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1. The name of a land and a city in China mentioned in the mediaeval Arabic geographer Ḳudāma b. D̲j̲aʿfar [ q.v.], 264, here borrowing material from the lost part of his predecessor Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih [ q.v.]. According to Ḳudāma, Alexander the Great, in company with the Emperor of China, went northwards from China and conquered the land of S̲h̲ūl, founding there two cities, K̲h̲.mdān and S̲h̲ūl and ordering the Chinese ruler to place a garrison ( rābita ) of his troops in the latter place. K̲h̲umdān is well-attested in other Islamic sources (e.g. Gardīzī; Marwazī, tr. Minors…

, Persian, “army chief”, the Islamic form of a military title used in the pre-Islamic Persian empires and surviving in the Caspian provinces of Persia down to the Mongol invasions. In Achaemenid times the spād̲h̲apati was the commander-in-chief of the army. In the Arsacid period, the office of spāhpat was apparently hereditary in one of the great Parthian families; the Armenian geographer Moses of Choren (8th century A. D.) says that when Kos̲h̲m or Koms̲h̲, daughter of King Ars̲h̲avir (se. Phraates IV) married the comma…

b. Rāfiʿ al-S̲h̲aʾn b. S̲h̲āh ʿĀlam I, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn, great-grandson of the great Mug̲h̲al emperor Awrangzīb [ q.v.] and one of the ephemeral emperors in the last decades of independent Mug̲h̲al rule, reigning for some four months in the spring of 1131/1719. After Awrangzīb’s death in 1118/1707, the main power in the empire was that of the Bārha Sayyids [ q.v. in Suppl.], who in 1124/1712 raised to the throne Farruk̲h̲-siyar b. ʿAẓīm al-S̲h̲aʾn Muḥammad ʿAẓīm [ q.v.] but deposed him in Rabīʿ II 1131/February 1719 and substituted for him Rāfi ʿ al-Darad̲j̲āt; but in June…

(A., pl.. g̲h̲ilmān ), word meaning in Arabic a young man or boy (the word is used for example of the ʿAbbāsid princes al-Muʿtazz and al-Muʾayyad, sons of al-Mutawakkil, at the time when their brother, the caliph al-Muntaṣir, attempted to make them renounce their rights to the succession (al-Ṭabarī, iii, 1485), while the son of al-Wāt̲h̲iḳ, whom they hesitated to proclaim caliph because of his youth, is described as g̲h̲ulām amrad “beardless” (al-Ṭabarī, iii, 1368)); then, by extension, either a servant, sometimes elderly (cf. Ch. Pellat, Milieu , Paris 1953,…

, the name of a small, right-bank affluent (Grk. Singas, Modern Tkish. Keysun Çayı, a tributary of the Gök Su) of the upper Euphrates and of a small town on it, both coming in mediaeval Islamic times within the northern part of Diyār Muḍar [ q.v.]. The Sand̲j̲a river runs into the Euphrates between Sumaysāṭ and Ḳalʿat al-Rūm [ q.vv.]. It was famed for its bridge, said by the Arabic geographers to have been composed of a single arch of 200 paces’ length constructed from dressed stone, and to have been one of the wonders of the world (cf. Yāḳūt, Buldān , iii, 264-5). It was …

, a small town in Persia lying some 15 km/9 miles to the northeast of Ardistān, on the southwestern edge of the central desert of the Das̲h̲t-i Kawīr (long. 52° 25’ E., lat. 33° 30’ N.). It falls administratively within the ustān or province of Iṣfahān and is the chef-lieu of a canton or dihistān . In ca. 1951 it had a population of 5,400; and according to the census of 1375/1996-7, one at that time of 7,710, representing 1,911 households. This small and isolated place has played no role in wider Persian history, but is of significance for its ¶ surviving architecture. It clearly enjoyed prosp…

, Abū Naṣr Ḵh̲usraw-Fīrūz , Būyid amīr , d. 450/1058. When Abū Kālīd̲j̲ār, ruler in K̲h̲ūzistān. Fārs, Kirmān, ʿUmān and Baṣra in parallel with his uncle D̲j̲alāl al-Dawla [ q.v.] of Bag̲h̲dād, died in 440/1048, the eldest of his ten or so sons, K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz. succeeded as amīr with the title, unwillingly extracted from the caliph, of al-Malik al-Raḥīm. However, his succession was challenged by various of his brothers, and especially by Fūlād-Sutūn, and during his seven years’ reign, K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz reigned undisputedly only in ʿIrāḳ, wit…

