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Ḥād̲j̲ib

(4,559 words)

Author(s): Sourdel, D. | Bosworth, C.E. | Lambton, A.K.S.
, 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…

al-Muʿtaṣim Bi ’llāh

(973 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Isḥāḳ Muḥammad b. Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 218-27/833-42, son of the caliph Hārūn by a slave concubine Mārida. During the reign of his brother and predecessor al-Maʾmūn [ q.v.], al-Muʿtaṣim achieved a reputation as a skilful commander in Anatolia and as governor in Egypt. When al-Maʾmūn died in the Byzantine marches in Rad̲j̲ab 218/August 833, al-Muʿtaṣim was recognised as caliph despite support within the army for his nephew al-ʿAbbās b. al-Maʾmūn (who was, in fact, later to conspire against al-Muʿta…

Mangrōl

(185 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of two places in India. 1. A port on the southwestern coast of the Kāt́hiāwāŕ peninsula, in lat. 21° 28′ N. and long 70° 14′ E., formerly coming within the native state of D̲j̲unāgaŕh [ q.v.] and with a Muslim local chief there tributary to the Nawwāb of D̲j̲unāgaŕh; the mosque there carries a date 785/1383. Bibliography Imperial gazetteer of India 2, xvii, 180. 2. A town in the former British Indian territory of Rajputana, within the native state of Kotah, in lat. 25° 20′ N. and long. 70° 31′ E. and 44 miles/70 km. to the northeast of Kotah city. He…

Ṣūfiyāna

(183 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(p.), the term applied to the days of abstinence from eating meat introduced by the Mug̲h̲al emperor of India, Akbar (963-1014/1556-1605 [ q.v.]). His chronicler Abu ’l-Faḍl ʿAllāmī [ q.v.] notes in his Āʾīn-i Akbarī (tr. H. Blochmann, i, 51-2, more accurately tr. in Shireen Moosvi, Episodes in the life of Akbar. Contemporary records and reminiscences, New Delhi 1994, 100-1) that Akbar abstained thus on Fridays and Sundays, and then on various other days of the year, including the first day of each solar month and the whole of the first month Farwar…

Pis̲h̲pek

(217 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
a settlement of early and mediaeval Islamic times in the Ču [ q.v.] valley of the Semirečye in Turkestan, during the Soviet period forming the city of Frunze (lat. 42° 54′ N., long. 74° 36′ E.). The region of Pis̲h̲pek and nearby Toḳmaḳ is known to have been in mediaeval Islamic times a centre of Nestorian Christianity, and inscribed grave stones, the oldest of which date back to the time of the Ḳara ¶ K̲h̲iṭay [ q.v.] (6th/12th century), have been found there (see W. Barthold, Zur Geschichte des Christentums in Mittel-Asien bis zur mongolische Eroberung , Tübingen and Leipzig 1901, 1-2, 37-8 et …

Sumerā or Sumrā

(161 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of a Rād̲j̲pūt tribe of Lower Sind in mediaeval Islamic times. Their origins are shrouded in mystery, but they are first mentioned in Muslim historians’ account of Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna’s return from his attack on Somnāth in 416/1026 [see sūmanāt ]. For the next three centuries, they were the leading power in Lower Sind, but in the 8th/14th century their domination was challenged by the rival tribe of the Sammās [ q.v.]. Despite attempts by the Tug̲h̲luḳid Sultan of Dihlī, Fīrūz S̲h̲āh (III), to aid the Sumerās, the Sammās finally emerged triumphant over their…

Rāfiʿ b. al-Layt̲h̲ b. Naṣr b. Sayyār

(229 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, apparently the grandson of the last Umayyad governor of K̲h̲urāsān Naṣr b. Sayyār [ q.v.] and rebel against the ʿAbbāsid caliphate in the opening years of the 9th century A.D. In 190/806 Rāfiʿ led a rising in Samarḳand which turned into a general rebellion throughout Transoxania against the harsh rule and financial exploitation of the caliphal governor of K̲h̲urāsān. ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Māhān [see ibn māhān ]. As well as receiving support from the local Iranian population, Rāfiʿ secured help ¶ from the Turks of the Inner Asian steppes, the Tog̲h̲uz-Og̲h̲uz [see g̲h̲uzz ] and Ḳarluḳ [ q.v.]. Hār…

Gurčānī

(400 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, a Balūč tribe of modern Pakistan, living partly in the Indus valley plains of the Dēra G̲h̲āzī Ḵh̲ān District of the Pand̲j̲āb [see dērad̲j̲āt ], and partly in the Mārī and Drāgal hills of the Sulaymān Mountains range and the upland plateaux of S̲h̲am and Paylāwag̲h, extending as far west as the modern Loralai District of northeastern Balūčistān. ¶ The tribe is of mixed origin, some sections being Dōdāīs of mingled Balūč-Sindh Rād̲j̲pūt extraction, whilst others are pure-blooded Balūč of the Rind and Lās̲h̲ārī groups; the chief’s family belongs to one of the Dōdāī sections. In the early …

al-Mirbāṭ

(214 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a. “place of securing, tying up, i.e. anchorage), a port of the South Arabian coast in Ẓufār [ q.v.] (Dhofar), lying in 17°00′N. and 54°41′E., some 40 miles/70 km east of the modern town of Salāla [ q.v.] in the Sultanate of Oman. Yāḳūṭ, ¶ Buldān , Beirut 1374-6/1955-7, v, 97, describes it as being five farsak̲h̲s from the town of Ẓufār (i.e. the modern al-Balīd) and as the only port of the coast of the region of Ẓufār; it had an independent sulṭān , and its hilly hinterland produced frankincense [see lubān ). In the early 19th century, its ruler was a corsair chi…

S̲h̲us̲h̲tar

(1,602 words)

Author(s): Kramers, J.H. | Bosworth, C.E.
, S̲h̲ūs̲h̲tar , Arabie form Tustar , a town of southwestern Persia in the mediaeval Islamic province of Ahwāz [ q.v.] and the modern one ( ustān ) of K̲h̲ūzistān (lat. 32° 03’ N., long. 48° 51’ E.). It stands on a cliff to the west of which runs the river Kārūn [ q.v.], the middle course of which begins a few miles north of the town. This position gives the town considerable commercial and strategic importance and has made possible the construction of various waterworks for which the town has long been famous. The main features of these construct…

Ürgenč

(453 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a city in the delta region of the Amū Daryā [ q.v.] or Oxus river of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.]which was for some four centuries, from Mongol times onwards, the capital of the province. After the Mongols had totally destroyed the former capital of K̲h̲wārazm, Gurgand̲j̲ [ q.v.] in 618/1221, the conquerors founded a new city on a nearby site, presumably that of “Little Gurgand̲j̲”, three farsak̲h̲ s from the old capital. Under the pax mongolica, Ürgenč speedily became a populous and flourishing commercial centre (see Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion , 457; idem, A short history of …

Og̲h̲ul

(304 words)

Author(s): Babinger, Fr. | Bosworth, C.E.
(t.), a word common to all Turkic languages (cf. W. Radloff, Versuch eines Wörterbuches der Türk-Dialecte , St. Petersburg 1888-1911, i/2, cols. 1015-16), found as early as Ork̲h̲on Turkic and meaning “offspring, child”, with a strong implication of “male child”, as opposed to ḳi̊z “girl” [ q.v.] (Sir Gerard Clauson, An etymological dictionary of pre-thirteenth century Turkish, Oxford 1972, 83-4), original plural og̲h̲lan , still thus in Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī ( Dīwān lug̲h̲āt al-turk , facs. ed. Atalay, iv, Dizini , 425-6; C. Brockelmann, Mitteltürkischer Wortschatz

Ṭārum

(1,566 words)

Author(s): Minorsky, V. | Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Ubāg̲h̲

(230 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, ʿAyn Ubāg̲h̲ , the name of a spring or watercourse on the eastern, sc. ʿIrāḳī, fringes of the Syrian Desert which was the scene of a pre-Islamic yawm or battle of the Arabs. The confused Arabic sources take this as being the battle of A. D. 554 in which the Lak̲h̲mid al-Mund̲h̲ir III b. al-Nuʿmān II was killed fighting the G̲h̲assānid al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Ḏj̲abala [ q.v.], in fact, the yawm al-Ḥalīma (see e.g. al-Bakrī, Muʿd̲j̲am mā ’staʿd̲j̲ama , i, 95; Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 175. Cf. A. P. Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur l’histoire des arabes avant l’Islamisme , Pari…

