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Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Durrānī

(1,804 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the first of the Sadōzay rulers of Afg̲h̲ānistān and founder of the Durrānī empire, belonged to the Sadōzay section of the Popalzay clan of the Abdālī [ q.v.] tribe of Afg̲h̲āns. In the early 18th century the Abdālīs were to be found chiefly around Harāt. Under their leader Zamān Ḵh̲ān, the father of Aḥmad Ḵh̲ān, they resisted Persian attempts to take Harāt until, in 1728, they were forced to submit to Nādir S̲h̲āh. ¶ Some time later they rebelled under Ḏh̲u’l-Fiḳār Ḵh̲ān, the brother of Aḥmad Ḵh̲ān, but were once more defeated by the Persian r…

D̲j̲unnar

(129 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, town in the Indian State of Bombay, 56 m. north of Poona. Its proximity to the Nānā Pass made it an important trade centre linking the Deccan with the west coast. The fort of D̲j̲unnar was built by Malik al-Tud̲j̲d̲j̲ār in 840/1436. The district around D̲j̲unnar was one of the ṭarafs or provinces of the Bahmanī kingdom of the Deccan during the administration of Maḥmūd Gāwān [ q.v.]. It later formed part of the Sultanate of Aḥmadnagar. In 1067/1657 the town was plundered by S̲h̲iwad̲j̲ī, the Marāt́hā leader, who was born in the neighbouring hill-fort of S̲h̲iwn…

Bid̲j̲nawr

(168 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
(bijnor), a town and district in the Rohilk̲h̲and division of the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh. The district has an area of 1,867 square miles with a population of 984,196, of which 36% are Muslims. The town has a population of 30,646 (1951 Census). Little is known of the district’s early history. In 1399 it was ravaged by Tīmūr. Under Akbar it formed part of the sarkār of Sambhal in the sūba of Dihlī. During the decline of Mug̲h̲al power it was overrun by Rohillas under ʿAlī Muḥammad. It contains the town of Nad̲j̲ibābād founded about 1750 by Nad̲j̲ib al-Dawla who became wāzīr

Pūna

(419 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, a city and district of British India in the Central Division of the Bombay Presidency. The district has an area of 5,332 square miles and a population of 1,169,798 of whom 54,997 are Muslims ( Census Report, 1931). It was included in the powerful Āndhra kingdom of the Dakhan which came to an end about the middle of the third century a. d.. The available ¶ evidence also points to the fact that later the Western Čālukyas, the Rās̲h̲trakūtas, and the Deogīrī Yādavas ruled over this area. With the Ḵh̲ald̲j̲ī and Ṭug̲h̲luḳ [see muḥammad ṭug̲h̲luḳ] invasions of the Dakhan it came under Muslim…

Rāwalpindi

(303 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, a division, district, taḥṣīl, and town in the north-west of the Pand̲j̲āb. The division has an area of 21,347 square miles and a population of 3,914,849 of whom 3,362,260 are Muḥammadans. The district, which is divided for administrative purposes into four ¶ taḥṣīls, has an area of 2,050 square miles, with a population of 634,357 (524,965 Muḥammadans). The taḥṣīl covers an area of 770 square miles and supports a population of 289,073 (212,256 Muḥammadans). The town and cantonment, situated on the north bank of the river Leh, have a population of 119,2…

Nūr Ḏj̲ahān

(424 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, name given to Mihr al-Nisāʾ, the famous queen of Ḏj̲ahāngīr, the Mug̲h̲al Emperor. She was born at Ḳandahār in 1577 when her father, G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ Beg, was migrating from Persia to Hindustān ( Maʾāt̲h̲ir al-Umarāʾ, i. 129). In the reign of Akbar she was married to ʿAlī Ḳulī Beg, a Persian who had rendered distinguished military service to the Emperor and who, because of his bravery, was known as S̲h̲īr Afgan. The assassination of her first husband will always remain a matter of controversy, some regarding it as a repetition of t…

Oud̲h̲

(1,285 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
(Awad̲h̲), a district now forming part of the United Provinces of modern India, has an area of 24,154 square miles and a population of 12,794,979, of which 11,870,266 are to be found in the rural districts (Census of India, 1931). From very early times Oud̲h̲ and the neighbouring countries of the great alluvial plain of northern India have been the peculiar home of Hindu civilization. The ancient Hindu kingdom of Kosala corresponded very nearly to the present province of Oud̲h̲. Its capital, Ayod̲h̲yā, the modern Ad̲j̲od̲h̲yā on the r…

