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called by the Arab geographers S̲h̲aburḳān and Sabūrḳān, is a town of northern Afg̲h̲ānistān, situated in 36° 35′ N., and 65° 45′ E. It was formerly one of the three chief towns of the district of Ḏj̲ūzd̲j̲ān, the others being Yāhūdīya and Fāryāb. The oldest form of the name is Asapuragān, from which it has been conjectured that it was an ancient seat of the Asa, or Asargartii. ʿAzīzī describes it as the capital of Ḏj̲ūzd̲j̲ān, but this position is usually accorded to Yāhūdīya. It lay on the ol…

, a city situated in 21° 12′ N. and 72° 50′ E. on the south bank of the Taptī and ten miles from its mouth. The geographer Ptolemy (a. d. 150), speaks of the trade ¶ of Pulipula, perhaps Phulpāda, the sacred part of Sūrat city. Early references to Sūrat by Muslim historians must be scrutinized, owing to the confusion of the name with Sorath (Saurās̲h̲tra), but in 1373 Fīrūz Tug̲h̲luḳ built a fort to protect the place against the Bhīls. The foundation of the modern city is traditionally assigned to the beginning of the sixteenth c…

, the northern route between Afg̲h̲ānistān and India, leading from Kābul to Pes̲h̲āwar. The pass runs from Dakka to Ḏj̲amrūd and is about thirty-three miles long, its centre lying in 34°6’ N. and 71° 5’ E. Its highest point, Landī Kotal, is 3,378 feet above sea-level. Alexander the Great probably sent the division of his army under Hephaestion and Perdiccas through the Ḵh̲aibar, while he himself followed the northern bank of the Kābul river and crossed the Kūnar valley into Bād̲j̲awr and Sawād. Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna used the pass only once, wh…

is an Arabic substantive from the verbal root ṣūba, yaṣūbu (“it poured forth”) meaning primarily a collection, or heap of wheat, dates, earth, etc. In the reign of Akbar it was adopted as the official description of the great provinces of India, to which historians had previously applied such words as s̲h̲iḳḳ, k̲h̲iṭṭa, etc. Akbar’s empire consisted at first of twelve and finally of fifteen ṣūbas, named either from their capitals, as in the case of Dihlī, Āgra, and Ilāhābād, or from the old names of the tracts which they covered, as in the case of the Pand̲j̲…

, the name of a dynasty which ruled Herāt from 1245 to 1389 a. d. It was founded by S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Muḥammad I, Kart, who was descended from the S̲h̲ansabānī house of G̲h̲ūr, the family to which the brothers G̲h̲iyāth al-Dīn Muḥammad and Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Sām belonged. As Herāt recovered from the devastating raids of the armies of Čingiz Ḵh̲ān, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn gradually gained power, and by 1245 had established himself as ruler of the state, and used the title of Malik, borne by his descendants. In 1251…

, name of a city, situated in 27° 31′ N. latitude and 77° 41′ E. longitude, and of a district of the same name in Northern India. The site of the city was of importance in the Buddhist period, as is proved by the numerous inscriptions and pieces of sculpture that have been fouūd there. In later Hindu times it attained sanctity as the reputed birthplace of the god Krishna and the temples erected there acquired great wealth and reputation. In 1017 Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna [q. v.] captured the city and l…

, the name of a river, town and district in Northern Afg̲h̲ānistān. The district is bounded on the east by Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān, on the west by Tas̲h̲kurg̲h̲ān, on the north by the Oxus, and on the south by the Hindū Kus̲h̲, and is inhabited chiefly by Özbegs, who overran it from the north in the sixteenth century. The river rises in the Hindū Kus̲h̲, flows northward and is one of only two rivers in northern Afg̲h̲ānistān which reach the Oxus. The town is the trade centre of a considerable district which produces the best horses in Afg̲h̲ānistān. (T. W. Haig) Bibliography Ẓahīr al-Dīn Muḥammad Bābur, Bā…

, a city of northern India in the uppermost part of the Ganges-D̲j̲amnā Doʾāb (lat. 29° 57′ N., long. 77° 33′ E.), now in the extreme northwestern tip of the Uttar Pradesh State of the Indian Union. It was founded in ca. 740/1340, in the reign of Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ [ q.v.] and was named after a local Muslim saint, S̲h̲āh Haran Čis̲h̲tī. The city and district suffered severely during the invasion of Tīmūr; in 932/1526 Bābur traversed them on his way to Pānīpat, and some local Mug̲h̲al colonies trace their origin to his followers. Muslim influe…

(p.), a form current in Muslim India, passing into Urdu and Hindi and derived from Pers. s̲h̲ikar “game, prey; the chase, hunting”, with the senses of “a native hunter or stalker, who accompanied European hunters and sportsmen”, and then of these last sportsmen themselves (see Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson , a glossary of Anglo-Indian colloquial words and phrases, 2London 1903, 827-8, s.v. Shikaree , Shekarry ). The native hunters stemmed from the many castes in India whose occupation was the snaring, trapping, tracking, or pursuit of …

