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1. A town in the Caspian coastal province of Gīlān [ q.v.] in north-western Persia, in long. 50° 0′ 20″ E. and lat. 37° 12′ 30″ N. It is situated on the plain to the east of the lower reaches of the Safīd-Rūd and to the north of the Dulfek mountain, and on the small river Čom-k̲h̲ala or Purdesar, but at some 14 miles/20 km. from the Caspian Sea shore. Lāhīd̲j̲ān does not seem to have been known as such to the earliest Arabic geographers, though legend was to attribute its foundation to Lāhīd̲j̲ b. Sām b. Nūḥ. It does, however, appear in the Persian Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (372/982) as L…

, the name of a group of nineteen islands in the Indian Ocean, to the south of the Bay of Bengal and lying between lats. 6°40′ and 9°20′ N.; the largest southernmost of them, Great Nicobar, is 190 km/120 miles to the northwest of the northern tip of Sumatra. Their area is 1,953 km2/627 sq. miles. The Arabic geographers place them at 15 days’ voyage from Sarandīb ( = Ceylon ) and 6 days’ voyage from Kalah [ q.v.] ( = probably in the Malacca peninsula or, less probably, at Kedah). The Nicobar Islands appear in Arabic travel and geographical literature as early as the Ak̲h̲bār al-Ṣīn wa ’l-Hind …

, a small town of the mediaeval central Deccan, now in the Bīd̲j̲apur District of the Karnataka State of the Indian Union (lat 16° 31’ N., long. 76° 20’ E.). It is famed as the assembly point and base camp for the combined forces of the South Indian sultanates (the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs, Barīd S̲h̲āhīs, Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhīs and Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs [ q.vv.]). These all marched southwards some 50 km/30 miles southwards to the Krishna river and the villages of Raks̲h̲asa and Tangadi, crossed the river and, at a point 20 km/12 miles south of the Krishna, after several skirmish…

bi ’llāh , Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Muḥammad b. D̲j̲aʿfar , ʿAbbasid caliph, reigned 247-8/861-2, and son of the preceeding caliph al-Mutawakkil by a Greek slave concubine Ḥubs̲h̲iyya. Towards the end of al-Mutawakkil’s reign, it had been the aim of his vizier ʿUbayd Allāh b. Yaḥyā b. K̲h̲āḳān to get the succession changed from the caliph’s original choice as walī al-ʿahd to another son al-Muʿtazz. Al-Muntaṣir was involved in the conspiracy of the Turkish soldiery which led to the caliph’s death [see al-mutawakkil ], and himself received the bayʿa [ q.v.] at the palace of al-D̲j̲aʿfariyya on …

(a.), lit. “hirer”, a dealer in riding beasts and beasts of burden (see WbKAS , Letter K, s.v., 164-5), usage being extended from the person buying and selling and hiring to the muleteer or other person accompanying a loaded beast. Terminology in this overlaps here with other, more specific terms like ḥammār , donkey driver and dealer, and bag̲h̲g̲h̲āl , mule driver and dealer, whilst in 19th century Damascus, rakkāb was also used for the hirer of donkeys and the man accompanying them on trading journeys. In pre-modern times, the mukārūn/mukāriya and their assoc…

, the name given to a complex of military encampments, settlements and royal palaces in southern Afg̲h̲ānistān which apparently flourished in the 5th/11th and 6th/12th centuries. The site (lat. 31° 28′ N. and long 64° 20′ E.) is an extensive one, stretching along the left bank of the Helmand River [see hilmand ] near its confluence with the Arg̲h̲andāb with the mediaeval Islamic town of Bust [ q.v.], modern ruins of Ḳalʿa-yi Bist, at its southern end, and the modern, new town (named after the mediaeval complex of buildings) of Las̲h̲kar-gāh at its northern one.…

, a mythical dynasty of ancient Persia, given a considerable role in the national historical tradition of Persia. This tradition was essentially put together in the k̲h̲ w adāy-nāmags of late Sāsānid times and, like most of our information on Sāsānid history, has to be reconstructed from post-Sāsanid, ¶ mainly early Islamic sources. Hence we find information on the Pīs̲h̲dādids in such sources as al-Ṭabarī, al-Masʿūdī, Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī and al-T̲h̲aʿālibī. Ḥamza, ed. Beirut n.d. [ ca. 1961], 13, 16-17, makes the Fīs̲h̲dādiyya the first ṭabaḳa of the kings …

, a small province of mediaeval Islamic Persia, lying to the south of the Alburz chain watershd and extending into the northern fringes of the Das̲h̲t-i Kavīr. Its western boundaries lay almost in the eastern rural districts of Ray, whilst on the east it marched with K̲h̲urāsān, with which it was indeed at times linked. It was bisected by the great Ray-K̲h̲urāsān highway, along which ¶ were situated the chief towns of Ḳūmis, from west to east K̲h̲uwār or K̲h̲awār (classical Χοαρηνή, modern Aradūn), Simnān [ q.v.]. Dāmg̲h̲ān [ q.v.], and Bisṭām [ q.v.], whilst at its south-eastern extrem…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad , official and vizier of the Būyids in the second half of the 4th/10th century and patron of scholars, d. 374/984-5. Virtually nothing is known of his origins, but he served the great amīr ʿAḍud al-Dawla Fanā-Ḵh̲usraw [ q.v.] as one of his two inspectors of the army ( ʿāriḍ al-d̲j̲ays̲h̲ ) in Bag̲h̲dād, the ʿāriḍ responsible for the Turkish, Arab and Kurdish troops. Then when ʿAḍud al-Dawla died in 372/983 and his son Ṣamṣām al-Dawla Marzubān assumed power in Bag̲h̲dād as supreme amīr, he nominated Ibn Saʿdān as his vizier. He occupied this post fo…

, the region of Transoxania lying within the great northwards bend of the middle reaches of the Jaxartes river and to the south of the rightbank affluent the Āhangarān (Russian form, Angren) river. It thus lay between the provinces of S̲h̲ās̲h̲ [see tas̲h̲kent ] on the northwest and Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.] on the east. The Arabic and Persian geographers of the 3rd-5th/9th-11th centuries describe it as a flourishing province, with its mountains producing silver and salt. They give the names of many towns there, the chief one being Tūnkat̲h̲, whose ru…

, Abū Saʿīd Tād̲j̲ al-Dawla (458-88/1066-95), Sald̲j̲ūḳ ruler in Syria 471-88/1078-95. The name, < Tkish. tut-, “he who grasps, seizes”, was already familiar as a personal name to Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, tr. Atalay, i, 367. During his brother Malik S̲h̲āh’s [ q.v.] lifetime, the youthful Tutus̲h̲ was given Syria in 471/1078 or 472/1079 as his appanage. The Turkmen commander Atsi̊z b. Uvak [ q.v.], who had overrun southern Syria and Palestine and had seized Jerusalem from the Fāṭimids, had been swept out of these temporary conquests by the returning armies of al-Mu…

(p., “mountains”), a directly-administered District of what was the North West Frontier Province of British India and of Pakistan till 1955, covering some 2,694 sq. miles and with its administrative centre at the town of Kōhāt. The District is bounded by the Khyber Agency [see k̲h̲aybar Pass] on the north, by the Kurram and North Wāziristān Agencies in the west, by the Bannū District [ q.v.] on the south, and by the Indus River and the ʿĪsā K̲h̲ēl taḥṣīl of the Pand̲j̲āb on the east. The terrain of the District is that of a rugged tableland lying at an average of 2,000 ft., with…

, the name (of unknown etymology) of a mountain massif of Inner Asia. Its core is in the modern Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous oblast of the former USSR, but it spills over into Kirghizia and Tadjikistan to the north and west, and into the Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China to the east, and Afg̲h̲ānistān (including the Wak̲h̲ān corridor) and Pākistānī Kas̲h̲mir (Āzād Kas̲h̲mīr) to the south. Comprised mainly of east-west-running ranges, its many river valleys being right-bank affluents of t…

