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(the Margat, Merghatum of the Crusaders), a fortress near Bāniyās on the coast of Syria. According to the chronicle of Abū G̲h̲ālib Humam b. al-Faḍl al-Muhad̲h̲d̲h̲ab al-Maʿarrī (quoted in Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfeld, iv. 500) and the Taʾrīk̲h̲ al-Ḳilāʿ wa ’l-Ḥuṣūn of Usāma b. Munḳid̲h̲ (in Abu ’l-Fidāʾ, ed. Reinaud and de Mane, p. 255), it was built by the Muslims in 454 (1062). Al-Dimas̲h̲ḳī (ed. Mehren, p. 208) wrongly attributes its foundation to Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd ¶ (vun Berchem, Voyage, p. 304, note 7 where the reference to Ras̲h̲īd [rather Rās̲h̲id] al-Dīn in Le Strange, Palest…

, a village in Northern Syria in the valley of the Ḳaraṣū between the Amanos and the Kurd Dāg̲h̲ not far from Iṣlāḥīye. Near the village is a tell, the ruins of the old Aramaean town of S̲h̲amʾal, the capital of the little North Syrian state of Yaʾdī (Assyr. Yaudi). It was discovered in 1883 by Hamdy Bey, F. v. Luschan and O. Fuchstein and excavated in 1888, 1890—1891, 1894 and 1902 by the Berlin Orientkomitee under the leadership of K. Humann, F. v. Luschan and F. Winter with the co-operation of J. Euting and W. Koldewey. The citadel of S̲h̲amʾal was surrounded by two concentric circular w…

, a town in Central Syria north-east of Damascus. It is mentioned as early as Georgios Kyprios (ed. Gelzer, p. 188, N°. 993) as Μαγλούλων (MSS. μαγλούδων, μαγαιγλούδων) κλίμα in Phoinike Libanesia. Yāḳūt also calls Maʿlūlāʾ an iḳlīm (κλίμα) near Dimas̲h̲ḳ with many villages. The modern Maʿlūla, a village of Christians, is picturesquely situated at the west end of a deep ravine of the Antilebanon, which splits into a western and southern arm. “At the entrance to the northern lies the monastery of Mār Taḳlā built half into the rocks.…

, a town in Mesopotamia. The name is certainly of Semitic origin and to be derived (with Fhilon Byblios in Steph. Byz.; Müller, F. H. G., Hi. 571, frg. 8) from ΝάσιβιΣ = στήλαι; ( naṣīb). The idol of Naṣībīn is said to have been called Abnīl (Assemani, Bibl. Orient., i., Rome 1719,p. 27), i.e. “stone of El” (according to W. Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, London 1927, p. 210, note 1). On coins the usual form of the place-name is neσibi (Uranios in Steph. Byz.: ΝέσιβιΣ; Pliny, Nat. hist., vi. 42: Nesebis); in the Scriptores Historiae Augustae and elsewhere we find the forms Nitibi(n…

, capital of a nāḥiya of Ḥalab. The name is also written Maʿarrat Naṣrīn which has been wrongly taken as an abbrevation of Maʿarrat Ḳinnasrīn (Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, p. 497). In Syriac manuscripts of the eighth century, the town is called Meʿarret Meṣrēn (Wright, Catalogue of the Syriac MSS. in the Brit. Mus., p. 454b, dated 745 a. d.; Agnes Smith Lewis, The Old Syriac Gospels or Evangelion damepharres̲h̲ē, London 1910: a palimpsest under a collection of biographies of holy women, written by a monk Yōḥannan Stylites of Bēt̲h̲ Marī Ḳānūn, a monaste…

