāʾ of the same name, and is now the centre of the ilçe or district of Simav in the il or province of Kütahya. One should not confuse it, as did Babinger in his EI 1 art., with Simāwnā in eastern Thrace, the birthplace of the early Ot…

(a.) “equality”, the maṣdar of form III of the verb sawiya “to be equal to, be worth”, with the same sense as form I; in modern times, it has been ¶ used for the political concept of human equality (Ottoman Turkish müsāwāt , modern Turkish mūsavat , Persian musāwāt , barābārī ). The root is found frequently in the Ḳurʾān, though only once in form III (XVIII, 95/96), in the sense “to make level, even up”. In the literary and cultural controversies of the ʿAbbāsid period, those of the S̲h̲uʿūbiyya [ q.v.], the non-Arabs seeking social equality with the ruling class of Arabs were sometimes known as the a…

, in mediaeval times a district and town, now a district only, of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān in northwestern Persia. It lies to the south of Ardabīl, and is bounded on the east by that part of the Elburz chain which separates Gīlān and Tālis̲h̲ in the Caspian coastlands from the upland interior of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, the mountains here rising to over 10,000 feet. Much of the district is drained by the left-bank tributaries of the Ḳi̊zi̊l Uzun affluent of the Safīd-Rūd. In mediaeval times it adjoined on the east the district of Ṭārom and was part of the general region called Daylam [ qq.v.]. The actual name…

, a former Native State of British India, when three of its component districts fell within Rād̲j̲pūtānā and three in Central India, with its centre in the town of the same name (lat. 26° 10’ N., long 75° 50’ E.). The former Tonk State is now a District of Rād̲j̲āst̲h̲ān in the Indian Union. Tonk was founded by Amīr K̲h̲ān (d. 1834 [ q.v.]), a Pathan from Bunēr who rose, first in the service of the Rohillas [ q.v.] and then in the army of D̲j̲aswant Singh Holkar (1798). He submitted to the British in 1817. During the Sepoy Mutiny, his son Wazīr Muḥammad K̲h̲ān remained lo…

(Turkish “black lake”), ḳarakul , the name of various lakes in Central Asia and of a modern town in the Uzbek SSR. The best-known lake is that lying at the western extremity of the Zarafs̲h̲ān River in Sog̲h̲dia (modern Uzbekistan), midway between Buk̲h̲ārā and Čārd̲j̲ūy (mediaeval Āmul-i S̲h̲aṭṭ, see āmul . 2). The basin in which it lay was known as the Sāmd̲j̲an basin, see Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 315, and Ibn Ḥawḳal, ed. Kramers, 485, tr. Kramers and Wiet, 466. In Nars̲h̲ak̲h̲ī’s Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Buk̲h̲ārā , ed. Schefer, 17, tr. Frye, 19, the lake is given both the Tur…

, the name of an eastern Iranian dynasty which flourished as an independent power in the 6th/12th century and the early years of the 7th/13th century and which was based on the region of G̲h̲ūr [ q.v.] in what is now central Afg̲h̲ānistān with its capital at Fīrūzkūh [ q.v.]. 1. Origins and early history. The family name of the G̲h̲ūrid Sultans was S̲h̲anasb/S̲h̲ansab (< MP Gus̲h̲nasp; cf. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch , 282, and Marquart, Das Reich Zābul , in Festschrift E. Sachau , 289, n. 3), and in the time of their florescence, attempts were made to at…

bi ’llāh , Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAbd Allāh , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 333-4/944-6, son of the caliph al-Muḳtafī [ q.v.] by a Greek slave concubine called G̲h̲uṣn. When the commander-in-chief of the Turkish soldiery in Bag̲h̲dād, Tūzūn, deposed and blinded al-Muttaḳī b. al-Muḳtadir [ q.v.], he raised to the throne one of the latter’s cousins as al-Mustakfī in Ṣafar 333/September-October 944, al-Mustakfī being then aged 41. The situation in ʿIrāḳ was unpropitious for the new ruler. The caliphs were puppets in the hands of the Turkish troops, whose…

, a town in northern Bihār State of the Indian Union (lat. 26° 7′ N.,85° 24″ E.), and also the name of a District of which it is the administrative centre; the District covers the ancient region of Tirhut between the Ganges and the southern border of Nepal. The region was attacked in the 8th/14th century by the Muslim rulers of Bengal; in the next century it passed to the S̲h̲arḳī rulers of D̲j̲awnpur [ q.v.], and then to Sikandar Lōdī of Dihlī. The town of Muẓaffarpur enshrines the name of its founder, the Emperor Akbar’s commander Muẓaffar Khān, dīwān or head of revenue and finance [see dīwān. v] a…