Search

Your search for 'dc_creator:( "Bosworth, C.E." ) OR dc_contributor:( "Bosworth, C.E." )' returned 1,368 results. Modify search

Sort Results by Relevance | Newest titles first | Oldest titles first

Lāhīd̲j̲ān

(2,406 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
1. A town in the Caspian coastal province of Gīlān [ q.v.] in north-western Persia, in long. 50° 0′ 20″ E. and lat. 37° 12′ 30″ N. It is situated on the plain to the east of the lower reaches of the Safīd-Rūd and to the north of the Dulfek mountain, and on the small river Čom-k̲h̲ala or Purdesar, but at some 14 miles/20 km. from the Caspian Sea shore. Lāhīd̲j̲ān does not seem to have been known as such to the earliest Arabic geographers, though legend was to attribute its foundation to Lāhīd̲j̲ b. Sām b. Nūḥ. It does, however, appear in the Persian Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (372/982) as L…

Nicobars

(730 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of a group of nineteen islands in the Indian Ocean, to the south of the Bay of Bengal and lying between lats. 6°40′ and 9°20′ N.; the largest southernmost of them, Great Nicobar, is 190 km/120 miles to the northwest of the northern tip of Sumatra. Their area is 1,953 km2/627 sq. miles. The Arabic geographers place them at 15 days’ voyage from Sarandīb ( = Ceylon ) and 6 days’ voyage from Kalah [ q.v.] ( = probably in the Malacca peninsula or, less probably, at Kedah). The Nicobar Islands appear in Arabic travel and geographical literature as early as the Ak̲h̲bār al-Ṣīn wa ’l-Hind

Tālīkōt́ā

(265 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a small town of the mediaeval central Deccan, now in the Bīd̲j̲apur District of the Karnataka State of the Indian Union (lat 16° 31’ N., long. 76° 20’ E.). It is famed as the assembly point and base camp for the combined forces of the South Indian sultanates (the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs, Barīd S̲h̲āhīs, Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhīs and Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs [ q.vv.]). These all marched southwards some 50 km/30 miles southwards to the Krishna river and the villages of Raks̲h̲asa and Tangadi, crossed the river and, at a point 20 km/12 miles south of the Krishna, after several skirmish…

al-Muntaṣir

(444 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
bi ’llāh , Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Muḥammad b. D̲j̲aʿfar , ʿAbbasid caliph, reigned 247-8/861-2, and son of the preceeding caliph al-Mutawakkil by a Greek slave concubine Ḥubs̲h̲iyya. Towards the end of al-Mutawakkil’s reign, it had been the aim of his vizier ʿUbayd Allāh b. Yaḥyā b. K̲h̲āḳān to get the succession changed from the caliph’s original choice as walī al-ʿahd to another son al-Muʿtazz. Al-Muntaṣir was involved in the conspiracy of the Turkish soldiery which led to the caliph’s death [see al-mutawakkil ], and himself received the bayʿa [ q.v.] at the palace of al-D̲j̲aʿfariyya on …

Mukārī

(326 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), lit. “hirer”, a dealer in riding beasts and beasts of burden (see WbKAS , Letter K, s.v., 164-5), usage being extended from the person buying and selling and hiring to the muleteer or other person accompanying a loaded beast. Terminology in this overlaps here with other, more specific terms like ḥammār , donkey driver and dealer, and bag̲h̲g̲h̲āl , mule driver and dealer, whilst in 19th century Damascus, rakkāb was also used for the hirer of donkeys and the man accompanying them on trading journeys. In pre-modern times, the mukārūn/mukāriya and their assoc…

Las̲h̲kar-i Bāzār

(1,503 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name given to a complex of military encampments, settlements and royal palaces in southern Afg̲h̲ānistān which apparently flourished in the 5th/11th and 6th/12th centuries. The site (lat. 31° 28′ N. and long 64° 20′ E.) is an extensive one, stretching along the left bank of the Helmand River [see hilmand ] near its confluence with the Arg̲h̲andāb with the mediaeval Islamic town of Bust [ q.v.], modern ruins of Ḳalʿa-yi Bist, at its southern end, and the modern, new town (named after the mediaeval complex of buildings) of Las̲h̲kar-gāh at its northern one.…

