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, conventional rendering Sialkot, a town in the Pand̲j̲āb situated in 32° 30′ N. and 74° 32′ E., the foundation of which is attributed by legend to Rād̲j̲ā Sālā, the uncle of the Pāṇḍavas, and its restoration to Rād̲j̲ā Sālivāhan, in the time of Vikramāditya. Sālivahān had two sons, Pūran, killed by the instrumentality of a wicked step-mother, and thrown into a well, still the resort of pilgrims, near the town, and Rasālu, the mythical hero of Pand̲j̲ā…

, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ ʿIzz al-Dīn , Turkish Atabeg in Fārs of the Salg̲h̲urid line [ q.v.], reigned in S̲h̲īrāz from 599/1202-3 until most probably 623/1226. On the death of his elder brother Takla/Tekele (Degele, etc.?) b. Zangī in 594/1198, Saʿd claimed power in Fārs, but his claim was contested by his ¶ cousin Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l, the son of his father’s elder brother Sunḳur, who had founded the dynasty. Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l retained the royal title for nine years, but throughout that period warfare between him and his cousin continued without a decisive result for…

(a. and p.), a title meaning “Lord of the (auspicious) conjunction”. Ḳirān means a conjunction of the planets, ḳirān al-saʿdayn [see al-saʿdān ] a conjunction of the two auspicious planets (Jupiter and Venus), and ḳirān al-naḥsayn a conjunction of the two inauspicious planets (Saturn and Mars). In the title, the word refers, of course, to the former only. The Persian i of the iḍāfa is omitted, as in ṣāḥib-dil , by fakk-i iḍāfa. The title was first assumed by the Amīr Tīmūr, who is said to have been born under a fortunate conjunction, but with whom its assumption was…

, “the head of the bridge”, called by Arab geographers Raʾs al-Ḳanṭara, is a town of Afg̲h̲ān Turkistān (lat. 36° 13′ N., long. 65° 55′ E., alt. 610 m/2,007 feet), on the Āb-i Safīd, from the bridge over which it takes its name. It is not to be confused with a village near Samarḳand or a quarter of Nīs̲h̲āpūr, both of the same name, each of which is historically as important as the Afg̲h̲ān town. Between the northern spurs of the Paropamisus and the sa…

, ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī mīrzā d̲j̲ānī , the Bābī historian, was a merchant of Kās̲h̲ān who, with two of his three brothers, Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Mīrzā Ismāʿīl Ḍabīḥ and Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Mīrzā Aḥmad, was among the earliest disciples of Mīrzā ʿAlī Muḥammad, the Bāb [ q.v.]. When in 1847 the Bāb was being conducted from Iṣfahān to his prison at Mākū, the brothers bribed his escort to allow him to be their guest for two days and two nights at Kās̲h̲ān. In the following year Kās̲h̲ānī, with Bahāʾ Allāh, Ṣubḥ-i Azal and other prominent disciples-, attempted to joi…

, Muʿizz al-Dīn , the second king of the Sayyid dynasty of Dihlī, was the son of K̲h̲iḍr K̲h̲ān [ q.v.], the first king, and succeeded his father on 19 D̲j̲umādā I 824/22 May 1421. The limits of his kingdom were then restricted to a few districts of Hindūstān proper and Multān, and he was obliged to desist from an attempt to establish his authority in the Pand̲j̲āb by the necessity of relieving Gwalior, menaced by Hūs̲h̲ang of Mālwa [ q.v.], who raised the siege and met him, but after an indecisive action came to terms and retired to Mālwa. From 828/1425 to 830/1427 he was …

, Muʿizz al-Dīn , was the fourth of the S̲h̲ansabānī princes of G̲h̲ūr to rule the empire of G̲h̲aznī [see g̲h̲azna and g̲h̲ūrids ]. His laḳab was originally S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn, but he assumed that of Muʿizz al-Dīn. His elder brother G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn succeeded his cousin Sayf al-Dīn in 558/1163 and made Muḥammad governor of Harāt, entrusting to him also the duty of extending the dominion of the house in India. Muḥammad led his first expedition into India in 571/1175, expelled the Ismāʿīlī heretics who ruled Multān, placed an orthodox governor in that province, and …

, a city and port of western India, on the south bank of the Tāptī and some 16 km/10 miles upstream from where the river debouches into the Gulf of Cambay (lat. 21° 10´ N., long 72° 54´ E.). The geographer Ptolemy (A.D. 150), speaks of the trade of Pulipula, perhaps Phulpāda, the sacred part of Sūrat city. Early references to Sūrat by Muslim historians must be scrutinised, owing to the confusion of the name with Sorath (Saurās̲h̲tra), but in 774/1373 F…

(780-99/1378-97), the fifth king of the Bahmanī dynasty of the Dakan, was the son of Maḥmūd K̲h̲ān, the youngest son of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Bahman S̲h̲āh, the founder of the dynasty, and was raised to the throne on 21 Muḥarram 780/20 May 1378, after the assassination of his uncle Dāwūd S̲h̲āh. Firis̲h̲ta’s statement that this king’s name was Maḥmūd has misled all European historians, but is refuted by inscriptions, legends on coins, and other historians. Muḥammad II was a man of peace, devoted to literature and poetry, and his reign was undisturbed by foreign wars. He invited Ḥāfiẓ [ q.v.] to visit…

, a city of northern India in the uppermost part of the Ganges-D̲j̲amnā Doʾāb (lat. 29° 57′ N., long. 77° 33′ E.), now in the extreme northwestern tip of the Uttar Pradesh State of the Indian Union. It was founded in ca. 740/1340, in the reign of Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ [ q.v.] and was named after a local Muslim saint, S̲h̲āh Haran Čis̲h̲tī. The city and district suffered severely during the invasion of Tīmūr; in 932/1526 Bābur traversed them on his way to Pānīpat, and some local Mug̲h̲al colonies trace their origin to his followers. Muslim influe…

