, a mediaeval Islamic town on the left bank of the Middle Euphrates, at the junction of its tributary the Nahr al-Balīk̲h̲. Today it is the administrative centre of the al-Raḳḳa governorate of the Arab Republic of Syria; in mediaeval Islamic historic topography it was considered to be the capital of Diyār Muḍar [ q.v.] in al-D̲j̲azīra/Northern Mesopotamia. The origin of settlement on opposite sides of the Nahr al-Balīk̲h̲ is attested by the Tall Zaydān and the Tall al-Bīʿa, the latter identified with the Babylonian city of Tuṭṭūl (excavated since 1980; reports published in MDOG, cxiii [1…

, (1) A town and fortress in Mūḳān (Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān) lying S. of the river Aras (Araxes), between Ardabīl and Bard̲h̲aʿa in Arrān. Bād̲j̲arwān is mentioned several times in the accounts of the Muslim conquest. Its capture by al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲ b. Ḳays al-Kindī seems to have been the signal for the final collapse of resistance throughout the province (Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ , 326). It was occupied by Saʿīd b. ʿAmr al-Ḥaras̲h̲ī during his campaign against the Ḵh̲azars in 112/730 (D. M. Dunlop, History of the Jewish Khazars , Princeton 1954, 72-74). After the Umayya…

, the eldest son of Yaḥyā al-Barmakī, played an important part during the reign of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd, in the first years of the domination of the Barāmika [ q.v.]. As tutor to the crown prince al-Amīn, on whose behalf he caused the customary oath of loyalty to be sworn by the notables, he was particularly distinguished by the benevolence he showed towards the inhabitants of the eastern provinces and by his policy of conciliation with regard to the ʿAlids, perhaps going so far as to support the establishment of an independe…

, a legendary or semi-legendary younger contemporary of Muḥammad, said to have been killed at the battle of Ṣiffīn in 37/657, fighting on the side of ʿAlī. The nisba al-Ḳaranī connects him with the Ḳaran sub-group of the Yemeni tribe of Murād [ q.v.], and legend puts his early life in the Yemen. Uways first appears in the works of writers of the 3rd/9th century, Ibn Saʿd and Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, as an impoverished and ragged figure who chose to live a life of solitude. Muḥammad had allegedly foretold that Uways would come to see his second successor, ʿUmar, and said that Uways was both his bosom friend ( k…

b. Muṣʿab b. Ruzayḳ, called D̲h̲u ’l-Yamīhayn (? “the ambidextrous”), b. 159/776, d. 207/822, the founder of a short line of governors in K̲h̲urāsān during the high ʿAbbāsid period, the Ṭāhirids [ q.v.]. His forebears had the aristocratic Arabic nisba of “al-K̲h̲uzāʿī”, but were almost certainly of eastern Persian mawlā stock, Muṣʿab having played a part in the ʿAbbāsid Revolution as secretary to the dāʿī Sulaymān b. Kat̲h̲īr [ q.v.]. He and his son al-Ḥusayn were rewarded with the governorship of Pūs̲h̲ang [see būs̲h̲and̲j̲ ], and Muṣʿab at least apparently governed Harāt also. …

, Abu ’l-Walīd, Arab poet of the end of the 2nd/8th century. An orphan, he settled at an early age at Baṣra with his mother, and, when he showed signs of talent, the Ḳaysites of the town who, since the death of Bas̲h̲s̲h̲ār b. Burd (a mawlā of the Banū ʿUḳayl) had not possessed any poet of eminence, adopted him and fabricated for him a Ḳaysite genealogy. His formative period at an end, he went to al-Raḳḳa to Ḏj̲aʿfar b. Yaḥyā al-Barmakī, who presented him to al-Ras̲h̲īd, and, from then on, he became the panegyrist of t…

al-ʿUḳaylī , the leader of a rebellion of the North Arab or Ḳaysī tribesmen in al-D̲j̲azīra against the central authority of the ʿAbbāsids during the caliphates of al-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn. We find him mentioned in 196/811-12 as the head of zawāḳīl , lawless bands of Arabs, mainly Ḳaysīs, who had taken advantage of the breakdown of rule during the civil war (see on the term zawāḳīl, D. Ayalon, The military reforms of caliph al-Muʿtaṣim , their background and consequences, unpubl. paper presented to the Internat. Congress of Orientalists, New Delhi 1964, xerox Jerusalem 1963,…

, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Muḥammad b. ʿAlī (he also had the honorific name of D̲j̲āmal al-Dīn ), vizier of the Zangids; he had been carefully educated by his father, and at a very early age was given an official appointment in the dīwān al-ʿarḍ of the Sald̲j̲ūḳid sultan Maḥmūd. Subsequently he became one of the most intimate friends of Zangī, who made him governor of Naṣībīn and al-Raḳḳa and entrusted him with general supervision of the whole empire. After Zangī’s assassination he very nearly shared his master’s ¶ fate, but succeeded in leading the troops to Mosul. Zangī’s son, Sayf al-Dīn…

b. Alï , cousin of the caliphs Abu ’l-ʿAbbās al-Saffāḥ and Abū Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Manṣūr. In the reign of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd ʿAbd al-Malik led several campaigns against the Byzantines, in 174/790-1, in 181/797-8, and according to some authorities also in 175/791-2, although other sources assert that in this year the forces were commanded not by ʿAbd al-Malik but by his son ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. He was also for some time governor of Medina and held the same office in Egypt. At length, however, he could not escap…

Muḥammad ( b. ʿAbd Allāh ) b. Razīn al Ḵh̲uzāʿī , Arab poet, died about 200/915. Like his relative Diʿbil [ q.v.], he lived at the court of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd for whom he wrote panegyrics, and afterwards dirges. He then went to al-Raḳḳa and obtained the favours of the amīr ʿUḳba b. al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲, remaining his boon-companion and court poet until 196/811.—To judge by the rare fragments of his work that have been preserved, Abu ’l-S̲h̲īṣ does not appear as an orginal poet in his panegyrics, hunting poe…

, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḥusayn al-Tamgrūtī al-Darʿī al-Raḳḳī (from al-Raḳḳa [ q.v.], his native town), a very famous Moroccan saint. Born in the zāwiya of Sayyid al-Nās as it was called (from the name of the Prophet), the founder of which was Abū Isḥāḳ al-Anṣārī, known under the name of Sayyidī Ibrāhīm al-Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲, he grew up there in prayer and asceticism. Accompanied by the son of this latter, Aḥmad, he went to the zāwiya of Tamgrūt, founded by Abū Ḥafṣ, ʿUmar b. Aḥmad al-Anṣārī, in Ramaḍān 983/Dec.-Jan. 1575-76, and settled there until his death on Friday 12 …

(a.), a shadowy group of Arab brigands and mercenaries active in al-S̲h̲ām and al-D̲j̲azīra [ q.vv.] during the ʿAbbāsid period (the etymology of the designation is unclear: the Arabic verb zawḳala means “to let the two ends of a turban hang down from one’s shoulders”). Although most of the zawāḳīl known by name hail from Ḳaysī tribes (as noted by D. Ayalon, The military reforms of Caliph al-Muʿtaṣim …, 16-18, in Islam and the Abode of War , London 1994), they appear to have been a group of tribal outcasts, like many such brigand groups [see Ṣuʿlūk and liṣṣ ]. ʿAmr b. ʿA…

, abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 329-33/940-4, son of al-Muḳtadir [ q.v.] and a slave-girl named K̲h̲alūb. At the age of 26 on 21 Rabīʿ I 329/24 Dec. 940 he succeeded his half-brother al-Rāḍī [ q.v.]; by this time the caliphate had sunk so low that five days passed after the death of al-Rāḍī before steps were taken to choose his successor. Al-Muttaḳī at once confirmed the Amīr al-Umarāʾ Bed̲j̲kem [ q.v. in EI 1] in office; after his death however, in Rad̲j̲ab 324/April 941, the Turks and Daylamīs in the army began to quarrel with one another. Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Barīdī [see al-barīdī …