Pīs̲h̲dādids

(327 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a mythical dynasty of ancient Persia, given a considerable role in the national historical tradition of Persia. This tradition was essentially put together in the k̲h̲ w adāy-nāmags of late Sāsānid times and, like most of our information on Sāsānid history, has to be reconstructed from post-Sāsanid, ¶ mainly early Islamic sources. Hence we find information on the Pīs̲h̲dādids in such sources as al-Ṭabarī, al-Masʿūdī, Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī and al-T̲h̲aʿālibī. Ḥamza, ed. Beirut n.d. [ ca. 1961], 13, 16-17, makes the Fīs̲h̲dādiyya the first ṭabaḳa of the kings …

Ḳūmis

(1,721 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a small province of mediaeval Islamic Persia, lying to the south of the Alburz chain watershd and extending into the northern fringes of the Das̲h̲t-i Kavīr. Its western boundaries lay almost in the eastern rural districts of Ray, whilst on the east it marched with K̲h̲urāsān, with which it was indeed at times linked. It was bisected by the great Ray-K̲h̲urāsān highway, along which ¶ were situated the chief towns of Ḳūmis, from west to east K̲h̲uwār or K̲h̲awār (classical Χοαρηνή, modern Aradūn), Simnān [ q.v.]. Dāmg̲h̲ān [ q.v.], and Bisṭām [ q.v.], whilst at its south-eastern extrem…

Ibn Saʿdān

(725 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad , official and vizier of the Būyids in the second half of the 4th/10th century and patron of scholars, d. 374/984-5. Virtually nothing is known of his origins, but he served the great amīr ʿAḍud al-Dawla Fanā-Ḵh̲usraw [ q.v.] as one of his two inspectors of the army ( ʿāriḍ al-d̲j̲ays̲h̲ ) in Bag̲h̲dād, the ʿāriḍ responsible for the Turkish, Arab and Kurdish troops. Then when ʿAḍud al-Dawla died in 372/983 and his son Ṣamṣām al-Dawla Marzubān assumed power in Bag̲h̲dād as supreme amīr, he nominated Ibn Saʿdān as his vizier. He occupied this post fo…

Īlāḳ

(262 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, the region of Transoxania lying within the great northwards bend of the middle reaches of the Jaxartes river and to the south of the rightbank affluent the Āhangarān (Russian form, Angren) river. It thus lay between the provinces of S̲h̲ās̲h̲ [see tas̲h̲kent ] on the northwest and Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.] on the east. The Arabic and Persian geographers of the 3rd-5th/9th-11th centuries describe it as a flourishing province, with its mountains producing silver and salt. They give the names of many towns there, the chief one being Tūnkat̲h̲, whose ru…

Tutus̲h̲ (I) b. Alp Arslan

(733 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Saʿīd Tād̲j̲ al-Dawla (458-88/1066-95), Sald̲j̲ūḳ ruler in Syria 471-88/1078-95. The name, < Tkish. tut-, “he who grasps, seizes”, was already familiar as a personal name to Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, tr. Atalay, i, 367. During his brother Malik S̲h̲āh’s [ q.v.] lifetime, the youthful Tutus̲h̲ was given Syria in 471/1078 or 472/1079 as his appanage. The Turkmen commander Atsi̊z b. Uvak [ q.v.], who had overrun southern Syria and Palestine and had seized Jerusalem from the Fāṭimids, had been swept out of these temporary conquests by the returning armies of al-Mu…

Kōhāt

(982 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(p., “mountains”), a directly-administered District of what was the North West Frontier Province of British India and of Pakistan till 1955, covering some 2,694 sq. miles and with its administrative centre at the town of Kōhāt. The District is bounded by the Khyber Agency [see k̲h̲aybar Pass] on the north, by the Kurram and North Wāziristān Agencies in the west, by the Bannū District [ q.v.] on the south, and by the Indus River and the ʿĪsā K̲h̲ēl taḥṣīl of the Pand̲j̲āb on the east. The terrain of the District is that of a rugged tableland lying at an average of 2,000 ft., with…

