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, a settlement and port on the eastern coast of Arabia in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, situated in the region of Had̲j̲ar or Baḥrayn; its exact location is however unknown and would appear to be only discoverable by future archaeological investigations. Varying traditions attribute the foundation of al-Mus̲h̲aḳḳar to one of the kings of Kinda [ q.v.], Mūsā b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲, or to a commander of the Sāsānid heavy cavalry ( asāwira ; see on these, C.E. Bosworth, EIr art. Asāwera ) B.s.k.b. Māhbūd̲h̲ in the time of the Kisrās (al-Ṭabarī, i, 985-6, tr. Nöldeke, Geschichte der Perser und Ara…

, Arabic form of Persian Kōh-rūd “mountain river”, a village in western Persia on the summer caravan route between Ḳās̲h̲ān and Iṣfahān [ q.vv.]. In mediaeval times it fell within the province of D̲j̲ibāl, and Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, Nuzhat al-ḳulūb , tr. 184, places it some 8 farsak̲h̲s from Ḳās̲h̲ān, sc. 27 miles/45 km. from the latter town; cf. also Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter , 929 n. 16. Today, Ḳuhrūd falls administratively in the bak̲h̲s̲h̲ of Ḳamṣar, in the s̲h̲ahrastān of Ḳās̲h̲ān, in the second ustān or central province of Iran, see Farhang-i d̲j̲ug̲h̲rāfiyāʾ-yi Īrān …

Muʿizzī , Turkish slave commander of the G̲h̲ūrid sultan Muʿizz or S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Muḥammad, who after that ruler’s death in 602/1206, made himself, with the support of a group ¶ of other Turkish soldiers, independent in G̲h̲azna in eastern Afg̲h̲ānistan. Muʿizz al-Dīn’s successor at Fīrūzkūh [ q.v.], Maḥmūd b. G̲h̲iyāth al-Dīn Muḥammad, had to manumit Yildiz and recognise him as governor in G̲h̲azna. During his nine years’ rule there, Yildiz treated another Muʿizzī slave commander Iltutmis̲h̲ [ q.v.], who had established himself in northern India, as his subordinate. Bu…

or Ḵh̲yber Pass , one of the principal passes (together with the Kurram, Tochi, Gomal and Bolan Passes) through the mountain barrier separating the Indus valley plains from Afg̲h̲ānistān. The pass runs northwestwards for ca. 33 miles/50 km. from the Shadi Bagiar opening 3 miles/5 km. beyond Fort Jamrud, itself 7 miles/12 km. from Peshawar, to the barren plain of Loi Dakka, which then stretches to the Kabul River banks. The highest point of the pass is at Landi Kotal (3,518 ft/1,280 m.), an important market centre for the region,…

, Abū Ibrāhīm al-Muntaṣir , the last of the Sāmānids of Transoxania and Ḵh̲urāsān. When in 389/999 the Ḳarak̲h̲ānid Ilig Ḵh̲ān Naṣr occupied the Sāmānid capital Buk̲h̲ārā. Ismāʿīl and other members of the family were carried off to Uzkend. He contrived, however, to escape to Ḵh̲wārazm, and for the next four years kept up a series of attacks on the G̲h̲aznavids in northern Ḵh̲urāsān and the Ḳarak̲h̲ānids in Buk̲h̲ārā. In 393/1003 he obtained the help of the Og̲h̲uz, traditional allies of the Sāmānids, and according to Gardīzī, it was at thi…

, the mustering, passing in review and inspection of troops, the official charged with his duty being known as the ʿāriḍ , pl. ʿurrāḍ . The institution of the ʿarḍ was from the start closely bound up with the Dīwān al-Ḏj̲ays̲h̲ or that departaient of the bureaucracy concerned with military affairs, and these duties of recruitment, mustering and inspection comprised one of the dīwān ’ s main spheres of activity, the other sphere being that concerned with pensions and salaries [see dīwān and d̲j̲ays̲h̲ ]. The Ṣāḥib Dīwān al-Ḏj̲ays̲h̲ of the early ʿAbbāsid Caliphate or ʿĀriḍ al-Ḏj̲ays̲h̲ …

