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Terken K̲h̲ātūn

(448 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of the wives of various Turkish rulers of the eastern Islamic world in mediaeval (essentially pre-Mongol) times. In old Turkish, terken was a royal title, often but not invariably applied to females, and in these cases being roughly equivalent to “queen”. It may be a loan word in Turkish, being found, according to G. Doerfer, amongst the Kitan or Western Liao, the later Ḳara K̲h̲itay [ q.v.] of Central Asian Islamic history (see his Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen , Wiesbaden 1963-7, ii, 495-8 no. 889; Sir Gerard Clauson, An etymological dictionary of pre-…

Naṣr b. Aḥmad b. Ismāʿīl

(439 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Sāmānid amīr of Transoxania and K̲h̲urāsān (301-31/914-43), given after his death the honorific of al-Amīr al-Saʿīd (“the Fortunate”). Naṣr was raised to the throne at the age of eight on the murder of his father by the Turkish g̲h̲ulāms of the army, with a regency of the vizier Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Aḥmad D̲j̲ayhānī [see al-d̲j̲ayhānī in Suppl.]. The early years of his reign were seriously disturbed by rebellions at Samarḳand, at Nīs̲h̲āpūr and in Farg̲h̲āna by various discontented members of the Sāmānid family, and the amīrate was not at peac…

S̲h̲araf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī

(314 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Persian historian and poet of the Tīmūrid period, born at Yazd, died in 858/1454. He was a favourite of the Tīmūrid ruler S̲h̲āh Ruk̲h̲ [ q.v.] and of his son Mīrzā Abu ’l-Fatḥ Ibrāhīm Sulṭān, governor of Fārs, and in 832/1429 became tutor to the captured young Čingizid Yūnus K̲h̲ān. to whom he dedicated many poems. He was then in the service of the Tīmūrid prince Mīrzā Sulṭān Muḥammad in ʿIrāḳ ʿAd̲j̲amī or western Persia, and narrowly escaped death when that prince rebelled in 850/1447. After S̲h̲āh Ruk̲h̲’s death he …

al-Wāt̲h̲iḳī

(243 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUt̲h̲mān, poet and political claimant of the second half of the 4th/10th and the first years of the 5th/11th centuries, who claimed descent from the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Wāt̲h̲iḳ [ q.v.]. His younger contemporary al-T̲h̲aʿālibi gives specimens of his verses plus biographical information ( Yatīma , ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd, iv, 192-3). Al-Wāt̲h̲iḳī began his career in ʿIrāḳ and al-D̲j̲azīra as a court witness and preacher, but became involved in political intrigues. He fled eastwards to the Transoxanian lands of the Ḳarak̲h̲ānids [see ilek-k̲h̲āns …

D̲j̲irga

(567 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
(Pas̲h̲to; cf. H.G. Raverty, A dictionary of the Puk̲h̲to , Pus̲h̲to , or language of the Afg̲h̲āns , London 1867, 330b), an informal tribal assembly of the Pafhàns in what are now Afg̲h̲ānistān and Pakistan, with competence to intervene and to adjudicate in practically all aspects of private and public life among the Pat́hāns. In the course of his abortive mission to S̲h̲āh S̲h̲u-d̲j̲āʿ and the Durrānī court of Kabūl in 1809 [see Afg̲h̲ānistān . v. History (3) (A)], Mountstuart Elphinstone described the d̲j̲irga system as alive and vital, with assemblies…

Rūd̲h̲rāwar

(253 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a rural district ( rūstāḳ , nāḥiya ) of the mediaeval Islamic province of D̲j̲ibāl [ q.v.], sc. western Persia. The geographers describe it as a fertile plain below the Kūh-i Alwand, containing 93 villages and producing high-quality saffron which was exported through the nearby towns of Hamad̲h̲ān and Nihāwand. The chef-lieu of the district, in which was situated the d̲j̲āmiʿ and minbar , was known as Karad̲j̲-i Rūd̲h̲rāwar, characterised in the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 132, § 31.8-9, as prosperous and the resort of merchants. The site of this seems…

Salm b. Ziyād b. Abīhi

(448 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Ḥarb, Umayyad commander and governor, the third of the many sons of Abū Sufyān’s bastard son Ziyād b. Abīhi [ q.v.], d. 73/692. The family of Ziyād already had a firm grip on the East in the later years of Muʿāwiya’s caliphate, and when Yazīd I came to the throne, he appointed Salm as governor of Ḵh̲urāsān (61/681), and the latter nominated another of his brothers, Yazid b. Ziyād, as his deputy in Sīstān. Salm proved himself a highly popular governor with the Arab troops in Ḵh̲urāsān. largely on account of his mil…

