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, 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…

, Misʿar b. Muhalhil al-Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲ī al-Yanbuʿī , an Arab poet, traveller and mineralogist. The earliest date in his biography is his appearance in Buk̲h̲ārā towards the end of the reign of. Naṣr b. Aḥmad (d. in 331/943). His travels in Persia hint at the years 331-341/943-952. Abū Ḏj̲aʿfar Muḥammad b. Aḥmad, whom Abū Dulaf mentions as his patron in Sīstān (read: *Aḥmad b. Muḥammad), ruled 331-52/942-63. The author of the Fihrist (completed in 377/987) refers to him as d̲j̲awwāla “globe-trotter” and as his personal acquaintance. Al-T̲h̲aʿālibī in his Yatīmat al-Dahr …

, ancient Armenian capital, whose ruins lie on the right bank of the Arpa-Čay (called by the Armenians Ak̲h̲uryan) at about 20 miles from the point where that river joins the Araxes. A suggestion has been made that the town may owe its name to a temple of the Iranian goddess Anāhita (the Greek Anaďtis). The site was inhabited in the pre-Christian period, for pagan tombs have been found in the immediate vicinity of the town. As a fortress Ānī is mentioned as early as the 5th century A.D. Its foun…

(now Ḳuba), a district in the eastern Caucasus between Bākū and Derbend [ q.vv.]. The district of Ḳubba, with an area of 2,800 sq. miles, is bounded on the north by a large river, the Samūr, which flows into the Caspian, on the west by the “district” of Samūr which belongs to Dāg̲h̲istān [ q.v.], on the south by the southern slopes of the Caucasian range (peaks: S̲h̲āh-Dag̲h̲, 13,951 feet high, Bābā Dag̲h̲, 11,900) which separate Ḳubba from S̲h̲amāk̲h̲a (cf. the article s̲h̲īrwān ), on the southeast by the district of Bākū and on the east by the Caspian. …

, (“great one of the Magians”) a Zoroastrian dynasty which the Arabs found in the region of Dunbāwand (Damāwand [ q.v.]) to the north of Ray. The origins of the Maṣmug̲h̲āns. The dynasty seems to have been an old, though not particularly celebrated, one, as is shown by the legends recorded by Ibn al-Faḳīh, 275-7, and in al-Bīrūnī, Āt̲h̲ār , 227. The title of maṣmug̲h̲ān is said to have been conferred by Farīdūn upon Armāʾīl, Bēwarāsp’s former cook (Zohāk), who had been able to save half the young men destined to perish as food for the t…

, a small town in the Zagros Mountains of western Persia on the highroad between Kangāwar and Bīsutūn at 61 km/38 miles from Kirmāns̲h̲āh [ q.v.]. The district of Ṣaḥna contains about 28 villages inhabited by settled Turks belonging to the tribe of K̲h̲odābandalū (of Hamadān). At Ṣaḥna there are a few Ahl-i-Ḥaḳḳ [ q.v.], who are in touch with their spiritual superiors in Dīnawar [ q.v.], a frontier district in the north. Ṣaḥna must not be confused with Sinna [ q.v.] or Sanandad̲j̲ [ q.v.], the capital of the Persian province of Kurdistān, the former residence of the Wālīs of Ardalān [ q.v.]. Quit…

, a place in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān on the road from Marāg̲h̲a [ q.v.] to Urmiya [ q.v.] south of the Lake of Urmiya. The stages on this route are still obscure. At about 15 farsak̲h̲ s south of Marāg̲h̲a was the station of Barza where the road bifurcated; the main road continued southward to Dīnawar, while the northwestern one went from Barza to Tiflīs (2 farsak̲h̲s), thence to D̲j̲ābarwān (6 farsak̲h̲s), thence to Nirīz (4 farsak̲h̲s), thence to Urmiya (14 farsak̲h̲s); cf. Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih. 121 (repeated by Ḳudāma with some variations); al-Muḳaddasī, 383. The distance from Urmiya indi…

, Mūg̲h̲ān . a steppe lying to the south of the lower course of the Araxes, the northern part of which (about 5,000 square km.) belongs to the Azerbaijan SSR and the other part (50-70 × ca. 50 km.) to Persia. The steppe which covers what was once the bottom of the sea has been formed by the alluvial deposits from the Kur (in Russian, Koura) and its tributary the Araxes. (The latter has several times changed its course and one of its arms flows directly into the gulf of Ki̊zi̊l-Aghač.) In the interior, the only water in Mūg̲h̲ān is…

, modern Turkish form Manisa, classical Magnesia, a town of western Anatolia, in the ancient province of Lydia, lying to the south of the Gediz river on the northeastern slopes of the Manisa Daği, which separates it from Izmir or Smyrna (lat. 38° 36′ N., long 27° 27′ E.). In Greek and then Roman times, Magnesia ad Sipylum was a flourishing town, noted amongst other things for the victory won in its vicinity by the two Scipios over Antiochus the Great of Syria in 190 B.C., and continued to flourish under the Byzantines (see Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie , xxvii, 472-…

, a town in the Zagros Mountains of western Persia, in the mediaeval Islamic province of D̲j̲ibāl [ q.v.], situated in lat. 34° 13’ N. and long. 48° 21’ E. and lying at an altitude of 1,786 m/5,860 feet. It is on the branch of the Gāmāsāb which comes from the south-east from the vicinity of Burūd̲j̲ird; the Gāmāsāb then runs westwards to Bisūtūn. Nihāwand lies on the southern road which, coming from Kirmāns̲h̲āh (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 198), leads into central Persia (Iṣfahān) avoiding the massif of Alwand (’Οροω…

