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, a district in the north-western part of modern Afg̲h̲ānistan, in the province of Harāt; the name is explained as being derived from the Persian bādk̲h̲īz (“a place where the wind rises”) on account of the strong winds prevailing there. By the geographers of the 4th/10th century only the district to the north-west of Harāt, between this town and Sarak̲h̲s, is called Bādg̲h̲īs. The author of the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam , probably writing from personal knowledge, describes it as a prosperous and pleasant place of three hundred villages. Later the name…

, ancient Armenian capital, whose ruins lie on the right bank of the Arpa-Čay (called by the Armenians Ak̲h̲uryan) at about 20 miles from the point where that river joins the Araxes. A suggestion has been made that the town may owe its name to a temple of the Iranian goddess Anāhita (the Greek Anaďtis). The site was inhabited in the pre-Christian period, for pagan tombs have been found in the immediate vicinity of the town. As a fortress Ānī is mentioned as early as the 5th century A.D. Its foun…

The word ḳazaḳ in the Turkic language can be first documented in the 8th/14th century in ¶ the meaning “independent; vagabond”. These and similar meanings, such as “free and independent man, vagabond, adventurer, etc.” are known in the modern Turkic languages too. During the turmoils under the Tīmūrids, the word signified the pretenders in contrast to the actual rulers, and also their supporters, who led the life of an adventurer or a robber at the head of their men. At the same time, the word began also to be …

b. hās̲h̲im , of the aristocratic dihḳān family Kāmkāriyān (who had settled near Marw), which boasted of Sāsānian descent, governor of Ḵh̲urāsān. In order to avenge the death of his brother, fallen in a fight between Persians and Arabs (in Marw), he had under ʿAmr b. al-Layt̲h̲ stirred up a rising of the people. He was taken prisoner and brought to Sīstān, whence he escaped by means of an adventurous flight, and after a new attempt at a rising in Marw he fled for refuge to th…

, a Mongol prince and ruler of the Golden Horde, grandson of Čingiz-Ḵh̲an and third son of Ḏj̲oči. Little is known of his early career. He took no part in the wars in Russia and Eastern Europe in the years 634-639/1237-1242 but was more frequently in Mongolia than Batu, whom he represented at the enthronement of Güyük (644/1246) and that of Möngke (649/1251). His yurt of appanage was originally situated, according to Rubruck, in the direction of Darband but by 653/1255 had on Batu’s orders been removed to the east of the Volga in order …

, steppe of Western Siberia, situated in the oblast ’ of Novosibirsk of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, between lat. 54° and 57° North, and bounded on the East and West by the ranges of hills which skirt the banks of the Irti̊s̲h̲ and the Ob’. This steppe, which extends for 117,000 sq. km., has numerous lakes, most of which are sait; the biggest is Lake Čani̊. The ground, which is partly marshland, also has some fertile zones, but it is essentially a cattle-rearing region. It has a cold continental climate. The population (over 500,000 inhabitants in 1949) is unequally d…

, S̲h̲arwān S̲h̲āh , the title in mediaeval Islamic times of the rulers of S̲h̲īrwān [ q.v.] in eastern Transcaucasia. The title very probably dates back to pre-Islamic times. Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 17-18, mentions the S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āh as one of the local rulers who received his title from the Sāsānid emperor Ardas̲h̲īr. Al-Balād̲h̲urī mentions the S̲h̲īrwān S̲h̲āh, together with an adjacent potentate, the Layzān S̲h̲āh, as amongst those encountered by the first Arab raiders into the region; he further records that…

, the modern s̲h̲ahr-i sabz (“green town”) on account of the fertility of its surroundings), a town in Özbekistān on what was once the great trade route between Samarḳand and Balk̲h̲. According to Chinese authorities, Kas̲h̲ (Chinese transcription Kʾia-s̲h̲a or Kié-s̲h̲uang-na, also Kʾius̲h̲a, as a town Ki-s̲h̲e) was founded at the beginning of the seventh century A.D.; cf. J. Marquart, Chronologie der alttürkischen Inschriften , Leipzig 1898, 57; Ērānšahr etc., Berlin 1901, 304; E. Chavannes, Documents sur les Toukiue ( Turcs ) occidentaux , St. Petersbu…

