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, a plain west of the Ḏj̲ebel Ḥawrān on the border of Trachonitis in Transjordan. The name al-Nuḳra (“the cavity”) is quite modern. It is applied to an area, which includes the two districts of al-Bat̲h̲anīya (with its chief town Ad̲h̲riʿāt) and Ḥawrān (west of the hills of the same name), i. e. the whole northern half of Transjordan. In the wider sense al-Nuḳra includes all the country from al-Led̲j̲āʾ, Ḏj̲aidūr and al-Balḳāʾ to the foot of the Ḏj̲ebel Ḥawrān, in the narrower sense only the southern part of thi…

, the name of two left bank tributaries (al-Zawābī) of the Tigris. 1. The Upper or Great Zāb ( Zāb al-aʿlā or al-akbar) was known already to the Assyrians as Zabu ēlū, the “Upper Zāb”. The Greeks called it Lykos (Weissbach, s. v., N°. 12 in Pauly-Wissowa, R.E., vol. xiii., col. 2391 sq.; on the name see J. Markwart, Südarmenien, Vienna 1930, p. 429 sq.), the Byzantines however have again ό μέγαΣ ΖάβαΣ (Theophan., Chron., ed. de Boor, p. 318, 320). In Syriac it was called Zābhā, in Armenian Zaw (Thomas Arcruni, ed. Patkanean, 111/iv., p. 143; transl. Brosset, in Collection d’hist. Arméniens, i. 1…

, a town in North Syria at the point where the Nahr Ḳuwaiḳ enters the swampy lake of il-Maṭk̲h̲. In ancient times it was called ΧαλκίΣ, Chalcis ad Belum and lay ἐν μεθορίοιΣ ’Αράβων (Diodorus, Bibl., xxxiii. 4a); perhaps it is to it that the note in Stephen of Byzantium refers, according to which a town named Chalkis was founded by the Arab ΜονικόΣ. In the late classical period a part of the Syro-Arabian limes was called τὸ λίμιτον ΧαλκίδοΣ (Malalas, p. 296, 5). In this region the Arabs very early immigrated into Byzantine territory; at al-Ḥiyār (the later Ḥiyār bani ’l-Ḳaʿḳāʿ) in the district …

, a town in the southeast of Asia Minor. It is the chief town in a ḳazā of the wilāyet (formerly sand̲j̲aḳ) of Marʿas̲h̲ and is (or was before the recent persecutions) inhabited for the most part by Armenians, who call it Zet̲h̲un or Ulnia, usually however simply Keg̲h̲ (“village”). The name Ulni (Ulnia) is also used for the whole of the mountainous country on the Ḏj̲aiḥān between Ḳaratūt̲h̲ (S. W. of Albistān) and Bertis. Whether Ulnia was originally the name of Zaitūn or Furnus to the S. W. of…

, arab. al-Maṣṣīṣa, a town in Cilicia on the Ḏj̲aiḥān. In antiquity it was called Μόψου ἑστία a name, which (like that of Μόψου κρήνη in the Cilician passes) is derived from the cult of the legendary seer Mopsos (cf. Meyer, Gesch. d. Altert., I/ii.2, § 483). In ancient times, the town was chiefly famous for its bishop Theodoras (d. 428), the teacher of Nestorius and friend of the suffragan bishop and inventor of the Armenian alphabet, ¶ Mas̲h̲tʿocʿ (Peeters, Revue des Etudes Armén., ix., Paris 1929, p. 210; on him cf. e.g. al-Masʿūdī, Tanbīh, ed. de Goeje, p. 152; Mich. Syr., transl. Cha…

, a fortress in Northern Syria. 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 of the plateau, so that it is forced to make a curve northwards around this tongue. The connection between this tongue of rock, some 1,300 feet long and about half as broad, and the plateau which rises above …

(Lādīḳ, Greek Λαοδίκεια), the name of several towns in Asia Minor. 1. The ancient Λαοδίκεια κατακεκαυμένη ( Lādīḳ Sūk̲h̲ta). It probably derived this name from the smelting furnaces which it had around it as the centre of the quicksilver mining area. It was in Ḳaramān north of Ḳūniya on the great military road which ran through Asia Minor. Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Ḵh̲alīfa already knows it by its modern name of Yorgān Lādīḳ or Lād̲h̲iḳīya in Ḳaramān. Bibliography Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Ḵh̲alīfa, Ḏj̲ihān-Numā, p. 611 sqq. Ibn Bībī, ed. Houtsma in Recueil de textes relat. à. L’hist. des Siljoucides, iii. 23, 25 …