Isfarāyīn

(674 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a district, and in earlier Islamic times a town, in northwestern Ḵh̲urāsān. It lies on the northern edge of the long plain which extends from Bisṭām and S̲h̲āhrūd in the west almost to Nīs̲h̲āpūr in the east and whose central section is drained by the Kāl-i S̲h̲ūr river before it turns southwards into the Das̲h̲t-i Kawīr. In mediaeval Islamic times, the route from Nīs̲h̲āpūr to Gurgān ran across this plain, and the geographers place Isfarāyīn at roughly the midpoint, five stages from Nīs̲h̲āpūr and five from Gurgān. Though allegedly founded by Isfandiyār, little is known of Isfar…

al-Mus̲h̲aḳḳar

(401 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a settlement and port on the eastern coast of Arabia in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, situated in the region of Had̲j̲ar or Baḥrayn; its exact location is however unknown and would appear to be only discoverable by future archaeological investigations. Varying traditions attribute the foundation of al-Mus̲h̲aḳḳar to one of the kings of Kinda [ q.v.], Mūsā b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲, or to a commander of the Sāsānid heavy cavalry ( asāwira ; see on these, C.E. Bosworth, EIr art. Asāwera ) B.s.k.b. Māhbūd̲h̲ in the time of the Kisrās (al-Ṭabarī, i, 985-6, tr. Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Ara…

Ḳuhrūd

(330 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Arabic form of Persian Kōh-rūd “mountain river”, a village in western Persia on the summer caravan route between Ḳās̲h̲ān and Iṣfahān [ q.vv.]. In mediaeval times it fell within the province of D̲j̲ibāl, and Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, Nuzhat al-ḳulūb , tr. 184, places it some 8 farsak̲h̲s from Ḳās̲h̲ān, sc. 27 miles/45 km. from the latter town; cf. also Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter , 929 n. 16. Today, Ḳuhrūd falls administratively in the bak̲h̲s̲h̲ of Ḳamṣar, in the s̲h̲ahrastān of Ḳās̲h̲ān, in the second ustān or central province of Iran, see Farhang-i d̲j̲ug̲h̲rāfiyāʾ-yi Īrān

Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn Yildiz

(162 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
Muʿizzī , Turkish slave commander of the G̲h̲ūrid sultan Muʿizz or S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Muḥammad, who after that ruler’s death in 602/1206, made himself, with the support of a group ¶ of other Turkish soldiers, independent in G̲h̲azna in eastern Afg̲h̲ānistan. Muʿizz al-Dīn’s successor at Fīrūzkūh [ q.v.], Maḥmūd b. G̲h̲iyāth al-Dīn Muḥammad, had to manumit Yildiz and recognise him as governor in G̲h̲azna. During his nine years’ rule there, Yildiz treated another Muʿizzī slave commander Iltutmis̲h̲ [ q.v.], who had established himself in northern India, as his subordinate. Bu…

K̲h̲aybar

(524 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
or Ḵh̲yber Pass , one of the principal passes (together with the Kurram, Tochi, Gomal and Bolan Passes) through the mountain barrier separating the Indus valley plains from Afg̲h̲ānistān. The pass runs northwestwards for ca. 33 miles/50 km. from the Shadi Bagiar opening 3 miles/5 km. beyond Fort Jamrud, itself 7 miles/12 km. from Peshawar, to the barren plain of Loi Dakka, which then stretches to the Kabul River banks. The highest point of the pass is at Landi Kotal (3,518 ft/1,280 m.), an important market centre for the region,…

Ismāʿīl b. Nūḥ

(204 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Ibrāhīm al-Muntaṣir , the last of the Sāmānids of Transoxania and Ḵh̲urāsān. When in 389/999 the Ḳarak̲h̲ānid Ilig Ḵh̲ān Naṣr occupied the Sāmānid capital Buk̲h̲ārā. Ismāʿīl and other members of the family were carried off to Uzkend. He contrived, however, to escape to Ḵh̲wārazm, and for the next four years kept up a series of attacks on the G̲h̲aznavids in northern Ḵh̲urāsān and the Ḳarak̲h̲ānids in Buk̲h̲ārā. In 393/1003 he obtained the help of the Og̲h̲uz, traditional allies of the Sāmānids, and according to Gardīzī, it was at thi…

Istiʿrāḍ, ʿĀrḍ

(4,916 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the mustering, passing in review and inspection of troops, the official charged with his duty being known as the ʿāriḍ , pl. ʿurrāḍ . The institution of the ʿarḍ was from the start closely bound up with the Dīwān al-Ḏj̲ays̲h̲ or that departaient of the bureaucracy concerned with military affairs, and these duties of recruitment, mustering and inspection comprised one of the dīwāns main spheres of activity, the other sphere being that concerned with pensions and salaries [see dīwān and d̲j̲ays̲h̲ ]. The Ṣāḥib Dīwān al-Ḏj̲ays̲h̲ of the early ʿAbbāsid Caliphate or ʿĀriḍ al-Ḏj̲ays̲h̲

Muḥammad Bāḳir

(186 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, called Nad̲j̲m-i T̲h̲ānī (d. 1047/1637), official in the service of the Mug̲h̲als of India and the author of a Persian Mirror for Princes, the Mawʿiẓa-yi D̲j̲ahāngīrī . Of émigré Persian origin, Muḥammad Bāḳir served as a military commander and then as a provincial governor for the Emperors D̲j̲ahāngīr and S̲h̲āhd̲j̲ahān, but was clearly a highly cultivated adīb also, the patron of poets, himself a poet and master of the ins̲h̲āʾ style and author of a work of S̲h̲īʿī kalām , still in manuscript. His chief claim to fame is as the author of one of the …

Ḳimār

(652 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name given in Islamic geographical and travel literature to Khmer or Cambodia. The geography and political organisation of South-East Asia early became of interest to Islamic scholars because of trade links with Further India and China, and information was brought back by, inter alios, Arab and Persian merchants and navigators. Some of this information relates to the Khmer kingdom on the lower Mekong River, an outpost of Indian cultural and religious life, which lasted from the beginning of the 9th century to the middle of the 13th century (see R. Grousset, Histoire de l’Extrème-O…

Siʿird

(1,996 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Faroqhi, Suraiya | Jastrow, O.
, Siʿirt , Isʿird , the orthography in medieval Arabic texts for a town of southeastern Anatolia, 150 km/95 miles to the east of modern Diyarbakir and 65 km/44 miles to the south-west of Lake Van (lat. 37° 56′ N., long. 41° 56′ E.). It lies on the Bohtan tributary of the upper Tigris in the foothills of the eastern end of the Taurus Mts. It is the modern ¶ Turkish town of Siirt, now the chef-lieu of an il or province of the same name. 1. History. (a) The pre-Ottoman period. Siʿird is mentioned very little in early Islamic sources; the absence of fortifications apparently made it of…

Konkan

(329 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the coastal region of the western Deccan or Peninsular India lying roughly between Thālnēr and Bombay in the north and Goa in the south, i.e. between latitudes 19° 30′ and 15° 30′ N., and extending for some 560 km/350 miles. It has been known under this name in both mediaeval Islamic and modern times. Within British India, it was formerly in the Bombay Presidency, later Province, and is now in Maharashtra State of the Indian Union. It comprises a highly-forested, low-lying plain between the Arabian Sea and the inland mountain barrier of the Western Ghats. In medieval Islamic times, the T…

Muḥammad b. Malik-S̲h̲āh

(696 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn, with the Turkish name Tapar “he who obtains, finds” (see P. Pelliot, Notes sur l’histoire de la Horde d’Or, Paris 1950, 182-3), Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan in ʿIrāḳ and western Persia 498-511/1105-18. Born in S̲h̲aʿbān 474/January 1082, he was a half-brother of Malik-S̲h̲āh’s eldest son Berk-Yaruḳ [ q.v.] and a full brother of Sand̲j̲ar [ q.v.]. When Berk-Yaruḳ succeeded his father in 485/1092, he had to leave Muḥammad in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān and Arrān, where Muḥammad enjoyed the support of Sand̲j̲ar and of the for…

