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, a technical term of fiscal practice in the hydraulic civilisation of early Islamic ʿIrāḳ, doubtless going back to earlier periods there. It is defined by al-K̲h̲wārazmī in his Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm , 70, as “a chain or cable which is fastened right across a river and which prevents boats from getting past”, and more specifically by Ibn Rusta, 185, tr. Wiet, 213, as a barrier across the Tigris at Ḥawānīt near Dayr al-ʿĀḳūl [ q.v.] consisting of a cable stretched ¶ between two ships at each side of the river, preventing ships passing by night (and thus evading the tolls levied b…

, rūdbār , meaning literally in Persian, a district along a river or a district intersected by rivers, and a frequent toponym in Islamic Persia. Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 770-8, and al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābad, vi, 187-90, list Rūd̲h̲bārs at Iṣfahān, Ṭūs, Balk̲h̲, Marw, Hamad̲h̲ān and Bag̲h̲dād, and in the provinces of S̲h̲āsh and Daylam. As homes or places of origin of noted scholars, the most significant of these were the Rūd̲h̲bār by the gate of Ṭābarān, one of the two townships making up Ṭūs [ q.v.]; the one near Bag̲h̲dād; and the one near Hamad̲h̲ān. In the historical geog…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥammad, littérateur of the Fāṭimid period, and librarian and boon-companion to the caliph al-ʿAzīz (365-86/975-96 [ q.v.]), died at Fusṭāṭ in 388/988 or possibly in the succeeding decade. Ibn K̲h̲allikān explains the unusual cognomen S̲h̲ābus̲h̲tī as being a name of Daylamī origin, and not a nisba ; an origin in s̲h̲āh pus̲h̲tī “he who guards the king’s back” has been somewhat fancifully suggested. Al-S̲h̲ābus̲h̲ī’s works included a K. al-Yusr baʿd al-ʿusr , a Marātib al-fuḳahāʾ , a K. al-Tawḳīf wa ’l-tak̲h̲wīf , a K. al-Zuhd wa ’l-mawāʿiẓ …

, a river of the northern part of what is now the Mongolian People’s Republic; it joins the Selenga to flow northwards eventually into Lake Baikal. ¶ For Turcologists, the banks of this river are of supreme importance as the locus for the Old Turkish inscriptions, carved in the middle decades of the 8th century in a so-called “runic” script, in fact derived ultimately from the Aramaic one [see turks. Languages]. These inscriptions are the royal annals of the Köktürk empire, centred on this region till its fall in 744 and supersession by a Uyg̲h̲ur [ q.v.] grouping based on Ḳara Balg̲h̲asun…

, a town on the Murg̲h̲āb river in mediaeval K̲h̲urāsān, five or six stages up river from the city of Marw al-S̲h̲āhid̲j̲ān [ q.v.], where the river leaves the mountainous region of G̲h̲arčistān [see g̲h̲ard̲j̲istān ] and enters the steppe lands of what is now the southern part of the Ḳara Ḳum [ q.v.]. The site seems to be marked by the ruins at the modern Afg̲h̲ān town of Bālā Murg̲h̲āb (inlat. 35° 35′ N. and long 63° 20′ E.) described by C. E. Yate in his Northern Afghanistan or letters from the Afghan Boundary Commission , Edinburgh and London 1888, 208; the modern…

, a place in the desert fringes of the early Islamic region of the Balḳāʾ [ q.v.], in what is now Jordan, some 22 km./14 miles southeast of ʿAmmān and 16 km./10 miles northeast of the Umayyad palace of Ms̲h̲attā or Mus̲h̲attā [ q.v.]. Visible there are the remains of an Umayyad settlement. These include traces of a palace, a tower which may have been part of a mosque, and signs of an extensive irrigation system in the form of sites of three dams nearby plus a fine stone-lined cistern, still much used by Bedouins of the Banū Ṣak̲h̲r for wa…

, a small town in northeastern Persia in the modern province of K̲h̲urāsān. It is on the Mas̲h̲had-Harāt highway, 150 km/96 miles from Mas̲h̲had and 75 km/48 miles from the Afg̲h̲ān frontier (lat. 35° 16′ N., long. 60° 36′ E.). The earlier Islamic name of Turbat-i D̲j̲ām was Būzad̲j̲ān or Pūčkān (both names in Mustawfī, Nuzha , 177, tr. 171, cf. also 143-4, tr. 151-2, where he calls it D̲j̲ām); it was here that the great mathematician Abu ’l-Wafāʾ al-Būzad̲j̲ānī (d. 368/998 [ q.v.]) was born. The geographers describe it being four stages from Nīs̲h̲āpūr, in a fertile agricultu…

, Mohammed Marmaduke William (1875-1936), English traveller, novelist, polemicist and educationist, who became a convert to Islam at a time when British converts to Islam were much rarer than later in the 20th century, and is now best remembered for his Ḳurʾān translation, The meaning of the Glorious Koran . Born in London, the son of an Anglican clergyman and with two step-sisters who were Anglican nuns, his boyhood and formative years were spent in rural Suffolk, from which he acquired a nostalgic view of a countryside way of life which was t…

, modern Vezirköprü, a small town of northern Anatolia, situated 35 km/21 miles north of Merzifon [see merzifūn ] and 18 km/12 miles south of the lowest stretch of the Kizil Irmak [see Ḳi̊zi̊l-i̊rmāḳ ] (lat. 41° 09’ N, long. 35° 27’ E). There was apparently a town there or nearby, in classical times, in what was then southern Pamphylia, and in Byzantine times, the town of Gedegara (in Kātib Čelebi’s Ḏj̲ihān-nümā , Kedeg̲h̲ara). In high Ottoman times, from the 10th/16th century onwards, it came within the sand̲j̲aḳ of Amasya in the eyālet of Sivas. Ewliyā Čelebi vi…

, a tide of rulers in Central Asia and what is now Afg̲h̲ānistān during the early Islamic period ¶ and, presumably, in pre-Islamic times also. The form s̲h̲ār must be an attempt to render in Arabic orthography the MP and NP form s̲h̲ēr/s̲h̲īr (< OP k̲h̲s̲h̲at̲h̲riya “ruler”, and not from s̲h̲ēr “lion”; see Marquart, Ērānšahr , 79). The title appears in early Islamic texts on the geography and history of the eastern Iranian fringes. Thus the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. Minorsky 105, comm. 327-8, gives S̲h̲ār as the tide of the ruler of the district of G̲h̲arčistān in northern Afg̲h̲ānistān [see g̲h̲ard…

, early Arabic form K̲h̲arluk̲h̲, Persian K̲h̲alluk̲h̲ (whence frequent confusion in the sources with the K̲h̲alad̲j̲ [ q.v.], Chinese Ko-lo-lu (northwestern Middle Chinese *Kâr-lâ-luk), a Turkish tribal group in Central Asia. They were originally a small federation of three tribes (whence the name given to them in the Uyg̲h̲ur Shine-usu inscription ca. 760 of Uč Ḳarli̊ḳ; the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , 98, on the other hand, mentions seven tribes of the Ḳarluḳ), and comparatively unimportant. Their paramount chief never bore the title of k̲h̲ag̲h̲an or k̲h̲an , but i…

, Zarah , an inland lake in Sīstān [ q.v.], now straddling the borders of Persia and Afg̲h̲ānistān and the largest stretch of inland fresh water on the Iranian plateau. The name comes from Avestan zrayah-, O Pers. drayah- “sea, lake”. The lake played a role in ancient Iranian legend about a Saos̲h̲yant or Redeemer, a son of Zoroaster, who would arise ¶ from it; Islamised versions of such legends describe King Solomon as commanding his army of jinn to lower the surface of the lake so that the land masses thereby appearing could be used for agriculture (see Bosworth, The Saffarids of Sistan , 36). The…

