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, bādīnān , the Kurdish territory to the north and north-east of the Mawṣil plain. From the latter years of the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate, circa 600/1200, until the middle of the 13th/19th century the area was a principality ruled from ʿAmādiya ([ q.v.], Kurdish Āmēdī ). It included ʿAḳra (Kurd. Ākrē ), S̲h̲ūs̲h̲, and the Zēbārī lands on the Great Zāb river to the east and Dahūk, and occasionally Zāk̲h̲ū, to the west. The principalities of Bōhtān and Ḥakārī bounded it in the north, and that of Sōrān in the south. The eponymous Bahāʾ al-Dīn family came originally from S̲h̲ams al-Dīnān (Kurd. S̲h̲amdīnā…

, two principalities in the extreme west of the Karakoram range of mountains, lie between Gilgit in the south, Ishkomān in the west, Afg̲h̲ān Wāk̲h̲ān in the north, and Chinese Turkistān in the north and east, i.e., approximately between 74° 10′ and 75° 20′ E. and 36° 10′ and 37° N. The whole area is extremely rugged and mountainous and for the most part uninhabitable. Permanent settlements exist only in the river valleys where terracing and irrigation of the mountainsides is possible, p…

iii. Languages (a) Pas̲h̲to [see afg̲h̲ān . (ii). The Pas̲h̲to language] (b) Kurdish [see kurds , kurdistān . v. Language] (c) Zaza [ q.v.] (d) Ḵh̲wārazmian (e) Sogdian and Bactrian in the early Islamic period (f) New Persian (g) New Persian written in Hebrew characters [see judaeo-persian . ii. Language] (d) Ḵh̲wārazmian. Ḵh̲warazmian, last attested late in the 8th/14th century (before yielding to Turkish), belonged to the Eastern branch of the Iranian language family, being most closely related to Sogdian, its southeastern neighbour. Pre-Islami…

(a.), dictionary. 1. …

, a sovereign State, of the Muslim religion, for the most part Arabic-speaking, situated at the eastern end of the Fertile Crescent. i.—Geography The structure of ʿIrāḳ paradoxically derives its originality from the fact that it forms part of a large geographical block of territory. From the Arabo-Syrian desert tableland which it faces along its south-western flank, it takes its general aspect and its climate. All along its frontiers on the North-East, on the other hand, it shares the orientation and ¶ relief of the folded mountain-chains of western Asia, which give it its two great rivers. But these very rivers, and the vast plain they irrigate, endow it, under its classical name Mesopotamia, with an individuality which is undeniable. This division, into two areas facing respectively South-West and North-East, is also that which roughly speaking distinguishes ʿIrāḳ ʿarabī and ʿIrāḳ ʿad̲j̲amī…

region on the lower reaches of the Oxus (Amu Darya) in western Central Asia.A version of this article is available in printVolume V, Fascicle 5, pp. 511-520 CHORASMIA (Gk. Chorasmiē < OPers. (H)uwārazmiš, Av. Xᵛāirizəm, later Ḵᵛārazm [Khwārazm], generally derived from * hwāra-zam/zmī-, either “nourishing land” [Burnouf, p. cviii; Sachau, p. 473; Geiger, p. 29;  Pauly-Wissowa III/2, cols. 2406-8] or “lowland” [Lerch, p. 447; Veselovskiĭ, p. v; Kiepert, no. 60; MacKenzie,  Camb. Hist. Iran III/2, p. 1244; Bogolyubov, p. 370, has suggested “land with good cattle enclo…

A version of this article is available in printVolume VIII, Fascicle 4, 5, pp. 439-452i. Persian elements in EnglishWords from all stages of Persian and from many fields have found their way into English, but almost always through the medium of one or more other languages. The earliest were literary words, quoted from Old Persian by classical Greek and Latin authors, which were then carried down to later European languages. The best known is probably Gk. parádeisos < OPers. * paridaiza-, (from which came NPers. pālīz “a kitchen garden”), used by Xenophon for an “enclosed park” o…

[English edition] العراق دولة ذات سيادة، دينها الإسلام. يتكلّم أغلب سكّانها العربيّة، وتقع في أقصى الشّرق من الهلال الخصيب. 1. الجغرافيا من المفارقة أن يستمدّ العراق تميّزه في تركيبته الجغرافيّة من كونه يشكّل جزءًا من كتلة جغرافيّة واسعة. فهو يستمدّ، من ناحية أولى، خصائصه الجغرافيّة العامّة ومناخه من هضبة بادية الشّام (الصّحراء العربيّة السّوريّة) التي يقع على طول سفحها الجنوبيّ الغربيّ، ومن جهة أخرى يشترك في الاتّجاه والتّضاريس مع سلاسل الجبال المنفرجة في آسيا الغربية التي تتقاسم، على طول تخومها الشّماليّة الشّرقيّ…