(“bridgehead of Zohāb”), a place on the way to the Zagros Mountains on the great Bag̲h̲dād-Kirmāns̲h̲āh road, taking its name from the stone bridge of two arches over the river Alwand, a tributary on the left bank of the Diyāla. Sarpul in the early 20th century consisted simply of a little fort ( ḳūr-k̲h̲āna = “arsenal”) in which the governor of Zohāb lived (the post was regularly filled by the chief of the tribe of Gūrān), a caravanserai, a garden of cypress and about 40 houses. The old town of Zohāb, about 4 hours to the no…

(aror) also written al-rūr , town in Sind; it is surmised to have been the capital of king Musicanus, defeated by Alexander the Great, and to be mentioned in the 7th century A.D. by Hiungtsang. The town was conquered by Muḥammad b. al-Ḳāsim before 95/714 (al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūh , 439, 440, 445) and it is mentioned by al-Istak̲h̲rī, 172, 175, and al-Bīrunī, Hind (Sachau), 100, 130, according to whom it lay thirty farsak̲h̲s S-W of Multān and twenty farsak̲h̲s upstream from al-Manṣūra. The Indus used to flow near the town, but later it changed its course, destroying the pro…

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

, a town and district in southern Kurdistān, since the Ottoman reconquest of ʿIrāḳ from the Ṣafawids in the 11th/17th ¶ century under nominal Ottoman suzerainty, and since the aftermath of the First World War in the kingdom and then republic of ʿIrāḳ. The town lies in lat. 35° 32′ E. and long. 45° 27′ N. at an altitude of 838 m/2,750 feet, and is 90 km/54 miles east of Kirkūk [ q.v.], to which it is connected by road. The historical region of Sulaymāniyya lies between what is now the ʿIrāḳ-Persia frontier, the Diyāla [ q.v.] and its upper affluents the Tand̲j̲aru and Sīrwān, the region of …

or Sonḳor , the name of a district and of a present-day small town in western Persia (town: lat. 34° 45′ N., long 47° 39′ E.). It lies in the Zagros Mountains between modern Kangāwar [see kinkiwar ] and Sanandad̲j̲ [ q.v.] or Sinna, within the modern province of Kirmāns̲h̲āh. In mediaeval Islamic times, it lay on the road between Dīnawar [ q.v.] and Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, and must correspond approximately to the first marḥala on the stretch from Dīnawar to Sīsar, the name of which is read al-D̲j̲ārbā (al-Muḳaddasī, 382), K̲h̲arbārd̲j̲ān (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 119; Ḳudāma, 212), etc. which was 7 f…

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

(or Ābaskūn ), a harbour in the south-eastern corner of the Caspian. It is described as a dependency of Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ān/Gurgān (Yāḳūt, i, 55: 3 days’ distance from Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ān; i, 91: 24 farsak̲h̲s). It might be located near the estuary of the Gurgān river (at Ḵh̲od̲j̲a-Nefes?). Al-Istak̲h̲rī, 214 (Ibn Ḥawḳal, 273) calls Abaskūn the greatest of the (Caspian) harbours. The Caspian itself was sometimes called Baḥr Abaskūn . Abaskūn possibly corresponds to Ptolemy’s Σωκανάα in Hyrcania (Gurgān). Several times Abaskūn ¶ was raided by Rūs pirates (some time between 250-70/864-84, a…

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

, a mystic and poet who wrote in a Persian dialect. According to Riḍā Ḳulī Ḵh̲ān (19th century), who does not give his source, Bābā-Ṭāhir lived in the period of Daylamī rule and died in 401/1010. Among his quatrains there is an enigmatical one: “I am that sea ( baḥr ) which entered into a vase; that point which entered into the letter. In each alf (“thousand”, i.e. of years?) arises an alif-ḳadd (a man upright in stature like the letter alif ). I am the alif-ḳadd who has corne in this alf” . Mahdī Ḵh̲ān in the JASB has given an extremely curious interpretation of this quatrain: the letters alf-ḳd …

, the tak̲h̲alluṣ or pen-name of the Persian poet Mīrzā Abu ’l-Ḥasan Raḥīm ( ca. 1196-1276/ ca. 1782-1859), often called by his fellow-poets Ḳaḥba-zan “whore” from the expression repeated monotonously in his obscene verse. He was born at K̲h̲ūr in the D̲j̲andaḳ oasis in the central desert of the Das̲h̲t-i Kawīr, roughly half-way between Yazd and Simnān. He began his life as a camel-herd but by the age of seven his natural gifts had been noticed by the owner of the oasis, Ismāʿīl K̲h̲ān ʿArab-i ʿĀmirī, whose secretary ( muns̲h̲ī-bās̲h̲ī ) he ultimately became. Hi…

, a town of mediaeval Islamic Persian Kurdistān, in the region bounded by Hamadān, Dīnawar and Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. The Arab geographers ¶ place Sīsar on the Dīnawar-Marāg̲h̲a road 20-22 farsak̲h̲s (3 stages) north of Dīnawar (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 119-21; Ḳudāma, 212; al-Muḳaddasī, 382). According to al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ , 310, Sīsar occupied a depression ( ink̲h̲ifāḍ ) surrounded by 30 mounds, whence its Persian name “30 summits”. For greater accuracy it was called Sīsar of Ṣadk̲h̲āniya ( wakāna Sīsar tudʿā Sīsar Ṣadk̲h̲āniya ), which al-Balād̲h̲urī …

, the old capital of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. Position. The town lies in lat. 37° 23′ N. and long 46° 15′ E. at a height of 5,500 feet above sea-level on the southern slope of Mount Sahand (11,800 feet high) which separates it from Tabrīz [ q.v.]. This explains the very considerable difference in climate ¶ between the two towns, which are only 50 miles apart as the crow flies (by the high road 80 miles). The climate of Marāg̲h̲a is mild and rather moist (H̲amd Allāh and Mecquenem, 1904). The plentiful water supply makes the vegetation rich. The fruit of …

