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K̲h̲ōst

(523 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Arabic spellings K̲h̲.w.st or K̲h̲.wāst, the name of various places in Afg̲h̲anistān. The most likely etymology for the name is that given by G. Morgenstierne in his An etymological vocabulary of Pashto , Oslo 1928, 98: that it is an Iranised form * hwāstu , cf. Skr. suvāstu- “good site” (which became the place-name Swāt [ q.v.] in the North-West frontier region of Pakistan). The mediaeval Arabic and Persian geographers mention what appear to be two places of this name in northern Afg̲h̲anistān. Those of the 4th/10th century mention K̲h̲as̲h̲t as a town on …

Miẓalla

(4,558 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Holt, P.M. | Chalmeta, P. | Andrews, P.A. | Burton-Page, J.
(a.), lit. “an instrument or apparatus for providing shade, ẓill ,” apparently synonymous with the s̲h̲amsa , s̲h̲amsiyya , lit. “an instrument or apparatus for providing shelter from the sun”, probably therefore referring to the sunshade or parasol born on ceremonial occasions and processions [see mawākib ] over early Islamic rulers. 1. In the ʿAbbāsid and Fāṭimid caliphates. The historical sources provide a few references on practice in the ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Thus the official Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Malik al-Zayyāt [see ibn al-zayyāt ] was responsible in al-Muʿtaṣim’s time fo…

Naṣr b. Sayyār

(743 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
al-Layt̲h̲ī al-Kinānī , the last ¶ governor of K̲h̲urāsān under the Umayyads, d. 131/748. Naṣr’s whole career seems to have been spent in K̲h̲urāsān and the East. In 86/705 he campaigned in the upper Oxus region under Ṣāliḥ, brother of the governor of K̲h̲urāsān Ḳutayba b. Muslim [ q.v.], and received a village there as reward. Then in 106/724 he was campaigning in Farg̲h̲āna under Muslim b. Saʿīd al-Kilābī, and served as governor of Balk̲h̲ for some years. Hence on the death of the governor of the East Asad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḳasrī [ q.v.], the caliph His̲h̲ām was advised to appoint as hi…

Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īd

(340 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
the title given to local Iranian rulers of Sog̲h̲dia and Farg̲h̲āna in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period. Although Justi ( Iranisches Namenbuch , 14 ), Unvala ( The translation of an extract from Mafâtîh al-ʿUlûm of al-K̲h̲wârazmî , in J. of the . Cama Ins xi (1928), 18-19) and Spuler ( Iran , 30-1, 356) derive it from O. Pers. k̲h̲s̲h̲aeta- ‘shining, brilliant’, an etymology from O. Pers. k̲h̲s̲h̲āyat̲h̲iya- ‘king, ruler’ (M. Pers. and N. Pers. s̲h̲āh ) is more probable (Christensen, and Bosworth and Clauson, see below). This O. Pers. term k̲h̲s̲h̲āyat̲h̲iya- penetrated beyond T…

Munād̲j̲āt

(256 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), the verbal noun of the form III verb nād̲j̲ā “to whisper to, talk confidentially with someone”, which is used in Ḳurʾān, LVIII, 13, in this sense, and in the reciprocal form VI in LVIII, 9, 10, of the murmurs of discontent amongst the Prophet’s followers, probably after the Uḥud reverse (see Nöldeke-Schwally, G des Q, i, 212-13). Munād̲j̲āt becomes, however, a technical term of Muslim piety and mystical experience in the sense of “extempore prayer”, as opposed to the corporate addressing of the deity in the ṣalāt (see Hughes, A dictionary of Islam, 420), and of the Ṣūfīs’ communio…

Muṣṭafa Pas̲h̲a, Bayraḳdār

(858 words)

Author(s): Kramers, J.H. | Bosworth, C.E.
or ʿAlemdār , Ottoman Turkish grand vizier in 1808, was the son of a wealthy Janissary at Rusčuḳ, born about 1750. He distinguished himself in the war with Russia under Muṣṭafā III, and acquired in these years the surname of bayraḳdār “standard-bearer”. After the war he lived on his estates near Rusčuḳ, and acquired the semi-official position of aʿyān [ q.v.] of Hezārgrād and later of Rusčuḳ. With other aʿyans he took part in an action against the government at Edirne, but became finally a reliable supporter of the government. Having already received the honorary offices of ḳapi̊d̲j̲i̊ bas̲…

Eličpur

(611 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, Iličpur , modern Ačalpur , a town of the mediaeval Islamic province of Berār [ q.v.] in southern Central India, lying near the headwaters of the Purnā constituent of the Tāptī River in lat. 21° 16ʹ N. and long. 77° 33ʹ E. Up to 1853, Eličpur was generally regarded as the capital of Berār, after when Amraotī became the administrative centre. The pre-Islamic history of Eličpur is semi-legendary, its foundation being attributed to a Jain Rād̲j̲ā called Il in the 10th century. By Baranī’s time (later 7th/13th century), it could be described as one of the fam…

Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam

(604 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, “The limits of the world”, the title of a concise but very important anonymous Persian geography of the world, Islamic and non-Islamic, composed towards the end of the 4th/10th century in Gūzgān [ q.v.] in what is now northem Afghānistān. The work exists in a unique manuscript of the 7th/13th century (the “Toumansky manuscript”) which came to light in Buk̲h̲ārā in 1892. The Persian text was first edited and published by W. Barthold at Leningrad in 1930 as Ḥudūd al-ʿālem , rukopisi̊ Tumanskago , with an important preface (this last reprinted in his Sočineny̲a̲ , vii…

Rāfiʿ b. Hart̲h̲ama

(153 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a soldier of fortune who disputed control of K̲h̲urāsān with other adventurers and with the Ṣaffārid Amīr ʿAmr b. al-Layt̲h̲ [ q.v.] in the later 3rd/9th century, d. 283/896. Rāfiʿ had been in the service of the Ṭāhirids [ q.v.], and after the death in 268/882 at Nīs̲h̲āpūr of the previous contender for power in K̲h̲urāsān, Aḥmad al-K̲h̲ud̲j̲istānī, he set himself up as de facto ruler of K̲h̲urāsān, subsequently securing legitimisation from the ʿAbbāsid caliphs when al-Muwaffaḳ [ q.v.] broke with the Ṣaffārids. By 283/896, however, ʿAmr managed to defeat Rāfiʿ and to dri…

Sāsān

(554 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Banū , the blanket designation in mediaeval Islamic literature for the practitioners of begging, swindling, confidence tricks, the displaying of disfiguring diseases, mutilated limbs, etc., so that sāsānī has often become a general term in both Arabic and Persian for “beggar, trickster”. Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa uses sāsānī in the sense of “pertaining to magic or slight-of-hand”, with the ʿilm al-ḥiyal al-sāsāniyya denoting “the science of artifices and trickery”. In his treatise warning the general public against trickery in all forms, al-Muk̲h̲tār min kas̲h̲f al-asrār

Lālā

(477 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Lala (p.), a term found amongst the Turkmen dynasties of Persia and, especially, amongst the Ṣafawids, with the meaning of tutor, specifically, tutor of royal princes, passing also to the Ottoman Turks. Under the Aḳ Ḳoyunlu [ q.v.], both atabeg [see atabak ] and lālā are found, but after the advent of the Ṣafawids (sc. after 907/1501), the latter term becomes more common, with the Arabic term muʿallim “instructor” also found. Such persons were already exalted figures in the state. The lālā of S̲h̲āh Ismāʿīl I’s second son Sām Mīrzā was the īs̲h̲īk-āḳāsī [ q.v.] or Grand Marshal of the great dī…

al-Malik al-ʿAzīz

(194 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Manṣūr K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz , eldest son of D̲j̲alāl al-Dawla S̲h̲īrzīl. Būyid prince (407-41/1016 or 1017-1049). In the lifetime of his father D̲j̲alal al-Dawla [ q.v.], ruler of Bag̲h̲dād, he was governor of Baṣra and Wāsiṭ and latterly heir to the throne, but when his father died in S̲h̲aʿbān 435/March 1044, K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz was away from the capital in Wāsiṭ, and superior financial resources enabled his more forceful cousin ʿImād al-Dīn Abū Kālīd̲j̲ār Marzubān [ q.v.] to secure the loyalty of the Būyid troops in Bag̲h̲dād and to establish himself firmly in ʿIrāḳ. …