, the first of the Ḳutlug̲h̲ Ḵh̲āns of Kirmān. By origin a Ḳara-Ḵh̲itayan he was, according to Ḏj̲uwaynī, brought to Sulṭān Muḥammad Ḵh̲wārazm-S̲h̲āh after the defeat of the Ḳara-Ḵh̲itay on the Talas in 1210 and taken into his service, in which he rose to the rank of ḥād̲j̲ib or Chamberlain. According to Nasawī he had held this same office at the court of the Gür-Ḵh̲an or ruler of the Ḳara-Ḵh̲itay. Being sent on an embassy to Sulṭān Muḥammad he was forcibly detained by the latter until the final collapse of the Ḳara-Ḵh̲…

, usually written Tās̲h̲kend or Tas̲h̲kend in Arabic and Persian manuscripts, a large town in Central Asia, in the oasis of the Čirčik, watered by one of the right bank tributaries of the Si̊r Daryā [ q.v.] or Jaxartes now, since the break-up of the USSR, in the Uzbekistan Republic (lat. 41° 16’ N., long. 69° 13’ E.). 1. History till 1865. Nothing is known of the origin of the settlement on the Čirčik. According to the Greek and Roman sources, there were only nomads on the other side of the Jaxartes. In the earliest Chinese sources (from the 2nd century B.…

The Central Asian Ḵh̲ānate to which Čag̲h̲atay gave his name was really not founded till some decades after the Mongol prince’s death. Čag̲h̲atay was succeeded by his grandson Ḳara-Hülegü, the son of Mö’etüken who fell at Bāmiyān. Ḳara-Hülegü had been designated as Čag̲h̲atay’s heir both by Čingiz-Ḵh̲ān himself and by Ögedey; he was however deposed by the Great Ḵh̲ān Güyük (1241-1248) in favour of Yesü-Möngke, the fifth son of Čag̲h̲atay, with whom Güyük was on terms of personal friendship. In 1…

, Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Ḥayy b. al-Ḍaḥḥāk b. Maḥmūd , Persian historian who flourished in the middle of the 5th/11th century. Nothing is known of his life. His nisba shows that he came from Gardīz [ q.v.]; since he says that he received information about Indian festivals from al-Bīrūnī [ q.v.], he may have been his pupil. His work, entitled Zayn al-ak̲h̲bār, was written in the reign of the G̲h̲aznawid Sultan ʿAbd al-Ras̲h̲īd (440/1049-443/1052). It contains a history of the pre-Islamic kings of Persia, of Muḥammad and the Caliphs to the year 423/1032, and a d…

, after the Aral [ q.v.], the largest inland lake of Central Asia (18,432 sq. km.), into which the Ili and several other less important rivers flow. The lake’s existence was unknown to the Arab geographers of the Middle Ages. The anonymous author of the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam (372/982-983; comp. J. Marquart, Osteuropäische und ostasiatische Streifzüge , xxx, makes the Ili (Īlā) flow into the Issi̊ḳ-Ḳul. Of all the Muslim authors, Muḥammad Ḥaydar is the only one, to our knowledge, who, towards the middle of the 10th/16th century ( Taʾrik̲h̲-i Ras̲h̲īdī , trans. by E. D. …

, a town on the north bank of the Oxus river [see āmū daryā ] near the mouth of its tributary, the Surk̲h̲ān river (lat. 37° 15’ N., long. 67° 15’ E.), now the town of Termez in the southernmost part of the Uzbekistan Republic. As Samʿānī, who spent 12 days there, testifies, the name was pronounced Tarmīd̲h̲ in the town itself ( K. al-Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābad, iii, 41) which is confirmed by the Chinese Ta-mi (e.g. Hüan Tsang, tr. St. Julien, Mémoires sur les contrées occidentales, i, 25). Russian officers in 1889 also heard the pronunciation Termiz or Tarmi̊z ( Sbornik materialov po Azii …

(variant: Ḳumiḳ) a people of the eastern Caucasus. The Ḳumuḳs belong to the Ḳipčaḳ Turkic ethnic group, along with the Nog̲h̲ay, Karačay and Balkar. They live north of the main chain of the Great Caucasus, on the northern, north-eastern and eastern slopes of the Dāg̲h̲istānian Caucasus between the foothills and the Caspian Sea, from Derbend to Adz̲h̲i-Su (near the lower Terek River). Although confined to a narrow strip of land in the south, they inhabit a wider area near the Terek in the north. The Ḳumuḳs are bordered by the Nog̲h̲ays in the north, the Avars [ q.v.] and Darg̲h̲ins [ q.v.] in th…