, a town in the district of Buk̲h̲ārā, also called Nasaf by the Arab geographers (cf. the similar evolution of Nas̲h̲awā from Nak̲h̲čiwān). The town lay in the valley of the Kas̲h̲ka-Daryā, cf. Ibn Ḥawḳal, 2460, tr. Kramers and Wiet, 444: Kas̲h̲k-rūd̲h̲, which runs southwards parallel to the Zarafs̲h̲ān (river of Samarḳand) and runs towards the Amū-Daryā [ q.v.] but before joining it disappears in the sands. Nak̲h̲s̲h̲ab lay on the road joining Buk̲h̲ārā to Balk̲h̲ four days’ journey from the former and eight from the latter (cf. al-Muḳaddasī, 344). In…

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

, “celestial sphere”, nom-de-plume ( tak̲h̲alluṣ ) of the Persian historian and man of letters, Mīrzā Muḥammad Taḳī of Kās̲h̲ān (d. Rabīʿ II 1297/March 1880). After a studious youth spent in his native town, he settied definitely in Tehran, where he found a patron in the poet-laureate ( malik al-s̲h̲uʿarāʾ ) of Fatḥ ʿAlī S̲h̲āh. On his accession (1250/1834), Muḥammad S̲h̲āh appointed him his private panegyrist ( maddāḥ-i k̲h̲āṣṣa ) and secretary and accountant in the treasury ( muns̲h̲ī wa-mustawfī-i dīwān ). The same S̲h̲āh entrusted him with the compo…

, a town in the northeast of Diyār Bakr [ q.v.]. The other Islamic forms of the name are Māfārḳīn, Mafārḳīn, Fārḳīn (whence the name of origin al-Fāriḳī), etc. The town is called in Greek Martyropolis, in Syriac Mīpherḳēt, in Armenian Nphkert (later Muharkin, Muphargin). According to Yāḳūt, iv, 702, the old name of the town was Madūr-ṣālā (read ḳāla < * matur-khalakh in Armenian, "town of the martyrs"). On the identification of Tigranocerta with Mayyāfariḳīn, see below. 1. Topography and early history. Geography. The town lies to the south of the little r…

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

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

(in Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam : Awhar), a small town owing its importance to the fact that it lies half-way between Ḳazwīn (86 km) and Zand̲j̲ān (88 km.) and that from it a road branched off southwards to Dīnawar. It was conquered in 24/645 by Barāʾ b. ʿĀzib, governor of Rayy. Between 386/996 and 409/1029 it formed the fief of a Musāfirid [ q.v.] prince. The stronghold of Sar-d̲j̲ahān (in Rāḥat al-ṣudūr : Sar-čāhān), lying some 25 km. N.W. of Abhar near a pass leading into Tārom [ q.v.] played an important rôle under the Sald̲j̲ūkids. (V. Minorsky) Bibliography Le Strange, 221 Schwarz, Iran, 726-8 Minorsky,…

(Us̲h̲nuh, Us̲h̲nūya), a district and small town of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. The modern town, known as Ushnuwiyya (Oshnoviyeh), situated in lat. 37° 03ʹ N., long. 45° 05ʹ E., is some 56 km/35 miles south of Urmiya [ q.v.], on which it has usually been administratively dependent. It is at present the cheflieu of a bak̲h̲s̲h̲ in the s̲h̲ahrastān of Urmiya. The present population (1991 census results) is 23,875. The district of Us̲h̲nū is watered by the upper course of the river Gādir (Gader) which, after traversing the district of Sulduz [ q.v.], flows into Lake Urmiya on the south-west. To …

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

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

( Kangarids or Sallārids ), a dynasty of Daylamī origin which came from Ṭārum [ q.v.] and reigned in the 4th-5th/10th-11th centuries of the Hid̲j̲ra in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, Arrān and Armenia. Its coming to power was one of the manifestations of the great movement of Iranian liberation which formed a kind of interlude between the end of Arab domination and the first Turkish invasions. While in K̲h̲urāsān and Transoxania this movement culminated in the rule of the Sāmānids [ q.v.], in western Persia and Mesopotamia its standard-bearers were the Daylamīs and to a smaller extent…

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

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

, a former fortress on the Black Sea, situated on the Bugur river 40 km. S. W. of the Kuban estuary. Built by French engineers for Sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd I in 1781, it was unsuccessfully attacked by the Russians in 1787 and 1790, but stormed by Gen. Gudovich in 1791. Returned to Turkey by the treaty of Yassy (1791), it was in 1808 taken by the Russians but returned to Turkey in 1812. In 1828 it was blockaded by Admiral Greig and Prince Menshikov and ceded to Russia by the treaty of Adrianople of 1…

1. The most southern group of Kurd tribes in Persia. According to Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, their name (Läk, often Läkk) is explained by the Persian word läk (100,000), which is said to have been the original number of families of Lak. The group is of importance in that the Zand dynasty arose from it. The Lak now living in northern Luristān [ q.v.] are sometimes confused with the Lur (Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn), whom they resemble from the somatic and ethnic point of view. The facts of history, however, show that the Lak have immigrated to their present settlements from lan…

(or Ṭuwārān?), the mediaeval Islamic name for the district around Ḳuṣdār [ q.v.] or Ḳuzdār in the east-central part of what is now Balūčistān, the territory in British Indian times of the Ḵh̲ānate of Kalāt [see kilat ]. According to al-Ṭabarī, i, 820, the kings of Ṭūrān and of Makurān (Makrān) submitted to the Sāsānid Ardas̲h̲īr (224-41). The Paikuli inscription only mentions the Makurān-S̲h̲āh. Herzfeld, Paikuli, 38, thought that these princes at first owned the suzerainty of the Sakas, and their submission to Ardas̲h̲īr was the result of the conquest of Sak…