, called Nad̲j̲m-i T̲h̲ānī (d. 1047/1637), official in the service of the Mug̲h̲als of India and the author of a Persian Mirror for Princes, the Mawʿiẓa-yi D̲j̲ahāngīrī . Of émigré Persian origin, Muḥammad Bāḳir served as a military commander and then as a provincial governor for the Emperors D̲j̲ahāngīr and S̲h̲āhd̲j̲ahān, but was clearly a highly cultivated adīb also, the patron of poets, himself a poet and master of the ins̲h̲āʾ style and author of a work of S̲h̲īʿī kalām , still in manuscript. His chief claim to fame is as the author of one of the …

, the name given in Islamic geographical and travel literature to Khmer or Cambodia. The geography and political organisation of South-East Asia early became of interest to Islamic scholars because of trade links with Further India and China, and information was brought back by, inter alios, Arab and Persian merchants and navigators. Some of this information relates to the Khmer kingdom on the lower Mekong River, an outpost of Indian cultural and religious life, which lasted from the beginning of the 9th century to the middle of the 13th century (see R. Grousset, Histoire de l’Extrème-O…

, Siʿirt , Isʿird , the orthography in medieval Arabic texts for a town of southeastern Anatolia, 150 km/95 miles to the east of modern Diyarbakir and 65 km/44 miles to the south-west of Lake Van (lat. 37° 56′ N., long. 41° 56′ E.). It lies on the Bohtan tributary of the upper Tigris in the foothills of the eastern end of the Taurus Mts. It is the modern ¶ Turkish town of Siirt, now the chef-lieu of an il or province of the same name. 1. History. (a) The pre-Ottoman period. Siʿird is mentioned very little in early Islamic sources; the absence of fortifications apparently made it of…

, the coastal region of the western Deccan or Peninsular India lying roughly between Thālnēr and Bombay in the north and Goa in the south, i.e. between latitudes 19° 30′ and 15° 30′ N., and extending for some 560 km/350 miles. It has been known under this name in both mediaeval Islamic and modern times. Within British India, it was formerly in the Bombay Presidency, later Province, and is now in Maharashtra State of the Indian Union. It comprises a highly-forested, low-lying plain between the Arabian Sea and the inland mountain barrier of the Western Ghats. In medieval Islamic times, the T…

, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn, with the Turkish name Tapar “he who obtains, finds” (see P. Pelliot, Notes sur l’histoire de la Horde d’Or, Paris 1950, 182-3), Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan in ʿIrāḳ and western Persia 498-511/1105-18. Born in S̲h̲aʿbān 474/January 1082, he was a half-brother of Malik-S̲h̲āh’s eldest son Berk-Yaruḳ [ q.v.] and a full brother of Sand̲j̲ar [ q.v.]. When Berk-Yaruḳ succeeded his father in 485/1092, he had to leave Muḥammad in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān and Arrān, where Muḥammad enjoyed the support of Sand̲j̲ar and of the for…

, the name of a very old Persian fire-temple, a place or district to the south-east of Lake Urmiya in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, said to be the native place of Zoroaster. According to A.V.W. Jackson, the name is said to be derived from the Avestan name of Lake Urmiya, Čaēčasta; according to Yāḳūt, it is an Arabic corruption of Ḏj̲azn or Gazn , i.e. Kanzaka or Gazaca of the classical writers or Gand̲j̲ak of the Pahlavi texts. The older geographers correctly consider the two places and names to be distinct. The Arab traveller Abū Dulaf [ q.v.] visited S̲h̲īz en route for Daylam and then Ād̲h̲arbāyd…

the usual name in Muslim sources of the 6th/12th and 7th/13th centuries of the Kitai people, mentioned in Chinese sources from the 4th century A.D. onwards as living on the northern fringes of the Chinese empire; during the course of the 6th/12th century a group of them migrated into the Islamic lands of Central Asia and established a domination there which endured for some eighty years. In the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions of Outer Mongolia, the royal annals of the T’u-chüeh or Turks (ca. 732 A.D.), the Kitai are mentioned as enemies of the Turks and as living to the…