, a town in Northern Syria on the eastern side of the Ḏj̲abal al-Nuṣairīye. The pronunciation and orthography of the name varies between the forms Maṣyād, Maṣyāf (in official documents and on the inscriptions mentioned below of the years 646 and 870 a. h.), Maṣyāt and Maṣyāt̲h̲. (on the interchange of f and t̲h̲ see Rescher, Z.D.M.G., lxxiv. 465; Praetorius, Z. D. M. G., Ixxv. 292; Dussaud, Topographie hist. de la Syrie, p. 143, note 4; 209; 395, note 3). The variants Maṣyāb (Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfeld, iv. 556), Maṣyāh (Ḵh̲alīl al-Ẓāhirī, Zubda, ed. Ravaisse, p. 49) and Maṣyāṭ (al-Nāb…

, a fortress of the Crusaders east of the Araba in the mountains of al-S̲h̲arā. It was built in 509 (1115) by Baldwin I of Jerusalem in 18 days in Syria Sobal and was called Mens Regalis (Montréal, also le Crac de Montréal to distinguish it from Crac des Moabites, i. e. Kerak [q. v.] and Crac des Chevaliers, i. e. Ḥiṣn al-Akrād [q. v.]) by the Franks. The site of the fortress was, as William of Tyre (xi. 26; Migne, Patrol. Lat., cci., col. 514 sqq.) points out, very suitable for the building of an impregnable fortress. It is therefore not improbable that, as Yāḳūṭ (iii. 332) indi…

(Palestine). Under Turkish rule and British mandate. By the victory of Selīm I at Dābiḳ on the 25th Rad̲j̲ab 922 (Aug. 24, 1516) Palestine passed into the hands of the Ottoman Turks for 400 years. During this period of cultural and economic decline there were formed a number of small temporary independent Druse states like that of Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn (1595—1634), of Ẓāhir al-ʿAmr (about 1750), of Aḥmad al-Ḏj̲ezzār (Ḏj̲ezzār Pas̲h̲a) and his successors who usually ruled in ʿAkkā and held a considerable part of Galilee…

, properly Faḥṣ al-Tīh, is the name of the desert forming the frontier between Syria and Egypt in the interior of the Sinai Peninsula. The Arab geographers also call it the “Desert of the Banī Isrāʾīl”. As early as the Tabula Peutingeriana we find the legend: Desertum ubi quadraginta annis errauerunt filii Israel ducente Moyse and on the map of Mādabā: ἔρημοΣ [ὅπου] τοὺΣ ’ΙσραηλίταΣ ἔσωσ [εν] ὁ χαλκοῦΣ ὄΦιΣ and ἔρημοΣ Σὶν ὅπου κατεπέμΦθη τὸ μάννα καὶ ἡ ὀρτυγομήτρα. In the desert there was a fortress of the same name (De Guignes, Perle des Merveilles, N. E., ii. 31); there is a Wādi ’l-Tīh i…

, the Arabic name for the Mediterranean. It took its name from al-Rūm (Bilād al-Rūm), the Roman, i. e. Byzantine, Empire. Other names were also used, such as Baḥr al-Mag̲h̲rib [q. v.]. The name Adria, which originally meant only the Adriatic Sea, became applied in later antiquity to an area which gradually expanded eastwards. For example Jordanes speaks of Rodus totius Atriae insularum metropolis and the Tabula Peutingeriana makes the Adriaticum Pelagus extend to Crete (Partsch, Pauly-Wissowa’s Realenzykl., i., col. 418; A. Ronconi, Per l’onomastica antica dei mari, in Studi italian…

, 1. Ḏj̲abal al-Tūr, more rarely Ṭūr Sīnāʾ, Mount Sinai. The Arab geographers (Abu ’l-Fidāʾ, ed. Reinaud, p. 69; al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, transl. Wüstenfeld, in Abh. G. W. Gött., xxv. 100; Maḳrīzī, Gesch. d. Kopten, transl. Wüstenfeld, op. cit., iii. 113; Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfeld, iii. 557) explain the name as of Hebrew origin; it occurs once in the Ḳurʾān as Ṭūr Sīnīn (xcv. 2, emended in Ibn al-Faḳīh, B. G. A., v. 104 to Ṭūr Sīnā). The mountain which lay not far from the Red Sea ( Baḥr al-Ḳulzum) was climbed from al-Amn (Elim?), where the children of Israel once encamped. In the…