Marw al-S̲h̲āhid̲j̲ān

(4,173 words)

Author(s): Yakubovskii, A.Yu. | Bosworth, C.E.
or simply Marw , the city which dominated the rich but notoriously unhealthy oasis region of classical and mediaeval Islamic times along the lower course of the Murg̲h̲āb river on the northeastern fringes of Persia, also called “Great Marw”. Formerly within the historic province of K̲h̲urāsān [ q.v.], the seat of pre-Islamic wardens of the marches and often of provincial governors in Islamic times, its site (“Old Merv”) and the nearby modern settlement of Bairam Ali (see below) fall today within the Turkmenistan SSR. The name Marw al-S̲h̲āhi…

Pahlawān

(742 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(p.), from Pahlaw , properly “Parthian”, ¶ acquired in pre-modern Persian and thence in Turkish, the sense of “wrestler, one who engages in hand-to-hand physical combat”, becoming subsequently a general term for “hero, warrior, champion in battle”. From this later, broader sense it is used as a personal name in the Persian world, e.g. for the Eldigüzid Atabeg [see ilden̄izids ] Nuṣrat al-Dīn D̲j̲ahān-Pahlawān (reigned in ʿĀd̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. d. 581 or 582/1186 [see pahlawān , muḥammad b. ilden̄iz ; and see Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch, 237, for other bearers of this name]. The w…

Muḥammad b. Hindū-S̲h̲āh

(212 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
Nak̲h̲čiwānī , S̲h̲ams al-Dīn, Persian official and littérateur of the 8th/14th century and apparendy the son of Hindū-S̲h̲āh b. Sand̲j̲ar Gīrānī or al-D̲j̲īrānī, author of an Arabic adab work (Brockelmann, II2, 245, S II, 256) and of a Persian version of Ibn al-Ṭiḳṭaḳā’s Fak̲h̲rī , the Tad̲j̲ārib al-salaf (see Storey, i, 81, 1233; Storey-Bregel, i, 326-7). Muḥammad was a chancery secretary under the Il-K̲h̲ānids. He wrote a Persian-Persian glossary, Ṣiḥāḥ al-Furṣ , dedicated to his superior G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn, son of the great vizier for the Mongols, Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh [ q.v.…

Tālis̲h̲

(917 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Yarshater, E.
, a district on the southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea, originally wholly within Persia until the Gulistān Treaty of 12/24 October 1813 between Russia and Persia awarded to ¶ Russia the greater part of Tālis̲h̲, that north of the Astārā river. This last part has successively been ruled by Imperial Russia, the Soviets and (since 1991) the Azerbaijan Republic. The part of the Iranian Tālis̲h̲ī people remaining within Persia occupies an area of the modern province ( ustān ) of East Azerbaijan to about 50 km/30 miles south of the Astārā river. 1. Geography and history. The region comprises …

al-Subkī

(1,777 words)

Author(s): Schacht, J. | Bosworth, C.E.
, the nisba from the name of two small towns of Lower Egypt, in the mediaeval district of Manf [ q.v.], now in the Manūfiyya mudīriyya or province, in the southwestern part of the Nile Delta. See ʿAlī Mubārak, al-K̲h̲iṭaṭ al-d̲j̲adīda , Būlāḳ 1305/1887-8, xii, 6-7; Muḥammad Ramzī, al-Ḳāmūs al-d̲j̲ug̲h̲rāfī li ’l-bilād al-miṣriyya , Cairo 1953-68, ii/2, 217. ¶ A. The mediaeval Subk known as Subk al-Ḍaḥḥāk (modern Subk al-T̲h̲alāt̲h̲) was the place of origin of a celebrated family of S̲h̲āfiʿī ʿulamāʾ which flourished in Mamlūk times and of which the most outstanding figures were the S̲h̲ayk…

Naṣīḥat al-Mulūk

(4,755 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), literally “advice for rulers”, a phrase under which may conveniently be considered the genre of pre-modern Islamic literature which consists of advice to rulers and their executives on politics and statecraft ( siyāsa [ q.v.] or tadbīr al-mulūk ); the ruler’s comportment towards God and towards the subjects or raʿiyya [ q.v.] whom God has entrusted to his charge; the conduct of warfare, diplomacy and espionage; etc. All these themes correspond to the genre of mediaeval European literature known as that of “mirrors for princes” or Fürstenspiegel (see on this, Dict . of the Middle Age…

Ṭāhir b. al-Ḥusayn

(465 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. Muṣʿab b. Ruzayḳ, called D̲h̲u ’l-Yamīhayn (? “the ambidextrous”), b. 159/776, d. 207/822, the founder of a short line of governors in K̲h̲urāsān during the high ʿAbbāsid period, the Ṭāhirids [ q.v.]. His forebears had the aristocratic Arabic nisba of “al-K̲h̲uzāʿī”, but were almost certainly of eastern Persian mawlā stock, Muṣʿab having played a part in the ʿAbbāsid Revolution as secretary to the dāʿī Sulaymān b. Kat̲h̲īr [ q.v.]. He and his son al-Ḥusayn were rewarded with the governorship of Pūs̲h̲ang [see būs̲h̲and̲j̲ ], and Muṣʿab at least apparently governed Harāt also. …

al-Sīrad̲j̲ān

(600 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Sīradtān , one of the principal cities of mediaeval Persian Kirmān and that province’s capital during the first three Islamic centuries. Only from Būyid times onwards (4th/10th century) did Bardasīr or Guwās̲h̲īr (perhaps originally a ¶ Sāsānid foundation, *Weh Ardas̲h̲īr) become the administrative capital, known in the sources also as s̲h̲ahr -i Kirmān [see kirmān, at vol. V, 150]. Sīrad̲j̲ān now exists as the name of a district in the western part of Kirmān province and as a name recently revived and given to the present town of Saʿīdābād on the S̲h̲…

Sāmānids

(5,984 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Crowe, Yolande
, a Persian dynasty which ruled in Transoxania and then in Ḵh̲urāsān also, at first as subordinate governors of the Ṭāhirids [ q.v.] and then later autonomous, virtually independent rulers (204-395/819-1005). ¶ 1. History, literary life and economic activity. The early history of the Sāmānid family is obscure. They may have stemmed either from Sog̲h̲dia or, perhaps more likely, from Ṭuk̲h̲āristān south of the Oxus, probably from the petty landowners of the Balk̲h̲ area. It was not possible to connect the Sāmānids with a noble Arab tr…

Miyāna

(446 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, in the early Islamic souces more usually Miyānid̲j̲, a town of Persia situated on the Ḳizil-Üzen [ q.v.] affluent of the Safīd-Rūd which drains southeastern Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān [ q.v.]. The modern town lies in lat. 37°20′ N. and long. 47°45′ E. at an altitude of 1,100 m./3,514 ft. Being at the confluence of several rivers on the section of the Ḳizil-Üzen known in mediaeval Islamic times as the “river of Miyānid̲j̲” (cf. Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, Nuzha , 224, tr. 216), Miyāna (literally, “middle place”, cf. Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, v, 240) was in mediaeval times …

Īd̲h̲ad̲j̲

(1,007 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
or Māl-Amīr , town of western Persia, situated on a tributary of the upper reaches of the Dud̲j̲ayl or Kārūn river, in southern Luristān, at 49° 45′ E. and 31° 50′ N. In mediaeval times it was generally reckoned to be part of the province of al-Ahwāz or K̲h̲ūzistān [ q.v.], and under the ʿAbbāsids was the capital of a separate administrative district or kūra . It lay on a plain at an altitude of 3,100 feet, and though reckoned by the geographers to be in the garmsīr or hot zone, the nearby mountains gave it a pleasant and healthy climate; the winter snow from…

Ṭahmūrat̲h̲

(602 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, generally accounted the second king of the Pīs̲h̲dādid dynasty [ q.v.] in legendary Iranian epic history, coming after the first world-king Kayūmart̲h̲ or Gayōmard and the founder of the Pīs̲h̲dādids, Hūs̲h̲ang [ q.v.]. Certain Islamic sources make him the first king of his line, and the length of the reign attributed to him—such figures as an entire millennium or 600 years are given—shows the importance attached to him. His name appears in the Avesta as Tak̲h̲mō urupa azinavε̇a , with the first element tak̲h̲ma , meaning “strong, courageous” (cf. the name Rustam/Rustahm) and urupi . azi…

