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, a port on the Red Sea coast of the Tihāma or lowland of the southern Ḥid̲j̲āz, situated in lat. 19°9′ N. and long. 41°04′ E. and at the mouth of the Wādī Ḳanawnā. It lies 210 miles south of D̲j̲idda or D̲j̲udda [ q.v.] and 45 miles north of Ḥaly. The town is in the form of a large rectangle enclosed by a wall, strengthened at several points by towers and pierced by three gates. Practically the only stone buildings are at the harbour, where is the bazaar with its one-storied warehouses in an irregular line, and the chief mosque and smaller mosq…

(a. “uplands”), conventionally defined as the plateau region of the Arabian peninsula lying to the east of the Red Sea lowlands (al-Tihāma [ q.v.]) and the mountain barrier running down through the western side of the peninsula (al-Ḥid̲j̲āz [ q.v.]). 1. Geography and habitat. ¶ The exact application of this originally topographical conception is very differently understood, and sometimes it means more generally the elevated country above the coastal plain or the extensive country, the upper part of which is formed by the Tihāma and the Yam…

, name of a district and a village south of Ṣanʿāʾ in the Yemen, known to the Arab geographers for its mine of carnelian. It is also the name of a mountain chain in al-Sarāt [see d̲j̲azīrat al-ʿarab , ʿasīr , al-ḥid̲j̲āz ]. According to Sprenger, there is no reason to identify the Himyaritic tribe of this name with the Μοκρι̃ται of Ptolemy, since the latter must be localised in the neighbourhood of Nad̲j̲rān. (A. Grohmann) Bibliography Ḥamdānī, Ṣifa, ed. D.H. Müller, 68, 104 ff. Muḳaddasī, 91 Ibn al-Faḳīh, 36 Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 141 Yaʿḳūbī, Buldān, 319, tr. Wiet, 158 Yāḳūt, iii, 130, iv, …

(κάλαμος, reed), the reed-pen used for writing in Arabic script. It is a tube of reed cut between two knots, sliced obliquely (or concave) at the thicker end and with the point slit, in similar fashion to the European quill and later the steel pen. The reed has to be very firm so that it does not wear away too quickly; the best kind comes from Wāsiṭ and grows in the marshes ( baṭāʾiḥ ) of ʿIrāḳ, but those from the swamps of Egypt (al-Muḳaddasī, BGA, iii, 203, 1. 13) or from Fāris were also recommended. Those from a rocky ground were called ṣuk̲h̲rī , those from the seashore baḥrī (Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi, al-ʿIḳd…

, the name of several places in south Arabia. 1. The name of a sanctuary mentioned in the inscription Halévy No. 686, 3—4, copied from a building in ʿAden by J. Halévy ( miḥrābān Kaw-kabān ). ¶ Cf. also F. Hommel, Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des alten Orients , ii, Leipzig 1925, 707. 2. The name of a castle near Ẓafār north of Nāʿaṭ. It was called Kawkabān, “the two stars,” i.e. star-castle, because it was adorned with silver stripes outside, the roof was covered with white slabs of stone, the interior panelled with cypress wood and pav…

1. The name of a South Arabian tribe, of great antiquity and now divided into two branches. The larger section, which al-Hamdānī calls K̲h̲awlān al-ʿāliya , is now known as K̲h̲awlān al-ṭiyāl and dwells south-east of Ṣanʿāʾ on the upper reaches of the Wādī D̲h̲ana, with the lands of Murād to the south-east and Nihm, in the highlands proper, to the north-west. The tribe now belongs to Bakīl. Their territory, which was described by Carsten Niebuhr in 1763 and visited by Eduard Glaser in 1885-6, is a very m…

