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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ ʿIzz al-Dīn , Turkish Atabeg in Fārs of the Salg̲h̲urid line [ q.v.], reigned in S̲h̲īrāz from 599/1202-3 until most probably 623/1226. On the death of his elder brother Takla/Tekele (Degele, etc.?) b. Zangī in 594/1198, Saʿd claimed power in Fārs, but his claim was contested by his ¶ cousin Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l, the son of his father’s elder brother Sunḳur, who had founded the dynasty. Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l retained the royal title for nine years, but throughout that period warfare between him and his cousin continued without a decisive result for…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

, a small town in Persia lying some 15 km/9 miles to the northeast of Ardistān, on the southwestern edge of the central desert of the Das̲h̲t-i Kawīr (long. 52° 25’ E., lat. 33° 30’ N.). It falls administratively within the ustān or province of Iṣfahān and is the chef-lieu of a canton or dihistān . In ca. 1951 it had a population of 5,400; and according to the census of 1375/1996-7, one at that time of 7,710, representing 1,911 households. This small and isolated place has played no role in wider Persian history, but is of significance for its ¶ surviving architecture. It clearly enjoyed prosp…

, Abū Naṣr Ḵh̲usraw-Fīrūz , Būyid amīr , d. 450/1058. When Abū Kālīd̲j̲ār, ruler in K̲h̲ūzistān. Fārs, Kirmān, ʿUmān and Baṣra in parallel with his uncle D̲j̲alāl al-Dawla [ q.v.] of Bag̲h̲dād, died in 440/1048, the eldest of his ten or so sons, K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz. succeeded as amīr with the title, unwillingly extracted from the caliph, of al-Malik al-Raḥīm. However, his succession was challenged by various of his brothers, and especially by Fūlād-Sutūn, and during his seven years’ reign, K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz reigned undisputedly only in ʿIrāḳ, wit…

, a region of central Afg̲h̲ānistān spanning the modem (post-1964 reorganisation) provinces of Bāmiyān, Wardak, G̲h̲aznī, G̲h̲ōr and Uruzgān. The region is almost wholly mountainous, its northem backbone being formed by the Kūh-i Bābā range [ q.v.] and its outliers. There are consequently very few towns and these tend to lie in the river valleys, e.g. Dawlatyār on the upper Herī Rūd and Pand̲j̲āb or Pand̲j̲āō on the Pand̲j̲āb tributary of the upper Helmand. The sedentary agriculturist Hazāras [ q.v. below] are the main Ethnic element of the region, but there are also Pas̲h…

b. Nāṣir al-Dīn Maḥmūd S̲h̲āh, Bengal Sultan of the restored Ilyās S̲h̲āhī line, r. 864-79/1460-74. Bārbak was one of the most powerful of the medieval rulers of Bengal, achieving a great reputation from his warfare against the Hindu rulers of Orissa and northern and eastern Bengal, regaining Silhet [ q.v.] (Sylhet) and also Chittagong [ q.v.] from the Arakanese. He recruited for his armies Ḥabas̲h̲ī military slaves and Arab mercenaries, and popular hagiographical tradition attributed many of Bārbak’s conquest to one of this latter group, the warrio…

b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib , Abū Muḥammad, Companion and paternal cousin of the Prophet Muḥammad and younger brother of the famed scholar and reciter of traditions ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿAbbās [ q.v.], born in the year of the Hid̲j̲ra , died in the reign of Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya or in 85/704 or in 87/706. He was further related to the Prophet in that his mother Umm al-Faḍl bt. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ al-Hilāliyya was the sister of Muḥammad’s wife Maymūna [ q.v.] (Ibn Ḳutayba, Maʿārif , ed. ʿUkās̲h̲a, 121, 367; al-Balād̲h̲urī, Ansāb al-as̲h̲rāf , iii, ed. al-Dūrī, 447). Unlike his brother,…

, Arabic orthography Ḳūn, a Turkish tribe of Inner Asia known in the pre-Mongol period, but only in a shadowy fashion. The earliest mention of the Ḳun is in Bīrūnī’s K. al-Tafhīm (420/1029), ed. R. R. Wright, London 1934, 145, and he places them in the Sixth Clime, in the territory of the eastern Turks between the Ḳāy and the K̲h̲irkīz [see ḳāyi̊ and ḳi̊rgi̊z ]. The tribe is not, however, mentioned in Bīrūnī’s al-Ḳānūn al-Masʿūdī ( pace Pelliot, À propos des Comans , in JA, Ser. 11, Vol. xv [1920], 134-5). Nor are the Ḳun given in Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī (who does however deal with the ot…