(p.), a form current in Muslim India, passing into Urdu and Hindi and derived from Pers. s̲h̲ikar “game, prey; the chase, hunting”, with the senses of “a native hunter or stalker, who accompanied European hunters and sportsmen”, and then of these last sportsmen themselves (see Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson , a glossary of Anglo-Indian colloquial words and phrases, 2London 1903, 827-8, s.v. Shikaree , Shekarry ). The native hunters stemmed from the many castes in India whose occupation was the snaring, trapping, tracking, or pursuit of …

(p.), often Arabised as Sirdār , “supreme military commander”, literally “holding or possessing the head”, i.e. chief or leader. It was borrowed in the military sense by the Turks, who, however, sometimes derive it in error from sirrdār (“the keeper of a secret”). Through Turkish it has reached Arabic, and in a letter written in 989/1581 by “one of the princes of the Arabs (of Yaman)” occurs the phrase wa-ʿayyana sardār an ʿala ’l-ʿasākir (“and he appointed a commander over the troops”), on which Rutgers comments “Vocabulum sardār , quod Persicae originis est, ducem …

proper is an inland district of India bordered on the south by Vindhyās, and lying between lat. 23° 30′ N. and long. 74° 30′ E. To this tract, known in the age of the Mahābhārata as Nishadha, and later as Avanti, from the name of its capital, now Ud̲j̲d̲j̲ayn, was afterwards added Akara, or eastern Mālwā, with its capital, Bhīlsā, and the country lying between the Vindhyās and the Sātpūras. Primitive tribes like Ābhīras and Bhīls have been dwelling among the hills and jungles of Mālwā since ancient times, s…

, of K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲ [ q.v.] in western India, was the eleventh prince of the Fārūḳī dynasty (regn. 926-43/1520-37). He belonged to the younger branch of that line, which had taken refuge in Gud̲j̲arāt, and his ancestors had lived in that kingdom and had married princesses of the Muẓaffarī family until Maḥmūd I of Gud̲j̲arāt [ q.v.] had, on the extinction of the elder branch of the Fārūḳīs, placed ʿĀdil K̲h̲ān III, Muḥammad’s father, on the throne of K̲h̲āndēs̲h̲. Muḥammad, who was, through his mother, the great-grandson of Maḥmūd, and the grandson of …

(Sir), the title by which Mīr Turāb ʿAlī, a Sayyid of Persian descent and one of the greatest of modern Indian statesmen, was best known. He was born at Ḥaydarābād, Deccan, on 2 January, 1829, and, his father having died not long after his birth, was educated by his uncle, Nawwāb Sirād̲j̲ al-Mulk, Minister of the Ḥaydarābād State. He received an administrative appointment in 1848, at the age of 19, and on his uncle’s death in 1853 succeeded him as Minister of the State. He was engaged in reforming the administration unt…

(possibly kurt), the name of a dynasty which ruled Herāt from 643/1245 to 791/1389. It was founded by S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Muḥammad I Kart, who was descended from the S̲h̲ansabānī house of G̲h̲ūr, the family to which the brothers G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ al-Dīn Muḥammad and Muʿizz al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Sām belonged. As Herat recovered from the devastating raids of the armies of Čingiz K̲h̲ān, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn gradually gained power, and by 643/1245 had established himself as ruler of the state, and used the title of Mal…

, the older Indian Sindhu , the name for the region around the lower course of the Indus river (from which the region takes its name, see mihrān ), i.e. that part of the Indus valley south of approximately lat. 28° 30’ N., and the delta area, now coming within the modern state of Pākistān. There are alluvial soils in the delta and in the lands along the river, liable to inundation when the river ¶ rises in spring from the melting snows of the northern Indian mountains and rendered fertile by a network of irrigation canals and channels for flood control. To the west of …

(759-76/1358-75), the second king of the Bahmanī dynasty of the Dakan, was the eldest son of Ḥasan, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Bahman S̲h̲āh, usually, but incorrectly, styled Ḥasan Gangū. On succeeding his father, on 1 Rabīʿ I 759/11 February 1358, he carefully organised the government of the four provinces of the kingdom and the administration of the army. The pertinacity of the Hindū bankers and moneychangers in melting down the gold coinage which he introduced led to a general massacre of the community and…

, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Las̲h̲karī (867-87/1463-82), the thirteenth king of the Bahmanī dynasty of the Dakan, was the younger son of Humāyūn S̲h̲āh, and succeeded his elder brother, Niẓām S̲h̲āh, on 13 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 867/30 ¶ July 1463, at the age of nine. His minister was the famous Maḥmūd Gāwān, Malik al-Tud̲j̲d̲j̲ār, K̲h̲wād̲j̲a D̲j̲ahān [ q.v.]. A campaign against Mālwā in 871/1467 was unsuccessful, but between 873/1469 and 875/1471 Maḥmūd Gāwān conquered the southern Konkan. In 876/1472 Niẓām al-Mulk Malik Ḥasan Baḥrī, a Brāhman who had been captured…

(p.), from the Persian sipah , sipāh “army”, hence basically meaning soldier. It has given such European words as English sepoy (see below, 2.) and French spahi (see below, 3.). 1. In the Ottoman empire. Here, sipāhī had the more specific meaning of “cavalryman” in the feudal forces of the empire, in contrast to the infantrymen of the professional corps of the Janissaries [see yeñi čeri ]. Such feudal cavalrymen were supported by land grants ( dirlik “living, means of livelihood”) at different levels of income yield. Below the k̲h̲āṣṣ [ q.v.] lands granted to members of the higher ech…