, Muʿīn al-Dīn Muḥammad Zamčī, epistolary stylist and historian in Tīmūrid Ḵh̲urāsān whose birth and death dates are unknown but who flourished in the second half of the 8th/14th century. From what he says in his own works, he arrived in Harāt, probably from Isfizār in what is now western Afg̲h̲ānistān, in 873/1468-9, and was employed as a muns̲h̲ī at the court of Sultan Ḥusayn Bayḳara [see Ḥusayn at Vol. III, 603a] under the patronage of the vizier Ḳiwām al-Dīn Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 903/1497-8). Isfizārī is most famous as the author of a history and compendium of …

, the form in early Arabic usage for the name of a northwestern Indian people, the Jhāt́s [see d̲j̲āt́ ], members of whom were brought into the Persian Gulf region in the first Islamic centuries and possibly earlier. According to al-Balād̲h̲urī, the Sāsānid emperor Bahrām V Gūr ( r. 420-38) transported Zuṭṭ from India to K̲h̲ūzistān and the Persian Gulf shores; these subsequently became Muslim and were settled by Abū Mūsa al-As̲h̲ʿarī [ q.v.] at Baṣra, being attached to the tribe of Ḥanẓala of Tamīm. At least some of them were caught up in the rebellion of Ibn al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲ [ q.v.], and after…

, Afg̲h̲ān commander in northern India during the 18th century, whose power-base was in Rohilkand, where he founded the town of Nad̲j̲ībābād [ q.v.]. Involved in the confused struggles for power in Dihlī during the reigns of the fainéant Mug̲h̲al Emperors Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Bahādur [ q.v.] and ʿAlamgīr II in the 1750s, as opponent of the Nawwāb-wazīr of Awadh (Oudh) [ q.v.] Ṣafdār D̲j̲ang, he worked closely with the Afg̲h̲ān ruler Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Durrānī [ q.v.] and received from him in 1757 the title of amīr al-umarāʾ and custodianship of the Emperor ʿĀlamgīr II. At…

, a large river in Central Asia. It is formed by the two rivers Tekes and Kunges, which rise on the northern slopes of the T’ien-Shan Mts.; the united stream of the Ili then flows for some 950 kms. across the northern part of the region known in mediaeval times as “the land of the seven rivers”, Yeti-su or Semirečye, into Lake Balk̲h̲as̲h̲. The lower course of the Ili falls within the Soviet Kazakhstan Republic, whilst the eastern part of the Ili river system belongs to the Chinese Sinkiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Ili is first mentioned in the history of the Chinese T’ang dynast…

, Takīn (t.), in the oldest known Turkish tégin , an ancient Turkish title with the original meaning of “prince”. In the early Türk empire, it denoted the legitimate son or grandson of the Supreme Ḳag̲h̲an. It appears as such in the Ork̲h̲on [ q.v.] inscriptions, one of which is known as that of Kül Tigin (literally “the younger brother [of Elteris̲h̲ Ḳag̲h̲an], the crown prince”), cf. Talât Tekin, A grammar of Orkhon Turkic , Bloomington 1968, 237. G. Doerfer ( Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen , Wiesbaden 1963-7, ii, 533-41, no. 922) and Sir Gerard Clauson ( A dictionary o…

or Banū rawwād , a minor dynasty of northwestern Persia which flourished during the period which Minorsky characterised as the “Iranian intermezzo” between the decline of Arab power there and the incoming of Turkish peoples like the Sald̲j̲ūḳs, essentially during the 4th-5th/10th-11th centuries. Although the Daylamīs [see daylam ] were the most prominent in this upsurge of northern Persian mountain peoples, the part of other races like the Kurds was not negligible. The Rawwādids (the form “Rawād” later becomes common in …

, Banū , a family of officials in caliphal service, especially noted as secretaries and viziers to the ʿAbbāsids during the 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th centuries. The majority of sources state that the family came from Wāsiṭ and were of Nestorian Christian origin before converting to Islam, nevertheless claiming a pure Arabic origin going back to the Yemeni tribe of Balḥārit̲h̲ of Nad̲j̲rān. The Wahbīs thus belong to the tradition of servants of the caliphs with Nestorian backgrounds who were prominent in the administrations of the 3rd/9th century (cf. L. Massignon, La politique islamo-c…

(a.), the verbal noun of the form II verb ḥaṣṣala “to collect together, acquire”. In Indo-Muslim usage, this term—taken over from previous régimes— denoted in the British Indian provinces of Bombay, Madras and the United Provinces the collection of revenue and, thence, the administrative area from which this taxation was collected. Thus ¶ in the above-mentioned provinces, the taḥṣīl was a subdivision of a District ( taʿalluḳa , corruptly, tālūḳ ) with an area of up to 600 square miles. Hence in size, a taḥṣīl came between the pargana [ q.v.] and the sarkār of the Mug̲h̲al empire [see mug̲h̲al…

(p.), lit. “upper frontier, boundary”, a general geographical term specifically applied in southeastern Persia to the mountain region in the modern Persian province of Balūčistān and Sīstān adjoining the frontier with Pākistānī Balūčistān. Its mountain chains run generally from northwest to southeast, and include the volcanic (still partially active) Kūh-i Taftān (4,042 m/13,262 feet), the highest point, but there are also east-west-running outliers, such as the Kūh-i Bazmān (3,489 m/11,478 feet) which connects the Sarḥadd with the D̲j̲abal Bāriz [ q.v. in Suppl.]. The only…

b. Malik S̲h̲āh , ʿAḍud al-Dawla Abu ’l-Ḥārit̲h̲ Aḥmad, Sald̲j̲ūḳ malik in K̲h̲urāsān 490-511/1097-1118 and then supreme sultan of the Great Saldjuḳs, ruling K̲h̲urāsān and northern Persia till his death in 552/1157; he accordingly ruled for some 60 years. The name Sand̲j̲ar, which occurs for other members of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ family and elsewhere in the Turkish world, seems to mean in Turkish “he who pierces, thrusts”, cf. M.Th. Houtsma, Ein türkisch-arabisches Glossar , Leiden 1894, text 29, glossary 78, 80, and the detailed discussion by P. Pelliot, in Oeuvres posthumes, ii, Paris 19…

, Abū Ḥāzim al-Mak̲h̲zūmī, called al-Aʿrad̲j̲ “the Lame” (d. ca. 140/757), traditionist and judge in Medina, regarded as a protein Ṣūfī mystic; he was of Persian origin. Various aphorisms ( ḥikam ) and elegant sayings of his are preserved in citations, and also his answers to questions put to him by the Umayyad caliph Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik [ q.v.]; also, a collection of his masāʾil [see al-masāʾil wa ’l-ad̲j̲wiba ] is extant in manuscript. (C.E. Bosworth) Bibliography Zirikli, Aʿlām, iii, 171-2 Sezgin, GAS, i, 634-5 R. Eisener, Zwischen Faktum und Fiktion. Eine Studie zum Umayyaden…

, the mountain massif of central Afg̲h̲ānistān, being the westwards and southwards extension of the Pamirs “knot” and the Hindū Kus̲h̲ [ q.v.] of north-eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān. The name Kūh-i Bābā is properly given to the east-west chaîne magistrale running westwards from Kābul and lying to the south of the upper Herī Rūd, with outliers running southwards and westwards through the regions of the G̲h̲ōrāt and Hazārad̲j̲āt [see g̲h̲ūr and hazārad̲j̲āt in Suppl.] between such river valleys as those of the Helmand, Arg̲h̲andāb and Tarnak. On the northern side of the He…