, al-Ḳurḥ , a town and district of mediaeval Islamic times in the northern Ḥid̲j̲āz, mentioned in early Islamic sources as of prime importance, but not now known under this name. It seems very likely that the place had a role in the pre-Islamic history of the Wādī ’l-Ḳurā [ q.v.], where the settlement of later Ḳurḥ was situated, although the principal towns then were Dēdān (modern al-K̲h̲urayba) and al-Ḥid̲j̲r [ q.v.] or Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ (modern al-ʿUlā). According to Yāḳūt, Buldān , Beirut 1374-6/1955-7, iv, 320-1, and al-Samhūdī, Wafāʾ al-wafaʾ , ed. M. M. ʿAbd a…

, the s̲h̲uhra of Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Manṣūr Mubārak S̲h̲āh al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī , Persian author in India during the time of the last G̲h̲aznawids, the G̲h̲ūrids and the first Slave Kings of Dihlī (later 6th/12th century-early 7th/13th century). His birth date and place are both unknown, but he was a descendant, so he says, on his father’s side from the caliph Abū Bakr and on his mother’s from the Turkish amīr Bilgetigin, the immediate predecessor in G̲h̲azna of Sebüktigin and father-in-law of Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna; he may …

, Abū Manṣūr Būya b. Rukn al-Dawla Ḥasan , Būyid ruler in Iṣfahān, Rayy and most of D̲j̲ibāl 366-73/976-84. His father Rukn al-Dawla had before his death partitioned his lands between Muʾayyid al-Dawla (in Iṣfahān, Rayy and their dependencies) and another son Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla ʿAlī [ q.v.] (in Hamadān and Kurdish D̲j̲ibāl). In the event, Muʾayyid al-Dawla acknowledged the overlordship of their other brother, ʿAḍud al-Dawla [ q.v.] of Fārs, and with the latter’s support prevented Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla from assuming control in the greater part of his allotted territori…

, a former city of Muslim Bengal during Mug̲h̲al times, now a small town 6 km/4 miles to the east of the ruinous Mug̲h̲al site, in the Santāl Parganas District of Bihar Province in the Indian ¶ Union (lat. 25° 3ʹ N, long. 87° 50′ E.). To its west run the basaltic Rād̲j̲mahāl Hills of central Bihār. Rād̲j̲mahāl city grew up in the strategically important gap between the Hills and the right bank of the Ganges, a corridor defended in Mug̲h̲al times by the fortress of Teliāgarhi. When the Rād̲j̲put governor of the Mug̲h̲als, Mān Singh [ q.v.], had in 1000/1592 conquered Orissa [see úrisā …

, Zikrīs , a Muslim sect of southern Balūčistān, especially strong amongst the Balūč of Makrān [ q.v.], but also with some representation amongst the Brahūīs of further north. The sect’s name derives from the fact that its adherents exalted the liturgical recitations of formulae including the name and titles of God, sc. d̲h̲ikr [ q.v.], above the formal Muslim worship, the ṣalāt or namāz . The D̲h̲ikrīs were believed by Hughes-Buller to stem from the North Indian heterodox movement of the Mahdawiyya, the followers of Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdī of D̲j̲awnpūr (847-91…

, an ethnie and, until recently, a linguistic group originally concentrated in westcentral Afg̲h̲ānistān, in the modern province of G̲h̲ōrāt, and carrying on there a semi-pastoral and semi-agricultural way of life; now however groups of them have become dispersed throughout northern and central Afg̲h̲ānistān. They number at most 10,000 souls. For other communities in Afg̲h̲ānistān of mixed Turkish-Mongol origin, see hazāras in Suppl. Unlike the S̲h̲īʿī Hazāras, the Mog̲h̲ols are Sunnī. The origins of these Mog̲h̲ols probably lie in the appearance in Afg̲h̲ānistān o…

, the spelling in the Indo-Muslim sources for the ancient Indian town of Somnāth , properly Somanātha “lord of soma” (the hallucinogenic drink of the early Indo-Iranians), referring to Siva (S̲h̲iva), and, by extension, “lord of the moon”. It is now an ancient ruined town on the southwestern coast of the Kāt́hīāwāŕ peninsula of western India, in what was the older Indo-Muslim sultanate of Gud̲j̲arāt [ q.v.]. Recent excavations have revealed settlement there dating back to 1500 B.C., and Somnāth plays a part ¶ in the story of the death of Kṛṣna (Kris̲h̲na) in the Mahābhārata …

, an Arab tribe which in Umayyad times claimed descent from Kahlān b. Sabaʾ of Yemen and relationship with Lak̲h̲m and ʿĀmila; this certainly corresponded with the prevailing political alliances. However, the North Arab tribes claimed that D̲j̲ud̲h̲ām, Ḳuḍāʿa and Lak̲h̲m were originally of Nizār but had later assumed Yemenī descent. D̲j̲ud̲h̲ām were among the nomads who had settled in pre-Islamic times on the borders of Byzantine Syria and Palestine; they held places like Madyan, ʿAmmān, Maʿān a…

, a river of Inner Asia, and like many rivers in that region, one without outlet to the sea or to any more extensive river system. It rises in the Kūh-i Ḥiṣār mountains in north-central Afg̲h̲ānistān, flows westwards and receives tributaries from the Band-i Turkistān and Paropamisus mountains in north-western Afg̲h̲ānistān. Some 250 miles from its source, it reaches the town of Bālā-Murg̲h̲āb in the modern Bādg̲h̲īs province of Afg̲h̲ānistan, and then enters the Turkmen SSR and flows for another 250 miles northwards towards the Ḳara Ḳum desert [ q.v.] to New Marw (Russ. Mary), and t…

, Muṭṭawwiʿa (a.), lit. “those who perform supererogatory deeds of piety, those over and above the duties laid upon them by the S̲h̲arīʿa ” echoing the use of the verb taṭawwaʿa in Ḳurʾān, II, 153/158, 180/184, IX, 80/79, the term used in military contexts for volunteer fighters. Al-Samʿānī defines them ( Ansāb , ed. Haydarābād, xii, 317) as “a group who devote themselves to g̲h̲azw and d̲j̲ihād , station themselves in ribāṭs along the frontiers ( t̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr) and who go beyond the call of duty ¶ ( taṭawwaʿū ) in g̲h̲azw and undertake this last in the lands of u…

b. Ḥarb b. Umayya, Arab commander of the conquests period, son of the Meccan leader Abū Sufyān [ q.v.] by his wife Zaynab bt. Nawfal and half-brother of the subsequent caliph Muʿāwiya I [ q.v.], d. 18/639 without progeny (Ibn Ḳutayba, Maʿārif ed. ʿUkās̲h̲a, 344-5). With his father and brother, he became a Muslim at the conquest of Mecca in 8/630, took part in the ensuing battle of Ḥunayn [ q.v.] and was one of “those whose hearts are won over”, receiving from the Prophet a gift of 100 camels and 40 ounces of silver (Ibn Saʿd, ii/1, 110, vii/2, 127; al-Wāḳidī, iii, 944-5; and see al-muʾallafa ḳulūbuh…

, the “Privy Chamber” of the Ottoman palace organisation and the most important of the four departments comprising the Enderūn or Inside Service (the others being, in decreasing order of importance, the Treasury or K̲h̲azīne [ q.v.] the Privy Larder or Kilār-i̊ K̲h̲āṣṣ and the Great and Little Chambers or Büyük ve Küčük Odalar . The K̲h̲āṣṣ Oda as we know it was created by Meḥemmed the Conqueror, who in his Ḳānūn-nāme mentions by title its four chief officers and its staff of 32 pages or Ič Og̲h̲lam [ q.v.], who became known as the K̲h̲āṣṣ Oda g̲h̲ilmāni̊ or K̲h̲āṣṣ Odali̊lar …

, Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad al-Bayhaḳī, historian of the Sāmānid period, who flourished in the middle decades of the 4th/10th century but whose exact dates of birth and death are unknown. According to the local historian of Bayhaḳ, Ibn Funduḳ [see al-bayhaḳī , ẓahīr al-dīn ... b. funduḳ ], he was a pupil of the rather shadowy nadīm and adīb Ibrahīm b. Muḥammad al-Bayhaḳī [ q.v.], author of the K. al-Maḥāsin wa ’l-masāwī , and according to al-T̲h̲aʿālibī, he was in the service of the Muḥtād̲j̲id amīr s of Čag̲h̲āniyān [see muḥtād̲j̲ids ], Abū Bakr Muḥammad and Abū…

b. Ḏj̲ahān-S̲h̲āh b. S̲h̲āh ʿĀlam i , Nāṣir al-Dīn (1131-61/1719-48), surnamed Raws̲h̲an Ak̲h̲tar, “Brillant Star”, the last of the Mug̲h̲al emperors in Dihlī to enjoy real power. His father had been one of three brothers who perished in disputing the crown with their eldest brother D̲j̲ahān-dār S̲h̲āh b. S̲h̲āh ʿĀlam Bahādur. Muḥammad S̲h̲āh was born on 24 Rabīʿ I 1114/7 August 1702, and hailed as emperor by the two Sayyid brothers, Sayyid ʿAbd Allāh and Sayyid Ḥusayn, after the two brief reigns of Muḥammad S̲h̲āh’s cousin…

, conventionally Qayen, etc., a town of eastern Persia (lat. 33° 43′ N., long. 59° 06′ E.), now in the administrative province of K̲h̲urāsān but in mediaeval Islamic times falling within the region known as Ḳūhistān [ q.v.]. It lies on the road connecting the urban centres of northern K̲h̲urāsān (Mas̲h̲had, Turbat-i Ḥaydariyya, etc.) with Bird̲j̲and, Persian Sīstān and Zāhidān. Ḳāʾin must be an ancient town, but virtually nothing is known of it before the descriptions of the 4th/10th century geographers. The 8th century Armenian geo…

(II) b. Manṣūr b. Nūḥ , Sāmānid amīr initially in Transoxania and K̲h̲urāsān. latterly in the first province only (366-87/977-97), given after his death the honorific al-Amīr al-Raḍī (“the Wellpleasing”). The last of his line to enjoy a reign of any significant length, Nūḥ succeeded his father Manṣūr (I) [ q.v.] at the age of 13, real power being in the hands of his mother and the vizier Abu ’l-Ḥusayn ʿUtbī, the last vizier to the Sāmānids worthy of the title. However, authority in the state fell more and more into the hands of the great milita…

, Maham , a town in the district and ¶ taḥṣīl of Rohtak in India, on the road connecting Dihlī and Hānsī, situated in lat. 28° 58′ N. and long. 76° 18′ E.; it was formerly in the Pand̲j̲āb, but since 1947 has fallen within the Indian Union (Hariana State). It was probably founded by Rād̲j̲pūt princes, but was allegedly destroyed at the end of the 12th century by Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad G̲h̲ūrī [see g̲h̲ūrids ]. The D̲j̲āmiʿ Masd̲j̲id has an inscription from the reign of Humāyūn, recording its construction by Bēgam Sulṭān in 1531, and another from A…

(a.), said to be an Arabised form of Pers. čawgān “polo stick” [see čawgān ]. The intrusive l makes this difficult, but D.N. MacKenzie, A concise dictionary of Pahlavi , London 1971, 22, has * caw ( l) agān (“of doubtful transcription”). At all events, the curve of a polo stick makes it a suitable figurative expression, either as a simile [see tas̲h̲bīh ] or as a metaphor [see istiʿāra ], in classical Arabic, Persian and Turkish literatures, for the curving eyebrows and locks or tresses of hair of a beautiful girl; see Annemarie Schimmel, The two-colored brocade. The imagery of Persian poetry, C…

, later form Marg̲h̲elān , a town of Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.] in Central Asia, situated to the south of the Ṣi̊r Daryā [ q.v.] or Jaxartes, on a small river now called the Margelan Say. ¶ It was a place of modest importance in the first Islamic centuries as one of the main towns, with inter alia Andid̲j̲ān [ q.v.], of the district of Farg̲h̲āna known as Lower Nasyā; according to al-Mukaddasī, 272 (see also Le Strange, Lands , 479; Ibn Ḥawḳal 2, 513-14, tr. 491; al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , facs. ed. f. 522a), it had a Friday mosque and markets. Coins were first minted there …

, Abū Ayyūb Sulaymān b. Mak̲h̲lad (the nisba stemming from Mūriyān in Ahwāz, see Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am , ed. Beirut, v, 221), secretary of the second ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Manṣūr [ q.v.]. Various stories are given in the sources about how he came to enjoy al-Manṣūr’s confidence: that in the time of the last Umayyad caliph Marwān b. Muḥammad he had saved the ʿAbbāsid Abū D̲j̲aʿfar from a flogging for embezzling state funds (al-Yaʿḳūbī, al-D̲j̲ahs̲h̲iyārī): that he was a freed slave of al-Saffah’s, taken into his successor’s service (…

, Narmāsīr , a town and a district of eastern Kirmān [ q.v.] in mediaeval Islamic Persia, lying to the south-east of Bam [ q.v.], adjacent to the southern end of the Das̲h̲t-i Lūṭ and on the road connecting Kirmān with Sīstān. The classical Islamic geographers list the district as one of the five kūras of Kirmān and describe the town as prosperous and populous, the resort of merchants who travelled from K̲h̲urāsān to ʿUmān and an emporium for Indian goods. It had a protective wall with four gates, a citadel and a congregationa…

, a small town in the s̲h̲ahrastān of Ardakān [ q.v.] in the modern Persian ustān or province of Yazd, situated 32 miles/48 km. to the northwest of Yazd. The mediaeval geographers (e.g. Ibn Ḥawḳal 2, 263, 287, tr. Kramers and Wiet, 260, 281; Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. Minorsky, 29, § 29.45; Le Strange, Lands , 285) describe it as being on the Iṣfahān-Yazd road, 10 farsak̲h̲s from Yazd. Lying as it does on the southern fringe of the Great Desert, its irrigation comes from ḳanāts [ q.v.] (see Lambton, Landlord and peasant in Persia 1, 219). Its population in ca. 1950 was 3,798. (C.E. Bosworth) Bibliography I…

, Ik̲h̲tiyār al-Dīn , Afg̲h̲ān adventurer and commander active in the Muslim conquest of northern India under the generals of the G̲h̲ūrids [ q.v.] and the one who first established Muslim power in Bengal. Having failed to find preferment in G̲h̲azna with Sultan Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Sām [ q.v.] of G̲h̲ūr and then in Dihlī, allegedly on account of his unprepossessing appearance, Muḥammad Bak̲h̲tiyār began as a local g̲h̲āzī leader in the districts of Badāʾūn and Awadh [ q.vv.] until he was able, under the aegis of Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Aybak [ q.v.] of Dihlī, to make important conquests in Bihār ca. …

(a.), correctly muns̲h̲iʾ , a secretary, an exponent of the high-flown epistolary style general in mediaeval Islamic chanceries from the 2nd/8th century onwards and known as ins̲h̲āʾ [ q.v.]. In the Persian and Indo-Muslim worlds, the term muns̲h̲ī was used for secretaries in the ruler’s chancery, e.g. among the Ṣafawids, for the whom the State Scribe, the muns̲h̲ī al-mamalīk , was a very important official who apparendy shared responsibility for the S̲h̲āh’s correspondence with the wāḳiʿa-nuwīs or Recorder (see Tad̲h̲kirat al-mulūk , tr. Minorsky, Lond…