, a small town belonging to Yazd and lying on the road from S̲h̲īrāz to Yazd (at 39 farsak̲h̲s from the former and at 28 fars. from the latter) and also connected by a road with Ābādah [ q.v.]. It lies in a plain, and according to Mustawfī, Nuzha , 121, its name ("on a mountain") refers to its earlier site. In 443/1051 Ṭug̲h̲ri̊lbeg gave Yazd and Abarḳūh to the Kākūyid Farāmarz (Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, ix, 384) as a compensation for the loss of Iṣfahān. His successors continued to rule these towns as atābeks . In the 8th/14th century Abarḳūh is frequently mentioned in the …

, “those of the White Sheep”, rederation of Turkmen tribes, which rose in the region of Diyār Bakr in post-Mongol times (in the 14th century) and lasted till c. 908/1502. The name (cf. Chalcocondyles, ch. ix: Λευκοὶ ᾿Ασπρο<προ>βατάντες) is unknown in earlier times. There is some uncertainty about the origin of the name, whether it refers to the breed of sheep, or to some kind of totem; the tumular stones of the Turkmens have often the form of rams, but such a symbol is absent in Uzun Ḥasan’s ban…

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

, the Persian and Turkish name of a town, in Georgian ak̲h̲al tsik̲h̲e , "New Fortress", situated on the Posk̲h̲ov river (left tributary of the upper Kur), centre of the Georgian province Samtsk̲h̲e (later Sa-atabago) which is mentioned among the conquests of Ḥabīb b. Maslama (under Muʿāwiya), al-Balād̲h̲urī, 203. ¶ Under the Mongols the local rulers (of the Ḏj̲akilʿe family) became autonomous and received the title of atabegs . The name Ḳurḳūra found in Persian and Turkish sources refers to these rulers of whom several bore the name of Ḳuarḳuare (see Brosset, Histoire de la Géorgie …

, “land of the Lurs”, a region in the south-west of Persia. In the Mongol period the terms “Great Lur” and “Little Lur” roughly covered all the lands inhabited by Lur tribes. Since the Ṣafawid period, the lands of the Great Lur have been distinguished by the names of Kūh-Gīlū and Bak̲h̲tiyārī. At the beginning of the 18th century, the Mamāsanī confederation occupied the old S̲h̲ūlistān [ q.v.] and thus created a third Lur territory between Kūh-Gīlū and S̲h̲īrāz. It is however only since the 16th century that Lur-i Kūčik [ q.v.] has been known as Luristān (for greater precision it was …

(in Persian Lor with o short), an Iranian people living in the mountains in southwestern Persia. As in the case of the Kurds, the principal link among the four branches of the Lurs (Mamāsanī, Kūhgīlūʾī, Bak̲h̲tiyārī and Lurs proper) is that of language. The special character of the Lur dialects suggests that the country was Iranicised from Persia and not from Media. On the ancient peoples, who have disappeared, become Iranicised or absorbed in different parts of Luristān, see luristān . The name. Local tradition ( Taʾrīk̲h̲-i guzīda ) connects the name of the …

, a dynasty of princes of Marāg̲h̲a. Distinction must be made between the eponym Aḥmadīl and his successors. Aḥmadīl b. Ibrāhīm b. Wahsūdān al-Rawwādī al-Kurdī was a descendant of the local branch of the originally Arab family of Rawwād (of Azd) established in Tabrīz (see rawwādids ). In the course of time the family became Kurdicized, and even the name Aḥmadīl is apparently formed with an Iranian (Kurdish) diminutive suffix -īl . Aḥmadīl took part in the anti-Crusade of 505/1111. During the siege of Tell Bās̲h̲ir, Jocelyn made an arrangement …

, geographically speaking, the highlands of Gīlān [ q.v.]. In the south, the lowlands of Gīlān proper are bounded by the Alburz range; the latter forms here a crescent, the eastern horn of which comes close to the Caspian coast (between Lāhīd̲j̲ān and Čālūs). In the centre of the crescent there is a gap through which the Safīd-rūd, formed on the central Iranian plateau, breaks through ¶ towards the Caspian Sea. Before entering the gorge at Mand̲j̲īl the river, flowing here from west to east, receives a considerable tributary, the S̲h̲āh-rūd, which, rising in t…

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

, Gurd̲j̲ , Gurd̲j̲istān , the names in Islamic sources for the province of Georgia in western Caucasia. Georgia comprises four distinct regions: Mingrelia and Imereti in the north-west; Samtask̲h̲e in the south-west (adjoining the Black Sea coastal region of Lazistān [see laz ], inhabited by a people closely related to the Georgians); Kartli in the north, with the capital Tiflis [ q.v.], Georgian Tbilisi; and Kak̲h̲eti in the east. Topographically, much of Georgia comprises mountains, hills and plateaux, with lowland only on the Black Sea coastal plain an…

, a Persian man of letters, who died on 19 S̲h̲awwāl 1313/3 April 1896. His honorific titles were Sanīʿ al-Dawla and later Iʿtimād al-Salṭana . Through his mother he was related to the Ḳād̲j̲ārs [ q.v.] and through his father he claimed descent from the Mongol rulers. His father, Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī ʿAlī K̲h̲ān of Marāg̲h̲a, was a faithful servant of Nāṣir al-Dīn S̲h̲āh (in 1268/1852 he discovered the conspiracy of Sulaymān K̲h̲ān) and the son from his youth upwards was in the service of the court. Muḥammad Ḥasan K̲h̲ān was one of the first students at the Dār al-F…