, Ḥamza b. Yūsuf al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī al-D̲j̲urd̲j̲ānī. Abu ’l-Ḳāsim (b. at an unknown date towards the middle of the 4th/10th century, d. 427/1038 at Nīs̲h̲āpūr), traditionist and legal scholar. A native of Gurgān [ q.v.] in the Caspian coastlands, where he was a k̲h̲aṭīb and preacher, his major work, and apparently the sole surviving one, is his Taʾrīk̲h̲ D̲j̲urd̲j̲ān or Kitāb Maʿrifat ʿulamāʾ ahl D̲j̲urd̲j̲ān , essentially a rid̲j̲āl [ q.v.] work devoted to the scholars and muḥaddit̲h̲ūn of his native province, to which is prefixed (ed. Ḥaydarābād 1369/…

, the name of a wadi and of a settlement in western Arabia, and also of a settlement in northern Arabia. 1. The wadi. This runs in a northeasterly direction from the mountains of the Sarāt [ q.v.] to the south of al-Ṭāʾif and past the setdement of Turaba, when it becomes the Wādī Ṣubayʿ. It flows through a region of ḥarras [ q.v.] through the Ṣubayʿ [ q.v.] country and disappears into the ʿArḳ al-Ṣubayʿ of Nad̲j̲d. The mediaeval Islamic geographers describe it as being three nights’ journey long and as having date palms, trees, fruits and cultivation. They place…

(a.), the verbal noun of a form II verb ḳassaṭa “to distribute”, especially used as a term of early Islamic financial administration. It denoted the allocation or distribution amongst the taxpayers of the global amount of taxation due. The synonyms ḳasṭ/ḳisṭ are also found. The term could also denote the total amount of taxation due or the instalments by which it was paid. See the references given by F. Løkkegaard, Islamic taxation in the classic period, with special reference to circumstances in Iraq , Copenhagen 1950, 127, and also H.F. Amedroz, Abbasid administration in its decay, from …

, modern form Mezzé, a village lying, according to the mediaeval geographers, half-a-farsak̲h̲ (i.e. about 4 km./2½ miles) to the west of Damascus [see dimas̲h̲ḳ ], described as extensive, populous and agriculturally rich, being irrigated by one of the streams of the Baradā river. It was also known as Mizzat Kalb, having been in the Umayyad period a locality heavily settled by South Arabian, Kalbī supporters of the Sufyānids, and being also the spot where the Companion of the Prophet Diḥya b. K̲h̲alīfa al-Kalbī was reputedly buried (al-Harawī, Ziyārāt , 11/27).…

, the site of a battle about 617 A.D. between most sections of the two Medinan tribes of Aws and Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲. It lay in the south-eastern quarter of the Medinan oasis in the territory of the Banū Ḳurayẓa. The battle was the climax of a series of internal conflicts. The Aws, whose position had deteriorated, were joined by the two chief Jewish tribes, Ḳurayẓa and al-Naḍīr, and by nomads of Muzayna; their leader was Ḥuḍayr b. Simāk. The opposing leader ʿAmr b. al-Nuʿmān of Bayāḍa was supported by most of the Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲, and by some nomadic D̲j̲uhayna and As̲h̲d̲j̲aʿ, but ʿAbd Allāh b. Ubayy [ q.v.] a…

, Abū Manṣūr , the author of a history in Arabic, the Taʾrīk̲h̲ G̲h̲urar al-siyar or al-G̲h̲urar fī siyar al-mulūk wa-ak̲h̲bārihim , which he dedicated to the G̲h̲aznawid Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Naṣr b. Sebüktigin, governor of K̲h̲urāsān, d. 412/1021. According to Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa, tr. Flügel, iv, 319 no. 8592, this universal history comprised four volumes, going from the Creation to Mahmud of G̲h̲azna [ q.v.] in the author’s own time. From the first part, H. Zotenberg published a text and French translation, Histoire des rois de Perse , Paris 1900. It is espec…

, a district and town of K̲h̲urāsān. The town (modern Turbat-i Ḥaydarī or Ḥaydariyya, see below) is some 140 km/88 miles south of Mas̲h̲had on the road to Gunābād and lies at an altitude of approximately 1,280/4,200 feet (lat. 35° 16’ N., long. 59° 08’ E.). Al-Muḳaddasī, 319 n. a, describes it as being just a rural district with no town, but Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 128, names its ḳaṣaba as Ruk̲h̲k̲h̲ or Rīk̲h̲. In Il-K̲h̲ānid times, the town of Zāwa seems to have flourished, with 50 villages dependent on it, producing silk and fruits (Mustawfī, Nuzha , ed. Le St…

, the putative title borne by a line of rulers in eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān in pre- and early Islamic times, who opposed the extension of Muslim arms into their region for some two centuries. In the Arabic historical texts, there is uncertainty about the vocalisation of the name, with forms like *Rutbīl and *Ratbīl, etc. given. The origin of the title is quite obscure. Marquart was probably correct in seeing in it a theophoric name which included the element Zūn [ q.v.] or Z̲h̲ūn, the name of the god mentioned in the Arabic sources as worshipped in the region of Zamīndāwar [ q.v.]; but other, less …

, Ningrahār , the name of the province of modern Afg̲h̲ānistān (post-1964 administrative organisation) which covers essentially the basin of the middle Kābul River from the Pakistan frontier near Land́ī Kōtal to a short distance to the west of the province’s administrative centre, D̲j̲alālābād [ q.v. in Suppl.] and the mountain regions on each bank. Before Lag̲h̲mān and Kunaŕ provinces were carved out from it in 1964, Nangrahār province extended northwards to include Nūristān (L. Dupree, Afghanistan , Princeton 1973, 156-7). The name itself goes back to the pre-Islamic perio…

, a town of northern Afg̲h̲ānistān lying in the lowland region to the south of the upper Oxus at an altitude of 1,400 ft./450 m. and in lat. 36° 42′ N. and long. 67° 41′ E.; it is situated some 30 miles/50 km. to the east of modern Mazār-i S̲h̲arīf and, according to the mediaeval Islamic geographers, two marḥala s or 10 farsak̲h̲ s to the east of Balk̲h̲ [ q.v.]. It further lies on the K̲h̲ulm River which flows down a narrow valley from the Hindu Kus̲h̲ past the town of Haybak and then K̲h̲ulm itself until it peters out short of the Oxus. It is possible that this river is the Artamis of the Greek geographers. T…

, modern Kütahya , a town of north-western Anatolia, lying at an altitude of 3,251 feet/991 m. in lat. 39° 25′ north and long. 29° 59′ east. It is in the south-western corner of the well-cultivated plain of the Porsuk Çay, which eventually runs into the Sakarya river; the old town nestles on the slopes of the hill called ʿAd̲j̲em Dag̲h̲, which is crowned by the ruined citadel. In classical times it was Cotyaeum, the city of Cotys, and the largest city of Phrygia Salutaris, an early centre of Christianity and then in Byzantine times the seat of an archbishopric. Kutāhiya was taken by the Turkme…

or Muʾnis al-K̲h̲āzin , commander of the ʿAbbāsids, prominent during the caliphates of al-Muʿtaḍid, al-Muktafī and al-Muḳtadir [ q.vv.], i.e. the end of the 3rd/9th and the opening of the 4th/10th centuries. He was called “the stallion” ( al-faḥl ) to distinguish him from his more celebrated contemporary Muʾnis al-K̲h̲ādim (“the eunuch”) [see muʾnis al-muẓaffar ]. Muʾnis al-Faḥl was ṣāḥib al-ḥaras or commander of the guard for al-Muʿtaḍid, and was sent by the caliph on various punitive expeditions against unruly Bedouin and other re…

, Persian author of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ period who wrote a local history and topographical account of his native province Fārs, the Fārs-nāma . Nothing is known of him save what can be gleaned from his book, nor is the exact form of his name known, but his ancestors came from Balk̲h̲. His grandfather was mustawfī or accountant for Fārs under Berk-yaruḳ b. Malik S̲h̲āh’s governor there, the Atabeg Rukn al-Dawla or Nad̲j̲m al-Dawla Ḵh̲umārtigin, and Ibn al-Balk̲h̲ī acquired his extensive local knowledge of Fārs through accompanying hi…

