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, the ancient Gabbula, a place eastsouth-east of Ḥalab, watered by the Nahr al-D̲h̲ahab. The salt-mines there lent D̲j̲abbūl a certain economic importance in the middle ages as they still do, to which it probably also owed its position as an administrative centre in the political division of the Mamlūk kingdom. (R. Hartmann) Bibliography M. Streck, Keilinschriftl. Beiträge zur Geogr. Vorderasiens, 20 Schiffer, Die Aramäer, 131 ff. Yāḳūt, ii, 29 Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ḍawʾ al-ṣubḥ, Cairo 1324, 295 von Kremer, Beiträge z. Geogr. des nördl. Syrien, 18 Le Strange, Palestine, 460 Ritter, Erdkunde…

, Arwand in the Arab authors and graecised as Orontes by classical writers (Achaemenid inscription, Semiramis legend), still called Erwend or Närwend in the district, a lofty granite mountain mass, about 17,560 feet high, a spur of the Zagros system, S. W. of Hamad̲h̲ān, ¶ which owes the fertility of its gardens to its wealth in water and snow. The scanty accounts of the Arab geographers are mainly confined to in part fantastic stories of a well on the top of the mountain, which Muslim tradition describes as one of the wells of Paradise n…

, Coptic Timinhōr “city of Horus”, the name of a number of places in Egypt, mostly in the Delta of which only the most important are mentioned here. The Damanhūr al-S̲h̲āhīd or Damanhūr S̲h̲ubrā, mentioned by Yāḳūt, i. 601, and placed by Ibn Ḏj̲ī ʿān in the suburbs of Cairo, deserves special mention on account of the Christian “Festival of the Martyrs”, also frequented however by Muslims, observed on the 8’h Pas̲h̲ons, in which the Christians used to throw a wooden box containing the finger of a saint into the Nile to brin…

, a place in Northern Syria, N. W. of ʿAintāb [q. v., p. 214a], is the ancient Doliche, at the junction of the roads from Germanicia and Nicopolis to Zeugma. Dulūk, which was captured by ʿIyād b. G̲h̲anm, was one of the fortresses on the Byzantine frontier (cf. ʿAdī b. al-Riḳāʿ’s verse in Yāḳūt, ii. 583 and Nöldeke’s note on it in the Zeitschr. d. Deutsch. Morgenl. Gesellschaft, xliv. 700) and at a later period belonged to the Ḏj̲und al-ʿAwāṣim [q. v., p. 515 et seq.] instituted by Hārūn. In the wars with the Byzantines of the Ḥamdānid Saif al-Dawla and the poet Abū Firās it played a part (cf. Yāḳūt loc.…

is the name of several localities in Īrān. 1. A village in Ardas̲h̲īr Ḵh̲urra, five farsak̲h̲ from S̲h̲īrāz on the road to Arrad̲j̲ān, usually called Ḏj̲uwaim, the modern Goyum, cf. G. Le Strange, Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, p. 253; P. Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter, p. 44, 173, 179 (not to be confused with Ḏj̲uwaim Abī Aḥmad in the province of Dārābd̲j̲ird, the modern Juwun, see G. Le Strange, op. cit., p. 254; P. Schwarz, op. cit., p. 102 and 201). 2. Ḏj̲uwain (also written Gūyān) a district in the Nīs̲h̲āpūr country, on the caravan road from Bisṭām, between Ḏj̲ād̲j̲arm …

(a.), obviously a loanword from the Latin ( veredus) “post-animal”, “post-horse”, then “courier”; it further means the institution of the “post”; and finally the distance between two post-stations, reckoned in Persia at 2, in western lands at 4 farsak̲h̲ of 3 mīl. Not only the name but the institution itself in the dominions of the Caliph was borrowed from the Byzantines and the Persians, as is confirmed by Arab tradition. Even Muʿāwiya is said to have taken an interest in the postal service. ʿAbd al-Malik instituted it throughout the k…

, “Lot’s Sea”, is the modern Arab name for the Dead Sea which is usually called by the Arab Geographers al-buḥaira al-maiyita “the Dead Sea”, al-buḥaira al-muntina “the stinking Sea”, al-buḥaira al-maḳlūba “the overturned Sea” (because at al-arḍ al-maḳlūba, “the land that has been overturned”, the arḍ ḳawm Lūṭ is placed), buḥairat Ṣog̲h̲ar (Zog̲h̲ar) “the Sea of Zog̲h̲ar”, also “the Sea of Sodom and Gomorra”. The Persian Nāṣir-i Ḵh̲osrau (v. = xi. century) appears to be the first geographer to know the name buḥairat Lūṭ. The name Baḥr Lūṭ refers to the story in Genesis xix which…

, formerly an Arab seaport on the Red Sea, 20 stations south of Aila, 3 (or 2) from al-Ḏj̲uḥfa, and a night’s journey (according to others: 3 stations) from al-Madīna. In spite of the want of good drinking-water, which had to be brought from Yalyal, the town with the island of Ḳarāf lying before it, whose name should be compared with the Κοπαρ κώμη of Ptolemy, was of great importance as a port of discharge for ships from Egypt, Abyssinia, South Arabia and China and a centre of supplies for al-Ma…

is the name in use among the Arabs for the Orontes, the chief river in the north of Syria, whose usual designation in classical antiquity is preserved in Arabic literature as al-Urunṭ, al-Urund. Presumably the word as with the Greek Axios is to be referred back to an ancien native name. The common explanation of al-ʿĀṣī = “the rebel” is a popular etymology with no actual foundation, and the name al-nahr al-maḳlūb = fluvius inversus but a scholarly invention. The river-system begins to the north of the watershed of the highland-valley of al-Biḳāʿ not far from Baʿalbakk, but…

, the ancient Arbela, celebrated for Alexander’s battle there (See Pauly-Wissowa, ii. 407 and vii. 861 et seq.), situated between the two Zāb on the road from Mōṣul to Bag̲h̲dād at the place where it is joined by two roads from the Iranian highlands (cf. Hüsing, Der Zagros, p. 38 et seq.), the capital of a Ḳaḍā in the Sand̲j̲aḳ of S̲h̲ehr-i Zōr in the Wilāyet of Mōṣul. In the earlier Arab geographers the town is described as a ṭassūd̲j̲ of the astān of Ḥulwān in the Sawād ( Bibl. Geogr. Arab., vi. 6 and 235). Erbil attained its greatest prosperity about 600 = 1200 as the capital of th…

