(a.), "mine, ore, mineral, metal". In modern Arabic, the word mand̲j̲am denotes "mine", while muʿaddin means "miner" and d̲j̲amād is a mineral. In the vast Islamic empire, minerals played an important part. There was a great need for gold, silver and copper for the minting of coins and other uses. Iron ore was indispensable for the manufacture ¶ of iron and steel for arms and implements. Other minerals such as mercury, salt and alum, as well as pearls and precious stones, were necessary for everyday life. The empire was richly endowed with the various…

(a.), mosque, the noun of place from sad̲j̲ada “to prostrate oneself, hence “place where one prostrates oneself [in worship]”. The modern Western European words (Eng. mosque , Fr. mosquée , Ger. Moschee , Ital. moschea ) come ultimately from the Arabic via Spanish mezquita . I. In the central Islamic lands A. The origins of the mosque up to the Prophet’s death. The word msgdʾ is found in Aramaic as early as the Jewish Elephantine Papyri (5th century B.C.), and appears likewise in Nabataean inscriptions with the meaning “place of worship…

(a.), in Islamic law, the act of founding a charitable trust, and, hence the trust itself. A synonym, used mainly by Mālikī jurists, is ḥabs , ḥubus or ḥubs (in French often rendered as habous ). The essential elements are that a person, with the intention of committing a pious deed, declares part of his or her property to be henceforth unalienable ( ḥabs, taḥbīs ) and designates persons or public utilities as beneficiaries of its yields ( al-taṣadduḳ bi ’l-manfaʿa , tasbīl al-manfaʿa ). The Imāmī S̲h̲īʿa distinguish between waḳf and ḥabs, the latter being a precarious type of waḳf in which th…

, often contracted to māristān , from Persian bīmār ‘sick’ + the suffix -istān denoting place, a hospital. In modern usage bīmāristān is applied especially to a lunatic asylum. ¶ i. Early period and Muslim East . According to the Arabs themselves (cf. Maḳrīzī, Ḵh̲iṭaṭ , ii, 405), the first hospital was founded either by Manāḳyūs, a mythical king of Egypt, or by Hippocrates, the latter of whom is said to have made for the sick in a garden near his house a xenodokeion , literally ‘lodging for strangers’. The authority for this statement is given by Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa ( ʿUyūn , …

(a.), “wise fools”, a general denomination for individuals whose actions contradict social norms, while their utterances are regarded as wisdom. It is not altogether clear whether or not wise fools were particularly numerous in the early ʿAbbāsid period. At any rate, several authors of classical Arabic literature have treated the phenomenon in specific works that belong to the literary genre dealing with unusual classes of people, such as the blind or misers. While the first collection devoted specifically to wise fools was apparently a work written by al-Madāʾinī (d. 228/843 [ q.v.])…

, (Arabic form Ḏj̲undaysābūr) a town in Ḵh̲ūzistān founded by the Sāsānid S̲h̲āpūr I (whence the name wandēw S̲h̲āpūr “acquired by S̲h̲āpūr”, cf. Nöldeke, Geschichte der ¶ Perser , 41, n. 2), who settled it with Greek prisoners. It is the town known as Bēth-Lāpāt in Syriac, corrupted to Bēl-Ābād̲h̲, now almost unrecognizable in the form nīlāb and nīlāṭ ; the site is marked at the present day by the ruins of S̲h̲āhābād (cf. Rawlinson in the Journ . of the Royal Geogr . Soc , ix, 72; de Bode, Travels in Luristan , ii, 167). The town was taken by the Muslims in the ca…

(t.), in Ottoman usage the complex of buildings with varying purposes centred round a mosque. The concept of a külliyye was inherent in the earliest form of the mosque or d̲j̲āmiʿ where one building housed the place of prayer and teaching as well as serving as a hostel [see EI1, art. Masd̲j̲id ]. Later, other services were incorporated under one foundation document, and each was housed in its own building within an enclosure. This did not preclude the foundation of hospitals, etc., as separate institutions, as in 7th/13th century Anatolia. The early grouping of a külliyye was often due to…

