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, a town in Northern Syria on the eastern side of the Ḏj̲abal al-Nuṣairīye. The pronunciation and orthography of the name varies between the forms Maṣyād, Maṣyāf (in official documents and on the inscriptions mentioned below of the years 646 and 870 a. h.), Maṣyāt and Maṣyāt̲h̲. (on the interchange of f and t̲h̲ see Rescher, Z.D.M.G., lxxiv. 465; Praetorius, Z. D. M. G., Ixxv. 292; Dussaud, Topographie hist. de la Syrie, p. 143, note 4; 209; 395, note 3). The variants Maṣyāb (Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfeld, iv. 556), Maṣyāh (Ḵh̲alīl al-Ẓāhirī, Zubda, ed. Ravaisse, p. 49) and Maṣyāṭ (al-Nāb…

, a fortress of the Crusaders east of the Araba in the mountains of al-S̲h̲arā. It was built in 509 (1115) by Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 18 days in Syria Sobal and was called Mens Regalis (Montréal, also le Crac de Montréal to distinguish it from Crac des Moabites, i. e. Kerak [q. v.] and Crac des Chevaliers, i. e. Ḥiṣn al-Akrād [q. v.]) by the Franks. The site of the fortress was, as William of Tyre (xi. 26; Migne, Patrol. Lat., cci., col. 514 sqq.) points out, very suitable for the building of an impregnable fortress. It is therefore not improbable that, as Yāḳūṭ (iii. 332) indi…

, a town of central Syria on the eastern side of the D̲j̲abal al-Nuṣayriyya situated at 33 miles/54 km to the east of Bāniyās [ q.v.] and 28 miles/45 km to the east of Ḥamāt [ q.v.], in long. 36° 35’ E. and lat. 35° N., in the massif of the D̲j̲abal Anṣāriyya at the foot of the eastern slopes of the D̲j̲abal Baḥrāʾ, at an altitude of 1,591 ft./485 m. and to the west of the great trench of the fault of the G̲h̲āb [ q.v.]. The pronunciation and orthography of the name varies between the forms Maṣyād , Maṣyāf (in official documents and on the inscriptions mentioned below of the years 646 and 870 A.H.), Maṣyāt and M…

, Naṣībīn , classical Nasibis, modern Turkish form Nusaybin, a town in upper Mesopotamia, now in modern Turkey. It is situated on the modern Görgarbonizra Çayi, the classical Mygdonios river, the early Arabic Hirmās, Syriac Nehar Māsā or Mās̲h̲ī, in the plain to the south of the mountain region of Ṭūr ʿAbdīn [ q.v.], and today faces the Syrian town of al-Ḳāmis̲h̲lī. Naṣībīn is an ancient town, its name being probably Semitic. In classical sources we find the form Νάσιβις and on coins ΝΕΣΙΒΙ. In Armenian, it is usually Mcbin, Nsepi or Nsepin. The countrysid…

, a plain near Dābiḳ [ q.v.] on the Nahr al-Ḳuwayḳ in northern Syria. The town of Dābiḳ, was known to the Assyrians as Dabigu (Sachau, ZA, xii, 47) and is called Δάβεκον by Theophanes ( Chron ., ed. de Boor, 143, 451 ff.). For convenience in his campaigns against the Byzantines, Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik moved the headquarters of the Syrian troops from D̲j̲ābiya [ q.v.] to Dābiḳ. In 717 with an army under ʿUbayda he set out from Mard̲j̲ Dābiḳ for Asia Minor and on his return died there in Ṣafar 99/September-October 717 (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , v, 397 = §2151; Chronica minora, ed. Guidi, in GSCO, Scr . Sy…

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, properly Faḥṣ al-Tīh, is the name of the desert forming the frontier between Syria and Egypt in the interior of the Sinai Peninsula. The Arab geographers also call it the “Desert of the Banī Isrāʾīl”. As early as the Tabula Peutingeriana we find the legend: Desertum ubi quadraginta annis errauerunt filii Israel ducente Moyse and on the map of Mādabā: ἔρημοΣ [ὅπου] τοὺΣ ’ΙσραηλίταΣ ἔσωσ [εν] ὁ χαλκοῦΣ ὄΦιΣ and ἔρημοΣ Σὶν ὅπου κατεπέμΦθη τὸ μάννα καὶ ἡ ὀρτυγομήτρα. In the desert there was a fortress of the same name (De Guignes, Perle des Merveilles, N. E., ii. 31); there is a Wādi ’l-Tīh i…