S̲h̲īz

(539 words)

Author(s): Ruska, J. | Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of a very old Persian fire-temple, a place or district to the south-east of Lake Urmiya in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, said to be the native place of Zoroaster. According to A.V.W. Jackson, the name is said to be derived from the Avestan name of Lake Urmiya, Čaēčasta; according to Yāḳūt, it is an Arabic corruption of Ḏj̲azn or Gazn , i.e. Kanzaka or Gazaca of the classical writers or Gand̲j̲ak of the Pahlavi texts. The older geographers correctly consider the two places and names to be distinct. The Arab traveller Abū Dulaf [ q.v.] visited S̲h̲īz en route for Daylam and then Ād̲h̲arbāyd…

Ḳarā K̲h̲iṭāy

(3,476 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
the usual name in Muslim sources of the 6th/12th and 7th/13th centuries of the Kitai people, mentioned in Chinese sources from the 4th century A.D. onwards as living on the northern fringes of the Chinese empire; during the course of the 6th/12th century a group of them migrated into the Islamic lands of Central Asia and established a domination there which endured for some eighty years. In the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions of Outer Mongolia, the royal annals of the T’u-chüeh or Turks (ca. 732 A.D.), the Kitai are mentioned as enemies of the Turks and as living to the…

D̲h̲āt al-Ṣawārī

(482 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, Dhū ’l-Ṣawārī , G̲h̲azwat al-Ṣawārī , “the Battle of the Masts”, the names given in the Arabic sources to a naval battle between the Arabs and Byzantines in the latter part of ʿut̲h̲mān’s caliphate. The locale of the engagement is not wholly certain, but was probably off the coast of Lycia in southern Anatolia near the place Phoenix (modern Turkish Finike, chef-lieu of the kaza of that name in the vilayet of Antalya). As governor of Syria, Muʿāwiya [ q.v.] seems to have inaugurated a policy of building up Arab naval power in order to counter Byzantine control of the Easte…

Mustawfī

(699 words)

Author(s): Levy, R. | Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), an official in mediaeval Islamic administration who was in charge of official accounts and thus acted as an accountant-general. The title first becomes generally used in the successor-states to the ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Under the G̲h̲aznavids, the mustawfī al-mamālik was responsible to the vizier, and kept accounts of income and expenditure in the dīwān-i wazīr (M. Nāzim, The life and times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna , Cambridge 1931, 132). Under the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳs, e.g., in the time of Niẓām al-Mulk [ q.v.], the mustawfī was second in importance only to the vizier himsel…

Sald̲j̲ūḳids

(46,928 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Hillenbrand, R. | Rogers, J.M. | Blois, F.C. de | Darley-Doran, R.E.
, a Turkish dynasty of mediaeval Islam which, at the peak of its power during the 5th-6th/11th-12th centuries, ruled over, either directly or through vassal princes, a wide area of Western Asia from Transoxania, Farg̲h̲āna, the Semirečye and K̲h̲wārazm in the east to Anatolia, Syria and the Ḥid̲j̲āz in the west. From the core of what became the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ empire, subordinate lines of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ family maintained themselves in regions like Kirmān (till towards the end of the 6th/12th century), Syria (till the opening years of…

ʿUḳaylids

(676 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, an Arab dynasty of northern ʿIrāḳ and al-Ḏj̲azīra which flourished from ca. 380/990 to 564/1169. The family stemmed from the North Arab tribe of ʿUḳayl [ q.v.]. In the 4th/10th century, the ‘Uḳayl in Syria and northern ʿIrāḳ were dependents of the Ḥamdānids [ q.v.] of Mawṣil and Aleppo. When the last Ḥamdānids of Mawṣil, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn and Abū Ṭāhir Ibrāhim, were threatened by the Kurdish chief Bād̲h̲, founder of the Marwānid line [see marwānids ] in Diyār Bakr, they appealed for help to the ʿUḳaylid chief Abu ’l-Ḏh̲awwād Muḥammad b. al-Musayyab. But after def…

Aʿyāṣ

(308 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, a component group of the Meccan clan of Umayya or ʿAbd S̲h̲ams, the term being a plural of the founder’s name, a son of Umayya b. ʿAbd S̲h̲ams b. ʿAbd Manāf b. Ḳuṣayy called al-ʿĪṣ or Abu ’l-ʿĪṣ or al-ʿĀṣ(ī) or Abu ’l-ʿĀṣ(ī) or ʿUwayṣ, these being given in the genealogical works as separate individuals, but doubtless in fact one person (on the two orthographies al-ʿĀṣ and al-ʿĀṣī, the former explicable as an apocopated Ḥid̲j̲āzī form, see K. Vollers, Volksprache und Schriftsprache im alten Arabien , Strassburg 1906, 139-40). The group formed a branch of th…

Muḥallil

(287 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), literally, “someone who makes a thing legal, legaliser, legitimator”, the figure who, in classical Islamic law acts as something like a dummy or a “man of straw”, in order to authenticate or make permissible some legal process otherwise of doubtful legality or in fact prohibited. It thus forms part of the mechanisms and procedures subsumed under ḥiyal , legal devices, often ¶ used for evading the spirit of the law whilst technically satisfying its letter [see ḥīla ]. Thus the muḥallil is found in gambling, racing for stakes, e.g. with horses or pi…

Yāfā

(1,628 words)

Author(s): F. Buhl, F. | Bosworth, C.E.
, Yāfa , conventionally Jaffa, older Joppa, a port on the Palestinian seaboard, in pre-modern times the port of entry for Jerusalem, since 1950 part of the municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo in the State of Israel (lat. 32° 05′ N., long. 34° 46′ E.). Situated on a 30 m/100 feet-high promontory on the otherwise straight coastline of central Palestine, Jaffa is a very ancient town. Thutmosis III’s forces seized the Canaanite town of ϒ-pw in the 15th century B.C. and it became a provincial capital during the Egyptian New Kingdom; since the 1950s, archaeological excavations h…

Fīl

(3,543 words)

Author(s): Ruska, J. | Pellat, Ch. | Bosworth, C.E. | Meredith-Owens, G.M.
(Ar.; from Persian pīl ), elephant. The word appears in the title and first verse of Sūra CV, which alludes to the expedition of Abraha [ q.v.], but the Arabs were barely acquainted with this animal which is a native of India and Africa; consequently when, towards the end of the 2nd/beginning of the 8th century, a troop of elephants arrived in Baṣra, it was a matter of curiosity for the population (see al-Nawawī, Tahd̲h̲īb , 738). The subject had already come up in the Kalīla wa-Dimna (trans. A. Miquel, Paris 1957, 53), but the first Arab author truly to con…

Tunganistan

(303 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Dunganistan , a name coined by Western scholars and travellers (W. Heissig, Ella Maillart) for an ephemeral régime, hardly to be called a state, in the southern part of Chinese Turkestan or Sinkiang [ q.v.] 1934-7. The name stems from the Dungan or Tungan [see tungans ] troops, Hui, i.e. ethnic Chinese, Muslims who formed the military backing of Ma Hu-shan, styled “Commander-in-Chief of the 36th Division of the Kuomintang” and brother-in-law of Ma Chung-ying [ q.v.], best-known of the five Muslim Chinese warlords who controlled much of northwestern China in the later d…

Waẓīfa

(905 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Jong, F. de
(a.), pl. waẓāʾif , literally “task, charge, impose obligation” (see Dozy, Supplément, ii, 820-1). 1. As an administrative term. In the early Islamic period, the form II verb waẓẓafa and the noun waẓīfa are used as administrative-fiscal terms with the sense of imposing a financial burden ¶ or tax, e.g. of paying the k̲h̲arād̲j̲ , ʿus̲h̲r or d̲j̲izya [ q.vv.], cf. al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ , 73, 193 (the waẓāʾif of the provinces of al-Urdunn, Filasṭīn, Dimas̲h̲ḳ, Ḥimṣ, etc.) and other references given in the Glossarium , 108. But as well as this loose sense, waẓīfa had a more specific one, a…

Ṭahmāsp

(2,195 words)

