Search

, Old Persian vrkāna , Arabic d̲j̲urd̲j̲ān , the ancient Hyrcania, at the South-east corner of the Caspian Sea. The province, which was practically equivalent to the modern Persian province of Astarābād̲h̲ [ q.v.] (now part of Ustān II) forms both in physical features and climate a connecting link between sub-tropical Māzandarān with its damp heat and the steppes of Dihistān in the north. The rivers Atrak [ q.v.] and Gurgān, to which the country owes its fertility and prosperity, are not an unmixed blessing on account ¶ of their inundations and the danger of fever which results. Gurgān playe…

, the ancient Gabbula, a place eastsouth-east of Ḥalab, watered by the Nahr al-D̲h̲ahab. The salt-mines there lent D̲j̲abbūl a certain economic importance in the middle ages as they still do, to which it probably also owed its position as an administrative centre in the political division of the Mamlūk kingdom. (R. Hartmann) Bibliography M. Streck, Keilinschriftl. Beiträge zur Geogr. Vorderasiens, 20 Schiffer, Die Aramäer, 131 ff. Yāḳūt, ii, 29 Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ḍawʾ al-ṣubḥ, Cairo 1324, 295 von Kremer, Beiträge z. Geogr. des nördl. Syrien, 18 Le Strange, Palestine, 460 Ritter, Erdkunde…

, pronounced D̲j̲idda locally, a Saudi Arabian port on the Red Sea at 21° 29′ N., 39° 11′ E. Its climate is notoriously poor. The town, flanked by a lagoon on the north-west and salt flats on the south-east, faces a bay on the west which is so encumbered by reefs that it can only be entered through narrow channels. By paved road, D̲j̲udda is 72 km. from Mecca and 419 km. from Medina. Most Arab geographers and scholars maintain that D̲j̲udda, signifying a road (Lane; al-Bakrī, ii, 371) is the correct spelling of the name of the town, rather than Ḏj̲idda or D̲j̲adda (gr…

modern spelling Erzincan, older forms Arzingan, Arzand̲j̲ān, a town in eastern Anatolia, 39° 45′ N., 39° 30′ E., on the northern bank of the Karasu (the northern tributary of the Euphrates). It is situated in a fertile plain which is surrounded by high mountain ranges (the Keşiş Daǧi, 3,537 m. (11,604 ft.), in the north-east, the Sipikör Daǧi, 3,010 m. (9,875 ft.), in the north, and the Mercan Daǧi, 3,449 m. (11,315 ft.), which is part of the Monzur range, in the south). It has an altitude of 1200 m. (3,937 ft), and was once the capital of a sand̲j̲aḳ in the wilāyet of Erzurum. Today it is the c…

is the Arabic name of the Euphrates, called in Sumerian bu-ra-nu-nu, Assyr. Purātu , Hebrew , Syriac ; in Old Persian it was ¶ called Ufrātu , whence Middle Persian Frat , modern Turkish Firat . On the name and the notices by authors in antiquity see Pauly-Wissowa, art. Euphrates (by Weissbach). The main stream of the Euphrates is formed by the junction of two principal arms, now called the Karasu (length 450 km./280 miles) and the Murad-suyu (650 km./400 miles). The former, though the shorter, long bore (and in its lower course still bears) t…

is the name in use among the Arabs for the Orontes. The classical name of this river, the most important in northern Syria, is preserved in Arabic literature as al-Urunṭ, al-Urund. Presumably the origin of the word ʿĀṣī, like that of the Greek Axios, must be sought in an ancient native name. The common explanation of al-ʿĀṣī = "the rebel" is a popular etymology with no actual foundation, and the name al-nahr al-maḳlūb = fluvius inversus is probably a scholarly invention. The river-system of the ʿĀṣī begins to the north of the watershed formed by the highland-valley of al-Biḳ…

is the usual name amongst the Arabs for the Indian Ocean, which is also called Baḥr al-Zand̲j̲ from its W. shores or—the part for the whole—al-Baḥr al-Ḥabas̲h̲ī. The expression Baḥr Fāris also sometimes includes the whole ocean. According to Ibn Rusta, 87, its E. shores begin at Tīz Mukrān, its W. at ʿAdan. Abuʾ l-Fidāʾ, Taḳwīm , transl, ii, 27 = text, 22, gives Baḥr al-Ṣīn as its E boundary, al-Hind as the N. and al-Yaman as the W., while the S. is unknown. The various parts of the ocean bear special names derived from various lands and islands. If we neglect the N. arms, Baḥr…

