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[English edition] الشّام هو المنطقة التي تسمّى «سوريا» في العصر الحديث، وكلمة «الشّام» تعني في الأصل الاشتقاقيّ «المنطقة اليسرى»؛ لأنّ المتكلّم في الجزيرة العربيّة الغربيّة أو الوسطى، كان يُعتبَر في الاستعمال العربيّ القديم مواجها للشّمس المشرقة، فتكون منطقة سوريا إلى شماله، واليمن (اليد اليمنى) وشبه الجزيرة إلى يمينه (انظر: المسعودي، مروج الذّهب، ج3، 140–141، الفقرة 992؛ والمقدّسي، في مقتطفات مترجمة إلى اللّغة الفرنسيّة في: A. Miquel, La meilleure répartition

[English edition] أبو جعفر محمد بن جرير بن يزيد الطّبريّ عالم موسوعي، جمعت معارفه بين العلم بالسّنن والعلم بالأحكام، لكنّه اشتهر أكثر بكونه عالما متميّزا في التاريخ وأيّام الناس، ومفسّرا للقرآن خلال القرون الثلاثة أو الأربعة الأولى للإسلام. ولد في شتاء سنة 224–5/839 بآمل، وتُوُفِّي ببغداد سنة 310هـ/923م.…

[English edition] مكّة (ويقال لها بالإنڤليزية «Mecca» في المعهود المتعارف، وبالفرنسيّة «La Mecque»)، هي أقدس مدينة في الإسلام، فيها ولد النبيّ محمد وعاش 50 عاما تقريباً، وفيها توجد الكعبة [انظر ه]. 1. عصرا ما قبل الإسلام وصدر الإسلام 1.1 الوصف الجغرافي تقع مكة في الحجاز على بعد نحو 72 كم، باتجاه الداخل من ميناء جدة [انظره] على البحر الأحمر، في خطّ العرض 21 ° 27 ‹شمالا وخطّ الطول 39 ° 49 ‹شرقا. وهي الآن عاصمة المناطق الإداريّة لمكة في المملكة العربيّة السعودية، ويتراوح عدد سكانها العادي بين 200.000 و300.000 نسمة ويمكن أن يزيد هذا العدد تقريباً بمليون ونصف أو مليونين أثناء موسم الحج السنويّ. وتقع مك…

[English edition] ينتمي السلاجقة إلى سلالة تركيّة في إسلام العصر الوسيط، حكمت بطريقة مباشرة أو عن طريق أمراء تابعين لها وهي في أوج قوّتها خلال القرنين الخامس والسادس هجريّا / الحادي عشر والثاني عشر ميلاديّاـ مناطق واسعة من آسيا الغربيّة في بلدان ما وراء النهر وفي فرغانة وسماريش وخوارزم شرقاً إلى الأناضول وسوريا والحجاز من جهة الغرب. ومن صميم ما سُمّيَ امبراطوريّة السلاجقة العُظمى، حافظت السلالات التابعة لعائلة السلاجقة على مناطق مثل كرمان(إلى نهاية القرن السادس الهجري / الثّاني عشر الميلادي) وسوري…

[English edition] هو الكنية ثمّ تغيّر معناه في الإسلام فأصبح يشير إلى اللقب التّشريفي (جمعه ألقاب) ولمزيد من المعلومات حول أصل الكلمة، انظر لـ.كايتاني (L. Caetani)وج. غبرييالي (G. Gabriele) Onomasticon arabicum. i. Fonte-introduzione…

, term which may be translated approximately as chamberlain, used in Muslim countries for the person responsible for guarding the door of access to the ruler, so that only approved visitors may approach him. The term quickly became a title corresponding to a position in the court and to an office the exact nature of which varied considerably in different regions and in different periods. Basically the Master of Ceremonies, the ḥād̲j̲ib often appears as being in fact a superintendent of the Palace, a chief of the guard or a righter of wrongs, sometimes even as a chief minister or a head of government. The word ḥād̲j̲ib itself is derived from the verb ḥad̲j̲aba “to prevent”, and should be considered in conjunction with the term …