(Armanāk), the capital of a ḳaḍā in the sand̲j̲aḳ of Ič Īlī in the wilāyet of Adana with 6430 inhabitants (Cuinet), built at the junction of the two streams that form the Giök-Ṣū (Calycadnus), is probably the ancient Gcrmanicopolis in Isauria (cf. Pauly-Wissowa, vii. 1258). The Oriental writers of the middle ages locate Ermenek two days’ journey south of Lārenda and three from the port of ʿAlāʾīya. A grotto there with a spring was particularly famous. In the viith-viiith (xiiith-xivth) century Ermenek was one of the principal strongholds and for a time the capital of the Ḳ…

(without the article) is the Arabiʿ form of the name of the Tigris, called (I)dignat, (I)diglat in Babylonian, in Hebrew and in Syriac. According to the Arab geographers the Tigris rises north of Maiyāfāriḳīn (= Tigranokerta) at Holūris, a place celebrated in history on account of the massacre of ʿAlī the Armenian there in 249 (863) (see Tomaschek, Susan, p. 23), out of a dark cavern beneath the Ḥiṣn Ḏh̲i ’l-Ḳarnain. It is the grotto at the source that is here referred to (according to Belck in the Verhandlungen der Berl. Ges. für Anthropologie, 1900, p. 459), the subterranean course of…

, Arabic Ḳubrus or Ḳubruṣ, Turkish Ḳibris, an island in the east of the Mediterranean, is geologically a plateau which has remained while the surrounding land has been submerged, consisting of two mountain chains running from east to west (rising to heights of 3142 and 6020 feet respectively) belonging to the Taurus system and the plain lying between them (4124 square miles in area). The island, which greatly facilitated the primitive coasting traffic between the Syrian and Egyptian coasts and the Aeg…

, Armenian Hrastan, the capital of a gouvernement in Russian Transcaucasia, in 40° 14′ N. Lat. and 44° 38′ E. Long. (Greenw.), about 3000 feet above sea-level on the left bank of the Zanga, a tributary of the Araxes with a population of about (1897) 30,000, according to other authorities 15,000, has a history dating back to remote antiquity according to the Armenian sources (sec St. Martin, Mémoires sur l’Arménie, I, 116). It is only since the beginning ¶ of the Turkish period that the town, written Rewān by the authorities, has obtained any considerable importance in the…

, a town which formerly stood in the modern Afg̲h̲ānistān, on the left bank of the Helmand just below its junction with the Arg̲h̲andāb. The situation of this town in the angle between the two rivers where the roads from the west (Herāt and Zarand̲j̲) unite to cross the Helmand and continue eastwards to Balōčistān and India, at the place where the river begins to be navigable, seems to have been an exceedingly favourable one. Vast earthworks in the neighbourhood of Bust, which was one of the centres of ancient Iranian civilisation, point to a great prosperity in ancien…

is the usual name amongst the Arabs for the Indian Ocean which is also called baḥr al-Zend̲j̲ from its western shores or—the part for the whole— al-baḥr al-Ḥabas̲h̲ī; the expression baḥr Fāris also, sometimes, includes the whole ocean. According to Ibn Rustah its eastern shores begin at Tīz Makrān, its western at ʿAdan. Abu ’l-Fidāʾ gives the Baḥr al-Ṣīn as its eastern boundary, al-Hind as the northern, and al-Yaman as the western, while the southern is unknown. The various parts of the ocean bear special names derived from various lands and islands. If we neglect the no…

, explained by Ibn Ḥawḳal as driving dih Ās “Ten Mills”, the name of the river of Balk̲h̲ called Baktros by the ancients (cf. Pauly-Wissowa’s Real-Enzyklopaedie, ii. 2814) and now known as Balk̲h̲-āb, to which this town owes its favourable topographical situation (it must however be noted that the Arabs frequently mean the Āmū-Daryā by the Nahr Balk̲h̲). The Dehās, which is rich in fish, rises in the Kōh-i Bābā from the Band-i Amīr, flows through several natural pools and on emerging in the plains south of Balk̲h̲ is divided up into numerous channels,…

, Old Persian Wrkāna, Modern Persian Gurgān (Byzantine Γόργα), the ancient Hyrcania, at the southeast corner of the Caspian Sea, which is therefore also known as Baḥr Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ān (Mare Hyrcanum). The province, which was practically equivalent to the modern Persian province of Astarābād̲h̲ [q. v., p. 493 et seq.], forms both in physical features and climate, a connecting link between subtropical Māzandarān with its damp heat and the steppes of Dahistān in the north. The rivers Atrek [q. v., p. 512b et seq.] and Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ānrūd, to which the land owes its fertility and prosperit…

, Rukn al-Dīn, the Čāshnegīr, Sulṭān of Egypt and Syria, was one of Ḳālāūn’s Mamlūks. During the second reign of Sulṭān al-Nāṣir Muḥammad b. Ḳalāūn (698—708 = 1298—1309) Baibars supported by the Burd̲j̲ī [q. v.] Mamlūks, shared the actual power with Sallār. When the Sulṭān escaped from the oppressive tutelage of the two Emirs in 708 ( 1309) by fleeing to al-Karak, Baibars was elected Sulṭān and took the name of al-Malik al-Muẓaffar. As al-Nāṣir again gained the chief power in 709 (1310) Baibars was …

, a tribe of nomads between the Nubian Nile and the Red Sea. The Bis̲h̲ārīn form with the ʿAbābde, Hadendoa, Benī ʿĀmer and some smaller tribes a homogeneous body (from the physical point of view and originally from the linguistic also), which even at the present day is comprised under the name Buga or Bed̲j̲a [q. v.], which was the usual one with mediaeval Arab writers. On the earlier history of the Bed̲j̲a, cf. J. Marquart, Benin, p. CCCXI. ¶ et seq. in addition to the bibliography given in that article. Very little is known of the history of the collateral tribe of the Bi…