Ḳul

(277 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, an old Turkish word which came, in Islamic times, to mean “slave boy, male slave”, defined by Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, Dīwān lug̲h̲āt al-Turk , ed. Kilisli Rifʿat Bilge, i, 282, tr. Atalay, i, 336-7, as ʿabd . However, the original meaning of ḳul in Orkhon Turkish was rather “servant, vassal, dependent” (the masculine counterpart of kün “female servant, etc.”, the two words being linked in the Kültegin inscription, text references in Talât Tekin, A grammar of Orkhon Turkish, Bloomington, Ind. 1968, 347), since slavery in the Islamic juridical sense did not exist among the ancient Turks. The…

K̲h̲wārazm

(5,698 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, in post-Mongol times increasingly known as K̲h̲īwa, the province lying along the lower course of the Amū Daryā [ q.v.] or Oxus, classical Chorasmia. In the early Islamic period, the southern boundary of K̲h̲wārazm was considered to be at Ṭāhiriyya, five days’ journey downstream from Āmul-i S̲h̲aṭṭ (modern Čārd̲j̲ūy), the crossing-place of the K̲h̲urāsān-Buk̲h̲ārā caravan route. Ṭāhiriyya lay just to the south of the gorge of the “lion’s mouth”, Dahān-i S̲h̲īr, where the river narrows at modern Düldül Atlag̲h̲ān near Pitnyak. H…

Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd b. Muḥammad b. Malik-S̲h̲āh

(582 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dunyā ¶ wa ’l-Din, Sald̲j̲uḳ sultan in western Persia 548-55/1153-9. The death in 547/1152 of Sultan Masʿūd b. Muḥammad [ q.v.] without direct male heir instituted a period of confusion for the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultanate, in that there were left several Sald̲j̲ūḳ princes with claims to the throne, including Masʿūd’s brother Sulaymān-S̲h̲āh and the sons of his brothers Maḥmūd and Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l. All but Muḥammad, out of these contenders, were of mediocre abilities, and were largely dependent on the Turkish Atabegs and other amīrs , …

Safīd Rūd

(273 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(p.) “White River”, a river system of northwestern Persia draining the southeastern part of Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān and what was, in mediaeval Islamic times, the region of Daylam [ q.v.]. The geographers of the 4th/10th century already called it the Sabīd/Sapīd̲h̲ Rūd̲h̲, and Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī (8th/14th century) clearly applies it to the whole system. In more recent times, however, the name tends to be restricted to that part of the system after it has been formed from the confluence at Mard̲j̲il of its two great ¶ affluents, the Ḳi̊zi̊l Üzen [ q.v.] coming in from the left and the S̲h̲āh…

Ud̲j̲d̲j̲ayn

(310 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a town of Central India in what was the mediaeval Islamic sultanate of Mālwā [ q.v.] and at times its capital. It is now a fair-sized town in the westernmost part of Madhya Pradesh State in the Indian Union (lat. 23° 11′ N., long. 75° 50′ E.). Renowned since Mauryan and Gupta times as a sacred site for Hindus, it also played a leading role in Indian astronomy, since the ancient Indians came to calculate longitudes from the meridian of Ud̲j̲d̲j̲ayn [see al-Ḳubba ]. Hence the town appears in Ptolemy’s Geography as Ozēnē, in the geographical section of Ibn Rusta’s encyclopaedia as ʾdh. y. n for Uzza…

Tūn

(316 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a town of the mediaeval region of Ḳuhistān [ q.v.] in northeastern Persia. It lay some 80 km/50 miles west-north-west of the main town of the region, Ḳāʾin, and was often linked with it; Marco Polo speaks of Tunocain (Yule and Burnell, The Book of Ser Marco Polo , 2 London 1903, i, 83, 86), and Tūn wa Ḳāʾin still figures in the Bābur-nāma (tr. Beveridge, 296, 301). Tūn has no known pre-Islamic history, but was a flourishing town in the 4th/10th century, when the geographers describe it thus, mentioning especially its strong fortress. Nāṣir-i K̲h̲usraw was there…