(p.), lit. “head [of] affairs”, a term used in Mug̲h̲al Indian administration and also in the succeeding British Indian domination of the subcontinent. 1. In the structure of Mug̲h̲al provincial government, as elaborated under the Emperor Akbar [ q.v.] in 989/1580, there was a hierarchy of the ṣūba [ q.v.] or province, under the ṣūbadār [ q.v.] (also called sipāhsālār , nāẓim and ṣāḥib-i ṣūba ); the sarkār , or district, under the fawd̲j̲dar [ q.v.], who combined both administrative and military functions, corresponding to the two separate officials of British India, t…

b. Ṭāhir D̲h̲i ’l-Yamīnayn , Abu ’l-ʿAbbās , Ṭāhirid governor of Bag̲h̲dād. Born in 209/824-5, Muḥammad in 237/851 was summoned from K̲h̲urāsān by the Caliph to Bag̲h̲dād and appointed military governor ( ṣāḥib al-s̲h̲urṭa ) in order to restore order in the chaos then prevailing. In spite of the great power of the Ṭāhirids, who ruled K̲h̲urāsān with considerable autonomy, although they nominally recognised the suzerainty of the caliph, his task was by no means a light one. After al-Mustaʿīn had ascended the…

(p.), the NP form of MP S̲h̲āhpūr “king’s ¶ son”, usually Arabised as S̲h̲ābūr, Sābūr, Syriac S̲h̲ābhōr, Greek Σαπώρης or Σαβουρ (see Justi, Iranisches Mamenbuch , 284 ff.), the name of various monarchs of the Sāsānid dynasty in pre-Islamic Persia. For the detailed history of their reigns, see sāsānids . Here, only such aspects as impinged on the Arabs will be noted. S̲h̲āpūr I, son of Ardas̲h̲īr Pāpakān (r. 239 or 241 to 270 or 273) is known in Arabic sources as S̲h̲āpūr al-D̲j̲unūd “S̲h̲. of the armies” (e.g. in al-Ṭabarī, i, 824, tr. Nöldeke, Gesch . der Perser und Amber …

b. Nāṣir al-Dīn, Sayyid, Persian commander, diplomat and historian of the Caspian region, b. ca . 815/1412, d. after 894/1489. He was a scion of the important family of Marʿas̲h̲ī Sayyids who dominated Māzandarān from the later 8th/14th century until the province’s incorporation into the Ṣafawid empire by S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās I in 1005/1596 [see marʿas̲h̲īs ]. ¶ Ẓahīr al-Dīn stemmed from the main branch of the Marʿas̲h̲īs, that of Kamāl al-Dīn b. Ḳiwām al-Dīn (d. 801/1379). He owned estates at Bāzargāh in Gīlān, and was employed by Sult…

(a.), pl. nuḳabāʾ , “chief, leader”, of a tribe or other group, a term used in various senses at different times of Islamic history. For its sense as head of the community of ʿAlid descendants, see naḳīb al-as̲h̲rāf . 1. In early Islamic history. One of the term’s usages in early Islamic history is in connection with the preparatory stages of the ʿAbbāsid Revolution of 129-32/746-50. The term naḳīb had already established itself in the story of the Prophet Muḥammad’s career, when the Medinans negotiating with him about the hid̲j̲ra from Mecca to Medina were asked to appoint 12 nuḳabāʾ as repr…

, the name of two left-bank tributaries of the Tigris [see did̲j̲la ] in northern ʿIrāḳ, both of them rising in the Zagros mountain chain in Kurdistān. 1. The Great or Upper Zāb ( al-Zāb al-akbar or al-aʿlā ) was already known to the Assyrians, as Zabu ēlū “the upper Zāb”, and appears in classical Greek as Λύκος (cf. PW, xiii, cols. 2391-2), Byzantine Greek as ὁ μέγας Ζάβας, in Syriac as Zāb̲ā and in later Armenian as Zav . In Kurdish it is known today as the Zēʾ-i Bādinān and in Turkish as Zap J. Markwart discussed possible etymologies and suggested a link with older Aramaic dēb̲ā …