, the name of a mediaeval Hindu power which covered large parts of the Deccan from the mid-14th century to the later 17th century and which is relevant to this Encyclopaedia because of the incessant warfare between its Rād̲j̲ās (some sixty of whom, from various, distinct lineages, issued royal inscriptions claiming sovereignty over India south of the Krishna river) and the Muslim sultanates of the Deccan. It appears in Indo-Muslim sources as Bid̲j̲anagar. The name Vid̲j̲ayanagara, meaning “City of victory”, was that of the state’s original capital on the upper Tungab…

, the coastal region of southern Balūčistān, extending roughly from the Somniani Bay in the East to the eastern fringes of the region of Bas̲h̲kardia [see bas̲h̲kard in Suppl.] in the west. The modern political boundary between Pakistan and Iran thus bisects the mediaeval Makrān. The east-to-west running Siyāhān range of mountains, just to the north of the Mas̲h̲kēl and Rak̲h̲s̲h̲ān valleys, may be regarded as Makrān’s northern boundary. In British Indian times, this range formed the boundary between the southwestern part of the Kalāt native state [see kilāt ] and the K̲h̲ārān one [ q.v.]…

, modern Turkish Simav , a town of northwestern Anatolia, lying on the river of the same name and just to the south-east of the Simav Gölü, 90 km/58 miles as the crow flies to the southwest of Kütahya [ q.v.] and on the road connecting Balıkesir with Usak (lat. 39° 05′ N., long. 28° 59′ E., altitude 823 m/2,700 feet). In later Ottoman times, it was the chef-lieu of a ḳaḍāʾ of the same name, and is now the centre of the ilçe or district of Simav in the il or province of Kütahya. One should not confuse it, as did Babinger in his EI 1 art., with Simāwnā in eastern Thrace, the birthplace of the early Ot…

(a.) “equality”, the maṣdar of form III of the verb sawiya “to be equal to, be worth”, with the same sense as form I; in modern times, it has been ¶ used for the political concept of human equality (Ottoman Turkish müsāwāt , modern Turkish mūsavat , Persian musāwāt , barābārī ). The root is found frequently in the Ḳurʾān, though only once in form III (XVIII, 95/96), in the sense “to make level, even up”. In the literary and cultural controversies of the ʿAbbāsid period, those of the S̲h̲uʿūbiyya [ q.v.], the non-Arabs seeking social equality with the ruling class of Arabs were sometimes known as the a…

, in mediaeval times a district and town, now a district only, of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān in northwestern Persia. It lies to the south of Ardabīl, and is bounded on the east by that part of the Elburz chain which separates Gīlān and Tālis̲h̲ in the Caspian coastlands from the upland interior of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, the mountains here rising to over 10,000 feet. Much of the district is drained by the left-bank tributaries of the Ḳi̊zi̊l Uzun affluent of the Safīd-Rūd. In mediaeval times it adjoined on the east the district of Ṭārom and was part of the general region called Daylam [ qq.v.]. The actual name…

, a former Native State of British India, when three of its component districts fell within Rād̲j̲pūtānā and three in Central India, with its centre in the town of the same name (lat. 26° 10’ N., long 75° 50’ E.). The former Tonk State is now a District of Rād̲j̲āst̲h̲ān in the Indian Union. Tonk was founded by Amīr K̲h̲ān (d. 1834 [ q.v.]), a Pathan from Bunēr who rose, first in the service of the Rohillas [ q.v.] and then in the army of D̲j̲aswant Singh Holkar (1798). He submitted to the British in 1817. During the Sepoy Mutiny, his son Wazīr Muḥammad K̲h̲ān remained lo…

(Turkish “black lake”), ḳarakul , the name of various lakes in Central Asia and of a modern town in the Uzbek SSR. The best-known lake is that lying at the western extremity of the Zarafs̲h̲ān River in Sog̲h̲dia (modern Uzbekistan), midway between Buk̲h̲ārā and Čārd̲j̲ūy (mediaeval Āmul-i S̲h̲aṭṭ, see āmul . 2). The basin in which it lay was known as the Sāmd̲j̲an basin, see Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 315, and Ibn Ḥawḳal, ed. Kramers, 485, tr. Kramers and Wiet, 466. In Nars̲h̲ak̲h̲ī’s Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Buk̲h̲ārā , ed. Schefer, 17, tr. Frye, 19, the lake is given both the Tur…

, the name of an eastern Iranian dynasty which flourished as an independent power in the 6th/12th century and the early years of the 7th/13th century and which was based on the region of G̲h̲ūr [ q.v.] in what is now central Afg̲h̲ānistān with its capital at Fīrūzkūh [ q.v.]. 1. Origins and early history. The family name of the G̲h̲ūrid Sultans was S̲h̲anasb/S̲h̲ansab (< MP Gus̲h̲nasp; cf. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch , 282, and Marquart, Das Reich Zābul , in Festschrift E. Sachau , 289, n. 3), and in the time of their florescence, attempts were made to at…

bi ’llāh , Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAbd Allāh , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 333-4/944-6, son of the caliph al-Muḳtafī [ q.v.] by a Greek slave concubine called G̲h̲uṣn. When the commander-in-chief of the Turkish soldiery in Bag̲h̲dād, Tūzūn, deposed and blinded al-Muttaḳī b. al-Muḳtadir [ q.v.], he raised to the throne one of the latter’s cousins as al-Mustakfī in Ṣafar 333/September-October 944, al-Mustakfī being then aged 41. The situation in ʿIrāḳ was unpropitious for the new ruler. The caliphs were puppets in the hands of the Turkish troops, whose…

, a town in northern Bihār State of the Indian Union (lat. 26° 7′ N.,85° 24″ E.), and also the name of a District of which it is the administrative centre; the District covers the ancient region of Tirhut between the Ganges and the southern border of Nepal. The region was attacked in the 8th/14th century by the Muslim rulers of Bengal; in the next century it passed to the S̲h̲arḳī rulers of D̲j̲awnpur [ q.v.], and then to Sikandar Lōdī of Dihlī. The town of Muẓaffarpur enshrines the name of its founder, the Emperor Akbar’s commander Muẓaffar Khān, dīwān or head of revenue and finance [see dīwān. v] a…

(a.). 1. In Islamic law, this means the rescission of a sale or transaction (synonym, mutāraka ); see for lexical aspects of the term, LA 1, x, 282; TA 1, v, 535; Freytag, Lexicon , iv, 476. 2. In mediaeval Eastern Islamic administrative usage, it denotes the contract of service of officials, in accordance with the term’s further meaning of “the laying down of conditions for an agreement with some one”. We possess the texts of two muwāḍaʿa s made by early Ghaznavid viziers with their sovereign: one made by Aḥmad b. Ḥasan al-Maymandī [ q.v.] with Sultan Masʿūd b. Maḥmūd [ q.v.] on his appointment…

, a town of mediaeval Persia, in what later became known as Luristān [ q.v.], and the chef-lieu of the district of Mihrad̲j̲ānkad̲h̲aḳ. A tributary of the Kark̲h̲ā, which flows into the Kārūn river [ q.v.], is still today known as the Saymareh. The district passed peacefully into the hands of Abū Mūsā al-As̲h̲ʿarī’s Arab troops (al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ , 307), and in mediaeval times prospered as a meetingplace of Arab, Persian and Lur ethnic elements, apart from the devastations of a severe earthquake in 258/872 (al-Ṭabarī, iii, 187…

, 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…

, modern Tkish. Yeşil Irmak (“the Green River”), a river of northern Anatolia, the classical Iris in the province of Pontus (see PW, ix/2, col. 2045). The upper course of the river, called the Tozanli Su, rises in the Köse Dağ to the northeast of Sivas and flows westwards by Tokat [ q.v.] and Turhal. Here there is a fertile plain, the Kazova or “Goose Plain”, which is now irrigated by waters from the Almus dam on the river’s course above it, completed in 1966, and a canal running off and parallel to the river, enabling cereals, sugar-beet and vin…

