( nisba Bahrānī), a tribe of the Ḳuḍāʿa group, sometimes reckoned a part of Ḏj̲ud̲h̲ām, which emigrated northwards to the Euphrates and then to the plain of Ḥimṣ. Like their Euphrates neighbours Tag̲h̲lib and Tanūk̲h̲, they became Christian, but were converted after Tag̲h̲lib, probably about 580. A deputation came to Muḥammad at Medina in 9/630 and became Muslims; but the tribe as a whole remained hostile and attached to Byzantium. In 8/629 Bahrāʾ had b…

, ancient site of Palmyrena, well known in the Umayyad period. Al-Walīd II is. known to have stayed there on several occasions and died there in 126/744. The Arab sources describe the military camp ( fusṭāṭ ) which the Persians are said to have erected there in former times and the inner castle ( ḳaṣr ) where the Companion al-Nuʿmān b. Bas̲h̲īr lived and in which the Caliph, besieged by the rebels, took refuge. The site has been identified with the ruins of al-Bk̲h̲ara, standing 25 km. to the south of Palmyra, visited and descr…

(Ar.), lake, is probably the diminmunitive, not of baḥr “sea”, as one would expect, but of baḥra , which is applied to a depression in which water can collect. Thus, in North Africa, bḥẹ̄ra , pl. bḥāyr denotes a low-lying plain, in eastern Algeria, northern Tunisia and part of southern Morocco; its most common meaning, however, is that of “vegetable garden, field for market gardening” or “field for the cultivation of cucurbitaceous plants (melons in particular)” (see W. Marçais, Textes arabes de Tanger , Paris 1911, 227). (Ed.) The word buḥayra (lake) underlies a t…

, or fāmiya , the Seleucid city of Apamea on the right bank of the Orontes (ʿĀṣī), at its northward bend 25 m. N.W. of Ḥamāt. During the Syrian campaign of the Sāsānid Ḵh̲usraw I (540) it was captured and laid waste. After the Arab conquest of Syria it was colonized by tribesmen of ʿUd̲h̲ra and Baḥrāʾ. It regained importance as a fortified outpost of Aleppo only in the Ḥamdānid period and during the early Crusades. After the disintegration of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ power in Syria, Afām…

, a place in ʿIrāḳ, near Kūfa. It was originally owned by the Iyād tribe before its migration from ʿIrāḳ (Bakrī, 69, quoting Ibn S̲h̲abba: Hamdānī, Buldan , 135, quoting al-Hayt̲h̲am b. ʿAdī). Various etymological explanations of its origin have been given: Abu ʿUbayda states that its name was derived, from the wooden cups that were made in it ( Naḳāʾiḍ , 412; Ibn Ḳutayba, Maʿārif , 156; Bakrī, Muʿd̲j̲am , 574; Yāḳūt, ii, 112, 652). Other authorities assert that it was named after the buried skulls of the casualties of the battle between Iyād Bahrā (al-S̲h̲arḳī, Futūḥ, 283; Hamdānī, Buldān, 18…

or banū ’l-ḳayn , often contracted ¶ to Bal-Ḳayn (cf. Bal-Ḥārit̲h̲, etc.), the name of one or more Arab tribes. The best known is part of the tribal group of Ḳuḍāʿa, and al-Ḳayn is here interpreted as the nickname of al-Nuʿmān b. D̲j̲asr, so that the tribe is known as al-Ḳayn b. D̲j̲asr. The word ḳayn means “worker in iron”, “smith”, or possibly “slave”, and is used as a term of contempt in the Naḳāʾid D̲j̲arīr wa’l-Farazdaḳ . There is no evidence, however, of any connexion of Bal-Ḳayn b. D̲j̲asr with smiths. They act as a normal Bedouin tribe, and …

, the greatest of the mediaeval Nizārī Ismāʿīlī leaders in Syria, d. 588/1192 or 589/1193. Also referred to as Sinān Rās̲h̲id al-Dīn by the Nizārīs, his full name was Rās̲h̲id al-Dīn Sinān b. Salmān (or Sulaymān) b. Muḥammad Abu’ ’l-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī. He was born into an Imāmī S̲h̲īʿī family during the 520s/1126-35, near Baṣra, where he converted to Nizārī Ismāʿīlism in his youth. Subsequently, Rās̲h̲id al-Dīn Sinān went to the central headquarters of the Nizārī daʿwa at Alamūt [ q.v.], in northern Persia, to further his Ismāʿīlī education. There, Sinān became a close compani…

