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(in Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 16, Ṭabarstarān), a district of the eastern Caucasus, essentially the basin of the Rūbās river which runs into the Caspian Sea just south of Darband [see derbend ], the early Islamic Bāb al-Abwāb [ q.v.]. It now comes within the southernmost part of Dāg̲h̲istān (see map in ḳabḳ , at IV, 344). Its population comprises Caucasian mountaineers plus a considerable admixture of Iranian speakers of Tātī dialect [see tāt ]. At the time of the Umayyad prince Marwān b. Muḥammad’s raids through the Caucasus, there was a Ṭabarsarān S̲h̲āh (known a…

, a district of eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān, ¶ thus designated in the Islamic sources of the later mediaeval period, deriving its name from its urban centre Lamg̲h̲ān (later form, Lag̲h̲mān). It comprises the fertile plain of the middle course of the Kābul River, much of it lying to the north and east of Kābul city [ q.v.] itself. It is bounded on the north by the mountains of Kāfiristān [ q.v.], modern Nūristān, and includes the lower reaches of the Alingār and Alis̲h̲ang Rivers; on the south and east, it adjoins, and was sometimes considered (e.g. by Bābur) to includ…

(a.), literally, “something made obscure, hidden”. 1. In the sense of word puzzle, riddle [see lug̲h̲z ]. 2. In the sense of secret writing, code. Codes were regularly used in classical Antiquity. Thus the skytalē of the Spartans, mentioned by Plutarch, in which a message was written on a parchment or leather ribbon which was wrapped round a tapered wooden baton for purposes of writing and then could only be read by a recipient possessing a baton of the same shape and size, is an early example of a typical …

(p.), literally “cool water”, often found in the Arabised form sirdāb , an underground chamber used for keeping cool during the extreme heat of e.g. the ʿIrāḳī or Persian summers. Such building constructions are an ancient feature of Middle Eastern life, being found amongst the Egyptians of Pharaonic times and in Babylonia. Examples of them have been found in the remains of the early ʿAbbāsid palace at al-Uk̲h̲ayḍir [ q.v.] and at al-Muʿtaṣim’s palace, the D̲j̲awsaḳ al-K̲h̲āḳānī, at Sāmarrā. At Bag̲h̲dād until recent times, traditional-type houses had a semi-base…

, a line of military commanders who governed the northwestern provinces of the caliphate (Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. Arrān and Armenia) in the later 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th centuries on behalf of the ʿAbbāsids. The Sād̲j̲ids were just some of several commanders, originally from the Iranian East and Central Asia, who came westwards to serve in the early ʿAbbāsid armies. The family seems to have originated in Us̲h̲rūsana [ q.v.] on the middle Syr Darya in Transoxania, the region where the Afs̲h̲īns [ q.v.] were hereditary princes until at least the end of the 3rd/9th century, and w…

, a small town of Persian Kurdistan, now the chef-lieu of a s̲h̲ahrastān or county in the province of Kurdistān (lat. 36° 14′ N., long. 46° 15′ E.). It lies on the western side of the upper D̲j̲ag̲h̲atū Čay valley some 77 km/50 miles to the southeast of Mahābād [ q.v.] and on the road southwards to Sanandad̲j̲ and Kirmāns̲h̲āh [ q.vv.]. The Kurdish population are from the Mukrī tribe, S̲h̲āfiʿī Sunnīs and with the Naḳs̲h̲bandī Ṣūfī order influential amongst them. In the early 20th century, the local k̲h̲ān was a relative of the wālī s of Ardalān and Sanandad̲j̲. In ca. 1950 Saḳḳiz town had a po…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. D̲j̲aʿfar , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 252-5/866-9, and son of the earlier caliph al-Mutawakkil [ q.v.] by his favourite slave concubine Ḳabīḥa. The reign of al-Muʿtazz’s predecessor, his cousin al-Mustaʿīn [ q.v.], ended in strife and violence stirred up by the Turkish guards in Sāmarrā. Al-Mustaʿīn was forced to abdicate at Bag̲h̲dād, and on 4 Muḥarram 252/25 January 866, al-Muʿtazz, having been brought out of jail, was hailed as caliph. The first part of the succession arrangements envisaged towards t…

, a district and fortress of northern Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, famous as being the headquarters of the Ḵh̲urramī rebel Bābak [ q.v.] in the first decades of the 3rd/9th century. The exact site is uncertain, but it must have lain in the modern Ḳarad̲j̲a-Dag̲h̲, older Maymad, the ancient Armenian region of Pʿaytakaran, to the north of Ahar and south of the Araxes River, near Mount Has̲h̲tād-Sar, at some spot between the modern districts of Hārand, Kalaybar and Garmādūz (V. Minorsky, Studies in Caucasian history, London 1953, 116 and Addenda et corrigenda slip). Bābak’s fortress there…

b. Mart̲h̲ad b. Ḥāzim al-ʿAbsī al-G̲h̲aṭafānī . governor of Egypt 90-6/709-14 for the Umayyad caliph al-Walīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik. Ḳurra came from the group of North Arab tribes which had settled extensively in northern Syria and the D̲j̲azīra and which were in the forefront of the warfare along the Taurus Mountains with Byzantium. He himself came from the region of Ḳinnasrīn [ q.v.] to the south of Aleppo, and was thus a member of the experienced and capable cadre of Syrian Arabs whom the Umayyads liked to appoint to high civil and military office; the fact …

