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, the name of several places in ʿIrāḳ and al-D̲j̲azīra. The Mus̲h̲tarik of Yāḳūt (337) lists five places of that name of which the two most important were situated near Sāmarrā and al-Kūfa. The history of these places is most difficult to trace. 1. A town in ʿIrāḳ, on the Eastern bank of the Tigris, 8 miles S.E. of Sāmarrā. It seems to have been closely connected with the latter in its period of prosperity. We do not know what special part al-Ḳādisiyya played at that time. Herzfeld, ( Reise , i, 107) suggests it is really identical with the town of al-Ḳātūl whic…

, the name of several places, generally in districts where Aramaic was once spoken, for al-Bīra is a translation of the Aramaic bīrt̲h̲ā — “fortress”, “citadel”. The best known is al-Bīra on the east bank of the Euphrates in North-west Mesopotamia, the modern Bīred̲j̲ik [ q.v.]: on other places, bearing the name Bīra, cf. Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am (ed. Wüstenfeld), i, 787; Nöldeke in the Nachr. der Götting . Ges. der Wiss. , 1876, 11-12 and in De Goeje, BGA, iv, (gloss.), 441; Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems (1890), 423. (M. Streck)

or kūh-i alwand ( elwend ), is an isolated mountain-group lying to the south of Hamad̲h̲ān, and rising to a height of 11,717 feet. To the north and north-east the Alwand Kūh drops steeply off to the plain; to the north-west it is united to the Kūh-i Dāʾim al-Barf, a mountain-mass of almost equal height, which is joined to the Kūh-i Almu Ḳulak̲h̲ by lower mountain-chains. The latter forms the north-western extremity of the entire Alwand system. The core of the real Alwand consist…

( Kalāh , Kalā , Kilā , Killah ), the mediaeval Arab geographers’ name for an island or peninsula ( d̲j̲azīra ) which played an important intermediary role in commercial and maritime relations between Arabia, India and China. It was particularly well-known for its tin mines, and the Arabic word ḳalʿī / ḳalaʿī [ q.v.] for this metal derives from Kalah; the place was also portrayed as the centre of trade in camphor, bamboo, aloes, ivory etc. Its capital also was named Kalah (cf. e.g., al-Dīmas̲h̲kī, Cosmographie , 152, 170); so too the sea which washed its shor…

, name of two towns: (1) A town in the south-west corner of the east Māzandarān plain; it stands on the west bank of the Harhāz river, 12 miles south of the Caspian Sea, in the district which, according to the Classical writers, was the home of the Μάρδοɩ (’Αµάρδοɩ) (Āmul may be the Modem Persian form of the (hypothetical) Old Persian Amardha). Ibn Isfandiyār ( Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Ṭabaristān , Teheran 1941, 62 f.) states that Āmul was founded by Āmula, daugther of a Daylamite chieftain and wife of King Fīrūz of Balk̲h̲. while Ḥamd Allāh Mustawfī ( Nuzhat al-Ḳulūb , 159) maintain…

, town in ʿIrāḳ situated in about 33° 35′ N. and 42° 48′ E. on the right bank of the Euphrates, on a hill which may be man-made. The mediaeval Arab travellers estimate the distance between Hit and Bag̲h̲dād at 33 parasangs ( ca. 130 miles) or 5½-6 days’ journey, cf. M. Streck, Babylonien nach den arab. Geographen , i, 8. Some Arab geographers (al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and Ibn Ḥawḳal) include Hīt in the D̲j̲azīra; it was generally considered, however, to be a frontier town of ʿIrāḳ. In al-Muḳaddasī’s time (4th/10th century) it was of some imp…

, Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Sulaymān, Tunisian author of the 19th century (1204-74/1789-1857). He stemmed from a family of scholars in Tūnis, his grandfather having been a manuscript copyist who had gone on the Pilgrimage to Mecca and had then setded at Sennar [see sinnār ] in the Sūdān, thus establishing a family connection between that region, Cairo (where Muḥammad’s father became naḳīb al-riwāḳ , i.e. superintendent of the Mag̲h̲ribī students at al-Azhar) and Tūnis. Muḥammad was born in Tūnis in 1204/1789, and after studying at al-Azhar, made his way to the Sūdān, where …