, a small town of western Persia (lat. 33° 29’ N., long. 51° 57’ E., altitude 1,372 m/4,500 feet) on the lower, southeastern slopes of the Kūh-i Kargas mountains and just off the modern Tehran—Ḳum— Kās̲h̲ān—Yazd road. The early Islamic geographers do not mention it, but Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am , v, 292, describes it as a small town, administratively dependent on Iṣfahān and in the province of D̲j̲ibāl [ q.v.], and situated 20 farsak̲h̲s to the north of Iṣfahān; and Mustawfī (8th/14th century) describes it as protected by the nearby fortress of Was̲h̲ā…

(a.), a tree that figures in Islamic eschatology as growing in Hell, with bitter fruit which the damned are condemned to eat. It is mentioned in the Ḳurʾān three times (XXXVII, 60/62; XLIV, 43; LVI, 52). The lexicographers explain it as an evil-smelling tree that grows in the Tihāma, but also as a medically beneficial one that grows in the Jordan valley around Jericho; and as a foodstuff of the Arabs, composed of fresh butter with dates (see Lane, 1239a-b). Richard Bell, The Qurʾān translated, ii, 556 n. 1, cited as a parallel the same word in Syriac meaning “the hogbean”; Bell…

, Tall , the Arabic name for what is now an archaeological site in the Nāṣiriyya liwāʾ or governorate of ʿIrāḳ (lat. 31° 18’ N., long. 45° 40’ E.). It is the Sumerian and Babylonian Uruk, Biblical Erech (Gen. x. 10), one of the leading cities and religious centres of ancient Babylonia, first surveyed by W. K. Loftus in the 1850s. In early Islamic times it seems to have been a minor place in the district of Kaskar, with a reputation in Islamic tradition as being the birthplace of the Patriarch Ibrāhīm or Abraham (although many other places were mentioned for this) (Yāḳūt, Buldān …

(a.), sing, marfiḳ , “bribes, douceurs”, literally, “benefits, favours”. In mediaeval Islamic society, various terms in addition to this are found, such as ras̲h̲wa / ris̲h̲wa , manāla , d̲j̲aʿāla , hadiyya , etc., with varying degrees of euphemism, for the inducements given either directly to a potential bestower of benefits or as an inducement for a person’s intercession or mediation ( s̲h̲afāʿa , wasāṭa ). In the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, this form of bribery became institutionalised in the caliphate of al-Muḳtadir (295-320/908-32 [ q.v.]), when the vizier Ibn al-Furāt [ q.v.] institute…

, one of the major rivers of Siberia, which flows from sources in the Altai Mountains to the Gulf of Ob and the Kara Sea of the Arctic Ocean. Its course is 3,680 km/2,287 miles long and 5,410 km/3,362 miles long if its main left-bank affluent, the Irtysh [see irtis̲h̲ in Suppl.] is included. Its whole basin covers a huge area of western Siberia. In early historic times, the lands along the lower and middle Ob were thinly peopled with such groups as the Samoyeds and the Ugrian Voguls and Ostiaks (in fact, the indigenous population of these regions today, only…

(t.), from older Turkish yug̲h̲ur -, Ottoman yog̲h̲urmaḳ / yoǧurmak “to knead [dough, etc.], yoghourt, a preparation of soured milk made in the pastoralist, more temperate northern tier of the Middle East, Central Asia and the Balkans, appearing as yog̲h̲urt / yog̲h̲rut in Maḥmūd al-Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī ( Dīwān lug̲h̲āt al-turk , tr. Atalay, i, 182, ii, 189, iii, 164, 190; Brockelmann, Mitteltürkischer Wortschatz , 92. Cf. also Radloff, Ver such eines Worterbuch der Türk-Dialecte , iii/1, 412-13; Doerfer, Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersichen , iv, 173-5 no. 1866; Clauson, An …

, a town, also the centre of a taḥṣīl , in the Meerut [see mīrat́h ] District of northwestern India, now in the Uttar Pradesh State of the Indian Union. The town is situated in lat. 29° 09′ N., long. 77° 36′ E. and lies some 19 km/12 miles to the northwest of Meerut town. ¶ It achieved fame in the later 18th century, when Walter Reinhardt, called Sombre or Samrū, of Luxemburg origin, after having been a mercenary in both French and British service, received from Mīrzā Nad̲j̲af K̲h̲ān, general of the Mug̲h̲al Emperor S̲h̲āh ʿĀlam II [ q.v.], the pargana [ q.v.] of Sardhanā [ q.v.]. This became, after …

(a.), active participle of the form III verb nādā “to call”, hence crier, herald. In the Ḳurʾān, munādī is used (L, 40/41) for the one who will proclaim the Last Day and give the summons to Judgement, in popular Islam usually identified with the angel Isrāfīl [ q.v]; in another context where one might expect it, the story of Joseph, we find instead muʾad̲h̲d̲h̲in used for Joseph’s herald (XII, 70). In the towns of the pre-modern Islamic world, the munādī or town crier performed a vital function of communication in an age when there were no newspapers or, when these did ten…

b. t̲h̲ābit al-anṣārī , poet of Medina and Damascus in the early Islamic period and son of the more famous eulogist of the Prophet, Ḥassān b. T̲h̲ābit [ q.v.]. He seems to have been born in ca. 6/627-8 or 7/628, and apart from visits to the Umayyad capital, to have spent most of his life in Medina. He died there, according to Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Tahd̲h̲īb , vi, 162-3, in ca. 104/722-3 at the age of 98 lunar years, long-lived like his father. ¶ His father had latterly become a strong advocate of vengeance for ʿUt̲h̲mān and a supporter of Muʿāwiya’s cause, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān likewise …

, a town said to be the capital of the king of China in the account of the Arab traveller and littérateur Abū Dulaf Misʿar b. Muhalhil [ q.v.] purporting to describe his participation in an embassy of the Chinese king Ḳālīn b. al-S̲h̲ak̲h̲īr returning from the court of the Samānid amīr Naṣr b. Aḥmad (301-31/914-43 [ q.v.]) at Buk̲h̲ārā. Abū Dulaf describes it as an immense city, one day’s journey across, with walls 90 cubits high and an idol temple bigger than the sacred mosque at Jerusalem ( First Risāla , Fr. tr. G. Ferrand, in Relations de voyages ... relatifs à l’Extrême Orient du VIII e au XVIII e s…

, a people mentioned in the Arabic and Persian historical and geographical sources of the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries as dwelling in the Buttaman Mts. at the heads of the valleys running southwards through K̲h̲uttal and Čag̲h̲āniyān down to the course of the upper Oxus. The Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (372/982) describes them as professional brigands and as linked with a smaller group, the Kand̲j̲īna Turks. In fact, these two peoples must be remnants of some earlier waves of invaders from Inner Asia, left behind in the Pamir region, probably of the Hephthalites [see hayāṭila …

, Nawāb , a title used in Muslim India. The form must be a hypercorrection from A. nuwwāb , pl. of nāʾib [ q.v.], used, as often in Persian usage (cf. arbāb “master”, ʿamala “workman”, and see D.C. Phillott, Higher Persian grammar, Calcutta 1919, 65) as a singular. The title was originally granted by the Mug̲h̲al emperors to denote a viceroy or governor of a province, and was certainly current by the 18th century, often in combination with another title, e.g. the Nawāb-Wazīr of Oudh (Awadh), the Nawāb-Nāẓim of Bengal. A nawāb might be subordi…

(in Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. Minorsky, 111, 121, Ruk̲h̲ud̲h̲; in al-Muḳaddasī, 50, 297, Ruk̲h̲ūd, perhaps to be read as Ruk̲h̲wad̲h̲), the name given in early Islamic times to the region of southeastern Afghanistan around the later city of Ḳandahār [ q.v.] and occupying the lower basin of the ¶ Arg̲h̲andāb river (see D. Balland, EIr art. Arḡandāb ). The Islamic name preserves that of the classical Arachosia, through which Alexander the Great passed on his Indian expedition in 330 B.C. (see PW, ii/1, cols. 367-8 (W. Tomaschek)), which is itself a hellenisation of Old Pers. Harak̲…

