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b. Alī Yabg̲h̲u , the Og̲h̲uz Turkish [see g̲h̲uzz ] ruler in the town of D̲j̲and [ q.v. in Suppl.] on the lower Syr Darya in Transoxania during the second quarter of the 11th century A.D. S̲h̲āh Malik, who is given by Ibn Funduḳ the kunya of Abu ’l-Fawāris and the laḳab s of Ḥusām al-Dawla and Niẓām al-Milla, was the son and successor of the Og̲h̲uz Yabg̲h̲u, head of a section of that Turkish tribe in rivalry with that one led by the Sald̲j̲ūḳ family of chiefs [see sald̲j̲ūḳids. ii]. It was this hostility that made S̲h̲āh Malik ally with the G̲h̲aznawid Masʿūd b. Maḥmūd [ q.v.] against his kinsmen t…

, cawnpore, a city situated on the banks of the Ganges river in Uttar Pradesh province in the Indian Republic at lat. 26° 281 N. and long. 80° 201 E., and also the name of an administrative district of that province. Until the later 18th century, Kānpur was little more than a village known as Kanbaiyāpur or Kanhpur, and since it was situated on the western frontiers of Awadh or Oudh [ q.v.], the district of Kānpur was disputed in the middle decades of the 18th century by the Nawwābs of Awadh, the Mug̲h̲al emperors in Dihlī and the expanding power of the Marāthās. Af…

or mas̲h̲had ʿalī , a town and place of pilgrimage in ʿIrāḳ 10 km 6 miles west of al-Kūfa. It lies on the edge of the desert on a flat barren eminence from which the name al-Nad̲j̲af has been transferred to it (A. Musil, The Middle Euphrates , 35), at an altitude of 37 m/120 feet in lat. 31° 59′ N. and long. 44° 20′ E. According to the usual tradition, the Imām al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib [ q.v.] was buried near al-Kūfa, not far from the dam which protected the city from flooding by the Euphrates at the place where the ¶ town of al-Nad̲j̲af later arose (Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am , iv, 760)…

, a town of northwestern Arabia, lying inland from the eastern shore of the Gulf of ʿAḳaba; it is mentioned in the mediaeval Islamic geographers as lying on the pilgrimage route between the Ḥid̲j̲āz and Syria, which there went inland to avoid the mountainous coast of the Gulf. The name is connected with that of the tribe of Midianites known from the Old Testament (LXX Μαδιαμ, Μαδιαν; in Josephus Μαδιηνἵται, ἡ Μαδιηνὴ χῶρα) but it can hardly be used without further consideration to identify the original home of this tribe, as the town might be…

(< Skr. s̲h̲is̲h̲ya “disciple, learner”), a religious group of northern India whose beliefs and practices combine Islamic and Hindu elements and which was founded in the later 15th century by Nānak, the first Guru or teacher. 1. General. The authoritative rahit-nāma or manual of Sikhism of 1950, the Sikh Rahit Maryada , defines a Sikh as one who believes in Akāl Purakh (“the Eternal One”); in the ten Gurus (“preceptors”, identified with the inner voice of God) and their teachings; in the Ādi Granth (“the Ancient Book”, the chief Sikh scripture, and the initiation ( amrit …

b. Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya I, last caliph of the Sufyānid line of the Umayyads, reigned briefly in 64/683-4. When Yazīd I b. Muʿāwiya [ q.v.] died at Ḥuwwārīn in the Syrian Desert in Rabīʿ I 64/November 683, he left behind Three young sons by free mothers; Muʿāwiya and his brother K̲h̲ālid b. Yazīd [ q.v.] cannot have been much more than 20 years old, Muʿāwiya’s age being given by the sources variously at between 17 and 23. Most of the surviving Sufyānids were in fact young and inexperienced, with their leadership qualities unproven. Yazīd had had the bayʿa [ q.v.] made to Muʿāwiya before his death…