, 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…

, 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 [ …

…

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 near…

, 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 pow…

, 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 …

, 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…

, S̲h̲ūs̲h̲tar , Arabie form Tustar , a town of southwestern Persia in the mediaeval Islamic province of Ahwāz [ q.v.] and the modern one ( ustān ) of K̲h̲ūzistān (lat. 32° 03’ N., long. 48° 51’ E.). It stands on a cliff to the west of which runs the river Kārūn [ q.v.…

, 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 …

(t.), a word common to all Turkic languages (cf. W. Radloff, Versuch eines Wörterbuches der Türk-Dialecte , St. Petersburg 1888-1911, i/2, cols. 1015-16), found as early as Ork̲h̲on Turkic and meaning “offspring, child”, with a strong implication of “male child”, as opposed to ḳi̊z “girl” [ q.v.] (Sir Gerard Clauson, …

, Ṭārom , the name of two places in Persia. 1. The best-known is the mediaeval Islamic district of that name lying along the middle course of the Ḳi̊zi̊l Üzen or Safīd Rūd river [ q.vv.] in the ancient region of Daylam [ q.v.] in northwestern Persia. Adjoining it on the east was the district of K̲h̲alk̲h̲āl [ q.v.]. There are, at the present time, two small towns or villages bearing the name Ṭārum, one of them on the right bank of the Ḳi̊zi̊l Üzen between Wanisarā and Kallad̲j̲. According to Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī ( Nizhat al-ḳulūb , 65, 217-18, tr. 69-70, 209-10), the district of “the two Ṭārums” ( Ṭāruma…

, 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.…

, a district, and in earlier Islamic times a town, in northwestern Ḵh̲urāsān. It lies on the northern edge of the long plain which extends from Bisṭām and S̲h̲āhrūd in the west almost to Nīs̲h̲āpūr in the east and whose central section is drained by the Kāl-i S̲h̲ūr river before it turns southwards into the Das̲h̲t-i Kawīr. In mediaeval Islamic times, the route from Nīs̲h̲āpūr to Gurgān ran across this plain, and the geographers place Isfarāyīn at roughly the midpoint, five stages from Nīs̲h̲āpūr and five from Gurgān. Though allegedly founded by Isfandiyār, little is known of Isfar…

, a settlement and port on the eastern coast of Arabia in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, situated in the region of Had̲j̲ar or Baḥrayn; its exact location is however unknown and would appear to be only discoverable by future archaeological investigations. Varying traditions attribute the foundation of al-Mus̲h̲aḳḳar to one of the kings of Kinda [ q.v.], Mūsā b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲, or to a commander of the Sāsānid heavy cavalry ( asāwira ; see on these, C.E. Bosworth, EIr art. Asāwera ) B.s.k.b. Māhbūd̲h̲ in the time of the Kisrās (al-Ṭabarī, i, 985-6, tr. Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Ara…

, Arabic form of Persian Kōh-rūd “mountain river”, a village in western Persia on the summer caravan route between Ḳās̲h̲ān and Iṣfahān [ q.vv.]. In mediaeval times it fell within the province of D̲j̲ibāl, and Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, Nuzhat al-ḳulūb , tr. 184, places it some 8 farsak̲h̲s from Ḳās̲h̲ān, sc. 27 miles/45 km. from the latter town; cf. also Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter , 929 …

Muʿizzī , Turkish slave commander of the G̲h̲ūrid sultan Muʿizz or S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Muḥammad, who after that ruler’s death in 602/1206, made himself, with the support of a group …

or Ḵh̲yber Pass , one of the principal passes (together with the Kurram, Tochi, Gomal and Bolan Passes) through the mountain barrier separating the Indus valley plains from Afg̲h̲ānistān. The pass runs northwestwards for ca. 33 miles/50 km. from the Shadi Bagiar opening 3 miles/5 km. beyond Fort Jamrud, itself 7 miles/12 km. from Peshawar, to the barren plain of Loi Dakka, which then stretches to the Kabul River banks. The highest point of the pass is at Landi Kotal (3,518 ft/1,280 m.), an important market centre for the region,…

