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( a) the name of a city in the Deccan (Dakhan) of India, situated 17° 22′ N., 78° 27′ E., now the capital city of the Indian state of Āndhra Pradēs̲h̲, and formerly the capital successively of the later Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhī kings of Golkond́ā, of a Mug̲h̲al ṣūba after Awrangzīb’s conquest of the Deccan, of the Niẓām, and of the state of Ḥaydarābād after the independence of India; ( b) the name of a former state of the Indian Union, now absorbed within the provinces of Āndhra Pradēs̲h̲, Mahārās̲h̲tra, and Mysore (Mahisur); formerly the territory of H.E.H. (‘His ¶ Exalted Highnes…

(a.), inscriptions. 1. Islamic epigraphy in general. The study of Arabic inscriptions today constitutes a science full of promise, an auxiliary science to be sure, but a science indispensable to the scholarly exploitation of a whole category of authentic texts capable of throwing light on the civilisation in the context of which they were written. From a very early period, seeing that the first dated Arabic inscription available to us goes back to the year 31/652 and that we are aware of previous inscr…

, a small town of mediaeval India in the extreme north of the former Hyderabad State of British India. It is situated in lat. 19° 49′ N. and long. 77° 58′ E. just to the south of the Pengangā river, a left-bank affluent of the Godavari, where it forms the boundary between the former regions of northern Hyderabad [see ḥaydarābād ] and Berār [ q.v.] in Central India. In pre-Muslim times, Māhūr had the shrine of Śrī-Dattātreya. In the middle years of the 8th/14th century, the territory up to Māhūr was conquered by the Deccani power of the Bahmanīs [ q.v.]. In 857/1453 Maḥmūd I K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī [ q. v. ] of Mā…

(a.) balance, is the nomen instrumenti from wazana “to weigh”, which means to weigh in the ordinary sense and also to test the level of something, like the Latin librare . Here we shall discuss: 1. The various instruments used for weighing in the ordinary sense; brief notes are added on the ascertainment of specific gravities. 2. Levelling instruments. 3. Aspects of the balance in Indian Muslim art. 1. balances. The steelyard ( al-ḳarasṭūn [ q.v.]) has already been dealt with, and the general principles of the balance are also discussed in that article.—The usual balan…

(Deccan), locally often spelt Ḳand̲h̲ār, Kand̲h̲ār to distinguish it from its illustrious Afg̲h̲ān namesake, is a plains fort and the surrounding taʿalluḳ , mainly agricultural, known to have been part of the Bahmanī [ q.v.] dominions, from whom it later passed to the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs. It seems, however, to have known previous Muslim occupation, since the main gate bears an inscription of Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ [ q.v.] ( EIM 1919-20, 16-7) and was presumably occupied by him on his expedition to south India. The fort, 25 miles south-west of Nandeŕ, is remarkable for i…

, a Mongol noble of Lāhawr (Lahore), whose brief rise to power in that city in about 735/1335 was symptomatic of the general resentment felt at Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ’s rule. When the sultan had left Dihlī for the south of India to put down the ¶ rebellion of D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Aḥsan [ q.v.] Hūlāgū killed Tātār Ḵh̲ān, governor of Lāhawr, appointed Gul Čandra (?) the Khokar his minister, and proclaimed his independence. On the news reaching Dihlī, the wazīr K̲h̲wād̲j̲a D̲j̲ahān, who had not yet followed the sultan south, marched to Lāhawr with an army and put down the rebellion…

