, the name of a region lying to the west of Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.] in mediaeval Islamic Transoxania, now falling in the region where the eastern part of the Uzbekistan Republic, the northernmost part of the Tajikistan Republic and the easternmost part of the Kirghiz Republic meet. The form Usrūs̲h̲ana is the best known, although Yāḳūt (i, 245) says that Us̲h̲rūsana is preferable. In the Persian versions of the text of al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and in the Persian text of the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam we find more often Surūs̲h̲ana, while Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih sometimes has S̲h̲ur…

[see usrus̲h̲ana ].

(Ūrā-Tipa, Ūrā-Tīpa), Russian Ura-Ty̲u̲be, a town and a district on the northern slope of the Turkestan chain, now the town and district of roteppa in Tād̲j̲īkistān. The town is located in lat. 39° 55ʹ N. and long. 69° 00ʹ E. at 1040 m/3,425 feet above sea level. Lying in the foothills between the steppe plains and the mountains, and on a major route linking Samarkand with Tas̲h̲kent and the Farg̲h̲āna valley, the historical Ura-Tepe both connected and separated adjacent ecological and political regions. The place name, signifying a “high hill” ( örä tübe/töpä/tepä …

, conventional form Syr Darya, a river of Central Asia and the largest in that region. The Turkish element in the name, si̊r , is not actually found before the 10th/16th century; in the following century, the K̲h̲īwan ruler and historian Abu ’l-G̲h̲āzī Bahādur K̲h̲ān [ q.v.] calls the Aral Sea “the Sea of Sir” (Si̊r Teñizi). 1. In the early and mediaeval periods. The Si̊r Daryā flows through the present republics of Kirgizia, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan down from the northwestern slopes of the Tien Shan Mountains to the Aral Sea [ q.v.]. It is formed by the confluence in the e…

, a town and an extensive district of mediaeval Islamic Central Asia, identifiable with the later Islamic town of Sayram. Popular etymologising saw in the name the Persian component sipīd , ispīd “white”. It lay on the Aris river, a right-bank affluent of the Si̊r Daryā [ q.v.], 14 km/8 miles to the east of the later town of Chimkent (lat. 42° 16′ N., long. 69° 05′ E.); Chimkent itself, now in the southernmost part of the Kazakhstan Republic, is mentioned in the historical sources from Tīmūrid times onwards, e.g. in S̲h̲araf al-Dīn ʿAlī Yazdī. Isfīd̲j̲āb apparently had a pre-Islamic histo…

(a.), a military-religious institution of mediaeval Islam. 1. History and development of the institution. It is impossible to present an unequivocal definition of the term ribāṭ . The word needs to be constantly related to a context and a chronology since the sense has been very evolutive. The root r-b-ṭ is present in the Arabic of the 1st/7th century, in numerous derived forms. It is possible to identify a first stratum of usage, comprising Ḳurʾānic usages and those of the early caliphal period. Originally, these usages …