, Abū Ibrāhīm al-Muntaṣir , the last of the Sāmānids of Transoxania and Ḵh̲urāsān. When in 389/999 the Ḳarak̲h̲ānid Ilig Ḵh̲ān Naṣr occupied the Sāmānid capital Buk̲h̲ārā. Ismāʿīl and other members of the family were carried off to Uzkend. He contrived, however, to escape to Ḵh̲wārazm, and for th…

, the mustering, passing in review and inspection of troops, the official charged with his duty being known as the …

, called Nad̲j̲m-i T̲h̲ānī (d. 1047/1637), official in the service of the Mug̲h̲als of India and the author of a Persian Mirror for Princes, the Mawʿiẓa-yi D̲j̲ahāngīrī . Of émigré Persian origin, Muḥammad Bāḳir served as a military commander and then as a provincial governor for the Emperors D̲j̲ahāngīr and S̲h̲āhd̲j̲ahān, but was clearly a highly cultivated adīb also, th…

, the name given in Islamic geographical and travel literature to Khmer or Cambodia. The geography and political organisation of South-East Asia early became of interest to Islamic scholars because of trade links with Further India and China, and information was brought back by, inter alios, Arab and Persian merchants and navigators. Some of this information relates to the Khmer kingdom on the lower Mekong River, an outpost of Indian cultural and religious life, which lasted from the beginning of the 9th century to the middle of the 13th century (see R. Grousset, Histoire de l’Extrème-O…

, Siʿirt , Isʿird , the orthography in medieval Arabic texts for a town of southeastern Anatolia, 150 km/95 miles to the east of modern Diyarbakir and 65 km/44 miles to the south-west of Lake Van (lat. 37° 56′ N., long. 41° 56′ E.). It lies on the Bohtan tributary of the upper Tigris in the foothills of the eastern end of the Taurus Mts. It is the modern ¶ Turkish town of Siirt, now the chef-lieu of an il or province …

, the coastal region of the western Deccan or Peninsular India lying roughly between Thālnēr and Bombay in the north and Goa in the south, i.e. between latitudes 19° 30′ and 15° 30′ N., and extending for some 560 km/350 miles. It has been known under this name in both mediaeval Islamic and modern times. Within British India, it was formerly in the Bombay Presidency, later Province, and is now in Maharashtra State of the Indian Union. It comprises a highly-forested, low-lying plain between the Arabian Sea and the inland mountain barrier of the Western Ghats. In medieval Islamic times, the T…

, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn, with the Turkish name Tapar “he who obtains, finds” (see P. Pelliot, Notes sur l’histoire de la Horde d’Or, Paris 1950, 182-3), Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan in ʿIrāḳ and western Persia 498-511/1105-18. Born in S̲h̲aʿbān 474/…

, the name of a very old Persian fire-temple, a place or district to the south-east of Lake Urmiya in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, said to be …

the usual name in Muslim sources of the 6th/12th and 7th/13th centuries of the Kitai people, mentioned in Chinese sources from the 4th century A.D. onwards as living on the northern fringes of the Chinese empire; during the course of the 6th/12th century a group of them migrated into the Islamic lands of Central Asia and established a domination there which endured for some eighty years. In the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions of Outer Mongolia, the royal annals of the T’u-chüeh or Turks (ca. 732 A.D.), the Kitai are mentioned as enemies of the Turks and as living to the east of the Turkish heartland on the Ork̲h̲on and Selenga rivers. Ethnically and linguistically, the Kitai were most probably Mongols rather than Tungus, as some earlier orientalists surmised, though there is a possibility that they spoke a language of their own, unrelated to the above two groups (see the discussions in Wittfogel and Fêng, …

, Dhū ’l-Ṣawārī , G̲h̲azwat al-Ṣawārī , “the Battle of the Masts”, the names given in the Arabic sources to a naval battle between the Arabs and Byzantines in the latter part of ʿut̲h̲mān’s caliphate. The locale of the engagement is not wholly certain, but was probably off the coast of Lycia in southern Anatolia near the place Phoenix (modern Turkish Finike, chef-lieu of the kaza of that name in the vilayet of Antalya). As governor of …