, the name of two towns in the Levant. 1. The Arabs called the Jericho of the Bible Rīḥā or Arīḥā (Clermont-Ganneau, in JA [1877], i, 498). The town, which was 12 mīls east of Jerusalem, was reckoned sometimes to the D̲j̲und of Filasṭīn (e.g. Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am , iii, 913 and sometimes to the district of al-Balḳāʾ (al-Yaʿḳūbī, Buldān , 113); sometimes, however, it was called the capital of the province of Jordan (al-Urdunn) or of G̲h̲awr. the broad low-lying valley of the Jordan (Nahr al-Urdunn) from which it was 10 mīl distant (Yāḳūt, i, 227). As a result of its w…

, an ancient town and seaport on the Red Sea (A. Baḥr al-Ḳulzum [ q.v.], Baḥr al-Hind or Baḥr al-Ḥabas̲h̲a ), now administratively in the province ( muḥāfaẓa ) of al-Suways. It appears to have been a fort as well as a town, and was, ¶ perhaps, the spot where the troops destined to guard the sluices of the canal were stationed. It was called Castrum by Hierocles and Epiphanius ; and κλύσμα (Clysma), or κλεῖσμα is first mentioned by Lucian. Ḳulzum is a corruption of the Greek name κλύσμα (in both Arabic and Greek almost always without the ar…

(present-day (Tkish.) Tilbeşar Kalesi; Armenian Thilpašar, Thil Aveteač; Frankish Turbessel), a fortress and walled town of the ¶ north Syrian borderlands, in present-day southern Turkey, 25 km/15 miles south-east of the city of Gaziantep (ʿAynṭāb [ q.v.]), near the village of Gundoğdu. Although mentioned as early as Assyrian times, the detailed history of Tall Bās̲h̲ir begins at the end of the 5th/11th century, testimony to its position in the path of powers seeking to expand east or west. In 489/1096 the Sald̲j̲ūḳ ruler of Aleppo, Riḍwān b. Tutus̲h̲ [ q.v.], captured it from Yag̲h…

, the Arabic name of Beersheba, in southern Palestine. At this place were the springs which Abraham is said to have dug with his own hands; many legends are current about them. The place was uninhabited from the 8th/14th century, but was rebuilt by the Turks in 1319/ 1901 as an administrative centre for the south. This step was no doubt influenced by the dispute with Britain over the Egyptian-Palestinian frontier and by the need for closer surveillance of the southern tribes. In October 1917 a d…

, the Arabic form of the classical Mopsuestis, Byzantine Greek form Μαμίστρα, Syriac Maṣīṣtā, Armenian Msis, Ottoman Tkish. Miṣṣīṣ, or Missis, modern Tkish. Misis, a town of Cilicia on the western or right bank of the D̲j̲ayḥān [ q.v.], 18 miles/27 km. to the east of Adana [ q.v.] and now in the modern vilayet of Adana. In antiquity it was called Μόψου ἑστία, a name, which (like that of Μόψου χρήνη in the Cilician passes) is derived from the cult of the legendary seer Mopsos (cf. Meyer, Gesch. d. Altert ., i/22, § 483). In ancient times, the town was chiefly famous for its bishop Theod…

, in European sources usually rendered as Mosul, a city of northern Mesopotamia or ʿIrāḳ, on the west bank of the Tigris and opposite to the ancient Nineveh. In early Islamic times it was the capital of Diyār Rabīʿa [ q.v.], forming the eastern part of the province of al-D̲j̲azīra [ q.v.]. At the present time, it is the third largest city of the Republic of ʿIrāḳ. 1. History up to 1900. Al-Mawṣil takes its name from the fact that a number of arms of the river there combine (Arabic, waṣala ) to form a single stream. The town lies close beside the Tigris on a spur of the western steppeplateau ¶ which juts …

, the most important of the four great cities of K̲h̲urāsān (Nīs̲h̲āpūr, Marw, Harāt and Balk̲h̲), one of the great towns of Persia in the Middle Ages. The name goes back to the Persian Nēw-S̲h̲āhpūr (“Fair S̲h̲āpūr”); in Armenian it is called Niu-S̲h̲apuh, Arab. Naysābūr or Nīsābūr, New Pers. Nēs̲h̲āpūr, pronounced in the time of Yāḳūt Nīs̲h̲āwūr, now Nīs̲h̲āpūr (Nöldeke, Ṭabarī , 59, n. 3; G. Hoffmann, Auszüge …, 61, n. 530). The town occasionally bore the official title of honour, Īrāns̲h̲ahr. Nīs̲h̲āpūr was founded by S̲h̲āhpūhr I, son of Ardas̲h̲īr I (Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī, …