, conventionally Irtysh, a river of Siberia and the main left-bank affluent of the Ob [ q.v.]. It rises from glaciers on the southern slopes of the Altai mountains near the modern frontier of the Mongolian Republic and Chinese Turkestan or Sinkiang [ q.v.] through the Zaysan lake into the Kazakhstan Republic, then out of it into the Omsk oblast of the Russian Federation and joins the Ob at Khanty Mansiysk, its complete course being 3,720 km/2,312 miles, the greater part of it navigable. The Irtis̲h̲ is mentioned, as ärtis , in the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions (Kültégin…

, a town of northwestern Persia, situated on the Zand̲j̲ān Rūd, a right-bank affluent of the Safīd Rūd [ q.v.]. It lies on the highway from Tehran and Ḳazwīn to Tabrīz at a distance of 314 km/195 miles from Tehran and 302 km/188 miles from Tabrīz, and at an altitude of 1,625 m/5,330 feet (lat. 36° 40′ N., long. 48° 30′ E.). The mediaeval geographers mostly placed Zand̲j̲ān in D̲j̲ibāl province, usually linking it with Abhar [ q.v.] or Awhar some 80 km/50 miles to its south-east, but they usually stated that it was on the frontier with Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, and some authoriti…

(a.), noun of place from the verb s̲h̲ahida “to witness, be present at” > “be a martyr, s̲h̲ahīd’ ‘ (a post-Ḳurʾānic semantic development which Goldziher thought was influenced by Eastern Christian Syriac parallel usage; see Muh . Studien , ii, 387-9, Eng. tr. ii, 350-2). In post-Ḳurʾānic times also, the noun mas̲h̲had developed from its designating any sacred place, not necessarily having a construction associated with it, but often in fact a tomb in general, the burial place of an earlier prophet, saint or forerunner of Muḥammad or of any Muslim who had had pronounced over him the s̲h̲ahād…

, Indo-Muslim commander and Nawwāb [ q.v.] of Bengal 1760-4, died in 1777. ¶ Mīr Ḳāsim’s rise to power was an episode in the British East Indian Company’s extension of power in eastern India in the latter decades of the 18th century. Since the Nawwāb of Bengal Mīr D̲j̲aʿfar [see d̲j̲aʿfar , mīr ] was unable to fulfill financial obligations contracted to the Company, he was in October 1760 deposed in favour of his son-in-law Mīr Ḳāsim, who now became Nawwāb but had to cede the districts of Burdwan, Midnapur and Chittagong to the British. However, he now attempted to build up…

, Sāsānid emperor 591-628, and the last great ruler of this dynasty before the invading Arabs overthrew the Persian empire. The MP name Parwīz “victorious” is explained in al-Ṭabarī, i, 995, 1065, as al-muẓaffar and al-manṣūr ; the ¶ name was Arabised as Abarwīz (see Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch , 19). For the main events of his long reign (dominated by the struggles with the Byzantines over the buffer-state Armenia and over control of the Fertile Crescent in general, culminating in the Persian invasion of Egypt in 619, but then the riposte by t…

, a small town in Central India, before Partition in the Native State of Dewās, now in the Shajapur District of the state of Madhya Pradesh in the Indian Union (lat. 23° 34′ N, long. 76° 24′ E). It is essentially a Muslim town, founded by the sultans of Mālwā [ q.v.], but on an ancient site. It was reputedly the location of a battle in 840/1437 when Maḥmūd K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī I of Mālwā was defeated by the forces of Mēwāŕ [ q.v.], and, of more certain historicity, it was captured in 932/1526 from Maḥmūd II of ¶ Mālwā by Rāṇā Sāṇgā [ q.v.] of Čitawr. Then in 968/1561 it was seized by Akbar from the local…

, Arabised as Zarand̲j̲, the main town of the early Islamic province of Sīstān. Its ruins lie a few miles north of what was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the administrative centre of Persian Sīstān, Nuṣratābād or Nāṣirābād, modern Zābul. Its remaining traces are visible within the vast ruined site known as Nād-i ʿAlī, to the east of the present course of the Hilmand river [ q.v.] before it peters out in the Hāmūn depression [see zirih ] just inside Afg̲h̲an Sīstān; the site has, however, been much depleted by periodic flooding and the re-us…

, a town of northern Persia (long. 53° 24′ E., lat. 35° 33′ N., alt. 1,138 m/3,734 ft.), in mediaeval Islamic times coming within the province of Ḳūmis [ q.v.] and lying on the great highway connecting Rayy with the administrative centre of Ḳūmis, sc. Dāmg̲h̲ān [ q.v.], and K̲h̲urāsān. To its north is situated the Elburz Mountain chain and to its south, the Great Desert. 1. History. Simnān comes within what was the heartland of the Parthians (whose capital almost certainly was at S̲h̲ahr-i Ḳūmis, southeast of Dāmg̲h̲ān on the Simnān road), but nothing is known o…

, the name of a family settled in K̲h̲urāsān, of Arab descent, which provided secretaries and viziers for the Sāmānids and early G̲h̲aznawids [ q.vv.] in the 4th/10th and early 5th/11th centuries (from which of the ʿUtbas of early Islamic times they were descended does not seem to be specified in the sources). 1. Abū d̲j̲aʿfar ( ism and nasab variously given), vizier under the Sāmānid amīr ʿAbd al-Malik I b. Nūḥ I, from 344/956 to 348/959 and again, in company with Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad al-Balʿamī [ q.v.], under his successor Manṣūr I b. Nūḥ I, a few years later. His policy aimed at s…

, the name of two places in eastern Persia, denoted in the early mediaeval Islamic sources by the dual form al-Ṭabasāni (e.g. in al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, ix, 45, and Yāḳūt, Buldān, ed. Beirut, iv, 20) and distinguished as Ṭabas al-Tamr “Ṭ. of the date-palms” and Ṭabas al-ʿUnnāb “Ṭ. of the jujube trees”, later Persian forms Ṭabas Gīlakī and Ṭabas Masīnān respectively. Ṭabas al-Tamr lay to the west of Ḳuhistān [ q.v.] in the central Great Desert at a junction of routes between the Das̲h̲t-i Lūt in the south and the Das̲h̲t-i Kawīr in the north and west. Ṭab…

, a mediaeval town on the lower reaches of the Si̊r Daryā in Central Asia, towards its debouchure into the Aral Sea, in what is now the Kazakhstan SSR; its fame was such that the Aral Sea was often called “the Sea of D̲j̲and”. D̲j̲and is first mentioned by certain Muslim geographers of the mid-4th/10th century, in particular, by Ibn Ḥawḳal, and following him, by the anonymous author of the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (wrote 372/982). Ibn Ḥawḳal mentions three settlements on the lower Si̊r Daryā amongst the Og̲h̲uz Turks of that region: D̲j̲and; the “New Se…

b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib al-Hās̲h̲imī , Companion of the Prophet, son of the Prophet’s uncle and of Umm al-Faḍl Lubāba al-Hilāliyya, herself Muḥammad’s sister-in-law. Although the Sīra brings him into contact with Muḥammad by making him one of the inner circle of the Hās̲h̲imī family who washed the Prophet’s corpse and descended into his grave, and although his physical resemblance to the Prophet is also stressed, he was obviously a late convert to Islam, doubtless following his father al-ʿAbbās [ q.v.] in this after the conquest of Mecca. Nothing is heard of him during the reigns of t…

, Abu ’l-Faḍl al-Minḳarī al-Tamīmī, early S̲h̲īʿī historian (though probably not, as Sezgin rightly observes, the first one) and traditionist; his date of birth is uncertain, but he died in 212/827. He lived originally in Kūfa but later moved to Bag̲h̲dād; amongst those from whom he heard traditions was Sufyān al-T̲h̲awrī [ q.v.]. His own reputation as an ak̲h̲bāri and muḥaddit̲h̲ was, however, weak, and he was regarded by some Sunnī authors as a fervent ( g̲h̲ālī ) S̲h̲īʿī. He is best known for his Kitāb Waḳʿat Ṣiffīn (this has been reconstructed, from the p…

