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Ḍayʿa

(982 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, plu. ḍiyāʿ , estate. The word can mean generally a rural property of a certain size, but is understood in a more precise sense in fiscal contexts. It is known that at the time of the Conquests the local people were left in possession of their lands, subject to their paying the k̲h̲arād̲j̲ ; it was later understood that the conversion of the landowner would not change the fiscal status of the land. In contradistinction to the k̲h̲arād̲j̲ lands there were the original properties of the Arabs, especially in Arabia, and the grants made in favour of notables or their depende…

Köse Dag̲h̲

(382 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, a land-corridor some 50 miles/80 km. to the north-west of Sīwās where there took place in 641/1243, probably on 6 S̲h̲awwāl/26 June, the decisive battle which opened up Asia Minor to the Mongols and sounded the knell for the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultanate of Rūm. The first contacts of the Mongols and Sald̲j̲ūḳs went back to the last years of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Kayḳubād I [ q.v.], but at that time Anatolia was too well-protected in relation to the conquests already effected by the Mongols for the latter really to have any plans for conquering it. It was only under Kayk̲h̲usraw II [ q.v.] that the threat took d…

Begteginids

(879 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, an important seigneurial family which, though it never completely freed itself from the overlordship of its powerful neighbours, possessed for a century extensive lands in Upper Mesopotamia, partly in the east around Irbil and partly in the west, for a shorter period, around Ḥarrān. The founder of the family, Zayn al-Dīn ʿAlī Küčük b. Begtegin, was a Turcoman officer whose fortune was linked from the beginning with that of Zenki. Probably as a result of his participation in this prince’s campa…

Mengüček

(349 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
( Mangūd̲j̲ak ), a Turkmen chief who was the eponym of a minor dynasty which appears in history with his son Isḥāḳ in 512/1118 in eastern Anatolia around the town of Erzind̲j̲ān [ q.v.], but including also Diwrigi and Kog̲h̲onia/Colonia-Ḳara Ḥiṣār S̲h̲arḳī. His territory accordingly lay between that of the Dānis̲h̲mendids [ q.v.] on the west, of the Saltuḳids [ q.v.] of Erzerum on the east, of the Byzantine province of Trebizond on the north and of the Artuḳid principalities [see artuḳids ] on the south; it thus commanded the traditional highway for inva…

Atabak

(1,932 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(atabeg), title of a high dignitary under the Sald̲j̲ūḳids and their successors. The term is Turkish and first makes its appearance in Muslim history with the Sald̲j̲ūḳids; it is therefore reasonable to enquire whether any precedents exist in the Turkish societies of Central Asia. So far no occurrence of the actual word seems to have been reported and the fact that in the Ork̲h̲on civilisation there is apparently a person called ata , father, acting as a tutor to a young prince, is too vague to enable one to affirm a connexion; the same is true…

Mafṣūl

(57 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(a.), a term used to denote certain juridical categories of landed estates in Syria in the time of the Mamlūks. The word has no connection with the Arabic root f.-ṣ.-l ., but is derived, according to al-Nuwayrī, Nihāya , viii, 256, “from the Frankish” vassal . (Cl. Cahen) Bibliography Cl. Cahen, in JESHO, xviii (1975), 238.

Ild̲j̲āʾ

(89 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
or Tald̲j̲iʾa , a method of protection by a superior of his inferiors, on which see the articles ḍayʿa and ḥimāya , adding to the bibliography Y. Linant de Bellefonds, Volonté interne et volonté déclarée en droit musulman, in Revue Intern , de Droit Comparé , x (1958), 513 ( tald̲j̲iʾa occurring in law as a fictitious sale with the object of gaining protection against confiscation, taxes, etc.; but the question arises of how the property is to be regained once the danger is over). (Cl. Cahen)

Ḳabāla

(2,034 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(a.) “guarantee”, a juridical term used mainly in connection with fiscal practice, in a manner which is still very difficult to define precisely. The particular field with which this discussion is concerned is a double one—that of the levying of the land-tax, k̲h̲arād̲j̲ [ q.v.], and that of special taxes, mukūs . As was already the case before the Arab conquest both in the Byzantine Empire and under the Sasanids, local communities were held jointly responsible by the Treasury for the payment at the required time of the ful…