(a.), leprosy or Hansen’s disease. I. Terminology . A number of Arabic terms that may refer to leprosy were created on the basis of the symptomatology of the disease. Aside from the distinctive symptoms of advanced lepromatous leprosy, various terms were adopted that were descriptive of leprous lesions, but they were not restricted exclusively to leprosy. No clinical cases of leprosy are reported in the mediaeval medical literature that might clarify the terminology. There can be little doubt, however, that d̲j̲ud̲h̲ām referred to leprosy, particularly…

(a., pl. of rawḍa “garden”), the capital of Saudi Arabia (estimated population, 1993: 1.5 million). 1. Natural setting. Al-Riyāḍ is situated in the centre of the Arabian peninsula, in the region of Nad̲j̲d [ q.v.], at 453 km/280 miles from Baḥrayn on the Gulf coast and 1,061 km/660 miles from D̲j̲udda [ q.v.] on the Red Sea coast. The actual site is on a plateau with an average height of 600 m/1,968 ft. made up of sedimentary deposits, mainly calcareous, and of the Jurassic period. This plateau is intersected by valleys with scarped edges, notabl…

(a.), medicine. 1. Medicine in the Islamic world. Medical care in the Islamic world was pluralistic, with various practices serving different needs and sometimes intermingling. This medical pluralism allowed pre-Islamic traditional and magical practices to flourish alongside medical theories inherited from the Hellenistic world and drug lore acquired from India and elsewhere. The medical practices of pre-Islamic Arabia appear to have continued as the dominant form of care into the early days of the Umay…

, also eyvān and at times in spoken Arabic līwān , a Persian word adopted by the Turkish and Arabic languages and then by western travellers, archaeologists and art historians to refer to certain characteristic features of Near Eastern and especially Islamic architecture. Since there are notable differences in the meanings given to this term in mediaeval texts and in modern scholarship, the two must be clearly separated. It has been suggested that the word itself derives from Old Persian apadana (E. Herzfeld, Mythos und Geschichte , in Archäologische Mitteilungen aus Iran …

, Muslims in. 1. The pre-colonial period Originally, Islam came into Uganda from three directions, i.e. the east and south along the established caravan routes of what is today Tanzania and Kenya [ q.vv.] and from the north, along the Nile in what is today Sudan [see sūdān ]. Later, Indian Muslims came into Uganda. Initially the contacts were almost exclusively with the kingdom of Buganda around the north-western end of Lake Victoria. Muslim traders who had established themselves in the Tabora region of present-day Tanzania by 1825 were trading at Koki in southern Bu…

(usual Ar. form, Bud̲j̲a), nomadic tribes, living between the Nile and Red Sea, from the Ḳina-Ḳuṣayr route to the angle formed by the ʿAṭbarā and the hills of the Eritrean-Sudanese frontier. The principal modern tribes are the ʿAbābda [ q.v.], Bis̲h̲ārīn [ q.v.], Ummarār, Hadanduwa and Banī ʿĀmir. The ʿAbābda now speak Arabic; the others (except the Tigre-speaking sections of B. ʿĀmir) speak tu-Beḍawiye, a Hamitic language. The Bed̲j̲a subsist mainly on their herds of camels, cattle, sheep and goats. Since grazing is sparse, they move u…

, fortress and town of Central India. 1. History. Once the fortress-capital of Mālwā [ q.v.] and now a village 34 km. south of Dhār in Madhya Pradesh, in lat. 22° 21′ N and long. 75° 26′ E. The first rulers took full advantage of a natural outcrop of the Vindhya range, overlooking the Nimar plain to the south. A deep and jagged ravine, the Kakra Khoh, isolates it on the sides. The plateau, well-supplied with lakes and springs, stretches unevenly over 5 km. and more f…

, born in 895/1490, the chief Ottoman court architect from 945/1538 until his death in 996/1588. Although the names of several other Ottoman court architects are known, none match his fame. Combining a long life with the opportunities afforded by the resources of the Ottoman empire at its zenith, he produced an œuvre that is unmatched in quantity and quality, not just in Ottoman, but in Islamic architecture as a whole. Of Christian Greek origin, he was recruited in the devs̲h̲irme levy within the reign of Sultan Selīm I (1512-20). He first participated…