, the nisba of two scholars from the small town of Maybud [ q.v.] near Yazd in Persia and also of a vizier of the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳs. 1. ras̲h̲īd al-dīn abu ’l-faḍl aḥmad b. muḥammad , author of an extensive Ḳurʾān commentary in Persian, begun in 520/1126, the Kas̲h̲f al-asrār waʿuddat al-abrār , extant in several mss. Bibliography Storey, i, 1190-1 Storey-Bregel, i, 110-11 and on the nisba in general, al-Samʿānī, Ansāb, f. 547b. 2. mīr ḥusayn b. muʿīn al-dīn al-manṭiḳī , pupil of D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī [ q.v.], ḳāḍī and philosopher, author of several works on…

, Ẓahīr al-Dīn , Persian author who wrote a valuable history of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs during the reign of the last Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ of Persia, Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l (III) b. Arslan [ q.v.]; he must have died ca. 580/1184-5. Nothing is known of his life except that Rāwandī [ q.v.] states ( Rāḥat al-ṣudūr , ed. M. Iqbál, 54) that he had been tutor to the previous sultans Masʿūd b. Muḥammad [ q.v.] and Arslan b. Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l (II). His Sald̲j̲ūḳ-nāma was long believed lost, but was known as the main source for Rāwandī’s information on the Sald̲j̲ūḳs up to the latter’s own time (see Rāḥat al-ṣudūr, Preface, pp. XXVI, XXI…

, a city in southeastern Afg̲h̲ānistān (in modern times giving its name to a province) situated in latitude 31°27′ N. and longitude ¶ 65°43′ E. at an altitude of 3,460 ft. (1,000 m.), and lying between the Arg̲h̲andāb and S̲h̲orāb Rivers in the warmer, southern climatic zone ( garmsīr ) of Afg̲h̲ānistān. Hence snow rarely lies there for very long, and in modern times the city has been favoured as a winter residence for Kābulīs wishing to avoid the rigours of their winter (see J. Humlum et al., La géographie de l’Afghanistan , étude d’un pays aride , Copenhagen 1959, 14…

, abū s̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ muḥammad b. al-ḥusayn , zaḥīr al-dīn , vizier to the ʿAbbāsid caliphs and adīb (437-88/1045-95). He was actually born at Kangāwar [see kinkiwar ] in D̲j̲ibāl, but his father, a member of the official classes, stemmed from the nearby district of Rūd̲h̲rāwar [ q.v.]. Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ Muḥammad served al-Muḳtadī as vizier very briefly in 471/1078-8 after the dismissal of ʿAmīd al-Dawla Ibn D̲j̲ahīr [see d̲j̲ahīr , banū ] ¶ and then for a longer period, S̲h̲aʿbān 476 Ṣafar or Rabīʿ I 484/December 1083 to January 1084-April or May 1091, after the second …

(I) b. Naṣr b. Aḥmad , Sāmānid amīr of Transoxania and Khurāsān (331-43/943-54), given after his death the honorific of al-Amīr al-S̲h̲āhīd (“the Praiseworthy”). ¶ Continuing the anti-S̲h̲īʿī reaction which marked the end of the reign of Nūḥ’s father Naṣr [ q.v.], the early years of the new reign were dominated by the vizierate of the pious Sunnī faḳīh Abu i-Faḍl Muḥammad Sulamī, but very soon, ominous signs of decline began to appear in the state. There were revolts in the tributary kingdom of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.] and in K̲h̲urāsān under its governor Abū ʿAlī Čag̲h̲ānī, whom Nūḥ a…

, Arabic spellings K̲h̲.w.st or K̲h̲.wāst, the name of various places in Afg̲h̲anistān. The most likely etymology for the name is that given by G. Morgenstierne in his An etymological vocabulary of Pashto , Oslo 1928, 98: that it is an Iranised form * hwāstu , cf. Skr. suvāstu- “good site” (which became the place-name Swāt [ q.v.] in the North-West frontier region of Pakistan). The mediaeval Arabic and Persian geographers mention what appear to be two places of this name in northern Afg̲h̲anistān. Those of the 4th/10th century mention K̲h̲as̲h̲t as a town on …

al-Layt̲h̲ī al-Kinānī , the last ¶ governor of K̲h̲urāsān under the Umayyads, d. 131/748. Naṣr’s whole career seems to have been spent in K̲h̲urāsān and the East. In 86/705 he campaigned in the upper Oxus region under Ṣāliḥ, brother of the governor of K̲h̲urāsān Ḳutayba b. Muslim [ q.v.], and received a village there as reward. Then in 106/724 he was campaigning in Farg̲h̲āna under Muslim b. Saʿīd al-Kilābī, and served as governor of Balk̲h̲ for some years. Hence on the death of the governor of the East Asad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḳasrī [ q.v.], the caliph His̲h̲ām was advised to appoint as hi…

the title given to local Iranian rulers of Sog̲h̲dia and Farg̲h̲āna in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period. Although Justi ( Iranisches Namenbuch , 14 ), Unvala ( The translation of an extract from Mafâtîh al-ʿUlûm of al-K̲h̲wârazmî , in J. of the . Cama Ins xi (1928), 18-19) and Spuler ( Iran , 30-1, 356) derive it from O. Pers. k̲h̲s̲h̲aeta- ‘shining, brilliant’, an etymology from O. Pers. k̲h̲s̲h̲āyat̲h̲iya- ‘king, ruler’ (M. Pers. and N. Pers. s̲h̲āh ) is more probable (Christensen, and Bosworth and Clauson, see below). This O. Pers. term k̲h̲s̲h̲āyat̲h̲iya- penetrated beyond T…

(a.), the verbal noun of the form III verb nād̲j̲ā “to whisper to, talk confidentially with someone”, which is used in Ḳurʾān, LVIII, 13, in this sense, and in the reciprocal form VI in LVIII, 9, 10, of the murmurs of discontent amongst the Prophet’s followers, probably after the Uḥud reverse (see Nöldeke-Schwally, G des Q, i, 212-13). Munād̲j̲āt becomes, however, a technical term of Muslim piety and mystical experience in the sense of “extempore prayer”, as opposed to the corporate addressing of the deity in the ṣalāt (see Hughes, A dictionary of Islam, 420), and of the Ṣūfīs’ communio…

, Iličpur , modern Ačalpur , a town of the mediaeval Islamic province of Berār [ q.v.] in southern Central India, lying near the headwaters of the Purnā constituent of the Tāptī River in lat. 21° 16ʹ N. and long. 77° 33ʹ E. Up to 1853, Eličpur was generally regarded as the capital of Berār, after when Amraotī became the administrative centre. The pre-Islamic history of Eličpur is semi-legendary, its foundation being attributed to a Jain Rād̲j̲ā called Il in the 10th century. By Baranī’s time (later 7th/13th century), it could be described as one of the fam…

, “The limits of the world”, the title of a concise but very important anonymous Persian geography of the world, Islamic and non-Islamic, composed towards the end of the 4th/10th century in Gūzgān [ q.v.] in what is now northem Afghānistān. The work exists in a unique manuscript of the 7th/13th century (the “Toumansky manuscript”) which came to light in Buk̲h̲ārā in 1892. The Persian text was first edited and published by W. Barthold at Leningrad in 1930 as Ḥudūd al-ʿālem , rukopisi̊ Tumanskago , with an important preface (this last reprinted in his Sočineny̲a̲ , vii…