, a battlefield near Dābiḳ [q.v.] on the Nahr al-Ḳuwaiḳ in northern Syria. On the history of the town of Dābiḳ, which was known to the Assyrians as Dabigu (Sachau, Z. A., xii. 47) and is called Δάβεκον by Theophanes ( Chron., ed. de Boor, p. 431, 451 sq.) cf. above vol. i., dābik. For convenience in his campaigns against the Byzantines, Sulaimān b. ʿAbd al-Malik moved the headquarters of the Syrian troops from Ḏj̲ābiya to Dābiḳ (Lammens, supra i., d̲j̲ābiya). In 717 with an army under ʿUbaida he set out from Mard̲j̲ Dābiḳ for Asia Minor and on his return died there in Ṣafar…

, the name of two towns. 1. The Arabs called the Jericho ofthe Bible Rīḥā or Arīḥā (Clermont-Ganneau, in J.A., 1877, i. 498). The town, which was 12 mīl E. of Jerusalem, was reckoned sometimes to the Ḏj̲und of Filasṭīn (Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, iii. 913, e.g.) and sometimes to the district of al-Balḳāʾ (Yaʿḳūbī, in B. G. A., vii. 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 warm moist climate and the rich irr…

, capital of Filasṭīn, 25 miles E. N. E. of Jerusalem. The Umaiyad 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-Ṭabarīya, Yazīd I in Hawwārīn, Ad̲h̲riʿāt, ʿAbd al-Malik in al-Ḏj̲ābiya, Walīd in Usais (now Tell Sais S. E. of Damascus) and al-Ḳaryatain and his ¶ sons in al-Ḳaṣtal, Yazīd II also in al-Muwaḳḳar near Fudain or in Bait Raʾs (Lammens, La Bâdia et la Ḥîra sous les Omaiyades, in M.F.O.B., iv., 1910, p. 91—112; A.…

(Urtuḳids), a Turkmen dynasty, branches of which ruled in Mārdīn, Ḥiṣn Kaifā and Ḵh̲artabirt. When the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sulṭān of Damascus, Tutus̲h̲, conquered Jerusalem in 479 he appointed as governor of the town his officer Urtuḳ b. Aksab, who had already served under Maliks̲h̲āh and had taken part in the siege of Āmid in 477. He was succeeded in 484 (1091) by his sons Sukmān and and Īlg̲h̲āzī. After the Holy City had been taken for the Fāṭimids in S̲h̲aʿbān 489 (1096) by al-Afḍal b. Badr al-Ḏj̲amālī, Sukmān went to al-Ruhā and ¶ Īlg̲h̲āzī to his lands in the ʿIrāḳ. In 495 (1101) Sulṭān Mu…

, a district in al-Ḏj̲ibāl (Media) south of Mount Alwand, halfway between Hamad̲h̲ān and Nihāwand. According to Ibn al-Faḳīh, it was a valley in the district of Nihāwand, which was three farsak̲h̲s in length and formed one of the most pleasing spots in the Sāsānian empire with its 93 villages all linked up one another by an uninterrupted stretch of orchards and perennial streams. The principal product was a world renowned saffron which was exported through Nihāwand and also through Hamad̲h̲ān. T…

, the most important of the four great cities of Ḵh̲urāsān (Nīs̲h̲āpūr, Marw, Herāt and Balk̲h̲), one of the great towns of Īrān in the middle ages. The name goes back to the Persian Nēw-S̲h̲āhpuhr (“Fair S̲h̲āpūr”); in Armenian it is called Niu-S̲h̲apuh, Arab. Naisābūr or Nīsābūr, new Pers. Nēs̲h̲āpūr, pronounced in the time of Yāḳūt: Nīs̲h̲āwūr, now Nīs̲h̲āpūr (Nöldeke, Ṭabarī, p. 59, note 3; G. Hoffmann, Auszüge . . ., p. 61, note 530). The town occasionally bore the official title of honour, Īrāns̲h̲ahr. Nīs̲h̲āpūr was founded by S̲h̲āhpuhr I, son of Ardas̲h̲īr I (Ḥamza al-I…

