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, in the local pronunciation Giṭar, a peninsula of some 4,000 square miles in area which juts out into the Arabian Gulf. It is about 115 miles long and 55 miles broad at its widest part. The discoveries of the Danish archaeological expeditions from 1956 to 1964 show that Ḳaṭar had been inhabited since prehistoric times, the earliest object found, a pair of hand-axes, dating from about 4,000 B.C. The earliest Arabic prose source to mention it is the Kitāb al-masālik wa’ l-mamālik of Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih. who notes it briefly as one of the stops on the ro…

The Mahrī language, called by its speakers Məahrayyət, is spoken by many thousands, both Bedouin and settled people, over a large area of South Arabia extending in a great half-circle from Mukallā in South Yemen to the small coastal towns of Ẓufār or Dhofar. In South Yemen, the speakers are Bedouin, merchants, fishermen and seamen, but many Mahra of the more prosperous classes are now monolingual in Arabic. In Ẓufār, the Mahrī speakers are, or were, mainly concentrated in Nad̲j̲d, the high desert area of Ẓufār behind the fertile part of the long mountain range (Mahrī śaḥayr …

, a town in South Arabia in the Wādī Bayḥān and the main town of the area called Bayḥān al-Ḳaṣāb [ q.v.]. As the population has grown and the inhabited area extended, the town itself has come to be known as Bayḥān al-Ḳaṣāb or Bayḥān al-Ḳaṣab, and it is now usually mapped under one of these names. At the end of the 19th century the town had 12 citadels and 400 houses and was surrounded by palm-groves. Cotton was, and is, an important crop and is used for the manufacture of high-grade cloth in great demand in the area…

The opportunity is taken of prefixing to the main body of the article, on Ḥaḍrarnawt in the Islamic period, some important recent items of information on the region in the pre-Islamic time. i. Pre-Islamic Period In 1974 a French archaeological mission under the direction of J. Pirenne began work at S̲h̲abwa, which is still continuing. The most significant result has been the tracing of a very extensive town site to the northeast of the rectangular sacral enclosure which the earliest visitors had noted; included in this are some i…

(a.), expedition, usually of limited scope, conducted with the aim of gaining plunder. The noun of unity g̲h̲azwa (pl. g̲h̲azawāt ) is used particularly of the Prophet’s expeditions against the infidels [see mag̲h̲āzī ], but has also special meanings (for which see Dozy, Suppl ., s.v.). In its most common sense, g̲h̲azw (and the dialectical variants) signifies a raid or incursion, a small expedition set on foot by Bedouins (both in the Sahara and in northern Arabia) with booty as its object, and also the force which carries it out. The term has passed into French in the form rezzou …