, the Arabic name for the Mediterranean. It took its name from al-Rūm (Bilād al-Rūm), the Roman, i. e. Byzantine, Empire. Other names were also used, such as Baḥr al-Mag̲h̲rib [q. v.]. The name Adria, which originally meant only the Adriatic Sea, became applied in later antiquity to an area which gradually expanded eastwards. For example Jordanes speaks of Rodus totius Atriae insularum metropolis and the Tabula Peutingeriana makes the Adriaticum Pelagus extend to Crete (Partsch, Pauly-Wissowa’s Realenzykl., i., col. 418; A. Ronconi, Per l’onomastica antica dei mari, in Studi italian…

, 1. Ḏj̲abal al-Tūr, more rarely Ṭūr Sīnāʾ, Mount Sinai. The Arab geographers (Abu ’l-Fidāʾ, ed. Reinaud, p. 69; al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, transl. Wüstenfeld, in Abh. G. W. Gött., xxv. 100; Maḳrīzī, Gesch. d. Kopten, transl. Wüstenfeld, op. cit., iii. 113; Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfeld, iii. 557) explain the name as of Hebrew origin; it occurs once in the Ḳurʾān as Ṭūr Sīnīn (xcv. 2, emended in Ibn al-Faḳīh, B. G. A., v. 104 to Ṭūr Sīnā). The mountain which lay not far from the Red Sea ( Baḥr al-Ḳulzum) was climbed from al-Amn (Elim?), where the children of Israel once encamped. In the vicinity was the Wādī Ṭuwā, where Moses spoke with Allāh before he was sent to Pharaoh (Ḳurʾān, xx. 12; lxxix. 16; Yāḳūt, op. cit…

, a battlefield near Dābiḳ [q.v.] on the Nahr al-Ḳuwaiḳ in northern Syria. On the history of the town of Dābiḳ, which was known to the Assyrians as Dabigu (Sachau, Z. A., xii. 47) and is called Δάβεκον by Theophanes ( Chron., ed. de Boor, p. 431, 451 sq.) cf. above vol. i., dābik. For convenience in his campaigns against the Byzantines, Sulaimān b. ʿAbd al-Malik moved the headquarters of the Syrian troops from Ḏj̲ābiya to Dābiḳ (Lammens, supra i., d̲j̲ābiya). In 717 with an army under ʿUbaida he set out from Mard̲j̲ Dābiḳ for Asia Minor and on his return died there in Ṣafar…

, the name of two towns. 1. The Arabs called the Jericho ofthe Bible Rīḥā or Arīḥā (Clermont-Ganneau, in J.A., 1877, i. 498). The town, which was 12 mīl …

, capital of Filasṭīn, 25 miles E. N. E. of Jerusalem. The Umaiyad caliphs liked to choose little country towns, usually places in Palestine, to live in rather than Damascus. Muʿāwiya and after him Marwān and others frequently resided in al-Ṣinnabra on the south bank of the Lake of al-Ṭabarīya, Yazīd I in Hawwārīn, Ad̲h̲riʿāt, ʿAbd al-Malik in al-Ḏj̲ābiya, Walīd in Usais (now Tell Sais S. E. of Damascus) and al-Ḳaryatain and his ¶ sons in al-Ḳaṣtal, Yazīd II also in al-Muwaḳḳar near Fudain or in Bait Raʾs (Lammens, La Bâdia et la Ḥîra sous les Omaiyades, in M.F.O.B., iv., 1910, p. 91—112; A.…

(Urtuḳids), a Turkmen dynasty, branches of which ruled in Mārdīn, Ḥiṣn Kaifā and Ḵh̲artabirt. When the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sulṭān of Damascus, Tutus̲h̲, conquered Jerusalem in 479 he appointed as governor of the town his officer Urtuḳ b. Aksab, who had already served under Maliks̲h̲āh and had taken part in the siege of Āmid in 477. He was succeeded in 484 (1091) by his sons Sukmān and and Īlg̲h̲āzī. After the Holy City had been taken for the Fāṭimids in S̲h̲aʿbān 489 (1096) by al-Afḍal b. Badr al-Ḏj̲amālī, Sukmān went to al-Ruhā and ¶ Īlg̲h̲āzī to his lands in the ʿIrāḳ. In 495 (1101) Sulṭān Mu…