, a town in Central Babylonia, on the east bank of the Tigris, a few hours’ journey above Kūt al-ʿAmāra, and 5 pavasangs (= c. 20 miles) southeast of Nuʿmāniya (the modern Tell Naʿmān). It is described as a flourishing place by the older Arab geographers; but, by Yāḳūt’s time (the beginning of the viith = xiiith century), it had considerably declined. In course of time — we have no details of its decay — it fell utterly into ruins. This town must date from a very remote period; for the name of the Gambalu, one of the most important Aramaic nomad trib…

, a village, 16 miles south-east of Mosul and 10 north-east of the ruins of Nimrūd (Assyr. Kalḫu); cf. the map by R. Kiepert based an the survey by F. Jones (see Journ. of the Roy. Asiat. Soc, xv. 1855) in v. Oppenheim, Vom Mittelm. z. Pers. Golf (1900), ii. 182, where the name is written Bellawat. Yāḳūt mentions the place as a caravan station situated in the district of Nīnawai (Nineveh), a short day’s journey from Mosul, under the name Balābād̲h̲, possibly = “foundation ( ābād̲h̲) of Bāl” (Bardiya Smerdis); ct. on this point G. Hoffmann, Auszüge aus Syr. Akt. Pers. Märtyrer (1880) p. 219, Note…

(also Basṭām, now usually pronounced Bosṭām) a town in the Persian province of Ḵh̲orāsān (on the slopes of the Alburs), at the northern extremity of the great desert; Long. 55° East (Greenw.) and Lat. 36° 30’ north. During the caliphate, Bisṭām was the most important place in the district of Ḳūmis, next to Damag̲h̲ān (the capital). Bisṭām was apparently founded by Bisṭām, a maternal uncle of the Sāsānian king, Ḵh̲usraw II. Parwīz who was appointed governor of Ḵh̲orāsān, Ḳūmis, Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ān and Ṭabaris…

, plur. ḳanawāt, ḳanan, ḳunī and aḳniya, means in Arabic: (1) canal, aqueduct, (2) lance or stick (see Lisān al-ʿArab, xx. 66; Tād̲j̲ al-ʿArūs, x. 304; Dozy, Supplément, ii. 414). These two conceptions have developed from the original meaning of “reed”. The word may be said with considerable certainty to be borrowed in the western Semitic languages from the Assyrian or Accadian, where ḥanū = reed, bulrush; cf. Zimmern, Akkad. Fremdwörter, Leipzig 1915, p. 56. Hence we have in Hebrew ḳanä, in Aramaic ḳanyā; the word passed through the intermediary of the Aramaic into Arabic; th…

, one of the most important elevations of the Armenian highlands on the borders of the Wilāyets of Erzerum and Bidlīs [q. v.]; the geographical position of the highest peak is about 41° 20’ East Long. (Greenw.) and 39° 20’ N. Lat. Strecker and Radde describe the Bingöldag̲h̲ as a gigantic, extinct volcano, the edges of the crater of which have for the most part fallen in. According to the more recent geological investigations of Oswald, it is not however really a volcano, but only a dome, the ma…

(also Kalāh, Kalā, Kilā and Killah), according to the mediaeval Arab geographers the name of an island or peninsula, which played an important part as au intermediary in the trade and navigation between Arabia, India and China. It was particularly noted for its tin-mines; it is at the same time described as a centre of trade in camphor, bamboo, aloes, ivory, etc. Its capital was likewise called Kalah; cf. e. g. al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī, p. 152, 11, 170, 1; al-Nuwairī (in A. v. d. Lith, op. cit., (see below, Bibl.), p. 281; the sea washing this region, described as difficult to navigate, was …

