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a town of medieval eastern Khorasan, situated just to the south of the Harīrūd River, and variously described in the sources as being between six and ten farsaḵs to the west-southwest of Herat. A version of this article is available in print Volume X, Fascicle 3, pp. 229-230 FŪŠANJ (arabicizedform Būšanj; Mid. Pers. Pūšang [Markwart, Provincial Capitals, p. 11], also reflected in the Būšang of the Ḥodūd al-ʿālam, tr. Minorsky, pp. 64, 104), a town of medieval eastern Khorasan, situated just to the south of the Harīrūd River, and variously described in the sources as being between six and ten f…

city of southwestern Iran, located in the province of Ḵūzestān on the Kārun river. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 7, pp. 688-691 AHVĀZ, a city of southwestern Iran. Located in the province of Ḵūzestān at 31°19′ north latitude and 48°46′ east longitude, elevation 82 feet, Ahvāz lies on the Kārūn (early Islamic Doǰayl) river below its confluence with the Dezfūl river or Āb-e Dez in the Ḵūzestān plain, but at a point where the river breaks through the low ridge of sandstone hills, the Jabal …

a Saljuq princess who became the second wife of the Ghaznavid Sultan Masʿud III (r. 1099-1115). A version of this article is available in print Volume XI, Fascicle 2, pp. 179 GOWHAR ḴĀTUN, a Saljuq princess who became the second wife of the Ghaznavid Sultan Masʿud III (r. 492-508/1099-1115). Because the Saljuq Sultan Malekšāh (q.v.) sent her from Ray to Ḡazna with a lavish wedding cortège, on which his vizier Neẓām-al-Molk had expended 100,000 dinars, she is known in the sources for Ghaznavid history as the Mahd-e ʿErāq “bride from ʿErāq[-e ʿAjami or Western Persia”] (Ḥo-sayni, pp…

Ancient town of lower Iraq between Baṣra and Vāseṭ, to the east of the Tigris, in the region adjacent to Ahvāz, known in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times as Mēšūn (Mid. Pers. form) or Maysān/Mayšān (Syriac and Arabic forms). A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 1, pp. 64 ABARQOBĀḎ, an ancient town of lower Iraq between Baṣra and Vāseṭ, to the east of the Tigris, in the region adjacent to Ahvāz, known in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times as Mēšūn (Mid. Pers. form) or Maysān/Mayšān (Syriac and Arabic forms). The correct form of the town name is given by Dīnavarī ( al-…

Ghaznavid vizier of the middle years of the 5th/11th century. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 2, pp. 157-158 ʿABD-AL -RAZZĀQ ABU’L-FATḤ B. AḤMAD B. ḤASAN MAYMANDĪ, Ghaznavid vizier of the middle years of the 5th/11th century. He was the son of the famous minister of sultans Maḥmūd and Masʿūd I, Šams-al-kofāt Aḥmad b. Ḥasan Maymandī (d. 424/1032). The Maymandī family served the Ghaznavids for at least three generations, since a nephew of ʿAbd-al-Razzāq, Abū Naṣr (or Abu’l-Moʾayyed) Manṣūr b. Saʿīd b. Aḥmad b. Ḥasan, was ʿāreż or war minister under sult…

a significant Turkic tribe in western Eurasia in the 5th century. A version of this article is available in print Volume XI, Fascicle 2, pp. 184-187 ḠOZZ, a significant Turkic tribe in western Eurasia in the 5th century. i. ORIGINS Ḡozz is the rendering by Muslim geographers of the Turkic Oḡuz. Oḡur, the Bulḡaro-Čuvašic form of this term, is noted as the name of a Turkic people in Western Eurasia in the 5th century. Oḡur/Oḡuz is probably a term denoting some kind of tribal confederation, perhaps signifying a union of related tribes or clans. Chinese sources sometimes …