Dīnār

(262 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
( Malik ), name of one of the Og̲h̲uz chieftains who set themselves up at K̲h̲urāsān after the dislocation of the kingdom of the Sald̲j̲ūḳid Sand̲j̲ar; unable to maintain his position there before the pressure of the K̲h̲wārizmian state, he found a way to profit from the dissensions among the Sald̲j̲ūḳids of Kirmān to lay hands on that principality (582/1186) and to hold it, in spite of hostilities on the borders of Sistān, Fārs, and the Persian Gulf, until his death in 591/1195. After his death, however, Kirmān in its turn became absorbed within the K̲h̲wārizmian empire, on account of in…

Artuḳids

(4,149 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, (not urṭukids ), a Turkish dynasty which reigned over the, whole or part of Diyār Bakr, either independently or under Mongol protectorate, from the end of the 5th/11th to the beginning of the 9th/15th century. Artuḳ, son of Ekseb, belonged to the Turkoman tribe Döger [ q.v.]. In 1073 he was in Asia Minor, operating for and against the Byzantine Emperor ¶ ¶ Michael VII, but he later appears principally as an officer in the service of the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ Maliks̲h̲āh. In 1077 he brought the Carmathians of Baḥrayn under the rule of Maliks̲h̲āh; in 1079 Maliks̲…

Barkyārūḳ

(1,664 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(berkyaruk), fourth Sald̲j̲ūḳid Sulṭān, in whose time the visible decline of the regime began. Although the eldest of the sons of Maliks̲h̲āh, he was only thirteen years old on the latter’s death (S̲h̲awwāl 485/November 1092) and, unlike his father, who at a similar age had been guided by his vizier and atabeg Niẓām al-Mulk, he lacked a man of undisputed authority in his entourage. Moreover, Maliks̲h̲āh’s last wife, Turkān Ḵh̲ātūn, a woman also of the noblest birth, had dominated her husband in the lat…

Luʾluʾ

(418 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, Badr al-Dīn Abu ’l-Faḍāʾil al-Malik al-Raḥīm , a freedman, possibly black, of the last Zangids of Mosul, whose régime he prolonged. Designated by Arslān S̲h̲āh I on his death in 607/1210-1 as regent of the principality for his young son al-Ḳāhir, then by the latter (d. 615/1218) for his infant son, Arslān S̲h̲āh II, he was officially designated, with a caliphal diploma, as lord in 629/1232. The chronicles mention him especially for his interminable minor clashes with the lesser …

Buḳa

(97 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, one of the leaders of the group of the Og̲h̲uz of Ḵh̲urāsān which, after the capture and death of its leader Arslan b. Sald̲j̲ūḳ (427/1036?), was expelled from the province by G̲h̲aznawid troops on account of its depredations, and continued its pillaging across central and western Iran as far as the borders of Armenia and Upper Mesopotamia, where it was annihilated by the Bedouin and Kurds in 435/1044. See EI 1, s.v., the article sald̲j̲ūḳids , and Cl. Cahen, Le Maliknameh et l’histoire des origines seldjukides , in Oriens , 1949, 57. (Cl. Cahen)

ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. Yūsuf

(201 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(Abu ’l-Ḳāsim al-Ḥakkār?), the private secretary and trusted adviser of the Būyid amīr ʿAḍud al-Dawla [ q.v.] from the very beginning to the end of his reign, and then three times alternatively the vizier and in disgrace in regard to his sons Ṣamṣām al-Dawla and Bahāʾ al-Dawla [ q.v. below]. He is the author of a collection of official correspondence ( ins̲h̲āʾ ), largely preserved in ms. Petermann 406 (Ahlwardt 8625), which is however limited to the period of ʿAḍud al-Dawla’s reign (some fragments lacking here are cited in al-T̲h̲aʿālibī, Yatīma , ii, 89-90) and…

ʿImād al-Dawla

(619 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, ʿAlī b. Buwayh (or Būyeh), the eldest by many years, but the least known, of the three Daylamī [ q.v.] brothers who became the founders of the dynasty of the Buwayhids or Būyids [ q.v.]. At first in the service, together with a group of his compatriots, of the Sāmānid Naṣr b. Aḥmad (321-9 [ q.v.]), then of his lieutenant in Iran, Mākān b. Kākī [ q.v.], he betrayed the latter in favour of his rival Mardāwīd̲j̲ [ q.v.], from whom he obtained, in equivocal circumstances (and thanks to his relations with the secretary of the governor of Rayy, the father of the future vizier …