, Raḥbat Mālik b. Ṭawḳ or Raḥbat al-S̲h̲aʾm, a town on the right bank of the Euphrates, the modern al-Miyādīn. Hardly anything definite is known about the history of the town before the Muslim era. In the middle ages it was usually identified as the Reḥōbōt han-Nāhār of the Bible (Gen. xxxvi. 37) i.e. Reḥōbōt on the river (Euphrates) especially in the Talmud and by the Syriac authors (e. g. Mich. Syr., cf. index, p. 63*; Barhebraeus, Chron. syr., ed. Bedjan, p. 273 and passim), who usually call it Reḥabōt, Raḥabat (M. Hartmann, in Z.D.P.V., xxiii., p. 42, note 1). A. Musil ( The Middle Euphrates, N…

, a river in Syria, now called S̲h̲arīʿat al-Manāḍira (from the Beduin tribe ʿArab al-Manāḍira). It rises in the Ḥawrān, flows west through a deeply cut valley of erosion, the Wādī al-Ramād, which describes a flat curve open to the south, to the G̲h̲awr, where it flows into the Nahr al-Urdunn (the Jordan) below Lake Gennesareth at Ḏj̲isr al-Mud̲j̲āmiʿ. Pliny calls it ( Hist. Nat., v. 74) Hieromix or Hieromices ( Gadara Hieromice praefluente, var. Hieromiace; the now so popular form “ Hieromax” is not recorded). On the 12th Rad̲j̲ab 15 (Aug. 20, 636 a. d.) in the celebrated battle on the Y…

, 1. a place in Syria. It is situated in the ḥarra of al-Ṣafāʾ on an eminence in the Wādi ’l-S̲h̲ām, which runs from the Ḏj̲ebel al-Drūz (Ḏj̲ebel al-Ḥawrān) to the plain of Ruḥba, at the spot where it joins the Wādi ’l-Saʾūṭ. It ¶ corresponds to the Roman military post of Namara (Waddington, Inscriptions, N°. 2270). Less than a mile S. E. of al-Namāra, Dussaud found the Nabataean-Arab tomb inscription of the “King of all the Arabs”, Maiu ’l-Ḳais bar ʿAmru, i. e. the Lak̲h̲mid Imru ’l-Ḳais b. ʿAmru, of the 7th Keslūl 223 of the era of Boṣrāʾ = Dec. 7,. 328 a. d. (cf. vol. i., p. 382a). Bibliography R. Duss…

(Greek Edessa, Syr. Orhāi, Armen. Urhay, Ar. al-Ruhāʾ), an important town in Diyār Muḍar, the ancient Osrhoëne. The origin of the town, which must have existed before the Macedonian conquest, is lost in obscurity. Repeated attempts to prove the existence of the name in Assyrian times (E. Honigmann, Urfa keilinschriftlich nachweisbar?, in Z. A., N. F., v. 1930, p. 301 sq.) have so far failed. The original name was probably ’Ορρόη which has survived in that of the spring Καλλιῤῥόη, which lay below the walls of the town, and in that of the district of Osrho…

, capital of Diyār Muḍar in al-Ḏj̲azīra on the left bank of the Euphrates, shortly before it is joined by the Nahr Balīk̲h̲ (ΒασίλειοΣ, Βίληχα, ΒάλισσоΣ). The town was in antiquity called Kallinikos. Nikephorion is to be located in the same region (Strabo, xvi. 747; Isidores of Charax, in Geogr. Graeci Min., ed. Müller, p. 247; Dio Cass., xl. 13; Pliny, Nat. Hist., v. 86; vi. 119; Ptolemy, Geogr., v. 17; Stephen Byz.); but its usual identification with Kallinikos is certainly wrong and it may be a case of two adjoining towns as with the “black” and “white al-Raḳ…

(ʿAin Warda), a town in al-Ḏj̲azīra on the Ḵh̲ābūr. In ancient times it was already known as Resain-Theodosiopolis ( Notitia dignitatum, or. xxxvi. 20) or ‘Ρέσινα (Steph. Byz.), Syriac Rēs̲h̲ ʿAinā. On account of its position at the sources of the Ḵh̲ābūr it has been identified with the road-station Fons Scabora of the Tabula Peutingeriana (fons Chabura in Pliny, Nat. hist., xxxi. 37; xxxii. 16) (E. Herzfeld, Reise im Euphrat u. ¶ Tigris-Gebiet, i. 191; A. Poidebard, La Trace de Rome dans le désert de Syrie, p. 151 sq.). According to Ioannes Malalas (Bonn, p. 345 sq.) in whom the form ‘Ρoφ…