(vars. Ṭurs̲h̲īs̲h̲, Ṭurt̲h̲īt̲h̲, Ṭurayt̲h̲īt̲h̲), a town of the mediaeval region of Bus̲h̲t of Ḳuhistān [ q.v.] in northeastern Persia. It lay to the southwest of Nīs̲h̲āpūr. Its site was probably to the west of the present town of Kas̲h̲mar. The 4th/10th century geographers describe it as a flourishing town, and al-Muḳaddasī, 318, says that its Friday mosque recalled that of Damascus in its splendour, and that it was “the emporium of Fārs and Iṣfahān and the storehouse of K̲h̲urasan”. At the end of the 5th/11th century, with Tūn [ q.v.] and other places it became one of the centr…

, a town of mediaeval ʿIrāḳ, lying, in the time of the classical Arabic geographers (3rd-4th/9th-10th centuries) on the left, i.e. eastern, bank of the Tigris, ten farsak̲h̲ s to the north of Bag̲h̲dād, roughly halfway between the capital and Sāmarrāʾ. As Yāḳūt noted ( Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 142), the name is orginally Aramaic ( sūriyānī ), sc. ʿOkbarā, and the history of the place can be traced back at least to early Sāsānid times. In the reign of the emperor S̲h̲āpūr I (mid-3rd century A.D.), Roman captives were settled there,…

, Muḥammad , youngest son of Muḥammad ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.] and hereditary viceroy of Egypt, theoretically under Ottoman suzerainty, 1854-63. He was styled Pas̲h̲a, but was already known in informal and unofficial usage as Khedive before this latter title was formally adopted after his death [see k̲h̲idīw ]. Born in 1822, his father had had a high opinion of his capabilities and had sent him at the age of only nineteen to Istanbul for negotiations over the tribute payable by Egypt to the Porte. Saʿīd’s uncle and predecessor in the governorship of Egypt, ʿAbbās Ḥilmī I b. Aḥmad Ṭūsūn [ q.v.], had…

b. Alī Yabg̲h̲u , the Og̲h̲uz Turkish [see g̲h̲uzz ] ruler in the town of D̲j̲and [ q.v. in Suppl.] on the lower Syr Darya in Transoxania during the second quarter of the 11th century A.D. S̲h̲āh Malik, who is given by Ibn Funduḳ the kunya of Abu ’l-Fawāris and the laḳab s of Ḥusām al-Dawla and Niẓām al-Milla, was the son and successor of the Og̲h̲uz Yabg̲h̲u, head of a section of that Turkish tribe in rivalry with that one led by the Sald̲j̲ūḳ family of chiefs [see sald̲j̲ūḳids. ii]. It was this hostility that made S̲h̲āh Malik ally with the G̲h̲aznawid Masʿūd b. Maḥmūd [ q.v.] against his kinsmen t…

, cawnpore, a city situated on the banks of the Ganges river in Uttar Pradesh province in the Indian Republic at lat. 26° 281 N. and long. 80° 201 E., and also the name of an administrative district of that province. Until the later 18th century, Kānpur was little more than a village known as Kanbaiyāpur or Kanhpur, and since it was situated on the western frontiers of Awadh or Oudh [ q.v.], the district of Kānpur was disputed in the middle decades of the 18th century by the Nawwābs of Awadh, the Mug̲h̲al emperors in Dihlī and the expanding power of the Marāthās. Af…

or mas̲h̲had ʿalī , a town and place of pilgrimage in ʿIrāḳ 10 km 6 miles west of al-Kūfa. It lies on the edge of the desert on a flat barren eminence from which the name al-Nad̲j̲af has been transferred to it (A. Musil, The Middle Euphrates , 35), at an altitude of 37 m/120 feet in lat. 31° 59′ N. and long. 44° 20′ E. According to the usual tradition, the Imām al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib [ q.v.] was buried near al-Kūfa, not far from the dam which protected the city from flooding by the Euphrates at the place where the ¶ town of al-Nad̲j̲af later arose (Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am , iv, 760)…