, in later times also written Ḏj̲āhān (according to the Armenian pronunciation?), the Arabic name of the Pyramus, the eastern of the two rivers which flow through the Cilician plains. The Ḏj̲aiḥān rises in a powerful spring not far from Albistān (cf. v. Moltke, Briefe über Zustände .... in der Türkei 6, Berlin, 1893, p. 347) but soon is joined by tributaries which drain an extensive area. Near Marʿas̲h̲, where it receives the Aḳ Ṣu from the east, the river changes the southern course which it has on the whole held for a southeasterly one, and fl…

, now usually briefly called Ḏj̲ezīre, “island”, a town on the right, (west) bank of the central course of the Tigris, situated in 42° n’ E. Long. (Greenw.) and 37° 20’ N. Lat. at a height of 1200 feet above sea level. According to the Arab geographers it used to lie in a bend in the Tigris the ends of which were joined by an artificial channel. If we take this literally, the modern river-bed must be the artificial arm and the Tigris once flowed around the town on the west in the bed which is now almost dry in the normal condition of the river. Even in ancient times there was a passage over the Tigr…

, also Ḳalʿat Ḏj̲aʿuar, a ruined fortress on the left bank of the central course of the Euphrates, almost opposite Ṣiffīn. The place, called Dausara in pre and early Islāmic times, τὸ Δαυσάρων (see Pauly-Wissowa, iv. 2234), and Dawsar in Arabic, is mentioned by the older Arab geographers as a station on the road from Raḳḳa to Bālis (cf. Ibn Ḵh̲urdād̲h̲bih, p. 74; Ṭabarī, iii. 220). In the Mamlūk period a post-road from Ḥimṣ via Salamya, Bug̲h̲aidīd, and Sūriyā (= ʾIsriya) to Raʾs al-ʿAin, crossed the Euphrates here. An Arab tradition, which has no historical basis, derives the old …

, the chief town and harbour of British Somaliland, lying in 10° 26′ North Lat. and 45° 4′ East Long. (Greenw.). The Periplus maris Erythraei, as well as Ptolemy and Cosmas give the name Βαρβαρικὴ ἢπειροΣ or Bαρβαρία to the coast of the Land of Frankincense; the town itself is probably identical with Mαλάω ἐμπόριον. The older Arab geographers know only a land of the name of Berberā, after which the Gulf of ʿAden is called Baḥr Berberā or al-Ḵh̲alīd̲j̲ al-Berberī. The land owes its name to the natives who are called Βάρβαροι, Berbera or Berābir. The people whom Yāḳūt (iv. 602), describes a…

, a town in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, lying on the Nile in 18° 1′ North Lat. and 33° 59′ East Long. (Greenw.). The town which as “the key of the Sūdān” formed the starting point for the roads to Assouan and Sawākin, was the seat of a Mek nominally dependent on the Fund̲j̲ kingdom of Sennār, till it was forced to recognise the suzerainty of Egypt in 1821. In 1884 it fell into the hands of the Mahdī Muḥammad Aḥmad and Gordon became completely invested. In 1897 it was abandoned by the Mahdists and occupied by Kitchener. It became the centre of the Mudīrīya of the same name. In 1905 however the seat …

, a fortress of the Crusaders in South East Galilee, high above the valley of the Jordan, called Kawkab by the Arabs, the modern Kawkab al-Hawā. The castle, built by King Fulko about 1140, passed in 1168 into the possession of the order of Knights-Hospitaller. In 584 (1188) it fell into the hands of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn after a long resistance. Al-Muʿaẓẓam ʿĪsā of Damascus demolished the fortress in 615 ss 1219, as he did not feel strong enoug̲h̲ to hold it against the Franks. It thus ceased to play an active part in history al…

, the harbour of Res̲h̲t, the capital of Gīlān in Persia. Enzeli lies on a narrow tongue of land, which has been cut by a channel, between the Caspian Sea and a freshwater lake called Murdāb. From Enzeli one goes by boat to Pīr-i Bāzār on the south side of the Murdāb, thence by land to Res̲h̲t, whence the high road runs via Ḳazwīn to Ṭeherān. In the Russian wars with Persia Enzeli played a considerable part. In 1722 Russian troops landed in Pīr-i Bāzār. A Russian demonstration at Enzeli in 1804 failed completely on account of the…

(abbreviated from Bait al-Dīn), a small town in Lebanon (with about 400 inhabitants) not far from Dēr al-Ḳamar, from which it is separated by a deep ravine. About 1812 the Emīr Bas̲h̲īr S̲h̲ihāb [q. v.] began to build a palace here with courts and gardens planned on a splendid scale. It is now used as the summer residence of the governor of Lebanon. Besides the Sarāi there are several other palaces in Bteddln, in one of which the Ḳāʾimmaḳām of the Ḳaẓā al-S̲h̲ūf resides for a time. The place consis…

, pronounced Ḏj̲udda by Arab authors, an Arabian seaport on the Red Sea in 21° 28′ 30″ N. Lat. and 39° 16′ 45″ E. Long.; its surroundings are desert. In spite of its notorious climate and bad water-supply, the town dates from pre-Muḥammadan times, although we have no authoritative statement on the point (cf. Sprenger, Alte Geogr. Arabiens, p. 39). The foundations of its future importance were laid in 26 a. h. by the Caliph ʿOt̲h̲mān when he chose it as the harbour of Mecca. Mecea, the centre of the whole Muslim world, was from the earliest times destined to be a gr…

, a locality in northern Syria, in the district of ʿAzāz (Yāḳūt, ii. 513) on the road from Manbid̲j̲ to Antākiya (Ṭabarī, iii. 1103), on the Nahr Ḳuwaiḳ above Ḥalab (Idrīsī, Zeitschrift des Deutsch. Pal.-Vereins, viii. ). These statements suffice to establish the identity of its site with that of the modern village of Dābiḳ (near it is Duwaibiḳ = Turkish Ṭaipuḳ). Dābiḳ was the headquarters of the army and the base of operations for campaigns of the Marwānids and early ʿAbbāsids against Rūm. The Caliph Sulaimān b. ʿAbd al-Malik in particular spent a good deal of time here. He died in Ṣafar 99= ¶ Se…