, a strip of coast on the Persian Gulf. The Arab geographers are not agreed as to its exact extent. While Yāḳūt limits the name to the coast of al-Baḥrayn and ʿUmān, which is also apparent from the mention of al-Ḳaṭīf, al-ʿUḳayr and Ḳaṭar, al-Bakrī says definitely that al-K̲h̲aṭṭ is the whole coast between ʿUmān and al-Baṣra on the one side and Kāẓima and al-S̲h̲iḥr on the other. This difference of opinion is probably the result of the variation in extent of ʿUmān and al-Baḥrayn in the wider sense of these terms in course of time. There are in any case authors who allot al-K̲h̲aṭṭ to eithe…

, a small volcanic island in the Red Sea in 17° 52’ N lat., called Kotumble on the English Admiralty charts and Qotanbul in Admiralty handbook, Western Arabia and the Red Sea, London 1946, 133. The island has a rich flora, which has been studied by the botanist Ehrenberg, and is noteworthy for its iron deposits, which are mentioned as early as the geographer Ibn al-Mud̲j̲āwir (d. 630/1233). Kudummul, which lies near Ḥamiḍa on the Arabian coast off ʿAsīr [ q.v.], once marked the boundary between the land of the Kināna and Yemen. (A. Grohmann) Bibliography al-Hamdānī, Ṣifat d̲j̲azīrat al-ʿArab,…

(or al-Maʿāfir ), the name of a South Arabian tribe, the genealogy of which is given as Yaʿfur b. Mālik b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Murra b. Udad b. Humaysaʿ b. ʿAmr b. Yas̲h̲d̲j̲ib b. ʿArīb b. Zayd b. Kahlān b. Sabaʾ; they are included among the Ḥimyar. The name was also given to the territory which the tribe inhabited and this corresponded roughly with the Turkish ḳaḍāʾ of Taʿizziyya and the present Yemen Arab Republic province ( ḳaḍāʾ) of al-Ḥud̲j̲ariyya (pronounced locally al-Ḥugariyya), itself part of the administrative area ( liwāʾ ) of Taʿizz. In early and mediaeval times it is described as a mik̲h̲…

, Yemen, the southwestern part of the Arabian peninsula, now coming substantially within the unified Republic of Yemen (which also includes as its eastern region the former People’s Democratic Republic of South Yemen, the pre-1967 Aden Protectorate, essentially the historic Ḥaḍramawt [ q.v. in Vol. III and also in Suppl.; see also suḳuṭra ]). ¶ 1. Definition and general introduction. The name is variously explained in the Arabic sources; some say it was given because al-Yaman lies to the right of the Kaʿba or to the right of the sun (al-Bakrī, ii, 856), …

, the Arabs. (See also al-ʿarab , d̲j̲azīrat , as well as ʿarabiyya and the articles on the several Arab countries). (i) the ancient history of the arabs (For the ethnic origins of the Arabs cf. al-ʿarab ( ḏj̲azīrat al- ), section on Ethnography, cf. also para ii, below). The early history of the Arabs is still obscure; their origin and the events governing their early years are equally unknown to us. Probably we would know a good deal more about them, if Uranius’ five books of ’Αραβικά, which constituted a special monograph on the Arabs, had …

, Kāg̲h̲id (from the Persian kāg̲h̲ad̲h̲ perhaps of Chinese origin), paper. In the early period of development of Muslim culture the east was acquainted only with papyrus ( ḳirṭās ) as writing-material. It was Chinese prisoners of war brought to Samarḳand after the battle of Aṭlak̲h̲ near Tālās who first introduced in 134/751 the industry of papermaking from linen, flax or hemp rags after the method used in China. “The various kinds of paper then made were the following: firʿawnī (“Pharaonic”), a kind which was to compete with papyrus even in the land…

, a monsoon harbour on the straits of Bāb al-Mandab [ q.v.], lying just north of the so-called Small Strait on a cape whose high cliffs dominate the island of Mayyūn [ q.v.]. This Strait is also called Bāb Iskandar because Alexander the Great is said to have built a town here. The harbour, named after S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Saʿīd whose tomb is found on the northern side of the cape, has been identified by Sprenger and Glaser with ancient Ocelis or Acila, which is mentioned by Pliny, Ptolemy and in the Periplus Maris Erythraei , and conceals perhaps some ¶ name like ʿUḳayl. The harbour is said to have be…