D̲j̲ād̲j̲arm

(439 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, a town in the western part of mediaeval K̲h̲urāsān in Persia, now a town and also a bak̲h̲s̲h̲ or sub-district in the s̲h̲ahrastān or district of Bud̲j̲nurd in the K̲h̲urāsān ustān . It lies at the western end of the elongated plain which stretches almost from Bisṭām in the west almost to Nīs̲h̲āpūr in the east, which is drained by the largely saline Kāl-i S̲h̲ūr stream, and which is now traversed by the Tehran-Nīs̲h̲āpūr-Mas̲h̲had railway. The mediaeval geographers, up to and including Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī (see Le Strange, The lands of the Eastern Caliphate , 392-3…

Özbeg b. Muḥammad Pahlawān

(431 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Muẓaffar al-Dīn (reigned 607-22/1210-25), the fifth and last Atabeg of the Ildegizid or Eldigüzid ¶ family [see ildeñizids ] who ruled in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān during the later Sald̲j̲ūḳ and K̲h̲wārazms̲h̲āhī periods. He married Malika K̲h̲ātūn, widow of the last Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l III (killed in 590/1194 [ q.v.]). During the early part of his career, he ruled in Hamad̲h̲ān as a subordinate of his brother Nuṣrat al-Dīn Abū Bakr, during the time when much of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān and ʿIrāḳ ʿAd̲j̲amī was falling into anarchy in the post-S…

Wus̲h̲mgīr b. Ziyār

(379 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Ẓahīr al-Dawla , the second ruler of the Daylamī dynasty of the Ziyārids [ q.v.] of northern Persia, r. 323-56/935-67. Wus̲h̲mgīr is said to have meant “quail-catcher”, according to al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , ix, 30 = § 3603, cf. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch , 359. Wus̲h̲mgīr was the lieutenant of his brother Mardāwīd̲j̲ [ q.v.], and after his death was hailed at Rayy as his successor by the Daylaml troops. Until ca. 328/940 he held on to his brother’s conquests in northern Persia, but thereafter was drawn into warfare, in alliance with another Daylamī soldier of fortune, Mākān b. Kākī [ q.v.], w…

Nīzak, Ṭark̲h̲ān

(362 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, ruler of the northern branch of the Hephtalite confederation which had in pre-Islamic times ruled both north and south of the Hindu Kush, from what is now Soviet Central Asia to northern India, that people known to the Arab historians as Hayṭal (<* Habṭal), pl. Hayāṭila [ q.v.] (see on them, R. Ghirshman, Les Chionites-Hephtalites , Cairo 1958, 69 ff.). It is unclear whether the Ṭarkhān element of his name is in fact a personal name or the well-known Central Asian title (on which see Bosworth and Sir Gerard Clauson, in JRAS [1965], 11-12). The power of the northern Hephthalites, whose d…

K̲h̲ayrpūr

(807 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
1. A former native state of the province of Sind in British India, now in Pakistan, lying to the east of the lower-middle Indus River between lat. 27°46′ and 26°10′ N. and between long. 68°20′ and 70°14′ E., and with an area of 6,018 sq. miles; it is also the name of a town, formerly the capital of the state, lying some 25 miles south-west of Sukkur and Rohri. The southeastern part of what was K̲h̲ayrpūr state is largely desert, but the alluvial plains in the north and west, adjacent to the Indus, are fertile and are irrigated by canals from the Indus valley, so …

Ilyāsids

(468 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a minor dynasty which ruled in Kirmān in south-eastern Persia during the middle decades of the 4th/10th century. Their establishment there marks the final severance of Kirmān from direct Caliphal control, which had been restored earlier in the century after the collapse of the Ṣaffārid empire. The founder, Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad b. Ilyās, was a commander in the Sāmānid army and of Soghdian origin. He was involved in the revolt against the Sāmānid Amīr Naṣr b. Aḥmad of his brothers in 317/929, and when the rebellion collapsed in 320/932, he with…

Sīrāf

(701 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a port of the Persian Gulf which flourished in the early Islamic centuries as one of the main commercial centres of the Gulf, rivalling Baṣra. It lay on the coast of Fārs, near the modern village of Ṭāhirī, some 200 km/125 miles to the southeast ¶ of Bushire (Bū S̲h̲ahr [ q.v.]), in the garmsīr or hot region of the sīf or coasdand. Excavations carried out at the site of Sīrāf 1966-73 by a team sponsored by the British Institute of Persian Studies have shown that there was a Sāsānid port there, probably serving the inland centre of Ardas̲h̲īr K̲h̲urra, the latter Islamic Gūr or D̲j̲ūr [see fīrūzābād …
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