Pamirs

(629 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name (of unknown etymology) of a mountain massif of Inner Asia. Its core is in the modern Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous oblast of the former USSR, but it spills over into Kirghizia and Tadjikistan to the north and west, and into the Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China to the east, and Afg̲h̲ānistān (including the Wak̲h̲ān corridor) and Pākistānī Kas̲h̲mir (Āzād Kas̲h̲mīr) to the south. Comprised mainly of east-west-running ranges, its many river valleys being right-bank affluents of t…

Isfizārī

(258 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Muʿīn al-Dīn Muḥammad Zamčī, epistolary stylist and historian in Tīmūrid Ḵh̲urāsān whose birth and death dates are unknown but who flourished in the second half of the 8th/14th century. From what he says in his own works, he arrived in Harāt, probably from Isfizār in what is now western Afg̲h̲ānistān, in 873/1468-9, and was employed as a muns̲h̲ī at the court of Sultan Ḥusayn Bayḳara [see Ḥusayn at Vol. III, 603a] under the patronage of the vizier Ḳiwām al-Dīn Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 903/1497-8). Isfizārī is most famous as the author of a history and compendium of …

al-Zuṭṭ

(760 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the form in early Arabic usage for the name of a northwestern Indian people, the Jhāt́s [see d̲j̲āt́ ], members of whom were brought into the Persian Gulf region in the first Islamic centuries and possibly earlier. According to al-Balād̲h̲urī, the Sāsānid emperor Bahrām V Gūr ( r. 420-38) transported Zuṭṭ from India to K̲h̲ūzistān and the Persian Gulf shores; these subsequently became Muslim and were settled by Abū Mūsa al-As̲h̲ʿarī [ q.v.] at Baṣra, being attached to the tribe of Ḥanẓala of Tamīm. At least some of them were caught up in the rebellion of Ibn al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲ [ q.v.], and after…

Nad̲j̲īb al-Dawla

(315 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Afg̲h̲ān commander in northern India during the 18th century, whose power-base was in Rohilkand, where he founded the town of Nad̲j̲ībābād [ q.v.]. Involved in the confused struggles for power in Dihlī during the reigns of the fainéant Mug̲h̲al Emperors Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Bahādur [ q.v.] and ʿAlamgīr II in the 1750s, as opponent of the Nawwāb-wazīr of Awadh (Oudh) [ q.v.] Ṣafdār D̲j̲ang, he worked closely with the Afg̲h̲ān ruler Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Durrānī [ q.v.] and received from him in 1757 the title of amīr al-umarāʾ and custodianship of the Emperor ʿĀlamgīr II. At…

Ili

(691 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a large river in Central Asia. It is formed by the two rivers Tekes and Kunges, which rise on the northern slopes of the T’ien-Shan Mts.; the united stream of the Ili then flows for some 950 kms. across the northern part of the region known in mediaeval times as “the land of the seven rivers”, Yeti-su or Semirečye, into Lake Balk̲h̲as̲h̲. The lower course of the Ili falls within the Soviet Kazakhstan Republic, whilst the eastern part of the Ili river system belongs to the Chinese Sinkiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Ili is first mentioned in the history of the Chinese T’ang dynast…

Tigin

(321 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Takīn (t.), in the oldest known Turkish tégin , an ancient Turkish title with the original meaning of “prince”. In the early Türk empire, it denoted the legitimate son or grandson of the Supreme Ḳag̲h̲an. It appears as such in the Ork̲h̲on [ q.v.] inscriptions, one of which is known as that of Kül Tigin (literally “the younger brother [of Elteris̲h̲ Ḳag̲h̲an], the crown prince”), cf. Talât Tekin, A grammar of Orkhon Turkic , Bloomington 1968, 237. G. Doerfer ( Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen , Wiesbaden 1963-7, ii, 533-41, no. 922) and Sir Gerard Clauson ( A dictionary o…

Rawwādids

(477 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
or Banū rawwād , a minor dynasty of northwestern Persia which flourished during the period which Minorsky characterised as the “Iranian intermezzo” between the decline of Arab power there and the incoming of Turkish peoples like the Sald̲j̲ūḳs, essentially during the 4th-5th/10th-11th centuries. Although the Daylamīs [see daylam ] were the most prominent in this upsurge of northern Persian mountain peoples, the part of other races like the Kurds was not negligible. The Rawwādids (the form “Rawād” later becomes common in …