“measures of capacity” (sing. mikyal( a); var. makāyīl, sing. mikyāl), and Mawāzīn(a.) “weights” (sing. mīzān ). On the measures of length and surface area, see misāḥa . 1. In the Arabic, Persian and Turkishlands. In the history of Oriental metrology, the spread of ¶ Islam meant no abrupt break. Whereas Charlemagne imposed in his empire a uniform system of weights and measures and introduced a much heavier pound than the Roman libra of 327.45 g, neither Muḥammad nor ʿUmar made such a reform; and as later rulers could not claim canonical …

or Mirzā , a Persian title, from Mīr-zāda or Amīr-zāda , and originally meaning “born of a prince’’ (cf. Malik-zāda and Sarhang-zāda , which occur in Saʿdī, etc.). 1. In Persian usage. The title, in addition to bearing its original significance, was also given to noblemen and others of good birth, thus corresponding to the Turkish Āg̲h̲ā. Since the time of Nādir S̲h̲āh’s conquest of India, it has been further applied to educated men outside of the class of mullās or ¶ ʿulamāʾ . In modern times, but not formerly, the title is placed after the name of a pri…

an Indo-Muslim dynasty which ruled, latterly with decreasing effectiveness, 932-1274/1526-1858. 1. History. This article, like the section on History in hind, iv, above, aims at being no more than a guide to the numerous articles on the history of the Mug̲h̲al dynasty in India to be found elsewhere in the Encyclopaedia , and to relate these to a chronological framework. The Mug̲h̲als were given their first foothold in Indian territory in 800/1398 when Pīr Muḥammad, governor of Kābul and a grandson of Tīmūr, attacked Uččh and Multān, and established a gov…

, 8th letter of the Arabic alphabet, transcribed d; numerical value 4, in accordance with the order of the letters in the Syriac (and Canaanite) alphabet, where d is the fourth letter [see abd̲j̲ad ]. It continues a d of common Semitic. Definition: voiced dental occlusive; according to the Arab grammatical tradition: s̲h̲adīda , mad̲j̲hūra . For the mak̲h̲rad̲j̲ : niṭʿiyya according to al-K̲h̲alīl (al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Mufaṣṣal , 2nd ed. J. P. Broch, 191, line 1), who places the point of articulation at the niṭʿ (or niṭaʿ ), the anterior part of the hard pala…

(Persian, lit. “be distant”), the mace or club used as an emblem of military dignity; in Persian and Turkish usage the dūrbās̲h̲ can also be the functionary who carries the mace [see čāʾūs̲h̲ , sarhang ]. The čūbdārs described by Niẓām al-Mulk, Siyāsat-nāme , ch. xxxix, who seem to have been similar functionaries, carried gold and silver staffs; ʿAwfī, D̲j̲āmiʿ al-ḥikāyāt (passage cited by M. Fuad Köprülü, Bizans müesseselerin Osmanlı müesseselerine tesiri hakkında bazı mülâhazalar , in Türk Hukuk ve Iktisat Tarihi Mecmuası , Istanbul 1931, 213; Ital. tr., Alcune osservazioni …

, a district of India to the east of Dihlī lying between the Rāmgangā and S̲h̲āradā rivers and hence the eastern part of the tract which, in ¶ the first third of the 18th century, came to be known as Rohilkhand [ q.v.]; but in Mug̲h̲al times the name seems to have been applied loosely to the whole of that tract. The name ( Katahr in the oldest Muslim sources, but recte Kaṭahr ) is variously derived: W. Crooke, Tribes and castes of the North West Provinces and Oudh , Calcutta 1896, iii, 176, takes it as the name of the common soil of the tract, “a brownish loam …

, the Ganges (also Gang , in the Muslim historians of India), the principal river of Upper India [see hind ] which rises in the snows of the Himālaya in the district of Gaŕhwāl at an altitude of some 3100 m., flows through the present provinces of Uttar Prades̲h̲, Bihār and Bengal, and falls in the Bay of Bengal after a course of about 2500 km., the last 500 km. through the Bengal delta. Above the delta it receives successively the waters of the Rāmgangā, Yamunā (Ḏj̲amnā. [ q.v.]), Gōmatā, Gōgrā, Sōn, Gandak and Kōsī; above the Ḏj̲amnā confluence at Prayāg (Allāhābād, [ q.v.]) it is fordable. The…