, a town on the northern, Black Sea coast of Asia Minor, in the eastern part of classical Pontus and in the later mediaeval Islamic Lazistān [see laz ], now in the Turkish Republic (lat. 41° 03′ N., long. 40° 31′ E.). In Byzantine times, Rhizus/Rhizaion was a place of some importance and was strongly fortified. With the Ottoman annexation of the Comneni empire of Trebizond in 865/1462 [see ṭarabzun ], it became part of the Ottoman empire. A list of Orthodox Church metropolitanates still in existence at the end of the 9th/15th century mentions…

, one of five Deccani dynasties, with its capital at Aḥmadnagar [ q.v.] which emerged in South India as the Bahmanī [ q.v.] kingdom disintegrated. The chroniclers of the Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs emphasise territorial and power disputes and religious (and possibly racial) tensions. The history of the dynasty splits into four periods. Under the first four rulers, 895-994/1490-1586, there was the vigorous establishment of the kingdom. Under the five rulers from 994-1008/1586-1600, there was intensive internal dissension. The peri…

, one of the various forms of long-term lease of waḳf property. Originally, the aim of these contracts was to give tenants an incentive to maintain and ameliorate dilapidated waḳf properties, which are inalienable. In exchange, the tenant is granted—according to different schools of law or interpretations—priority of lease, the right of permanent lease, the usufruct of the property or even co-proprietorship with the waḳf Ḥikr contracts, which were common in Egypt and Syria, are perpetual or made for a long duration. The tenant may erect …

, “the Muslim Brethren”, Muslim movement, both religious and political, founded in Egypt by Ḥasan al-Bannāʾ . History. Many facets of the history of the Muslim Brethren are still unknown, which is to be expected since the movement engaged in many secret activities, on several occasions threatening the established régimes and being persecuted by them, many notorious militant members of it being now (1969) either in exile or living under police supervision in their own countries. The history of the movement may be divided into various periods: (1) A formative period (1928-36) domina…

( demi̇r ), modern Turkish novelist (1910-1973). Born on 13 March 1910 ¶ in Istanbul, his father’s family came originally from Alişar village of Şebinkarahisari (in north-eastern Anatolia), where most of their relatives still live. They were known as Demircioğulları, hence the family name Demir, which however Kemal Tahir never used in his writings. His father Ṭāhir Efendi (d. 1957), a naval officer risen from the ranks, was an aide-decamp to the Sultan ( k̲h̲ünkār yāveri ), and also worked in the carpentry shop of the Yıldız Palace (a privileged po…

, Adnan (1899-1961), Turkish statesman. Born and educated in Izmir, he studied at the Ankara University Faculty of Law, following service in the First World War and Turkey’s War of Independence. His political activity commenced upon his joining Ali Fethi Okyar’s Free Party in 1930, when he became this party’s chairman in Aydın. When the party was closed down, he joined the People’s Party (later called Republican People’s Party, RPP) and was elected repeatedly to the Grand Na…

(a.), or, with the usual weakening of final hamza , Ṣābī , plural Ṣābiʾūn , Ṣābiʾa , Ṣāba , in English “Sabian” (preferably not “Sabaean”, which renders Sabaʾ [ q.v.]), a name applied in Arabic to at least three entirely different religious communities: (1) the Ṣābiʾūn who are mentioned three times in the Ḳurʾān (II 62, V 69, XXII 17) together with the Christians and Jews. Their identity, which has been much debated both by the Muslim commentators and by modern orientalists, was evidently uncertain already shortly after the time of Muḥamma…

2. History and development since 1914. In the course of the 20th century, Mas̲h̲had has become a regional metropolis (2,155,700 inhabitants in 2004), the capital of the vast province of Ḵh̲urāsān, and well integrated into the economic and public life of Iran. At the same time, it has kept its character as a goal of pilgrimage, dominated by the strength of the economic and political authority of the Āstānayi ḳuds-i riḍawī, the administration of the Shrine waḳf , probably the most important in the Muslim world. In 1914, despite its religious importance, Mas̲h̲had was a marginal tow…

(a.) originally means a place where one keeps watch, whence comes the meaning of observatory, also described by the word raṣad . The first astronomical observations carried out in the Islamic world seem to date back to the end of the 2nd/8th century, i.e. to the period when Indo-Persian astronomical materials were introduced and the first Ptolemaic data appeared. According to Ibn Yūnus (d. 399/1009), Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Nihāwandī (174/790) made some observations in D̲j̲undīs̲h̲āpūr in the time of the minister Yaḥyā b. K̲h̲ālid b. Barmak (d. 190/805) and used their results in his Zid̲j̲ …

