, the region along the lower Tigris River in southeastern al-ʿIrāḳ. This region is called Μεσήνη by Strabo, Mēs̲h̲an in the Babylonian Talmud, Mays̲h̲an in Syriac. Mēs̲h̲ān in Middle Persian, Mēs̲h̲un in Armenian, Maysān in Arabic, and T’iao-tche (Chaldaea) in the Han sources. The earliest references from the first century A.D. indicate that Μεσήνη was an ethnic toponym, the land of the people called Μεσηνός who lived along the Arabian side of the coast at the head of the Persian Gulf (Μαισανιτη…

, a town of mediaeval ʿIrāḳ situated in the Euphrates-Tigris delta region at the head of the Persian Gulf and famed as the terminal for commerce from India and further east. It lay to the east of al-Baṣra [ q.v.] on the right bank of the Tigris and on the north side of the large canal called Nahr al-Ubulla, which was the main waterway from al-Baṣra in a southeastern direction to ¶ the Tigris and further to ʿAbbādān and the sea. The length of this canal is generally given as four farsak̲h̲ s or two barīd s (al-Muḳaddasī). Al-Ubulla can be identified with ’Απολόγου ’Εμπόριον, mentioned in the Periplus m…

b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. D̲j̲ābir, Abū ʿUbayd Allāh or Abū G̲h̲azwān al-Māzinī, from the Māzin tribe of Ḳays ʿAylān and a ḥalīf or confederate of the Meccan clans of Nawfal or ʿAbd S̲h̲ams, early convert to Islam and one of the oldest Companions of the Prophet. He was called “the seventh of the Seven”, i.e. of those adopting the new faith. He took part in the two hid̲j̲ras to Ethiopia, the battle of Badr and many of the raids of Muḥammad. During ʿUmar’s caliphate, he was sent from Medina to lead raids into Lower ʿIrāḳ, capturing al-Ubulla [ q.v.], killing the marzbān of Dast May…

, al-Sadūsī al-K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ī , an Arab sectarian and poet. He hailed from the Banu ’l-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Sadūs, a clan of the Banū S̲h̲aybān b. D̲h̲uhl. He was first a Sunnī, and is mentioned by Ibn Saʿd (vii/I, 113) in the second class of the “followers” ( tābiʿūn ) of Baṣra; he is named as a transmitter in the collections of Buk̲h̲ārī, Abū Dāwūd, and Nasāʾī. It is said that he was converted by his wife to the doctrines of the K̲h̲ārid̲j̲īs [ q.v.] and became the leader of their moderate wing, the Ṣufriyya [ q.v.], who rejected indiscriminate political ¶ murder ( istiʿrāḍ [ q.v.]) and were lenient toward…

(or Rāhīyūn, Rāhyūn, Rāmnūy), Persian author, translator, and a poet of great repute who wrote in Arabic in the early ʿAbbāsid period and died in 215/830. He was born in Dast-i Maysān or in Maysān [ q.v.] in southeastern ʿIrāḳ. His family, originally from Nīs̲h̲āpūr, had moved to the Maysān region and then to Baṣra, whence his nisba al-Baṣrī. The period of his youth and early education remains in obscurity. He attracted public attention first as the secretary of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd’s vizier Yaḥyā b. K̲h̲ālid al-Barmakī (170-87/786-803). Under Yaḥyā, he wa…

, Arabised form Marzubān , “warden of the march”, “markgrave”, from Av. marəza and M. Parth. mrz “frontier”, plus pat “protector”. The MP form marzpān suggests a north Iranian origin. It began to be used as the title of a military governor of a frontier province in the Sāsānid empire in the 4th or 5th centuries A.D. when marz , marzpan , and marzpanutʿin (marzpānate) appear as loan words in Armenian, and marzbanā as a loan word in Syriac. The NP form marzbān , marzvān or marzabān was Arabised as marzubān (pl. marāziba , marāzib ), possibly as early as the 6th century A.D. Arabic also formed a verb marz…

(in Persian Hörmiz(d)ān), Persian toparch and general, defender of K̲h̲ūzistān from the end of 16/637, or more probably the beginning of 17/638, to 19/640 or perhaps 21/642, who was taken prisoner by the Arabs at Tustar and killed by ʿUbayd Allāh b. ʿUmar [ q.v.] at Medina (end of 23/November 644); the Persian officer who fought at D̲h̲ū Ḳār and whom al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , ii, 228, calls al-Hurmuzān was really called Hāmarz [ q.v.]. Al-Hurmuzān commanded the right wing of the Persian army at al-Ḳādisiyya [ q.v.] (D̲j̲umādā I 16/June 637) and when the tide of the battle turned aga…

, Umayyad governor of Baṣra, Kūfa and the East, d. 67/686. The son of Ziyād b. Abīhi [ q.v.], ʿUbayd Allāh seems to have been groomed by his father for a successful life in politics, and in both policy and style, father and son are frequently paired by the sources. Some accounts explicitly connect ʿUbayd Allāh’s appointment as governor of Ḵh̲urāsān to his father’s death (thus al-Yaʿḳūbī, Taʾrīk̲h̲, ii, 281; al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ al-buldān , 410), but a precise chronology is elusive. According to Ḵh̲alīfa b. Ḵh̲ayyāṭ, Muʿāwiya appointed ʿUbayd Al…

b. Ḵh̲anzal al-Kindī, Abu ’l-Miḳdām or Abū Naṣr (full nasab in Gottschalk, 331, from Ibn ʿAsākir), a rather mysterious mawlā or client who seems to have been influential as a religious and political adviser at the courts of the early Marwānid caliphs, from ʿAbd al-Malik to ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. His birth date is unknown, but he died in 112/730, probably around the age of seventy. According to one account, Rad̲j̲ahʾ’s family stemmed from Maysān in Lower ʿIrāḳ, hence from the local Nabaṭ or Aramaeans, where the bond of walā with the Arab tribe of Kinda [ q.v.] must have been made, the Kinda…