, a district on both sides of the middle course of the Wak̲h̲s̲h̲ or Surk̲h̲āb (Turk. Ḳi̊zi̊l Ṣū), one of the rivers which form the Āmū Daryā, called Rās̲h̲t by the Arab geographers (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih 34, 211 f.; Ibn Rusta, 92 f., 290; Yaʿḳūbī, Buldān , 260). The principal place (or “the fortress”, al-Ḳalʿa , al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 340) of Rās̲h̲t corresponded as regards its situation perfectly with the modern Garm or Harm, the only town in Ḳaratigin. Rās̲h̲t then formed one of the frontier lands of Islām and was ¶ defended on the east against the inroads of the Turks by a wall built by Faḍl b. Barmak [ q…

al-ḥād̲j̲ib , abū saʿīd (his alleged second name Hārūn which occurs in a single passage of Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, ix, 294, is probably due to an error of the author or of a copyist), Turkish slave, later general of the G̲h̲aznawid Sebuk Tegīn and his two successors and governor of Ḵh̲wārizm. Already under Sebuk Tegīn he attained the highest rank in the bodyguard, that of a "great ḥād̲j̲ib "; under Maḥmūd he commanded the right wing in the great battle against the Ḳarak̲h̲ānids (22 Rabīʿ II 398/4 Jan. 1008, and in 401/1010-1 he is mentioned as governor of Harāt. After the conquest of k̲h̲wārizm in 408/1…

, a Persian historian, wrote in 1233/1818 a short summary of the geographical relations of Central Asiatic countries (Afg̲h̲ānistān, Buk̲h̲ārā, Ḵh̲īwā, Ḵh̲oḳand, Tibet and Kas̲h̲mīr), and of historical events in those countries from 1160 (accession of Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Durrānī) down to his own times. ʿAbd al-Karīm had already left his native country in 1222/1807-8 and accompanied an embassy to Constantinople; he remained there till his death, which took place after 1246/1830, and wrote his book for t…

, (T., "holy father") is the old name of the city called since 1938 Ḏj̲ambul after the Ḳazak̲h̲ poet Džambul Džabaev (1846-1945), which lies on the left bank of the Ṭalās in the Ḳazak̲h̲ SSR. Until 1917 it was the capital of the district of the Si̊r Daryā in Russian Turkistān and obtained its name from the grave of the holy man Ḳara Ḵh̲ān (which is mentioned as early as the 17th century; see Maḥmūd b. Walī, Baḥr al-Asrār , MS India Office 545, fol. 1191). His mausoleum dates from the 19th century and bears no inscription. On the other hand the grave of the "little holy one" ( Kičik Awliyā …

, the name of two amīr s of the Sāmānid dynasty of Tranoxania and K̲h̲urāsān. 1. Manṣūr b. Nūḥ I, Abū Ṣaliḥ, ruler of K̲h̲urāsān and Transoxania (350-65/961-76), succeeded his brother ʿAbd al-Malik b. Nūḥ I. Ibn Ḥawḳal is able ¶ to describe the internal conditions of the Sāmānid kingdom under Manṣūr as an eye-witness; cf. especially BGA, ii, 341: fī waḳtinā hād̲h̲ā ; 344 on the character of Manṣūr “the justest king among our contemporaries, in spite of his physical weakness and the slightness of his frame”. On the vizier Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad Balʿamī, see balʿamī , where a…

, a term found in the history and ethnography of the Persian and Central Asian worlds. Originally an old Turkic word for “merchant”, it occurs with this meaning in the 11th-century sources, such as Maḥmūd al-Kāshg̲h̲arī’s encyclopaedic dictionary Dīwān lug̲h̲āt al-Turk ( Compendium of the Turkic dialects, tr. R. Dankoff and J. Kelly, 3 vols., Cambridge, Mass., 1982-5, i, 269), and the ¶ Ḳarak̲h̲ānid mirror for princes, Ḳutadgu bilig by Yūsuf K̲h̲āṣṣ Ḥād̲j̲ib (ed. R.R. Arat, Istanbul 1947, i, 571). For references to other editions of both works, see Drevnetyurkskiy slovar’, Leningrad …