(a.), an official in mediaeval Islamic administration who was in charge of official accounts and thus acted as an accountant-general. The title first becomes generally used in the successor-states to the ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Under the G̲h̲aznavids, the mustawfī al-mamālik was responsible to the vizier, and kept accounts of income and expenditure in the dīwān-i wazīr (M. Nāzim, The life and times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna , Cambridge 1931, 132). Under the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳs, e.g., in the time of Niẓām al-Mulk […

, a Turkish dynasty of mediaeval Islam which, at the peak of its power during the 5th-6th/11th-12th centuries, ruled over, either directly or through vassal princes, a wide area of Western Asia from Transoxania, Farg̲h̲āna, the Semirečye and K̲h̲wārazm in the east to Anatolia, Syria and the Ḥid̲j̲āz in the west. From the core of what became the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ empire, subordinate lines of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ family maintained themselves in regions like Kirmān (till towards the end of the 6th/12th century), Syria (till the opening yea…

, an Arab dynasty of northern ʿIrāḳ and al-Ḏj̲azīra which flourished from ca. 380/990 to 564/1169. The family stemmed from the North Arab tribe of ʿUḳayl [ q.v.]. In the 4th/10th century, the ‘Uḳayl in Syria and northern ʿIrāḳ were dependents of the Ḥamdānids [ q…

, a component group of the Meccan clan of Umayya or ʿAbd S̲h̲ams, the term being a plural of the founder’s name, a son of Umayya b. ʿAbd S̲h̲ams b. ʿAbd Manāf b. Ḳuṣayy called al-ʿĪṣ or Abu ’l-ʿĪṣ or al-ʿĀṣ(ī) or Abu ’l-ʿĀṣ(ī) or ʿUwayṣ, these being given in the genealogical works as separate individuals, but doubtless in fact one person (on the two orthographies al-ʿĀṣ and al-ʿĀṣī, the former explicable as an apocopated Ḥid̲j̲āzī form, see K. Vollers, …

(a.), literally, “someone who makes a thing legal, legaliser, legitimator”, the figure who, in classical Islamic law acts as something like a dummy or a “man of straw”, in order to authenticate or make permissible some legal process otherwise of doubtful legality or in fact prohibited. It thus forms part of the mechanisms and procedures subsumed under …

, Yāfa , conventionally Jaffa, older Joppa, a port on the Palestinian seaboard, in pre-modern times the port of entry for Jerusalem, since 1950 part of the municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo in the State of Israel (lat. 32° 05′ N., long. 34° 46′ E.). Situated on a 30 m/100 feet-high promontory on the otherwise straight coastline of central Palestine, Jaffa is a very ancient town. Thutmosis III’s forces seized the Canaanite town of ϒ-pw in the 15th century B.C. and it became a provincial capital during the Egyptian New Kingdom; since the 1950s, archaeological excavations h…

(Ar.; from Persian pīl ), elephant. The word appears in the title and first verse of Sūra CV, which alludes to the expedition of Abraha [ q.v.], but the Arabs were barely acquainted with this animal which is a native of India and Africa; consequently when, towards the end of the 2nd/beginning of the 8th century, a troop of elephants arrived in Baṣra, it was a matter of curiosity for the population (see al-Nawawī, Tahd̲h̲īb , 738). The subject had already come up in the Kalīla wa-Dimna (trans. A. Miquel, Paris 1957, 53), but the first Arab author truly to con…

, Dunganistan , a name coined by Western scholars and travellers (W. Heissig, Ella Maillart) for an ephemeral régime, hardly to be called a state, in the southern part of Chinese Turkestan or Sinkiang [ q.v.] 1934-7. The name stems from the Dungan or Tungan [see tungans ] troops, Hui, i.e. ethnic Chinese, Muslims who formed the military backing of Ma Hu-shan, styled “Commander-in-Chief of the 36th Division of the Kuomintang” and bro…