, a soldier of fortune who disputed control of K̲h̲urāsān with other adventurers and with the Ṣaffārid Amīr ʿAmr b. al-Layt̲h̲ [ q.v.] in the later 3rd/9th century, d. 283/896. Rāfiʿ had been in the service of the Ṭāhirids [ q.v.], and after the death in 268/882 at Nīs̲h̲āpūr of the previous contender for power in K̲h̲urāsān, Aḥmad al-K̲h̲ud̲j̲istānī, he set himself up as de facto ruler of K̲h̲urāsān, subsequently securing legitimisation from the ʿAbbāsid caliphs when al-Muwaffaḳ [ q.v.] broke with the Ṣaffārids. By 283/896, however, ʿAmr managed to defeat Rāfiʿ and to dri…

, Banū , the blanket designation in mediaeval Islamic literature for the practitioners of begging, swindling, confidence tricks, the displaying of disfiguring diseases, mutilated limbs, etc., so that sāsānī has often become a general term in both Arabic and Persian for “beggar, trickster”. Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa uses sāsānī in the sense of “pertaining to magic or slight-of-hand”, with the ʿilm al-ḥiyal al-sāsāniyya denoting “the science of artifices and trickery”. In his treatise warning the general public against trickery in all forms, al-Muk̲h̲tār min kas̲h̲f al-asrār …

, Lala (p.), a term found amongst the Turkmen dynasties of Persia and, especially, amongst the Ṣafawids, with the meaning of tutor, specifically, tutor of royal princes, passing also to the Ottoman Turks. Under the Aḳ Ḳoyunlu [ q.v.], both atabeg [see atabak ] and lālā are found, but after the advent of the Ṣafawids (sc. after 907/1501), the latter term becomes more common, with the Arabic term muʿallim “instructor” also found. Such persons were already exalted figures in the state. The lālā of S̲h̲āh Ismāʿīl I’s second son Sām Mīrzā was the īs̲h̲īk-āḳāsī [ q.v.] or Grand Marshal of the great dī…

, Abū Manṣūr K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz , eldest son of D̲j̲alāl al-Dawla S̲h̲īrzīl. Būyid prince (407-41/1016 or 1017-1049). In the lifetime of his father D̲j̲alal al-Dawla [ q.v.], ruler of Bag̲h̲dād, he was governor of Baṣra and Wāsiṭ and latterly heir to the throne, but when his father died in S̲h̲aʿbān 435/March 1044, K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz was away from the capital in Wāsiṭ, and superior financial resources enabled his more forceful cousin ʿImād al-Dīn Abū Kālīd̲j̲ār Marzubān [ q.v.] to secure the loyalty of the Būyid troops in Bag̲h̲dād and to establish himself firmly in ʿIrāḳ. …

(p.), from Pahlaw , properly “Parthian”, ¶ acquired in pre-modern Persian and thence in Turkish, the sense of “wrestler, one who engages in hand-to-hand physical combat”, becoming subsequently a general term for “hero, warrior, champion in battle”. From this later, broader sense it is used as a personal name in the Persian world, e.g. for the Eldigüzid Atabeg [see ilden̄izids ] Nuṣrat al-Dīn D̲j̲ahān-Pahlawān (reigned in ʿĀd̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. d. 581 or 582/1186 [see pahlawān , muḥammad b. ilden̄iz ; and see Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch, 237, for other bearers of this name]. The w…

Nak̲h̲čiwānī , S̲h̲ams al-Dīn, Persian official and littérateur of the 8th/14th century and apparendy the son of Hindū-S̲h̲āh b. Sand̲j̲ar Gīrānī or al-D̲j̲īrānī, author of an Arabic adab work (Brockelmann, II2, 245, S II, 256) and of a Persian version of Ibn al-Ṭiḳṭaḳā’s Fak̲h̲rī , the Tad̲j̲ārib al-salaf (see Storey, i, 81, 1233; Storey-Bregel, i, 326-7). Muḥammad was a chancery secretary under the Il-K̲h̲ānids. He wrote a Persian-Persian glossary, Ṣiḥāḥ al-Furṣ , dedicated to his superior G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn, son of the great vizier for the Mongols, Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn Faḍl Allāh [ q.v.…

(a.), literally “advice for rulers”, a phrase under which may conveniently be considered the genre of pre-modern Islamic literature which consists of advice to rulers and their executives on politics and statecraft ( siyāsa [ q.v.] or tadbīr al-mulūk ); the ruler’s comportment towards God and towards the subjects or raʿiyya [ q.v.] whom God has entrusted to his charge; the conduct of warfare, diplomacy and espionage; etc. All these themes correspond to the genre of mediaeval European literature known as that of “mirrors for princes” or Fürstenspiegel (see on this, Dict . of the Middle Age…

b. Muṣʿab b. Ruzayḳ, called D̲h̲u ’l-Yamīhayn (? “the ambidextrous”), b. 159/776, d. 207/822, the founder of a short line of governors in K̲h̲urāsān during the high ʿAbbāsid period, the Ṭāhirids [ q.v.]. His forebears had the aristocratic Arabic nisba of “al-K̲h̲uzāʿī”, but were almost certainly of eastern Persian mawlā stock, Muṣʿab having played a part in the ʿAbbāsid Revolution as secretary to the dāʿī Sulaymān b. Kat̲h̲īr [ q.v.]. He and his son al-Ḥusayn were rewarded with the governorship of Pūs̲h̲ang [see būs̲h̲and̲j̲ ], and Muṣʿab at least apparently governed Harāt also. …

, Sīradtān , one of the principal cities of mediaeval Persian Kirmān and that province’s capital during the first three Islamic centuries. Only from Būyid times onwards (4th/10th century) did Bardasīr or Guwās̲h̲īr (perhaps originally a ¶ Sāsānid foundation, *Weh Ardas̲h̲īr) become the administrative capital, known in the sources also as s̲h̲ahr -i Kirmān [see kirmān, at vol. V, 150]. Sīrad̲j̲ān now exists as the name of a district in the western part of Kirmān province and as a name recently revived and given to the present town of Saʿīdābād on the S̲h̲…

, in the early Islamic souces more usually Miyānid̲j̲, a town of Persia situated on the Ḳizil-Üzen [ q.v.] affluent of the Safīd-Rūd which drains southeastern Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān [ q.v.]. The modern town lies in lat. 37°20′ N. and long. 47°45′ E. at an altitude of 1,100 m./3,514 ft. Being at the confluence of several rivers on the section of the Ḳizil-Üzen known in mediaeval Islamic times as the “river of Miyānid̲j̲” (cf. Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī, Nuzha , 224, tr. 216), Miyāna (literally, “middle place”, cf. Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, v, 240) was in mediaeval times …

or Māl-Amīr , town of western Persia, situated on a tributary of the upper reaches of the Dud̲j̲ayl or Kārūn river, in southern Luristān, at 49° 45′ E. and 31° 50′ N. In mediaeval times it was generally reckoned to be part of the province of al-Ahwāz or K̲h̲ūzistān [ q.v.], and under the ʿAbbāsids was the capital of a separate administrative district or kūra . It lay on a plain at an altitude of 3,100 feet, and though reckoned by the geographers to be in the garmsīr or hot zone, the nearby mountains gave it a pleasant and healthy climate; the winter snow from…

, generally accounted the second king of the Pīs̲h̲dādid dynasty [ q.v.] in legendary Iranian epic history, coming after the first world-king Kayūmart̲h̲ or Gayōmard and the founder of the Pīs̲h̲dādids, Hūs̲h̲ang [ q.v.]. Certain Islamic sources make him the first king of his line, and the length of the reign attributed to him—such figures as an entire millennium or 600 years are given—shows the importance attached to him. His name appears in the Avesta as Tak̲h̲mō urupa azinavε̇a , with the first element tak̲h̲ma , meaning “strong, courageous” (cf. the name Rustam/Rustahm) and urupi . azi…