Eretna

(1,238 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(Ärätnä, Ärdäni ?), name of a chief of Uyg̲h̲ur origin, who made his fortune in Asia Minor as an heir of the Ilk̲h̲ānid régime. The name is perhaps to be explained by Sanskrit ratna ‘jewel’, ¶ common among the Oyg̲h̲ur after the spread of Buddhism (communication from L. Bazin); this was of course no bar to the family becoming Muslim, like all the Mongols and Turks in the Ilk̲h̲ānid state. Eretna, who was probably an officer in the service of Čūbān/Čoban [see čūbānids ], settled in Asia Minor as a follower of the latter’s son, Tīmūrtās̲h̲, was appointed go…

Mad̲j̲d al-Mulk, Abu ’l-Faḍl Asʿad b. Muḥammad al-Ḳummī al-Balāsānī

(113 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, mustawfī or director of finances under the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan Berk-yaruḳ [see barkyārūḳ ] in the early years of his reign and then vizier (490-2/1097-9), but whose death was brought about by the great military commanders in S̲h̲awwāl 492/September 1099 on an accusation of S̲h̲īʿi sympathies, and even of Ismāʿīlī ones, which he was said to have displayed during the struggle against the rival sultan Muḥammad b. Malik-S̲h̲āh [ q.v.]. ¶ (Cl. Cahen) Bibliography Cambr. hist. of Iran, index C. L. Klausner, The Seljuk vezirate, a study of civil administration 1055-1194, Cambridge, Mass. 197…

Ḳi̊li̊d̲j̲ Arslan I

(562 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, also known to the Crusaders, like his father, under the name Sulaymān/Soliman, son of Sulaymān b. Ḳutlumus̲h̲ [ q.v.], second Sald̲j̲ūḳ prince of Asia Minor. At an early age, he was in Antioch when his father was killed in battle fighting Tutus̲h̲ [ q.v.], and he was handed over as a hostage to Malik-S̲h̲āh [ q.v.] who conquered Syria in 1086. On the death of the latter (1092) he managed to escape, and arrived in Nicaea, his father’s former residence, where he seems without much difficulty to have had himself accepted as sovereign by the semi-auton…

Besni

(484 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(Behesnī in the Middle Ages), from the Syriac Bet Hesnā, a crossroads settlement at a height of more than 2,900 feet on the important junction of the Malaṭya-Aleppo and (Cilicia) Marʿas̲h̲-Diyār Bakr roads. Besni was the hinge between the series of strongholds north of the great bow of the Euphrates on the one hand, which protected the upper valleys of the right bank tributaries of this river from incursion from the plateaux and high ranges of the eastern Taurus, and on the other those towards t…

Īnāl

(298 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, Īnālids , name of a Turcoman chief (from the old central-Asiatic title Yi̊nal) who made himself independent at Āmid (Diyār Bakr [ q.v.]) at the end of the 5th/11th century during the struggles among the successors of Maliks̲h̲āh, and name of the dynasty, which remained in power until the end of the 6th/12th century. Although they are mentioned in a few inscriptions, the historians have written little on the Īnālids. Masters of a place which was commercially and strategically important, they nevertheless held at Diyār Bakr a secondary place compared with the Artuḳ…

Ard̲j̲īs̲h̲

(405 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, a small and ancient town situated on the north-eastern bank of Lake Van, which in the Middle Ages was still called the Lake of Ard̲j̲īs̲h̲. Its existence seems to be vouched for since the Urartaean period, and more expressly by the Graeco-Roman geographers. It was occupied for a time by the Arabs during the time of ʿUt̲h̲mān, but remained an integral part of the Armenian principalities up to the 8th century A.D.; from 772 onwards, it was incorporated into the Ḳaysite emirate of Ak̲h̲lāṭ [ q.v.]. In the 10th century A.D., it belonged to the Marwānids, but about 1025 it was taken…

Amīn

(315 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(Ar. pl. umanā ), "trustworthy, in whom one can place one’s trust", whence al-Amīn, with the article, as an epithet of Muḥammad in his youth. As a noun, it means "he to whom something is entrusted, overseer, administrator": e.g. Amīn al-Waḥy , "he who is entrusted with the revelation", i.e. the angel Gabriel. The word also frequently occurs in titles, e.g. Amīn al-Dawla (e.g. Ibn al-Tilmīd̲h̲ others), Amīn al-Dīn (e.g. Yāḳūt), Amīn al-Mulk, Amīn al-Salṭana. In addition to these general and undefined uses of the word amīn , there are other more technical uses,…