Sarak̲h̲s

(916 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a town of northern K̲h̲urāsān, lying in the steppe land to the north of the eastern end of the Köpet Dag̲h̲ mountain chain. It was situated on the right or eastern bank of the Tad̲j̲ant (modern Ted̲j̲en) river, whose uncertain flow received the waters of the Harī Rūd before finally petering out in the Ḳara Ḳum desert [ q.v.]. According to the mediaeval Islamic geographers, the river bed only contained water at the time of floods, i.e. winter and early spring. Various channels were taken off the river for irrigation, but scantiness of water supply alwa…

Sarūd̲j̲

(709 words)

Author(s): Plessner, M. | Bosworth, C.E.
, a town in Diyār Muḍar [ q.v.] on the most southerly of the three roads from Bīred̲j̲ik [ q.v.] to Urfa [see al-ruhā ] in 36° 58′ N. lat. and 38° 27′ E. long. As the name of the town is also that of the district, its relation to the ancient names Anthemusia and Batnae is disputed; see Bibl . On account of the fertility of the district in which the town is situated, and its central position between the Euphrates on the one side, and Urfa and Ḥarrān [ q.v.], from each of which it is about a day’s journey distant, on the other, the traffic through it brought it a certain degree of prosp…

Ḳūčān

(1,278 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, modern form of the mediaeval Islamic K̲h̲abūs̲h̲ān/K̲h̲ūd̲j̲ān, a town of northern K̲h̲urasān on the main highway connecting Tehran and Mas̲h̲had. It lies at an altitude of 4,060 feet in the fertile and populous Atrek River-Kas̲h̲af Rūd corridors, on the headwaters of the Atrek and between the parallel mountain ranges of the Kūh-i Hazār Masd̲j̲id on the north and the Kūh-i S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān and Kūh-i Bīnālūd on the south; the modern town ¶ lies several miles upstream, sc. to the east-south-east, of the mediaeval town. K̲h̲abūs̲h̲ān was apparently the earliest Islamic form of the…

Rifāʿiyya

(1,201 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of one of the most prominent Ṣūfī orders from the period of the institutionalisation of the ṭarīḳas [ q.v.], and one which came to be noted in pre-modern times for the extravagance of some of its practices. It is unclear whether the founder, Aḥmad al-Rifāʿī [ q.v.], was a mystic of the thaumaturgie, miracle-mongering type, but the order which he founded and which was developed by his kinsmen certainly acquired its extravagant reputation during the course of the 6th/12th century; it may not be without significance that the order grew…

Ḳāwurd

(1,120 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. čag̲h̲ri̊ beg dāwūd , called also Ḳara Arslan Beg on his coins and by authors like Mīrk̲h̲wand, the founder of a line of virtually independent Sald̲j̲ūḳ amīrs in Kirmān which endured for some 140 years until the irruption into the province of Og̲h̲uz from K̲h̲urāsān. The origins of Sald̲j̲ūḳ rule in Kirmān are obscure: there are discrepancies in the accounts of the sources, and the opening pages of Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm’s local history of Kirmān are missing. Kirmān had been recovered by the Būyids after the G̲h̲aznavid occupation of 422-5/1031-4 (on which see E. Merçil, Gaznelilerʾin Kirm…

Özkend

(332 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, ūzkend , sometimes written in the sources Yūzkand or Ūzd̲j̲and, a town of mediaeval Islamic Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.] in Central Asia, lying at the eastern end of the Farg̲h̲āna valley and regarded as being near the frontier with the pagan Turks. Already in the mid-3rd/9th century, Özkend had a local ruler called by the Turkish name K̲h̲ūrtigin (?Čūr-tigin) (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 30). The geographers of the next century (i.e. that of the Sāmānids) describe it as having the tripartite pattern typical of eastern Islamic towns, with a citadel in the madīna or inner cit…

Buzāk̲h̲a

(172 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a well in Nad̲j̲d in the territory of Asad or their neighbours Ṭayyiʾ (cf. Mufaḍḍalīyāt , 361, n. 3). The forces of the Banū Asad, who, led by the false prophet Ṭulayḥa, had relapsed from Islam on Muḥammad’s death, were defeated at Buzāk̲h̲a in 11/632 by Abū Bakr’s general Ḵh̲ālid b. al-Walīd. Ḵh̲ālid’s army was reinforced for the battle by 1000 men of Ṭayyiʾ, detached from Ṭulayḥa’s side; Ṭulayḥa had the help of ʿUyayna b. Ḥiṣn and 700 men from Fazāra of G̲h̲aṭafān, old allies of Asad’s…

Tawḳīʿ

(1,289 words)

Author(s): Babinger, F. | , Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), the verbal noun of the form II verb waḳḳaʿa in the sense of “to indite, register the decree of a ruler”, hence with the meaning of a document with a signature or device ( ʿalāma ), equivalent to the ruler’s signature. 1. As an administrative term. From the meaning given above, tawḳīʿ comes to acquire the general sense of “edict, decree of the ruler” and its being drawn up in a written form. More particularly, it has the special meaning of the titles of the ruler (roughly equivalent to the ṭug̲h̲rā [ q.v.] of the Ottoman sultans) to be inscribed in the chancellery, which gives the …

Iṣṭabl

(7,005 words)

Author(s): Viré, F. | Colin, G.S. | Bosworth, C.E. | Digby, S.
and isṭabl (a.; pl. iṣṭablāt and rarely aṣābil , according to LA, s.v.), etymologically stable , that is to say the building in which mounts and baggage animals (equidae and camelidae) are kept tethered and, by metonomy, the actual stock of such animais belonging to one single owner. Iṣṭabl is the arabization of the low-Greek στάβλον/σταβλíον/σταυλíον(see Du Cange, Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae graecitatis , Lyons 1688, s.v.), which ¶ in turn derives from the Latin stabulum . This is one of the so-called terms “of civilization” which hav…

Sikandar b. Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Hindāl, called Buts̲h̲ikan

(220 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, sultan of Kas̲h̲mīr ( r. 791-813/1389-1410), who derived his name of “idol breaker” from his rigorist Muslim policies and draconian measures against the local Hindus. As a minor, he had his mother as regent until 795/1393 when, with the support of the Bayhaḳī Sayyids [ q.v. in Suppl.], refugees who had fled before Tīmūr [ q.v.], he threw off this tutelage and became the effective ruler, now having the k̲h̲uṭba read in his own name and minting coins. The campaigns of Tīmūr brought a considerable number of immigrants into India, and the most …

Māʾ

(1,772 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
10. Irrigation in Transoxania. The rivers of Inner Asia, extending from Ḵh̲wārazm in the west through Transoxania to eastern Turkistān (the later Sinkiang) and northwards to the Semirečye, have all been extensively used for irrigation purposes in the lands along those rivers and in oasis centres, providing a possibility for agriculture in favoured spots which were not too open to attack from the steppe nomads or more northerly forest peoples. Hence, as elsewhere in the Old World, the maintenance of irrigation works, surface canals and kārīz s or subterranean ¶ channels (these last t…

Faḳīr of Ipi

(238 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, the name given in popular parlance to Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Mīrzā ʿAlī K̲h̲ān, Pathan mullah and agitator along the Northwestern Frontier of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent in both the later British Indian and the early Pakistani periods, d. 1960. A member of the Torī K̲h̲ēl group of the ʿUt̲h̲mānzay Wazīrs of North Wazīrīstān, probably one of the most unreconciled of the Pathan tribes of the Frontier in British times, he came to especial prominence in 1936-7, inflaming the Tōrī Ḵh̲ēls and the Mahsūds of the Tochi valley against the British…

Inʿām

(1,884 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), “favour, beneficence”, more specifically donatives, largesse, given to troops, etc. The problem of keeping armies in the field, once mustered and brought forward for action, was a perennial one for Islamic rulers and commanders. Unless inducements such as extra pay awards, ¶ promises of unusually attractive plunder, etc. could be dangled in front of the troops, there was danger that an army might disband itself and melt away once the immediate battle or object of a campaign had been achieved; not infrequently, it was difficult to …

Makka

(45,581 words)

Author(s): Watt, W. Montgomery | Wensinck, A.J. | Bosworth, C.E. | Winder, R.B. | King, D.A.
(in English normally “Mecca”, in French “La Mecque”), the most sacred city of Islam, where the Prophet Muḥammad was born and lived for about 50 years, and where the Kaʿba [ q.v.] is situated. 1. The pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods Geographical description. Mecca is located in the Ḥid̲j̲āz about 72 km. inland from the Red Sea port of Jedda (D̲j̲udda [ q.v.]), in lat. 21° 27′ N. and long. 39° 49′ E. It is now the capital of the province ( manātiḳ idāriyya ) of Makka in Suʿūdī Arabia, and has a normal population of between 200,000 and 300,000, which …