, the main left bank affluent of the Jordan river [see al-urdunn. 1], famed in history as the site of a historic battle between the Arabs and Byzantines. 1. Geography. The Yarmūk flows into the Jordan some 9 km/5 miles to the south of Lake Tiberias, with headwaters on the southwestern slopes of the Ḥawrān [ q.v.] in southern Syria. It follows a deeply-incised valley which nevertheless provides the main access through the eastern wall of the Jordan rift valley, the G̲h̲awr or G̲h̲ōr, to the north-south routes along the western fringes of the Syrian De…

, S̲h̲araf al-Zamān Ṭāhir , presumably a native of Marw [see marw al-s̲h̲āhid̲j̲ān ] or a descendant of such a native, physician and writer on geography, anthropology and the natural sciences, died after 514/1120. He acted as physician to the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan Malik-S̲h̲āh [ q.v.] and possibly to his successors down to the time of Sand̲j̲ar [ q.v.]; little else is known of his life. His main fame comes from his book the Ṭabāʾiʿ al-ḥayawān , which is essentially zoological in subject, but also with valuable sections on human geography, i.e. the vari…

, a South Arabian tribe. In early Islamic times D̲j̲aʿda had lands in the southernmost part of the Yemen highlands, the Sarw Ḥimyar, between the present-day towns of al-Ḍāliʿ and Ḳaʿṭaba in the north and the Wādī Abyan in the south. The road from Aden to Ṣanʿāʾ passed through the territory, and their neighbours were the Banū Mad̲h̲ḥid̲j̲ and Banū Yāfiʿ. These South Arabian D̲j̲aʿda are described by Hamdānī as a clan of ʿAyn al-Kabr, and are to be distinguished from the North Arabian tribe of D̲j…

, a town of the Ḥid̲j̲āz in north-western Arabia, lying in what was the early Islamic Wādī ’l-Ḳurā, at the southeastern end of the Ḥarrat al-ʿUwayriḍ and below a hill called Umm Nāṣir (lat. 26° 38ʹ N., long. 37° 57ʹ E., altitude 674 m/2,210 feet). The area is extremely rich archaeologically, and clearly flourished in pre-Islamic times as a major centre along the caravan route southwards from Syria, with ancient Dedan at the base of the Ḏj̲abal al-Ḵh̲urayba, to the south of what was al-Ḥid̲j̲r [ q.v.] and is now Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ some 18 km/12 miles north of al-ʿUlā. The mediaeval Isl…

, S̲h̲ig̲h̲nān , a district on the upper Oxus, there known as the Pand̲j̲ River, extending over both banks from where the river leaves the district of Wak̲h̲ān [ q.v.] and turns directly northwards before flowing westwards again. The left bank part of S̲h̲ug̲h̲nān now falls within the Afg̲h̲ān province of Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān [ q.v.] and the right bank one within the Pamir region of the former USSR, a division likewise reflected in the districts of G̲h̲ārān immediately to the north of S̲h̲ug̲h̲nān and Raws̲h̲ān to its south. The whole district is extrem…

Abū Naṣr Bahāʾ al-Dīn (330-416/942-1025), official and vizier of the Buy ids in Fārs. Beginning his career in high office as deputy to S̲h̲araf al-Dawla’s vizier Abū Manṣūr b. Ṣāliḥān, he subsequently became briefly vizier himself for the first time in 380/990 and for S̲h̲araf al-Dawla’s successor in S̲h̲īrāz. Bahāʾ al-Dawla [ q.v. in Suppl.]. He was vizier again in S̲h̲īrāz in Ḏj̲umādā I 386/May-June 996, this time for over three years, and in 390/1000 in Baghdād as deputy there for the vizier Abū ʿAlī al-Muwaffaḳ. Sābūr, although a native of S̲…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Ḥasan, early poet in New Persian, of whom almost nothing is known but who must have flourished in the middle decades of the 4th/10th century, since odd verses of his survive that were allegedly dedicated to the Sāmānid Amir ʿAbd al-Malik (I) b. Nūḥ (I) (343-50/954-61), and he may have been at the court of the Ṣaffārid ruler of Sīstān, Ḵh̲alaf b. Aḥmad (352-93/963-1003). Fragments amounting to some 45 verses, mainly love poetry and satires, have been collected by G. Lazard, Les premiers poètes persans ( IX e-Xe siècles ), Tehran-Paris 1964…