Author(s): Savory, R.M. | Bosworth, C.E.
(Ṭahmāsb), the name of two S̲h̲āhs of the Ṣafawid dynasty [ q.v.] in Persia. 1. Ṭahmāsp I, Abu ’l-Fatḥ, eldest son of S̲h̲āh Ismāʿīl [see ismāʿīl i ], born at S̲h̲āhābād in the district of Iṣfahān on Wednesday, 26 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 919/22 February 1514 (Ḥasan-i Rūmlū, Aḥsan al-tawārīk̲h̲ (ed. C.N. Seddon, Baroda 1931, 142), died Monday, 15 Ṣafar 984/14 May 1576 ( Aḥsan al-tawārīk̲h̲, 464), second ruler of the Ṣafawid dynasty [see ṣafawids. i ]. Following the early Ṣafawid practice of appointing princes of the blood royal to be nominal governors of provinces, in the care of a Ḳi̊zi̊lbās̲h̲…

Thālnēr

(235 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a town of the northwestern Deccan or South India, situated on the middle course of the Tāptī River in lat. 21° 15′ N., long. 74° 58′ E. (see the map in gud̲j̲arāt , at Vol. II, 1126). Its fame in mediaeval Indo-Muslim history arises from its being the first capital of the Fārūḳī rulers [see fārūḳids ] of K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ [ q.v.] before they later moved to Burhānpūr [ q.v.]. It had been a centre of Hindu power in western India when Malik Rād̲j̲ā Aḥmad chose it towards the end of the 8th/14th century. It was captured in 914/1509 by the Gud̲j̲arāt Sultan Maḥmūd Begaŕhā [ q.v.], who installed his own cand…

Dabūsiyya

(290 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, a town of mediaeval Transoxania, in the region of Soghdia, and lying on a canal which led southwards from the Nahr Ṣug̲h̲d and on the Samarḳand-Karmīniyya-Buk̲h̲ārā road. The site is marked by the ruins of Ḳalʿa-yi Dabūs near the modern village of Ziyaudin (=Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn), according to Barthold, Turkestan3 , 97. It lay in a prosperous and well-watered area, say the mediaeval geographers, and Muḳaddasī, 324, cf. R.B. Serjeant, Islamic textiles, material for a history up to the Mongol conquest, Beirut 101, mentions in particular the brocade cloth known as Wad̲h̲ārī produced there. Dabūsi…

al-K̲h̲ulafāʾ al-Rās̲h̲idūn

(960 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), literally, “the Rightly-Guided Caliphs”, the four heads of the nascent Islamic community who succeeded each other in the thirty years or so after the death of the Prophet Muḥammad in Rabīʿ I 11/June 632. The qualifying term in the phrase has often been rendered as “Orthodox” (an anachronism, since there was no generally accepted corpus of Islamic belief and practice at this early time from which deviation could occur) or “Patriarchal”, reflecting a view of this period as a heroic age for Islam. The four caliphs in question comprised: All four were from the Prophet’s own Meccan …

Rāyčur

(157 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a town and district of South India, now in the Gulbargā division of the Indian Union state of Karnataka, before 1947 in the Ḥaydarābād princely state of British India (lat. 16° 15′ N., long. 77° 20′ E.). An ancient Hindu town formerly part of the kingdom of Warangal, it passed to the K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī Sultans of Dihlī in the 8th/14th century, then to the Bahmanīs and, after Awrangzīb’s Deccan conquests, to the Mug̲h̲als. Rāyčūr has interesting Islamic monuments. The Bahmanī Ek mīnār kī masd̲j̲id has its minaret in the corner of the courtyard [see manāra. 2. In India]. The fortifications and gat…

S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āh

(2,028 words)

Author(s): Barthold, W. | Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Nūr al-Dīn Arslān S̲h̲āh

(399 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
Abu ’l-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Masʿūd b. Mawdūd b. Zangī , called al-Malik al-ʿĀdil, sixth ruler in Mawṣil of the Zangid line of Atabegs, reigned 589-607/1193-1211. On the death of his father ʿIzz al-Dīn Masʿūd [ q.v.], Nūr al-Dīn succeeded him, but for many years was under the tutelage of the commander of the citadel of Mawṣil, the eunuch Mud̲j̲āhid al-Dīn Ḳaymaz al-Zaynī, till the latter’s death in 595/1198-9. Nūr al-Dīn’s early external policy aimed at securing control of Niṣibīn [ q.v.] from his kinsman, the Zangī lord of Sind̲j̲ār ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī and the latter’s son Ḳuṭb al-D…

Mīr D̲j̲umla

(395 words)

Author(s): Hidayet Hosain, M. | Bosworth, C.E.
, Muḥammad Saʿīd , prominent minister and military commander in 11th/17th century Muslim India, first in the service of the Ḳuṭb-S̲h̲āhī ruler of Golkond́ā ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad [see ḳuṭb-s̲h̲āhis ] and then in that of the Mug̲h̲als S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān and Awrangzīb [ q.vv.], died in 1073/1663. Stemming originally from Persia, he was at the outset a diamond merchant and accumulated a vast private fortune in the Carnatic, the region around Madras, from these dealings and from Hindu temple treasures, having his own private army of 5,000 cavalryme…

Wak̲h̲s̲h̲

(210 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a district of Central Asia and the name of a river there. The Wak̲h̲s̲h̲ Āb is a right-bank tributary of the Oxus, flowing down from the Alai range of mountains to the south of Farg̲h̲āna. Geiger and Markwart thought that the Greek name ¶ “Οξος came from Wak̲h̲s̲h̲, the tributary thus giving its name to the great river (see Markwart, Wehrot und Arang , 3 ff., 89; Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion, 65; and āmū daryā ). In early mediaeval times, the Wak̲h̲s̲h̲ district must have had a population which included remnants of the Hepht̲h̲alites, such as the Kumīd̲j̲īs [ q.v.] and also T…

Sīstān

(4,057 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the form usually found in Persian sources, early Arabic form Sid̲j̲istān, a region of eastern Persia lying to the south of K̲h̲urāsān and to the north of Balūčistān, now administratively divided between Persia and Afghanistan. In early Arabic historical and literary texts one finds as nisba s both Sid̲j̲istānī and Sid̲j̲zī, in Persian, Sīstānī. 1. Etymology. The early Arabic form reflects the origin of the region’s name in MP Sakastān “land of the Sakas”, the Indo-European Scythian people who had dominated what is now Afg̲h̲ānistān and northwestern …

Kimäk

(757 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(in the texts usually Kīmāk, often wrongly vocalised Kaymāk), an early Turkish people living in western Siberia on the lower course of the Irtis̲h̲ River and on its tributaries the Is̲h̲im and Tobol, possibly as far north as the confluence of the Irtis̲h̲ and Ob and as far west as the Ural Mts. ; they are mentioned in Islamic sources from the 3rd/9th century onwards. The most detailed accounts of the Kimäk and their territories are in the anonymous Ḥudud al-ʿālam (begun 372/982-3), tr. Minorsky, 99-100, 304-10, and in Gardīzī’s Zayn al-ak̲h̲bār , ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥayy …

Utrār

(523 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Otrār , a town of mediaeval Islamic Central Asia notorious for its role in the irruption of the Mongols into the Islamic world. It lay on the right bank of the Sir Daryā or Jaxartes just to the south of the confluence with it of the Aris river. It is not found in geographical texts till the early 7th/13th ¶ century and Yāḳūt’s Buldān , ed. Beirut, i, 218, who has Uṭrār or Utrār. It may possibly be mentioned in al-Ṭabarī, iii, 815-16, year 195/810-11, but the reading here is doubtful, see M. Fishbein (tr.), The History of -Ṭabarī , XXXI. The war between brothers, Albany 1992, 71-2 and n. 292. In the hist…

Payg̲h̲ū

(240 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(t.), a Turkish name found e.g. among the early Sald̲j̲ūḳs, usually written P.y.g̲h̲ū or B.y.g̲h̲ū . In many sources on the early history of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs these orthographies seem to reflect the old Turkish title Yabg̲h̲u , which goes back at least to the time of the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions (see C.E. Bosworth and Sir Gerard Clauson, in JRAS [1965], 9-10), and it was the Yabg̲h̲u of the western, Og̲h̲uz Turks whom the eponymous ancestor of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs, Duḳāḳ Temir-Yali̊g̲h̲ “Iron-bow” served (see Cl. Cahen, in Oriens , ii [1949], 42; Bosworth, The Ghaznavids , their empire in Afghanistan a…