, a town of northern K̲h̲urāsān, lying in the steppe land to the north of the eastern end of the Köpet Dag̲h̲ mountain chain. It was situated on the right or eastern bank of the Tad̲j̲ant (modern Ted̲j̲en) river, whose uncertain flow received the waters of the Harī Rūd before finally petering out in the Ḳara Ḳum desert [ q.v.]. According to the mediaeval Islamic geographers, the river bed only contained water at the time of floods, i.e. winter and early spring. Various channels were taken off the river for irrigation, but scantiness of water supply alwa…

, modern form of the mediaeval Islamic K̲h̲abūs̲h̲ān/K̲h̲ūd̲j̲ān, a town of northern K̲h̲urasān on the main highway connecting Tehran and Mas̲h̲had. It lies at an altitude of 4,060 feet in the fertile and populous Atrek River-Kas̲h̲af Rūd corridors, on the headwaters of the Atrek and between the parallel mountain ranges of the Kūh-i Hazār Masd̲j̲id on the north and the Kūh-i S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān and Kūh-i Bīnālūd on the south; the modern town ¶ lies several miles upstream, sc. to the east-south-east, of the mediaeval town. K̲h̲abūs̲h̲ān was apparently the earliest Islamic form of the…

, the name of one of the most prominent Ṣūfī orders from the period of the institutionalisation of the ṭarīḳas [ q.v.], and one which came to be noted in pre-modern times for the extravagance of some of its practices. It is unclear whether the founder, Aḥmad al-Rifāʿī [ q.v.], was a mystic of the thaumaturgie, miracle-mongering type, but the order which he founded and which was developed by his kinsmen certainly acquired its extravagant reputation during the course of the 6th/12th century; it may not be without significance that the order grew…

b. čag̲h̲ri̊ beg dāwūd , called also Ḳara Arslan Beg on his coins and by authors like Mīrk̲h̲wand, the founder of a line of virtually independent Sald̲j̲ūḳ amīrs in Kirmān which endured for some 140 years until the irruption into the province of Og̲h̲uz from K̲h̲urāsān. The origins of Sald̲j̲ūḳ rule in Kirmān are obscure: there are discrepancies in the accounts of the sources, and the opening pages of Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm’s local history of Kirmān are missing. Kirmān had been recovered by the Būyids after the G̲h̲aznavid occupation of 422-5/1031-4 (on which see E. Merçil, Gaznelilerʾin Kirm…

, ūzkend , sometimes written in the sources Yūzkand or Ūzd̲j̲and, a town of mediaeval Islamic Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.] in Central Asia, lying at the eastern end of the Farg̲h̲āna valley and regarded as being near the frontier with the pagan Turks. Already in the mid-3rd/9th century, Özkend had a local ruler called by the Turkish name K̲h̲ūrtigin (?Čūr-tigin) (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 30). The geographers of the next century (i.e. that of the Sāmānids) describe it as having the tripartite pattern typical of eastern Islamic towns, with a citadel in the madīna or inner cit…

, a well in Nad̲j̲d in the territory of Asad or their neighbours Ṭayyiʾ (cf. Mufaḍḍalīyāt , 361, n. 3). The forces of the Banū Asad, who, led by the false prophet Ṭulayḥa, had relapsed from Islam on Muḥammad’s death, were defeated at Buzāk̲h̲a in 11/632 by Abū Bakr’s general Ḵh̲ālid b. al-Walīd. Ḵh̲ālid’s army was reinforced for the battle by 1000 men of Ṭayyiʾ, detached from Ṭulayḥa’s side; Ṭulayḥa had the help of ʿUyayna b. Ḥiṣn and 700 men from Fazāra of G̲h̲aṭafān, old allies of Asad’s…

, sultan of Kas̲h̲mīr ( r. 791-813/1389-1410), who derived his name of “idol breaker” from his rigorist Muslim policies and draconian measures against the local Hindus. As a minor, he had his mother as regent until 795/1393 when, with the support of the Bayhaḳī Sayyids [ q.v. in Suppl.], refugees who had fled before Tīmūr [ q.v.], he threw off this tutelage and became the effective ruler, now having the k̲h̲uṭba read in his own name and minting coins. The campaigns of Tīmūr brought a considerable number of immigrants into India, and the most …

10. Irrigation in Transoxania. The rivers of Inner Asia, extending from Ḵh̲wārazm in the west through Transoxania to eastern Turkistān (the later Sinkiang) and northwards to the Semirečye, have all been extensively used for irrigation purposes in the lands along those rivers and in oasis centres, providing a possibility for agriculture in favoured spots which were not too open to attack from the steppe nomads or more northerly forest peoples. Hence, as elsewhere in the Old World, the maintenance of irrigation works, surface canals and kārīz s or subterranean ¶ channels (these last t…

, the name given in popular parlance to Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Mīrzā ʿAlī K̲h̲ān, Pathan mullah and agitator along the Northwestern Frontier of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent in both the later British Indian and the early Pakistani periods, d. 1960. A member of the Torī K̲h̲ēl group of the ʿUt̲h̲mānzay Wazīrs of North Wazīrīstān, probably one of the most unreconciled of the Pathan tribes of the Frontier in British times, he came to especial prominence in 1936-7, inflaming the Tōrī Ḵh̲ēls and the Mahsūds of the Tochi valley against the British…

(a.), “favour, beneficence”, more specifically donatives, largesse, given to troops, etc. The problem of keeping armies in the field, once mustered and brought forward for action, was a perennial one for Islamic rulers and commanders. Unless inducements such as extra pay awards, ¶ promises of unusually attractive plunder, etc. could be dangled in front of the troops, there was danger that an army might disband itself and melt away once the immediate battle or object of a campaign had been achieved; not infrequently, it was difficult to …

(Tkish. sevük tégin “beloved prince”), Abū Manṣūr, Turkish slave commander of the Sāmānids [ q.v.] and founder of the G̲h̲aznawid dynasty [ q.v.] in eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān. What little is known of his early life stems mainly from his alleged Pand-nāma or testament of advice to his successor (preserved in a later Persian historian; see s̲h̲abānkāraʾī ) and from D̲j̲ūzd̲j̲ānī’s quotations from a lost part of the Mud̲j̲alladāt of Abu ’l-Faḍl Bayhaḳī [ q.v.] which dealt with Sebüktigin’s governorship. He came from the Barsk̲h̲ān district of the Semirečye [see yeti su …

, Harry St. John Bridger (1885-1960), Arabian explorer and traveller, adviser to King ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Suʿūd (Ibn Suʿūd) [see suʿūd , āl ] and British convert to Islam. Born of parents connected with planting and with ¶ official service in the Indian subcontinent, he had a conventional public school and Cambridge University education, and himself entered the Indian Civil Service in 1908. Already he showed a flare for learning Indian languages and for immersing himself in the cultures of India, until the First World War found him in…

b. Bahāʾ al-Dawla Fīrūz, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ, Būyid ruler in Fars, and at first in ʿIrāḳ also, 403-15/1012-24, succeeding his father [see bahāʾ al-dawla, in Suppl.] at S̲h̲īrāz. Much of his reign was spent in conflict with his brothers, including Abu ’l-Fawāris Ḳawām al-Dawla, who eventually became ruler in Kirmān as Sultan al-Dawla’s subordinate, and Abū ʿAlī Ḥasan, with whom he disputed control of ʿIrāḳ. By 412/1021 the latter was able to secure recognition as ruler in ʿIrāḳ with the honorific of Mus̲h̲arrif al-Dawla (he had already declared himself S̲h̲āhāns̲h̲āh “king of kings”), a…

(a., "the elevated land"). 1. Al-Samāwa was the name given, in the definition of al-Bakrī ( Muʿd̲j̲am mā staʿd̲j̲am , Cairo 1364-71/1945-51, iii, 754, copied by Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 245), during mediaeval Islamic times to the desert and steppeland lying between al-Kūfa and Syria. Earlier geographers were more specific. Thus Ibn Ḥawḳal (ed. Kramers, 22, 34-5, tr. Kramers-Wiet, 21, 34, see also his map of the Arabian peninsula) defines it as the plain stretching from Dūmat al-Ḏj̲andal [ q.v.] in northwestern Arabia to ʿAyn al-Tamr [ q.v.] in the desert on the fringes of th…