, a place in western Syria, situated in the D̲j̲abal Bahrāʾ region. This last becomes lower as it falls southwards, with a large gap commanded to the north by Ṣāfīt̲h̲a and Ḥiṣn al-Akrād [ q.v.] and to the south by ʿAkkār and ʿIrḳa [ q.vv.]. The mountains of the ʿAlawīs fall southwards into the Ṣāfīt̲h̲a depression. Ṣāfīt̲h̲a was the ’Αργυρόκστρων of Byzantine authors, Castrum Album or Chastel Blanc of the ¶ Latin ones, and is the main place in the district, with its fortress called in Arabic texts Burd̲j̲ Ṣāfit̲h̲a; this last lies to the eas…

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim b. Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm, Moroccan statesman and historian of the 18th century. Al-Zayyānī, a member of the great Berber tribe of ¶ the Zayyān in central Morocco, was born in Fās in 1147/1734-5. He received his education in this city. At the age of 23, he accompanied his parents on the Pilgrimage to Mecca and after an exciting journey, coming as well as going, which lasted over two years, he returned to Fās, where he obtained a position as secretary to the mak̲h̲zan [ q.v.] of sultan Muḥammad III b. ʿAbd Allāh. His ability, his knowledge of Berber dialects and the …

, a town of central Syria on the eastern side of the D̲j̲abal al-Nuṣayriyya situated at 33 miles/54 km to the east of Bāniyās [ q.v.] and 28 miles/45 km to the east of Ḥamāt [ q.v.], in long. 36° 35’ E. and lat. 35° N., in the massif of the D̲j̲abal Anṣāriyya at the foot of the eastern slopes of the D̲j̲abal Baḥrāʾ, at an altitude of 1,591 ft./485 m. and to the west of the great trench of the fault of the G̲h̲āb [ q.v.]. The pronunciation and orthography of the name varies between the forms Maṣyād , Maṣyāf (in official documents and on the inscriptions mentioned below of the years 646 and 870 A.H.), Maṣyāt and M…

b. t̲h̲aʿlaba al-bahrāʾī , a well-known Companion of the Prophet. He is attested in all the available historical sources, which more or less concur that his father ʿAmr fled to the Kinda [ q.v.] tribe after he had become involved in a blood feud in his own tribe of Bahrāʾ [ q.v.], a group of Ḳuḍāʿa. There, in Kinda, al-Miḳdād was born ca. 585 A. D. Then al-Miḳdād, in his turn, had to flee Kinda after he had wounded a fellow-tribesman in the foot. He made good his escape to Mecca. Having been adopted by al-Aswad b. ʿAbd Yag̲h̲ūt̲h̲ al-Zuhrī, he became a ḥalīf (confederate) of…

, a tribe of Northern Arab descent in the vicinity of Mecca and al-Ṭāʾif. Belonging to the branch of Muḍar known as K̲h̲indif. Hud̲h̲ayl was closely related to Kināna and consequently to Ḳurays̲h̲ [ qq.v.]. Since early times ¶ Hud̲h̲ayl has occupied much of the territory immediately west and east of Mecca and on up into the mountains towards al-Ṭāʾif; there is no tradition of its having migrated here from elsewhere. This territory, which has been called “The heart of Ḥid̲j̲āz”, includes the valley of Baṭn Marr or Marr al-Ẓahrān (mod…

(i) the fortress. The ruins of the fortress of Alamūt are situated on the summit of a lofty and almost inaccessible rock in the heart of the Alburz mountains two days’s march north-north-east of Ḳazwīn. According to Ibn al-At̲h̲īr (x, 131), an eagle indicated the site to a Daylamite king, who built a castle there, hence the derivation of Alamūt from āluh , “eagle” and āmū ( k̲h̲ ) t, “teaching”. In 246/860 the ʿAlid al-Ḥasan al-Dāʿi ila’l-Ḥaḳḳ rebuilt the castle. Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ, the founder of the Assassins, seized Alamūt in 483/1090 and made it the headquarters …