Mahsūd

(860 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the name of a Paṭhān tribe on the north-west frontier of India. The Mahsūds inhabit the heart of Wazīristān around Kāniguram and are shut off from British territory by the Bhittanni country. On all other sides they are flanked by Darwes̲h̲ Ḵh̲ēl Wazīrīs. It is now generally accepted that they left their original home in the Birmal hills of modern Afg̲h̲ānistān sometime towards the close of the fourteenth century and gradually extending eastwards occupied the country in which they now reside. The tribe has three main branches: the Bahlolzai, S̲h̲aman Ḵh̲ēl, and the ʿAlīzai. Ignorant, ill…

Pīs̲h̲wā

(1,215 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the title given to one of the ministers of the Bahmanī sulṭāns of the Deccan; the chief minister of S̲h̲iwad̲j̲ī; the head of the Marāṭhā confederacy. (Persian “leader”; Pahl. pēs̲h̲ōpay; Arm. pēs̲h̲opay. For older forms see Hübschmann, Armenische Grammatik, i. 230). S̲h̲iwad̲j̲ī, the founder of Marāṭhā political power in the Dakhan, was assisted by a council of ministers known as the As̲h̲ta Pradhan, one of whom was the Pīs̲h̲wā or Muk̲h̲ya Pradhan. The office of Pīs̲h̲wā was not hereditary and the nature of S̲h̲iwad̲j̲ī’s autocratic…

Nāgpur

(913 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, a city, taḥṣīl, district, and division of the Central Provinces of British India. The modern Central Provinces and Berār, which formed part of the eighteenth century Bhonsla kingdom of Nāgpur, lie between 17° 47′ and 24° 27′ N. and 75° 37′ and 84° 24′ E., with an area of 113,285 square miles, and a total population of 17,951,147. Nāgpur division contains a population of 3,595,578; Nāgpur district 933,168; and the city 215,003 (1931 Census Report). The history of this area, which roughly corresponds to Gondwāna, has been profoundly influenced by the long range of the S…

Pand̲j̲dih

(881 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, (Pend̲j̲deh) a village in the Turkoman republic of the U. S. S. R., situated to the east of the Kus̲h̲k river near its junction with the Murg̲h̲āb at Pul-i Kis̲h̲ti. The fact that the inhabitants of this area, the Sarik Turkomans, were divided into five sections, the Soktis, Harzagis, Ḵh̲urāsānlis, Bairač, and the ʿAlī S̲h̲āh, has been put forward as a possible explanation of the origin of the name Pend̲j̲deh, but it carries no weight as the Sariks were only nineteenth century immigrants whereas the name was in use in the fifteenth century. This obscure oasis owes a somewhat melancholy…

Rangoon

(956 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, a city in the Pegu division of Burma lying on both sides of the Hlaing river at its point of junction with the Pegu river and the Pazundaung creek, twenty-one miles from the sea. Legend, not entirely undocumented, relates that the great pagoda at Rangoon (Mon, Kyaik Lagung; Burmese, Shwe Dagon) was founded during the life-time of the Buddha and was repaired by the emperor Açoka ( J. B. R. S., xxiv. 4 and 20). History proper begins with the establishment of Pegu as the capital of a Mon kingdom in 1369. ¶ A convenient port was required for this kingdom. Bassein, which had been the chief…

Riḍīya

(451 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
(1236-1240 a. d.), the only woman to succeed to the throne of Dihlī during the period of Muslim rule, and, with the exception of S̲h̲ad̲j̲ar al-Durr [q. v.] of Egypt, the only female sovereign in the history of Islām. After the death of his eldest son, Īltutmis̲h̲ [q. v.], despite the protests of his advisers, nominated his daughter Riḍīya as his successor on the grounds of her fitness to rule. On the death of Īltutmis̲h̲) the courtiers, disregarding the late king’s wishes, raised one of his sons, Rukn al-Dīn Fīrūz, to the throne. Th…

Nāʾib

(711 words)

Author(s): Gibb, H. A. R. | Davies, C. Collin
(a.), literally “substitute, delegate” (nomen agentis from n-w-b “to take the place of another”), the term applied generally to any person appointed as deputy of another in an official position, and more especially, in the Mamlūk and Dihlī Sulṭānates, to designate a. the deputy or lieutenant of the Sulṭān and b. the governors of the chief provinces (see also the article egypt, above, vol. ii., p. 16a). In the Mamlūk system the former, entitled nāʾ ib al-salṭana al-muʿaẓẓama wa-kāfil al-maniālik al-s̲h̲arīfa al-islāmīya, was the Vice-Sulṭān proper, who administered all the te…