Wahb

(1,117 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Banū , a family of officials in caliphal service, especially noted as secretaries and viziers to the ʿAbbāsids during the 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th centuries. The majority of sources state that the family came from Wāsiṭ and were of Nestorian Christian origin before converting to Islam, nevertheless claiming a pure Arabic origin going back to the Yemeni tribe of Balḥārit̲h̲ of Nad̲j̲rān. The Wahbīs thus belong to the tradition of servants of the caliphs with Nestorian backgrounds who were prominent in the administrations of the 3rd/9th century (cf. L. Massignon, La politique islamo-c…

Taḥṣīl

(151 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), the verbal noun of the form II verb ḥaṣṣala “to collect together, acquire”. In Indo-Muslim usage, this term—taken over from previous régimes— denoted in the British Indian provinces of Bombay, Madras and the United Provinces the collection of revenue and, thence, the administrative area from which this taxation was collected. Thus ¶ in the above-mentioned provinces, the taḥṣīl was a subdivision of a District ( taʿalluḳa , corruptly, tālūḳ ) with an area of up to 600 square miles. Hence in size, a taḥṣīl came between the pargana [ q.v.] and the sarkār of the Mug̲h̲al empire [see mug̲h̲al…

Sarḥadd

(292 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(p.), lit. “upper frontier, boundary”, a general geographical term specifically applied in southeastern Persia to the mountain region in the modern Persian province of Balūčistān and Sīstān adjoining the frontier with Pākistānī Balūčistān. Its mountain chains run generally from northwest to southeast, and include the volcanic (still partially active) Kūh-i Taftān (4,042 m/13,262 feet), the highest point, but there are also east-west-running outliers, such as the Kūh-i Bazmān (3,489 m/11,478 feet) which connects the Sarḥadd with the D̲j̲abal Bāriz [ q.v. in Suppl.]. The only…

Sand̲j̲ar

(2,598 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. Malik S̲h̲āh , ʿAḍud al-Dawla Abu ’l-Ḥārit̲h̲ Aḥmad, Sald̲j̲ūḳ malik in K̲h̲urāsān 490-511/1097-1118 and then supreme sultan of the Great Saldjuḳs, ruling K̲h̲urāsān and northern Persia till his death in 552/1157; he accordingly ruled for some 60 years. The name Sand̲j̲ar, which occurs for other members of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ family and elsewhere in the Turkish world, seems to mean in Turkish “he who pierces, thrusts”, cf. M.Th. Houtsma, Ein türkisch-arabisches Glossar , Leiden 1894, text 29, glossary 78, 80, and the detailed discussion by P. Pelliot, in Oeuvres posthumes, ii, Paris 19…

Salama b. Dīnār

(110 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Ḥāzim al-Mak̲h̲zūmī, called al-Aʿrad̲j̲ “the Lame” (d. ca. 140/757), traditionist and judge in Medina, regarded as a protein Ṣūfī mystic; he was of Persian origin. Various aphorisms ( ḥikam ) and elegant sayings of his are preserved in citations, and also his answers to questions put to him by the Umayyad caliph Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik [ q.v.]; also, a collection of his masāʾil [see al-masāʾil wa ’l-ad̲j̲wiba ] is extant in manuscript. (C.E. Bosworth) Bibliography Zirikli, Aʿlām, iii, 171-2 Sezgin, GAS, i, 634-5 R. Eisener, Zwischen Faktum und Fiktion. Eine Studie zum Umayyaden…

Kūh-i Bābā

(445 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the mountain massif of central Afg̲h̲ānistān, being the westwards and southwards extension of the Pamirs “knot” and the Hindū Kus̲h̲ [ q.v.] of north-eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān. The name Kūh-i Bābā is properly given to the east-west chaîne magistrale running westwards from Kābul and lying to the south of the upper Herī Rūd, with outliers running southwards and westwards through the regions of the G̲h̲ōrāt and Hazārad̲j̲āt [see g̲h̲ūr and hazārad̲j̲āt in Suppl.] between such river valleys as those of the Helmand, Arg̲h̲andāb and Tarnak. On the northern side of the He…

