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(in Arabic usually taken as al-lān ), an Iranian people (Alān < Aryan) of Northern Caucasus, formerly attested also east of the Caspian sea (see al-Bīrūnī, Taḥdīd al-Amākin , ed. A. Z. Validi, in Bīrūnī’s Picture of the world, 57), as supported by local toponymy. The Alān are mentioned in history from the 1st century A.D. In 371 they were defeated by the Huns. Together with the Vandals, a part of the Alāns migrated to the West across France and Spain, and finally took part in the creation of the Vandal kingdom in North Africa (418-5…

, a town in Kurdistān, at about 100 klm. north of Mosul in the basin of the Gāra river (a right tributary of the Great Zāb). The town stands on a hill and is dominated by the citadel built on a steep rock. The water supplying the citadel comes from cisterns hewn in the rock. The stronghold is situated at a point which, in the east, controls communications with valleys of the left affluents of the Zāb (Shamdīnān, Rū-Kučūk, Rawānduz) and, in the west, those within the Ḵh̲ābūr basin. The climate of ʿAmādiya is hot and unhealthy. According to Ibn al-At̲h̲īr the fortress received its name from ʿ…

1. For all practical purposes the term Abk̲h̲āz or Afk̲h̲āz , in early Muslim sources covers Georgia and Georgians (properly Ḏj̲urzān , q.v.). The reason (cf. below under 2.) is that a dynasty issued from Abk̲h̲āzia ruled in Georgia at the time of the early ʿAbbāsids. A distinction between the Abk̲h̲ăzian dynasty and the Georgian rulers on the upper Kur is made by al-Masʿūdī, ii, 65, 74. The people properly called Abk̲h̲āz is possibly referred to only in the tradition represented by Ibn Rusta, 139: , read * Awg̲h̲az , see Marquart, Streifzüge , 164-76, and Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam …

, Nad̲j̲af Ḳulī Ḵh̲ān, a Bak̲h̲tiyārī chief born about 1846. His father was Ḥusayn Ḳulī Ḵh̲ān, more commonly known as Īlk̲h̲ānī, the first Bak̲h̲tiyārī leader to be formally designated Īlk̲h̲ān of all the Bak̲h̲tiyārī by the imperial government in Tehran, and who was poisoned on the orders of prince Ẓill al-Sulṭān, the famous governor-general of Iṣfāhān, who feared his growing power. Ṣamṣām al-Salṭana was Īlbeg of the Bak̲h̲tiyārī in 1903-5 and later Īlk̲h̲ān. He is remembered principally for the part he played as one of the leaders of the Bak̲h̲tiyārī intervention …

or ḵh̲ilāṭ , town and fortress at the N.W. corner of Lake Wān. (i) In Armenian the town is called Ḵh̲latʿ, the name being possibly connected with the ancient inhabitants of the country, the Urartian Ḵh̲alds. It lies half-way between Sipan Dag̲h̲ and Nimrūd Dag̲h̲ on the route taken by invasions from Mesopotamia into eastern Armenia. Al-Balād̲h̲urī, 200, reckons it to Armenia III, which in the Arab view included Ḳālīḳalā (Erzerum), Ard̲j̲īs̲h̲ and Baḥunays (i.e. either Apahunikʿ, where Manāzgird lies, or Bznunikʿ, the district of Ak̲h̲lāṭ). Under ʿUmar, ʿIyāḍ b. G̲h̲anm made a tre…

, Ṭārom , the name of two places in Persia. 1. The best-known is the mediaeval Islamic district of that name lying along the middle course of the Ḳi̊zi̊l Üzen or Safīd Rūd river [ q.vv.] in the ancient region of Daylam [ q.v.] in northwestern Persia. Adjoining it on the east was the district of K̲h̲alk̲h̲āl [ q.v.]. There are, at the present time, two small towns or villages bearing the name Ṭārum, one of them on the right bank of the Ḳi̊zi̊l Üzen between Wanisarā and Kallad̲j̲. According to Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī ( Nizhat al-ḳulūb , 65, 217-18, tr. 69-70, 209-10), the district of “the two Ṭārums” ( Ṭāruma…