Yeñi S̲h̲ehir

(507 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, modern Turkish Yenişehir, a town of northwestern Anatolia, in what was the classical Bithynia. It lies in lat. 40° 17’ N. and long. 29° 38’ E. at an altitude of 245 m/800 feet in a long depression running from Inegöl in a northeasterly direction, where this narrows; this plain is drained by the Gök Su, whose waters are used here for irrigation purposes and which flows past Yeñi S̲h̲ehir into the Sakarya river [ q.v.]. Yeñi S̲h̲ehir played an important role in early Ottoman history. It was the first town of significance to be taken at some point in the early 8th/14th century by ʿOt̲h̲mān I [ q.v.], w…

Masʿūd Beg

(337 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, minister in Central Asia of the Mongol K̲h̲āns in the 13th century A.D. Soon after 1238, in the reign of the Great K̲h̲ān Ögedey (1227-41), parts of Transoxania and Mog̲h̲olistān [ q.v.] (the region of the steppes to the north of Transoxania) were ceded to Čag̲h̲atay as an ind̲j̲ü or appanage [see čag̲h̲atay k̲h̲ān and mā warāʾ al-nahr. 2. History]. Masʿūd Beg’s father Maḥmūd Yalawač [ q.v.] was transferred from his governorship of the sedentary population of Transoxania and Mog̲h̲olistān to China, and the son then appointed to succeed him there. Indeed, acco…

Safīd Kūh

(222 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(p.), in Pas̲h̲to Spīn G̲h̲ar (“The White Mountain”), the name of a mountain range falling mainly in eastern Afghānistān. According to Bābur, it derives its name from its perpetual covering of snow; from its northern slopes, nine rivers run down to the Kābul River ( Bābur-nāma , tr. Beveridge, 209, cf. Appx. E, pp. xvii-xxiii). The Safīd Kūh, with its outliers, runs from a point to the east of G̲h̲azna [ q.v.] in a northeasterly and then easterly direction almost to Attock [see atak ] on the Indus (approx. between longs. 68° 40′ E. an…

Ḳutayba b. Muslim

(1,705 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Ḥafṣ Ḳutayba b. Abī Ṣāliḥ Muslim b. ʿAmr al-Bāhilī , Arab commander under the Umayyad caliphs. He was born in 49/669 into a family influential at the court and with extensive possessions in Baṣra. His father Muslim was the boon-companion of Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya, and during the revolt of al-Muk̲h̲tār [ q.v.], he was in charge of the prison at Baṣra; but he later sided with Muṣʿab b. al-Zubayr and was killed in 72/691-2 when Muṣʿab’s dominion in ʿIrāḳ was ended, after having failed to secure a pardon from ʿAbd al-Malik. The family nevertheless co…

S̲h̲āh Rūd

(441 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a hydronym and toponym of Persia. 1. A river of the Elburz Mountains region of northwestern Persia. It runs from the south-east northwestwards from a source in the mountains west of Tehran and joins the Ḳi̊zi̊l Üzen [ q.v.] at Mand̲j̲īl, the combined waters then making up the Safīd Rūd [ q.v.], which flows into the Caspian Sea. The upper reaches of the S̲h̲āh Rūd are known as the S̲h̲āh Rūd-i Ṭālaḳān, to distinguish it from its right-bank affluent the S̲h̲āh Rūd-i Alamūt. This last rises near the Tak̲h̲t-i Sulaymān peak and is hemmed in by high…

K̲h̲ud̲j̲istān

(304 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a small town or village of mediaeval Islamic Bād̲h̲g̲h̲īs [ q.v.], lying to the northeast of Harāt in modern Afg̲h̲ānistān, and described by the mediaeval geographers as being mountainous, possessing agricultural lands and having warlike inhabitants (Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 268-9; Ibn Ḥawḳal 2, 441, tr. Wiet. 426; Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , 104, 327; Yāḳūt, ii, 404; Barbier de Meynard, Dict . géogr ., hist . et litt. de la Perse , 197). Although within a Sunnī region, K̲h̲ud̲j̲istān itself was one of the last centres for the K̲h̲awārid̲j̲ in eastern Iran, and …

Nars̲h̲ak̲h̲ī

(340 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. D̲j̲aʿfar b. Zakariyyāʾ , historian of the Sāmānid period. Presumably from Nars̲h̲ak̲h̲ in the vicinity of Buk̲h̲ārā (cf. al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, xiii, 77-8), nothing however is known of his life except that he composed in Arabic a history of Buk̲h̲ārā and presented it to the amir Nūḥ b. Naṣr in 332/943-4; this is the only book of his known. The history was translated into Persian by Abū Naṣr Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ḳubāwī (sc. from Ḳubā in Farg̲h̲ānā, cf. ibid., x, 322-3) in 522/1128 because, it is there said, people did not want to read the Arabic …

Merzifūn

(709 words)

Author(s): Babinger, Fr. | Bosworth, C.E.
, also Mārsiwān , modern Turkish spelling Merzifon, a town of north-central Anatolia, lying in lat. 40°52′ and long. 35°35′E. and at an altitude of 750 m./2.464 ft. It is situated on the southern slopes of the Tavşan Daği, with a rich and fertile plain, the Sulu Ova, on its south, where fruit, vines, nuts, opium poppies, etc. are cultivated, and with the towns of Çorum [see čorum ] at 69 km./42 miles to the south-west and of Amasya [ q.v. ] at 49 km./30 miles to the south-east. The town most probably occupies the site of the ancient Phazemon (Φαζημών) in the district of Phazemonitis…

Ḳang̲h̲li

(817 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
ḳanḳli̊ , the name of a Turkish people living in mediaeval times in the steppes of Turkestan and south-western Siberia. We do not find mention of the Ḳang̲h̲li̊ in the oldest Arab and Persian geographers and travellers of the 3rd-4th/9th-10th centuries, as we do of several other Turkish tribes. For Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, ḳanklī was not an ethnic designation, but was, as a proper noun, “the name of a great man of the Ḳi̊pčaḳ”, and as a common noun, “a heavily-loaded cart” ( Dīwān lug̲h̲āt al-turk , tr. Atalay, iii, 379). In some early Turkish sources on the l…

Rāwalpindi

(355 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin | Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of a city, district and division of the northern Pand̲j̲āb in Pākistān. The city lies in lat. 33° 40ʹ N. and long. 73° 08ʹ E. at an altitude of 530 m/1,750 feet. In British Indian times, it was one of the most important military stations of northern India, and is now the headquarters of the Pākistān Army, with extensive cantonments, as well as being an important commercial and industrial centre and the starting-point of the route into Kas̲h̲…

Tas̲h̲kent

(3,788 words)

Author(s): Barthold, W. | Bosworth, C.E. | Poujol, Catherine
, 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.…

al-Ṭūr

(2,266 words)

Author(s): Honigmann, E. | Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), a word with the basic sense of “mountain”. It occurs ten times in the Ḳurʾān (II, 60/63, 87/93; IV, 153/154; XIX, 53/52, etc.), on two occasions (XXIII, 20; XCV, 2) expressly coupled with Sīnāʾ/ Sīnīn, specifically meaning Mount Sinai. Virtually all its occurences in the Ḳurʾān are connected with the wanderings of the Children of Israel in the Sinai Desert [see banū isrāʾīl ; sīnāʾ ; al-tīh ]. It was early recognised by the Arabic philologists as a loan word from Hebrew or Aramaic (cf. Hebr. ṣūr “rock” > “cliff”, Aram, ṭūrā “mountain”), more proximately, from Syriac (see A. Jeffery, The f…

Dandānḳān

(290 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, Dandānaḳān , a small town in the sand desert between Marw and Sarak̲h̲s in mediaeval K̲h̲urāsān and 10 farsak̲h̲ s or 40 miles from the former city. The site of the settlement is now in the Turkmenistan SSR, see V.A. Zhukovsky, Razvalini̊ Starago Merva , St. Petersburg 1894, 38. The geographers of the 4th/10th century mention that it was well-fortified and was surrounded by a wall 500 paces in circumference, the baths and a ribāṭ or caravanserai lying outside this wall (Ibn Ḥawḳal2 , 436-7, 456, tr. Kramers-Wiet, 422, 440; Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. Minorsky, 105). Whe…