, a district in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān whose precise location is unknown. According to al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ , 328, Saʿīd b. al-ʿĀṣ [ q.v.], sent to conquer Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, attacked the people of Mūḳān and Gīlān. A number of inhabitants of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān and Armenians, who had gathered in the nāḥiya of Urm and at *Balwānkarad̲j̲, were defeated by one of Saʿīd’s commanders. The leader of the rebels was hanged on the walls of the fortress of Bād̲j̲arwān (see on this place, Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, Nuzhat al-Ḳulūb , 181, tr. 173; Bād̲j̲arwān was 20 farsak̲h̲ s north of Ardabīl). …

, a former k̲h̲ānate in the Persian province of Ad̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, and now the name of a town and of modern administrative units around it (see below). Mākū occupies the north-western extremity of Persia and forms a salient between Turkey (the old sand̲j̲aḳ of Bāyazīd, modern vilayet of Ağri) and Soviet Transcaucasia. In the west the frontier with Turkey follows the heights which continue the line of the Zagros in the direction of Ararat. The frontier then crosses a plain stretching to the south of this mountain (valle…

(i) province of Persia; (ii) Soviet Socialist Republic. (i) The great province of Persia, called in Middle Persian Āturpātākān, older new-Persian Ād̲h̲arbād̲h̲agān, Ād̲h̲arbāyagān, at present Āzarbāyd̲j̲ān, Greek ’Ατροπατήνη, Byzantine Greek ’Αδραβιγάνων, Armenian Atrapatakan, Syriac Ad̲h̲orbāyg̲h̲ān. The province was called after the general Atropates (“protected by fire”), who at the time of Alexander’s invasion proclaimed his independence (328 B.C.) and thus preserved his kingdom (Media Minor, Strabo…

, a ruined site in Transcaspia (the modern Türkmenistan SSR) north-west of the confluence of the Atrak and its right bank tributary the Sumbar, or more exactly, on the road which runs from Čat at right angles to the road connecting Čikis̲h̲ler with the railway station of Aydi̊n. The ruins are surrounded by a wall of brick and a ditch and have an area of 320 acres. The old town, situated in the steppes which are now peopled by Turkomans, received its water from a canal led from the Atrak about 40 miles above Čat. Near the latter place, the can…

, literally, “land of the S̲h̲ūl” [see s̲h̲ūl. 1. above], a district, formerly a bulūk , in the southern Persian province of Fārs. Three epochs must be distinguished in the history of the district: one before the arrival of the S̲h̲ūl, the period of their rule (from the 7th/13th centuries), and the period of its occupation by the Mamassanī Lurs about the beginning of the 12th/18th century. During the Sāsānid period, the district was included in the kūra of S̲h̲āpūr-k̲h̲ūra. The founding of its capital Nawbandagan (Nawband̲j̲ān) is attributed to S̲h̲…

¶ i.—General Introduction The Kurds, an Iranian people of the Near East, live at the junction of more or less laicised Turkey, S̲h̲īʿi Iran, Arab and Sunnī ʿIrāḳ and North Syria, and Soviet Transcaucasia. The economic and strategic importance of this land, Kurdistān, is undeniable. Since the end of the First World War, the Kurdish people, like all the rest of their neighbours, have undergone considerable transformations as much in the political order as in the economic, social and cultural domain. …

, Süldüz , a Mongol tribe which played a considerable role in mediaeval Islamic history of the Mongol and II K̲h̲ānid periods. According to Berezin, the correct Mongol form would be Süldes (pl. of sülde “good fortune”; Vladimirtsov interpreted sülde as “le génie-protecteur habitant le drapeau”). L. Ligeti, Die Herkunft des Volksnamens Kirgis , in Körösi Csoma Archivum , i (1925), saw in the ending of Suld-uz, as in Ḳi̊rḳ-i̊z, the remains of an ancient Turkish plural suffix (cf. biz “we”, siz “you”, etc.) and as a hypothetical singular quoted the name of a Ḳi̊rg̲h̲i̊z clan Su…

(called in Nog̲h̲ay Turkish, Ḳuman , in Čerkes, Phs̲h̲iz ), one of the four great rivers of the Caucasus (Rion, Kura, Terek and Ḳuban). It is about 450 miles long. It rises near Mount Elburz at a height of 13,930 feet. Its three constituents (K̲h̲urzuḳ, Ulu-Ḳam, Uč-Ḳulan) join together before reaching the defile through which the Ḳuban enters the plains (at a height of 1,075 feet). The Ḳuban at first runs through the wooded outer spurs of the mountains and then, taking a westerly di…

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

, name of a Turkish tribe in Persia. In particular, the name refers to the ruling faroily of the Ḳarā-Ḳoyūnlū federation of Türkmen tribes (also called Bārānī). It is most probable that the name (“those of Bahār”) is connected with the village of Bahār (Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, x, 290: W. hān , read Vahār ) situated at 13 kms. north of Hamadān. According to Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, Nuzha , 107 (Eng. transl. 106) the castle of Bahār served as residence to Sulaymān-s̲h̲āh b. Parčam Īwāʾī, who later became one of the three chief ministers of the caliph al…

, a district of the Caspian coastlands region of Persia comprising the western half of Māzandarān [ q.v.]. Iranian tradition. According to Darmesteter, Avesta , ii, 416, Rūyān corresponds to the mountain called Raodita (“reddish”) in Yas̲h̲t , 19, 2, and Rōyis̲h̲nōmand in Bundahis̲h̲n , xii, 2, 27 (tr. West, 34). Al-Bīrūnī, Chronologie , ed. Sachau, 220, makes Rūyān the scene of the exploits of the archer Āris̲h̲ (cf. Ẓahīr al-Dīn Marʿas̲h̲ī, Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Ṭabaristān u Rūyān u Māzandarān , ed. Dorn, 18 [ Yas̲h̲t 8, 6, in this connection mentions the hill Aryō-xs̲h̲nθa]). In the …