, an Ortokid. He was the son and successor of Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn Ḳarā-Arslān, lord of Ḥiṣn Kaifā and of a considerable part of Diyār Bakr (Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, Kāmil, ed. Tornberg, xi. 217) who, according to Ibn al-At̲h̲īr (xi. 207), died in 562 (1166—1167) but according to the numismatic evidence may have lived till 570 or 571 (van Berchem, Abh. Ges. Wiss. Gött., N. F., vol. IX/iii., 1907, p. 143, note 3). Nūr al-Dīn married the daughter of Sulṭān Ḳi̊li̊d̲j̲ Arslān but when he treated her disgracefully, his father-in-law was very angry and threatened him with war…

, a town in northern Syria, often called simply al-Maʿarra. It is celebrated as the birthplace of the poet Abu ’l-ʿAlāʾ Aḥmad al-Maʿarrī [q. v.]. According to al-Samʿānī ( Kitāb al-Ansāb, reproduced by D. S. Margoliouth, G.M.S., xx., 1912, fol. 536v, l. ¶ 4) the nisba from the place-name was Maʿarnamī to distinguish it from that of Maʿarrat Naṣrīn, Maʿarnasī. The town probably lay on the site of the ancient Arra which is called Κώμη ῎Αῤῥων οἰνοφοροΣ in an inscription. Yaʿḳūbī says that Maʿarrat al-Nuʿmān is an old town in ruins. Nāṣir-i Ḵh̲usraw in 438 …

, an old city, not far from the upper Euphrates. It lies at the junction of important roads (in antiquity: the Persian royal road and the Euphrates route; in modern times Samsūn-Sīwās-Malaṭya-Diyārbakr and Ḳaisarīya-Albistān-Malaṭya-Ḵh̲arpūt) in a plain, the fertility and richness of which in all kinds of vegetables and fruits was celebrated by the Arab geographers, as in modern times by von Moltke and others, at the northern foot of the Taurus not very far south of Tok̲h̲ma-ṣū (Arab. Naḥr al-Ḳu…

, earlier Anṭarṭūs, frequently Anṭarsūs (by analogy with Ṭarsūs), a town on the Syrian coast; the ancient Antarados opposite the island of Arados (Arabic Ḏj̲azīrat Arwād, also written Arwād̲h̲; now Ruwād). Under the Roman empire, Antarados was called Constantia but the old name remained alongside of this and in the end drove the latter out again. The Muslims took the fortress of Ṭarṭūs under ¶ ʿUbāda b. al-Ṣāmit in 17 (638). The town was destroyed and remained for a lung time uninhabited. Muʿāwiya rebuilt it, fortified it and settled there and in Maraḳīya an…

(a., plur. of t̲h̲ag̲h̲r, “cleft, opening”), the zone of the fortresses built against the Byzantines in the Syrian and Mesopotamián marches (hence also T̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr al-Rūmīya). In Constantinos Porphyrogennetos they are called τὰ Στόμια ( De Cerimon., ed. Bonn, i. 657; cf. Reiske’s note, ii., p. 777 = Migne, Patrol. Graec., cxii., col. 1220, note 38), by the Syrians “the land of Tagrā” (Michael Syrus, ed. Chabot, iii. 20 sq., 467; Barhebraeus, Chron. Eccles., ed. Abbeloos-Lamy, i. 339 sq.). This frontier zone ran from Ṭarsūs [q. v.] in Cilicia along the Taurus on to Malaṭya…

, a town in the ʿIrāḳ, near al-Kūfa. It is known mainly from the accounts of the battle of Ḳādisīya. From the statements collected by Yāḳūt regarding its position it appears that two different places of this name had later to be distinguished, namely one near Kūfa on the road to Syria, which is several times mentioned in the time of the Caliphs ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya and another, a watering station between al-Mug̲h̲īt̲h̲a and al-ʿAḳaba, 3 mīl from al-Ḥufair, to the right of the road to Mecca. Several encounters took place there during the second battle of Ḳādisīya. According…