, formerly a harbour on the coast of Palestine between the promontory of Carmel and al-Ṭanṭūra (Dora), on a little tongue of land which lies to the north of a small bay and is washed on three sides by the sea. According to the Itinerarium Burdigalense there was a mutatio Certha there, but the name ʿAt̲h̲līt̲h̲ appears to be ancient. ʿAt̲h̲līt̲h̲ appears in the light of history in the period of the Crusades. In 583/1187 it fell into Saladin’s hands. In 1218 the Castellum Peregrinorum, as the Franks called it was recons…

, “Lofs Sea”, is the modern Arab name for the Dead Sea which is usually called by the Arab Geographers al-buḥayra al-mayyita “the Dead Sea”, al-buḥayra al-muntina “the stinking Sea”, al-buḥayra al-maḳlūba “the overturned Sea” (because it is situated in al-arḍ al-maḳlūba , “the land that has been overturned”, the arḍ ḳawm Lūṭ ), buḥayrat Ṣog̲h̲ar ( Zog̲h̲ar ) “the Sea of Zog̲h̲ar”, also “the Sea of Sodom and Gomorra”. The Persian Nāṣir-i Ḵh̲usraw (5th/11th century) appears to be the first geographer to know the name buḥayrat Lūṭ . The name Baḥr Lūṭ refers to the story in Genesis xix …

, the Arabic name (used always without the article al-) of the easterly of the “Two Rivers” of ʿIrāḳ, the Tigris. The name is a modernized and Arabicized form of the Diglat of the Cuneiform, and occurs as Ḥiddeḳel in the Book of Genesis. The river (Dicle Nehri in modern Turkish) rises in the southern slopes of the main Taurus, ¶ south and south-east of Lake Golcük. Its upper course, with its many constituent tributaries, drains a wide area of foothills and plain, which formed the northern half of the ʿAbbāsid province of D̲j̲azīra) in which stood the imp…

, a town on the coast of southern Palestine, one (Hebrew: ʾAs̲h̲ḳelōn) of the five Philistine towns known to us from the Old Testament; in the Roman period, as oppidum Ascalo liberum , it was (according to Schrürer, Geschichte des Jüdischen Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu 2, ii, 65-7) "a flourishing Hellenistic town famous for its cults and festal games" (Dercetis-Aphrodite-shrine); in the Christian period a bishop’s see (tomb of the tres fratres martyres Aegyptii ). ʿAsḳalān was one of the last towns of Palestine to fall into the hands of the Muslims. It was taken şulḥ an by Muʿāwiya shortly aft…

, name of several localities in Īrān. 1. A village in Ardas̲h̲īr K̲h̲urra, five farsak̲h̲ from S̲h̲īrāz on the road to Arrad̲j̲ān, usually called D̲j̲uwaym, the modern Goyum, cf. Le Strange, 253; P. Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter , 44, 173, 179 (not to be confused with D̲j̲uwaym Abī Aḥmad in the province of Dārābd̲j̲ird, the modern D̲j̲uyum, see Le Strange, 254; Schwarz, 102, 201). 2. D̲j̲uwayn (also written Gūyān), a district in the Nīs̲h̲āpūr country, on the caravan route from Bisṭām, between D̲j̲ād̲j̲arm and Bayhaḳ (Sabzewār). The district, whose capital is…

, Persian Gūzgān , the older name of a district in Afg̲h̲ān Turkestan between Murg̲h̲āb and the Āmū Daryā. Its boundaries were not well defined, particularly in the west, but it certainly included the country containing the modern towns of Maymana, Andk̲h̲ūy, S̲h̲ibargān and Sar-i Pul. Lying on the boundary between the outskirts of the Iranian highlands and the steppes of the north, D̲j̲ūzd̲j̲ān probably always supported nomad tribes as it does at the present day in addition to the permanent settlements in its fertile valleys (cf. Ibn Ḥawḳal, 322 ff.; Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa, D̲j̲ihān-num…