Sebüktigin

(352 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(Tkish. sevük tégin “beloved prince”), Abū Manṣūr, Turkish slave commander of the Sāmānids [ q.v.] and founder of the G̲h̲aznawid dynasty [ q.v.] in eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān. What little is known of his early life stems mainly from his alleged Pand-nāma or testament of advice to his successor (preserved in a later Persian historian; see s̲h̲abānkāraʾī ) and from D̲j̲ūzd̲j̲ānī’s quotations from a lost part of the Mud̲j̲alladāt of Abu ’l-Faḍl Bayhaḳī [ q.v.] which dealt with Sebüktigin’s governorship. He came from the Barsk̲h̲ān district of the Semirečye [see yeti su …

Philby

(733 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Harry St. John Bridger (1885-1960), Arabian explorer and traveller, adviser to King ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Suʿūd (Ibn Suʿūd) [see suʿūd , āl ] and British convert to Islam. Born of parents connected with planting and with ¶ official service in the Indian subcontinent, he had a conventional public school and Cambridge University education, and himself entered the Indian Civil Service in 1908. Already he showed a flare for learning Indian languages and for immersing himself in the cultures of India, until the First World War found him in…

Sulṭān al-Dawla

(197 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. Bahāʾ al-Dawla Fīrūz, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ, Būyid ruler in Fars, and at first in ʿIrāḳ also, 403-15/1012-24, succeeding his father [see bahāʾ al-dawla, in Suppl.] at S̲h̲īrāz. Much of his reign was spent in conflict with his brothers, including Abu ’l-Fawāris Ḳawām al-Dawla, who eventually became ruler in Kirmān as Sultan al-Dawla’s subordinate, and Abū ʿAlī Ḥasan, with whom he disputed control of ʿIrāḳ. By 412/1021 the latter was able to secure recognition as ruler in ʿIrāḳ with the honorific of Mus̲h̲arrif al-Dawla (he had already declared himself S̲h̲āhāns̲h̲āh “king of kings”), a…

al-Samāwa

(408 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a., "the elevated land"). 1. Al-Samāwa was the name given, in the definition of al-Bakrī ( Muʿd̲j̲am mā staʿd̲j̲am , Cairo 1364-71/1945-51, iii, 754, copied by Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 245), during mediaeval Islamic times to the desert and steppeland lying between al-Kūfa and Syria. Earlier geographers were more specific. Thus Ibn Ḥawḳal (ed. Kramers, 22, 34-5, tr. Kramers-Wiet, 21, 34, see also his map of the Arabian peninsula) defines it as the plain stretching from Dūmat al-Ḏj̲andal [ q.v.] in northwestern Arabia to ʿAyn al-Tamr [ q.v.] in the desert on the fringes of th…

Ibn Dārust

(615 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, Tād̲j̲ al-Mulk Abu ’l-G̲h̲anāʾim Marzubān b. Ḵh̲usraw-Fīrūz S̲h̲īrāzī (438-86/1046-93), high official in the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ administration under Sultan Malik S̲h̲āh [ q.v.], tand hat ruler’s last vizier. Born of a secretarial family in Fārs, he began his official career in the service of the slave commander Sāwtigin, who eventually recommended him to the sultan as a person of promise. Malik S̲h̲āh made him superintendent of the education and possessions of various of his sons, then overseer of the royal palace and its ancillaries, and finally head of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ chancery, the Dīwā…

Bānīd̲j̲ūrids

(699 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
or Abū Dāwūdids , a minor dynasty, probably of Iranian but conceivably of Turkish origin, which ruled in Ṭuk̲h̲āristān and Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān, sc. in what is now Afghan Turkestan, with a possible parallel branch in Ḵh̲uttal, sc. in what is now the Tadzhik SSR, during the later 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th centuries. The genealogy and history of the Bānīd̲j̲ūrids are very imperfectly known, despite the attempts of J. Marquart, in his Ērānšahr , 300-2, and R. Vasmer, in his Beiträge zur muhammedanischen Münzkunde . I. Die Münzen der Abū Dāʾudiden , in Numismatische Zeitschr

Ḳungrāt

(520 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of first a Mongol and then a Türkmen tribe of Central Asia, and deriving its name from these last, a settlement on the lower Āmū Daryā or Oxus, modern Kungrad. The Mongol tribe of Ḳonḳi̊rat/Ḳonḳurat or Onggirat (spelt Ḳ.n.ḳūrāt in D̲j̲uwaynī, Ungrat in Marco Polo) seems to have lived in the extreme east of Mongolia, towards the Khinggan Mts. in a district called Ābd̲j̲iya-Küteger. The tribe gave its allegiance to Čingiz in his struggle against Ong K̲h̲ān [see čingiz k̲h̲ān ], and had the privilege of supplying the K̲h̲āns with wives; thus Čingiz’s wife Börte Fud̲j̲i…

Si̊g̲h̲nāḳ

(366 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Sug̲h̲nāḳ ( Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 119, Sūnāk̲h̲), a mediaeval Islamic town on the middle Si̊r Daryā, in the district known as Fārāb, between Isfīd̲j̲āb and D̲j̲and [ q.vv. in Suppl.]. It seems to have been, together with the “new settlement” Yengikent, Sawrān and others, one of the settlements there of the Turks, explicitly defined by Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī as “a town of the Og̲h̲uz” (Tkish. tr. Atalay, i, 471; Eng. tr. Dankoff and Kelly, i, 352). Al-Muḳaddasī, 323 n. k, links it with Utrār [ q.v.], 24 farsak̲h̲ s further up the Si̊r Daryā. In Turkish, si̊g̲h̲naḳ means …

Turgay

(472 words)

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

Tat

(2,299 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Jeremiás, Éva
(t.), a term used in earliest Turkish with the general meaning of “alien, non-Turk”, but speedily coming to be applied par excellence to the Persians as opposed to the Turks, in any case with a somewhat contemptuous nuance of meaning, as likewise with the term tād̲j̲īk [ q.v.]. It is clearly not in origin a proper noun, and Schaeder rightly dismissed the suppositions in Minorsky’s outdated EI 1 art. Tāt of origins from such names as that of the Tangut or that given by the Voguls and Ostiaks of western Siberia to the river Irtish [ q.v.]. Schaeder suggested, rather, that tat

Ṣu Bas̲h̲i̊

(780 words)

Author(s): Kramers, J.H. | Bosworth, C.E.
(t.), an ancient title in Turkish tribal organisation meaning “commander of the army, troops”. The first word was originally , with front vowel; no proof has as yet been adduced for ¶ the suggestion that the word was originally a loan from Chinese (see Sir Gerard Clauson, An etymological dict. of pre-thirteenth century Turkish, Oxford 1972, 781). appears frequently in the Ork̲h̲on [ q.v.] inscriptions and probably in the Yenisei ones also. In the former, we find the phrase sü sülemek “to make a military expedition”, and the title sü bas̲h̲i̊ also occurs (see Talât Tekin, A grammar of Orkh…

Rag̲h̲ūsa

(2,805 words)

Author(s): Babinger, Fr. | Bosworth, C.E.
, the mediaeval Arabic form of the name of the Dalmatian city of Ragusa , until the advent of Bonaparte a free state, the modern Dubrovnik in Croatia (see 2. below), situated in lat. 42° 40ʹ N., long. 18° 07ʹ E. 1. History up to the beginning of the 19th century. Ragusa, the Roman Ragusium (see PW, 2. Reihe, 1.A. 1, col. 130), is situated on the south side of a peninsula which runs out into the Adriatic, picturesquely situated (50 feet) at the foot and on the slopes of Mount Sergius, and was founded in the 7th century by Romance fugitives from Epidau…

