, D̲j̲abal , a steep mountain range to the west of Mawṣil, rising to 1,463 m/4,798 feet in height, in the desert zone between the Tigris and K̲h̲ābūr rivers. At the present time, it lies mainly in ʿIrāḳ, but has its western slopes in Syria. There are only a few valleys with vegetation and timber; some wādīs of the southern slopes are affluents of the Nahr al-T̲h̲art̲h̲ār, and irrigated agriculture (in mediaeval Islamic times, with figs, date palms and mulberry trees for a flourishing silk production) is possible. The town of Sind̲j̲ār lies on this side also. An important ancient east-west route, in Sald̲j̲ūḳ times called …

, S̲h̲araf al-Dīn Abū Saʿd ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Hibat Allāh b. Muṭahhar al-Tamīmī al-Mawṣilī, later al-Ḥalabī and finally al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī, was the most important S̲h̲āfiʿī scholar of his time. He was born in Rabīʿ I 492 or 493/February 1099 or 1100 at Ḥadīt̲h̲a, studied at Mawṣil and then at Wāsiṭ, with Abū ʿAlī al-Fāriḳī, and at Bag̲h̲dād, particularly with Asʿad al-Mayhanī and Ibn Burhān (see the list of his teachers in al-Nuʿaymī, Dāris , 400). From 523/1129, he taught at Mawṣil, then went to settle in the region of Sind̲j̲ār and was appointed ḳāḍī of Sind̲j̲ār, Niṣībīn and Ḥarrān.…

, ʿIzz al-Dīn , fifth Zangid Atābak of al-Mawṣil (Mosul) (576-89/1180-93). Masʿūd’s public career was entangled from beginning to end with that of his great adversary Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, and it is easy to regard him as no more than a troublesome shadow in the latter’s path. But Masʿūd had a positive policy of his own—to maintain, under his leadership, the legacy of Zangī and Nūr al-Dīn in …

Abu ’l-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Masʿūd b. Mawdūd b. Zangī , called al-Malik al-ʿĀdil, sixth ruler in Mawṣil of the Zangid line of Atabegs, reigned 589-607/1193-1211. On the death of his father ʿIzz al-Dīn Masʿūd [ q.v.], Nūr al-Dīn succeeded him, but for many years was under the tutelage of the commander of the citadel of Mawṣil, the eunuch Mud̲j̲āhid al-Dīn Ḳaymaz al-Zaynī, till the latter’s death in 595/1198-9. Nūr al-Dīn’s early external policy aimed at securing control of Niṣibīn [ q.v.] from his kinsman, the Zangī lord of Sind̲j̲ār ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī and the latter’s son Ḳuṭb al-D…

, in ʿAbbāsid times one of the sequence of small towns on the main route between Niṣībīn and Mawṣil, in the Ḏj̲azīra province, the others being Ad̲h̲r…

, a name formed in the same way as Diyār Bakr [ q.v.], is the most eastern and the largest province of the D̲j̲azīra. It includes three regions: that of the K̲h̲ābūr and its tributary the Hirmās (D̲j̲ag̲h̲d̲j̲ag̲h̲) and their sources, i.e., the slopes of the Ṭūr ʿAbdīn; that which is contained between the Hirmās and the Tigris, the former Bēt̲h̲ ʿArabāyē with the D̲j̲abal Sind̲j̲ār; and that on both banks of the Tigris between Tell Fāfān and Takrīt, which marks the boundary with ʿIrāḳ. The lower reaches of the two Zābs …

, Ḳuṭb al-Dīn , Atabeg [see atabak ] of al-Mawṣil. ʿImād al-Dīn Zankī, on his death on 6 Rabīʿ II 541/15 September 1146, left four heirs: of these Mawdūd b. ʿImād al-Dīn Zankī, Ḳuṭb al-Dīn al-Aʿrad̲j̲, the youngest of his sons, was only sixteen years old. The eldest, Sayf al-Dīn G̲h̲āzī represented his father at al-Mawsīl of which Zankī [ q.v.] held only the usufruct; the second son, Nūr al-Dīn Maḥmūd [ q.v.], twenty-nine years old, accompanied his father in his campaigns; the third, Nuṣrat al-Dīn Amīr-Amīrān was named as heir presumptive when the former was ill, in Ramaḍān 552/October 1157, and later sent…

, a Turkmen dynasty which reigned over Syria, Diyār Muḍar and Diyār Rabīʿa [ q.vv…

, the name of two rivers. (i) The larger K̲h̲ābūr is one of the chief affluents of the Euphrates, which it joins at Ḳarḳisiyya [ q.v.]. It originates in the Northern Mesopotamian mountains, flows through the plain of Mesopotamia, passes ¶ between D̲j̲abal ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and the Sind̲j̲ār mountains, where it takes a southern direction, which it changes in the last part of its course into a southwestern one. Its springs, as well as those of its numerous tributaries, are chiefly connected with three important towns,…

D̲j̲azīrat Aḳūr or Iḳlīm Aḳūr (for AḲūr or At̲h̲ūr see Yāḳūt, i, 119, 340; ii, 72) is the name used by Arab geographers to denote the northern part of the territory situated between the Tigris and the Euphrates. But the D̲j̲azīra also includes the regions and towns which are across the upper Tigris in the north (Mayyāfāriḳīn, Arzan, Siʿirt) and which lie to the east of the middle stretch of the river (Bāʿaynāt̲h̲ā, the K̲h̲ābūr al-Ḥasaniyya, the two Zāb…