, the Baktra of the Greeks, Old Persian Bāk̲h̲tris̲h̲ (really the name of a country) middle Persian Bāk̲h̲i., Bahl, with the epithet I Bāmīk “the glittering”, situated on the south side of the Āmū Daryā, on its tributary the Dehās, which now no longer reaches it, in the flat northern outlying part of the Kōh-i Bābā on the important commercial route from the mountain passes to the Oxus, was the political metropolis of the ancient satrapy of Ḵh̲orāsān, the intellectual and religious capital of the later kingdom of Ṭok̲h̲āristān. In the Iranian saga, which ascribes the founding of the …

, a former coast-town of South Palestine, one (Hebrew: ʾAs̲h̲ḳelōn) of the five Philistine towns known to us from the Old Testament; in the Roman period as oppidum Ascalo liberum it was (according to Schürer, Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu, 2. Ed., ii. 67) “a flourishing Hellenistic town famous for ¶ its cults and festal James” (Dercetis-Aphroditeshrine); in the Christian period a bishop’s see (tomb of the tres fratres martyres Aegyptii). ʿAsḳalān was one of the last towns of Palestine to fall into the hands of the Muslims, but was soon after ravag…

, the ancient Gabbula, a place E., S.,E. of Ḥalab, celebrated for its Mallāḥa or Sabk̲h̲a watered by the Nahr al-Ḏh̲ahab [see above, p. 806]. The salt-mines there lent Ḏj̲abbūl a certain economic importance in the middle ages as they still do, to which it probably also owed its position as an administrative centre in the political division of the Mamlūk kingdom. ¶ (R. Hartmann) Bibliography M. Streck, Keilinschriftl. Beiträge zur Geogr. Vorderasiens, p. 20 Schiffer, Die Aramäer, p. 131 et eeq. Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ii. 29 Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ḍawʾ al-Ṣubḥ (Cairo 1324 = 1906), p. 295 von Kremer, Beitr…

also Baḳʿa (a.), according to the lexicographers means a strip of land which is in some way distinguished from its surroundings and is particularly applied to a place where water lies and stagnates. The word, with its diminutive al-Buḳā’a often appears in the names of plains. — The plural al-Biḳāʿ is the name of the long plateau, with an average height of 3000 feet, which forms the central part of the great Syrian depression between the mountain masses of Lebanon on the one side and Hermon and Antilebanon on the other which, according to a theory now rejected, put forth by Th. Nöldeke in Hermes, x…

, the Bad̲h̲andūn (or Badandūn, budandūn) of the Arab geographers and the Greek Podandos, the name of a river and a town of great strategic importance situated on it, at the darb al-salāma, the Pylae Ciliciae, south of Luʾluʾa (Lulon). The place is famous in history, because the ʿAbbāsid Caliph, al-Maʾmūn (218 = 833) died suddenly there on a campaign against the Greeks after incautiously drinking cold water. He was buried in Tarsus at the Gate of Bad̲h̲andūn. The modern Bozanti is a wretched village with 500 inhabitants. (R. Hartmann) Bibliography Ibn Ḵh̲ordād̲h̲beh (ed. de Goeje), p.…

, formerly a harbour on the coast of Palestine between the promontory of Carmel and al-Ṭanṭûra (Dora), on a little tongue of land which lies to the north of a small bay and is washed on three sides by the seq. According to the Itinerarium Burdigalense there was a mutatio Certha there, but the name ʿAt̲h̲līt̲h̲ appears to be ancient. ʿAt̲h̲līt̲h̲ appears in the light of history in the period of the Crusades. In 583 (1187) it fell into Saladin’s hands. In 1218 the Castellum peregrinorum, as the Franks called it was reconstructed as a powerfu…

, the capital of a Ḳaẓā containing about 60,000 people in the Sand̲j̲aḳ of Ḵh̲arput in the Wilāyet of Maʿmūrat al-Azīz, occupies a picturesque site about 3000 feet above sea-level in a wooded hollow, where the river widens, on the right bank of the Ḳara Ṣu or western Euphrates, N. E. of ʿArab-kīr surrounded by a crescent of hills 1300 feet high, down whose sides fall numerous streams. The town is believed to have been founded in the xith century by Armenians from Waspurakān (see St. Martin, Mémoire sur l’Arménie, i. 189). So recent a writer as Von Moltke still describes it as a stro…

, the capital of a sand̲j̲aḳ, with about 23,000 inhabitants in the wilāyet of Erzerum, lying in a fertile plain on the north bank of the Ḳarā-Ṣū between Erzerum and Sīwās, is said by the Armenian sources to date back to pre-Christian times. We first obtain definite facts about the town in the Sald̲j̲ūḳ period [cf. the article mangučak]. According to Yāḳūt it was inhabited mainly by Armenians. In 627 (1230) the Ḵh̲wārizm-S̲h̲āh Ḏj̲alāl al-Dīn (q.v., i. 1004) was defeated here by the Sald̲j̲ūḳ ʿAlā al-Dīn Kai-Ḳubād ¶ I and the Aiyūbid al-As̲h̲raf. Mustawfī (Le Strange, op. cit.), says that th…

is the Arabic name of the Euphrates, called in Sumerian bu-ra-nu-nu, Assyr. Purātu, Hebrew Syriac . On the name and the notices by authors in antiquity cf. Weissbach’s article Euphrates in Pauly-Wissowa, vi. 1195 et seq.; we need only note here that, according to modern travellers, it does not seem absolutely certain that the names Ḳarā-Sū and Murād-Ṣū are applied respectively to the northern arm, the “Western Euphrates” and the southern, the “Eastern Euphrates”; Murād-Ṣū, like Frat, is rather applied to both tributary streams (cf. Geogr. yourn., viii. 1896, p. 333 note), and per…

the “bridge of Jacob’s daughters”, a bridge across the Jordan south of the Baḥrat al-Ḥūla, where the via maris from Damascus to Ṣafed and ʿAkkā crossed the river. This trade route began to become of greater importance in the Crusading period; it is therefore not surprising that the passage of the river here was often fiercely fought. In 552 (1157) the Franks were defeated by Nūr al-Dīn at Jacob’s ford. In 573 = 1178, Baldwin IV. built a fortress here on the right bank at the Bait Yaʿḳūb near the Mak̲h̲āḍat al-Aḥzān (“ford of lamentations”), which according to Yāḳūt, i. 775, took its n…

