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الطبريّ

(4,779 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
[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. 1. حياته تجدر الإشارة بدءا إلى أنّ أعمال الطبري عندما وصلتنا لم توفّر إلا نزرا قليلاً من المعلومات حول سيرة الرجل وإن كانت كثيراً ما وجّهتنا نحو أساتذته وشيوخه وساعدتنا على تقييم شخصيّته ومواقفه العلمية. [ويُذكر] أنّ كثيراً من الأشخاص الذين ع…

لقب

(11,934 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
[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, Rome 1915, 144–5 ولمزيد المعلومات حول مكانتها في نمط تكوين الأسماء الإسلامية انظر ism. ويبدو أنّ اللقب كان في البداية كنية أواسما مستعارًا يعبّر عن انطباع وإعجاب وقد يكون وصفيّا بحتا، أو محايدا أومشينا أو مجازيّا. وفي هاته الحال غالباً ما كان يسمّى نبزا وجمعها أنباز، قارن مع البيضاوي حول سورة الحجرات الآية 11 «إنّ النبز مختصّ بلقب السوء عُرْ…

al-Muʿtaṣim Bi ’llāh

(973 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Mangrōl

(185 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Ṣūfiyāna

(183 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(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…

Pis̲h̲pek

(217 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
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 …

Sumerā or Sumrā

(161 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Rāfiʿ b. al-Layt̲h̲ b. Naṣr b. Sayyār

(229 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Gurčānī

(400 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, 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 …

al-Mirbāṭ

(214 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(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…

Ürgenč

(453 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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 …

Ubāg̲h̲

(230 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Isfarāyīn

(674 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

al-Mus̲h̲aḳḳar

(401 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Ḳuhrūd

(330 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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 n. 16. Today, Ḳuhrūd falls administratively in the bak̲h̲s̲h̲ of Ḳamṣar, in the s̲h̲ahrastān of Ḳās̲h̲ān, in the second ustān or central province of Iran, see Farhang-i d̲j̲ug̲h̲rāfiyāʾ-yi Īrān

Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn Yildiz

(162 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
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 ¶ of other Turkish soldiers, independent in G̲h̲azna in eastern Afg̲h̲ānistan. Muʿizz al-Dīn’s successor at Fīrūzkūh [ q.v.], Maḥmūd b. G̲h̲iyāth al-Dīn Muḥammad, had to manumit Yildiz and recognise him as governor in G̲h̲azna. During his nine years’ rule there, Yildiz treated another Muʿizzī slave commander Iltutmis̲h̲ [ q.v.], who had established himself in northern India, as his subordinate. Bu…

K̲h̲aybar

(524 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
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,…

Ismāʿīl b. Nūḥ

(204 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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 the next four years kept up a series of attacks on the G̲h̲aznavids in northern Ḵh̲urāsān and the Ḳarak̲h̲ānids in Buk̲h̲ārā. In 393/1003 he obtained the help of the Og̲h̲uz, traditional allies of the Sāmānids, and according to Gardīzī, it was at thi…

Istiʿrāḍ, ʿĀrḍ

(4,916 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the mustering, passing in review and inspection of troops, the official charged with his duty being known as the ʿāriḍ , pl. ʿurrāḍ . The institution of the ʿarḍ was from the start closely bound up with the Dīwān al-Ḏj̲ays̲h̲ or that departaient of the bureaucracy concerned with military affairs, and these duties of recruitment, mustering and inspection comprised one of the dīwāns main spheres of activity, the other sphere being that concerned with pensions and salaries [see dīwān and d̲j̲ays̲h̲ ]. The Ṣāḥib Dīwān al-Ḏj̲ays̲h̲ of the early ʿAbbāsid Caliphate or ʿĀriḍ al-Ḏj̲ays̲h̲

Muḥammad Bāḳir

(186 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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, the patron of poets, himself a poet and master of the ins̲h̲āʾ style and author of a work of S̲h̲īʿī kalām , still in manuscript. His chief claim to fame is as the author of one of the …

Ḳimār

(652 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Konkan

(329 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Muḥammad b. Malik-S̲h̲āh

(696 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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/January 1082, he was a half-brother of Malik-S̲h̲āh’s eldest son Berk-Yaruḳ [ q.v.] and a full brother of Sand̲j̲ar [ q.v.]. When Berk-Yaruḳ succeeded his father in 485/1092, he had to leave Muḥammad in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān and Arrān, where Muḥammad enjoyed the support of Sand̲j̲ar and of the for…