Muḥammad Zamān Mīrzā

(130 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, perennially rebellious Mug̲h̲al prince and brother-in-law of the emperor Humāyūn [ q.v.]. On Humāyūn’s accession in 937/1530, he allied with Bahādur S̲h̲āh of Gud̲j̲arāt, provoking an invasion by Humayūn of Gud̲j̲arāt via Mālwā. Muḥammad Zamān was pardoned, but in 941/1534 rebelled again, this time in Bihār, but had to escape to Gud̲j̲arāt once more. This provoked a full-scale invasion and occupation of Gud̲j̲arāt by the Mug̲h̲al emperor (941-2/1535-6). Muḥammad Zamān escaped; he tried to claim the throne …

Ṣakk

(225 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), pl. ṣikāk , a technical term of early Islamic financial, commercial and legal usage, appearing in Persian, through a standard sound change, as čak , meaning “document, contract of sale, etc.”, which has been suggested—for want of any other etymology—as the origin of Eng. “cheque”, Fr. “chèque,” Ger. “Scheck,” see E. Littmann, Morgenländische Wörter im Deutschen , 2 Tübingen 1924. The term’s range of applications is wide, see Lane, Lexicon , 1709. In legal contexts, it has a similar meaning to sid̲j̲ill [see sid̲j̲ill. 1.], sc. a signed and sealed record of a judge’s decis…

al-Ḳunfud̲h̲a

(953 words)

Author(s): Grohmann, A. | Bosworth, C.E.
, a port on the Red Sea coast of the Tihāma or lowland of the southern Ḥid̲j̲āz, situated in lat. 19°9′ N. and long. 41°04′ E. and at the mouth of the Wādī Ḳanawnā. It lies 210 miles south of D̲j̲idda or D̲j̲udda [ q.v.] and 45 miles north of Ḥaly. The town is in the form of a large rectangle enclosed by a wall, strengthened at several points by towers and pierced by three gates. Practically the only stone buildings are at the harbour, where is the bazaar with its one-storied warehouses in an irregular line, and the chief mosque and smaller mosq…

Ḳi̊z

(562 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(t.), basically “girl, unmarried female”, but often used with the more restricted meanings of “daughter, slave girl, concubine”. It is already found in the Orkhon inscriptions in the phrase ḳi̊z og̲h̲li̊ “daughter”, as opposed to uri̊ og̲h̲li̊ “son”, ¶ and subsequently appears in most Turkish languages. Through Türkmen forms it passed into Iranian languages like Kurdish and Ossetian, and through Ottoman usage into Balkan languages like Serbian and Bulgarian, often via the Ottoman technical expression (for which see below) ḳi̊zlar ag̲h̲asi̊ (see Radloff, Versuch eines Wörterbuc…

Mayhana

(269 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Mīhana , a small town of mediaeval K̲h̲urāsān, now in the USSR, situated to the east of the Kūh-i Hazār Masd̲j̲id range and on the edge of the “Marw desert”, the later Ḳara Ḳum [ q.v.], 40 miles/62 km. to the east-north-east of Ḳalʿat-i Nādirī and 60 miles/93 km. south-east of Mas̲h̲had [ q.vv.]. In mediaeval times, it was the chief settlement of the district of K̲h̲āwarān or K̲h̲ābarān which lay between Abīward and Sarak̲h̲s [ q.vv.]; by Yāḳūt’s time, Mayhana itself had largely decayed, though Mustawfī describes K̲h̲āwarān as a whole as flourishing, with good crops and cereals and fruit ( Ḥudū…

ʿUmān

(1,739 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
iii. Social structure. ʿUmān is overwhelmingly an Arab, Muslim society, and tribal organisation remains an important element in national identity. The country’s rapid development since 1970 has introduced a measure of physical and social mobility, as well as creating an influx of emigrants. The migration of Arab tribes into ʿUmān predates Islam, with Kahtānī or South Arabian tribes moving ¶ along the southern Arabian Peninsula from Yemen into ʿUman around the 2nd century A.D. They were followed several centuries later by ʿAdnānī or North Arabian tribes …

Ḳunduz

(807 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of a river, a town and a modern province of Afg̲h̲ānistān. 1. The river is one of the two main left bank affluents in Afg̲h̲ānistan of the Oxus. It rises in the central region of the Hindū Kus̲h̲ [ q.v.], with Bāmiyān in its catchment area, and flows for some 300 miles/480 km. until it reaches the Oxus just below where it receives its right-bank affluent the Wak̲h̲s̲h̲ River. The different stretches of the river have varying names; thus the middle course, within which are situated the towns of Bag̲h̲lān and Pul-i K̲h̲umrī, is called the Surk̲h̲āb or “Red River”. 2. The town is situated…

Yaylaḳ

(364 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(t., originally yaylag̲h̲ ), “summer quarters”, applied to the summer residences of the old Turkish ḳag̲h̲ans or the summer pastures of nomadic or transhumant tribes of Inner Asia, its antonym being ki̊s̲h̲laḳ [ q.v.] “winter quarters”. The origin of the word is from yay “summer” (but this originally meant “spring”, cf. Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, Dīwān lug̲h̲āt al-turk, Tkish. tr. Atalay, iii, 160-1, though already in the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions it means “summer”, and it comes to mean this in most Turkic languages, with yaylamaḳ “to spend the summer”, cf. Sir Gerard Clauson, An etymological dicti…

Siyālkūt

(459 words)

Author(s): Haig, T.W. | Bosworth, C.E.
, conventional rendering Sialkot, a town in the Pand̲j̲āb situated in 32° 30′ N. and 74° 32′ E., the foundation of which is attributed by legend to Rād̲j̲ā Sālā, the uncle of the Pāṇḍavas, and its restoration to Rād̲j̲ā Sālivāhan, in the time of Vikramāditya. Sālivahān had two sons, Pūran, killed by the instrumentality of a wicked step-mother, and thrown into a well, still the resort of pilgrims, near the town, and Rasālu, the mythical hero of Pand̲j̲ā…

Sulṭānābād

(473 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of various places in Persia. 1. The best-known one is the town presentiy known in Persia as Arāk lying in long. 49° 41′ E. and lat. 34° 5′ N. at an altitude of 1,753 m/5,751 feet, 284 ¶ km/176 miles to the southwest of Tehran. It lies in the southwestern corner of the plain of Farahān, adjoining the Zagros massif. The popular (and now official) name Arāk must come ultimately from ʿIrāḳ, in the sense of ʿIrāḳ-i ʿAd̲j̲am or Persian ʿIrāḳ, the mediaeval D̲j̲ibāl [ q.v.]. The modern region of Arāk lies within the bend of the Ḳara Ṣu. Its rural districts include that of Kazzā…

K̲h̲ārān

(440 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a former native state of western Balūčistān, now incorporated in Pakistan. Geographically, it comprises a wide basin, that of the Mas̲h̲kel river in the west and the Baddo in the east, between high ranges of mountains, the Raʾs Kūh rising to 9,900 feet; the valley terrain includes an extensive rīgistān or sand desert. The population is largely Balūč, with some Brahūīs in the eastern part. The early history of K̲h̲ārān is very obscure. Local tradition says that the Naws̲h̲īrwānī chiefs entered K̲h̲ārān in the 8th/14th century. Over the ensuing centuries, thes…

al-Samhūdī

(606 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Nūr al-Dīn abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. ʿAfīf al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh, al-S̲h̲āfiʿī, noted Egyptian scholar in history, theology, law, tradition, etc. (844-91/1440-1506). He was born at Samhūd in Upper Egypt in Ṣafar 844/July 1440, the son of a ḳāḍī ; in his genealogy, he claimed to be a Ḥasanid sayyid . His biography is given in detail by al-Sak̲h̲āwī, resumed in Ibn al-ʿImād and other subsequent biographical sources. He studied in Cairo from 853/1449 onwards under its celebrated scholars, and also received the Ṣūfī k̲h̲irḳa or cloak. He made the Pilgrimage in 860/14…