, in French usually Lattaquié or Lattakié, became the capital of the autonomous “gouvernement de Lattaquié (État des Alaouites)”, created on Aug. 31, 1920 by the French mandatory administration; its constitution was promulgated on May 14, 1930 by the Haut-Commissaire. Since that date the town, which under Turkish rule before the World War looked ruined and filthy, has developed into a clean and flourishing town. It has about 25,000 inhabitants including about 18,000 Sunnī Muslims, 400 Orthodox G…

the Arabic name of Beers̲h̲ebaʿ in Southern Palestine. At this place, south of ʿAsḳalān, were the springs which Abraham was said to have dug with his own hands; many legends were current about them. The place has been uninhabited since the xivth century. Numerous Greek inscriptions have been found at the modern Bīr es-Sebaʿ. (E. Honigmann) Bibliography Lord Lindsay’s codex of the Marāṣid in Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfeld, v. 14, 1. 5 ʿAlī al-Harawī, Oxford MS., fol. 46 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, ed. Defrémery and Sanguinetti i. 126 Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems, London 1890, p. 402 sq. Robins…

the ancient Hebron, so called after the “friend of God” (θεοΦιλήΣ), Abraham (see the art. ibrāhīm), a town in South Palestine (also called Ḥabrūn, Ḥabrā or Masd̲j̲id Ibrāhīm). It lay in an exceedingly fertile valley between the heights of the Ḏj̲abal Naṣra (? reading uncertain) noted especially for its richness in fruits. According to a widely disseminated legend, Muḥammad is said to have granted the four districts Ḥabrūn, al-Marṭūm (so Yāḳūt, ii. 194; in Nāṣir-i Ḵh̲usraw, Safar-nama, ed. Kawiani 1923, p. 46, 14: Maṭlūn, varr. Marṭlūn, Marṭūn; in al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ṣubḥ al-Aʿs̲h̲ā, ed…

, the harbour of Anṭākiya, which lay 12 mīl from the Mediterranean. The town owed its rise owing to the gradual silting up of the harbour of Seleucia Pieria which lay a little farther north. Even in the time of Vespasian an attempt had been made, by making a great tunnel through the rock (which still exists and is called al-Gārīs, i. e. the Pers. Čehrīz or Kārīz) to avert the danger of setting up its port from the great trading centre but without permanent success. In the early Muslim period Salūḳīya is still occasionally mentioned (al-Balād̲h̲urī, ed de Goeje, p. 148, 12: Ḥiṣn Salūḳīya; al-Masʿūd…

, an Arab people who lived in ancient times in Arabia Petraea. — As early as the seventh century B. C. the Nabayāti are mentioned by Assurbanipal ( Keilinschr. Bibl., ii. 216 sqq.). Whether the Nebayōt̲h̲ of the Old Testament are to be identified with them is uncertain (against the identification: Nöldeke in Schenkel’s Bibellexicon, s. v. Nabatäer; for it amongst others: Musil, Arabia Deserta, New York 1927, p. 492). The Nabataeans were never completely subjected either by the Assyrians, or the Medes, Persians or the Macedonian kings (Diodor. ii. 48). In 312 b.c. Antigonos sent two expe…

(Mas̲h̲had ʿAlī), a town and place of pilgrimage in the ʿIrāḳ 6 miles west of al-Kūfa. It lies on the edge of the desert on a flat barren eminence from which the name al-Nad̲j̲af has been transferred to it (A. Musil, The Middle Euphrates, p. 35). According to the usual tradition, the Imām al-Muʾminīn ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib [q. v.] was buried near Kūfa, not far from the dam which protected the city from flooding by the Euphrates at the place where the town of al-Nad̲j̲af later arose (Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfeld, iv. 760), also called Nad̲j̲af al-Kūfa (Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Lexicon geographicum, ed. …

(Kerbelāʾ), a place of pilgrimage west of the Euphrates about 60 miles S.S.W. of Bag̲h̲dād on the edge of the desert (Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am, ed. Wüstenfeld, iv. 249). It lay opposite Ḳaṣr Ibn Hubaira (al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, B.G.A., i. 85; cf. al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ, ed. de Goeje, p. 287; al-Maḳdisī, B.G.A., iii. 121). The name Kerbelāʾ is probably connected with Aram. Karbelā (Daniel, 3, 21) and Assyr. Karballatu (a kind of headdress) (G. Jacob, Türkische Bibliothek, xi. 35, note 2). It is not mentioned in the pre-Arab period. After the taking of al-Ḥīra, Ḵh̲ālid b. al-Walīd is said to have …