, the name of a town in ʿIrāḳ. When al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ [ q.v.], the governor of ʿIrāḳ appointed by the caliph ʿAbd al-Malik had put down the rebellion there, he began in 83-6/702-5 to build a new town which was called Wasiṭ (“centre”) because it was midway between the two older Arab capitals of this province, al-Kūfa in the north and al-Baṣra in the south. For the site of the town he chose the vicinity of Kaskar, on the Tigris, which had played a not unimportant part in the Sāsānian period. The new Muslim …

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh or Abū ʿĪsā, son of the famous Companion of the Prophet al-Zubayr b. al-ʿAwwām [ q.v.] and brother of the anti-caliph ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr [ q.v.]. Handsome, chivalrous, generous to the utmost ¶ degree of prodigality, he resembled his older brother and the Zubayrid family only in his courage and outbursts of severity in repression. He began his military career at the outset of the caliphate of Marwān b. al-Ḥakam, with an ill-conceived expedition in Palestine. His name has gone down in history chiefly owing to his campaign, in his capa…

, Abū Bakr Muḥammad , the first renowned Muslim interpreter of dreams, was also, according to Ibn Saʿd (vii/1, 140), a traditionist “of great trustworthiness, who inspired confidence, great and worthy, well-versed in jurisprudence. He was an imām of great scholarship and piety”. Born two years before the end of the caliphate of ʿUt̲h̲mān, i.e., in 34/654, he was the contemporary and friend of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī [ q.v.] and died in the same year as he, in 110/728. His father, a tinker from Ḏj̲ard̲j̲arāyā. had been taken prisoner in ʿIrāḳ (at Maysān or at ʿAyn al-…

, Abū saʿīd b. Abi ’l-Ḥasan yasār al-Baṣrī (21/642-110/728), famous preacher of the Umayyad period in Baṣra, belonging to the class of the “successors” ( tābiʿūn ). His father, whose name was originally Pērōz, was made prisoner at the taking of Maysān in Irak, and is said to have been brought to Medina, where he was manumitted by his owner, a woman whose identity cannot be definitely established, and married Ḥasan’s mother, K̲h̲ayra. According to tradition, Ḥasan was born in Medina in 21/642 (for a critique of this tradition see Schaeder, op. cit. in bibl., 42-8). He grew up in Wādī ’l…

, the father of mankind (Abu’l-Bas̲h̲ar). In the Ḳurʾān it is related that when God had ¶ created what is on the earth and in the heavens he said to the angels: "I am about to place a substitute ( k̲h̲alīfa ) on earth", and they said: "Wilt thou place thereon one who will do evil therein and shed blood, whereas we celebrate thy praise and sanctify thee?" Then God taught Adam the names of all things, and as the angels did not know the names Adam taught them these (ii, 28-33 Fl.). Thereafter God ordered the angels t…

, a pre-Islamic Persian dynasty that ruled a large part of western Asia from A.D. 224 until 651. In Arabic and modern usage, the dynastic name is derived from Sāsān, who is mentioned as a “lord” in the inscription of S̲h̲āpūr I [ q.v.] on the Kaʿba of Zoroaster (SKZ). The inscription of Narseh at Paikuli also refers to the royal clan of Sāsānagān. Theophoric names in the Parthian period suggest that Sāsān may have been a minor deity or perhaps a deified ancestor. According to the late Sāsānid Kārnāmag , Sāsān was the son-in-law of Pāpak, who gave him his daughte…

(A.) or more fully manāzil al-ḳamar , the lunarmansions, or stations of the moon (sing. manzil or manzila ), a system of 28 stars, groups of stars, or spots in the sky near which the moon is found in each of the 28 nights of her monthly revolution. The system seems to be of Indian origin (see Scherer; Pingree [1] and [2]; Billard). Babylonian origin has sometimes been suggested (cf. Hommel), but could never be established from the documents. The “stars in the moon’s path”, in the mulAPIN text (cf, van der Waerden [1], 77; recently re-dated to 2300 B.C., cf. van der Waerden [2]) ar…

, a city in central ʿIrāḳ during the mediaeval period, the existence of which is attested from the later years of the 1st century/closing years of the 7th century or opening years of the 8th century, until the beginning of the 12th century/turn of the 17th-18th centuries (according to M. D̲j̲awād, K̲h̲arāb Wāṣit , in Lug̲h̲at al-ʿArab , x (1931), 617 until ca. 1107/1695-6). From its foundation by the Umayyad governor of ʿIrāḳ, al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ad̲j̲ (75-95/694-713 [ q.v.]), the city was the administrative and political capital of that province under the first Marwānids (65-…

(a.), port, harbour. (a) The term. Arabic mīnāʾ has been little used in either Persian or Turkish, although it is routinely listed in their dictionaries (thus J.W. Redhouse, A Turkish and English lexicon, 205; F. Steingass, A comprehensive Persian-English dictionary, 1364; ʿAlī-Akbar Dihk̲h̲udā, Lug̲h̲at-nāma , Tehran n.d., s.v.). In Persian, the standard term is bandar [ q.v.], in Turkish, liman . Bandar was widely used in Ottoman Turkish and, in later centuries, also in Arabic (thus Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, iv, 89, in reference to Ḳāliḳūt, has iḥdā ’l-banādir al-ʿiẓām ; Ibn Mād̲j̲id: bandar D̲j̲…