al-Sahmī

(202 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Ḥamza b. Yūsuf al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī al-D̲j̲urd̲j̲ānī. Abu ’l-Ḳāsim (b. at an unknown date towards the middle of the 4th/10th century, d. 427/1038 at Nīs̲h̲āpūr), traditionist and legal scholar. A native of Gurgān [ q.v.] in the Caspian coastlands, where he was a k̲h̲aṭīb and preacher, his major work, and apparently the sole surviving one, is his Taʾrīk̲h̲ D̲j̲urd̲j̲ān or Kitāb Maʿrifat ʿulamāʾ ahl D̲j̲urd̲j̲ān , essentially a rid̲j̲āl [ q.v.] work devoted to the scholars and muḥaddit̲h̲ūn of his native province, to which is prefixed (ed. Ḥaydarābād 1369/…

Turaba

(595 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of a wadi and of a settlement in western Arabia, and also of a settlement in northern Arabia. 1. The wadi. This runs in a northeasterly direction from the mountains of the Sarāt [ q.v.] to the south of al-Ṭāʾif and past the setdement of Turaba, when it becomes the Wādī Ṣubayʿ. It flows through a region of ḥarras [ q.v.] through the Ṣubayʿ [ q.v.] country and disappears into the ʿArḳ al-Ṣubayʿ of Nad̲j̲d. The mediaeval Islamic geographers describe it as being three nights’ journey long and as having date palms, trees, fruits and cultivation. They place…

Taḳsīṭ

(113 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), the verbal noun of a form II verb ḳassaṭa “to distribute”, especially used as a term of early Islamic financial administration. It denoted the allocation or distribution amongst the taxpayers of the global amount of taxation due. The synonyms ḳasṭ/ḳisṭ are also found. The term could also denote the total amount of taxation due or the instalments by which it was paid. See the references given by F. Løkkegaard, Islamic taxation in the classic period, with special reference to circumstances in Iraq , Copenhagen 1950, 127, and also H.F. Amedroz, Abbasid administration in its decay, from …

al-Mizza

(312 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, modern form Mezzé, a village lying, according to the mediaeval geographers, half-a-farsak̲h̲ (i.e. about 4 km./2½ miles) to the west of Damascus [see dimas̲h̲ḳ ], described as extensive, populous and agriculturally rich, being irrigated by one of the streams of the Baradā river. It was also known as Mizzat Kalb, having been in the Umayyad period a locality heavily settled by South Arabian, Kalbī supporters of the Sufyānids, and being also the spot where the Companion of the Prophet Diḥya b. K̲h̲alīfa al-Kalbī was reputedly buried (al-Harawī, Ziyārāt , 11/27).…

Buʿāt̲h̲

(219 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the site of a battle about 617 A.D. between most sections of the two Medinan tribes of Aws and Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲. It lay in the south-eastern quarter of the Medinan oasis in the territory of the Banū Ḳurayẓa. The battle was the climax of a series of internal conflicts. The Aws, whose position had deteriorated, were joined by the two chief Jewish tribes, Ḳurayẓa and al-Naḍīr, and by nomads of Muzayna; their leader was Ḥuḍayr b. Simāk. The opposing leader ʿAmr b. al-Nuʿmān of Bayāḍa was supported by most of the Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲, and by some nomadic D̲j̲uhayna and As̲h̲d̲j̲aʿ, but ʿAbd Allāh b. Ubayy [ q.v.] a…

al-T̲h̲aʿālibī

(349 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Manṣūr , the author of a history in Arabic, the Taʾrīk̲h̲ G̲h̲urar al-siyar or al-G̲h̲urar fī siyar al-mulūk wa-ak̲h̲bārihim , which he dedicated to the G̲h̲aznawid Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Naṣr b. Sebüktigin, governor of K̲h̲urāsān, d. 412/1021. According to Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa, tr. Flügel, iv, 319 no. 8592, this universal history comprised four volumes, going from the Creation to Mahmud of G̲h̲azna [ q.v.] in the author’s own time. From the first part, H. Zotenberg published a text and French translation, Histoire des rois de Perse , Paris 1900. It is espec…