Ghaznavid sultan, r. 441-44/1050-53. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 2, pp. 149-150 ʿABD-AL -RAŠĪD, ABŪ MANṢŪR ʿEZZ-AL-DAWLA B. MAḤMŪD B. SEBÜKTIGĪN, Ghaznavid sultan, r. 441-44/1050-53. He succeeded to the amirate after the death of Mawdūd b. Masʿūd in Raǰab, 441/December, 1049 and the brief reigns of the child Masʿūd b. Mawdūd and of Bahāʾ-al-dawla ʿAlī b. Masʿūd. The actual date of ʿAbd-al-Rašīd’s accession is given by Ebn Bābā Qāšānī in his Ketāb raʾs māl al-nadīm (Istanbul MS Turhan Valide 234, fol. 208b.) as 27 Šaʿbān 441/24 January 1…

a region of central Afghanistan, essentially the modern administrative province (welāyat) of Ḡōrāt. A version of this article is available in print Volume XI, Fascicle 4, pp. 399-400 ḠUR, a region of central Afghanistan, essentially the modern administrative province ( welāyat) of Ḡōrāt. Pre-modern Ḡur comprised the basins of the upper Harirud, the Farahrud, the Rud-e Ḡōr, and the Ḵašrud, together with the intervening mountain chains. The moun-tains rise to over 10,000 feet, increasing as they merge in the east into the Hindu Kush and Pa…

administrative and then military office in the pre-modern Iranian world. A version of this article is available in print Volume XI, Fascicle 5, pp. 544-548 ḤĀJEB, an administrative and then military office in the pre-modern Iranian world. ḤĀJEB i. IN THE MEDIEVAL ISLAMIC PERIOD The office of ḥājeb, implying military command, appears in the Iranian world with the Samanids, where it probably grew out of the amir’s domestic household, in which the ḥājeb had had duties similar to those of the Umayyad and Abbasid ḥājebs or doorkeepers/chamberlains. The office of chief ḥājeb of the Samanids ( al…

the border river of Afghanistan and Persia. It originates in the mountains in the Hazārajāt (q.v) and flows into the Sistān in southeastern Persia and finally drains into the Hāmun Lake. A version of this article is available in print Volume XII, Fascicle 2, pp. 170-176 HELMAND RIVER (Av. Haētumant; modern usage, Hirmand, Halmand), the border river of Afghanistan and Persia. It originates in the mountains in the Hazārajāt (q.v) and flows into the Sistān in southeastern Persia and finally drains into the Hāmun Lake (q.v.). i. Geography. ii. In Zoroastrian tradition. iii. In the medieval …

(Ar. Janza), the Islamic name of a town in the early medieval Islamic province of Arrān (the classical Caucasian Albania, Armenian Alvankʿ). A version of this article is available in print Volume X, Fascicle 3, pp. 282-283 GANJA (Ar. Janza), the Islamic name of a town in the early medieval Islamic province of Arrān (the classical Caucasian Albania, Armenian Alvankʿ; see ARRĀN). In imperial Russian times, the town was called Elisavetpol after 1813; in Soviet times, when it came within the Azerbaijan SSR, it was first called Gandzha …

(1854-1933), scholar in Persian, Arabic, and Spanish, specially notable for his work in the field of the historical geography of the pre-modern Middle Eastern and Eastern Islamic lands and his editing of Persian geographical texts. Le Strange’s chef d’ɶuvre is, however, undoubtedly The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate(1905). LE STRANGE, GUY (b. Hunstanton, Norfolk, 24 July 1854; d. Cambridge, 24 December 1933), scholar in Persian, Arabic, and Spanish, specially notable for his work in the field of the historical geography of the pre-modern Middl…

(d. 809), HĀRUN B. MOḤAMMAD B. ʿABD-ALLĀH, the fifth caliph of the ʿAbbasid dynasty (r. 786-809), the third son of the caliph al-Mahdi. A version of this article is available in print Volume XII, Fascicle 1, pp. 17-20 HĀRUN AL-RAŠID, HĀRUN B. MOḤAMMAD B. ʿABD-ALLĀH (d. Ṭus, 3 Jomādā II 193/24 March 809), the fifth caliph of the ʿAbbasid dynasty (r. 170-93/786-809), the third son of the caliph al-Mahdi and second son borne him by the slave concubine Ḵayzorān. He was born in Ray, either on 26 Ḏu’l-ḥejja 145/17 March 763 or 1 Moḥarram 1…

