, the last of the G̲h̲assānid dynasts whose personality dominates the scene in the story of Arab-Byzantine relations during the Muslim Conquests and may evidence the resuscitation of the G̲h̲assānid Phylarchate after its destruction during the Persian invasion in A.D. 614. As the ally of Byzantium, D̲j̲abala fought against Muslim arms but lost twice, first at Dūmat al-D̲j̲andal and later at Yarmūk, after which battle he made his exit from military annals. But tradition has remembered him in beautiful anecdotes whether as a Muslim who c…

a division of the great tribal group al-Azd who migrated from South Arabia, wandered in the Peninsula, and finally settled within the Roman limes ca. A.D. 490, having accepted Christianity and agreed to pay tribute. After a short period of co-existence with Salīḥ [ q.v.] as tributaries, ύπόφοροι, they overpowered the latter group and superseded them as the new Arab allies, σύμμαχοι, of Byzantium in A.D. 502-3. Their relations with the Empire were regulated by a treaty, foedus , according to which they received annual subsidies, annonae foederaticae, and in return they contributed …

, 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…

, the name given by the Arabs to an ancient town (Cale or Calem, Portus Cale, modern Oporto) at the mouth of the Douro, and later to the kingdom of Portugal. Before the establishment of an independent Portugal in the 12th century, the history of the region belongs to that of Spain (see al-andalus). At the Arab conquest the whole of the territory of modern Portugal must have passed rapidly into Muslim hands, though details are lacking. We hear only of resistance in the south (see bād̲j̲a ) and of the occupation of Evora, Santarem and Coimbra by ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Mūsā b. Nuṣayr (gove…

, pl. ḳaynāt or ḳiyān “female singing slave”. The Arab lexicographers do not completely agree on the primitive meaning of the term (see LA, TA, etc. s.v.), the real origin of which is unknown to them. They tend to apply it in the first place to a female slave ( ama , d̲j̲āriya ), charged in general with various tasks; secondly, and more specifically, to the female singer who had a servile status ( ama or d̲j̲āriya mug̲h̲anniya ). Some lexicographers are inclined to connect ḳayna with a Vth form taḳayyana “to embellish oneself” (al-Was̲h̲s̲h̲āʾ, Muwas̲h̲s̲h̲ā , 164, uses the expression al-imāʾ a…

, The name of Čerkes (in Turkish čerkas , perhaps from the earlier "kerkète", indigenous name: Adi̊g̲h̲e) is a general designation applied to a group of peoples who form, with the Abk̲h̲az [ q.v.], the Abaza (cf. Beskesek Abazā ) and the Ubək̲h̲, the north-west or Abasgo-Adi̊g̲h̲e branch of the Ibero-Caucasian peoples. The ancestors of the Čerkes peoples were known among the ancients under the names of Σινδοί, Κερχεταί, Ζιχγοί, Ζυγοί, etc., and lived on the shores of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea and in the plains of the Kuban to the south an…

(a., sing, wafd ) delegations. 1. In the time of the Prophet. In the biography of the Prophet Muḥammad [see sīra ] this term designates the mainly tribal deputations which came to him in Medina, mainly during the ninth year of the Islamic era known as “the Year of Delegations”. They started arriving during S̲h̲awwāl 8 A.H., after the abortive siege of al-Ṭāʾif [ q.v.] or, according to another version, after Muḥammad’s return from Tabūk [ q.v.] (S̲h̲aʿbān or Ramaḍān 9 A.H.). Earlier visits to the Prophet are also reported. Some tribesmen are said to have come to him when…

, the name of several places in the Islamic world, from Cordova in the west to Nīs̲h̲āpūr in the east (see Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 46-50). Amongst the Ruṣāfa settlements of ʿIrāḳ were: 1. Ruṣāfat Abi ’l-ʿAbbās (ʿAbd Allāh al-Saffāḥ), begun by the first ʿAbbāsid caliph in lower ʿIrāḳ on the banks of the Euphrates, near al-Anbār [ q.v.], and probably identical with that town called al-Hās̲h̲imiyya. Bibliography Yaʿḳūbī, Buldān, 237, tr. Wiet, 9 Yāḳūt, Buldān, iii, 46. 2. al-Ruṣāfa, the name of a quarter of the city of Bag̲h̲dād [ q.v.] founded soon after the caliph al-Manṣūr [ q.v.] buil…

, Syria, etymologically, “the left-hand region”, because in ancient Arab usage the speaker in western or central Arabia was considered to face the rising sun and to have Syria on his left and the Arabian peninsula, with Yaman (“the rig̲h̲thand region”), on his right (cf. al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ ., iii, 140-1 = § 992; al-Muḳaddasī, partial French tr. A. Miquel, La meilleure répartition pour la connaissance des provinces , Damascus 1963, 155-6, both with other, fanciful explanations). In early Islamic usage, the term bilād al-S̲h̲ām covered what in early 20th-…