, the Latin Platanus was according to Yāḳūt, i. 710, a fortified place on the Syrian coast opposite al-Lād̲h̲iḳīya; according to al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī ( Ḍawʾ al-Ṣubḥ) it lay two days’ journey north of Ṭarābulus and one west of Maṣyāf. The fortress was erected, according to al-Nuwairī, by the Banu ’l-Aḥmar but taken from them in 422 (1031) by Niketas, the Katepan of Antioch. In 512 (il 18) it was taken by Roger of Antioch and remained in the possession of the Crusaders till Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn took it in 584(1188). Subsequently Nāṣ…

, the capital of a wilāyet in Turkish Armenia, in the plateau about 6000 feet above sea-level in which rises the Ḳarā Ṣū or Western Euphrates, the only natural gateway to northern Asia Minor (Sīwās) from Russian Transcaucasia (Kars) and Persia (Tabrīz), is at the same time connected by a good road with the Black Sea (Trebizond) in the north and Lake Van in the South. Even in ancient times there was an important town, the Theodosiopolis of the Byzantines, (see Chapot, La Frontière de l’Euphrate, p. 361) at this point so important strategically and commercially, the capital of the…

, Persian Gōzgān, the older name of a district in Afg̲h̲ān Turkestan between Murg̲h̲āb and the Āmū-Daryā. Its boundaries were not well defined, particularly in the west but it certainly included the country containing the modern towns of Maimana, Andk̲h̲ūi, S̲h̲ibergān and Sar-i Pul. Lying on the boundary between the outskirts of the Iranian highlands and the steppes of the north, Ḏj̲ūzd̲j̲ān probably always supported nomad tribes as it does at the present day in addition to the permanent settlements in its fertile valleys (cf. Ibn Ḥawḳal, p. 322, 9 et seq.; Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Ḵh̲alīfa, Ḏj̲ihān…

(a.), plural durūb, “passage, pass, or road”. Al-darb was more particularly any road into the land of the Byzantines (cf. e. g. Balād̲h̲urī, p. 137, 3), such as the roads over the Taurus and the pass over Amanus (Beilān pass, q. v., p. 690), more especially those through the Pylae Ciliciae from Ṭarsūs via Bad̲h̲andūn = Podandos (see bozanti, p. 768) and Luʾluʾa = Lulon to Tyana and Heracla, and the eastern route from Marʿas̲h̲ (Germanicia) via Ḥadat̲h̲ to Malaṭya. These notoriously difficult passes were euphemistically called Darb al-Salāma (cf. Ibn Ḵh̲ordād̲h̲bih, p. 100 or Balād̲…

, Arabie Dimis̲h̲ḳ, Dimas̲h̲ḳ, Dimas̲h̲ḳ al-S̲h̲ām, also like Syria briefly called al-S̲h̲ām, the largest city in Syria, situated in 36° 18′, East Long. (Greenw.) and 33° 21′ N. Lat., 2130 feet above sea-level on the edge of the Syro-Arabian desert, close behind the double mountain wall of Libanon and Antilibanon with Hermon. The spurs of these mountains (the nearest is Ḏj̲ebel Ḳāsiyūn) shelter the plain of Damascus in the north and south; in the south the Ḏj̲ebel al-Aswad and Ḏj̲ebel al-Māniʿ afford a cer…

, is the name of a district in the very south of Syria in the highlands east of,the ʿAraba [q.v., p. 362] between Sēl al-Ḳerāḥī in the north and Wādī Abu ’l-Ḥamām in the south (see Musil, Arabia Pelraea, ii., part I., pag. 1).The name first appears in the form in Psalm 83, 8. The Greek Γεβαληνή is sometimes used very vaguely. In the older Arab geographers al-Ḏj̲ibāl appears along with al-S̲h̲arā as the name of a district in the d̲j̲und of Damascus (Yaʿḳūbī, ed. de Goeje, p. 114) or in the d̲j̲und of Filasṭīn (Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, p. 58; Ibn Ḥawḳal, p. 113). While Yaʿḳūbī gives G̲h̲arandal, the …

, a site on the coast of Cilicia, on the west shore of the Gulf of Alexandrette to the east of the bay at the mouth of the Ḏj̲aiḥān (Pyraraus). In ancient times there was a town here called Aigai (see Ramsay, Historical Geography of Asia Minor, p. 355 f.). Since the second half of the thirteenth century the place has played a more important role. The gradual expulsion of the Franks from the eastern shore of the Mediterranean concentrated all the eastern trade in this part of the Christian kingdom of Little Armenia as it was connected by fre…

, the ancient Pagrae, was an important station on the road from Iskandarūna to Anṭākiya at the south-east end of the Bailān pass the exit from which it commands. Even in the wars of the ʿAbbāsids against the Byzantine Emperors Bag̲h̲rās played a part, sometimes a possession of the Emperors and sometimes of the Caliphs. It was included in the Ḏj̲und al-ʿAwāṣim [q. v.] which was separated from the province of Ḳinnasrin by Hārūn and protected the road to the T̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr. It became still more import…

, usually written Baiyās, also Bāyās, the modern Payās, the ancient Baiae, a coast village on the Gulf of Issus at the foot of the Ḏj̲ebel al-Lukkām, a station on the road from al-Maṣṣīṣa to al-Iskandarūna. In the ʿAbbāsid period, Bayās belonged to the Syrian T̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr [see ʿawāṣim]; it shared the vicissitudes of that land, so often fought for, without itself playing any important part. After the revival of the town in the beginning of the xixth century, it was still described by recent travellers as a miserable village inhabited by Turks; nevertheless Sāmī-Bey gives …