city on the desert fringes of southwestern Mesopotamia; known in pre-Islamic times as the capital of the Lakhmid Arab dynasty, clients of the Sasanians, it survived as an urban settlement into the early centuries of the Islamic period. A version of this article is available in print Volume XII, Fascicle 3, pp. 322-323 ḤIRA, a city on the desert fringes of southwestern Mesopotamia; known in pre-Islamic times as the capital of the Lakhmid Arab dynasty, clients of the Sasanians. It survived as an urban settlement into the early centuries of the Islamic period. Figure 1. The region of Ḥira …

the third dynasty of caliphs who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphs in Damascus. A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 1, pp. 89-95 ʿABBASID CALIPHATE in Iran. The aim of the present article is not to give a chronological history of Persia under ʿAbbasid rule but to examine some of the main trends affecting the political, religious, and cultural development of Persia during the period when ʿAbbasid rule was effective there—essentially from the middle of the 2nd/8th century to the opening decades of the 4th/10th century. The es…

an important fortress of the Nezāri Ismaʿilis in the mountainous district of Rudbār, within the region of medieval Islamic Daylam in northwestern Iran. LANBASAR (the form in Rašid-al-Din and Ḥamd-Allāh Mostawfi; popular pronunciation, and the form used by Jovayni, Lam(m)asar), an important fortress of the Nezāri Ismaʿilis in the valley of the Šāhrud river, a tributary of the Safidrud, in the mountainous district of Rudbār, within the region of medieval Islamic Daylam in northwestern Iran. Its precise location is in th…

name of a region in early Islamic times, situated to the north of the upper Harīrūd and the Paropamisus range and on the head waters of the Moṟḡāb. A version of this article is available in print Volume X, Fascicle 3, pp. 292 ḠARČESTĀN, name of a region in early Islamic times, situated to the north of the upper Harīrūd and the Paropamisus range and on the head waters of the Moṟḡāb. To its west was Bāḏḡīs and to its northeast Gūzgān. Ḡarčestān thus corresponds to the region known at present as Fīrūzkūh and forms part of the province of Bādḡīs in contemporary Afghanistan. The term ḡarča perhaps reflec…

a local dynasty of Kurdish origin which ruled in the Zagros mountains region of southwestern Persia, essentially in Lorestān and the adjacent parts of Fārs, and which flourished in the later Saljuq, Il-khanid, Mozaffarid, and Timurid periods. A version of this article is available in print Volume XII, Fascicle 1, pp. 93 HAZĀRASPIDS, a local dynasty of Kurdish origin which ruled in the Zagros mountains region of southwestern Persia, essentially in Lorestān and the adjacent parts of Fārs, and which flourished in the later Saljuq, Ilkhanid, Mozaffar…

a landowner ( dehqān) of Transoxania (12th century). A version of this article is available in print Volume I, Fascicle 2, pp. 210 ʿĀBEDĪ, ABU’L-RAJĀʾ AḤMAD B. ʿABD-AL-ṢAMAD, a landowner ( dehqān) of Transoxania. At Samarqand in 504/1110-11 (during the reign of the Qarakhanid Arslān Khan Moḥammad b. Solaymān, son-in-law of the Saljuq Sultan Sanǰar), he related to Neẓāmī ʿArūżī how the poet Rūdakī had been rewarded by the Samanid Naṣr b. Aḥmad (250-79/864-92) for a poem praising the amir and Bokhara, his capital. ʿĀbedī had transmitted the story from his grandfather (of the same name). C. E…

a title of high-born women in the pre-modern Turkish and Persian worlds. A version of this article is available in print Volume XVI, Fascicle 2, pp. 129-130 ḴĀTUN, a title of high-born women in the pre-modern Turkish and Persian worlds. Although the title is first attested in Orkhon Turkish, where qatun/ ḵatun in the Kül-tegin and Bilge-qaghan inscriptions denotes “wife of the khan or ruler, queen” (Tekin, pp. 342-43; Kāšḡari, tr. Atalay I, p. 410; tr. Dankoff and Kelly I, p. 311), the word is almost certainly of Sogdian origin ( xwtʾy “lord, ruler,” xwt’yn “lord’s wife”; Clauson, p. 602…