, a region of central Afg̲h̲ānistān spanning the modem (post-1964 reorganisation) provinces of Bāmiyān, Wardak, G̲h̲aznī, G̲h̲ōr and Uruzgān. The region is almost wholly mountainous, its northem backbone being formed by the Kūh-i Bābā range [ q.v.] and its outliers. There are consequently very few towns and these tend to lie in the river valleys, e.g. Dawlatyār on the upper Herī Rūd and Pand̲j̲āb or Pand̲j̲āō on the Pand̲j̲āb tributary of the upper Helmand. The sedentary agriculturist Hazāras [ q.v. below] are the main Ethnic element of the region, but there are also Pas̲h…

b. Nāṣir al-Dīn Maḥmūd S̲h̲āh, Bengal Sultan of the restored Ilyās S̲h̲āhī line, r. 864-79/1460-74. Bārbak was one of the most powerful of the medieval rulers of Bengal, achieving a great reputation from his warfare against the Hindu rulers of Orissa and northern and eastern Bengal, regaining Silhet [ q.v.] (Sylhet) and also Chittagong [ q.v.] from the Arakanese. He recruited for his armies Ḥabas̲h̲ī military slaves and Arab mercenaries, and popular hagiographical tradition attributed many of Bārbak’s conquest to one of this latter group, the warrio…

b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib , Abū Muḥammad, Companion and paternal cousin of the Prophet Muḥammad and younger brother of the famed scholar and reciter of traditions ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿAbbās [ q.v.], born in the year of the Hid̲j̲ra , died in the reign of Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya or in 85/704 or in 87/706. He was further related to the Prophet in that his mother Umm al-Faḍl bt. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ al-Hilāliyya was the sister of Muḥammad’s wife Maymūna [ q.v.] (Ibn Ḳutayba, Maʿārif , ed. ʿUkās̲h̲a, 121, 367; al-Balād̲h̲urī, Ansāb al-as̲h̲rāf , iii, ed. al-Dūrī, 447). Unlike his brother,…

, Arabic orthography Ḳūn, a Turkish tribe of Inner Asia known in the pre-Mongol period, but only in a shadowy fashion. The earliest mention of the Ḳun is in Bīrūnī’s K. al-Tafhīm (420/1029), ed. R. R. Wright, London 1934, 145, and he places them in the Sixth Clime, in the territory of the eastern Turks between the Ḳāy and the K̲h̲irkīz [see ḳāyi̊ and ḳi̊rgi̊z ]. The tribe is not, however, mentioned in Bīrūnī’s al-Ḳānūn al-Masʿūdī ( pace Pelliot, À propos des Comans , in JA, Ser. 11, Vol. xv [1920], 134-5). Nor are the Ḳun given in Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī (who does however deal with the ot…

(p.), lit. “head [of] affairs”, a term used in Mug̲h̲al Indian administration and also in the succeeding British Indian domination of the subcontinent. 1. In the structure of Mug̲h̲al provincial government, as elaborated under the Emperor Akbar [ q.v.] in 989/1580, there was a hierarchy of the ṣūba [ q.v.] or province, under the ṣūbadār [ q.v.] (also called sipāhsālār , nāẓim and ṣāḥib-i ṣūba ); the sarkār , or district, under the fawd̲j̲dar [ q.v.], who combined both administrative and military functions, corresponding to the two separate officials of British India, t…

b. Ṭāhir D̲h̲i ’l-Yamīnayn , Abu ’l-ʿAbbās , Ṭāhirid governor of Bag̲h̲dād. Born in 209/824-5, Muḥammad in 237/851 was summoned from K̲h̲urāsān by the Caliph to Bag̲h̲dād and appointed military governor ( ṣāḥib al-s̲h̲urṭa ) in order to restore order in the chaos then prevailing. In spite of the great power of the Ṭāhirids, who ruled K̲h̲urāsān with considerable autonomy, although they nominally recognised the suzerainty of the caliph, his task was by no means a light one. After al-Mustaʿīn had ascended the…