, a pre-Islamic confederacy of various Arab tribes that adopted a common genealogy. The essential reliability of the Arabic historians’ accounts of this confederacy is supported epigraphically by a Sabaic, a Greek, an Aramaic, and a Syriac inscription and also by Ptolemy, in spite of some conflicting reports on its early history in the Arabian peninsula, with details that so far have not been open to verification. 1. The Arabian Peninsular stage. The history of Peninsular Tanūk̲h̲ belongs to the “Migration Period” in the history of Arabia, which witnessed the m…

(“the Brothers”), Arab tribesmen joining a religious and military movement which had its heyday in Arabia from 1330 to 1348/1912-30 under the rule of ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ¶ Āl Suʿūd, popularly known as Ibn Suʿūd [see suʿūd, āl ]. The movement, inspired by a resurgence of the Wahhābiyya , bore a strong resemblance to the original welling up of Islam among the tribes of Arabia in the t/h century. In both cases the strength of tribal ties, the amazingly rapid spread of religious fervour in an attempt to f…

, the modern Saudi Arabian kingdom, declared on 16 December 1932. It emerged from the transformation of the Suʿūdī chiefdom, located in the central Arabian province of Nad̲j̲d, into a more organised, expanded and territorially-defined state. The chiefdom itself passed through three historical stages: there was the first Saudi chiefdom based on an alliance, struck in 1744, between the House of Suʿūd, and its Bedouin tribes, with the religious leader Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb [ q.v.]. This alliance was expressed through territorial expansion ¶ into neighbouring territories, ac…

, an old Arab tribe and in recent usage, until the motor age, in the pronunciation ʿAgēl, the name for caravan-leaders and camel-dealers. 1. The tribe. Its genealogy is ʿUḳayl b. Kaʿb b. Rabīʿa b. ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa of the Hawāzin branch of the Ḳays-ʿAylān [ q.v.]; among the larger sections are the ʿUbāda and Rabīʿa b. ʿUḳayl as well as the Ḵh̲afād̲j̲a [ q.v.] b. ʿAmr and al-Muntafiḳ [ q.v.] b. ʿĀmir b. ʿUḳayl. Al-Muḳallad b. Ḏj̲aʿfar, the ancestor of the dynasty of the ʿUḳaylids [ q.v.], traced his descent directly from Ḥazn b. ʿUbāda. Al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī ( Nihāya , 297) bes…

(“Fortress of the Kurds”), a castle in Syria known in Europe by the name of “Crac des Chevaliers”. The castle crowns a rounded and almost isolated summit, mount K̲h̲alīl, the last southerly inclination of the D̲j̲abal Anṣāriyya, some 60 km. to the north-west of Ḥimṣ. Situated like an eagle’s nest at a height of 750 m. on a spur flanked by two ravines on the north-east and north-west, it overlooks from a height of 300 m. the plain of the Buḳayʿa [ q.v.] which extends eastward and southeastward. In the Frankish period this very fertile cultivated region contained numerous farms…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Abi ’l-Hayd̲j̲āʾ ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥamdān b. Ḥamdūn b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ Sayf al-Dawla al-Tag̲h̲libī (17 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 303-24 Ṣafar 356/22 June 916-9 February 967), amīr of Aleppo and of northern Syria, also of Mayyāfāriḳīn and of western D̲j̲azīra (Diyār Bakr and Diyār Muḍar), from 333/945 until his death. From his time until the present day, he has personified the Arab chivalrous ideal in its most tragic aspect. A peerless warrior, magnanimous vanquisher of rebellious Syrian tribes, he led with audacity, and for a long time with success, the d̲j̲ihād …

, a fortress situated on the Syrian coast. The name of al-Markab, from the root raḳaba “observe, watch”, denotes any elevated site from which it is possible to see and observe,’ such as the summit of a mountain, of a fortified castle or of a watch-tower ( LA, ed. Beirut 1955, i, 424-8; Yāḳūt, ¶ ed. Beirut 1957, v, 108-9). Arab authors generally call this stronghold al-Marḳab; also found are Ḳalʿat Marḳab and Ḥiṣn Marḳab. There are also Arabic transcriptions such as Mār Kābūs for Markappos, Mār Kābān for Marckapan, Mār G̲h̲ātūm for Margathum or Mārg…