, a fortress in Northern Syria, on the Nahr Sād̲j̲ūr near ʿAintāb, two days’ journey north of Aleppo. It lies in a broad plain and according to Abu ’l-Fidāʾ was mainly inhabited by Armenian Christians; the Armenians explained its name Tʿlpas̲h̲ar as a translation of the Armenian Tʿil Aveteac, i. e. “hill of the glad tidings ( avetikʿ)” which it formerly bore (Matthēos Uṙhayecʿi, ed. Dulaurier, p. 330, 433 sq.). It had markets and a suburb (probably the modern Tell Bās̲h̲ir Mezraʿasi̊ S. E. of the fortress) and was surrounded by well watered gardens. The town is mentioned as early as Assy…

(al-Mawṣil), the capital of Diyār-Rabīʿa [q. v.] on the west bank of the Tigris, opposite the ancient Niniveh. Whether the town already existed in antiquity is unknown. E. Herzfeld ( Archäol. Reise, ii. 207, 259) has suggested that Xenophon’s Μέσπιλα reproduces its old name and that we should read ¶ *Μέπσιλα (= Mawṣil); but against this view we have the simple fact that this town lay on the east bank of the Tigris (F. H. Weissbach in Pauly-Wissowa, R. e., xv., col. 1164). The Muslims placed the foundation of the town in mythical antiquity and ascribed it to Rēwand b. Bēwarāsp …

(Ruṣāfat al-S̲h̲aʾm, Ruṣāfat His̲h̲ām), a town in the desert in the Syrian Palmyrene, 4 farsak̲h̲s or 25 miles south of the Euphrates. The town already bore this name in the pre-Muḥammadan period. The Assyrian lists of eponyms mention in the years 840, 838, 804, 775, 747, and 737 b. c, a town Ra-ṣap-pa as the residence of the Assyrian governor ( s̲h̲aknu). On a relief stele of Adadnirari IV Raṣappa is mentioned among the lands governed by Urigallu-eres̲h̲ and formed with Ḳatni (now Tell Ḏj̲ellāl on the Ḵh̲ābūr) an administrative district (Unger, Reliefstele Adadnirarī’s III. aus Sabdʾa…

(Bambyke, Hierapolis), an ancient city in northern Syria, two days’ journey or 10 farsak̲h̲ N. E. of Ḥalab, about 3 farsak̲h̲s from the Euphrates. It lay in a fertile plain, and had a double wall built by the Greeks. According to Ibn Ḵh̲urdād̲h̲bih, there was a very fine church there, built of wood ( B.G. A., vi. 161 sq.). Ps. Dionysios (ed. Chabot, p. 47, 68) mentions a church of the Virgin and another of St. Thomas in Manbid̲j̲. There were no buildings in the neighbourhood of the town (Nāṣir-i Ḵh̲usraw, ed. Schefer, p. 31); Abu ’l-Fidāʾ mentions the …

, a sea-port in Northern Syria, the ancient Λαοδίκεια ἡ ἐπὶ θαλάσσῃ. It was founded by Seleucus I, who called it after his mother Laodike, and towards the end of the Seleucid empire it was a member of the alliance of the four most important Syrian cities, the πόλειΣ ἀδελΦαί, Antiocheia, Apameia, Seleuceia and Laodiceia. In the reign of Justinian I it was made the capital of the newly founded province of Theodorias. When the Arabs under the governor of Ḥimṣ, ʿUbāda b. al-Ṣāmit al-Anṣārī, advanced on the town, the inhabitants made a determined resistance. ʿUbāda encamp…

or Yāfa, Joppa, Jaffa, a town on the Mediterranean, the port of Jerusalem. It occurs in the form Y-pw as early as the xvith century b. c. in the list of towns in Palestine taken by Thutmosis III (W. Max Müller, in M. V. A. G., xii., 1907, i., p. 21, N°. 62). In the Amarna tablets and among the Assyrians it was called Yapū or Yappū, in Phoenician inscriptions , in the Bible Yāfō and by the Greeks ’Ιόπη or ’Ιόππη. Yāfā is already the port of Jerusalem in the Bible, to which king Hiram sent in floats the wood destined for the building of the temple. Before the conquest by Sennacherib (701 b. c.) it was subject …

(Tyre), the island city of Phoenicia. From the Amarna period it was one of the richest commercial centres of the Syrian coast and gradually developed into a powerful rival of the adjoining Sidon [q. v.] for dominion over the Phoenician colonies in the west. Its conquest and destruction by Alexander the Great only deprived the flourishing metropolis of its importance for a brief period; but it had one permanent important result, namely that the island city was henceforth connected with the mainla…

(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…