Niẓām S̲h̲āh

(618 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, title assumed in 895 (1490) by Malik Aḥmad Baḥrī, founder of the Niẓām S̲h̲āhī state of Aḥmadnagar [q. v.], one of the five independent sulṭānates which arose out of the ruins of the Bahmanī kingdom of the Dakhan towards the end of the fifteenth century. Fora chronological list and genealogical table of these kings of Aḥmadnagar see Cambridge History of India, iii. 704—705; also Zambaur, Manuel, p. 298—299. The second ruler, Burhān Niẓām S̲h̲āh I (914— 960 = 1509—1553), adopted, in 1537, the S̲h̲īʿa form of Islām which, except for a brief period under Ismāʿīl w…

Pand̲j̲āb

(1,791 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the land of the five rivers, is a province of modern India which, together with the North-West Frontier Province and Kas̲h̲mīr [q. v.], occupies the extreme north-western corner of the Indian Empire, and, with the exception of ¶ the recently-constituted Delhi province, comprises all of British India north of Sind and Rād̲j̲pūtāna and west of the river Ḏj̲amna. Geographically therefore it includes more than its name implies, for, in addition to the country watered by the Ḏj̲helum, Čināb, Rāwī, Beās, and Satled̲j̲, it embraces the t…

Rampur

(1,141 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, an Indian state in Rohilk̲h̲and under the political supervision of the government of the United Provinces. It is bounded on the north by the district of Nainī Tāl; on the east by Bareilly; on the south by the Bisauli taḥṣīl of Budāūn; and on the west by the district of Morādābād. The early history of Rāmpur is that of the growth of Rohilla power in Rohilk̲h̲and. After the establishment of Muslim rule. in India large ¶ bodies of Afg̲h̲āns or Paṭhāns settled down in the country. So powerful did they become that they were twice able to establish their rule in northern In…

Pes̲h̲āwar

(1,130 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, a district, taḥṣīl, and city in the North-West Frontier Province of British India. The district which lies between 71° 25′ and 72° 47′ E. and 33° 40′ and 34° 31′ N. has an area of 2,637 square miles and a population of 947,321 of whom 92 per cent are Muslims (1931 Census Report). It is bounded on the east by the river Indus, which separates it from the Pand̲j̲āb and Hazāra, and on the south-east by the Nīlāb G̲h̲as̲h̲a range which shuts it off from the district of Kōhāt. Elsewhere it is bounded b…

Mohmand

(755 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the name of a Paṭhān tribe on the north-west frontier of India. The territories inhabited by the Mohmands stretch from the north-west of the Pes̲h̲āwar district across the Durand boundary into Afg̲h̲ānistān. Towards the end of the xvth century according to local tradition, two large branches of Paṭhān tribes, the Khakhai and the G̲h̲orīa Ḵh̲ēl, migrated from their homes in Afg̲h̲ānistān to the northwest frontier of India. By the opening years of the xvith century the Mohmands, who were a tribe of the G̲h̲orīa Ḵh̲ēl, had reached the Khyber area. They were never reall…

Quetta

(658 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
(Pas̲h̲tu: Kwaṭṭa), a taḥṣīl and town in the Quetta-Pis̲h̲īn district of British Balūčistān [q. v.]. The district, which contains the taḥṣīls of Quetta and Pis̲h̲īn and the administrative sub-division of Čaman, has an area of 4,806 square miles and a population of 147,541, of whom 107,945 are Muslims. Nearly all these Muslims are Pas̲h̲tu speaking Paṭhāns, only a very small minority speaking Brahūī and Balūčī. The district, which is very mountainous, is bounded on the north-west by Afg̲h̲ān territory, on the east b…

Mullagorī

(223 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the name of a tribe on the north-west frontier of India. They inhabit the hilly country around Tārtāra and ¶ Kambela to the north of the Ḵh̲yber Pass. Their territories are bounded on the north by the Kābul river; on the west by the S̲h̲ilmānī country; on the south by the settlements of the Kuki Ḵh̲ēl Afrīdīs; and on the east by the Pes̲h̲āwar district. The tribe is divided into three clans: the Aḥmad Ḵh̲ēl, Ismāʿīl, and the Dawlat Ḵh̲ēl. Like the Ṣāfīs and the S̲h̲ilmānīs they are vassal clans of the Mohmands. N…