Sarandīb

(540 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name given in mediaeval Islamic geographical and historical sources to the island of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka). The Arabic form renders well the Skr. Siṃhala “Ceylon” + dvīpa “island”; an intermediate form is found in al-Bīrūnī, India, tr. E. Sachau, London 1910, i, 233, as Sangaladīp . By the time of Yāḳūt (early 7th/13th century), the form Sīlān is found ( Buldān , ed. Beirut, i, 346, art. Baḥr al-Hind ). Most of the mediaeval Islamic geographers, from Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih onwards, give some account of Sarandīb, placing it in the Sea of Harkand (= the Bay of…

al-T̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr

(3,154 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Latham, J.D.
(a.), pl. of t̲h̲ag̲h̲r , one of whose basic meanings is “gap, breach, opening”, a term used for points of entry between the Dār al-Islām and the Dār al-Ḥarb [ q.vv.] beyond it. It is more specifically used in the plural for the lines of fortifications protecting the gaps along such frontiers as that in south-eastern Anatolia between the Arabs and Byzantines (see 1. below) and for the march lands in al-Andalus between the Arabs and the Christian kingdoms to the north (see 2. below). But it is not infrequently employed by the Is…

K̲h̲ayma

(5,810 words)

Author(s): Pellat, Ch. | Chelhod, J. | Bosworth, C.E.
(a.) “tent”. When the ancient poets and the writers of the Middle Ages spoke of a nomad’s tent they generally described it by the very widely-known Semitic term bayt [ q.v.], which refers to a dwelling of some kind, either permanent or temporary, and so is not without ambiguity. A more precise term is bayt s̲h̲aʿar , lit. “dwelling of hair”. But this word can also cause confusion since the ductus is the same as in bayt s̲h̲iʿr , “verse of poetry”. There is, however, less confusion in the spoken language and the expression has a typically bedouin air;…

Mud̲j̲āhid

(1,732 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Jansen, J.J.G.
(a.), the active participle of the form III verb d̲j̲āhada “to strive” (of which the verbal noun is d̲j̲ihād [ q.v.]), hence acquiring the technical religious meaning of “fighter for the faith, one who wages war against the unbelievers.” 1. In classical legal theory and in early Islam. See for this d̲j̲ihād. 2. In Muslim Indian usage. In the subcontinent, the term mud̲j̲āhid has been associated with Islamic revivalist movements there, and especially with the more militant ones which arose from the late 18th century onwards in response…

Türkmen Čay (i̊)

(575 words)

Author(s): Minorsky, V. | Bosworth, C.E.
, conventionally Turkomanchai, a village in the Persian province of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, famed as the site for the treaty which ended the Russo-Persian War of 1826-7. The modern village of Turkamān (lat. 37° 35ʹ N., long. 47°, 42ʹ E.) is on the Tabrīz-Miyāna main road 40 km/25 miles to the west of Miyāna. In the 8th/14th century, Mustawfī calls the village Turkmān Kandī and says that it was once a town ( Nuzha , 183, tr. 174). A few decades later, Clavijo calls it Tucelar and Tunglar (evidently a corruption of Türk-lär) and says that it is inhabited by Turkmens ( Travels , ed…

Umm al-Ḳurā

(316 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), lit. "the mother of settlements/ villages/towns", a Ḳurʾānic expression. It occurs as such in VI, 92 and XLII, 5/7, in which the Prophet Muḥammad is commanded to warn the people of the umm al-ḳurā [of God’s punishment for disobedience], whilst in XXVIII, 59, it is said that God did not destroy the ḳurā until He had sent to them a messenger ( rasūl ) reciting God’s miraculous signs. Although taken by the commentators to mean the town of Mecca, an interpretation followed in the art. Ḳarya (and used as such at the present day, Umm al-Ḳurā being the title of an offi…

Rād̲j̲ā Ganes̲h̲

(216 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(the latter part of the name being the Hindu name Gaṇésa, appearing in Arabic script as G.n.s or G.n.sī), a local Hindu landowner of northern Bengal, who successfully usurped authority in Bengal during the latter years of the first period of power of the Ilyās S̲h̲āhī line, probably in the first decade or so of the 9th/15th century. The sources are unclear, but it seems that Rād̲j̲ā Ganes̲h̲ wielded the real power in the state under the nominal rule of the Ilyāsids, and then in 817/1414 placed on the throne his young son D̲j̲adu, who became a Muslim an…

Sind

(5,998 words)

Author(s): Haig, T.W. | Bosworth, C.E. | Ansari, Sarah | Shackle, C. | Crowe, Yolande
, the older Indian Sindhu , the name for the region around the lower course of the Indus river (from which the region takes its name, see mihrān ), i.e. that part of the Indus valley south of approximately lat. 28° 30’ N., and the delta area, now coming within the modern state of Pākistān. There are alluvial soils in the delta and in the lands along the river, liable to inundation when the river ¶ rises in spring from the melting snows of the northern Indian mountains and rendered fertile by a network of irrigation canals and channels for flood control. To the west of …

Naṣr b. S̲h̲abat̲h̲

(259 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
al-ʿUḳaylī , the leader of a rebellion of the North Arab or Ḳaysī tribesmen in al-D̲j̲azīra against the central authority of the ʿAbbāsids during the caliphates of al-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn. We find him mentioned in 196/811-12 as the head of zawāḳīl , lawless bands of Arabs, mainly Ḳaysīs, who had taken advantage of the breakdown of rule during the civil war (see on the term zawāḳīl, D. Ayalon, The military reforms of caliph al-Muʿtaṣim , their background and consequences, unpubl. paper presented to the Internat. Congress of Orientalists, New Delhi 1964, xerox Jerusalem 1963,…

Ḳadamgāh

(386 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a. and p.), literally “place of the [imprint of the] foot”, a village in K̲h̲urāsān, on the highway to Mas̲h̲had and some 20 km/12 miles ¶ east of Nīs̲h̲āpūr at the southern edge of the Kūh-i Bīnālūd (lat. 36° 07′ N., long. 59° 00′ E.). It is locally famed as a ziyāratgāh or place of pilgrimage, since the Eighth Imām of the S̲h̲īʿa, ʿAlī al-Riḍā [ q.v.], is said to have halted there and left the imprint of his foot on a stone, henceforth to be regarded with reverence; see Bess A. Donaldson, The wild rue. A study of Muhammadan magic and folklore in Iran , London 1938, 59, 148-9). The concept of sacred i…

Mābeyn

(328 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(A. mā bayn “what is between”), in the organisation of the Ottoman palace, the intermediate appartments lying between the inner courts of the Sarāy and the Ḥarem, a place where only the sultan, the eunuchs and the womenfolk could penetrate and where the corps of select pages known as mābeynd̲j̲is , an elite group from amongst the forty k̲h̲āṣṣ odali̊s , waited on the monarch for such intimate services as dressing and shaving him [see k̲h̲āṣṣ oda ]. Till the end of the 11th/17th century, the Mābeynd̲j̲is were headed by the Silaḥdār Ag̲h̲a or Swordbearer, as chief p…

Taʿarrub

(159 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), the verbal noun of a denominative verb formed from ʿArab , pl. Aʿrāb , in the sense of “nomads, Bedouins” (the Ḳurʾānic sense of this latter term, cf. e.g. IX, 98/97, XLIX, 14; taʿarrub itself does not occur in the Ḳurʾān). In earliest Islam, taʿarraba and its synonym tabaddā denote the return to the Arabian desert after hid̲j̲ra [ q.v.] to the garrison towns ( amṣār [see miṣr . B]) and participation in the warfare to expand the Arab empire and the Abode of Islam. Some of this movement back to the desert was doubtless legitimate, but on occasion it was deno…

Mānī

(304 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. Fāttik or Fātik , the form found in mediaeval Islamic sources (e.g. al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , ii 164, 167-8, vii, 12-16, viii, 293, = §§ 589, 594, 2705-7, 3447) for the founder of the dualist religion of Manichaeism, Mani son of Pātik, born in southern Mesopotamia in 216 A.D. and martyred under the Sāsānid Bahrām I in 274, 276 or 277, and whose faith spread from the Persian empire in the 7th century as far as Central Asia, eastern Turkestan (where after 762 it was the chief religion of the ¶ Uyg̲h̲ur Turks [ q.v.]) and northern China. In Islamic sources, the adherents of Manichaeism appe…

Ekinči

(273 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
b. Kočḳar , Turkish slave commander of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs and governor for them in Ḵh̲wārazm with the traditional title of Ḵh̲wārazm-S̲h̲ah [ q.v.] in 490/1097. He was the successor in this office of Anūs̲h̲tigin G̲h̲arčaʾī, the founder of the subsequent line of Ḵh̲wārazm-S̲h̲āhs who made their province the centre of a great military empire in the period preceeding the Mongol invasions. According to Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, x, 181-2, Ekenči was one of Sultan Berk-Yaruḳ’s slaves (but according to Ḏj̲uwaynī, ii, 3, tr. Boyle, i, 278, one of Sand̲j̲ar’s slaves), and was appointed to Ḵh̲wārazm by Berk-…