(a.), “trafficking, trade, commerce”. 1. Introductory remarks. The term is taken in the Arabic lexica to be the maṣdar or verbal noun of tad̲j̲ara “to trade”. Like many of the terms in the Arabic commercial vocabulary, this is a loanword from Aramaic and Syriac. Jeffery thought ( pace earlier authorities as cited in Fraenkel, Die aramäischen Fremdwörter im Arabischen , 181-2, who derived tid̲j̲āra from an original noun tād̲j̲ir “merchant”, Syriac tagārā , verb ʾ et̲t̲agar “to trade”, cf. ʾ agrā “wage, fee, hire, reward”) that tid̲j̲āra should be derived directly from Aramaic and …

, Nisā , the name of several places in Persia. Yāḳūt enumerates Nasās in K̲h̲urāsān. Fārs, Kirmān and the district of Hamad̲h̲ān in D̲j̲ibāl, but W. Eilers has assembled a much larger number of Persian place names containing the element nasā ( r) or containing linguistic elements apparently connected with it. Scholars like Bartholomae and Marquart sought an etymology in Old Iranian śai- “to lie” (Grk. Κεῖσθαι), with the ideas of “settlement” or “low-lying place”; Eilers however explains it as from NP nasā, nasa ( r), nisā , “place lying in the shade (e.g. of a mountain)” ( Iranische Ortsname…

, the name of a hilly tract and a fortress of mediaeval India and Indo-Muslim times. It lies in a fold of the Salt Range, to the north of the Jhelum river in northern Pand̲j̲āb, and the place is still marked by ruins of a fortress and a Hindu temple near the modern Čao Saydān S̲h̲āh (lat. 32° 43′ N., long. 73° 17′ E.), in the Jhelum District of the Pand̲j̲āb province of Pakistan. The place is mentioned in early mediaeval Indo-Muslim history. In 404-5/1013-14 Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna [ q.v.] attacked the Hindūs̲h̲āhīs [ q.v.] of northwestern India and marched against the Rād̲j̲ā Triločanapāla’s…

1. A river of Afg̲h̲ānistān and the Northwest Frontier region of Pākistān, 700 km. long and rising near the Unai Pass in lat. 34° 21′ N. and long. 68° 20′ E. It receives the affluents of the Pand̲j̲hīr, Alingar, Kunar and Swat Rivers from the north, and the Lōgar from the south, and flows eastwards to the Indian plain, joining the Indus at Atak (Attack). The Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (end of 4th/10th century) calls it “the River of Lamg̲h̲ān”, and describes it as flowing from the mountains bordering on Lamg̲h̲ān and Dunpūr, passing by Nangrahār (sc. …

(a.), active participle from the form IV verb as̲h̲rafa , literally “overseer, supervisor, controller”, the title of an official who appears at various times and with various duties in the history of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate and its successor states, from the Mag̲h̲rib to the eastern Islamic lands. 1. In the Arab and Persian lands. ¶ The office of is̲h̲rāf seems basically to have been a financial one. The supervision of financial operations was in the first century or so of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate usually entrusted to the dīwān al-zimām/al-azimma [see dīwān. i. The caliphate]; in the re…

or al-ruhāʾ , the Arabic name of a city which was in early Islamic times in the province of Diyār Muḍar [ q.v.] but known in Western sources as edessa (Syriac Orhāy, Armenian Uṛhay). It is now in the province of Diyarbakir in the southeast of modern Turkey and is known as Urfa, a name for the city which is not clearly attested before the coming of the Turks to eastern Anatolia. 1. In pre-Islamic times. The city is probably an ancient one, though efforts to identify it with the Babylonian Erech/Uruk or with Ur of the Chaldees cannot be taken seriously. Its site, at the j…

, a seaport at the eastern tip of the peninsula of that name at the eastern end of the Crimea [see ḳri̊m ] in the modern Crimean oblast of the Ukrainian SSR. The district was clearly a well-populated one in pre-historic, Cimmerian and Scythian times, since it contains a large number of kurgans or burial mounds, many of which have been excavated since the last century. In classical times, it was from the 6th century B.C. onwards the site of the flourishing Ionian Greek colony of Pantikapaion, later called Bosporos and the cap…