, Dhū ’l-Ṣawārī , G̲h̲azwat al-Ṣawārī , “the Battle of the Masts”, the names given in the Arabic sources to a naval battle between the Arabs and Byzantines in the latter part of ʿut̲h̲mān’s caliphate. The locale of the engagement is not wholly certain, but was probably off the coast of Lycia in southern Anatolia near the place Phoenix (modern Turkish Finike, chef-lieu of the kaza of that name in the vilayet of Antalya). As governor of Syria, Muʿāwiya [ q.v.] seems to have inaugurated a policy of building up Arab naval power in order to counter Byzantine control of the Easte…

(a.), an official in mediaeval Islamic administration who was in charge of official accounts and thus acted as an accountant-general. The title first becomes generally used in the successor-states to the ʿAbbāsid caliphate. Under the G̲h̲aznavids, the mustawfī al-mamālik was responsible to the vizier, and kept accounts of income and expenditure in the dīwān-i wazīr (M. Nāzim, The life and times of Sulṭān Maḥmūd of Ghazna , Cambridge 1931, 132). Under the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳs, e.g., in the time of Niẓām al-Mulk [ q.v.], the mustawfī was second in importance only to the vizier himsel…

, 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…

, an Arab dynasty of northern ʿIrāḳ and al-Ḏj̲azīra which flourished from ca. 380/990 to 564/1169. The family stemmed from the North Arab tribe of ʿUḳayl [ q.v.]. In the 4th/10th century, the ‘Uḳayl in Syria and northern ʿIrāḳ were dependents of the Ḥamdānids [ q.v.] of Mawṣil and Aleppo. When the last Ḥamdānids of Mawṣil, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn and Abū Ṭāhir Ibrāhim, were threatened by the Kurdish chief Bād̲h̲, founder of the Marwānid line [see marwānids ] in Diyār Bakr, they appealed for help to the ʿUḳaylid chief Abu ’l-Ḏh̲awwād Muḥammad b. al-Musayyab. But after def…

, a component group of the Meccan clan of Umayya or ʿAbd S̲h̲ams, the term being a plural of the founder’s name, a son of Umayya b. ʿAbd S̲h̲ams b. ʿAbd Manāf b. Ḳuṣayy called al-ʿĪṣ or Abu ’l-ʿĪṣ or al-ʿĀṣ(ī) or Abu ’l-ʿĀṣ(ī) or ʿUwayṣ, these being given in the genealogical works as separate individuals, but doubtless in fact one person (on the two orthographies al-ʿĀṣ and al-ʿĀṣī, the former explicable as an apocopated Ḥid̲j̲āzī form, see K. Vollers, Volksprache und Schriftsprache im alten Arabien , Strassburg 1906, 139-40). The group formed a branch of th…

(a.), literally, “someone who makes a thing legal, legaliser, legitimator”, the figure who, in classical Islamic law acts as something like a dummy or a “man of straw”, in order to authenticate or make permissible some legal process otherwise of doubtful legality or in fact prohibited. It thus forms part of the mechanisms and procedures subsumed under ḥiyal , legal devices, often ¶ used for evading the spirit of the law whilst technically satisfying its letter [see ḥīla ]. Thus the muḥallil is found in gambling, racing for stakes, e.g. with horses or pi…

, Yāfa , conventionally Jaffa, older Joppa, a port on the Palestinian seaboard, in pre-modern times the port of entry for Jerusalem, since 1950 part of the municipality of Tel Aviv-Yafo in the State of Israel (lat. 32° 05′ N., long. 34° 46′ E.). Situated on a 30 m/100 feet-high promontory on the otherwise straight coastline of central Palestine, Jaffa is a very ancient town. Thutmosis III’s forces seized the Canaanite town of ϒ-pw in the 15th century B.C. and it became a provincial capital during the Egyptian New Kingdom; since the 1950s, archaeological excavations h…