Pargana

(617 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the Indian name for an aggregate of villages. The first reference to this term in the chronicles of the Sultanate of Delhi appears to be in the Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Fīrūz S̲h̲āhī of S̲h̲ams-i Sirād̲j̲ ʿAfīf ( Bibliotheca Indica, 1891, p. 99), for it is not used by Ḥasan al-Niẓāmī in ¶ his Tād̲j̲ al-Maʾāsir or by Minhād̲j̲ al-Dīn in his Ṭabaḳāt-i Nāṣirī. Although it first came into prominence in the xivth century partially superseding the term ḳaṣba, it is, in all probability, based on still more ancient divisions in existence before the Muslim conquest. The exact date of its c…

Berār

(398 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, formerly a province of British India consisting of the four districts of Amraotī, Akola, Buldāna, and Yeotmāl; area: 17,809 sq.m.; population: 3,604,866 of whom 335,169 were Muslims (1941 Census). Under British rule it was administered as part of the Central Provinces. It has recently been incorporated in the Bombay State. The territories of the Vākātakas, comtemporaries of the Guptas, roughly corresponded to modern Berār. It was first invaded by Muslims in 1294 but was not permanently occupied until 1318. It formed the northernmost province ( ṭaraf ) of th…

Bhaṭṭi

(164 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the Pand̲j̲āb form of the Rad̲j̲put word Bhāti, the name of a widely distributed Rad̲j̲pūt tribe associated with the area stretching from Jaisalmer to the western tract of the Pand̲j̲āb between Fatḥābād and Bhatnair. Large numbers of those settled in the Pand̲j̲āb accepted Islam. According to one of their traditions the Jādons of Jaisalmer were driven from Zābulistān to the Pand̲j̲āb and Rād̲j̲putāna, the branch settling in Rād̲j̲putāna being named Bhāti. The references in the Čač-nama to the Bhaṭṭi king of Ramal in the Thar desert confirm the legends preserved in Tod’s Annals and ant…

Rāmpur

(1,142 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, a former Muslim-ruled princely ¶ state of Rohilk̲h̲and [ q.v.] in northern India. In British times, the state was under the political supervision of the government of the United Provinces. In the post-1947 Indian Union, Rāmpur became a district of Uttar Prades̲h̲, bounded on the north by Nainī Tāl, on the east by Bareilly, on the south by Badāʾūn and on the west by Murādābād districts, with an area of 2,318 km2/895 sq. miles and a population in 1961 of 701,537; in 1931, 45% of the population was Muslim. The early history of Rāmpur is that of the growth of Rohilla power [see rohillas …

Awadh

(1,793 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
(oudh), a tract of country comprising the Lucknow and Fayḍābād divisions of the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh. It has an area of 24, 168 square miles and a population of 15, 514, 950, of which 14, 156, 139 are to be found in the rural districts. (Census of India, 1951). From very early times Awadh, which forms part of the great alluvial plain of northern India, has been the peculiar home of Hindu civilisation. It corresponds roughly to the Middle Country, the Madhya-desha of the sacred Hindu writings, where dwelt the gods and heroes of the Epic Period whose deeds are recorded in the Mahābhārata

Bakkār

(195 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, a fortified island in the river Indus lying between the towns of Sukkur and Rohri. Its importance was noted by Ibn Baṭṭūṭā who visited it during the reign of Muḥammad b. Tug̲h̲luḳ. In 1522, S̲h̲āh Beg, the founder of the Arg̲h̲ūn dynasty, made ¶ it his capital. When, in 1540, his son, S̲h̲āh Ḥusayn, refused to grant an asylum to the fugitive emperor Humāyūn the latter unsuccessfully attempted to capture this island fortress In 1574, in the time of Akbar, it was annexed to the Mug̲h̲al empire. The best and fullest account of the Mug̲h̲al conquest of Sind is to be found in the Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Maʿṣūmī