, S̲h̲iʿite rebel. Said to have been a donkey-driver, and afterwards a bandit, he entered the service of Yazīd b. Mazyad al-S̲h̲aybānī in Armenia, and was engaged against the Ḵh̲urramiyya [ q.v.]. Later he commanded Yazīd’s vanguard against Hart̲h̲ama in the civil war between al-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn, but subsequently changed sides and joined Hart̲h̲ama. Obtaining permission to go on pilgrimage to Mecca, he openly revolted, and after defeating the troops sent against him went to al-Raḳḳa. Here he met the ʿAlid Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Ṭabāṭabā [ q.v.], whom he persuaded to go to Kūfa, …

(a., "the elevated land"). 1. Al-Samāwa was the name given, in the definition of al-Bakrī ( Muʿd̲j̲am mā staʿd̲j̲am , Cairo 1364-71/1945-51, iii, 754, copied by Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 245), during mediaeval Islamic times to the desert and steppeland lying between al-Kūfa and Syria. Earlier geographers were more specific. Thus Ibn Ḥawḳal (ed. Kramers, 22, 34-5, tr. Kramers-Wiet, 21, 34, see also his map of the Arabian peninsula) defines it as the plain stretching from Dūmat al-Ḏj̲andal [ q.v.] in northwestern Arabia to ʿAyn al-Tamr [ q.v.] in the desert on the fringes of th…

, ʿUbayd Allāh (not ʿAbd Allāh, which was the name of his brother) b. Ḳays b. S̲h̲urayk̲h̲ . Arab poet of the Umayyad period. He belonged to the Banū ʿĀmir b. Luʾayy, one of the lesser clans of the Ḳurays̲h̲. He was born at Mecca, perhaps in the twenties (the anecdote Ag̲h̲ānī 3, v, 158, 20 which points to 12/633 is not authentic) and grew up in the Ḥid̲j̲āz. In 37/657 after the battle of Ṣiffīn he moved with some of his kinsmen to al-Raḳḳa in the D̲j̲azīra (Mesopotamia); amongst them was ʿAbd al-Wāḥid b. Abī Saʿd, whose daughter Ruḳayya is the l…

, Greek Μασχάνη, from the Syriac Maškenē (cf. Pauly-Wissowa, xiv/1, col. 2963), a small town, now a village, in the northern part of Syria. The name is mentioned by Stephanus of Byzantium in regard to the war of Septimius Severus against the Parthians in 224 A.D. The Arabic geographers and chroniclers of the Middle Ages only mention Bālis [ q.v.] in this region, situated 4 km./2½ miles to the south-east of Maskana. The place is situated in long. 38° 05′ N. and 36° lat. E. at about 100 km./63 miles to the east of Ḥalab [ q.v.] or Aleppo on a Pleistocene terrace which forces the Euphrates (al-Furāt [ q.v…

, Zaydī kalām theologian from al-Raḳḳa, active in the second ¶ half of the 2nd/8th century. Little is known about his life. He is said to have pledged allegiance to the ʿAlid pretender Yaḥyā b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Ḥasan and participated in debates with His̲h̲ām b. al-Ḥakam [ q.v.], Ḍirār b. ʿAmr [ q.v.], and the Ibāḍī ʿAbd Allāh b. Yazīd in the circle of the Barmakid Yaḥyā b. K̲h̲ālid. In legendary reports he is accused of having poisoned the ʿAlid Idrīs b. ʿAbd Allāh in the Mag̲h̲rib at the instigation of the caliph Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd or of Yaḥyā b. …

, in full nahr ʿīsā ibn ʿalī , was in the Middle Ages one of the four major canals leading to the general vicinity of Bag̲h̲dād, the others being Nahr al-Malik, Nahr Ṣarṣar and Nahr al-Ṣarāt (Muḳaddasī, 124). Watering the district of Fīrūz Sābūr, Nahr ʿĪsā flowed past the villages and domains situated along both banks until it reached the town of al-Muḥawwal west of Bag̲h̲dād, and from there into the Tigris ( Taʾrīk̲h̲ Bag̲h̲dād , i, 111-2; Le Strange, Baghdad , Map III). A tributary of the Euphrates, it was deep enough to allow large boats coming from …

, 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…