(in Europe in the middle ages, called Balsora and nowadays often written Bassora) a commercial town on the S̲h̲aṭṭ al-ʿArab and capital of the Turkish Wilāyet of the same name, 300 miles southeast of Bag̲h̲dād. Even in antiquity there were important towns in this district where the Euphrates and the Tigris, the two great channels of traffic for their basins, flow into the sea, where the desert routes from the west from Ned̲j̲d and Syria (Boṣrā) meet the routes from the Iranian highlands, on the threshold between the swampy distri…

, the capital of a ḳaḍā in the sand̲j̲aḳ of Ḥalab, S. E. of the two fortresses al-S̲h̲ug̲h̲r and Bakās, frequently mentioned in the Crusading period, on the Orontes, where the road from Ḥalab to al-Lād̲h̲iḳīya crosses the river. The name is not found in the Arab geographers; Abu ’l-Fidā (ed. Reinaud, p. 261) mentions the bridge of Kas̲h̲fahān, east of al-S̲h̲ug̲h̲r, where a weekly market was held; we ought therefore — with M. Hartmann — to identify Ḏj̲isr al-S̲h̲ug̲h̲r with Tell Kas̲h̲fahān (cf.…

is the name in use among the Arabs for the Orontes. The classical name of this river, the most important in northern Syria, is preserved in Arabic literature as al-Urunṭ, al-Urund. Presumably the origin of the word ʿĀṣī, like that of the Greek Axios, must be sought in an ancient native name. The common explanation of al-ʿĀṣī = "the rebel" is a popular etymology with no actual foundation, and the name al-nahr al-maḳlūb = fluvius inversus is probably a scholarly invention. The river-system of the ʿĀṣī begins to the north of the watershed formed by the highland-valley of al-Biḳ…

, formerly a harbour on the coast of Palestine between the promontory of Carmel and al-Ṭanṭūra (Dora), on a little tongue of land which lies to the north of a small bay and is washed on three sides by the sea. According to the Itinerarium Burdigalense there was a mutatio Certha there, but the name ʿAt̲h̲līt̲h̲ appears to be ancient. ʿAt̲h̲līt̲h̲ appears in the light of history in the period of the Crusades. In 583/1187 it fell into Saladin’s hands. In 1218 the Castellum Peregrinorum, as the Franks called it was recons…

, “Lofs Sea”, is the modern Arab name for the Dead Sea which is usually called by the Arab Geographers al-buḥayra al-mayyita “the Dead Sea”, al-buḥayra al-muntina “the stinking Sea”, al-buḥayra al-maḳlūba “the overturned Sea” (because it is situated in al-arḍ al-maḳlūba , “the land that has been overturned”, the arḍ ḳawm Lūṭ ), buḥayrat Ṣog̲h̲ar ( Zog̲h̲ar ) “the Sea of Zog̲h̲ar”, also “the Sea of Sodom and Gomorra”. The Persian Nāṣir-i Ḵh̲usraw (5th/11th century) appears to be the first geographer to know the name buḥayrat Lūṭ . The name Baḥr Lūṭ refers to the story in Genesis xix …

, name of several localities in Īrān. 1. A village in Ardas̲h̲īr K̲h̲urra, five farsak̲h̲ from S̲h̲īrāz on the road to Arrad̲j̲ān, usually called D̲j̲uwaym, the modern Goyum, cf. Le Strange, 253; P. Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter , 44, 173, 179 (not to be confused with D̲j̲uwaym Abī Aḥmad in the province of Dārābd̲j̲ird, the modern D̲j̲uyum, see Le Strange, 254; Schwarz, 102, 201). 2. D̲j̲uwayn (also written Gūyān), a district in the Nīs̲h̲āpūr country, on the caravan route from Bisṭām, between D̲j̲ād̲j̲arm and Bayhaḳ (Sabzewār). The district, whose capital is…

, Persian Gūzgān , the older name of a district in Afg̲h̲ān Turkestan between Murg̲h̲āb and the Āmū Daryā. Its boundaries were not well defined, particularly in the west, but it certainly included the country containing the modern towns of Maymana, Andk̲h̲ūy, S̲h̲ibargān and Sar-i Pul. Lying on the boundary between the outskirts of the Iranian highlands and the steppes of the north, D̲j̲ūzd̲j̲ān probably always supported nomad tribes as it does at the present day in addition to the permanent settlements in its fertile valleys (cf. Ibn Ḥawḳal, 322 ff.; Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa, D̲j̲ihān-num…

, nom de plusieurs localités de l’Iran. 1. Village de l’Ardas̲h̲īr Ḵh̲urra, situé à cinq farsak̲h̲s de S̲h̲īrāz sur la route d’Arrad̲j̲ān; ortho- graphié le plus souvent Diuwavm, il est appelé aujourd’hui Govum (Le Strange, 253; P. Schwarz, Ira», 44, 173, 179). Cette localité ne doit pas être confondue avec Ḏj̲uwaym Abī Aḥmad, province de Dārābd̲j̲ird, aujourd’hui Juwun (Le Strange, 254; P. Schwarz. op. cit., 102, 201). 2. Diuwavn (écrit aussi Gûyàn), district de la province de Nīs̲h̲āpūr, situé sur la route de caravanes de Bistâm, entre Ḏj̲ād̲j̲arm et Bayhaḳ (S…

, l’ancienne Gabbula, localité située à l’Est-Sud-est de Ḥalab et arrosée par le nahr al-Ḏh̲ahab. L’industrie saunière donnait au moyen âge, comme aujourd’hui encore, à al-Ḏj̲abbūl une certaine importance économique, à laquelle elle dut sans doute aussi sa situation de chef-lieu de district dans la division administrative de l’empire des Mamlūks. (R. Hartmann) Bibliography M. Streck, Keilinschriftl. Beiträge zur Geogr. Vorderasiens, 20 Schiffer, Die Aramäer, 131 sqq. Yāḳūt, II, 29 Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ḍawʾ al- ṣubḥ, Caire 1324, 295 von Kremer, Beiträge z. Geog. des nördl. Syrien, 18 Le…

, nom habituel de l’Oronte chez les Arabes. Le nom classique de ce fleuve, le plus important de la Syrie septentrionale, se rencontre dans la littérature arabe sous la forme al-Urunṭ, al-Urund. Il faut sans doute chercher l’origine du mot ʿĀṣī, comme celle du grec Axios, dans un vieux nom indigène. L’explication d’après laquelle al-ʿĀṣi signifierait «le Rebelle» repose sur une étymologie populaire que rien ne justifie, et le nom d’ al-Nahr al-maḳlūb = fluvius inversus est probablement une invention de lettrés. Le système fluvial du ʿĀṣī commence au Nord de la ligne de partage…