The use of leather ( d̲j̲ild , adīm ) as a writing material is well known in the Near East. In Egypt it was used already in the Middle Kingdom; leather manuscripts are known from the empire of Meroe and Nubia to the south of Egypt, from Palestine and Persia. In the latter country the βασιλκαί διφθέραι—the Royal archives consisting of leather documents—were known to Ctesias ( apud Diodorus Siculus, ii, 32, cf. daftar), and when the Persians conquered Egypt for a short time at the beginning of the 7th century A.D., they continued to write on leather here. The leather p…

, a group of islands in the bay of the same name on the south coast of Arabia, lying along latitude 17° 30′ N between longitudes 55° 30′ and 56° 30′ E. The islands, principally of granite and limestone formation, are the peaks of a submarine ridge. From west to east they are Ḥāsikiyya, Sawdā, Ḥallāniyya, Ḳarzawt and D̲j̲ubayla. Ḥallāniyya is both the largest (about 8 miles long and 23 in circumference) and the only inhabited island of the group. At its centre it rises ¶ to a peak some 1,500 feet above sea-level. Its vegetation is scanty: only a few marine shrubs, some scattered …

(a. “the back”), the collective name, not particularly widespread, of the chains of mountains which run from the Gulf of ʿAḳaba down to the Gulf of Aden [see al-ʿarab , D̲j̲azīrat, ii]. The word sarāt occurs quite often in the construct state, as in sarāt al-azd, sarāt al-hān , etc. In both Saudi Arabia and in Yemen, al-Sarāt separates the lowlands along the Red Sea [see al-g̲h̲awr ; tihāma ] from the high plateau. The commonest view in the Arab sources is that al-Sarāt is identical with al-Ḥid̲j̲āz [ q.v.] “the barrier”. As a whole, the chains of mountains are cut up into large and…

, formerly the capital of the ḳaḍāʾ of the same name in the sand̲j̲aḳ of Taʿizz in the Yemen; now, since 1946, a separate liwāʾ , comprising the ḳadāʾ s Ibb, ʿUdeyn, D̲h̲ī Sufāl, Ḳuʿtaba and Yerīm. Besides the pronunciation with i peculiar to the Yemen, we find also Abb (in Niebuhr: Aebb). At an earlier period the walled town, with a population estimated at 4,000, belonged to the territory of D̲h̲ū D̲j̲ibla. It is situated on the ‘upper road’ leading from ʿAdan to Ṣanʿāʾ. According to the proposals of the A. Beneyton mission of 1911 fo…

b. al-Ḥakam b. Yūsuf al-Balk̲h̲ī , governor and financial controller of Egypt from 1 Ramaḍān 200/3 April 816. On 1 Rabīʿ I 201/27 Sept. 816, the troops openly mutinied against him, and al-Maʾmūn was forced to remove al-Sarī from his post and replace him by Sulaymān b. G̲h̲ālib; al-Sarī was put in prison and Sulaymān entered upon his office on Tuesday, 4 Rabīʿ I 201/30 Sept. 816. He was removed from office as early as 1 S̲h̲aʿbān 201/22 Feb. 817, as the result of a repeated revol…

b. ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿAbbās , member of the ʿAbbāsid family (92-152/711-69) who played an important part in the success of the ʿAbbāsid revolution in Syria, assisting his brother ʿAbd Allāh in the assault on Damascus and, with Abū ʿAwn ʿAbd al-Malik b. Yazīd al-ʿAtakī leading the pursuit of the last Umayyad caliph, Marwān b. Muḥammad to Egypt. He was appointed governor of Egypt on 1 Muḥarram, 133/9 August 750 and remained there for a year, establishing ʿAbbāsid power. On 1 S̲h̲aʿbān 1, 133/4 March 751 he was moved to Palestine and in the same year sent Saʿīd b. ʿAbd Allāh to lead the first ṣāʾifa [ q.…