Muḥtād̲j̲ids

(518 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a local dynasty of mediaeval Central Asia which ruled in the upper Oxus principality of Čag̲h̲āniyān [ q.v.] in the 4th/10th and early 5th/11th centuries. At the time of the Arab invasions of the early 2nd/8th century, Čag̲h̲āniyān had been ruled by a dynasty of Čag̲h̲ān-K̲h̲udās. probably of Iranian stock like the princes of Soghdia and K̲h̲wārazm, who, pace other local rulers, seems to have co-operated with the incoming Arabs (see H.A.R. Gibb, The Arab conquests in Central Asia, London 1923, 9, 32). The eponymous ancestor Muḥtād̲j̲ may have been a descendant of these p…

Nīs̲h̲āpūr

(1,924 words)

Author(s): Honigmann, E. | Bosworth, C.E.
, the most important of the four great cities of K̲h̲urāsān (Nīs̲h̲āpūr, Marw, Harāt and Balk̲h̲), one of the great towns of Persia in the Middle Ages. The name goes back to the Persian Nēw-S̲h̲āhpūr (“Fair S̲h̲āpūr”); in Armenian it is called Niu-S̲h̲apuh, Arab. Naysābūr or Nīsābūr, New Pers. Nēs̲h̲āpūr, pronounced in the time of Yāḳūt Nīs̲h̲āwūr, now Nīs̲h̲āpūr (Nöldeke, Ṭabarī , 59, n. 3; G. Hoffmann, Auszüge …, 61, n. 530). The town occasionally bore the official title of honour, Īrāns̲h̲ahr. Nīs̲h̲āpūr was founded by S̲h̲āhpūhr I, son of Ardas̲h̲īr I (Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, …

Bād̲h̲ām, Bād̲h̲ān

(531 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, Persian governor in the Yemen towards the end of the Prophet Muḥammad’s lifetime. A Persian presence had been established in the Yemen ca. 570 A.D. when there had taken place a Yemenī national reaction under the Ḥimyarī prince Abū Murra Sayf b. D̲h̲ī Yazan [see sayf b. d̲h̲ī yazan ] against the Ethiopian-backed governor Masrūḳ b. Abraha. The Persian Emperor Ḵh̲usraw Anūs̲h̲irwān had sent troops to support Sayf b. D̲h̲ī Yazan, and eventually, a Persian garrison, with a military governor at its head, was set up in Ṣanʿāʾ. It was the progeny of …

S̲h̲uraḥbīl b. Ḥasana

(297 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū ʿAbd Allāh, early Meccan convert to Islam, prominent Companion of the Prophet and leading commander in the Arab invasions of Syria, d. 18/639. Apparently of Kindī origin, he was known by his mother’s name Ḥasana, but his patrilineal nasab was ... b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Muṭāḥ b. ʿAmr. He is described as a ḥalīf or confederate [see ḥilf ] of the Meccan clan of Zuhra but as also being connected, through another marriage of his mother, with D̲j̲umaḥ. As an early convert, he took part in the second hid̲j̲ra or migration to Ethiopia (see Ibn Sa’d, iv/1, 94, vii, 118; Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, Usd al-g̲h̲āba

Samarḳand

(7,362 words)

Author(s): Schaeder, H.H. | Bosworth, C.E. | Crowe, Yolande
, an ancient city of Transoxania, the Arabic Māʾ warāʾ al-Nahr [ q.v.], situated on the southern bank of the Zarafs̲h̲ān river or Nahr Ṣug̲h̲d. In early Islamic times it was the first city of the region in extent and populousness, even when, as under the Sāmānids (3rd-4th/9th-10th centuries [ q.v.]), Buk̲h̲ārā [ q.v.] was the administrative capital. Samarḳand’s eminence arose from its position at the intersection of trade routes from India and Afg̲h̲ānistān via Balk̲h̲ and Tirmid̲h̲ [ q.vv.] and from Persia via Marw [see marw al-s̲h̲āhid̲j̲ān ] which then led …

Muḥammad b. Waṣīf

(396 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, secretary in the service of the Ṣaffārids of Sīstān and one of the first known poets to write verse in New Persian according to the rules of Arabic quantitative metre, sc. ʿarūḍ [ q.v.]. The local history of Sīstān, the Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Sīstān , cites fragments from four poems, apparently ḳaṣīdas , by Muḥammad b. Waṣīf (see G. Lazard, Les premiers počtes persans ( IX e -X e sičcles ), Tehran-Paris 1342/1964, i, 18, 54-6, ii, 13-15). The first of these was composed, the anonymous historian states, around the time of Yaʿḳūb b. Layt̲h̲’s conquest …

Arg̲h̲iyān

(275 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, the name found in mediaeval times for a district of northern K̲h̲urāsān. It lay to the south of Kūčān/K̲h̲abūs̲h̲ān [ q.v.], straddling the hilly region of the modern Kūh-i S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān and the Kūh-i Binālūd, around the sources of the Kas̲h̲af-Rūd. It is not to be identified with the district of D̲j̲ād̲j̲arm [ q.v. in Suppl.] lying further to the west, as was done by Le Strange, The lands of the Eastern Caliphate , 392, an error perpetuated by B. Spooner in his Arghiyān . The area of Jājarm in western Khurāsān , in Iran , Jnal . of the British Institute of Persian Studies

T́́hānesar

(437 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, T́hāneswar (meaning “place of the god”), a town of northern India, especially notable in accounts of the raids of the G̲h̲aznawids and G̲h̲ūrids [ q.vv.]. It is situated in the eastern Pand̲j̲āb on the banks of the Saraswati River, some 32 km/20 miles north of Karnāl, in the direction of Ambāla (lat. 29° 59′ N., long. 76° 50′ E.). In the mediaeval Islamic sources (e.g. al-ʿUtbī, Gardīzī), the name usually appears as Tānīsar or Tānīs̲h̲ar. Mentioned by the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Hiuen-Tsang, it was famed for its Hindu shrine, with a bronze idol Čakraswāmi “lord of th…

Salg̲h̲urids

(860 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a line of Atabegs which ruled in Fārs during the second half of the 6th/12th century and for much of the 7th/13th one (543-681/1148-1282). They were of Türkmen origin, and Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī considered them as a clan of the Og̲h̲uz tribe [see g̲h̲uzz ], giving their particular tamg̲h̲a ( Dīwān lug̲h̲āt al-Turk , Tkish. tr. Atalay, i, 56, iii, 141, 414); later sources such as Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn, Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī’s Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Guzīda and Abu ’l-G̲h̲āzī’s S̲h̲ad̲j̲ara-yi Tarākima were uncertain whether Salg̲h̲ur was a clan or the name of an eponymo…

Mus̲h̲īr al-Dawla

(470 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a. “counsellor of the state”), a title bestowed on six separate men of affairs in Ḳād̲j̲ār Persia during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the last of these being Mus̲h̲īr al-Dawla Ḥasan Pirniyā (d. 1935), prime minister in 1920 towards the end of Ḳād̲j̲ār rule. All six of them served as diplomatic envoys or ambassadors, and all except the first one became minister for foreign affairs in Tehran. It is the first Mus̲h̲īr al-Dawla, Mīrzā Sayyid D̲j̲aʿfar K̲h̲ān Tabrīzī, Muhandis Bas̲h̲ī ( ca. 1790-1862), who will concern us here. He had been one of the group of five Persians …

Wize

(413 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Savvides, A.
, modern Vize , a small town of Eastern Thrace, now in European Turkey (lat. 41° 34’ N., ¶ long. 37° 45’ E.). It lies below the southwestern slopes of the Istranca Dağlari on the road connecting Kirklareli [see Ḳi̊rḳ kilise ] with Silivri and the Sea of Marmara coast. The Byzantine town and fortress of Bizyē (Bιζύη), Byzus of the Latins, was a bishopric by 431 and a metropolitan see by the 14th century. It was apparently first taken by the Ottomans just after the middle of the 8th/14th century; the poet Aḥmedī attributes this occupation to Süle…