, en persan Gūzgān, nom ancien d’une province du Turkestan afg̲h̲ān située entre le Murg̲h̲āb et l’Amū-Daryā. Ses limites, notamment du côté de l’Ouest, sont assez indéterminées; toute- fois, elle comprenait certainement le territoire des villes actuelles de Maymana, Andk̲h̲ūy, S̲h̲ibergān et Sar-i Pul. Situé au bord du plateau de l’Iran, au seuil des steppes septentrionales, le Ḏj̲ūzḎj̲ān a probable- ment toujours servi, comme aujourd’hui, de résidence à des tribus nomades, en dehors des popula…

, «mer de Lot», est un des noms arabes de la mer Morte, que les géographes arabes appellent le plus souvent al-buḥayra al-mayyita «le lac mort», al-buḥayra al-muntina «le lac fétide», al-buḥayra al-maḳlūba «le lac renversé» (parce qu’il est situé dans al-arḍ al-maḳlūba «le pays renversé», arḍ ḳawm Lūṭ), buḥayrat Ṣug̲h̲ar (Zug̲h̲ar) «lac de Zog̲h̲ar», et aussi «lac de Sodome et Gomorrhe». Le Persan Nāṣir-i Ḵh̲usraw (Ve/XIe siècle) paraît être le premier géographe qui ait connu le nom de buḥayrat Lūṭ. Le nom de Baḥr Lūṭ se rattache à l’histoire de la Genèse, XIX, que le Ḳurʾān cite fréqu…

, ancien port de la côte de Palestine entre le cap du Carmel et al-Ṭanṭūra (Dora), sur une langue de terre baignée de trois côtés par la mer, au Nord d’une petite baie. D’après l’ Itinerarium Burdigalense, une mutatio Certha se trouvait à cet endroit. Pourtant le nom de ʿAt̲h̲līt̲h̲ paraît ancien. C’est à l’époque des Croisades que ʿAt̲h̲līt̲h̲ commença à jouer un rôle dans l’histoire. Saladin s’en empara en 583/1187. En 614/1218, le Castellum Peregrinorum (les Francs appelaient ainsi la ville) fut reconstruit et devint une puissa…

modern spelling Erzincan, older forms Arzingan, Arzand̲j̲ān, a town in eastern Anatolia, 39° 45′ N., 39° 30′ E., on the northern bank of the Karasu (the northern tributary of the Euphrates). It is situated in a fertile plain which is surrounded by high mountain ranges (the Keşiş Daǧi, 3,537 m. (11,604 ft.), in the north-east, the Sipikör Daǧi, 3,010 m. (9,875 ft.), in the north, and the Mercan Daǧi, 3,449 m. (11,315 ft.), which is part of the Monzur range, in the south). It has an altitude of 1200 m. (3,937 ft), and was once the capital of a sand̲j̲aḳ in the wilāyet of Erzurum. Today it is the c…

, a town on the coast of southern Palestine, one (Hebrew: ʾAs̲h̲ḳelōn) of the five Philistine towns known to us from the Old Testament; in the Roman period, as oppidum Ascalo liberum , it was (according to Schrürer, Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu 2, ii, 65-7) "a flourishing Hellenistic town famous for its cults and festal games" (Dercetis-Aphrodite-shrine); in the Christian period a bishop’s see (tomb of the tres fratres martyres Aegyptii ). ʿAsḳalān was one of the last towns of Palestine to fall into the hands of the Muslims. It was taken şulḥ an by Muʿāwiya shortly aft…

, ville du littoral méridional de Palestine, une des cinq villes philistines que mentionne l’Ancien Testament (en hébreu ʾ As̲h̲ḳ e lōn); à l’époque romaine, oppido Ascalo liberum, et d’après Schürer ( Gesch. des Jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu 2, II, 65-7): «ville prospère du monde hellénique, célèbre par ses cultes et par ses jeux» (sanctuaire de Derketo-Aphrodite); à l’époque chrétienne, siège épiscopal (tombe des très fratres martyres Acgyptii). ʿAsḳalān fut une des dernières villes de Palestine qui tombèrent aux mains des Musulmans; elle fut prise ṣulḥ an par Muʿāwiya peu …

(orth. moderne Erzincan; formes plus anciennes Arzingan, Arzand̲j̲ān), ville de l’Est de l’Anatolie (lat. N. 39° 45’, long. E. 39° 30’), sur la rive droite du Karasu, affluent septentrional de l’Euphrate. Elle est située dans une plaine fertile entourée de hautes montagnes (au Nord-est, le Keşiş Daǧi: 3 537 m., au Nord, le Sipikör Daǧi: 3 010 m., au Sud, le Mercan Daǧi: 3 449 m. appartenant à la chaîne de Monzur), à une altitude de 1 200 m. Autrefois capitale d’un sand̲j̲aḳ dans le wilāyet d’Erzerum, elle est actuellement capitale du vilâyet lui-même avec les kazas d’Erzincan, Ilice, Kemah…

, pronounced D̲j̲idda locally, a Saudi Arabian port on the Red Sea at 21° 29′ N., 39° 11′ E. Its climate is notoriously poor. The town, flanked by a lagoon on the north-west and salt flats on the south-east, faces a bay on the west which is so encumbered by reefs that it can only be entered through narrow channels. By paved road, D̲j̲udda is 72 km. from Mecca and 419 km. from Medina. Most Arab geographers and scholars maintain that D̲j̲udda, signifying a road (Lane; al-Bakrī, ii, 371) is the correct spelling of the name of the town, rather than Ḏj̲idda or D̲j̲adda (gr…

is the Arabic name of the Euphrates, called in Sumerian bu-ra-nu-nu, Assyr. Purātu , Hebrew , Syriac ; in Old Persian it was ¶ called Ufrātu , whence Middle Persian Frat , modern Turkish Firat . On the name and the notices by authors in antiquity see Pauly-Wissowa, art. Euphrates (by Weissbach). The main stream of the Euphrates is formed by the junction of two principal arms, now called the Karasu (length 450 km./280 miles) and the Murad-suyu (650 km./400 miles). The former, though the shorter, long bore (and in its lower course still bears) t…