, a town in the mediaeval Islamic province of northern D̲j̲ibāl some 50 km/32 miles to the southeast of Zand̲j̲ān [ q.v.] (lat. 36° 24′ N., long. 48° 50′ E.). 1. History. Sulṭāniyya was founded towards the end of the 7th/13th century by the Mongol Il K̲h̲ānids and served for a while in the following century as their capital. The older Persian name of the surrounding district was apparently S̲h̲āhrūyāz or S̲h̲ārūyāz/S̲h̲arūbāz (which was to be the site, adjacent to Sulṭāniyya, of the tomb which the Il K̲h̲ānid Abū Saʿīd [ q.v.] built for himself, according to Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū). It was orig…

( banū ʿannāz ), a dynasty (c. 381-511/991-1117) in the frontier region between ʿIrāḳ and Iran, which was one of the manifestations of the period "between the Arabs and the Turks" when, in the wake of the westward expansion of the Būyids, numerous principalities of Iranian origin sprang up in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān and Kurdistān. As the rise of the Banū ʿAnnāz was based on the S̲h̲ād̲h̲and̲j̲ān Kurds, the dynasty should be considered as Kurdish, although the Arabic names and titles of the majority of the rulers indicate the Arab links of the ruling fami…

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

, a district in Eastern Transcaucasia. In Armenian it is called S̲h̲akʿē, in Georgian S̲h̲akʿa (and S̲h̲akik̲h̲?); the Arabs write S̲h̲akkay = S̲h̲akʿē (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 123, al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 183, al-Balād̲h̲urī, 206), S̲h̲akkī (Yāḳūt, iii, 311), S̲h̲akkan (Ibn al-Faḳīh, 293, al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ , 194), S̲h̲akīn (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ ii, 68-9 = § 500). The usual boundaries of S̲h̲akkī were: on the east, the Gök-čay which separates it from S̲h̲īrwān [ q.v.] proper; on the west, the Alazan (Turk. Ḳani̊ḳ?) and its left tributary the Ḳas̲h̲ḳa-čay, which separ…

, or Bāward , a town and district on the northern slopes of the mountains of Ḵh̲urāsān in an area now belonging to the autonomous Turkoman republic which forms part of the U.S.S.R. The whole oasis region including Nasā [ q.v.], Abīward etc. (known by the Turkish name of Ātāk "foothills") played a great part in ancient times as the first line of defence of Ḵh̲urāsān against the nomads. In the Arsacid period this region was in the ancestral country of the dynasty. Isidore of Charax, par. 13 (at the beginning of the Christian era) mentions between Παρθυηνή (with the…

, conventionally Van , the name of a lake and of a town (lat. 38° 28’ N., long. 43° 21’ E.) in what is now the Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey. 1. The lake (modern Tkish., Van Gölü). This is a large stretch of water now spanning the ils of Van and Bitlis. It lies at an altitude of 1,720 m/5,640 feet, with a rise in level during the summer when the snows on the surrounding mountain ranges melt. Its area is 3,737 km2/1,443 sq. miles. Being landlocked, with no outlet, it has a high content of mineral salts, especially sodium carbonate, which makes its water undrinkable, but…

, a small town in Persia, on the eastern (winter) road from S̲h̲īrāz to Iṣfahān. By the present-day highway Ābādah lies at 280 km. from S̲h̲īrāz, at 204 km. from Iṣfahān, and by a road branching off eastwards (via Abarḳūh) at 100 km. from Yazd. In the present-day administration (1952) Ābādah is the northernmost district ( s̲h̲ahristān ) of the province ( astān ) of Fārs. The population is chiefly engaged in agriculture and trade (opium, castor-oil; sesame-oil). Iḳlīd (possibly * kilid "key [to Fārs]") is another small town belonging to Ābādah. The whole…

, the name of two places in Persia. I. Tihrān, a city of northern Persia. 1. Geographical position. 2. History to 1926. 3. The growth of Tihrān. (a). To ca 1870. (b). Urbanisation, monuments, cultural and socioeconomic life until the time of the Pahlavīs. (c). Since the advent of the Pahlavīs. II. Tihrān, the former name of a village or small town in the modern province of Iṣfahān. I. Tihrān, older form (in use until the earlier 20th century) Ṭihrān (Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 51, gives both forms, with Ṭihrān as the head word; al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, i…

(written in Arabic as Māridīn, in Greek as Μάρδης, Μάργδις, in Syriac as Mardē and in modern Turkish as Mardin), a town in what was in mediaeval Islamic times Upper Mesopotamia or al-D̲j̲azīra, in the region of Diyār Rabīʾa [ q.v.] lying on a slope rising to an altitude of 3780 ft./1152 m. in lat. 37° 18′ N. and long. 40° 44′ E. The modern town, in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border, is the chef-lieu of the il (formerly vilayet ) of the same name. Position. In Upper Mesopotamia, the watershed between the Tigris and Euphrates is formed by the heights …