Pand̲j̲dih

(1,056 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
( Pend̲j̲deh ), a village now in the Turkmenistan Republic, situated to the east of the Kus̲h̲k river near its junction with the Murg̲h̲āb at Pul-i Kis̲h̲ti. The fact that the inhabitants of this area, the Sarik Turkomans, were divided into five sections, the Soktīs, Harzagīs, K̲h̲urāsānlis, Bayrač, and the ʿAlī S̲h̲āh. has been put forward as a possible explanation of the origin of the name Pend̲j̲deh, but it carries no weight as the Sariks were only 19th-century immigrants, whereas the name was in use in the 15th century. This obscure oasis owes a somewhat melancholy importance to…

Pand̲j̲āb

(2,954 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin | Talbot, I.
(p., “land of the five rivers”), a province of the northwestern part of the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent. In pre-Partition British India it comprised all that part of the Indian Empire, with the exceptions of the North West Frontier Province and Kas̲h̲mīr, north of Sindh and Rād̲j̲pūtāna and west of the river D̲j̲amna. Geographically therefore it includes more than its name implies, for, in addition to the country watered by the D̲j̲helum, Čināb, Rāwī, Beās, and Satled̲j̲, it embraces the table-la…

Awrangābād

(237 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, a town and district in the state of Bombay having in 1951 a population of 1,179,404. During the reign of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Ḵh̲ald̲j̲ī the Hindu rulers of this part of the Deccan were forced to pay tribute to the Muslim invaders. In 1347 it was incorporated in the Bahmanī kingdom and with the disintegration of that kingdom became part of the Niẓām S̲h̲āhī sultanate of Aḥmadnagar. Under Malik ʿAmbar, an able Abyssinian minister, Aḥmadnagar offered a stubborn resistance to the Mug̲h̲al invaders, but, …

Mastūd̲j̲

(350 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, village, fort, and district in the upper Yārkhūn valley formerly included in the Dīr, Swat and Citrāl Political Agency of the North-West Frontier Province of British India and now in Pakistan. It apparently formed part of the ancient territory of Syāmāka (Sylvain Lévi, in JA, ser. 11, vol. v, 76; and H. Lüders, Weitere Beiträge zur Geschichte und Geographie von Ostturkestan , 1930, 29 ff.). Stein identifies Mastūd̲j̲ with the territory of Čü-wei or S̲h̲ang-mi which was visited by the Chinese pilgrim Wu-k’ung in the 8th century A.D. ( Ancient Khotan , Oxford 1907, i, 15-16, Serindia

Rādhanpūr

(357 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, a former princely state, headed by a Nawwāb [ q.v.], of British India, at that time in the Pālānpūr [ q.v.] Agency of Bombay Province, now in the Gujarat State of the Indian Union. It is also the name of its capital (lat. 23° 49′ N., long. 7° 39′ E.), lying 90 km/56 miles to the southwest of Pālānpūr and to the east of the Rann of Cutch. The rulers of Rādhanpūr traced their descent from a Muslim adventurer who came to India from Isfahan about the middle of the 11th/17th century. His descendants became fawd̲j̲dārs and farmers of revenue in the Mug̲h̲al province of Gud̲j̲arāt [ q.v.]. Early in the 12t…

Pes̲h̲āwar

(1,459 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin | Bosworth, C.E.
, a city of Muslim India, in the northwestern part of the subcontinent, now in Pakistan (lat. 34° 01′ N., long. 71° 40′ E., altitude 320 m/1,048 ft.). In modern Pākistān, it is also the name of various administrative units centred on the city (see below). The district is bounded on the east by the river Indus, which separates it from the Pand̲j̲āb and Hazāra, and on the south-east by the Nīlāb G̲h̲as̲h̲a range which shuts it off from the district of Kō…

Baladiyya

(9,924 words)

Author(s): Lewis, B. | Hill, R.L. | Samaran, Ch. | Adam, A. | Lambton, A.K.S. | Et al.
, municipality, the term used in Turkish ( belediye ), Arabic, and other Islamic languages, to denote modern municipal institutions of European type, as against earlier Islamic forms of urban organisation [see madīna ]. The term, like so many modern Islamic neologisms and the innovations they express, first appeared in Turkey, where Western-style municipal institutions and services were introduced as part of the general reform programme of the Tanẓīmāt [ q.v.]. (1) turkey. The first approaches towards modern municipal administration seems to have been made by Sultan …