Bādgīr

(701 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
(p.), literally “wind-catcher”, the term used in Persia for the towers containing ventilation shafts and projecting high above the roofs of domestic houses. They are also erected over water-storage cisterns and over the mouths of mineshafts in order to create ventilation through the tunnels below. In domestic houses, cooler air is forced down either to rooms at ground level or to cellars (the zīr-i zamīn ), and it provides an early form of air conditioning. The towers are usually substantial, square-sectioned structures with rows of aper…

Mardāwīd̲j̲

(590 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. Ziyār b. Wardāns̲h̲āh , Abu ’l-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ , founder of the Ziyārid dynasty [ q.v.] in the Caspian regions of Persia. Mardāwid̲j̲’s rise as a soldier of fortune in northern Persia is bound up with the decline of direct caliphal control there, seen already in the independent role of the Sād̲j̲id governors [ q.v.] in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān towards the end of the 3rd/9th century and in the general upsurge of hitherto submerged indigenous Iranian elements, Daylamī, D̲j̲īlī and Kurdish, forming what has been called the “Daylamī interlude” of Persian history [see ḍaylam , and also buwayhids , k…

al-Muhallabī

(728 words)

Author(s): Zetterstéen, K.V. | Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. Hārūn, born in Baṣra in Muḥarram 291/Nov.-Dec. 903, celebrated chief minister and vizier 339-52/950-63 to the Būyid amīr of ʿIrāḳ Muʿizz al-Dawla [ q.v.]. He stemmed from the famous Arab Muhallabī family of Baṣra [see muhallabids ] as a descendant at six generations’ remove of the Umayyad commander and governor al-Muhallab b. Abī Ṣufra [ q.v.] (see genealogical table in Zambaur, Manuel , 11). In 334/945, when Muʿizz al-Dawla was marching on Bag̲h̲dād, he sent al-Muhallabī in advance to negotiate with the caliph, and on 27 D̲j̲…

Yag̲h̲ma

(569 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, in Arabic orthography Yag̲h̲mā, a Turkish tribe of Central Asia mentioned in accounts of the early Turks and their component tribal groups. P. Pelliot thought that the Chinese ϒang-mo presupposed a nasalised form * ϒangma ( Notes sur le “Turkestan” de M.W . Barthold, in T’oung-Pao , xxvii [1930], 17). There are sections on the Yag̲h̲ma in Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 95-6 § 13, cf. comm. 277-81, and Gardīzi, Zayn al-ak̲h̲bār , ed. Ḥabībī, Tehran 1347/1968, 260. Abū Dulaf does not mention them by name in his First Risāla , but Marquart thought that his Bug̲h̲rād̲j̲ tri…

Yūsuf al-Barm

(210 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, sc. Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm, a mawlā of T̲h̲aḳīf, rebel against ʿAbbāsid rule in eastern K̲h̲urāsān during the caliphate of al-Mahdī, d. 160/777 or shortly afterwards. Yūsuf’s rising was only one of a series of revolts by both Arabs and local Iranians in Transoxania and eastern Khurāsān during the early ʿAbbāsid period. Whilst the sources impute certain religious motives to Yūsuf, including use of the traditional slogan summoning to al-amr bi ’l-maʿrūf wa ’l-nahy ʿan al-munkar , it seems that the revolt was basically political and directed against the a…

Niẓāmiyya

(650 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a term often used in the sources for Sald̲j̲ūḳ history to designate the partisans and protégés of the great vizier Niẓām al-Mulk [ q.v.], after his death attached to and operating with the sons and descendants of Niẓām al-Mulk. The influence of these partisans was especially notable in the years just after Sultan Malik S̲h̲āh’s death in 485/1092, when they actively promoted the cause of and secured the sultanate for Berk-yaruḳ b. Malik S̲h̲āh [ q.v.] against his infant half-brother Maḥmūd, the candidate of Mālik S̲h̲āh’s widow Terken K̲h̲ātūn and her ally the vizier T…

Mad̲j̲d al-Dawla

(726 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Ṭālib Rustam b. Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla ʿAlī , Kahf al-Umma , ruler of the northern Būyid amīrate of Ray and Ḏj̲ibāl (387-420/997-1029). When Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla [ q.v.] died in S̲h̲aʿbān 387/August-September 997, his young son Rustam succeeded him at the age of eight (thus according to the anonymous Mud̲j̲mal al-tawārīk̲h̲ wa ’l-ḳiṣaṣ , ed. Bahār, Tehran 1318/1939, 396, giving Rustam’s birth-date as Rabīʿ II 379/July-August 989, and Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, ed. Beirut, ix, 69, but according to al-Rūd̲h̲rāwarī, in Eclipse of the ʿAbbasid caliphate, iii, 297, and Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, ix, 132, at…

Tawwad̲j̲

(107 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Tawwaz , a town in the western part of the mediaeval province of Fārs in Persia. It lay on or near the S̲h̲āpūr river midway between Kāzarūn [ q.v.] and the Gulf coastland, but the place fell into ruin by later mediaeval times and its site is no longer known for sure. For further details on the town, see s̲h̲āpūr , river, to whose Bibl. should be added Sir Arnold Wilson, The Persian Gulf , London 1926, 74-5; J. Markwart-G. Messina, A catalogue of the provincial capitals of Ērānsahr , Rome 1931, 94-5; Barthold, An historical geography of Iran , Princeton 1984, 163. (C.E. Bosworth)

Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Kańbō Lāhawrī

(159 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Indo-Muslim historian and stylist whose exact dates of both birth and death are unknown but who flourished in the 11th/17th century under the Mug̲h̲al emperors S̲h̲āh Ḏj̲ahān and Awrangzīb [ q.vv.]. He may have been the younger brother of the historian and littérateur ʿInāyat Allāh Kańbō (d. 1082/1671 [ q.v.]), if Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ’s reference to this last person, his master and patron, as birādar-i kalān “elder brother” is to be taken literally. Virtually nothing is known of his life, but he was ¶ a government official in Lahore, where his tomb still exists and where in 1079/1…

Kannanūr

(950 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, cannanore, a port on the Malabar coast of southwestern peninsular India in lat. 11° 521 N. and long. 75° 221 E. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa sailed down this coast in 743/1342, and though he does not mention Kannanūr by name, ¶ it seems that his mention of the powerful ruler of D̲j̲urfattan, whose ships traded with the Persian Gulf, ʿUmān and South Arabia, refers to the local ruler there ( Riḥla , iv, 82-3). Aḥmad b. Mād̲j̲id (wrote ca. 895/1489-90) certainly speaks specifically of the “Bay of Kannanūr” in his account of the Malabar coastline (G. R. Tibbett, Arab navigation in the Indian Ocean before the …

K̲h̲āzin

(668 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), usual pl. k̲h̲uzzān (the pl. k̲h̲azana is found in the Ḳurʾān in XXXIX, 71, 73, etc. for the angels who guard Paradise and Hell), literally, “he who keeps safe, stores something away”, a term of mediaeval Islamic administration for certain members of the financial departments (on which see bayt al-māl and, for Ottoman times, also k̲h̲azīne ) and also of the chancery. It was used in ʿAbbāsid times, for there was prominent in the early 4th/10th century Muʾnis al-K̲h̲āzin (so-called in the sources to distinguish him from the commander of the guard Muʾnis al-Muẓaffar [ q.v.], an associat…

Musawwida

(511 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), literally “the wearers, or bearers, of black”, the name given to the partisans of the ʿAbbāsids at the time of the daʿwas of Abū Muslim al-K̲h̲urāsānī and Abū Salama al-K̲h̲allāl [ q.vv.], apparently from the black banners which these rebels against the Umayyads bore, so that they are described in some sources as the aṣḥāb al-rāyāt al-sawdāʾ . The origins of this use of black are obscure and have been much discussed. In the first place, the use of black may have been simply a mark of rebellion, for the anti-Umayyad rebel in K̲h̲urāsān and Transoxania, al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Surayd̲j̲ [ q.v.], act…