Zāwa

(325 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a district and town of K̲h̲urāsān. The town (modern Turbat-i Ḥaydarī or Ḥaydariyya, see below) is some 140 km/88 miles south of Mas̲h̲had on the road to Gunābād and lies at an altitude of approximately 1,280/4,200 feet (lat. 35° 16’ N., long. 59° 08’ E.). Al-Muḳaddasī, 319 n. a, describes it as being just a rural district with no town, but Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 128, names its ḳaṣaba as Ruk̲h̲k̲h̲ or Rīk̲h̲. In Il-K̲h̲ānid times, the town of Zāwa seems to have flourished, with 50 villages dependent on it, producing silk and fruits (Mustawfī, Nuzha , ed. Le St…

Zunbīl

(321 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the putative title borne by a line of rulers in eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān in pre- and early Islamic times, who opposed the extension of Muslim arms into their region for some two centuries. In the Arabic historical texts, there is uncertainty about the vocalisation of the name, with forms like *Rutbīl and *Ratbīl, etc. given. The origin of the title is quite obscure. Marquart was probably correct in seeing in it a theophoric name which included the element Zūn [ q.v.] or Z̲h̲ūn, the name of the god mentioned in the Arabic sources as worshipped in the region of Zamīndāwar [ q.v.]; but other, less …

Nangrahār

(270 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Ningrahār , the name of the province of modern Afg̲h̲ānistān (post-1964 administrative organisation) which covers essentially the basin of the middle Kābul River from the Pakistan frontier near Land́ī Kōtal to a short distance to the west of the province’s administrative centre, D̲j̲alālābād [ q.v. in Suppl.] and the mountain regions on each bank. Before Lag̲h̲mān and Kunaŕ provinces were carved out from it in 1964, Nangrahār province extended northwards to include Nūristān (L. Dupree, Afghanistan , Princeton 1973, 156-7). The name itself goes back to the pre-Islamic perio…

K̲h̲ulm

(1,040 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a town of northern Afg̲h̲ānistān lying in the lowland region to the south of the upper Oxus at an altitude of 1,400 ft./450 m. and in lat. 36° 42′ N. and long. 67° 41′ E.; it is situated some 30 miles/50 km. to the east of modern Mazār-i S̲h̲arīf and, according to the mediaeval Islamic geographers, two marḥala s or 10 farsak̲h̲ s to the east of Balk̲h̲ [ q.v.]. It further lies on the K̲h̲ulm River which flows down a narrow valley from the Hindu Kus̲h̲ past the town of Haybak and then K̲h̲ulm itself until it peters out short of the Oxus. It is possible that this river is the Artamis of the Greek geographers. T…

Kutāhiya

(708 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, modern Kütahya , a town of north-western Anatolia, lying at an altitude of 3,251 feet/991 m. in lat. 39° 25′ north and long. 29° 59′ east. It is in the south-western corner of the well-cultivated plain of the Porsuk Çay, which eventually runs into the Sakarya river; the old town nestles on the slopes of the hill called ʿAd̲j̲em Dag̲h̲, which is crowned by the ruined citadel. In classical times it was Cotyaeum, the city of Cotys, and the largest city of Phrygia Salutaris, an early centre of Christianity and then in Byzantine times the seat of an archbishopric. Kutāhiya was taken by the Turkme…

Muʾnis al-Faḥl

(227 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
or Muʾnis al-K̲h̲āzin , commander of the ʿAbbāsids, prominent during the caliphates of al-Muʿtaḍid, al-Muktafī and al-Muḳtadir [ q.vv.], i.e. the end of the 3rd/9th and the opening of the 4th/10th centuries. He was called “the stallion” ( al-faḥl ) to distinguish him from his more celebrated contemporary Muʾnis al-K̲h̲ādim (“the eunuch”) [see muʾnis al-muẓaffar ]. Muʾnis al-Faḥl was ṣāḥib al-ḥaras or commander of the guard for al-Muʿtaḍid, and was sent by the caliph on various punitive expeditions against unruly Bedouin and other re…