, in post-Mongol times increasingly known as K̲h̲īwa, the province lying along the lower course of the Amū Daryā [ q.v.] or Oxus, classical Chorasmia. In the early Islamic period, the southern boundary of K̲h̲wārazm was considered to be at Ṭāhiriyya, five days’ journey downstream from Āmul-i S̲h̲aṭṭ (modern Čārd̲j̲ūy), the crossing-place of the K̲h̲urāsān-Buk̲h̲ārā caravan route. Ṭāhiriyya lay just to the south of the gorge of the “lion’s mouth”, Dahān-i S̲h̲īr, where the river narrows at modern Düldül Atlag̲h̲ān near Pitnyak. H…

, the most common Arabic name for Jerusalem. A. History 1. The Islamic history of Jerusalem clearly falls into three periods. During the first six hundred years, the possession of the city was contested between Islam and Christianity and between many Islamic princes and factions. After the bloodless and poorly-recorded delivery of the town into the hands of an inconspicuous tribal commander, the history of the period was solemnly inaugurated by the erection of the marvellous Dome of the Rock, the majestic testimony ¶ to the Islamic presence in the Holy City; it culminated in t…

, the capital of Senegal, is situated at the tip of the Cape Verde peninsula. Its position ¶ is the westernmost outpost of the ancient world (its longitude reaches 17° 16′ W. at the point of the Almadies). The region of Dakar, which covers almost the whole of the peninsula, is subdivided into three parts: (1) An eastern highland area (more than 100 m. in altitude); the N’Diass range rises some 70 m. above lake Tanma; to the east, the relief consists of hills or low plateaux with very gentle…

, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad (reigned 575-622/1180-1225), 34th ʿAbbāsid caliph, was born in 553/1158. Son and successor of al-Mustaḍīʾ bi-Amr Allāh [ q.v.], he had strained relations with his conservative father, who had kept him in seclusion for a while for fear that he might be influenced by harmful innovations. Yet, after his father’s death, he successfully defended his claim to the throne against the court clique. His relations with his ¶ mother, a Turkish slave called Zumurrud K̲h̲ātūn, were more balanced. During al-Mustaḍīʾ’s and al-Nāṣir’s caliphates, she made a n…

, a word ostensibly of Iranian origin, later arabicized, whence Eng. “caravan”, Fr. “caravane”, Ger. “Karawane”, etc. Its early form kārbān , meaning “supervising work”, probably evolved in the Pahlavi period. The Pahlavi form may have been kārpānde , in which case it would be a noun made up of kār meaning “army” or “war” plus the suffix -van, signifying a group of travelling merchants; convoys of provisions, goods and animals also were called kārbān. However, This may well be a popular etymology for a word of uncertain origin. The more widespread meaning dates from the early ¶ …

( Čitrāl ), a princely state and a federated unit of the Republic of Pakistan, situated between 35° 15′ and 37° 8′ N. and 71° 22′ and 74° 6′ E. with an area of about 4,500 sq. miles, and a population of 105,000 in 1951, contiguous to Soviet Russia, Afg̲h̲ānistān and the Peoples’ Republic of China. The state takes its name from the capital city, Čitrāl, also known as Ḳās̲h̲ḳār or Čitrār, two ancient names still in favour with the people who call themselves Ḳās̲h̲ḳārīs. The origin of Ḳās̲h̲ḳār is not known; the theory that it is composed of Ḳās̲h̲ —a demon and g̲h̲ār —a cave mu…

(Arabic and Turkish orthography, Ḳūniya), known in antiquity as Iconium, an important town lying on the edge of the Anatolian plateau, on a diagonal line connecting the Dardanelles with the Taurus passes leading into Syria. 1. History. Konya was, during the centuries of Arab invasion, a Byzantine military base which the attackers seem for this reason to have more or less deliberately avoided and circumvented, in preference either for Tarsus [see ṭarsūs ] to the south or especially for Cappadocia by the northern routes; this would seem to explai…