Ayyūbids

(10,903 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
Name of the dynasty founded by Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn b. Ayyūb, which, at the end of the 6th/12th century and in the first half of the 7th/13th century, ruled Egypt, Muslim Syria-Palestine, the major part of Upper Mesopotamia, and the Yemen. The eponym of the family, Ayyūb b. S̲h̲ād̲h̲ī b. Marwān, born in the village of Ad̲j̲danaḳān near Dvin (Dabīl) in Armenia, belonged to the Rawwādī clan of the Kurdish tribe of the Had̲h̲bānī, and, at the beginning of the 6th/12th century, had been in the service of the S̲h̲addādid dynasty, likewise Kurdish,…

Kayḳubād

(812 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, name of three Sald̲j̲ūḳid sultans of Rūm. Kayḳubād i , ʿalāʾ al-dīn was the most distinguished of the Sald̲j̲ūḳid sultans of Rūm, to whom many later sovereigns would connect themselves. Removed from power by his brother and predecessor Kaykāʾūs I [ q.v.], he succeeded him in 618/1220. His foreign policy made his dynasty one of the most powerful of his time. In the south he expanded his power, from the very beginning of his reign, over a great part of the Cilician Taurus, where he settled Turkmens. He enlarged his maritime frontiers, i…

Bak̲h̲tiyār

(420 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, prince, son; heir apparet (344/955) and successor (356/967) of Muʾizz al-Dawla in ʿIrāḳ, with the laḳab of ʿIzz al-Dawla. He appears to have had little talent for government, which, unlike his father, he entrusted to wazīrs (chosen without any great discernment) so as to be free to amuse himself, though he still impeded the conduct of affaire by his impetuous verbal or active intervention. At the beginning of his reign he continued his father’s policy of hostility to the Ḥamdānid Abū Tag̲h̲lib of Mawṣil and to the autonomous chieftain ¶ of the Baṭīḥa, ʿImrān b. S̲h̲āhīn. Furthermor…

Balak

(763 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, nūr al-dawla balak b. bahrām b. artuḳ , one of the first Artuḳids, known chiefly as a tough warrior. He appears in history in 489/1096 as commander of Sarud̲j̲ on the Middle Euphrates. This locality being taken from him by the Crusaders in the following year, and his uncle Ilg̲h̲āzī having been appointed governor of ʿIrāḳ by Sulṭān Muḥammad, he accompanied him, and is found in the following years struggling vainly for the little towns of ʿĀna and Ḥadīt̲h̲a, against Arabs, or prot…

Ḳalāwd̲h̲iya

(226 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, Claudias, a locality of ancient origin (the Claudiopolis of Pliny? cf. Pauly-Wissowa, s.v.), the exact site of which has not been determined but which almost certainly commanded the entrance to the Euphrates gorges below Malaṭya/Melitene, between the eastern Taurus and the K̲h̲anzit [ q.v.]. One of the fortified places on the frontier that were captured and re-captured by the Arabs and the Byzantines, it was restored by al-Mansūr, but again fell into Byzantine hands, together with the province of Melitene, in the middle of the 4th/10th …

Alp Arslan

(1,479 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
ʿaḍud al-dawla abū s̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ muḥammad b. dāʾūd čag̲h̲ribeg , celebrated Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan, the second of the dynasty (455/1063-465/1073). Born probably in 421/1030, at an early age he led the armies of his father Čag̲h̲ribeg with great success, especially against the G̲h̲aznawids, and in 450/1058 he saved his uncle, the sultan Ṭug̲h̲rilbeg, from the revolt of Ibrāhīm Inal in Persia. Two or three years later he succeeded Čag̲h̲ribeg, who had been ill for a long time, and at the end…