(i.e. Ilčī-yi Niẓām-s̲h̲āhī “ambassador of the Niẓām-S̲h̲āh” of the Dakhan), a Persian historian whose real name was K̲h̲wūrs̲h̲āh b. Ḳubād al-Ḥusaynī. Born in Persian ʿIrāḳ, he entered the service of Sultan Burhān [see niẓām-s̲h̲āhīs ]. The latter being converted to the S̲h̲īʿa, sent K̲h̲wūrs̲h̲āh as ambassador to Ṭahmāsp S̲h̲āh Ṣafawī. Reaching Rayy in Rad̲j̲ab 952/September 1545, he accompanied the S̲h̲āh to Georgia and S̲h̲īrwān during the campaign of 953/1546 against Alḳāṣ Mīrzā. He stayed in Persia till 971/1563, perhaps with occas…

, a dynasty of Atābegs [see atabak ] which flourished in eastern and ¶ southern Luristān between 550/1155 and 827/1423, the capital of which was Īd̲h̲ad̲j̲ [ q.v.] or Mālamīr. The eponymous founder of the dynasty, also known as Faḍlawī, was a Kurd chief of Syria named Faḍlūya. His descendants (the D̲j̲ihān-ārā mentions 9 predecessors of Abū Ṭāhir) migrated from Syria, and passing through Mayyafāriḳīn and Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān (where they made an alliance with the Amīra Dībād̲j̲ [?] of Gīlān), they arrived about 500/1006 in the plains north of Us̲h̲turān-Kūh (Luristān). Their (1) chief Abū…

(Mūnd, Mund), the longest river in Far s ( Nuzhat al-ḳulūb 50 farsak̲h̲s E.C. Ross: over 300 miles in length). The name..As a rule in Persia, sections of a river are called after the districts through which they flow. Mānd is the name of the last stretch near its mouth. The name seems to appear for the first time in the Fārs-nāma (before 510/1116), but only in the composite Māndistān (cf. below). The old name of the river is usually transcribed in Arabic characters Sakkān (al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī. 120; Ibn Ḥawḳal, 191; al-Idrīsī, tr. Jaubert, i, 401), but the orthography varies: T̲h̲akān. Fārs-nāma, GMS…

i. a dynasty in Kirmān [ q.v.] in the 7th/13th century, descended from the Ḳara-K̲h̲itay [ q.v.] of Transoxania. The dynasty, successively vassals of the K̲h̲wārazm-S̲h̲āh. the Mongol Great K̲h̲āns and the dynasty of Hūlāgū K̲h̲ān (Īlk̲h̲āns), lasted from 619/1222 or 620/1223 to 706/1305-6, but never had more than local importance. It entertained close relations with the neighbouring dynasties of the Atābegs of Yazd, the Salg̲h̲urids of Fārs and the Muẓaffarids [ q.v.] and came into occasional contact with the caliph and with India. The founder of the dynasty (from …

"between the waters", a frequent toponymic in Iranian countries. (1) A district in northern Afg̲h̲ānistān watered by the river Andarāb and its tributary Kāsān, al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī 279 (Andarāba). Its present centre is Banū, see Burhān Kūsk̲h̲akī. Ḳattag̲h̲ān wa-Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān , Russian transl., Tashkent 1926, 28-34. The Ḵh̲āwak pass connects it with the silver-mines of Pand̲j̲hīr (Pand̲j̲s̲h̲īr). The mint of Andarāb was used by several dynasties, and especially by the local Abū Dāwūdids (coins 264-310/877-922), see R. Vasmer in Wien. Num. Zeit ., 1924, 48-6…

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

, name of numerous places in Persia. The best-known is a fortified borough lying by the Čas̲h̲me-yi-gaz on the Ḵh̲urāsān road, between Sabzawār (circa 75 miles) and S̲h̲āhrūd ¶ (circa 68 miles), where S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās I [ q.v.] settled a colony of some hundred families of Georgians. In 1934 there remained only one old woman who remembered Georgian. Another ʿAbbāsābād was built by Prince ʿAbbās Mīrzā [ q.v.] on the left bank of the Araxes (near Nak̲h̲čuwān). Together with its tête-de-pont on the right bank, it was ceded to Russia by the treaty of 1828. (V. Minorsky)

or s̲h̲i̊ḳāg̲h̲i̊ , a tribe of Kurdish origin centred on Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān. According to Yūsuf Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn, the word s̲h̲iḳāḳī means in Kurdish a beast which has a particular disease of the foot. According to S̲h̲araf al-Dīn Bidlīsī’s S̲h̲araf-nāma (i, 148), the S̲h̲aḳāḳī were one of the four warrior tribes ( ʿas̲h̲īrat ) in the nāḥiya of Finik of the principality of the D̲j̲azīra. According to the Ottoman sāl-nāme s, there were Kurdish S̲h̲aḳāḳī in the nāḥiye of S̲h̲eyk̲h̲ler in the ḳaḍāʾ of Killīs in the wilāyet of Aleppo (cf. Spiegel, Eran. Altertumskunde , i, 744). The nāḥiya …

, a dynasty of Atābegs [see atabak ] which ruled in northern and western Luristān between 580/1184 and 1006/1597 with K̲h̲urramābād as their capital. The Atābegs were descended from the Lur tribe of D̲j̲angrūʾī (D̲j̲angardī?). The dynasty is also known by the name of K̲h̲urs̲h̲īdī from the name of the first Atābeg. (It remains to be seen if this name is connected with that of Muḥammad K̲h̲urs̲h̲īd, vizier of the former rulers of Luristān before the rise of the Atābegs of Lur-i Buz…

, 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…

( Lenkoran ), the chief town of the district of the same name in the region of Bākū. Lenkoran is the Russian pronunciation of the name, which was at one time written Langarkunān (“anchorage”), or perhaps Langar-kanān (“place which pulls out the anchors”), which is pronounced Länkarän in Persian and Lankon in Tālis̲h̲ī. The ships of the Bākū-Enzelī [ q.v.] line used formerly to call at Lankoran, which has an open roadstead, but at 8 miles north-east of the town is the island of Sara, which has an excellent roadstead which shelters the ships in bad weather. In the district of Lankoran, de Mor…