, conventionally Vidin, a town of northwestern Bulgaria and a port on the River Danube (lat. 44° 00’ N., long. 22° 50’ E.). The low bank (30-37 m high) has been reinforced with dykes; in the past the town used to remain an island in the marshes created during the spring floods of the Danube. It emerged as the Roman fortress of Bononia on the foundations of a Thracian settlement at Kaleto, a place where the flood does not reach. In the Middle Ages, under the name of Bdin, it was the centre of a bishopric in the Bulgari…

, municipality, the term used in Turkish ( belediye ), Arabic, and other Islamic languages, to denote modern municipal institutions of European type, as against earlier Islamic forms of urban organisation [see madīna ]. The term, like so many modern Islamic neologisms and the innovations they express, first appeared in Turkey, where Western-style municipal institutions and services were introduced as part of the general reform programme of the Tanẓīmāt [ q.v.]. (1) turkey. The first approaches towards modern municipal administration seems to have been made by Sultan …

, a state of East Africa bounded on the east by the Indian Ocean, on the north by Ethiopia and the Sudan, and in the south by Tanzania. It was formerly a colony of the British Empire, but became independent in December 1963. The Muslim population in the country formed about 6% of a total figure of 8,636,263 in 1962. Assuming that the number increased annually by the present rate of 3.4%, the Muslim population would number some 800,000 out of a total population of 10,942,705 in 1974. The Muslims …

, Mongol dynasty ruling in ¶ Persia in the 7th/13th and 8th/14th centuries. The first Mongol advance towards the Middle East (1218-21) had touched only the north of the Iranian area and only K̲h̲urāsān [ q.v.] had, to a certain extent, been subjected to Mongol control. Therefore, when the territories were being divided up under the Great Khan Möngke (1251-9), who himself was fighting in China with his brother Ḳubilay, the task of extending control over Persia, Mesopotamia and, if possible, Syria and Egypt as well, was entrusted to their brother Hülegü [ q.v.]. According to Barthold, abo…

, standard Western form of Malayalam Māppila, the name of the dominant Muslim community of southwest India, located mainly in the state of Kerala, primarily in its northern area popularly known as Malabar, Significant numbers of Mappilas are to be found also in southern Karnataka and western Tamil Nad, as well as in diaspora groups scattered throughout India, including the Laccadive Islands, Pakistan, the Gulf States and Malaysia. In 1971 there were 4,162,718 Muslims in Kerala, almost all Mappil…

(a.), the phenomenon of mysticism within Islam. It is the maṣdar of Form V of the radical ṣ-w-f indicating in the first place one who wears woollen clothes ( ṣūf ), the rough garb of ascetics and mystics. Other etymological derivations which have been put forward in Western and, especially, Islamic sources, are untenable. Hence a mystic is called ṣūfī or mutaṣawwif , colls, ṣūfiyya or mutaṣawwifa . 1. Early development in the Arabic and Persian lands. Already among the Companions of the Prophet Muḥammad there were persons who wanted more than just to strive after the out…

, a Turkmen dynasty which reigned over Syria, Diyār Muḍar and Diyār Rabīʿa [ q.vv.] from 521-2/1127-8 onwards, in the tradition of Turkmen-Sald̲j̲ūḳ collective familial sovereignty: in Aleppo until 579/1183, in al-Mawṣil until 631/1233, and with minor branches in Sind̲j̲ār, D̲j̲azīrat Ibn ʿUmar and in S̲h̲ahrazūr. ¶ The progenitor Aḳsunḳur [ q.v.], a Turkish mamlūk commander in the service of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan Malik S̲h̲āh, was appointed governor of Aleppo in 480/1087-8. During the wars of succession following the sultan’s assassination, Aḳsunḳur was executed in 487/1094. His …

(a.), from k̲h̲azana , “to shut up, to preserve, to hoard”. The word is believed to have been first used in North Africa as an official term in the 2nd/8th century applied to an iron chest in which Ibrāhīm b. al-Ag̲h̲lab, amīr of Ifrīḳiya, kept the sums of money raised by taxation and intended for the ʿAbbāsid caliph of Bag̲h̲dād. At first this term, which in Morocco is synonymous with the government, was applied more particularly to the financial department, the Treasury. It may be said that the term mak̲h̲zan (pronounced mak̲h̲zen ) meaning the Moroccan governme…