Ḳubād̲h̲iyān

(460 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Ḳuwād̲h̲iyān , in mediaeval ¶ Islamic times a small province situated on the right bank of the upper Oxus, and also a town, the chief settlement of the province. The latter comprised essentially the basin of the Ḳubād̲h̲iyān (modern Kafirnihan) River, which ran down from the Buttamān Mountains and joined the Oxus at the fordingplace of Awwad̲j̲ or Awzad̲j̲ (modern Ayvad̲j̲); accordingly, it lay between the provinces of Čag̲h̲āniyān [ q.v.] on the west and Wak̲h̲s̲h̲ and K̲h̲uttal [ q.v.] on the east. Administratively, it was most often attached to K̲h̲uttal. It now falls …

Ḳarā Bāg̲h̲

(478 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(Turkish-Persian “black garden”, allegedly because of the fertility of its upland valleys, but this is probably a folk etymology), the recent name of the mountainous region lying to the north of the middle course of the Araxes River in Transcaucasia, corresponding to the southern part of the mediaeval Islamic Arrān [ q.v.]. The mountains of Ḳarābāg̲h̲ rise to over 12,000 feet, and the modern population (mostly Armenian, with some S̲h̲īʿī Azeri Turks) is concentrated in the deep valleys. The original Armenian princes of Artzak̲h̲ were dispossessed after the Sald̲j̲ūḳ drive…

Zuhayr b. Ḥarb

(114 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū K̲h̲ayt̲h̲ama al-S̲h̲aybānī al-Nasāʾī, traditionist of the early ʿAbbāsid period. He was born at Nasā in K̲h̲urāsān in 160/776-7 but lived mostly in Bag̲h̲dād, dying there in S̲h̲aʿbān 234/March 849. He was amongst the seven scholars forwarded by Isḥāḳ b. Ibrāhīm to the caliph al-Maʾmūn for questioning over the createdness or otherwise of the Ḳurʾān (al-Ṭabarī, iii, 1116; see also miḥna ). Regarded as a trustworthy, t̲h̲iḳa , narrator of traditions, he was the author of a Kitāb al-ʿIlm (publ. Damascus 1966). (C.E. Bosworth) Bibliography al-K̲h̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī, viii, 482-…

Biʾr Maʿūna

(342 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a well on the Mecca-Medina road, between the terri tories of ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa and Sulaym, where a group of Muslims was killed in Ṣafar 4/625. The traditional account is that the chief of ʿĀmir, Abū Barāʾ (or Abū ’l-Barāʾ), invited Muḥammad to send a missionary group to his tribe, promising his personal protection for them. So a group of “Ḳurʾān-readers” ( ḳurrāʾ ) was sent from Medina. When they reached Biʾr Maʿūna, they were massacred by clans of Sulaym, led by ʿĀmir b. al-Ṭufayl, who had failed to induce his own tribe of ʿĀmir to vi…

Mad̲h̲ḥid̲j̲

(869 words)

Author(s): Smith, G.R. | Bosworth, C.E.
a large tribal group, now inhabiting in the main the areas of Ḏh̲amār and Radāʿ in the modern Yemen Arab Republic. The traditional genealogy, given by e.g. Ibn Durayd, Is̲h̲tiḳāḳ , ed. ¶ Wüstenfeld, 237 ff., and by Yāḳūt, Beirut 1374-6/1955-7, v, 89, is from Mālik b. Udad b. Zayd b. Yas̲h̲d̲j̲ub b. ʿArïb b. Zayd b. Kahlān b. Sabaʾ b. Yas̲h̲d̲j̲ub b. Yaʿrub b. Ḳaḥtān. The numerous component ḳabāʾil of Mad̲h̲ḥid̲j̲ are listed in full by al-Malik al-As̲h̲raf ʿUmar, Ṭurfat al-aṣḥāb fī maʿrifat al-ansāb , ed. K. V. Zetterstéen, Damascus 1949, 9; those most frequ…

G̲h̲azna

(2,024 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a town in eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān situated 90 miles/145 km. south-west of Kābul in lat. 68° 18′ E. and long. 33° 44′ N. and lying at an altitude of 7,280 feet/2,220 m. The original form of the name must have been * Ganzak < gand̲j̲a “treasury”, with a later metathesis in eastern Iranian of -nz-/-nd̲j̲- to -zn-, and this etymology indicates that G̲h̲azna was already in pre-Islamic times the metropolis of the surrounding region of Zābulistān. The parallel forms G̲h̲aznī (in present-day use) and G̲h̲aznīn must go back to forms like G̲h̲aznīk and G̲h̲aznēn the geograph…

Sayyid

(902 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Sāʾid (a., pls. asyād , sāda , sādāt , abstract nouns siyāda , suʾdad , etc.), originally, chief, e.g. of an Arabian tribe, and then, in Islamic times, a title of honour for descendants of the Prophet Muḥammad, being in this respect in many ways coterminous with the term s̲h̲arīf . Sayyid was used in ancient South Arabian, where it appears as s 1 wd “chieftain” (A.F.L. Beeston, etc., ¶ Sabaic dictionary, Louvain-Beirut 1982, 129), but the root seems to be largely absent from North-Western Semitic, being only dubiously attested in Elephantine Aramaic (J. Hoftijzer and K. Jongeling, Dictionar…

Saʿd (I) b. Zangī

(478 words)

Author(s): Haig, T.W. | Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ ʿIzz al-Dīn , Turkish Atabeg in Fārs of the Salg̲h̲urid line [ q.v.], reigned in S̲h̲īrāz from 599/1202-3 until most probably 623/1226. On the death of his elder brother Takla/Tekele (Degele, etc.?) b. Zangī in 594/1198, Saʿd claimed power in Fārs, but his claim was contested by his ¶ cousin Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l, the son of his father’s elder brother Sunḳur, who had founded the dynasty. Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l retained the royal title for nine years, but throughout that period warfare between him and his cousin continued without a decisive result for…

Ḳisma

(502 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), Ḳismet (t.), a term used for “fate, destiny”. In Arabic, ḳisma means literally “sharing out, distribution, allotment”, and one of its usages is as the arithmetical term for “division of a number”. It later came to mean “portion, lot”, and was then particularised to denote “the portion of fate, good or bad, specifically allotted to and destined for each man”. It is in this final sense, and especially via Turkish, that ḳismet has become familiar in the West as a term for the fatalism popularly attributed to the oriental (the first attestati…

Nāgawr

(771 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Burton Page, J.
, modern spelling Nagaur, Nagor, a town and district in the division of Jodhpur in the Rajasthan state of the Indian Union, formerly within the princely state of Jodhpur in British India; the town lies in lat. 27° 12′ N. and long. 73° 48′ E. at 75 miles/120 km. to the northeast of Jodhpur [see d̲j̲ōdhpur ], and in 1971 had a population of 36,433. The walled town is said to have derived its name from its traditional founders, the Nāga Rād̲j̲puts. In the later 12th century it was controlled by the Čawhān (Čahamāna) ruler of Dihlī Pṛithvīrād̲j̲a III, then by the G̲h̲ūrid Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad [see g̲h̲…

Śrīrangapat́t́anam

(200 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Europeanised form Seringapatam , a town of South India (lat. 12° 25′ N., long. 76° 42′ E.). In British India, it came within the princely state of Mysore [see mahisur , maysūr ], and is now in the Mysore District, the southernmost one of the Karnataka State of the Indian Union. It is situated on an island in the Cauvery River to the north-north-east of Mysore city. Named after its shrine to the Hindu god Śri Raṅga (Viṣṇu), it became in the 17th century the capital of the Hindu Rād̲j̲ās of Mysore and then, after 1761, of the Muslim sultans Ḥaydar ʿAlī and Tīpū Sulṭān [ q.vv.]. The latter’s oppositio…

Küčük ʿAlī Og̲h̲ullari̊

(479 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a line of Turkmen derebey s [ q.v.] or local lords who controlled the region round Payās [ q.v.], which was strategically situated near the head of the Gulf of Alexandretta (and now in the modern Turkish il or province of Hatay), and, for a while, Adana in Cilicia [ q.vv.] for almost a century. The founder, K̲h̲alīl Bey Küčük ʿAlī Og̲h̲lu, appears ca. 1770 as a bandit chief based on Payās, preying on shipping (including the ships of European powers) in the Gulf and on the land traffic which had to pass through the narrow gap between the Gâvur Daği mountain…