Ibn al-Ṭuwayr

(111 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Salām b. al-Ḥasan . . . al-Ḳaysarānī al-Miṣrī (525-617/1130-1220), high-ranking official of the later Fāṭimids, wrote in the reign of Salāḥ al-Dīn a “History of the two dynasties”, Nuzhat al-muḳlatayn fī ak̲h̲bār al-dawlatayn , an important work now unfortunately lost, to which the great compilers of the Mamlūk period, Ibn al-Furāt, al-Maḳrīzī, al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ibn Tag̲h̲rībirdī, and even before them Ibn K̲h̲aldūn, owe the most important part of their knowledge of the history of the later Fāṭimids and of the general institutions of the régime. (Cl. Cahen) Bibl…

Ibn al-Muslima

(891 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, by-name first given to Aḥmad b. ʿUmar (d. 415/1024), of the family of the Āl al-Raḳil, and name by which his descendants were known until the 6th/12th century. The most important member of the family was his grandson, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn, known also by the honorific title of raʾīs al-ruʾasāʾ , vizier to the caliphate from 437 to 450/1045-58, concerning whom there have arisen a number of important questions which have not yet been satisfactorily answered. The conquest of Bag̲h̲dād by the Būyids in 334/945 had led …

Būz-Abeh

(358 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, governor of Fārs under the Sald̲j̲ūḳs. Būz-Abeh was one of the amīr s of Mengubars, the governor of Fārs, for whom he administered the province of Ḵh̲ūzistān. He was also in the army of his superior when the latter, accompanied by other amīrs, moved against the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan Masʿūd and was made prisoner at the battle of Kurs̲h̲anba (other sources call the scene of the encounter Pand̲j̲ Angus̲h̲t), later being put to death, in 532/1137-38. Since, after their victory, the sultan’s troops began to plunder the enemy camp, Būz-Abeh attacked and dispersed them. Several prominent amīrs of th…

Buwayhids or Būyids

(7,567 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, the most important of the dynasties which, first in the Iranian plateau then in ʿIrāḳ, side by side with the Sāmānids of Ḵh̲urāsān and of Māwarāʾ al-Nahr, marked the “Iranian intermezzo” (Minorsky) between the Arab domination of early Islam and the Turkish conquest of the 5th/11th century. Its name derives from Buwayh or Būyeh, the father of three brothers who founded it, ʿAlī, al-Ḥasan, and the youngest, Aḥmad. Condottieri of humble birth, they belonged to the population of the Daylamites [ q.v.] who, newly won over to (S̲h̲iʿī) Islam, were at that time enlisting in large …

Ibn al-Ḳalānisī

(384 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, Abū Yaʿlā Ḥamza b. Asad ... al-Tamīmī ( ca. 465-555/1073-1160), a member of an important family of Damascus, who for a time was raʾīs of that town, and above all was its historian for the period extending from the middle of the 4th/10th century to 555/1160. The History of Ibn al-Ḳalānisī, known simply by the title D̲h̲ayl tāʾrīk̲h̲ Dimas̲h̲ḳ , consists of two parts, the limits being somewhat imprecise. The first part, the opening pages of which are lost, and which goes down approximately to the time of the author’s youth, is based…

Ḳi̊li̊d̲j̲ Arslan IV

(335 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, better known by his laḳab of Rukn al-Dīn, one of the sons and successors of K̲h̲usraw II (1246). It was at the beginning of the period of the Mongol protectorate that, the three sons of the late sovereign all being minors, the senior amirs, in order to safeguard the unity of the state, sought to install, under their own executive power, a sultanate shared jointly between the three young princes; Ḳi̊li̊d̲j̲ Arslan was sent on a mission to the Mongol chief Batu to persuade him to accept this solution. This very mission alone established a…

D̲h̲imma

(4,693 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, the term used to designate the sort of indefinitely renewed contract through which the Muslim community accords hospitality and protection to members of other revealed religions, on condition of their acknowledging the domination of Islam. The beneficiaries of the d̲h̲imma are called d̲h̲immīs , and are collectively referred to as ahl al-d̲h̲imma or simply d̲h̲imma. An account of the doctrinal position of Islam vis-à-vis the religions in question, and of the polemics between the two sides, is given in the article ahl al-kitāb ; for a detailed account of …

Atsi̊̊z b. Uvak

(541 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(and not Abak), was one of the chiefs of the Turkomāns (perhaps of the tribe of the Īwāī and perhaps at the beginning of the Sald̲j̲ūḳid expansion established in Ḵh̲wārizm), who in 1070 had followed Erisgen (?), husband of a daughter of Alp-Arslan, into Asia Minor in his flight to Byzantine territory; but he refused to take service in the Christian army, and had responded to the appeal made to him by the Fāṭimid government, requesting him to come and bring some of the Palestine Bedouin to heel (…