, in mediaeval Turkish “[the land of] the seven rivers”, rendered in recent times by Russian scholars as Semirečʾe, a region of Central Asia. It comprised essentially the lands north of Transoxania [see mā warāʾ al-nahr ] which stretched from the basin of the I̊ssi̊k-Kol [ q.v.] lake northwards to Lake Balk̲h̲as̲h̲ [ q.v.], and it derived its name from the numerous rivers draining it, such as the Ču [ q.v.], which peters out in the desert to the northeast of the middle Si̊r Daryā [ q.v.], and several rivers flowing into Lake Balk̲h̲as̲h̲ such as the Ili [ q.v.], which rises in Dzungaria and f…

, Mug̲h̲īt̲h̲ al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn Abu ’l-Ḳāsim , Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ Sultan in western Persia and ʿIrāḳ 511-25/1118-31. The weakening of the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ central power in the west, begun after Malik-S̲h̲āh’s death in the ¶ period of the disputed succession between Berk-yaruḳ and Muḥammad [ q.vv.], but arrested somewhat once Muḥammad had established his undisputed authority, proceeded apace during Maḥmūd’s fourteen-year reign. This arose in part from the latter’s initial youthfulness (he came to the throne, at the age of 13 and as the eldest …

, the regnal name of the Kas̲h̲mīr Sultan S̲h̲āhī K̲h̲ān b. Iskandar, greatest of the line of S̲h̲āh Mīr Swātī, hence called Bud S̲h̲āh “Great King”, r. 823-75/1420-70. It was his merit to put an end to the persecutions of his father Sikandar But-S̲h̲ikan [ q.v.], who had forcibly converted Hindus and destroyed their temples. Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn now in effect abolished the d̲j̲izya , allowed the rebuilding of temples, etc. The realm was secured by strong military policies, and internal prosperity secured by such measures as the digging of …

, prince of the Ziyārid dynasty in Persia and author of a well-known “Mirror for Princes” in Persian, the Ḳābūsnāma . ʿUnṣur al-Maʿālī Kay Kāʾūs was the penultimate ruler of the line of Ziyārids [ q.v.] who ruled in the Caspian provinces of Ṭabaristān or Māzandarān and Gurgān in the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries. His main claim to fame lies in the Ḳābūs-nāma , written in 475/1082-3, when the author was 63 years old, for his favourite son and intended successor, Gīlān-S̲h̲āh. The little that we know of his life must be gleaned from historical sources like Ibn Isfandiyār’s Tāʾrīk̲h̲-i Ṭabaris…

(t.) (perhaps also Yavg̲h̲u, the Old Turkish so-called “runic” alphabet not differentiating b and v), an ancient Turkish title, found in the Ork̲h̲on [ q.v.] inscriptions to denote an office or rank in the administrative hierarchy below the Kag̲h̲an. The latter normally conferred it on his close relatives, with the duty of administering part of his dominions. It was thus analogous to the title S̲h̲ad̲h̲, whom the Yabg̲h̲u preceded in the early Türk empire [see turks. I. History. 1. The pre-Islamic period]. It seems to have lost some importance after this time (8th century), …

, Abū Ibrāhīm , called al-Amīr al-Māḍī or al-Amīr al-ʿĀdil, the first member of the Sāmānid family effectively to rule all Transoxania and Farg̲h̲āna as an independent sovereign. Born in 234/849, he spent 20 years as governor of. Buk̲h̲ārā on behalf of his brother Naṣr, who himself resided at Samarḳand (260/874-279/892). The unsettled conditions in Ḵh̲urāsān during the years between the fall of the Ṭāhirids and the final establishment there of ʿAmr b. al-Layt̲h̲ [ q.v.] were reflected in Transoxania also. Ismāʿīl had in Buk̲h̲ārā to fight off an invading army from Ḵh̲wārazm under one Ḥ…

the ancient capital of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.], situated on the east bank of the main channel of the Amū Daryā or Oxus a short distance from modern K̲h̲īwa. According to Yāḳūt, Buldān , iv, 222, Kāt̲h̲ meant in K̲h̲wārazmian a wall or rampart within the steppe, even if it enclosed no buildings, but there is nothing in what we know of K̲h̲wārazmian to confirm this; it is conceivable that there is some connection with Sogdian kat̲h̲ , kant̲h̲ , “town”, though this is wholly conjectural. The site of Kāt̲h̲ was affected by changes in the channels of the river, and was accordingly moved at various times. Litt…

, Quetta , a town and district of northern Balūčistān, now in Pakistan. In both the former British India and now in Pakistan, Quetta and Pīs̲h̲īn, some 20 miles to its north, have formed an administrative district. The region is geologically complex and is very mountainous, with peaks rising up to nearly 12,000 feet/3,850 metres, and it is centred upon the basin of the Pīs̲h̲īn-Lora river and its tributaries. The climate is temperate, with cold winters. Crops—wheat being the chief rabīʿ or spring crop and sorghum the chief k̲h̲arīf or autumn one—can only be gr…

b. Abi ’l-ʿAṣ , Abu ’l-Ḳāsim and then Abū ʿAbd al-Malik, first caliph of the Marwānid branch of the Umayyad dynasty [ q.v.], reigned for several months in 64-5/684-5. Marwān, born of al-Ḥakam’s wife Āmina bt. ʿAlḳama al-Kināniyya, stemmed from the same branch of the Umayyad clan of Ḳurays̲h̲, se. Abu ’l-ʿĀṣ, as the Rightly-guided caliph ʿUt̲h̲mān, and was in fact ʿUt̲h̲mān’s cousin. The sources generally place his birth in A.H. 2 or 4 ( ca. 623-6), but it may well have occurred before the Hid̲j̲ra in any case, he must have known the Prophet and was accounte…

, Abū Manṣūr , Daylamī soldier of fortune who played an important part in the tortuous politics and military operations in northern Persia, involving local Daylamī chiefs, the ʿAlids of Ṭabaristān and the Sāmānids, during the first half of the 4th/10th century. The house of Kākī were local rulers of As̲h̲kawar in Rānikūh, the eastern part of Gīlān in the Caspian coastlands. Mākān rose to prominence in Ṭabaristān in the service of the ʿAlid princes there, and as the ʿAlids themselves dissolved into internecine rivalries, he became the co…

, Maʿalt̲h̲ā (Syriac “gate, entrance”, Payne Smith, Thesaurus syriacus , col. 2881), modern Malthai, the name given to two villages in the former ḳaḍāʾ of Dehōk (Duhūk) in the wilāyet of Mawṣil in Ottoman times, now in the Autonomous Region of Dehōk in Republican ʿIrāḳ. The second of these two villages was formerly distinguished as Maʿalt̲h̲ā al-Naṣārā “M. of the Christians”, but has recently become largely Kurdish and Muslim, like its fellow-village. Maʿalt̲h̲āyā lies on a small affluent of the Tigri…

, a small town in South India (lat. 18° 26′ N., long. 77° 11′ E.), in British Indian times the chef-lieu of a taluk in the Bīdar District of Ḥaydarābād State [ q.v.], now coming within the Maharashtra State of the Indian Union. It has a fort dating back to the end of the 9th/15th century. It was part of the lands of the Barīd S̲h̲āhs of Bīdar [ q.vv.], and then of their successors the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhs of Bīd̲j̲apur [ q.vv.] until it was besieged by S̲h̲āh Ḏj̲ahān’s army in 1044/1635 and then incorporated into the Mug̲h̲al empire. Its chief fame stems from the fiercely-fought ba…