, one of the names for gipsies in Persia; parallel forms are: in Persian, lūrī , lōrī ( Farhang-i D̲j̲ahāngīrī ); in Balūčī, lōṛī (Denys Bray, Census of Baluchistan , 1911, iv, 143, gives the popular etymology from lōṛ = “lot, share”). The name lūlī is first found in a legend relating to the reign of Bahrām Gūr (420-38 A.D.). At the request of this Sāsānid King, who wished to amuse his subjects, the Indian king S̲h̲angal (?) sent to Persia 4,000 (12,000) Indian musicians. Ḥamza (350/961), ed. Berlin-Kaviani, 38, calls them al-Zuṭṭ [ q.v.], Firdawsī (Mohl, vi, 76-7), Lūriyān; T̲h̲aʿālibī, G̲h̲ur…

, Banū , a numerous and formerly powerful Arab tribe living on the borders of Iran and ʿIrāḳ, principally on the plain between the foothills of the Pus̲h̲t-i Kūh mountains and the river Tigris. The easterly limit of the main tribal territory follows the course of the Rūd-i Kark̲h̲a southwards from Pā-yi Pul to the area north of Ḥawīza where the river peters out into salt flats. The course of the Tigris between S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Saʿd and ʿAmāra forms the westerly limit of that territ…

, Nisā , the name of several places in Persia. Yāḳūt enumerates Nasās in K̲h̲urāsān. Fārs, Kirmān and the district of Hamad̲h̲ān in D̲j̲ibāl, but W. Eilers has assembled a much larger number of Persian place names containing the element nasā ( r) or containing linguistic elements apparently connected with it. Scholars like Bartholomae and Marquart sought an etymology in Old Iranian śai- “to lie” (Grk. Κεῖσθαι), with the ideas of “settlement” or “low-lying place”; Eilers however explains it as from NP nasā, nasa ( r), nisā , “place lying in the shade (e.g. of a mountain)” ( Iranische Ortsname…

, the ancient Rag̲h̲ā, a city in the old Persian region of Media, during Islamic times in the province of D̲j̲ibāl [ q.v.]. Its ruins may be seen about 5 miles south-southeast of Tehran [ q.v.] to the south of a spur projecting from Elburz into the plain. The village and sanctuary of S̲h̲āh ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm lie immediately south of the ruins. The geographical importance of the town lies in the fact that it was situated in the fertile zone which lies between the mountains and the desert, by which from time immemorial communication ha…

, a district in K̲h̲urāsān, original Persian form Tōs (also thus in the later 8th century Armenian geography, see Markwart-Messina, A catalogue of the provincial capitals of Ērānshahr , Rome 1931, 11, 47), which played a notable part in the medieval Islamic period of Persia’s Islamic history. ¶ 1. History. In early Islamic times, Ṭūs was the name of a district containing several towns. The town of Nawḳān flourished down to the end of the 3rd/9th century. The form Nawḳān < Nōḳan is confirmed by the present name of the Mas̲h̲had quarter Nawg̲h̲ān (where the diphthong aw corresponds to the old wāw…

b. ʿAlī b. Ḳara yoluk ʿUt̲h̲mān , Abū Naṣr, born in 828/1425, died in 882/1478, and together with his grandfather, one of the most celebrated rulers of the line of Aḳ Ḳoyunlu Turkmens [ q.v.] and a statesman and military commander of genius. Expanding from his family’s base in Diyār Bakr [ q.v.], Uzun (“the Tall”) overcame his Ḳara Ḳoyunlu [ q.v] Turkmen rivals, and in the east defeated his rivals for control of Persia, the Tīmūrids [ q.v.], reigning 861-82/1457-78 over a powerful and extensive state which comprised western Persia and Kirmān as far as the borders of K̲h̲u…