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

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

(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 …

, a province to the south of the Caspian Sea bounded on the west by Gīlān [ q. v.] and on the east by what was in Ḳad̲j̲ār times the province of Astarābād [ q.v., formerly Gurgān); Māzandarān and Gurgān now form the modern ustān or province of Māzandarān. 1. The name. If Gurgān to the Iranians was the "land of the wolves" ( vәhrkāna , the region to its west was peopled by "Māzaynian dēws" (Bartholomae, Altir . Wörterbuch , col. 1169, under māzainya daēva ). Darmesteter, Le Zend-Avesta , ii, 373, n. 32, thought that Māzandarān was a "comparative of direction" (* Mazana-tara ; c…

(older form Sāwad̲j̲, cf. the nisba Sāwad̲j̲ī, found at the side of Sāwī), a town of northern Persia some 125 km/80 miles to the southwest of Tehran (lat. 35° 00′ N., long. 50° 22′ E., altitude 960 m/3,149 feet). It was formerly on the Ḳazwīn-Ḳumm road used in mediaeval times but now replaced by the modern paved roads-system centred on Tehran, and on the main caravan and pilgrimage route from southwestern Persia a…

, a little town and district in ¶ southern Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān, on the right bank of the D̲j̲ag̲h̲ātū. the modern town of S̲h̲āhīn Diz̲h̲. In the south the boundary runs a little over the river Sāruḳ, a tributary on the right bank of the D̲j̲ag̲h̲ātū. In the north it is bounded by the district of ʿAd̲j̲arī, in the east by the province of K̲h̲amse. The name is derived from the Mongol sayin “good”. The local Turkish Afs̲h̲ar tribe, of which a part had to emigrate to Urmiya to make room for the Čārdawrī (Čārdowlī) tribe of Lur origin (the district of Čardawr on the Saymar…

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

, a small district of western Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān in Persia, to the south-west of Lake Urmiya, on the lower course of the Gādir-čay, which here receives on its right bank the Bāyzāwa and Mamad-s̲h̲āh and flows into the Lake. To the west it is bordered by Us̲h̲nū, which lies on the upper course of the Gādir, from which it is separated by the Darband gorge through which the river runs; to the north it is bounded by the little district of Dōl (cf. Dōl-i Bārīk, in S̲h̲araf al-Dīn K̲h̲ān Bidlīsī, S̲h̲araf-nāma , St. Petersburg 1860-2, i, 288) belonging to Urmiya; to the…

or sinandad̲j̲ , older form sinna, the administrative capital of the modern Persian province of Kurdistān and the general name for the district round it. l. The town. The name Sinna came into historical prominence only from the 9th/15th century onwards, the main urban centre of the district having preciously been Sīsar [ q.v.], as the seat of the Kurdish wālīs or local rulers of Ardalān [ q.v.]. Under the year 988/1580, the 10th/16th century historian of the Kurds, S̲h̲araf al-Dīn K̲h̲ān Bidlīsī [ q.v.], speaks in his S̲h̲araf-nāma (ed. V. Véliaminof-Zernof, S…

, a Kurdish district of Persia lying between the Turkish frontier (modern il or province of Hakkâri) and the western shore of Lake Urmiya, hence falling within the modern Persian ustān or province of West Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. In Kurdish, sōmāy means “view” (cf. in Persian sūma “terminus, finis, scopus”, Vullers, ii, 352). To the north, Ṣōmāy is separated from the basin of the Zola Čay (S̲h̲epirān, Salmās [ q.v.]) by the mountains of Bere-dī, Und̲j̲ali̊ḳ and Ag̲h̲wān; on the east the canton of Anzal separates it from Lake Urmiya; to the south-east lies the S̲h̲ayk̲…

or ālind̲j̲a (in Armenian Ernd̲j̲ak, a district of the province Siunikʿ), now ruins within the Nak̲h̲ičewān territory of the Azerbayd̲j̲an Soviet Socialist Republic. The river Alind̲j̲a flows into the Araxes near Old Ḏj̲ulfa. The ancient fortress Alind̲j̲aḳ stood some 20 km. above its estuary on the right bank of the river, on the top of an extremely steep mountain (near the village Ḵh̲ānaḳā). The fortress played a considerable role at the Tīmūrid and Turkman period. (V. Minorsky) Bibliography V. Minorsky, Caucasica, JA, 1930, 93-4, 112.

, "Men of God", a secret religion prevalent mainly in western Persia. Ahl-i Ḥaḳḳ would seem to be a rather imprecise name for this sect, because it is used, for example, by the Ḥurūfīs (see Cl. Huart, Textes persans relatives à la secte des Ḥurūfī , 1909, 40), and because it has an affinity with such ṣūfī terms as Ahl-i Ḥaḳīḳa , a term which is also used by the Ahl-i Ḥaḳḳ. In the strict sense, however, Ahl-i Ḥaḳḳ is the name properly given to initiates of the religion described in the present article. The name ʿAlī Ilāhī [ q.v.] applied to them by their neighbours is an unsuitable title, beca…

, the name of a lake and of a town and district in western Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. 1. The lake Lake Urmiya, also called Daryā-yi S̲h̲āhī or, in the Pahlawī period, Daryā-yi Riḍāʾiyya or Lake Reza’iyeh, is the largest lake in the Middle East. It is about 140 km/87 miles long and from 40 km/25 miles to 56 km/35 miles wide and lies at an altitude of 1,275 km/4,183 feet. Its maximum depth is 16 m/53 feet, and the southern part of the lake contains numerous small islands, but most important is the mountainous S̲h̲āhī penins…