(his real name was Muḥammad Ḥaydar; as he himself says, he was known as Mīrzā Ḥaydar; Bābur calls him Ḥaydar Mīrzā), a Persian historian, author of the Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Ras̲h̲īdī , born in 905/1499-1500, died in 958/1551 (for his descent see dūg̲h̲lāt ); through his mother he was a grandson of the Čag̲h̲atāy K̲h̲ān Yūnus and a cousin of Bābur. Most of our knowledge of his life is gleaned from his own work; Bābur (ed. Beveridge, p. 11) devotes a few lines to him; the Indian historians Abu ’l-Faḍl and Firis̲h̲ta give some information about his later years. After the assassination of his father (91…

(in Arabic script bātū ), a Mongol prince, the conqueror of Russia and founder of the Golden Horde (1227-1255), born in the early years of the 13th century, the second son of D̲j̲oči [see d̲j̲ūčī ]. During Čingiz-Ḵh̲ān’s lifetime D̲j̲oči, as his eldest son, had received as his yurt or appanage the territory stretching from the regions of Ḳayalïḳ and Ḵh̲wārazm to Saḳsïn and Bulg̲h̲ār on the Volga “and as far in that direction as the hoof of Tartar horse had penetrated”. The eastern part of this vast area, i.e., Western Siberia, the present-day Kazak̲h̲stān and the lower basin of the …

, Turko-Mongol word for “town” = or “castle” (also written bāliḳ and bālig̲h̲ ); appears frequently in compound names of towns, such as Bīs̲h̲bāliḳ (“Five Towns”, at the present day in ruins at Gučen in Chinese Turkestan), Ḵh̲ānbāliḳ (the “Ḵh̲ān’s Town”), Turko-Mongol name for Pekin (also frequently used by European travellers in the middle ages in forms like (Cambalu), Ilibāliḳ (on the River Ili, the modern Iliysk) etc. As the town of Bās̲h̲bāliḳ is mentioned as early as the Ork̲h̲on i…

, ruler of the Özbegs [see uzbeks ] and founder of the power of this nation, descendant of S̲h̲aybān, Ḏj̲uči’s youngest son [see s̲h̲aybānids ], born in the year of the dragon (1412; as the year of the hid̲j̲ra 816/1413-4 is erroneously given). At first he is said to have been in the service of another descendant of S̲h̲aybān, Ḏj̲amaduḳ Ḵh̲ān. The latter met his death in a revolt; Abu ’l-Ḵh̲ayr was taken prisoner, but was released and shortly after proclaimed k̲h̲ān in the territory of Tura (Siber…

, two mountain ranges east of the Caspian Sea, which enclose the dried-out river-bed of the Özboi (cf. Āmū Daryā). To the north of this river lies the Great Balk̲h̲ān, a high plateau of limestone, difficult of access, with steep slopes; the highest elevation is at the Düines̲h̲ Ḳalʿe, about 1880 metres. The Little Balk̲h̲ān, south of the Özboi and cut with numerous ravines, attains (in the west) a height of no more than 800 metres. These mountains, where according to Muḳaddasī, 285, l. 14 ff., w…

, according to Radloff ( Versuch eines Wörterbuches der Türk-Dialecte , St. Petersburg 1899, ii, 924) “a Turkish tribe in Turkistan”; the same authority gives the Kirgiz (i.e. Ḳazaḳ) word ḳurama (from ḳura , “to sew together pieces of cloth”) with the meaning “a blanket made of pieces of cloth sewn together”. In another passage ( Aus Sibirien 2, Leipzig 1893, i, 225) Radloff himself says that the Kurama are “a mixed people of Özbegs and Kirgiz” and their name comes from the fact, asserted by the Kirgiz, that “they are made up of patches from many tribes” ( kura to “patch…

, Ḳazān , a town on the middle Volga, now the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Tatarstan in the USSR, and in the 15th and 16th centuries capital of the K̲h̲ānate of the same name. According to legendary accounts, the town was founded by Batu K̲h̲ān in a Turkish and Muslim region which had been part of the ancient kingdom of Bulg̲h̲ār [ q.v.] before the Mongol invasions. The K̲h̲ānate of Ḳāzān was founded in the first half of the 15th century by a Čingizid descendant, Ulu Muḥammad, son of D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn and grandson of Toḳtami̊s̲h̲, at the time when the Gold…