, a people of South Caucasian stock (Iberic, “Georgian”) now dwelling in the southeastern corner of the shores of the Black Sea, in the region called in Ottoman times Lazistān. 1. History and geography. The ancient history of the Laz is complicated by the uncertainty which reigns in the ethnical nomenclature of the Caucasus generally; the same names in the course of centuries are applied to different units (or groups). The fact that the name Phasis was applied to the Rion, to the Čorok̲h̲ (the ancient Akampsis), and even to the sources of the Araxes, also creates difficulties. The earliest G…

, S̲h̲ahrizūr (in S̲h̲araf K̲h̲ān Bidlīsī’s S̲h̲araf-nāma , S̲h̲ahra-zūl), a district in western Kurdistān lying to the west of the Awrāmān mountain chain, essentially a fertile plain some 58 × 40 km/36 × 25 miles in area, watered by the tributaries of the Tānd̲j̲arō river, which flows into the Sīrwān and eventually to the Diyālā and Tigris. In the wide sense, S̲h̲ahrazūr denoted in Ottoman times the eyālet or province of Kirkūk, a source of considerable confusion in geographical terminology. The district is closely associated with the Ahl-i Ḥaḳḳ [ q.v.], and the initiates of the sec…

, a region in the heart of Inner Asia, to the south of the Pamir [ q.v.] range, essentially a long and narrow valley running east-west and watered by the upper Oxus or Pand̲j̲a and the Wak̲h̲ān Daryā, its southernmost source. The length of Wak̲h̲ān along the Oxus is 67 miles and of the Wak̲h̲ān Daryā (from Langar-kis̲h̲ to the Wak̲h̲d̲j̲īr pass) 113 miles. Afg̲h̲an sources put the distance from Is̲h̲kās̲h̲im to Sarḥadd at 66 kurōh (=22 farsak̲h̲s ). ¶ To the south of Wak̲h̲ān rises the wall of the Hindū Kus̲h̲, through which several passes lead to the lands of the upper In…

, Nak̲h̲čuwān , the name of a town in Transcaucasia which is also the chief town of a region of the same name, until the early 19th century a largely independent khanate and in former Soviet Russian administrative geography part of the Azerbaijan SSR but an enclave within the Armenian Republic. Both town and region lie to the northwest of the great southern bend of the Araxes river, since 1834 here the frontier between Persia and Russian territory. The town of Nak̲h̲čiwān is …

, the form found in Islamic sources for the capital of Georgia, Tiflis or modern Tbilisi. The city is situated on hilly ground in the Kura river valley [see kur ] (lat. 41° 43′ N., long. 44° 49′ E.), and has a strategic position controlling the routes between eastern and western Transcaucasia which has ensured it a lively history. The city is an ancient one, being founded in A.D. 455 or 458 when the capital of Georgia was transferred thither from nearby Mtsk̲h̲eta. For the subsequent history of the city, from Byzantine and Sāsānid times through the long…

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, a Persian corruption of sog̲h̲uḳ bulaḳ “cold spring”, Kurdish Sā-blāg̲h̲, the name of a district in southwestern Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, to the south of Lake Urmiya, and also the former name of its chef-lieu, the modern Mahābād [ q.v.]. The district comprises essentially Mukrī Kurdistān, inhabited by the sedentary Mukrī and Debok̲h̲rī tribes of Kurds, speaking the Kurmānd̲j̲ī form of the Kurdish language (classically described by O. Mann in his Die Mundart der Mukri-Kurden . Kurdisch-persische Forschungen , 4th ser. vol. iii/1-2, Berlin 1906-9. Cf. Min…

1. Town in the Persian province of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. Position. The town lies about 40 miles north of Tabrīz, halfway between it and the Araxes or Aras in lat. 38° 25′ 30″ N. and 45° 46″ E. at an altitude of ca. 4,400 feet/1,360m. (it is 42 miles from Marand to D̲j̲ulfā). The road from Tabrīz to K̲h̲oy also branches off at Marand. A shorter road from Tabrīz to K̲h̲oy follows the north bank of Lake Urmiya and crosses the Mis̲h̲owdag̲h̲ range by the pass between Tasūd̲j̲ [ q.v.] and Ḍiyā al-Dīn. Marand, which is surrounded by many gardens, occupies the eastern corner of a rather beau…