Ḳarā K̲h̲iṭāy

(3,476 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
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…

D̲h̲āt al-Ṣawārī

(482 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, 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 Syria, Muʿāwiya [ q.v.] seems to have inaugurated a policy of building up Arab naval power in order to counter Byzantine control of the Easte…

ʿUḳaylids

(676 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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.v.] of Mawṣil and Aleppo. When the last Ḥamdānids of Mawṣil, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn and Abū Ṭāhir Ibrāhim, were threatened by the Kurdish chief Bād̲h̲, founder of the Marwānid line [see marwānids ] in Diyār Bakr, they appealed for help to the ʿUḳaylid chief Abu ’l-Ḏh̲awwād Muḥammad b. al-Musayyab. But after def…

Aʿyāṣ

(308 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, 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, Volksprache und Schriftsprache im alten Arabien , Strassburg 1906, 139-40). The group formed a branch of th…

Muḥallil

(287 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(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 ḥiyal , legal devices, often ¶ used for evading the spirit of the law whilst technically satisfying its letter [see ḥīla ]. Thus the muḥallil is found in gambling, racing for stakes, e.g. with horses or pi…

Tunganistan

(303 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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 brother-in-law of Ma Chung-ying [ q.v.], best-known of the five Muslim Chinese warlords who controlled much of northwestern China in the later d…

Thālnēr

(235 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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 towards the end of the 8th/14th century. It was captured in 914/1509 by the Gud̲j̲arāt Sultan Maḥmūd Begaŕhā [ q.v.], who installed his own cand…

Dabūsiyya

(290 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, 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 particular the brocade cloth known as Wad̲h̲ārī produced there. Dabūsi…

al-K̲h̲ulafāʾ al-Rās̲h̲idūn

(960 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(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 …

Rāyčur

(157 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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 India]. The fortifications and gat…

Nūr al-Dīn Arslān S̲h̲āh

(399 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
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 securing control of Niṣibīn [ q.v.] from his kinsman, the Zangī lord of Sind̲j̲ār ʿImād al-Dīn Zangī and the latter’s son Ḳuṭb al-D…

Wak̲h̲s̲h̲

(210 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a district of Central Asia and the name of a river there. The Wak̲h̲s̲h̲ Āb is a right-bank tributary of the Oxus, flowing down from the Alai range of mountains to the south of Farg̲h̲āna. Geiger and Markwart thought that the Greek name ¶ “Οξος came from Wak̲h̲s̲h̲, the tributary thus giving its name to the great river (see Markwart, Wehrot und Arang , 3 ff., 89; Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion, 65; and āmū daryā ). In early mediaeval times, the Wak̲h̲s̲h̲ district must have had a population which included remnants of the Hepht̲h̲alites, such as the Kumīd̲j̲īs [ q.v.] and also T…

Sīstān

(4,057 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the form usually found in Persian sources, early Arabic form Sid̲j̲istān, a region of eastern Persia lying to the south of K̲h̲urāsān and to the north of Balūčistān, now administratively divided between Persia and Afghanistan. In early Arabic historical and literary texts one finds as nisba s both Sid̲j̲istānī and Sid̲j̲zī, in Persian, Sīstānī. 1. Etymology. The early Arabic form reflects the origin of the region’s name in MP Sakastān “land of the Sakas”, the Indo-European Scythian people who had dominated what is now Afg̲h̲ānistān and northwestern …

Kimäk

(757 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(in the texts usually Kīmāk, often wrongly vocalised Kaymāk), an early Turkish people living in western Siberia on the lower course of the Irtis̲h̲ River and on its tributaries the Is̲h̲im and Tobol, possibly as far north as the confluence of the Irtis̲h̲ and Ob and as far west as the Ural Mts. ; they are mentioned in Islamic sources from the 3rd/9th century onwards. The most detailed accounts of the Kimäk and their territories are in the anonymous Ḥudud al-ʿālam (begun 372/982-3), tr. Minorsky, 99-100, 304-10, and in Gardīzī’s Zayn al-ak̲h̲bār , ed. ʿAbd al-Ḥayy …