, a district in al-Ḏj̲ibāl (Media) south of Mount Alwand, halfway between Hamad̲h̲ān and Nihāwand. According to Ibn al-Faḳīh, it was a valley in the district of Nihāwand, which was three farsak̲h̲s in length and formed one of the most pleasing spots in the Sāsānian empire with its 93 villages all linked up one another by an uninterrupted stretch of orchards and perennial streams. The principal product was a world renowned saffron which was exported through Nihāwand and also through Hamad̲h̲ān. T…

, the most important of the four great cities of Ḵh̲urāsān (Nīs̲h̲āpūr, Marw, Herāt and Balk̲h̲), one of the great towns of Īrān in the middle ages. The name goes back to the Persian Nēw-S̲h̲āhpuhr (“Fair S̲h̲āpūr”); in Armenian it is called Niu-S̲h̲apuh, Arab. Naisābūr or Nīsābūr, new Pers. Nēs̲h̲āpūr, pronounced in the time of Yāḳūt: Nīs̲h̲āwūr, now Nīs̲h̲āpūr (Nöldeke, Ṭabarī, p. 59, note 3; G. Hoffmann, Auszüge . . ., p. 61, note 530). The town occasionally bore t…

, Raḥbat Mālik b. Ṭawḳ or Raḥbat al-S̲h̲aʾm, a town on the right bank of the Euphrates, the modern al-Miyādīn. Hardly anything definite is known about the history of the town before the Muslim era. In the middle ages it was usually identified as the Reḥōbōt han-Nāhār of the Bible (Gen. xxxvi. 37) i.e. Reḥōbōt on the river (Euphrates) especially in the Talmud and by the Syriac authors (e. g. Mich. Syr., cf. index, p. 63*; Barhebraeus, Chron. syr., ed. Bedjan, p. 273 and passim), who usually call it Reḥabōt, Raḥabat (M. Hartmann, in Z.D.P.V., xxiii., p. 42, note 1). A. Musil ( The Middle Euphrates, N…

, a river in Syria, now called S̲h̲arīʿat al-Manāḍira (from the Beduin tribe ʿArab al-Manāḍira). It rises in the Ḥawrān, flows west through a deeply cut valley of erosion, the Wādī al-Ramād, which describes a flat curve open to the south, to the G̲h̲awr, where it flows into the Nahr al-Urdunn (the Jordan) below Lake Gennesareth at Ḏj̲isr al-Mud̲j̲āmiʿ. Pliny calls it ( Hist. Nat., v. 74) Hieromix or Hieromices ( Gadara Hieromice praefluente, var. Hieromiace; the now so popular form “ Hieromax” is not recorded). On the 12th Rad̲j̲ab 15 (Aug. 20, 636 a. d.) in the celebrated battle on the Y…

, 1. a place in Syria. It is situated in the ḥarra of al-Ṣafāʾ on an eminence in the Wādi ’l-S̲h̲ām, which runs from the Ḏj̲ebel al-Drūz (Ḏj̲ebel al-Ḥawrān) to the plain of Ruḥba, at the spot where it joins the Wādi ’l-Saʾūṭ. It ¶ corresponds to the Roman military post of Namara (Waddington, Inscriptions, N°. 2270). Less than a mile S. E. of al-Namāra, Dussaud found the Nabataean-Arab tomb inscription of the “King of all the Arabs”, Maiu ’l-Ḳais bar ʿAmru, i. e. the Lak̲h̲mid Imru ’l-Ḳais b. ʿAmru, of the 7th Keslūl 223 of the era of Boṣrāʾ = Dec. 7,. 328 a. d. (cf. vol. i., p. 382a). Bibliography R. Duss…

(Greek Edessa, Syr. Orhāi, Armen. Urhay, Ar. al-Ruhāʾ), an important town in Diyār Muḍar, the ancient Osrhoëne. The origin of the town, which must have existed before the Macedonian conquest, is lost in obscurity. Repeated attempts to prove the existence of the name in Assyrian times (E. Honigmann, …

, capital of Diyār Muḍar in al-Ḏj̲azīra on the left bank of the Euphrates, shortly before it is joined by the Nahr Balīk̲h̲ (ΒασίλειοΣ, Βίληχα, ΒάλισσоΣ). The town was in antiquity called Kallinikos. Nikephorion is to be located in th…