, a ruined city of Gud̲j̲arat in Western India, Lat. 22° 29′ N., long. 73° 32′ E., about 78 miles south-east of Aḥmadābād, taken by the Gūd̲j̲arāt sulṭān Maḥmūd S̲h̲āh I ‘Begadā’ on his conquest (889/1484) of the adjoining stronghold ¶ of Pāwāgaŕh, which had successfully resisted Aḥmad S̲h̲āh I in 821/1418. The Begadā occupied Čampānēr forthwith, building a city wall with bastions and gates (called Ḏj̲ahānpanāh; inscription EIM 1929-30, 4-5), and a citadel ( bhādar ). He renamed the city Maḥmūdābād, and it was his favourite residence until his deat…

(a.) “water”. The present article covers the religio-magical and the Islamic legal aspects of water, together with irrigation techniques, as follows: 1. Hydromancy A a vehicle for the sacred, water has been employed for various techniques of divination, and in particular, for potamonancy (sc. divination by means of the colour of the waters of a river and their ebbing and flowing; cf. FY. Cumont, Études syriennes , Paris 1917, 250 ff., notably on the purification power of the Euphrates, consulted for divinatory reasons); for pegomancy (sc…

, also less correctly darsan, a Sanskrit word ( darśana , from the root dṛś “see”) meaning “showing, being visible”; hence, the ceremonial appearance of a king to his subjects. This Hindū practice was adopted by the Mug̲h̲al emperor Akbar ( Āʾīn-i Akbarī , i, 73) and his immediate successors. The English traveller Coryat records that Ḏj̲ahāngīr in Āgra used to present himself three times a day from a canopied window. The failure of S̲h̲āhd̲j̲ahān to appear during his illness at the end of 1067/September 1657 led to rumours of his death. The practice of dars̲h̲an was …

, a town, taḥṣīl and district in the northern plains of the Pākistān Pand̲j̲āb lying between the rivers Ḏj̲ehlam and Čanāb. The district is thought to have once formed part of the ancient Gurd̲j̲ara kingdom; but it is not specifically referred to in Islamic historical writing until the time of Bahlōl Lodī (855-94/1451-89) when the town of Bahlōlpur, 36 km. north-east of Gud̲j̲rāt town, was founded; the settlement of the district was continued by S̲h̲īr S̲h̲āh in the middle of the 10th/16th century, and completed by Akbar with the refounding of Gud̲j̲rāt town. There seem to have been at …

, a town and district in the north of Mysore state in India on the western borders of what is known as “the Deccan” (Dakkhan [ q.v.]); the town is situated at 17° 21′ N., 76° 51′ E. Of some antiquity in the Hindū period, it formed part of the domains of the Kākatīyas of Warangaḷ before the Islamic conquest. It was annexed for the Dihlī sultanate by Ulug̲h̲ Ḵh̲ān, the future Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ, early in the 8th/14th century, to pass first to the Bahmanī dynasty on its establi…

, the national language of the Republic of India, is now generally regarded as that form of the central north Indian speech which draws its erudite vocabulary from Sanskrit and its culture from Hinduism, and for literary purposes as including not only the standard dialect (Khaŕī bolī) but also the eastern Awadhī, the central Brad̲j̲, and the bardic poetry of Rād̲j̲āsthān [see also hind , Languages]. Formerly, and as late as the 19th century, it was also used to describe the speech of north Indian Muslims, those of Hind as opposed to Dakhan , the speech of the Hindūs being distinguished as Hindaw…

, an ancient town of India, in lat. 28°3′N. and long. 76°10′E., in the modern Haryana State, some 80 miles south-west of Dihlī. It was probably (Ishwari Prasad, Life and times of Humayun , 95) the birthplace of S̲h̲īr S̲h̲āh, his family having been associated with the place for some time. But Nārnawl has much older Islamic associations, with the inscription at the dargāh of S̲h̲āh Wilāyat showing that the saint was living here in and before 531/1137, i.e. over fifty years before the Muslim conquest of Dihli; his dargāh shows signs of the pre-Muslim style of cofferedroof construction…