(p.), the NP form of MP S̲h̲āhpūr “king’s ¶ son”, usually Arabised as S̲h̲ābūr, Sābūr, Syriac S̲h̲ābhōr, Greek Σαπώρης or Σαβουρ (see Justi, Iranisches Mamenbuch , 284 ff.), the name of various monarchs of the Sāsānid dynasty in pre-Islamic Persia. For the detailed history of their reigns, see sāsānids . Here, only such aspects as impinged on the Arabs will be noted. S̲h̲āpūr I, son of Ardas̲h̲īr Pāpakān (r. 239 or 241 to 270 or 273) is known in Arabic sources as S̲h̲āpūr al-D̲j̲unūd “S̲h̲. of the armies” (e.g. in al-Ṭabarī, i, 824, tr. Nöldeke, Gesch . der Perser und Amber …

b. Nāṣir al-Dīn, Sayyid, Persian commander, diplomat and historian of the Caspian region, b. ca . 815/1412, d. after 894/1489. He was a scion of the important family of Marʿas̲h̲ī Sayyids who dominated Māzandarān from the later 8th/14th century until the province’s incorporation into the Ṣafawid empire by S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās I in 1005/1596 [see marʿas̲h̲īs ]. ¶ Ẓahīr al-Dīn stemmed from the main branch of the Marʿas̲h̲īs, that of Kamāl al-Dīn b. Ḳiwām al-Dīn (d. 801/1379). He owned estates at Bāzargāh in Gīlān, and was employed by Sult…

(a.), pl. nuḳabāʾ , “chief, leader”, of a tribe or other group, a term used in various senses at different times of Islamic history. For its sense as head of the community of ʿAlid descendants, see naḳīb al-as̲h̲rāf . 1. In early Islamic history. One of the term’s usages in early Islamic history is in connection with the preparatory stages of the ʿAbbāsid Revolution of 129-32/746-50. The term naḳīb had already established itself in the story of the Prophet Muḥammad’s career, when the Medinans negotiating with him about the hid̲j̲ra from Mecca to Medina were asked to appoint 12 nuḳabāʾ as repr…

, the name of two left-bank tributaries of the Tigris [see did̲j̲la ] in northern ʿIrāḳ, both of them rising in the Zagros mountain chain in Kurdistān. 1. The Great or Upper Zāb ( al-Zāb al-akbar or al-aʿlā ) was already known to the Assyrians, as Zabu ēlū “the upper Zāb”, and appears in classical Greek as Λύκος (cf. PW, xiii, cols. 2391-2), Byzantine Greek as ὁ μέγας Ζάβας, in Syriac as Zāb̲ā and in later Armenian as Zav . In Kurdish it is known today as the Zēʾ-i Bādinān and in Turkish as Zap J. Markwart discussed possible etymologies and suggested a link with older Aramaic dēb̲ā …

(vars. Ṭurs̲h̲īs̲h̲, Ṭurt̲h̲īt̲h̲, Ṭurayt̲h̲īt̲h̲), a town of the mediaeval region of Bus̲h̲t of Ḳuhistān [ q.v.] in northeastern Persia. It lay to the southwest of Nīs̲h̲āpūr. Its site was probably to the west of the present town of Kas̲h̲mar. The 4th/10th century geographers describe it as a flourishing town, and al-Muḳaddasī, 318, says that its Friday mosque recalled that of Damascus in its splendour, and that it was “the emporium of Fārs and Iṣfahān and the storehouse of K̲h̲urasan”. At the end of the 5th/11th century, with Tūn [ q.v.] and other places it became one of the centr…

, a town of mediaeval ʿIrāḳ, lying, in the time of the classical Arabic geographers (3rd-4th/9th-10th centuries) on the left, i.e. eastern, bank of the Tigris, ten farsak̲h̲ s to the north of Bag̲h̲dād, roughly halfway between the capital and Sāmarrāʾ. As Yāḳūt noted ( Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 142), the name is orginally Aramaic ( sūriyānī ), sc. ʿOkbarā, and the history of the place can be traced back at least to early Sāsānid times. In the reign of the emperor S̲h̲āpūr I (mid-3rd century A.D.), Roman captives were settled there,…

, Muḥammad , youngest son of Muḥammad ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.] and hereditary viceroy of Egypt, theoretically under Ottoman suzerainty, 1854-63. He was styled Pas̲h̲a, but was already known in informal and unofficial usage as Khedive before this latter title was formally adopted after his death [see k̲h̲idīw ]. Born in 1822, his father had had a high opinion of his capabilities and had sent him at the age of only nineteen to Istanbul for negotiations over the tribute payable by Egypt to the Porte. Saʿīd’s uncle and predecessor in the governorship of Egypt, ʿAbbās Ḥilmī I b. Aḥmad Ṭūsūn [ q.v.], had…