, Tād̲j̲ al-Mulk Abu ’l-G̲h̲anāʾim Marzubān b. Ḵh̲usraw-Fīrūz S̲h̲īrāzī (438-86/1046-93), high official in the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ administration under Sultan Malik S̲h̲āh [ q.v.], tand hat ruler’s last vizier. Born of a secretarial family in Fārs, he began his official career in the service of the slave commander Sāwtigin, who eventually recommended him to the sultan as a person of promise. Malik S̲h̲āh made him superintendent of the education and possessions of various of his sons, then overseer of the royal palace and its ancillaries, and finally head of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ chancery, the Dīwā…

or Abū Dāwūdids , a minor dynasty, probably of Iranian but conceivably of Turkish origin, which ruled in Ṭuk̲h̲āristān and Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān, sc. in what is now Afghan Turkestan, with a possible parallel branch in Ḵh̲uttal, sc. in what is now the Tadzhik SSR, during the later 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th centuries. The genealogy and history of the Bānīd̲j̲ūrids are very imperfectly known, despite the attempts of J. Marquart, in his Ērānšahr , 300-2, and R. Vasmer, in his Beiträge zur muhammedanischen Münzkunde . I. Die Münzen der Abū Dāʾudiden , in Numismatische Zeitschr …

, the name of first a Mongol and then a Türkmen tribe of Central Asia, and deriving its name from these last, a settlement on the lower Āmū Daryā or Oxus, modern Kungrad. The Mongol tribe of Ḳonḳi̊rat/Ḳonḳurat or Onggirat (spelt Ḳ.n.ḳūrāt in D̲j̲uwaynī, Ungrat in Marco Polo) seems to have lived in the extreme east of Mongolia, towards the Khinggan Mts. in a district called Ābd̲j̲iya-Küteger. The tribe gave its allegiance to Čingiz in his struggle against Ong K̲h̲ān [see čingiz k̲h̲ān ], and had the privilege of supplying the K̲h̲āns with wives; thus Čingiz’s wife Börte Fud̲j̲i…

, Sug̲h̲nāḳ ( Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 119, Sūnāk̲h̲), a mediaeval Islamic town on the middle Si̊r Daryā, in the district known as Fārāb, between Isfīd̲j̲āb and D̲j̲and [ q.vv. in Suppl.]. It seems to have been, together with the “new settlement” Yengikent, Sawrān and others, one of the settlements there of the Turks, explicitly defined by Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī as “a town of the Og̲h̲uz” (Tkish. tr. Atalay, i, 471; Eng. tr. Dankoff and Kelly, i, 352). Al-Muḳaddasī, 323 n. k, links it with Utrār [ q.v.], 24 farsak̲h̲ s further up the Si̊r Daryā. In Turkish, si̊g̲h̲naḳ means …

, the name given in mediaeval Islamic geographical and historical sources to the island of Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka). The Arabic form renders well the Skr. Siṃhala “Ceylon” + dvīpa “island”; an intermediate form is found in al-Bīrūnī, India, tr. E. Sachau, London 1910, i, 233, as Sangaladīp . By the time of Yāḳūt (early 7th/13th century), the form Sīlān is found ( Buldān , ed. Beirut, i, 346, art. Baḥr al-Hind ). Most of the mediaeval Islamic geographers, from Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih onwards, give some account of Sarandīb, placing it in the Sea of Harkand (= the Bay of…

(a.), lit. "the mother of settlements/ villages/towns", a Ḳurʾānic expression. It occurs as such in VI, 92 and XLII, 5/7, in which the Prophet Muḥammad is commanded to warn the people of the umm al-ḳurā [of God’s punishment for disobedience], whilst in XXVIII, 59, it is said that God did not destroy the ḳurā until He had sent to them a messenger ( rasūl ) reciting God’s miraculous signs. Although taken by the commentators to mean the town of Mecca, an interpretation followed in the art. Ḳarya (and used as such at the present day, Umm al-Ḳurā being the title of an offi…

(the latter part of the name being the Hindu name Gaṇésa, appearing in Arabic script as G.n.s or G.n.sī), a local Hindu landowner of northern Bengal, who successfully usurped authority in Bengal during the latter years of the first period of power of the Ilyās S̲h̲āhī line, probably in the first decade or so of the 9th/15th century. The sources are unclear, but it seems that Rād̲j̲ā Ganes̲h̲ wielded the real power in the state under the nominal rule of the Ilyāsids, and then in 817/1414 placed on the throne his young son D̲j̲adu, who became a Muslim an…

al-ʿUḳaylī , the leader of a rebellion of the North Arab or Ḳaysī tribesmen in al-D̲j̲azīra against the central authority of the ʿAbbāsids during the caliphates of al-Amīn and al-Maʾmūn. We find him mentioned in 196/811-12 as the head of zawāḳīl , lawless bands of Arabs, mainly Ḳaysīs, who had taken advantage of the breakdown of rule during the civil war (see on the term zawāḳīl, D. Ayalon, The military reforms of caliph al-Muʿtaṣim , their background and consequences, unpubl. paper presented to the Internat. Congress of Orientalists, New Delhi 1964, xerox Jerusalem 1963,…

(a. and p.), literally “place of the [imprint of the] foot”, a village in K̲h̲urāsān, on the highway to Mas̲h̲had and some 20 km/12 miles ¶ east of Nīs̲h̲āpūr at the southern edge of the Kūh-i Bīnālūd (lat. 36° 07′ N., long. 59° 00′ E.). It is locally famed as a ziyāratgāh or place of pilgrimage, since the Eighth Imām of the S̲h̲īʿa, ʿAlī al-Riḍā [ q.v.], is said to have halted there and left the imprint of his foot on a stone, henceforth to be regarded with reverence; see Bess A. Donaldson, The wild rue. A study of Muhammadan magic and folklore in Iran , London 1938, 59, 148-9). The concept of sacred i…

(A. mā bayn “what is between”), in the organisation of the Ottoman palace, the intermediate appartments lying between the inner courts of the Sarāy and the Ḥarem, a place where only the sultan, the eunuchs and the womenfolk could penetrate and where the corps of select pages known as mābeynd̲j̲is , an elite group from amongst the forty k̲h̲āṣṣ odali̊s , waited on the monarch for such intimate services as dressing and shaving him [see k̲h̲āṣṣ oda ]. Till the end of the 11th/17th century, the Mābeynd̲j̲is were headed by the Silaḥdār Ag̲h̲a or Swordbearer, as chief p…

(a.), the verbal noun of a denominative verb formed from ʿArab , pl. Aʿrāb , in the sense of “nomads, Bedouins” (the Ḳurʾānic sense of this latter term, cf. e.g. IX, 98/97, XLIX, 14; taʿarrub itself does not occur in the Ḳurʾān). In earliest Islam, taʿarraba and its synonym tabaddā denote the return to the Arabian desert after hid̲j̲ra [ q.v.] to the garrison towns ( amṣār [see miṣr . B]) and participation in the warfare to expand the Arab empire and the Abode of Islam. Some of this movement back to the desert was doubtless legitimate, but on occasion it was deno…

b. Fāttik or Fātik , the form found in mediaeval Islamic sources (e.g. al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , ii 164, 167-8, vii, 12-16, viii, 293, = §§ 589, 594, 2705-7, 3447) for the founder of the dualist religion of Manichaeism, Mani son of Pātik, born in southern Mesopotamia in 216 A.D. and martyred under the Sāsānid Bahrām I in 274, 276 or 277, and whose faith spread from the Persian empire in the 7th century as far as Central Asia, eastern Turkestan (where after 762 it was the chief religion of the ¶ Uyg̲h̲ur Turks [ q.v.]) and northern China. In Islamic sources, the adherents of Manichaeism appe…