, a town of northwestern Arabia, lying inland from the eastern shore of the Gulf of ʿAḳaba; it is mentioned in the mediaeval Islamic geographers as lying on the pilgrimage route between the Ḥid̲j̲āz and Syria, which there went inland to avoid the mountainous coast of the Gulf. The name is connected with that of the tribe of Midianites known from the Old Testament (LXX Μαδιαμ, Μαδιαν; in Josephus Μαδιηνἵται, ἡ Μαδιηνὴ χῶρα) but it can hardly be used without further consideration to identify the original home of this tribe, as the town might be…

(< Skr. s̲h̲is̲h̲ya “disciple, learner”), a religious group of northern India whose beliefs and practices combine Islamic and Hindu elements and which was founded in the later 15th century by Nānak, the first Guru or teacher. 1. General. The authoritative rahit-nāma or manual of Sikhism of 1950, the Sikh Rahit Maryada , defines a Sikh as one who believes in Akāl Purakh (“the Eternal One”); in the ten Gurus (“preceptors”, identified with the inner voice of God) and their teachings; in the Ādi Granth (“the Ancient Book”, the chief Sikh scripture, and the initiation ( amrit …

b. Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya I, last caliph of the Sufyānid line of the Umayyads, reigned briefly in 64/683-4. When Yazīd I b. Muʿāwiya [ q.v.] died at Ḥuwwārīn in the Syrian Desert in Rabīʿ I 64/November 683, he left behind Three young sons by free mothers; Muʿāwiya and his brother K̲h̲ālid b. Yazīd [ q.v.] cannot have been much more than 20 years old, Muʿāwiya’s age being given by the sources variously at between 17 and 23. Most of the surviving Sufyānids were in fact young and inexperienced, with their leadership qualities unproven. Yazīd had had the bayʿa [ q.v.] made to Muʿāwiya before his death…

, the main left bank affluent of the Jordan river [see al-urdunn. 1], famed in history as the site of a historic battle between the Arabs and Byzantines. 1. Geography. The Yarmūk flows into the Jordan some 9 km/5 miles to the south of Lake Tiberias, with headwaters on the southwestern slopes of the Ḥawrān [ q.v.] in southern Syria. It follows a deeply-incised valley which nevertheless provides the main access through the eastern wall of the Jordan rift valley, the G̲h̲awr or G̲h̲ōr, to the north-south routes along the western fringes of the Syrian De…

, S̲h̲araf al-Zamān Ṭāhir , presumably a native of Marw [see marw al-s̲h̲āhid̲j̲ān ] or a descendant of such a native, physician and writer on geography, anthropology and the natural sciences, died after 514/1120. He acted as physician to the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan Malik-S̲h̲āh [ q.v.] and possibly to his successors down to the time of Sand̲j̲ar [ q.v.]; little else is known of his life. His main fame comes from his book the Ṭabāʾiʿ al-ḥayawān , which is essentially zoological in subject, but also with valuable sections on human geography, i.e. the vari…

, a South Arabian tribe. In early Islamic times D̲j̲aʿda had lands in the southernmost part of the Yemen highlands, the Sarw Ḥimyar, between the present-day towns of al-Ḍāliʿ and Ḳaʿṭaba in the north and the Wādī Abyan in the south. The road from Aden to Ṣanʿāʾ passed through the territory, and their neighbours were the Banū Mad̲h̲ḥid̲j̲ and Banū Yāfiʿ. These South Arabian D̲j̲aʿda are described by Hamdānī as a clan of ʿAyn al-Kabr, and are to be distinguished from the North Arabian tribe of D̲j…

, a town of the Ḥid̲j̲āz in north-western Arabia, lying in what was the early Islamic Wādī ’l-Ḳurā, at the southeastern end of the Ḥarrat al-ʿUwayriḍ and below a hill called Umm Nāṣir (lat. 26° 38ʹ N., long. 37° 57ʹ E., altitude 674 m/2,210 feet). The area is extremely rich archaeologically, and clearly flourished in pre-Islamic times as a major centre along the caravan route southwards from Syria, with ancient Dedan at the base of the Ḏj̲abal al-Ḵh̲urayba, to the south of what was al-Ḥid̲j̲r [ q.v.] and is now Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ some 18 km/12 miles north of al-ʿUlā. The mediaeval Isl…