, a district of the upper Oxus region mentioned at the time of the Arab invasions. It lay near the head waters of the Kāfirnihān and Surkhān rivers, hence in the upper mountainous parts of Čag̲h̲āniyān and K̲h̲uttalān [ q.vv.]. In Chinese sources such as Hiuen-Tsang, it appears as Su-man. In al-Ṭabarī, ii, 1179, 1181, where the conquests of the governor Kutayba b. Muslim [ q.v.] in upper K̲h̲urāsān during 86/705 are being described, S̲h̲ūmān is linked with Ak̲h̲arūn or K̲h̲arūn as being under a local prince, whose name seems to be the Iranian one *Gus̲h̲tāspā…

, conventionally Zerafshan , a landlocked river of Central Asia, now coming within Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. In early Islamic times, it was known as “the river of Sogdia”, Nahr Ṣug̲h̲d [see ṣug̲h̲d ] or “the river of Buk̲h̲ārā” (see al-Yaʿḳūbī, Buldān , 293-4, tr. Wiet, 1 lull; al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 319-21; Ibn Ḥawḳal, ed. Kramers, ii, 495-7, tr. Kramers and Wiet, ii, 475-7; Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. Minorsky, 55, 73, comm. 198, 211). It flowed westwards from sources in what the geographers called the Buttamān mountains, in fact, between what are…

(a. “wells, springs”), modern Biyārd̲j̲umand, a small town on the northern edges of the Great Desert, the Das̲h̲t-i Kavīr, of Persia. The mediaeval geographers describe it as being three days’ journey from Bisṭām and 25 farsak̲h̲s from Dāmg̲h̲ān, and as falling administratively within the province of Ḳūmis [ q.v.], although in Sāmānid times (4th/10th century) it seems to have been attached to Nīs̲h̲āpūr in Ḵh̲urāsān. It was the terminus of an only-moderately frequented route across the northeastern corner of the desert to Turs̲h̲īz in Ḳūhistān. We have in Muḳaddasī, 356-7, 372, an especially detailed description of the town, considering its moderate size and importance, lying as it did off the great highway connecting western Persia with Ḵh̲urāsān; this is explicable by the …

(thus in Ras̲h̲īd al-Dīn and Mustawfī), popular pronunciation with assimilation Lam(m)asar < Lambasar, the name of one of the Ismāʿīlī …

, a region of the North-West Frontier region of what is now Pākistān, lying roughly between lats. 34° 30′ and 35° 50′ N. and long. 72° and 73° E. It is bounded on the north-west by Čitrāl, on the west by Dīr, on the east by Bunēr and Hazāra and on the south by Mardān. It comprises essentially the basin of the Swāt River, from its headwaters down to the Malakand Pass, after which it runs into the Kabul River below Pes̲h̲awar and near Naws̲h̲ēra. The nor…

(a.), the verbal noun of form II of d̲j̲-m-r meaning basically “to come together”. In early Islamic military and administr…

, S̲h̲aʿyā (?), author in the 4th/10th century of a concise Arabic encyclopaedia of the sciences the D̲j̲awāmiʿ al-ʿulūm “Connections of the sciences”. The author wrote in the upper Oxus lands, and dedicated his work to the Muḥtād̲j̲id amīr of Čag̲h̲āniyān [ q.v.], Abū ʿAlī Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. al-Muẓaffar (d. 344/955). Minorsky surmised fr…

, Abu ’l-Fatḥ G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dunyā wa ’l-Din , Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan in ʿIrāḳ and western Persia 529-47/1134-52. Like the other sons of Muḥammad b. Malik-S̲h̲ah [ q.v.], Masʿūd was entrusted as a child to the tutelage of Turkish Atabegs [see atabak ], latterly with Ay-Aba D̲j̲uyūs̲h̲ Beg acting thus, and given the appanage of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān and al-D̲j̲azīra: at D̲j̲uyūs̲h̲ Beg’s prompting, Masʿūd unsuccessfully rebelled in 514/1120 at the age of 12 against his elder brother Sultan Maḥmūd b. Malik-S̲h̲āh [ …

, Dungans , in Chinese, T’ung-kan, the Turkic name given to those Hui (i.e. ethnically Chinese Muslims) settled within Chinese Turkestan or Sinkiang [ q.v.], especially in the northern Sinkiang…

, a forested, mountain area of Inner Asia which had a special religious and moral significance for the early Turkish peoples. It seems to have been located in the eastern part of the Khangai Mts. around the headwaters of the Orkhon and Tamir rivers (the latter river corresponding, according to R. Giraud, L’Empire des Turcs célestes . Les règnes d’Elterich , Qapghan et Bilga ( 680-734), Paris 1960, 207, to the i̊duḳ yer sub “sacred places and watercourses” of the old Turkish inscriptions), generally alo…

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