Bāonī

(146 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, formerly a petty Muslim state in the Bundelkhand Agency of Central India, is now administered as part of Madhya Pradesh (area: 122 square miles; population: 25, 256, of which only 12% are Muslims). Its rulers were descended from ʿImād al-Mulk G̲h̲āzī al-Dīn, the grandson of Āṣaf D̲j̲āh, the Niẓām of Ḥaydarābād. About 1784 G̲h̲āzī al-Dīn came to terms with the Marāthās who granted him a d̲j̲āgīr of 52 villages, the name Bāonī being derived from bāwan (fifty-two). This grant was later recognised by the British. Because of his loyalty during the 1857 revolt, the nawāb was granted a sanad

Nūr D̲j̲ahān

(432 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
name given to Mihr al-Nisāʾ the famous queen of D̲j̲ahāngīr, the Mug̲h̲al Emperor. She was born at Ḳandahār in 985/1577 when her father, G̲h̲iyāt̲h̲ Beg, was migrating from Persia to Hindustan ( Maʾāt̲h̲ir al-umarāʾ , i, 129). In the reign of Akbar she was married to ʿAlī Ḳulī Beg, a Persian who had rendered distinguished military service to the Emperor and who, because of his bravery, was known as S̲h̲īr Afgan. The assassination of her first husband will always remain a matter of controversy, ¶ some regarding it as a repetition of the story of David and Uriah, others holding t…

Arg̲h̲ūn

(812 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, name of a Mongol dynasty claiming descent from Hulāgū. (Raverty, Notes on Afghanistan , 580, refuses to accept this claim). The Arg̲h̲ūns rose to prominence towards the end of the 15th century when Sulṭān Ḥusayn Bāyḳarā of Harāt appointed Ḏh̲ū ’l-Nūn Beg Arg̲h̲ūn governor of Ḳandahār. He soon began to assume an independent attitude and resisted all attempts of the ruler of Harāt to coerce him. As early as 884/1479 he occupied the highlands of Pis̲h̲īn, S̲h̲āl and Mustang which now form part of Balūčistān. In 890/1…

Nāgpur

(951 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the name of a city, district and division of the state of Maharashtra in the Indian Union, formerly in the Central Provinces of British India; the city lies on the Nāg river in lat. 21° 10’ N. and long. 79° 12’ E. The history of this area, which roughly corresponds to Gondwāna, has been profoundly influenced by the long range of the Sātpura hills through which the Burhānpur-Asīrgaŕh gap provided the chief route from Hindustan to the Dakhan. When the Muslim invaders first came into contact with Gondwāna, it contained four independent Go…

Doʾāb

(176 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, (Pers.) ‘two-waters’, corresponding to the Greek μεσοποταμία, is in the Indo-Pākistān subcontinent generally applied to the land lying between two confluent rivers, and more particularly to the fertile plain between the D̲j̲amnā and the Ganges in Uttar Prades̲h̲. The long tongues of land between the five rivers of the Pand̲j̲āb are also known as doʾābs . Between the Satlad̲j̲ and the ¶ Beʾās lies the Bist doʾāb ; between the Beʾās and the Rāwī, the Bārī doʾāb; between the Rawī and the Čenāb, the Rečnā doʾāb; between the Čenāb and the D̲j̲helam, the Čad̲j̲ or D̲j̲eč doʾāb; and between the …

Amīr K̲h̲ān

(279 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, 1768-1834, the famous Paṭhān predatory chief and associate of Ḏj̲aswant Rāo Holkar, was born at Sambhal in the Murādābād district of Rohilkhand. As a young man he and his adherents were employed by various zamindārs and Marāṭha officials as sihbandi troops for the collection of the revenues. He rapidly developed into a leader of banditti and as such was successively employed by the rulers of Bhopāl, Indore and Ḏj̲aypūr. In 1798 he received the title of nawāb from Ḏj̲aswant Rāo Holkar. The following year he plundered Saugor and the surrounding coun…

Abū Ṭālib K̲hān

(240 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
(1752-1806), the son of Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Muḥammad Beg, of Turkish descent, was born at Lucknow. His early years were spent in Murs̲h̲idābād at the court of Muẓaffar Ḏj̲ang. With the accession of Āṣaf al-Dawla (1775) he returned to Oudh and was appointed ʿamaldār of Itāwah and other districts. He also served as a revenue official under Colonel Hannay who farmed the country of Sarwār. He was later employed by Nathaniel Middleton, the English Resident, and was connected with Richard Johnson in the management of the confiscated d̲j̲āgīrs of the Begams of Oudh. He re…