Ibn al-Balk̲h̲ī

(286 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, Persian author of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ period who wrote a local history and topographical account of his native province Fārs, the Fārs-nāma . Nothing is known of him save what can be gleaned from his book, nor is the exact form of his name known, but his ancestors came from Balk̲h̲. His grandfather was mustawfī or accountant for Fārs under Berk-yaruḳ b. Malik S̲h̲āh’s governor there, the Atabeg Rukn al-Dawla or Nad̲j̲m al-Dawla Ḵh̲umārtigin, and Ibn al-Balk̲h̲ī acquired his extensive local knowledge of Fārs through accompanying hi…

Irtis̲h̲

(655 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, conventionally Irtysh, a river of Siberia and the main left-bank affluent of the Ob [ q.v.]. It rises from glaciers on the southern slopes of the Altai mountains near the modern frontier of the Mongolian Republic and Chinese Turkestan or Sinkiang [ q.v.] through the Zaysan lake into the Kazakhstan Republic, then out of it into the Omsk oblast of the Russian Federation and joins the Ob at Khanty Mansiysk, its complete course being 3,720 km/2,312 miles, the greater part of it navigable. The Irtis̲h̲ is mentioned, as ärtis , in the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions (Kültégin…

Zand̲j̲ān

(774 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a town of northwestern Persia, situated on the Zand̲j̲ān Rūd, a right-bank affluent of the Safīd Rūd [ q.v.]. It lies on the highway from Tehran and Ḳazwīn to Tabrīz at a distance of 314 km/195 miles from Tehran and 302 km/188 miles from Tabrīz, and at an altitude of 1,625 m/5,330 feet (lat. 36° 40′ N., long. 48° 30′ E.). The mediaeval geographers mostly placed Zand̲j̲ān in D̲j̲ibāl province, usually linking it with Abhar [ q.v.] or Awhar some 80 km/50 miles to its south-east, but they usually stated that it was on the frontier with Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, and some authoriti…

Mas̲h̲had

(353 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), noun of place from the verb s̲h̲ahida “to witness, be present at” > “be a martyr, s̲h̲ahīd’ ‘ (a post-Ḳurʾānic semantic development which Goldziher thought was influenced by Eastern Christian Syriac parallel usage; see Muh . Studien , ii, 387-9, Eng. tr. ii, 350-2). In post-Ḳurʾānic times also, the noun mas̲h̲had developed from its designating any sacred place, not necessarily having a construction associated with it, but often in fact a tomb in general, the burial place of an earlier prophet, saint or forerunner of Muḥammad or of any Muslim who had had pronounced over him the s̲h̲ahād…

Mīr Ḳāsim ʿAlī

(336 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Indo-Muslim commander and Nawwāb [ q.v.] of Bengal 1760-4, died in 1777. ¶ Mīr Ḳāsim’s rise to power was an episode in the British East Indian Company’s extension of power in eastern India in the latter decades of the 18th century. Since the Nawwāb of Bengal Mīr D̲j̲aʿfar [see d̲j̲aʿfar , mīr ] was unable to fulfill financial obligations contracted to the Company, he was in October 1760 deposed in favour of his son-in-law Mīr Ḳāsim, who now became Nawwāb but had to cede the districts of Burdwan, Midnapur and Chittagong to the British. However, he now attempted to build up…

Parwīz, K̲h̲usraw (II)

(468 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Sāsānid emperor 591-628, and the last great ruler of this dynasty before the invading Arabs overthrew the Persian empire. The MP name Parwīz “victorious” is explained in al-Ṭabarī, i, 995, 1065, as al-muẓaffar and al-manṣūr ; the ¶ name was Arabised as Abarwīz (see Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch , 19). For the main events of his long reign (dominated by the struggles with the Byzantines over the buffer-state Armenia and over control of the Fertile Crescent in general, culminating in the Persian invasion of Egypt in 619, but then the riposte by t…

Sārangpur

(203 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a small town in Central India, before Partition in the Native State of Dewās, now in the Shajapur District of the state of Madhya Pradesh in the Indian Union (lat. 23° 34′ N, long. 76° 24′ E). It is essentially a Muslim town, founded by the sultans of Mālwā [ q.v.], but on an ancient site. It was reputedly the location of a battle in 840/1437 when Maḥmūd K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī I of Mālwā was defeated by the forces of Mēwāŕ [ q.v.], and, of more certain historicity, it was captured in 932/1526 from Maḥmūd II of ¶ Mālwā by Rāṇā Sāṇgā [ q.v.] of Čitawr. Then in 968/1561 it was seized by Akbar from the local…