, older orthography (e.g. in Ibn Rusta, 171) K̲h̲wāb, a rustāḳ or rural district of Ḳūhistān in eastern Persia, lying between the district of Bāk̲h̲arz [ q.v.] to the north and that of Ḳāʾin to the southwest, and adjacent to the modern Iran-Afg̲h̲ānistān border. The geographers of the 4th/10th century mention the towns there of Salūmak ( Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 103, Salūmīd̲h̲), Fard̲j̲ird and Kusūy(a), the latter being especially populous. Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut 1374-6/1955-7, ii, 399, describes the district as having 200 villages and three si…

, Abū Muḥammad al-Marwazi al-Tamīmī, faḳīh who had been a pupil of al-S̲h̲āfiʿī. judge and counsellor of ʿAbbāsid caliphs, d. 242/857. A native of Marw, he became Grand Judge ( ḳāḍī ’l-ḳuḍāt ) of Bag̲h̲dād after having been being appointed judge in Baṣra by al-Ḥasan b. Sahl [ q.v.] in 202/817-18. He soon became a member of al-Maʾmūn’s court circle as an adviser and boon-companion, thus exemplifying a trend under this caliph to take legal scholars rather than administrators as political counsellors. He accompanied al-Maʾmūn to Syria and Egypt …

, in mediaeval Islamic times a town, now the city of Madurai, in South India. It lies on the Vaidai river in lat. 9° 55’ N., long. 78° 07’ E. in the region known to the mediaeval Muslims as Maʿbar and to later European traders as Coromandel. For the historical geography and Islamic history of this coastal province, roughly extending from Cape Comorin northwards to Madras, see maʿbar . In 734/1334 S̲h̲arīf Ḏj̲alāl al-Dīn Aḥsan [ q.v.], governor for the Dihlī Sultan Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ [ q.v.], renounced his allegiance, and he and some seven of his successors ruled over a short-l…

, or Kākwayhids , a dynasty of Daylamī origin which ruled over part of D̲j̲ibāl or west-central Persia during the first half of the 5th/11th century as virtually independent sovereigns, and thereafter for more than a century as local lords of Yazd, tributary to the Sald̲j̲ūḳs. The rise of the Kākūyids is one aspect of the “Daylamī interlude” of Iranian history, during which hitherto submerged Daylamī and Kurdish elements rose to prominence. Under the dynamic leadership of the …

, Banū , or Mazyadids , an Arab dynasty of central ʿIrāḳ, which stemmed originally from the clan of Nās̲h̲ira of the Banū Asad [ q. v. ] established in the area between al-Kūfa and Hīt, and which flourished in the 4th-6th/10th-12th centuries. ¶ The origins of the Mazyadids, as established by G. Makdisi (see Bibl .) pace the older view (expressed e.g. in EI 1 mazyadīds ) that the family did not appear in history till the early years of the 5th/11th century, go back to the period soon after the establishment of Būyid domination in ʿIrāḳ. Ibn al-Ḏj̲āwzī relates that the Būyid amīr Muʿizz al-Dawla’s v…

, Ḳuzdār , the name of a town in mediaeval Islamic Balūčistān [ q.v.], modern town and district of Ḵh̲uzdār in the former Kalāt state [see kilāt ] in Pakistan. It lies in lat. 27° 48′ N. and long 66° 37′ E. at an altitude of 4,050 feet, some 85 miles south of Kalāt; the long, narrow valley of the Kolachi River in which it is situated is strategically important as a nodal point of communications, from Karāčī and Las Bēla [ q.vv.] in the south, from Kaččhī in the east, from Kalāt in the north, and from Makrān and K̲h̲ārān [ q.vv.] in the west. Ḳuṣdār was first raided by the Arabs…

, Banū , an Iranian dynasty which reigned in the districts of Rūyān and Rustamdār, the coastal plain and the mountainous interior respectively, of the western parts of the Caspian province of Māzandarān [ q.v.] in the second half of the 9th/15th century and in the 10th/16th century. The dynasty was in fact one of the two branches into which the ancient line of the Bādūspānids [ q.v.], whose genealogy went back to Sāsānid times, split in the middle years of the 9th/15th century. The Bādūspānids had been confined to the fortress of Nūr by the Caspian campaigns of Tīmūr in 794/139…

(A., also laṣş , luṣṣ , pl. luṣūṣ , with maṣdar s luṣūṣiyya , talaṣṣuṣ (see LA 1, viii, 355-6, and Lane, s.v.), one of the two main words in Arabic for thief robber (the other being sāriḳ ); in Persian we have duzd “thief”, duzdī “theft”, and in old Turkish og̲h̲ri̊ , Ottoman k̲h̲ayrsi̊z , modern hırsız . Arabic liṣṣ and the unassimilated variants li/a/uṣt must have appeared in the language during the Byzantine period, presumably via Syriac leṣtā , whilst there exists the form listīs , closer to the Greek original λῃστής in Mishnaic Hebrew and Palestine Jewish Aramaic (see S. Krauss, Griechische u…

(p.), literally “the holder of an ustān [ q.v.] or province”, an administrative term originally found in Sāsānid Persia for the governor of a province or for the official in charge of state domains (see Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Araber , 448). When the Arabs conquered ʿIrāḳ, the old Sāsānid state lands were taken over as ṣawāfī al-ustān and administered by ustāndārs for the caliph ʿUmar (see M.J. Morony, Iraq after the Muslim conquest , Princeton 1984, 68-9 and index s.v. ustāndār). The title probably continued to be used meanwhile by local potentates in the un-Islami…

(t.), lit. rain stone, in Arabic texts appearing as ḥad̲j̲ar al-maṭar , this being a magical stone by means of which rain, snow, fog, etc., could be conjured up by its holder(s). In particular, knowledge and use of such stones has been widespread until very recent times in Inner Asia. Belief in the existence of stones and other means of controlling the weather has been widespread throughout both the Old and New Worlds (see Sir J.G. Frazer, The golden bough, a study in magic and religion, abridged ed., London 1922, 75-8). Belief in a stone seems to have been general amongst the e…

, a town and district in Central Asia, now the town and oblast of Leninabad in the Tadzhik SSR, the town lying in 40° 17′ lat. N. and 69° 37′ long. E. The mediaeval town was strung out along the left bank of the middle Si̊r Daryā at the southernmost bend of its course and at the entrance to the Farg̲h̲āna valley. It lay in the ill-defined borderlands between the Transoxanian districts of Īlāḳ [ q.v. in Suppl.] and Us̲h̲rūsana [ q.v.], and was generally reckoned as being connected administratively with one or other of these two in the early middle ages. Its destinies were, ho…

or al-Naws̲h̲ari , Abū Mūsā ʿĪsā b. Muḥammad, general (said to be Turkish, but perhaps an Iranian from K̲h̲urāsān, since al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, xiii, 201-2, derives the nisba al-Nūs̲h̲ārī ( sic) from Nūs̲h̲ār, a village in the district of Balk̲h̲) from the guard of the ʿAbbāsid caliphs at Sāmarrā and governor of Damascus on various occasions during the caliphates of al-Muntaṣir, al-Mustaʿīn and al-Muʿtazz [ q.vv.] from 247/861 onwards. At the accession of al-Muʿtazz in 252/866, he expanded southwards into Palestine, displacing the Arab governor of Ramla [ q.v.], ʿĪsā b. …

“Ṭalḥa of the Ṭalḥas”, the name by which the early Islamic Arab commander Abū Muḥammad Ṭalḥa b. ʿAbd Allāh b. K̲h̲alaf al-K̲h̲uzāʿī was known. Ibn K̲h̲allikān, ed. ʿAbbās, iii, 88, tr. de Slane, ii, 53, explains that he got this cognomen because his mother’s name was Ṭalḥa bt. Abī Ṭalḥa. On his mother’s side he was connected with Ḳurays̲h̲ (Caskel-Strenziok, Ğamharat an-nasab , ii, 555). He appears in Umayyad history as governor of Sīstān around the end of the caliphate of Yazīd I, being appointed by the governor of K̲h̲urāsān Salm b. Ziyād [ q.v.] just after an Arab raid into eastern Af…