(Russian Ḏj̲ulf), an ancient, once important town in Armenia, on the north bank of the Araxes, lying approximately in Lat. 59° N., now belonging to the Russian gouvernement of Eriwān. S̲h̲āh Abbās I the Great (see above p. 8) brought about the ruin of the town when in 1014 (1605) he brought the entire population (2000 families) which had won his sympathies by expelling the Turkish garrison during the Turco-Persian war, to Persia, chiefly to the capital Iṣpahān and thereby introduced a new element…

, the name of several places in the ʿIrāḳ and in Mesopotamia: 1. A town in the ʿIrāḳ,on the Eastern bank of the Tigris, 8 miles S. E. of Sāmarrā. With the latter it seems to have been closely connected in its period of prosperity. We do not know what special part al-Ḳādisīya played at that time. Perhaps, as Herzfeld, ( op. cit., p. 107) suggests, it is really identical with the town of al-Ḳāṭūl which Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd or the Caliph al-Muʿtasim began to build before the foundation of Sāmarrā. Yāḳūt and other Arab geographers mention the glassworks of al-Ḳād…

, the capital of Ḵh̲ūzistān, in 32° 25’ N. Lat. and 48° 35’ E. Long (Greenw.), on the bank of the Dizfūl-Rūd or Āb-i Diz, which takes its name from it. This river which rises in the Burūd̲j̲ird district flows into the Kārūn a little below Band-i Ḳīr (ʿAskar Mukram; see above, p. 488). According to Herzfeld, Dizfūl (650 feet above sea-level) is built on conglomerate cliffs 60 feet high, the outermost spur thrust, by the mountains into the Susian plains; the ruins of Susa begin about 15 miles to t…

, i.e. „founded by ʿAbbās“, name of several places: 1. A Persian town in the north of the salt steppe of Ḵh̲orāsān, about half-way between Sebzawār on the east and S̲h̲āhrūd on the west. It owes its foundation to S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās I (died 1628), who settled a hundred Georgian families there. This colony, which he fortified, could, according to his plans, serve as a centre for the North-East of Persia and as a base to make his rule over these regions secure. Comp. Ritter, Erdkunde, viii. 333—336. 2. and 3. There are two places of this name in the Māzanderān country, south of the Caspia…

, a place and administrative district in ʿIrāḳ; with Bādarāyā [q. v.] and the three districts of the great Nahrawān-Canal, ¶ it formed the East Tigris circle ( astān) of Bāzīyān Ḵh̲usraw; cf. Streck, Babylonien nach d. Arab. Geogr., i. 15. Like Bādarāyā, in conjunction with which it is usually mentioned by the Arab geographers, Bākusāyā still exists under the name Baksaieh (Baksā) southeast of Bedrē (= Bādarāyā) below 46° 25′ e. L. (Greenw.), quite near the Persian frontier; see e.g. Stieler’s Handatlas, sheet N°. 59 (1910). In Kusāyā is concealed the name of a people as G. H…

, the name of a place prominent in pre-Muḥammadan times within the area covered in later times by Bag̲h̲dād with which it was naturally later almost entirely absorbed (see also the ¶ article bag̲h̲dād). It lay a short distance from the little town of Muḥawwal (to the southeast of it), just below the point where the Nahr Kark̲h̲āyā, the small canal which waters the commercial quarter of Kark̲h̲, left the great navigable ʿĪsā Canal. This suburb was only separated from Bag̲h̲dād proper, on the southern part of the western half of …

, a town in the Ḏj̲azīra (Mesopotamia), on the right (south or east) bank of the Tigris, in 37° 40′ N. Lat. and 41° 30′ East. Long. (Greenw.), about halfway between Diyār Bakr and Ḏj̲azīrat Ibn ʿUmar, about 3 days’ journey (60—70 miles) from either. Ḥiṣn Kaifā dates from very ancient times. The many ancient caves and grottos still in existence belong to the pre-Armenian (Chaldean) period and show that there was a settlement here as early as about 800 b. c. In the border wars between Romans and Persians during the later Empire the town (ΚίΦαΣ, Cepha) played an important part …