Utrār

(523 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Otrār , a town of mediaeval Islamic Central Asia notorious for its role in the irruption of the Mongols into the Islamic world. It lay on the right bank of the Sir Daryā or Jaxartes just to the south of the confluence with it of the Aris river. It is not found in geographical texts till the early 7th/13th ¶ century and Yāḳūt’s Buldān , ed. Beirut, i, 218, who has Uṭrār or Utrār. It may possibly be mentioned in al-Ṭabarī, iii, 815-16, year 195/810-11, but the reading here is doubtful, see M. Fishbein (tr.), The History of -Ṭabarī , XXXI. The war between brothers, Albany 1992, 71-2 and n. 292. In the hist…

Payg̲h̲ū

(240 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(t.), a Turkish name found e.g. among the early Sald̲j̲ūḳs, usually written P.y.g̲h̲ū or B.y.g̲h̲ū . In many sources on the early history of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs these orthographies seem to reflect the old Turkish title Yabg̲h̲u , which goes back at least to the time of the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions (see C.E. Bosworth and Sir Gerard Clauson, in JRAS [1965], 9-10), and it was the Yabg̲h̲u of the western, Og̲h̲uz Turks whom the eponymous ancestor of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs, Duḳāḳ Temir-Yali̊g̲h̲ “Iron-bow” served (see Cl. Cahen, in Oriens , ii [1949], 42; Bosworth, The Ghaznavids , their empire in Afghanistan a…

Yeñi S̲h̲ehir

(507 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, modern Turkish Yenişehir, a town of northwestern Anatolia, in what was the classical Bithynia. It lies in lat. 40° 17’ N. and long. 29° 38’ E. at an altitude of 245 m/800 feet in a long depression running from Inegöl in a northeasterly direction, where this narrows; this plain is drained by the Gök Su, whose waters are used here for irrigation purposes and which flows past Yeñi S̲h̲ehir into the Sakarya river [ q.v.]. Yeñi S̲h̲ehir played an important role in early Ottoman history. It was the first town of significance to be taken at some point in the early 8th/14th century by ʿOt̲h̲mān I [ q.v.], w…

Masʿūd Beg

(337 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, minister in Central Asia of the Mongol K̲h̲āns in the 13th century A.D. Soon after 1238, in the reign of the Great K̲h̲ān Ögedey (1227-41), parts of Transoxania and Mog̲h̲olistān [ q.v.] (the region of the steppes to the north of Transoxania) were ceded to Čag̲h̲atay as an ind̲j̲ü or appanage [see čag̲h̲atay k̲h̲ān and mā warāʾ al-nahr. 2. History]. Masʿūd Beg’s father Maḥmūd Yalawač [ q.v.] was transferred from his governorship of the sedentary population of Transoxania and Mog̲h̲olistān to China, and the son then appointed to succeed him there. Indeed, acco…

Safīd Kūh

(222 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(p.), in Pas̲h̲to Spīn G̲h̲ar (“The White Mountain”), the name of a mountain range falling mainly in eastern Afghānistān. According to Bābur, it derives its name from its perpetual covering of snow; from its northern slopes, nine rivers run down to the Kābul River ( Bābur-nāma , tr. Beveridge, 209, cf. Appx. E, pp. xvii-xxiii). The Safīd Kūh, with its outliers, runs from a point to the east of G̲h̲azna [ q.v.] in a northeasterly and then easterly direction almost to Attock [see atak ] on the Indus (approx. between longs. 68° 40′ E. an…

Ḳutayba b. Muslim

(1,705 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Ḥafṣ Ḳutayba b. Abī Ṣāliḥ Muslim b. ʿAmr al-Bāhilī , Arab commander under the Umayyad caliphs. He was born in 49/669 into a family influential at the court and with extensive possessions in Baṣra. His father Muslim was the boon-companion of Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya, and during the revolt of al-Muk̲h̲tār [ q.v.], he was in charge of the prison at Baṣra; but he later sided with Muṣʿab b. al-Zubayr and was killed in 72/691-2 when Muṣʿab’s dominion in ʿIrāḳ was ended, after having failed to secure a pardon from ʿAbd al-Malik. The family nevertheless co…

S̲h̲āh Rūd

(441 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a hydronym and toponym of Persia. 1. A river of the Elburz Mountains region of northwestern Persia. It runs from the south-east northwestwards from a source in the mountains west of Tehran and joins the Ḳi̊zi̊l Üzen [ q.v.] at Mand̲j̲īl, the combined waters then making up the Safīd Rūd [ q.v.], which flows into the Caspian Sea. The upper reaches of the S̲h̲āh Rūd are known as the S̲h̲āh Rūd-i Ṭālaḳān, to distinguish it from its right-bank affluent the S̲h̲āh Rūd-i Alamūt. This last rises near the Tak̲h̲t-i Sulaymān peak and is hemmed in by high…