Zarang

(1,264 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Arabised as Zarand̲j̲, the main town of the early Islamic province of Sīstān. Its ruins lie a few miles north of what was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the administrative centre of Persian Sīstān, Nuṣratābād or Nāṣirābād, modern Zābul. Its remaining traces are visible within the vast ruined site known as Nād-i ʿAlī, to the east of the present course of the Hilmand river [ q.v.] before it peters out in the Hāmūn depression [see zirih ] just inside Afg̲h̲an Sīstān; the site has, however, been much depleted by periodic flooding and the re-us…

Simnān

(1,048 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a town of northern Persia (long. 53° 24′ E., lat. 35° 33′ N., alt. 1,138 m/3,734 ft.), in mediaeval Islamic times coming within the province of Ḳūmis [ q.v.] and lying on the great highway connecting Rayy with the administrative centre of Ḳūmis, sc. Dāmg̲h̲ān [ q.v.], and K̲h̲urāsān. To its north is situated the Elburz Mountain chain and to its south, the Great Desert. 1. History. Simnān comes within what was the heartland of the Parthians (whose capital almost certainly was at S̲h̲ahr-i Ḳūmis, southeast of Dāmg̲h̲ān on the Simnān road), but nothing is known o…

al-ʿUtbī

(688 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of a family settled in K̲h̲urāsān, of Arab descent, which provided secretaries and viziers for the Sāmānids and early G̲h̲aznawids [ q.vv.] in the 4th/10th and early 5th/11th centuries (from which of the ʿUtbas of early Islamic times they were descended does not seem to be specified in the sources). 1. Abū d̲j̲aʿfar ( ism and nasab variously given), vizier under the Sāmānid amīr ʿAbd al-Malik I b. Nūḥ I, from 344/956 to 348/959 and again, in company with Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad al-Balʿamī [ q.v.], under his successor Manṣūr I b. Nūḥ I, a few years later. His policy aimed at s…

Ṭabas

(557 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of two places in eastern Persia, denoted in the early mediaeval Islamic sources by the dual form al-Ṭabasāni (e.g. in al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, ix, 45, and Yāḳūt, Buldān, ed. Beirut, iv, 20) and distinguished as Ṭabas al-Tamr “Ṭ. of the date-palms” and Ṭabas al-ʿUnnāb “Ṭ. of the jujube trees”, later Persian forms Ṭabas Gīlakī and Ṭabas Masīnān respectively. Ṭabas al-Tamr lay to the west of Ḳuhistān [ q.v.] in the central Great Desert at a junction of routes between the Das̲h̲t-i Lūt in the south and the Das̲h̲t-i Kawīr in the north and west. Ṭab…

D̲j̲and

(1,880 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, a mediaeval town on the lower reaches of the Si̊r Daryā in Central Asia, towards its debouchure into the Aral Sea, in what is now the Kazakhstan SSR; its fame was such that the Aral Sea was often called “the Sea of D̲j̲and”. D̲j̲and is first mentioned by certain Muslim geographers of the mid-4th/10th century, in particular, by Ibn Ḥawḳal, and following him, by the anonymous author of the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (wrote 372/982). Ibn Ḥawḳal mentions three settlements on the lower Si̊r Daryā amongst the Og̲h̲uz Turks of that region: D̲j̲and; the “New Se…

Ḳut̲h̲am b. al-ʿAbbās

(737 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib al-Hās̲h̲imī , Companion of the Prophet, son of the Prophet’s uncle and of Umm al-Faḍl Lubāba al-Hilāliyya, herself Muḥammad’s sister-in-law. Although the Sīra brings him into contact with Muḥammad by making him one of the inner circle of the Hās̲h̲imī family who washed the Prophet’s corpse and descended into his grave, and although his physical resemblance to the Prophet is also stressed, he was obviously a late convert to Islam, doubtless following his father al-ʿAbbās [ q.v.] in this after the conquest of Mecca. Nothing is heard of him during the reigns of t…
▲   Back to top   ▲