, the ancient title of the rulers of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.], used regularly in the early Islamic period (cf. Ṭabarī, ii, 1238, events of 93/712) until the Mongol invasions, and sporadically thereafter; hence as with the designations Afs̲h̲īn and Ik̲h̲s̲h̲īd [ q.vv.], this is an example of the survival of what was probably an ancient Central Asian Iranian title well into Islamic times. The K̲h̲wārazmian scholar Bīrūnī gives the names and genealogical sequence of the first line of K̲h̲wārazm-S̲h̲āhs, the house of Afrīg̲h̲, which began, so he says, in 305 A.D. and continued unti…

, an ancient town of northern India in the K̲h̲ad̲j̲uhā taḥṣīl of Fatḥpūr District in the former British United Provinces, now Uttar Pradesh. It lies in lat. 26° 7′ N. and long. 80° 22′ E. on the Rind River some 12 miles/20 km. from the Ḏj̲amnā (Jumna) River between Kānpūr (Cawnpore) and Fatḥpūr. In early times it was apparently held by the Rād̲j̲put line of the Rād̲j̲ās of Argal, and the fortress there may have been their ancestral centre. Under the Mug̲h̲als, Kōŕā (sometimes spelt in Marāt́hi and Persian sources as Kurrah, and to be distinguished from Kārā Manīkpūr, an adjacent but separate sar…

, Abū Isḥāḳ Muḥammad b. Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 218-27/833-42, son of the caliph Hārūn by a slave concubine Mārida. During the reign of his brother and predecessor al-Maʾmūn [ q.v.], al-Muʿtaṣim achieved a reputation as a skilful commander in Anatolia and as governor in Egypt. When al-Maʾmūn died in the Byzantine marches in Rad̲j̲ab 218/August 833, al-Muʿtaṣim was recognised as caliph despite support within the army for his nephew al-ʿAbbās b. al-Maʾmūn (who was, in fact, later to conspire against al-Muʿta…

, the name of two places in India. 1. A port on the southwestern coast of the Kāt́hiāwāŕ peninsula, in lat. 21° 28′ N. and long 70° 14′ E., formerly coming within the native state of D̲j̲unāgaŕh [ q.v.] and with a Muslim local chief there tributary to the Nawwāb of D̲j̲unāgaŕh; the mosque there carries a date 785/1383. Bibliography Imperial gazetteer of India 2, xvii, 180. 2. A town in the former British Indian territory of Rajputana, within the native state of Kotah, in lat. 25° 20′ N. and long. 70° 31′ E. and 44 miles/70 km. to the northeast of Kotah city. He…

(p.), the term applied to the days of abstinence from eating meat introduced by the Mug̲h̲al emperor of India, Akbar (963-1014/1556-1605 [ q.v.]). His chronicler Abu ’l-Faḍl ʿAllāmī [ q.v.] notes in his Āʾīn-i Akbarī (tr. H. Blochmann, i, 51-2, more accurately tr. in Shireen Moosvi, Episodes in the life of Akbar. Contemporary records and reminiscences, New Delhi 1994, 100-1) that Akbar abstained thus on Fridays and Sundays, and then on various other days of the year, including the first day of each solar month and the whole of the first month Farwar…

a settlement of early and mediaeval Islamic times in the Ču [ q.v.] valley of the Semirečye in Turkestan, during the Soviet period forming the city of Frunze (lat. 42° 54′ N., long. 74° 36′ E.). The region of Pis̲h̲pek and nearby Toḳmaḳ is known to have been in mediaeval Islamic times a centre of Nestorian Christianity, and inscribed grave stones, the oldest of which date back to the time of the Ḳara ¶ K̲h̲iṭay [ q.v.] (6th/12th century), have been found there (see W. Barthold, Zur Geschichte des Christentums in Mittel-Asien bis zur mongolische Eroberung , Tübingen and Leipzig 1901, 1-2, 37-8 et …

, the name of a Rād̲j̲pūt tribe of Lower Sind in mediaeval Islamic times. Their origins are shrouded in mystery, but they are first mentioned in Muslim historians’ account of Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna’s return from his attack on Somnāth in 416/1026 [see sūmanāt ]. For the next three centuries, they were the leading power in Lower Sind, but in the 8th/14th century their domination was challenged by the rival tribe of the Sammās [ q.v.]. Despite attempts by the Tug̲h̲luḳid Sultan of Dihlī, Fīrūz S̲h̲āh (III), to aid the Sumerās, the Sammās finally emerged triumphant over their…

, apparently the grandson of the last Umayyad governor of K̲h̲urāsān Naṣr b. Sayyār [ q.v.] and rebel against the ʿAbbāsid caliphate in the opening years of the 9th century A.D. In 190/806 Rāfiʿ led a rising in Samarḳand which turned into a general rebellion throughout Transoxania against the harsh rule and financial exploitation of the caliphal governor of K̲h̲urāsān. ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā b. Māhān [see ibn māhān ]. As well as receiving support from the local Iranian population, Rāfiʿ secured help ¶ from the Turks of the Inner Asian steppes, the Tog̲h̲uz-Og̲h̲uz [see g̲h̲uzz ] and Ḳarluḳ [ q.v.]. Hār…

, a Balūč tribe of modern Pakistan, living partly in the Indus valley plains of the Dēra G̲h̲āzī Ḵh̲ān District of the Pand̲j̲āb [see dērad̲j̲āt ], and partly in the Mārī and Drāgal hills of the Sulaymān Mountains range and the upland plateaux of S̲h̲am and Paylāwag̲h, extending as far west as the modern Loralai District of northeastern Balūčistān. ¶ The tribe is of mixed origin, some sections being Dōdāīs of mingled Balūč-Sindh Rād̲j̲pūt extraction, whilst others are pure-blooded Balūč of the Rind and Lās̲h̲ārī groups; the chief’s family belongs to one of the Dōdāī sections. In the early …

(a. “place of securing, tying up, i.e. anchorage), a port of the South Arabian coast in Ẓufār [ q.v.] (Dhofar), lying in 17°00′N. and 54°41′E., some 40 miles/70 km east of the modern town of Salāla [ q.v.] in the Sultanate of Oman. Yāḳūṭ, ¶ Buldān , Beirut 1374-6/1955-7, v, 97, describes it as being five farsak̲h̲s from the town of Ẓufār (i.e. the modern al-Balīd) and as the only port of the coast of the region of Ẓufār; it had an independent sulṭān , and its hilly hinterland produced frankincense [see lubān ). In the early 19th century, its ruler was a corsair chi…

, a city in the delta region of the Amū Daryā [ q.v.] or Oxus river of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.]which was for some four centuries, from Mongol times onwards, the capital of the province. After the Mongols had totally destroyed the former capital of K̲h̲wārazm, Gurgand̲j̲ [ q.v.] in 618/1221, the conquerors founded a new city on a nearby site, presumably that of “Little Gurgand̲j̲”, three farsak̲h̲ s from the old capital. Under the pax mongolica, Ürgenč speedily became a populous and flourishing commercial centre (see Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion , 457; idem, A short history of …

, ʿAyn Ubāg̲h̲ , the name of a spring or watercourse on the eastern, sc. ʿIrāḳī, fringes of the Syrian Desert which was the scene of a pre-Islamic yawm or battle of the Arabs. The confused Arabic sources take this as being the battle of A. D. 554 in which the Lak̲h̲mid al-Mund̲h̲ir III b. al-Nuʿmān II was killed fighting the G̲h̲assānid al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Ḏj̲abala [ q.v.], in fact, the yawm al-Ḥalīma (see e.g. al-Bakrī, Muʿd̲j̲am mā ’staʿd̲j̲ama , i, 95; Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 175. Cf. A. P. Caussin de Perceval, Essai sur l’histoire des arabes avant l’Islamisme , Pari…