, also frequently written bad̲h̲ak̲h̲s̲h̲ān and sometimes in the literary language (with the Arabic plural inflection) badak̲h̲s̲h̲ānāt , a mountainous region situated on the left bank of the upper reaches of the Āmū-Daryā or more accurately of the Pand̲j̲, the source of this great river; the adjective derived from this noun is Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ānī or Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ī . J. Marquart ( Erāns̲h̲ahr , 279) gives this name the meaning of “region of Bad̲h̲ak̲h̲s̲h̲ or Balak̲h̲s̲h̲, a type of ruby, which, it is said, is only found in Bad̲h̲ak̲h̲s̲…

, a town in the aymak of Övör K̲h̲angay in Central Mongolia, now in ruins; in the 7th/13th century it was for a short time the capital of the Mongol World Empire. The fullest accounts of the town are given by the European traveller William of Rubruck and the Persian historian D̲j̲uwaynī [ q.v.]. The ruins were first discovered in 1889 by N. M. Yadrentsey; they were visited and described by the members of the Russian expedition of 1891 led by Radlov; and in 1948-49 an expedition jointly organized by the Soviet Union and the Mongolian People’s Repub…

, a S̲h̲aybānid [ q.v.], the greatest prince of this dynasty, born in 940/1533-4 (the dragon year 1532-3 is given, probably more accurately, as the year of the cycle) at Āfarīnkent in Miyānkāl (an island between the two arms of the Zarafs̲h̲ān). The father (Iskandar Ḵh̲ān), grandfather (Ḏj̲ānī Beg) and great-grandfather (Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Muḥammad, son of Abu ‘l-Ḵh̲ayr [ q.v.]) of this ruler of genius are all described as very ordinary, almost stupid men. Ḏj̲ānī Beg (d. 935/1528-9) had at the distribution of 918/1512-3 received Karmīna and Miyānkāl; Iskandar …

, the largest river in the Caucasus (according to Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī Ḳazwīnī, 200 farsak̲h̲ s = nearly 800 miles in length). The Ḳur, known as Cyrus to the Greeks; Nahr al-Kurr to the Arabs; Kura to the Russians (said to be derived from a-kuara, “river”, in the Abk̲h̲āzī tongue); and Mtkvari to the Georgians (said to be derived from mdinaré , “river” in the Kartlian dialect), rises in Georgia south of Ardahani (west of Ḳārṣ in the Poso district), and flows northwards to Akhaltzikhé, where it turns east (see map in V. Minorksy, A History of Sharvān and Darband in the 10th-11th centuries, Cambridg…

, a ruler of the Čag̲h̲atay Ḵh̲ānate. A grandson of Mö’etüken, who fell before Bāmiyān, his father, Yesün-To’a, had been banished to China for his part in the conspiracy against the Great Ḵh̲an Möngke. Burāḳ himself began his career at the court of Möngke’s successor, Ḳubilay Ḵh̲an (1260-94). When in March 1266 Mubārak-S̲h̲āh, the son of Ḳara-Hülegü, was elected to the Čag̲h̲atay Ḵh̲ānate, Ḳubilay dispatched Burāḳ to Mā warāʾ al-Nahr with a yarlīg̲h̲ or rescript appointing him co-regent with his cousin. Burāḳ at first concealed the yarlīg̲h̲ and then, having gained the support of…

, a Turkish people, mentioned as early as the oldest Chinese accounts of Central Asia (from the 2nd century A.D.) under the name Kien-Kuen, which according to P. Pelliot ( JA, Ser. 2, vol. xv, 137) goes back to a Mongol word, singular ḳirḳun . The lands of the Kirgiz are not exactly defined in these sources; according to a very reliable source, the land of the Kien-Kuen lay north-west of the land of the K’ang-Kiu, i.e. of Sogdiana. The name Ḳi̊rg̲h̲i̊z first appears in the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions of the 8th century; at…

3rd pers. plur. of the Persian personal pronoun. The word, which has always had an honorific significance, was formerly used in Central Asia ( i.e., what is now Soviet Central Asia and the Sinkiang-Uygur Autonomous Region of China) in the sense of s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ or murs̲h̲id (teacher or guide) in contrast to murīd (disciple or pupil). It has still to be established when the term first appeared in this sense. It certainly existed in the middle ages; the celebrated Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Aḥrār (died 895/1490 in Samarḳand) is always referred to as is̲h̲ān in his biography. The rank of is̲h̲ān was frequently …

, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAṭā-Malik b. Muḥammad (623/1226-681/1283), a Persian governor and historian, author of the Taʾrīk̲h̲-i d̲j̲ahāngus̲h̲āy , a work which is almost our only source on the details of his life. His family belonged to Āzādwār, then the chief town of Ḏj̲uwavn ([ q.v.], No. 2). According to Ibn al-Ṭiḳṭaḳā ( al-Fak̲h̲rī , ed. Ahlwardt, 209) they claimed descent from Faḍl b. Rabīʿ, the vizier of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd. ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn’s great-grandfather, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. ʿAlī, had waited on the K̲h̲wārazm-S̲h̲āh Tekis̲h̲ [ q.v.] when in 588/1192 he passed through Āzādwār…

, an Özbek chief of the family of the Keneges, who was till 1870 prince of S̲h̲ahrisabz. This town having been conquered by the Russians, he fled with a small body of those faithful to him. Finally he was seized in Ferg̲h̲ānā and obliged to reside at Tas̲h̲kent. In 1875 he entered Russian military service and took part in the campaign against Ḵh̲oḳand. He died about 1898 at Tas̲h̲kent. (W. Barthold [B. Spuler])

, a large river of the northeastern Caucasus region (length 600 km/373 miles, with a breadth in some places of up to 547 m/1,500 feet). It rises from the glaciers of Mount Kazbek in the central Caucasus, and cuts its way through spectacular gorges, eventually into the Noghay steppe to a complex delta on the western shore of the Caspian Sed. Even the lower course through the plains is too swift for navigation to be possible on it, but much water is now drawn off for irrigation purposes. During the golden period of Arabic geographical knowledge (4th/10th century), the land of Terek m…

, Arabic orthography, K̲h̲wāḳand, later written K̲h̲uḳand (which is given a popular etymology, k̲h̲ūḳ + kand = town of the boar), a town in Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.], where see also for the other spellings and the foundation of an independent Özbeg kingdom with K̲h̲oḳand as capital in the 12th/18th century. The accession of the first ruler of this Miñ dynasty, S̲h̲āhruk̲h̲, was followed by the building of a citadel; another citadel later called Eski Urda was built by his son, ʿAbd al-Karīm (d. 1746). ʿAbd al-Karīm and his nephe…

(a.) “the land which lies beyond the river”, i.e. beyond the Oxus or Āmū-Daryā [ q.v.], the classical Transoxiana or Transoxania, so-called by the conquering Arabs of the 1st/7th century and after in contrast to Mā dūn al-Nahr, the lands of K̲h̲urāsān [ q.v.] this side of the Oxus, although the term K̲h̲urāsān was not infrequently used vaguely to designate all the eastern Islamic lands beyond western Persia. 1. The name The frontiers of Ma warāʾ al-nahr on the north and east were where the power of Islam ceased and depended on political conditions; cf. the statemen…

“land of the mountains”; this name is an unusual linguistic phenomenon, since it consists of the Turkish word dāg̲h̲ , mountain, and of the suffix which, in the Persian language, distinguishes the names of countries; this name seems to have appeared for the first time in the 10th/16th century). An autonomous Republic of the R.S.F.S.R. with an area of 19,500 sq. miles and a population of 958,000 inhabitants (1956), it is made up of two quite distinct parts: the Caucasian Range and the cis-Casp…

( Hülegü or rather Hüleʾü , the intervocalic g being purely graphie), the Mongol conqueror and founder of the dynasty of the II-K̲h̲āns [ q.v.] of Persia, born ca. 1217, was the grandson of Čingiz-K̲h̲ān [ q.v.] by the latter’s youngest son Toluy [ q.v.]. Sent by his brother the Great K̲h̲ān Möngke at the head of an army against the Ismāʿīlīs and the Caliph, he left Mongolia in the autumn of 1253, proceeding at a leisurely pace along a carefully prepared route, the roads having been specially cleared and levelled and bridges built across …

, the name found in earlier mediaeval Islamic sources for the region along the southern banks of the middle and upper Oxus river, in the wider sense of the term (see below), with the ancient of the Balk̲h̲ as the centre of its western part and such towns as Ṭālaḳān, Andarāb and Walwālīd̲j̲ [ q.vv.] as its centres in the narrower acceptation of the term, sc. the eastern part. It comprised in its wider sense the modern Afg̲h̲an provinces of Fāryāb, D̲j̲ūzd̲j̲ān, Balk̲h̲, Sanangān, Ḳunduz, Tak̲h̲ār and Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān. The name of the region obviously preserves a memory of the people k…