K̲h̲ud̲j̲istān

(304 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a small town or village of mediaeval Islamic Bād̲h̲g̲h̲īs [ q.v.], lying to the northeast of Harāt in modern Afg̲h̲ānistān, and described by the mediaeval geographers as being mountainous, possessing agricultural lands and having warlike inhabitants (Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 268-9; Ibn Ḥawḳal 2, 441, tr. Wiet. 426; Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , 104, 327; Yāḳūt, ii, 404; Barbier de Meynard, Dict . géogr ., hist . et litt. de la Perse , 197). Although within a Sunnī region, K̲h̲ud̲j̲istān itself was one of the last centres for the K̲h̲awārid̲j̲ in eastern Iran, and …

Nars̲h̲ak̲h̲ī

(340 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. D̲j̲aʿfar b. Zakariyyāʾ , historian of the Sāmānid period. Presumably from Nars̲h̲ak̲h̲ in the vicinity of Buk̲h̲ārā (cf. al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, xiii, 77-8), nothing however is known of his life except that he composed in Arabic a history of Buk̲h̲ārā and presented it to the amir Nūḥ b. Naṣr in 332/943-4; this is the only book of his known. The history was translated into Persian by Abū Naṣr Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ḳubāwī (sc. from Ḳubā in Farg̲h̲ānā, cf. ibid., x, 322-3) in 522/1128 because, it is there said, people did not want to read the Arabic …

Ḳang̲h̲li

(817 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
ḳanḳli̊ , the name of a Turkish people living in mediaeval times in the steppes of Turkestan and south-western Siberia. We do not find mention of the Ḳang̲h̲li̊ in the oldest Arab and Persian geographers and travellers of the 3rd-4th/9th-10th centuries, as we do of several other Turkish tribes. For Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, ḳanklī was not an ethnic designation, but was, as a proper noun, “the name of a great man of the Ḳi̊pčaḳ”, and as a common noun, “a heavily-loaded cart” ( Dīwān lug̲h̲āt al-turk , tr. Atalay, iii, 379). In some early Turkish sources on the l…

Dandānḳān

(290 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, Dandānaḳān , a small town in the sand desert between Marw and Sarak̲h̲s in mediaeval K̲h̲urāsān and 10 farsak̲h̲ s or 40 miles from the former city. The site of the settlement is now in the Turkmenistan SSR, see V.A. Zhukovsky, Razvalini̊ Starago Merva , St. Petersburg 1894, 38. The geographers of the 4th/10th century mention that it was well-fortified and was surrounded by a wall 500 paces in circumference, the baths and a ribāṭ or caravanserai lying outside this wall (Ibn Ḥawḳal2 , 436-7, 456, tr. Kramers-Wiet, 422, 440; Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. Minorsky, 105). Whe…

Muḥammad Zamān Mīrzā

(130 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, perennially rebellious Mug̲h̲al prince and brother-in-law of the emperor Humāyūn [ q.v.]. On Humāyūn’s accession in 937/1530, he allied with Bahādur S̲h̲āh of Gud̲j̲arāt, provoking an invasion by Humayūn of Gud̲j̲arāt via Mālwā. Muḥammad Zamān was pardoned, but in 941/1534 rebelled again, this time in Bihār, but had to escape to Gud̲j̲arāt once more. This provoked a full-scale invasion and occupation of Gud̲j̲arāt by the Mug̲h̲al emperor (941-2/1535-6). Muḥammad Zamān escaped; he tried to claim the throne …

Ṣakk

(225 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), pl. ṣikāk , a technical term of early Islamic financial, commercial and legal usage, appearing in Persian, through a standard sound change, as čak , meaning “document, contract of sale, etc.”, which has been suggested—for want of any other etymology—as the origin of Eng. “cheque”, Fr. “chèque,” Ger. “Scheck,” see E. Littmann, Morgenländische Wörter im Deutschen , 2 Tübingen 1924. The term’s range of applications is wide, see Lane, Lexicon , 1709. In legal contexts, it has a similar meaning to sid̲j̲ill [see sid̲j̲ill. 1.], sc. a signed and sealed record of a judge’s decis…
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