, one of th…

, famous general and governor of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs at the end of the third century/c. 900. In 286/899 he fought against the Arab tribes in ʿIrāḳ. In 287/900 he was appointed by the caliph al-Muʿtaḍid governor of Yamāma and Baḥrayn, with orders to fight against the Ḳarmaṭian chief of Baḥrayn, Abū Saʿīd al-Ḏj̲annābī. He left Baṣra with an army of regular soldiers, volunteers from Baṣra and beduin auxiliaries, was left in the lurch in the first battle by the beduins andt he volunteers and next d…

, Naṣībīn , classical Nasibis, modern Turkish form Nusaybin, a town in upper Mesopotamia, now in modern Turkey. It is situated on the modern Görgarbonizra Çayi, the classical Mygdonios river, the early Arabic Hirmās, Syriac Nehar Māsā or Mās̲h̲ī, in the plain to the south of the mountain region of Ṭūr ʿAbdīn [ q.v.], and today faces the Syrian town of al-Ḳāmis̲h̲lī. Naṣībīn is an ancient town, its name being probably Semitic. In classical sources we find the form Νάσιβις and on coins ΝΕΣΙΒΙ. In Armenian, it is usually Mcbin, Nsepi or Nsepin. The countrysid…

abū Naṣr Hibat Allāh b. Abī ʿImrān Mūsā b. Dāwūd al-s̲h̲īrāzī , an eminent Ismāʿīlī dāʿī , who played a leading role as an intermediary between the Fāṭimids and al-basāsīrī [ q.vv.] in the famous campaign against the Sald̲j̲ūḳs. He was born in S̲h̲īrāz during the eighties of the 4th/nineties of the 10th century ( Dīwān al-Muʾayyad , ed. Muḥammad Kāmil Ḥusayn, Cairo 1949, 21-2, 234-5, 253, 282). His father, also an Ismāʿīlī dāʿī was a prominent man in the Būyid court circle, and Abū G̲h̲ālib Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Wāsiṭī, the vizier of Bahāʾ al-Dawla [ q.v. in Suppl.] used to visit him frequently ( Sīr…

, , modern name of an isolated western chain of the mountains of the Iranian border, about 500 miles long. Its northern extremity crops up in the Ḏj̲azīra, south of the D̲j̲abal Sind̲j̲ar and the Tigris flows through it at al-Fatḥa. At S̲h̲ahrabān it is crossed by the great road from Bag̲h̲dād to Hamadān and Tehrān, at Ahwāz it separates the plains of the ancient Elam, the modern K̲h̲ūzistān, from those of the S̲h̲aṭṭ at-ʿArab, and is finally united with the Iranian plateau in the province of Fā…

(a nisba referring to the seller of shrouds, akfān ), cf. al-Samʿānī, K. al-Ansāb , f. 47b). Several persons were known by this name, amongst which three deserve some mention. 1. al-Ḳāḍī Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Ibrāhīm b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī b. D̲j̲aʿfar b. ʿĀmir b. al-Akfānī al-Asadī , jurist. Born in 316/928, and dying in 405/1014 in Bag̲h̲dād, he was ḳāḍī in al-Madīna, then in Bāb al-Ṭāḳ, then in Sūḳ al-T̲h̲ulāt̲h̲āʾ (both in Bag̲h̲dād), and from 396/1005-6 ḳāḍī for the whole of Bag̲h̲dād. He was weak in relating traditions, but a libera…

, al-Malik , Taḳī ’l-Dīn ʿUmar b. Nūr al-Dawla S̲h̲āhans̲h̲āh b. Ayyūb, born 534/1139, nephew and army commander of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Yūsuf b. Ayyūb (Saladin), one of the leading military and administrative personalities of the 12th century. He was the founder of the branch of the Ayyūbids which ruled in Ḥamāt from 574/1178 until 742/1341. Only two years younger than Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn [ q.v.], he became the latter’s personal adviser and one of his most capable army commanders. Already in 565/1169 Taḳī ’l-Dīn proved his military competence when he put a successful end…

, abu ʾl-ḥārit̲h̲ arslān al-muẓaffar , originally a Turkish slave, who became one of the chief military leaders at the end of the Buwayhid dynasty. He owes his nisba al-Basāsīrī (al-Fasāsīrī) to his first master who was from Basā (Fasā) in Fars. A mawlā of Bahāʾ al-Dawla, he subsequently rose to the highest rank, though we only hear of him from the reign of D̲j̲alāl al-Dawla (416-435/1025-1044), in the struggles which the latter was obliged to maintain against his nephew Abū Kālīd̲j̲ār and the ʿUḳaylids of al-Mawṣil. During the reign of al-Malik al-Raḥīm Ḵh̲usraw Fīrūz ¶ (440-447/1048-105…

, an important seigneurial family which, though it never completely freed itself from the overlordship of its powerful neighbours, possessed for a century extensive lands in Upper Mesopotamia, partly in the east around Irbil and partly in the west, for a shorter period, around Ḥarrān. The founder of the family, Zayn al-Dīn ʿAlī Küčük b. Begtegin, was a Turcoman officer whose fortune was linked from the beginning with that of Zenki. Probably as a result of his participation in this prince’s campa…

, 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…