, prononcé localement Ḏj̲idda, port d’Arabie Séoudite, sur la mer Rouge (21° 29’ N., 39º 11’ E.), où le climat est notoirement mauvais. La ville, flanquée d’un lagon au Nord-ouest et de marécages salins au Sud-est, fait face, à l’Ouest, à une baie encombrée de récifs où l’on ne peut pénétrer que par d’étroits chenaux. Ḏj̲udda est à 72 km., par une route empierrée, de la Mekke et à 419 de Médine. La plupart des géographes arabes soutiennent que Ḏj̲udda. avec le sens de route (Lane; al-Bakrī, II, 371), est l’orthographe correcte du nom de la ville, plutôt que Ḏj̲idda …

, nom usuel, chez les Arabes, de l’océan Indien, qui est aussi appelé Baḥr al-Zand̲j̲, à cause de sa côte occidentale ou—la partie prise pour le tout — al-Baḥr al-Ḥabas̲h̲ī. L’expression Baḥr Fāris désigne aussi parfois l’océan tout entier. Selon Ibn Rusta, 87, sa côte orientale commence à Tīz Mukrān, et sa côte occidentale à ʿAdan. Abū ¶ l-Fidā ( Taḳwīm, trad., II, 27 = texte 22) lui donne comme limites le Baḥr al-Ṣīn à l’Est, al-Hind au Nord et al-Yaman à l’Ouest, tandis que la limite méridionale reste indéterminée. Les différentes parties de l’océan portent des noms spéciaux, tiré…

est le nom arabe de l’Euphrate appelé en sumérien Bu-Ra-Nu-Nu, en assyrien Purātu, en hébreu en syriaque , en ancien persan Ufrātu, en moyen persan Frāṭ, en turc moderne Firat. Sur le nom, ainsi que sur les indications des écrivains de l’antiquité, voir Pauly-Wissowa, art. Euphrates (par Weissbach). Le cours principal de l’Euphrate est formé par la jonction de deux bras principaux aujourd’hui appelés le Karasu (450 km.) et le Murad-suyu (650 km.); le premier, bien qu’il soit le plus court, a longtemps porté (et porte encore dans son cours …

, Old Persian vrkāna , Arabic d̲j̲urd̲j̲ān , the ancient Hyrcania, at the South-east corner of the Caspian Sea. The province, which was practically equivalent to the modern Persian province of Astarābād̲h̲ [ q.v.] (now part of Ustān II) forms both in physical features and climate a connecting link between sub-tropical Māzandarān with its damp heat and the steppes of Dihistān in the north. The rivers Atrak [ q.v.] and Gurgān, to which the country owes its fertility and prosperity, are not an unmixed blessing on account ¶ of their inundations and the danger of fever which results. Gurgān playe…

is the usual name amongst the Arabs for the Indian Ocean, which is also called Baḥr al-Zand̲j̲ from its W. shores or—the part for the whole—al-Baḥr al-Ḥabas̲h̲ī. The expression Baḥr Fāris also sometimes includes the whole ocean. According to Ibn Rusta, 87, its E. shores begin at Tīz Mukrān, its W. at ʿAdan. Abuʾ l-Fidāʾ, Taḳwīm , transl, ii, 27 = text, 22, gives Baḥr al-Ṣīn as its E boundary, al-Hind as the N. and al-Yaman as the W., while the S. is unknown. The various parts of the ocean bear special names derived from various lands and islands. If we neglect the N. arms, Baḥr…

, the Arabic name (used always without the article al-) of the easterly of the “Two Rivers” of ʿIrāḳ, the Tigris. The name is a modernized and Arabicized form of the Diglat of the Cuneiform, and occurs as Ḥiddeḳel in the Book of Genesis. The river (Dicle Nehri in modern Turkish) rises in the southern slopes of the main Taurus, ¶ south and south-east of Lake Golcük. Its upper course, with its many constituent tributaries, drains a wide area of foothills and plain, which formed the northern half of the ʿAbbāsid province of D̲j̲azīra) in which stood the imp…

(persan ancien Vrkāna, arabe Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ān), l’ancienne Hyrcanie à l’angle Sud-est de la mer Caspienne. La province, qui était à peu près l’équivalent de la province persane actuelle d’Astarābād̲h̲ [ q.v.] (aujourd’hui partie del ’Ustān II), forme, à la fois par ses traits physiques et par son climat, un trait d’union entre le Māzandarān sub-tropical, avec sa chaleur humide, et les steppes de Dihistān dans le Nord. L’Atrek [ q.v.] et le Gurgān auxquels le pays doit sa fertilité et sa prospérité, ne sont pas un bienfait sans mélange à cause de leurs inondations et …

, nom arabe (toujours employé sans l’article al-) du plus oriental des «deux Fleuves» du ʿIrāḳ, le Tigre. Ce nom est une forme arabisée et modernisée du Diglat des cunéiformes, et se trouve sous la forme Ḥiddeḳel dans la Genèse. Ce fleuve (le Dicle Nehri en turc moderne) prend sa source sur les pentes méridionales du Taurus arménien, au Sud et au Sud-est du lac Golçük. Son cours supérieur, avec les nombreux affluents qui l’alimentent, draine une vaste région de collines et de plaines, qui formait autrefois la moitié Nord de la provinc…

[English Version] I. Soziologisch-ökonomisch Die Liberalisierung des dt. Rundfunksystems i.J. 1984 hat das bis dahin sozio-kulturell zu begreifende F. um eine ökonomische Dimension erweitert. Beide Dimensionen sind Teil des sog. dualen Rundfunks: Öfftl.-rechtliche Anbieter leisten die Grundversorgung, finanzieren sich hauptsächlich über Gebühren und arbeiten nicht gewinnorientiert; private Anbieter leisten eine Zusatzversorgung, finanzieren sich zumeist durch Werbung und sind Gewinnmaximierer. Das …