Ḳaṭiʿ̊ʿa

(75 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, pl. ḳaṭāʾīʿ , a Muslim administrative term designating, on the one hand, those concessions made to private individuals on state lands in the first centuries of the Hid̲j̲ra (see ḍayʿa ), and, on the other hand, the fixed sum of a tax or tribute, in contradistinction to taxation by proportional method or some variable means. The verb ḳaṭaʿa is also used to mean “to impose”, normally followed by ḳaṭīʿatan . (C. Cahen)

Ḳi̊li̊d̲j̲ Arslan II

(637 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, son and successor of Masʿūd I, and one of the most important sultans of Rūm (1155-92). Masʿūd had, in dealing with the Greeks, succeeded in restoring the position of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs in relation to the Dānis̲h̲mendids who were divided by quarrels over the succession. Ḳi̊li̊d̲j̲ Arslan at first maintained this policy, and carried it to the extent of offering the Basileus Manuel Comnenus at Constantinople in 1162 a form of allegiance which, in concrete terms, cost him nothing. He was then able to make himself mast…

Čās̲h̲na-Gīr

(135 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, in Persian, ‘taster’, title of an official, generally an amīr , at the court of the Muslim sovereigns (including the Mamlūks) from the time of the Sald̲j̲ūkids. It is not always clear in what way he is connected with the overseer of the food, k̲h̲ w ānsalār ; perhaps the two are often confused. The title does not appear to be found, even in Iran, under previous dynasties, although caliphs and princes did undoubtedly have overseers for their food, and even had it tasted before they eat, as the dishes were always suspected of being poisoned. The term čās̲h̲na-gīr is also…

ʿArrāda

(245 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, a mediaeval artillery engine. In general, from Europe to China, there were everywhere in existence two main types of engines of projection which were operated by more than one man. In the case of the one, the heavy type of engine, the projectile was hurled from a great distance by virtue of the centrifugal force produced by the rocking of a great arm: these were the mand̲j̲anīḳ or mangonels; in the case of the other, a lighter engine, the projectile was discharged by the impact of a shaft forcibly impelled by the release of a rope: these were the ʿarrāda . The principle of the ʿarrāda only differs…

ʿAṭāʾ

(1,012 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, "gift", the term most commonly employed to denote, in the early days of Islam, the pension of Muslims, and, later, the pay of the troops. It is impossible to give here the history of the system of pay throughout the Muslim world, and this article will be confined to a general outline. The traditional starting-point is the organisation of the pensions by ʿUmar b. al-Ḵh̲aṭṭāb. The first Muslims had derived no material advantage except their share of the booty from successful expeditions. The flow of taxes into the coffers of the nascent caliphate …

Crusades

(3,532 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
Originally applied to military and religious expeditions organized in Western Europe and intended to take back from and defend against Islam the Holy Places of Palestine and nearby Syria, the term was later extended to all wars waged against "infidels" and even to any undertaking carried out in the name of a worthy or supposedly worthy cause; naturally these extensions of meaning are not part of our present concern. The first Crusade (1096-99), following on from expeditions against the Muslims in the West, led to the establishment around Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antio…

Bahrām S̲h̲āh

(275 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, al-malik al-amd̲j̲ad , b. Farruk̲h̲ S̲h̲āh b. S̲h̲āhāns̲h̲āh b. Ayyūb, grand nephew of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn, was appointed by the latter to succeed his father at Baʿlbak when the latter died in 578/1182 (ʿImād al-Dīn al-Iṣfahānī, al-Barḳ al-S̲h̲āmī , Bodl. MS. Marsh 425, 36r°, followed by Abū S̲h̲āma, Rawḍatayn 1, Cairo, 33-4), and kept Baʿlbak when the Ayyūbid territories were divided up after the death of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn. From then on he seems always to have been a faithful vassal of the Ayyūbid ruling at Damascus (Ibn Wāṣil, Mufarrid̲j̲ , years 599, 603, 606, 618, 62…