(p.), often Arabised as Sirdār , “supreme military commander”, literally “holding or possessing the head”, i.e. chief or leader. It was borrowed in the military sense by the Turks, who, however, sometimes derive it in error from sirrdār (“the keeper of a secret”). Through Turkish it has reached Arabic, and in a letter written in 989/1581 by “one of the princes of the Arabs (of Yaman)” occurs the phrase wa-ʿayyana sardār an ʿala ’l-ʿasākir (“and he appointed a commander over the troops”), on which Rutgers comments “Vocabulum sardār , quod Persicae originis est, ducem …

proper is an inland district of India bordered on the south by Vindhyās, and lying between lat. 23° 30′ N. and long. 74° 30′ E. To this tract, known in the age of the Mahābhārata as Nishadha, and later as Avanti, from the name of its capital, now Ud̲j̲d̲j̲ayn, was afterwards added Akara, or eastern Mālwā, with its capital, Bhīlsā, and the country lying between the Vindhyās and the Sātpūras. Primitive tribes like Ābhīras and Bhīls have been dwelling among the hills and jungles of Mālwā since ancient times, s…

, of K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ [ q.v.] in western India, was the eleventh prince of the Fārūḳī dynasty (regn. 926-43/1520-37). He belonged to the younger branch of that line, which had taken refuge in Gud̲j̲arāt, and his ancestors had lived in that kingdom and had married princesses of the Muẓaffarī family until Maḥmūd I of Gud̲j̲arāt [ q.v.] had, on the extinction of the elder branch of the Fārūḳīs, placed ʿĀdil K̲h̲ān III, Muḥammad’s father, on the throne of K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲. Muḥammad, who was, through his mother, the great-grandson of Maḥmūd, and the grandson of …

(Sir), the title by which Mīr Turāb ʿAlī, a Sayyid of Persian descent and one of the greatest of modern Indian statesmen, was best known. He was born at Ḥaydarābād, Deccan, on 2 January, 1829, and, his father having died not long after his birth, was educated by his uncle, Nawwāb Sirād̲j̲ al-Mulk, Minister of the Ḥaydarābād State. He received an administrative appointment in 1848, at the age of 19, and on his uncle’s death in 1853 succeeded him as Minister of the State. He was engaged in reforming the administration unt…

(possibly kurt), the name of a dynasty which ruled Herāt from 643/1245 to 791/1389. It was founded by S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Muḥammad I Kart, who was descended from the S̲h̲ansabānī house of G̲h̲ūr, the family to which the brothers G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn Muḥammad and Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Sām belonged. As Herat recovered from the devastating raids of the armies of Čingiz K̲h̲ān, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn gradually gained power, and by 643/1245 had established himself as ruler of the state, and used the title of Mal…

, the older Indian Sindhu , the name for the region around the lower course of the Indus river (from which the region takes its name, see mihrān ), i.e. that part of the Indus valley south of approximately lat. 28° 30’ N., and the delta area, now coming within the modern state of Pākistān. There are alluvial soils in the delta and in the lands along the river, liable to inundation when the river ¶ rises in spring from the melting snows of the northern Indian mountains and rendered fertile by a network of irrigation canals and channels for flood control. To the west of …

(759-76/1358-75), the second king of the Bahmanī dynasty of the Dakan, was the eldest son of Ḥasan, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Bahman S̲h̲āh, usually, but incorrectly, styled Ḥasan Gangū. On succeeding his father, on 1 Rabīʿ I 759/11 February 1358, he carefully organised the government of the four provinces of the kingdom and the administration of the army. The pertinacity of the Hindū bankers and moneychangers in melting down the gold coinage which he introduced led to a general massacre of the community and…

, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Las̲h̲karī (867-87/1463-82), the thirteenth king of the Bahmanī dynasty of the Dakan, was the younger son of Humāyūn S̲h̲āh, and succeeded his elder brother, Niẓām S̲h̲āh, on 13 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 867/30 ¶ July 1463, at the age of nine. His minister was the famous Maḥmūd Gāwān, Malik al-Tud̲j̲d̲j̲ār, K̲h̲wād̲j̲a D̲j̲ahān [ q.v.]. A campaign against Mālwā in 871/1467 was unsuccessful, but between 873/1469 and 875/1471 Maḥmūd Gāwān conquered the southern Konkan. In 876/1472 Niẓām al-Mulk Malik Ḥasan Baḥrī, a Brāhman who had been captured…

(p.), from the Persian sipah , sipāh “army”, hence basically meaning soldier. It has given such European words as English sepoy (see below, 2.) and French spahi (see below, 3.). 1. In the Ottoman empire. Here, sipāhī had the more specific meaning of “cavalryman” in the feudal forces of the empire, in contrast to the infantrymen of the professional corps of the Janissaries [see yeñi čeri ]. Such feudal cavalrymen were supported by land grants ( dirlik “living, means of livelihood”) at different levels of income yield. Below the k̲h̲āṣṣ [ q.v.] lands granted to members of the higher ech…