, 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 years of…

, in modern usage, the name of an institution of learning where the Islamic sciences are taught, i.e. a college for higher studies, as opposed to an elementary school of traditional type ( kuttāb ); in mediaeval usage, essentially a college of law in which the other Islamic sciences, including literary and philosophical ones, were ancillary subjects only. I. The institution in the Arabic, Persian and Turkish lands 1. Children’s schools. The subject of Islamic education in general is treated under tarbiya. Here it should merely be noted that the earliest, informal institution…

(a.), inscriptions. 1. Islamic epigraphy in general. The study of Arabic inscriptions today constitutes a science full of promise, an auxiliary science to be sure, but a science indispensable to the scholarly exploitation of a whole category of authentic texts capable of throwing light on the civilisation in the context of which they were written. From a very early period, seeing that the first dated Arabic inscription available to us goes back to the year 31/652 and that we are aware of previous inscr…

(a.), pl. aswāḳ , market. 1. In the traditional Arab world. Sūḳ , market, is a loanword from Aramaic s̲h̲ūḳā with the same meaning. Like the French term marché and the English market , the Arabic word sūḳ has acquired a double meaning: it denotes both the commercial exchange of goods or services and the place in which this exchange is normally conducted. Analysis of the sūḳ is thus of interest to the economic and social historian as well as to the archaeologist and the urban topographer. The substantial textual documentation which is available has as yet been …

(in English normally “Mecca”, in French “La Mecque”), the most sacred city of Islam, where the Prophet Muḥammad was born and lived for about 50 years, and where the Kaʿba [ q.v.] is situated. 1. The pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods Geographical description. Mecca is located in the Ḥid̲j̲āz about 72 km. inland from the Red Sea port of Jedda (D̲j̲udda [ q.v.]), in lat. 21° 27′ N. and long. 39° 49′ E. It is now the capital of the province ( manātiḳ idāriyya ) of Makka in Suʿūdī Arabia, and has a normal population of between 200,000 and 300,000, which …

Bag̲h̲dād is situated on both banks of the Tigris, at 33° 26 18″ Lat. N. and 44° 23 9″ Long. E. respectively. Founded in the 8th century A.D. it continued to be the centre of the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate till its fall, and the cultural metropolis of the Muslim world for centuries. After 1258 it became a provincial centre and remained under the Ottomans the centre of the Bag̲h̲dād wilāyet . In 1921 it became the capital of modern ʿIrāḳ. History . The name Bag̲h̲dād is pre-Islamic, related to previous settlements on the site. Arab authors realise this and as usual look for Persian origins (cf. Maḳdisī, al-B…

(coll., sing. Mad̲j̲ūsī ), originally an ancient Iranian priestly caste (OP magus̲h̲ , Akk. magus̲h̲u , Syriac mgōs̲h̲ā , Greek μάϒος) but used in Arabic primarily for Zoroastrians. This caste was closely identified with the ruling élite in Sāsānid Iran, where their faith was the official religion of the state and where they were organised in a social and religious hierarchy. The priests, called mōbad , hirbad , dastūr , or rat depending on context and function, had ritual, judicial and educational responsibilities. The priestly hierarchy with the mōbadān mōbad …

(usually Medina in English, Médine in French), residence of the Prophet Muḥammad after the ḥid̲j̲ra and one of the sacred cities of Islam. Medina is situated in the Ḥid̲j̲āz province of Saʿūdī Arabia in latitude 24° 28′ N, longitude 39° 36′ E, about 160 km. from the Red Sea and about 350 km. north of Mecca. It has developed from an oasis on relatively level ground between the hill of Uḥud on the north and that of ʿAyr on the south. East and west are lava flows (in Arabic ḥarra [ q.v.] or lāba ). There are several wādī s or watercourses which cross the oasis from south to…

(late 1760s-1849), Ottoman governor-general and effective ruler of Egypt. He was known in his time and to his Ottoman milieu as Meḥmed ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a. In European sources, he was often referred to as the viceroy of Egypt or simply as the Pas̲h̲a. Assuming the title K̲h̲edive, which officially was only granted to his grandson Ismāʿīl in 1867, Muḥammad ʿAlī was Ottoman governor-general of Egypt from 1805 to 1848, when, owing to mental incapacity, the position was formally conferred on his son Ibrāhīm Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.]. His heirs ruled Egypt, with varying degrees of effective power, until 1952. …

