, the name of various places in Persia.
1. The best-known one is the town presentiy known in Persia as Arāk lying in long. 49° 41′ E. and lat. 34° 5′ N. at an altitude of 1,753 m/5,751 feet, 284 ¶ km/176 miles to the southwest of Tehran. It lies in the southwestern corner of the plain of Farahān, adjoining the Zagros massif. The popular (and now official) name Arāk must come ultimately from ʿIrāḳ, in the sense of ʿIrāḳ-i ʿAd̲j̲am or Persian ʿIrāḳ, the mediaeval D̲j̲ibāl [q.v.]. The modern region of Arāk lies within the bend of the Ḳara Ṣu. Its rural districts include that of Kazzā…