, a town of Palestine, in early Islamic times in the d̲j̲und [ q.v.] of Filasṭīn [ q.v.]. It is situated on the coastal plain 40 km/25 miles west-north-west of Jerusalem, inlat. 31° 50′ N., long. 34° 52′ E., and now lies between the modern Israeli towns of Rehovot and Lod (Lydda, Ludd [ q.v.]). The Umayyad caliphs liked to choose little country towns, usually places in Palestine, to live in rather than Damascus. Muʿāwiya, and after him Marwān and others, frequently resided in al-Ṣinnabra on the south bank of the Lake of al-Ṭabariyya, Yazīd I in Haw…

or Tortosa , earlier Anṭarṭūs, frequently Anṭarsūs (by analogy with Ṭarsūs), a town on the Syrian coast, the ancient Antarados opposite the island of Arados (Ar. D̲j̲azīrat Arwād, also written Arwād̲h̲; now Ruwād; concerning the Arab conquest of the island, see L.I. Conrad, The conquest of Arwād : a source-critical study in the historiography of the early medieval Near East , in Averil Cameron and Conrad (eds.), The Byzantine and early Islamic Near East . I. Problems in the literary source material, Princeton 1992, 317-401). Under the Roman empire, Antarados was called Const…

, ḳalʿat al-rūm , a fortress in mediaeval northern Syria, which lay on the right bank of the Euphrates river where it takes its great westernmost bend, hence to the north-north-west of Bīred̲j̲ik [ q.v.]. Its site accordingly comes within the modern Turkish province ( il) of Gaziantep. According to Arnold Nöldeke’s description, it is situated “on a steeply sloping-tongue of rock, lying along the right bank of the Euphrates, which bars the direct road to the Euphrates from the west for its tributary the Merziman as it breaks through the edge o…

, in Ottoman usage Zeytūn , a town of southeastern Anatolia, now called Süleymanh. The town (lat. 37° 53’ N., long. 36° 50’ E., altitude 940 m/3,080 feet) lies in the basin of the upper reaches of the D̲j̲ayhān [ q.v.]/Ceyhan river, and the old part of it rises in terraces on the slopes of a steep hill crowned by a Turkish-period fortress. Its former Armenian inhabitants called it Zetʿun or Ulnia, or simply Kegʿ “village”. An Aplgharip (? ʿAbd al-Ḳarīb) of Fornos, to the southwest of Zaytūn, is mentioned at the beginning of the reign of Leon I of Little Armenia (1129-37) ( Rec. hist. Crois ., Doc. arm …

[English edition] اسم موقع بالعراق يبعد حوالي ستين ميلاً جنوب غرب بغداد. اشتهر بواقعة استشهاد الحسين بن علي حفيد الرسول فيه، حيث قُتل ودُفن جسده مقطوع الرأس هناك. (قبر الحسين). (للاطلاّع على كلّ هذه الأحداث، راجع مدخل الحسين بن علي). وحين أصبحت كربلاء مكانا للحجّ، صارت تُعرف بين الناس بمشهد الحسين. يُحتمل أنّ أصل اسم كربلاء من الأرامية كاربيلا (دانيال، 3: 21)، أومن السريانية، كربلّتو ويعنى «نوعًا من أنواع أغطية الرأس». (انظر: G. Jacob, Türkische Bibliothek, xi, 35, n. 2). لا ذكر لكربلاء في المرحلة السابقة للإسلام. أقام خالد بن الوليد مخيّما في كربلاء بعد فتحه الحيرة. (ياق…