Tug̲h̲

(643 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(t.), amongst the early Turks an emblem of royal authority, a standard or a drum (the former being used as a battle-flag and a rallying-point on the battle-field), known from the time of the Türges̲h̲ or Western Turks in Transoxania (see below) and of the Uyg̲h̲urs. 1. In older Turkish usage. The traditional old Turkish standard was a horse’s tail or a bunch of horse hair on a pole, or, in the regions of Inner Asia adjacent to Tibet, the tail of a yak ( ḳuṭās ). A great ruler would be described as having nine tug̲h̲s , the maximum ( toḳuz tug̲h̲lug̲h̲ k̲h̲an ). Maḥmūd al-Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, Dīwān lug̲h̲āt…

al-Ṣīn

(10,023 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Hartmann, M. | Israeli, R.
, the usual designation in mediaeval Arabic for China; properly, it means the Chinese people, but is normally used, with the prefixed bilād , for the land of China itself. 1. The name. The initial consonant of the word represents the customary rendering of Persian čīm into early Arabic as ṣād. Thus the forms Čīnistān and Čin appear in the Persian Ḥudūd al-ʿālam ( ca. 372/982), the first form going back to the 2nd century A.D. Sogdian letters and appearing subsequently in Middle Persian and Armenian; in New Persian, the form Čīn is more common. The Arabic version al-Ṣīn appears in geographical ¶ …

Mawsim

(447 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J. | Bosworth, C.E.
(a., from the root w-s-m “to mark, imprint”), market, festival. In this sense the term is used in ḥadīt̲h̲ , especially in connection with the markets of early Arabia, such as those which were held in ʿUkāẓ, Mad̲j̲anna, D̲h̲u ’l-Mad̲j̲āz, ʿArafa, etc. (al-Buk̲h̲ārī, Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ , bāb 150; Tafsīr , sūra II, bāb 34). At these markets, the worst elements of Arabia gathered ( al-mawsim yad̲j̲maʿ raʿāʿ al-nās , al-Buk̲h̲ārī, Ḥudūd , bāb 31). Advantage was also taken of these assemblies to make public proclamations and inquiries, e.g. in order to regulate the affairs of d…

Tard̲j̲umān

(3,259 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Turd̲j̲umān (a.), pls. tarād̲j̲im , tarād̲j̲ima , appearing in Ottoman Turkish as Terd̲j̲üman , interpreter. The word is of Aramaic origin, and is familiar in the form Targum for the Aramaic translations or paraphrases or interpretations of the Hebrew Old Testament which came into use when the use of Hebrew as a living, spoken language amongst ordinary people declined. The Arabic term, and the verb tard̲j̲ama “to translate”, was certainly in familiar usage by ʿAbbāsid times. 1. In the Arab lands in mediaeval times. We know of interpreters in the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, some of who…

Kūlam

(1,179 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name given in mediaeval Arabic geographical and travel literature to the port of Quilon at the southern extremity of the Malabar coast of southwestern peninsular South India, in ancient and modern Kerala (lat. 8° 53′ N. and long. 76°36′ E.). Quilon early became a centre of the St. Thomas Christians of South India, and is mentioned in a letter of the Nestorian Patriarch Īs̲h̲ūʿyāb of Adiabene (d. 660) to Simon, Metropolitan of Fārs, under the name of Colon and as lacking at that time a settled ministry (Assemanus, Bibliotheca orientalis, iii/2, Rome 1728, 437). The first mention …

S̲h̲ōlāpur

(250 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of a District and of ¶ its administrative centre, in the western Deccan of India. In British Indian times, these fell within the Bombay Presidency; within the Indian Union, they are now on the southeastern fringe of Mahāras̲h̲tra State. The town (lat. 17° 43′, long. 75° 56′ E.) was an early centre of the Marāt́hās [ q.v.]. In 718/1318 it came finally under the control of the Dihlī Sultans, being governed from Deogīrī or Dawlatābād [ q.v.], then under the Bahmanīs, then oscillating between the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs of Bīd̲j̲āpur and the Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs of Ahmadnagar befo…

Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l (I) Beg

(1,374 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Ṭālib Muḥammad b. Mīkāʾīl (b. towards the end of the 10th century A.D., d. 455/1063), leading figure of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ family and, with his brother Čag̲h̲ri̊ Beg Dāwūd [ q.v.], founder of the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ Sultanate in Persia and ʿIraḳ. Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l and Čag̲h̲ri̊ must have been born when the Og̲h̲uz tribe [see g̲h̲uzz ] was still in the Central Asian steppes to the north of K̲h̲wārazm and Transoxania, and after their father’s death were apparently brought up in the D̲j̲and [ q.v. in Suppl.] region by their grandfather Sald̲j̲ūḳ b. Duḳāḳ, eponymous founder of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ…

Ṭarṭūs

(1,621 words)

Author(s): Honigmann, E. | Bosworth, C.E.
or Tortosa , earlier Anṭarṭūs, frequently Anṭarsūs (by analogy with Ṭarsūs), a town on the Syrian coast, the ancient Antarados opposite the island of Arados (Ar. D̲j̲azīrat Arwād, also written Arwād̲h̲; now Ruwād; concerning the Arab conquest of the island, see L.I. Conrad, The conquest of Arwād : a source-critical study in the historiography of the early medieval Near East , in Averil Cameron and Conrad (eds.), The Byzantine and early Islamic Near East . I. Problems in the literary source material, Princeton 1992, 317-401). Under the Roman empire, Antarados was called Const…

Ṭālaḳān

(1,028 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Lee, J.L.
, Ṭālḳān , the name of three places in the Iranian lands. The biographical and geographical dictionaries mention only two of these specifically (thus al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, ix, 8-13; Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 6-8: both distinguish just a Ṭālaḳān of Marw al-Rūd̲h̲ and a Ṭālaḳān of Ḳazwīn). These are nos. 1 and 2 below. There was, however, a further Ṭālaḳān in the Ṭuk̲h̲āristān-Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān region; this is no. 3 below. 1. A town of mediaeval Gūzgān or D̲j̲ūzd̲j̲ān [ q.v.], in what is now northern Afg̲h̲ānistān but adjacent to the frontier with the Turkmenis…

Mīt̲h̲āḳ

(670 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a., the noun of instrument from wat̲h̲iḳa “to trust, have confidence in”, or wat̲h̲uḳa “to be firm”, in usage the equivalent of the maṣdar mīmī or noun of place and time mawt̲h̲ik ), covenant, agreement, used 25 times in the Ḳurʾān and often linked with its synonym ʿahd [ q.v.]. In a few places, it refers to political compacts (IV, 92/90, 94/92, VIII, 73/72, and cf. the use of ʿāhada in VIII, 58/56), and once to the compact between husband and wife (IV, 25/21), but the majority of usages relate to compacts between God and various members of…

Rām-Hurmuz

(856 words)

Author(s): Minorsky, V. | Bosworth, C.E.
(the contracted form Rāmiz , Rāmuz is found as early as the 4th/10th century), a town and district in K̲h̲ūzistān [ q.v.] in southwestern Persia. Rām-Hurmuz lies about 55 miles southeast of Ahwāz, 65 miles south-south-east of S̲h̲ūs̲h̲tar, and 60 miles north-east of Bihbihān. Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 43, reckons it 17 farsak̲h̲ s from Ahwāz to Rām-Hurmuz and 22 farsak̲h̲s from Rām-Hurmuz to Arrad̲j̲ān. Ḳudāma, 194, who gives a more detailed list of stages, counts it 50 farsak̲h̲s from Wāsiṭ to Baṣra, thence 35 farsak̲h̲s to Ahwāz, thence 20 farsak̲h̲s to Rām-Hurmuz, and then 24 farsak̲h̲s …

Ṭārābī, Maḥmūd

(278 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the leader of a revolt in the Buk̲h̲ārā oasis, one with popular religious and social overtones, against Mongol domination (636/ 1238-9). Maḥmūd was a sieve-maker from the village of Ṭārāb or Tārāb, four farsak̲h̲s from the city of Buk̲h̲ārā on the K̲h̲urāsān road (see al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, ix, 5; Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 4; Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion 3 , 114 n. 9, 117, 132), who led a movement against the financial oppression of the Mongol basḳaḳs or tax-collectors and also, it appears, against local landowners a…

al-Sūs

(1,244 words)

Author(s): Streck, M. | Bosworth, C.E.
, the early Islamic form for the ancient site of Susa in the south-west Persian province of K̲h̲ūzistān, modern Persian S̲h̲ūs̲h̲. It lies on the plain between the two main rivers of K̲h̲ūzistān, the Kārūn and the Kerk̲h̲ā [ q.vv.], which were once connected by canals, and the S̲h̲āwūr river runs along the western side of the site. From at least the second millennium B.C., it was the capital of the Elamite kingdom, destroyed by the Assyrian Ashurbanipal in the 7th century B.C., but rebuilt by the Achaemenids and a flourishing town under the Sāsānids; S…
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