(a.), pl. waẓāʾif , literally “task, charge, impose obligation” (see Dozy, Supplément, ii, 820-1). 1. As an administrative term. In the early Islamic period, the form II verb waẓẓafa and the noun waẓīfa are used as administrative-fiscal terms with the sense of imposing a financial burden ¶ or tax, e.g. of paying the k̲h̲arād̲j̲ , ʿus̲h̲r or d̲j̲izya [ q.vv.], cf. al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ , 73, 193 (the waẓāʾif of the provinces of al-Urdunn, Filasṭīn, Dimas̲h̲ḳ, Ḥimṣ, etc.) and other references given in the Glossarium , 108. But as well as this loose sense, waẓīfa had a more specific one, a…

(Ṭahmāsb), the name of two S̲h̲āhs of the Ṣafawid dynasty [ q.v.] in Persia. 1. Ṭahmāsp …

, a town of the northwestern Deccan or South India, situated on the middle course of the Tāptī River in lat. 21° 15′ N., long. 74° 58′ E. (see the map in gud̲j̲arāt , at Vol. II, 1126). Its fame in mediaeval Indo-Muslim history arises from its being the first capital of the Fārūḳī rulers [see fārūḳids ] of K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ [ q.v.] before they later moved to Burhānpūr [ q.v.]. It had been a centre of Hindu power in western India when Malik Rād̲j̲ā Aḥmad chose it tow…

, a town of mediaeval Transoxania, in the region of Soghdia, and lying on a canal which led southwards from the Nahr Ṣug̲h̲d and on the Samarḳand-Karmīniyya-Buk̲h̲ārā road. The site is marked by the ruins of Ḳalʿa-yi Dabūs near the modern village of Ziyaudin (=Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn), according to Barthold, Turkestan3 , 97. It lay in a prosperous and well-watered area, say the mediaeval geographers, and Muḳaddasī, 324, cf. R.B. Serjeant, Islamic textiles, material for a history up to the Mongol conquest, Beirut 101, mentions in parti…

(a.), literally, “the Rightly-Guided Caliphs”, the four heads of the nascent Islamic community who succeeded each other in the thirty years or so after the death of the Prophet Muḥammad in Rabīʿ I 11/June 632. The qualifying term in the phrase has often been rendered as “Orthodox” (an anachronism, since there was no generally accepted corpus of Islamic belief and practice at this early time from which deviation could occur) or “Patriarchal”, reflecting a view of this period as a heroic age for Islam. The four caliphs in question comprised: All four were from the Prophet’s own Meccan …

, a town and district of South India, now in the Gulbargā division of the Indian Union state of Karnataka, before 1947 in the Ḥaydarābād princely state of British India (lat. 16° 15′ N., long. 77° 20′ E.). An ancient Hindu town formerly part of the kingdom of Warangal, it passed to the K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī Sultans of Dihlī in the 8th/14th century, then to the Bahmanīs and, after Awrangzīb’s Deccan conquests, to the Mug̲h̲als. Rāyčūr has interesting Islamic monuments. The Bahmanī Ek mīnār kī masd̲j̲id has its minaret in the corner of the courtyard [see manāra. 2. In …

, S̲h̲arwān S̲h̲āh , the title in mediaeval Islamic times of the rulers of S̲h̲īrwān [ q.v.] in eastern Transcaucasia. The title very probably dates back to pre-Islamic times. Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 17-18, mentions the S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āh as one of the local rulers who received his title from the Sāsānid emperor Ardas̲h̲īr. Al-Balād̲h̲urī mentions the S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āh, together with an adjacent potentate, the Layzān S̲h̲āh, as amongst those encountered by the first Arab raiders into the region; he further records that S̲h̲īrwān and other pri…

Abu ’l-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Masʿūd b. Mawdūd b. Zangī , called al-Malik al-ʿĀdil, sixth ruler in Mawṣil of the Zangid line of Atabegs, reigned 589-607/1193-1211. On the death of his father ʿIzz al-Dīn Masʿūd [ q.v.], Nūr al-Dīn succeeded him, but for many years was under the tutelage of the commander of the citadel of Mawṣil, the eunuch Mud̲j̲āhid al-Dīn Ḳaymaz al-Zaynī, till the latter’s death in 595/1198-9. Nūr al-Dīn’s early external policy aimed at securi…