, in Ar. also Tūnus , Tūnas , sc. Tunis, the capital of modern Tunisia. Like ancient Carthage, it is situated at the base of a large gulf, sheltered from northerly and north-westerly winds, at the junction of the western and the eastern Mediterranean. Like the capital of Punic and of Roman Africa, it was located at the intersection of natural routes serving the diverse regions of the country. But although the location of Tunis is often confused with that of Carthage, the two citie…

, the name of two places in Persia. I. Tihrān, a city of northern Persia. 1. Geographical position. 2. History to 1926. 3. The growth of Tihrān. (a). To ca 1870. (b). Urbanisation, monuments, cultural and socioeconomic life until the time of the Pahlavīs. (c). Since the advent of the Pahlavīs. II. Tihrān, the former name of a village or small town in the modern province of Iṣfahān. I. Tihrān, older form (in use until the earlier 20th century) Ṭihrān (Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 51, gives both forms, with Ṭihrān as the head word; al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, i…

, a dynasty which ruled in Persia as “sovereigns 907-1135/1501-1722, as fainéants 1142-8/1729-36, and thereafter, existed as pretenders to the throne up to 1186/1773. I. Dynastic, political and military history. The establishment of the Ṣafawid state in 907/1501 by S̲h̲āh Ismāʿīl I [ q.v.] (initially ruler of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān only) marks an important turning-point in Persian history. In the first place, the Ṣafawids restored Persian sovereignty over the whole of the area traditionally regarded as the heartlands of Persia for the first ti…

, capital of Egypt and one of the most important centres of religious, cultural and political life in the Muslim world. The city is situated on both banks on the Nile, at 30°6′ Lat. N. and 31°26′ Long. E. respectively, at ca. 20 km. south of the delta where the Muḳaṭṭam Mountain almost comes down to the river. This strategical point dominating the access to Lower Egypt had been inhabited since early times, but became of primary importance during the arab invasion in 22/643, when ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ e…

¶ i.—General Introduction The Kurds, an Iranian people of the Near East, live at the junction of more or less laicised Turkey, S̲h̲īʿi Iran, Arab and Sunnī ʿIrāḳ and North Syria, and Soviet Transcaucasia. The economic and strategic importance of this land, Kurdistān, is undeniable. Since the end of the First World War, the Kurdish people, like all the rest of their neighbours, have undergone considerable transformations as much in the political order as in the economic, social and cultural domain. …

(a.), “scene”, increasingly employed as “theatre” (in the same sense as “Bühne” in German); frequently synonymous with tiyātrō (from the Italian). 1. In the Arab East. Primarily an artistic and literary phenomenon of the last two centuries, the Arab theatre has its roots in local performances of passion plays [see taʿziya ], marionette and shadow plays [see ḳaragöz ], mimicry and other popular farces, and was affected by the then contemporary (rather than the classical) foreign theatre as well. Although some popular open-air plays…

, the capital of the Ottoman Empire from 20 Ḏj̲umādā I 857/29 May 1453 to 3 Rabīʿ II 1342/13 October 1923. In strict Ottoman usage the name is confined to the area bounded by the Golden Horn, the Marmara coast and the Wall of Theodosius, the districts of G̲h̲alaṭa, Üsküdār and Eyyūb being separate townships, each with its own ḳāḍī ; occasionally however the name is applied to this whole area. NAME. In the period of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultanate of Anatolia (see Kamāl al-Dīn Aḳsarāyī, Musāmarat al- ak̲h̲bār , ed. O. Turan, Ankara 1944, index at p. 344) and under the early Ottomans ( Die altosm. anon. Chroni…

, in modern Arabic “government”. Like many political neologisms in Islamic languages, the word seems to have been first used in its modern sense in 19th century Turkey, and to have passed from Turkish into Arabic and other languages. Ḥukūma comes from the Arabic root ḥ.k.m , with the meaning “to judge, adjudicate” (cf. the related meaning, dominant in Hebrew and other Semitic languages, of wisdom. See ḥikma ). In classical usage the verbal noun ḥukūma means the act or office of adjudication, of dispensing justice, whether by a sovereign, a judge, …