Pānīpat

(661 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin | Bosworth, C.E.
, a town of northern India (lat. 29° 24′ N., long. 76° 58′ E.) situated 86 km/57 miles north of Dihlī; it is also the name of the southernmost taḥṣīl in the Karnāl District of what was in British Indian times the province of the Pand̲j̲āb [ q.v.] but has since 1947 been in the eastern or Indian part of the divided province of the former Pand̲j̲āb, at present in Haryana province of the Indian Union. On three occasions has the fate of Hindustān been decided on the plain of Pānīpat: in 1526, when Bābur ¶ [ q.v.], the Barlās Turk, defeated Ibrāhīm Lōdī [ q.v.]; in 1556, when Akbar [ q.v.] crushed the forces …

S̲h̲īt̲h̲

(729 words)

Author(s): Huart, Cl. | Bosworth, C.E.
(Hebr. S̲h̲ēt̲h̲), Seth the third son of Adam and Eve (Gen. IV, 25-6, V, 3-8), regarded in Islamic lore as one of the first prophets and, like his father, the recipient of a revealed scripture. He is not mentioned in the Ḳurʾān, but plays a considerable role in the subsequent Ḳiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʾ [ q.v.] literature (see below). He is said to have been born when his father was 130 years of age, five years after the murder ¶ of Abel. When Adam died, he made him his heir and executor of his will. He taught him the hours of the day and of the night, told him of the Flood to come…

Saʿādat ʿAlī K̲h̲ān

(599 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin | Bosworth, C.E.
, Nawāb of Awadh or Oudh (regn. 1798-1814). His brother Aṣaf al-Dawla had died in September 1797, but after a four months’ interim, Āṣaf al-Dawla’s putative son Wazīr ʿAlī Ḵh̲ān was set aside and the British governor-General Sir John Shore installed in his place Saʿādat ʿAlī Ḵh̲ān, who had been living under British protection in Benares since 1776. His reign is noteworthy for the extension of British control over the Oudh territories. A treaty concluded with the late Nawāb in 1775 had placed these terri…

Nāʾīn

(285 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Nāyin , a small town (lat. 53° 05’ E., long. 32° 52’ N., altitude 1,408 m/4.620 feet) on the southwestern edge of the Great Desert of central Persia and on the road connecting Yazd with Iṣfahān and Ḳum. The town seems to have a pre-Islamic history, but nothing is known of this. The mediaeval Islamic geographers place it in the sardsīr or cooler upland regions and describe it as administratively within Fārs (al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī) but as dependent on either Yazd or Iṣfahān. According to Mustawfī, Nuzha , 69, tr. 77, its citadel (whose ruins are still visible) had w…

Sūrs

(381 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
or Sūrī dynasty, a line of Dihlī Sultans (947-62/1540-55) founded by the Afg̲h̲ān commander S̲h̲īr S̲h̲āh Sūr b. Miyān Ḥasan [ q.v.], who had been in the service of the preceeding Lōdī sultans [ q.v.]. This brief Indian dynasty’s period of rule spanned the interval between the first reign of the Mug̲h̲al Humāyūn [ q.v.] (937-47/1530-40) and his second reign and the final consolidation of Mug̲h̲al rule (962/1555). From a base in Bihār, S̲h̲īr S̲h̲āh in the 1530s made himself master of northern India, including Bengal, and twice repelled invasions from Agra by Hum…

Murādābād

(570 words)

Author(s): Allan, J. | Bosworth, C.E.
, a district in the Rohilkhand division in the north-west of Uttar Pradesh in the Indian Union (formerly the United Provinces of British India), with an area of 2,290 sq. miles/5,930 km2 and a population (1961 census) of 1,973,530 of whom 62% were at that time Hindu and 37% Muslim, the latter being stronger in the rural areas than the urban centres; the concentration of Muslims, almost wholly Sunnīs, is one of the thickest in the whole of Uttar Pradesh. Almost all the population is either Hindi- or Urdu-speaking. Nothing is k…

al-Ḳās̲h̲ānī

(311 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, al-ḳās̲h̲ī , Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. ʿAlī, called Ibn Bāba or Bābā, Persian author of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ: period, and boon-companion or nadīm by profession. He apparently flourished in the second half of the 5th/11th century and early years of the next one; Bagdatli Ismail Paşa, Īḍāḥ al-maknūn , ¶ i, 546, says that he died in 510/1116-7, and this is approximately confirmed by Yāḳūt, who says that he died at Marw. Only Samʿānī, Ansāb , ff. 80a, 437b, and Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, i, 412, iv, 296-7, have any significant information on him. It seems that he w…

S̲h̲ūl

(372 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
1. The name of a land and a city in China mentioned in the mediaeval Arabic geographer Ḳudāma b. D̲j̲aʿfar [ q.v.], 264, here borrowing material from the lost part of his predecessor Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih [ q.v.]. According to Ḳudāma, Alexander the Great, in company with the Emperor of China, went northwards from China and conquered the land of S̲h̲ūl, founding there two cities, K̲h̲.mdān and S̲h̲ūl and ordering the Chinese ruler to place a garrison ( rābita ) of his troops in the latter place. K̲h̲umdān is well-attested in other Islamic sources (e.g. Gardīzī; Marwazī, tr. Minors…

Ispahbad̲h̲

(1,377 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Persian, “army chief”, the Islamic form of a military title used in the pre-Islamic Persian empires and surviving in the Caspian provinces of Persia down to the Mongol invasions. In Achaemenid times the spād̲h̲apati was the commander-in-chief of the army. In the Arsacid period, the office of spāhpat was apparently hereditary in one of the great Parthian families; the Armenian geographer Moses of Choren (8th century A. D.) says that when Kos̲h̲m or Koms̲h̲, daughter of King Ars̲h̲avir (se. Phraates IV) married the comma…

Rāfiʿ al-Darad̲j̲āt

(148 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. Rāfiʿ al-S̲h̲aʾn b. S̲h̲āh ʿĀlam I, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn, great-grandson of the great Mug̲h̲al emperor Awrangzīb [ q.v.] and one of the ephemeral emperors in the last decades of independent Mug̲h̲al rule, reigning for some four months in the spring of 1131/1719. After Awrangzīb’s death in 1118/1707, the main power in the empire was that of the Bārha Sayyids [ q.v. in Suppl.], who in 1124/1712 raised to the throne Farruk̲h̲-siyar b. ʿAẓīm al-S̲h̲aʾn Muḥammad ʿAẓīm [ q.v.] but deposed him in Rabīʿ II 1131/February 1719 and substituted for him Rāfi ʿ al-Darad̲j̲āt; but in June…

G̲h̲ulām

(13,969 words)

Author(s): Sourdel, D. | Bosworth, C.E. | Hardy, P. | İnalcık, Halil
(A., pl.. g̲h̲ilmān ), word meaning in Arabic a young man or boy (the word is used for example of the ʿAbbāsid princes al-Muʿtazz and al-Muʾayyad, sons of al-Mutawakkil, at the time when their brother, the caliph al-Muntaṣir, attempted to make them renounce their rights to the succession (al-Ṭabarī, iii, 1485), while the son of al-Wāt̲h̲iḳ, whom they hesitated to proclaim caliph because of his youth, is described as g̲h̲ulām amrad “beardless” (al-Ṭabarī, iii, 1368)); then, by extension, either a servant, sometimes elderly (cf. Ch. Pellat, Milieu , Paris 1953,…

Sand̲j̲a

(181 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of a small, right-bank affluent (Grk. Singas, Modern Tkish. Keysun Çayı, a tributary of the Gök Su) of the upper Euphrates and of a small town on it, both coming in mediaeval Islamic times within the northern part of Diyār Muḍar [ q.v.]. The Sand̲j̲a river runs into the Euphrates between Sumaysāṭ and Ḳalʿat al-Rūm [ q.vv.]. It was famed for its bridge, said by the Arabic geographers to have been composed of a single arch of 200 paces’ length constructed from dressed stone, and to have been one of the wonders of the world (cf. Yāḳūt, Buldān , iii, 264-5). It was …
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