Mullagorī

(238 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the name of a tribe on the north-west frontier of Pakistan. They inhabit the hilly country around Tārtāra and Kambela to the north of the K̲h̲yber Pass, in the southern part of the Mohmand [ q.v.] territory. Their territories are bounded on the north by the Kābul river; on the west by the S̲h̲ilmānī country; on the south by the settlements of the Kuki K̲h̲ēl Afrīdīs; and on the east by the Pes̲h̲āwar district. The tribe is divided into three clans: the Aḥmad K̲h̲ēl, Ismāʿīl, and the Dawlat K̲h̲ēl. Like the Ṣāfīs and the S̲h̲ilmā…

Pargana

(691 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, a Hindi word, ultimately from a Sanskrit root “to compute, reckon up”, a term in Indo-Muslim administrative usage denoting an aggregate of villages, a subdivision of a district or sarkār [see mug̲h̲als. 3. Administrative and social organisation]. In later Anglo-Indian usage, the term was often rendered as pergunnah , see Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson , a glossary of Anglo-Indian colloquial words and phrases, 698-9. The first reference to this term in the chronicles of the Sultanate of Dihlī appears to be in the Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Fīrūz S̲h̲āhī of S̲h̲ams-i Sirād̲j̲ ʿAfīf ( Bibliotheca Ind…

D̲jō̲ōd̲h̲pur

(326 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
or Mārwāŕ was the largest of the former Indian States in the Rajputana Agency with an area of 36,120 sq.m. and a population of 2,555,904 (1941 Census). There appears to be no evidence to support the Rād̲j̲pūt legend that the state of D̲j̲ōdhpur was founded by the Rād̲j̲pūts of Kanawd̲j̲ after their defeat by Muḥammad of G̲h̲ūr in 590/1194. Siyāhd̲j̲ī, the founder of the Rāthōr dynasty of D̲j̲ōdhpur, was probably descended from Rāthōr rād̲j̲ās whose inscriptions are found in …

Ayyūb K̲h̲ān

(280 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the fourth son of S̲h̲īr ʿAlī, Amīr of Afg̲h̲ānistān, and brother of Yaʿḳūb Ḵh̲ān. Like all rulers of Afg̲h̲ānistān, S̲h̲īr ʿAlī had trouble with his sons. When, in 1873, he nominated his favourite son ʿAbd Allāh Ḏj̲ān as his heir-apparent, Ayyūb Ḵh̲ān fled to Persia. In 1879, when Yaʿḳūb Ḵh̲ān succeeded S̲h̲īr ʿAlī as amïr, Ayyūb Ḵh̲ān returned to Afg̲h̲ānistān and was appointed governor of Harāt. Towards the end of the Second Afg̲h̲ān War (1878-80) Lord Lytton’s government selected a Sadōzai prince, named S̲h̲īr ʿAlī, as the wālī of Ḳandahār. From this pos…

Mahsūd

(1,056 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
, the name of a Pat́hān tribe on the north-west frontier of Pakistan, in British Indian times the fiercest opponents there of British rule. The Mahsūds inhabit the heart of Wazīristān around Kāniguram and are s̲h̲ut off from Pakistan territory by the Bhittanni country. On all other sides they are flanked by Darwīs̲h̲ K̲h̲ēl Wazīrīs. It is now generally accepted that they left their original home in the Birmal hills of modern Afg̲h̲ānistān sometime towards the close of the 8th/14th century and gr…

Bālā-G̲h̲āt

(133 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin
(“above the g̲h̲āts or passes”), a name given to several elevated tracts in central and southern India. It was usually applied to the highlands above the passes through the Western G̲h̲āts. On the east side of the Indian peninsula it was the term used to distinguish the Carnatic plateau from the Carnatic Pāʿīng̲h̲āt or lowlands. In Berār it was the name of the upland country above the Ad̲j̲anta pass, the most northerly part of the table-land of the Deccan. It was also applied…

Mohmand

(1,153 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin | Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of a Pat́hān or Afg̲h̲ān tribe on the North-West Frontier of what was formerly British India, now forming the boundary between Pakistan and Afg̲h̲anistān. The Mohmands in fact straddle the frontier, and their members, estimated at ca. 400,000, are divided between the two countries. The Mohmand territories extend from northwest of the Pes̲h̲āwar district, with Mālākand and the Yūsufzay territories on the east, up to and beyond the Afg̲h̲an frontier on the west, and northwards towards the princely state of Dīr [ q.v.]. The Mohmand Agency, created by Pakistan (see below)…
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