K̲h̲iṭaṭ

(353 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(a.), pl. of k̲h̲iṭṭa , the various quarters of the newly-founded early Islamic towns which the Arab-Islamic chiefs laid out (root k̲h̲.ṭ.t ) for the population groups which they attracted thither or for their respective leaders. Historical-administrative concerns led fairly quickly to the appearance of a literary genre which consisted of a description of the historical topography of these k̲h̲iṭaṭ . This happened in regards to Bag̲h̲dād, and one finds chapters of this nature in the “geographical” works of Ibn al-Faḳīh al-Hamad̲h̲ān…

Āḳ Sunḳur al-Bursuḳī

(421 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
( abū saʿīd sayf al-dīn ḳasīm al-dawla ), originally a mamlūk of Bursuḳ [ q.v.], and one of the principal officers of the Sald̲j̲uḳid sultans Muḥammad and Maḥmūd. He became prominent firstly through his activities as military governor ( s̲h̲iḥna ) of al-ʿIrāḳ, and later, at the end of his life, as governor of Mosul, which office he held simultaneously with the former. Appointed s̲h̲iḥna in 498/1105. his main task was to oppose the Mazyadite Arabs of Dubays [ q.v.], who were infesting the environs of Bag̲h̲dād. In his first government of Mosul (507/1113) his chief duty was …

Ibn Muyassar

(485 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
(not Mīsar) Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Yūsuf . . . . b. D̲j̲alab Rāg̲h̲ib . 628-77/1231-78, Egyptian historian. He was descended, hence his by-name, from a Tunisian “imported” at the beginning of the 6th/12th century by an Egyptian amīr named Rāg̲h̲ib; under Saladin, the family, being excluded from the military career by the formation of the new army, had entered civilian life. Ibn Muyassar owed his name to a maternal ancestor who had apparently himself been ¶ an amīr under the Fāṭimids. His Annales d’Égypte (ed. H. Massé, Cairo 1919; cf. G. Wiet, in JA, 1921) have survived in a unique ma…

ʿAfrīn

(424 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
important right tributary of the Orontes (al-ʿĀṣī [ q.v.]), which it reaches after joining with the Nahr Yāg̲h̲rā (Murād Pas̲h̲a) in the Lake of Antioch and the Nahr al-Aswad (Ḳara-sū), in the ʿAmk. Its wide middle valley, between the Djabal Simān and the Kurd-dag̲h̲, was known in the Middle Ages as the district of the Ḏj̲ūma. The importance of the valley was due to the crossing of the road, which used it to connect Antioch with the districts of the upper Euphrates, with the roads which led from Cilicia…

Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla

(1,158 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan , born in about 341/952, third son of the Buwayhid Rukn al-Dawla [ q.v.] and of a daughter of the Daylamī chief al-Ḥasan b. Fayzurān, a cousin of Mākān b. Kākī [ q.v.], received his laḳab in 364/975 and was summoned in 365/976, with his brothers ʿAḍud al-Dawla [ q.v.], the eldest, and Muʾayyid al-Dawla, to his father’s sick-bed, in order to agree what share each would receive of their father’s possessions, under the suzerainty of ʿAḍud al-Dawla; as his portion, Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla received the provinces of Hamad̲h̲ān and…

Ibn al-D̲j̲awzī, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Yūsuf b. Ḳi̊zog̲h̲lu,known as Sibṭ

(958 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, famous preacher and historian (581/1185 or 582/1186-654/1256). Son of a Turkish freedman of the vizier Ibn Hubayra and of a daughter of the famous preacher and voluminous writer, Ibn al-D̲j̲awzī of Bag̲h̲dād, from whom he derived the name by which he is known, the young Yūsuf was in fact brought up by this grandfather; after the latter’s death (597/1201), he settled at Damascus, where he joined the Ayyūbid al-Muʿaẓẓam, then his successors al-Nāṣir Dāwūd and al-As̲h̲raf. Although he abandoned t…

Bag̲h̲rās

(446 words)

Author(s): Cahen, Cl.
, the ancient Pagrae, guarded the Syrian end of the Baylān pass on the road from Antioch to Alexandretta across the Amanus, and was thus a place of transit and a strategic position of importance. This region, which had been laid waste at the time of the first wars between the Arabs and the Byzantines, was furnished with colonists by Maslama; this initiated a recovery, and His̲h̲ām built a small fort there; it was naturally included in the region of the ʿawāṣim [ q.v.] organised by Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd behind the Syro-Cilician t̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr , and there existed there at …
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