, Maḥmūd , Ilk̲h̲an [ q.v.] from 694/1295 until 713/1304, was born on 20 Rabiʿ I 670/5 November 1271, being the eldest son of Arg̲h̲ūn [ q.v.], then only in his thirteenth year. Upon his father’s accession G̲h̲āzān was appointed governor of Ḵh̲urāsān, Māzandarān and Ray, which provinces he continued to administer during the reign of Gayk̲h̲ātū [ q.v.]. He had been brought up as a Buddhist and, whilst governor, had ordered the construction of Buddhist temples in Ḵh̲abūshān (Ḳūčān); but shortly before his accession, during the war with Bāydū [ q.v.], he had been persuaded by his general…

, a town in northern Afg̲h̲ānistān, situated in lat. 36° 42′ N. and long. 67° 06′ E., at an altitude of 1,235 feet/380 m. in the foothills of the northern outliers of the Hindū-Kus̲h̲ [ q.v.]. The great classical and mediaeval Islamic town of Balk̲h̲ [ q.v.], modern Wazīrābād, lay some 14 miles/20 km. to the west of Mazār-i S̲h̲arīf, and until the Tīmūrid period was the most important urban centre of the region. Previously to that time, the later Mazār-i S̲h̲arīf was marked by the village of Ḵh̲ayr, later called Ḵh̲ōd̲j̲a Ḵh̲ayrān. On two d…

, the name of another prince, of the Aḳ-Ḳoyunlū dynasty in Persia, son and successor of Sulṭān Yaʿḳūb; he only reigned for a short period from 896-7/1490-2 and was overthrown by his cousin Rustam. (W. Barthold)

, a town in Chinese Turkestān (Sin Kiang); the same name is still used in Chinese official documents. The name Kās̲h̲g̲h̲ar first appears in Chinese transcription (Kʾiu-cha) in the Tʾang-s̲h̲u ; cf. E. Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-Kiue ( Turcs ) occidentaux , St. Petersburg 1903, 121 f. On the pre-Islamic Kās̲h̲g̲h̲ar and the ruins of Buddhist buildings in the vicinity, see A. Stein, Ancient Khotan , Oxford 1907, i, 52 f.; idem, Serindia , Oxford 1921, 80 f. Arab armies did not reach Kās̲h̲g̲h̲ar; the story of Ḳutayba’s campaign in 96/715 is, as shown by H. A. R. Gibb in BSOS, ii (1923), 46…

(in Arabic usually taken as al-lān ), an Iranian people (Alān < Aryan) of Northern Caucasus, formerly attested also east of the Caspian sea (see al-Bīrūnī, Taḥdīd al-Amākin , ed. A. Z. Validi, in Bīrūnī’s Picture of the world, 57), as supported by local toponymy. The Alān are mentioned in history from the 1st century A.D. In 371 they were defeated by the Huns. Together with the Vandals, a part of the Alāns migrated to the West across France and Spain, and finally took part in the creation of the Vandal kingdom in North Africa (418-5…

, a nomadic people in the South Russian steppes who flourished in the early Islamic period. The K̲h̲azar tribal union emerged in the course of the 6th century A.D. in the aftermath of a series of migrations of nomadic peoples from Inner and Central Asia. With the collapse of the European Hun state in 454 A.D., some of the nomadic elements of Attila’s horde withdrew to the Pontic steppe zone. They were joined here, ca. 463 A.D., by waves of Og̲h̲ur tribes which had been driven from Western Siberia and the Kazak̲h̲ steppe by the Sabirs who, in turn, had been forced to m…

, capital of a Muslim kingdom in the upper Ili [ q.v.] valley, founded in the 7th/13th century by Ūzār (Ḏj̲uwaynī, i, 57) or Būzār (Ḏj̲amāl Ḳars̲h̲ī, in W. Barthold, Turkestan , Russ. ed., i, 135 f.), who is said to have previously been a brigand and horse-thief. According to Ḏj̲amāl, he assumed the title of Tog̲h̲ri̊l Ḵh̲ān as ruler. Almali̊g̲h̲ is first mentioned as the capital of this kingdom, and later as a great and wealthy commercial city. We owe our information about its site mainly to the Chinese (Bretschneider, Med . Researches , i, 69 f., ii, 33 ff. and in…