Search

(Russian Ḏj̲ulf), an ancient, once important town in Armenia, on the north bank of the Araxes, lying approximately in Lat. 59° N., now belonging to the Russian gouvernement of Eriwān. S̲h̲āh Abbās I the Great (see above p. 8) brought about the ruin of the town when in 1014 (1605) he brought the entire population (2000 families) which had won his sympathies by expelling the Turkish garrison during the Turco-Persian war, to Persia, chiefly to the capital Iṣpahān and thereby introduced a new element…

, the name of several places in the ʿIrāḳ and in Mesopotamia: 1. A town in the ʿIrāḳ,on the Eastern bank of the Tigris, 8 miles S. E. of Sāmarrā. With the latter it seems to have been closely connected in its period of prosperity. We do not know what special part al-Ḳādisīya played at that time. Perhaps, as Herzfeld, ( op. cit., p. 107) suggests, it is really identical with the town of al-Ḳāṭūl which Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd or the Caliph al-Muʿtasim began to build before the foundation of Sāmarrā. Yāḳūt and other Arab geographers mention the glassworks of al-Ḳād…

, the capital of Ḵh̲ūzistān, in 32° 25’ N. Lat. and 48° 35’ E. Long (Greenw.), on the bank of the Dizfūl-Rūd or Āb-i Diz, which takes its name from it. This river which rises in the Burūd̲j̲ird district flows into the Kārūn a little below Band-i Ḳīr (ʿAskar Mukram; see above, p. 488). According to Herzfeld, Dizfūl (650 feet above sea-level) is built on conglomerate cliffs 60 feet high, the outermost spur thrust, by the mountains into the Susian plains; the ruins of Susa begin about 15 miles to t…

, i.e. „founded by ʿAbbās“, name of several places: 1. A Persian town in the north of the salt steppe of Ḵh̲orāsān, about half-way between Sebzawār on the east and S̲h̲āhrūd on the west. It owes its foundation to S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās I (died 1628), who settled a hundred Georgian families there. This colony, which he fortified, could, according to his plans, serve as a centre for the North-East of Persia and as a base to make his rule over these regions secure. Comp. Ritter, Erdkunde, viii. 333—336. 2. and 3. There are two places of this name in the Māzanderān country, south of the Caspia…

, a place and administrative district in ʿIrāḳ; with Bādarāyā [q. v.] and the three districts of the great Nahrawān-Canal, ¶ it formed the East Tigris circle ( astān) of Bāzīyān Ḵh̲usraw; cf. Streck, Babylonien nach d. Arab. Geogr., i. 15. Like Bādarāyā, in conjunction with which it is usually mentioned by the Arab geographers, Bākusāyā still exists under the name Baksaieh (Baksā) southeast of Bedrē (= Bādarāyā) below 46° 25′ e. L. (Greenw.), quite near the Persian frontier; see e.g. Stieler’s Handatlas, sheet N°. 59 (1910). In Kusāyā is concealed the name of a people as G. H…

, the name of a place prominent in pre-Muḥammadan times within the area covered in later times by Bag̲h̲dād with which it was naturally later almost entirely absorbed (see also the ¶ article bag̲h̲dād). It lay a short distance from the little town of Muḥawwal (to the southeast of it), just below the point where the Nahr Kark̲h̲āyā, the small canal which waters the commercial quarter of Kark̲h̲, left the great navigable ʿĪsā Canal. This suburb was only separated from Bag̲h̲dād proper, on the southern part of the western half of …

, a town in the Ḏj̲azīra (Mesopotamia), on the right (south or east) bank of the Tigris, in 37° 40′ N. Lat. and 41° 30′ East. Long. (Greenw.), about halfway between Diyār Bakr and Ḏj̲azīrat Ibn ʿUmar, about 3 days’ journey (60—70 miles) from either. Ḥiṣn Kaifā dates from very ancient times. The many ancient caves and grottos still in existence belong to the pre-Armenian (Chaldean) period and show that there was a settlement here as early as about 800 b. c. In the border wars between Romans and Persians during the later Empire the town (ΚίΦαΣ, Cepha) played an important part …

, site of ruins in Mesopotamia, on the Western bank of the Ḵh̲ābūr, to the South of the Ḏj̲abal ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, situated under 36° 10′ N. Lat. and 40° 50′ E. Long. (Greenw.). The remains of the old town are hidden under several hills, after one of which the site is also called Tell ʿAd̲j̲āba. It was here that H. A. Layard found several winged bulls with human heads, products of the genuinely Mesopotamian civilization which is closely related to that of …

( Kalāh , Kalā , Kilā , Killah ), the mediaeval Arab geographers’ name for an island or peninsula ( d̲j̲azīra ) which played an important intermediary role in commercial and maritime relations between Arabia, India and China. It was particularly well-known for its tin mines, and the Arabic word ḳalʿī / ḳalaʿī [ q.v.] for this metal derives from Kalah; the place was also portrayed as the centre of trade in camphor, bamboo, aloes, ivory etc. Its capital also was named Kalah (cf. e.g., al-Dīmas̲h̲kī, Cosmographie , 152, 170); so too the sea which washed its shor…

, town in ʿIrāḳ situated in about 33° 35′ N. and 42° 48′ E. on the right bank of the Euphrates, on a hill which may be man-made. The mediaeval Arab travellers estimate the distance between Hit and Bag̲h̲dād at 33 parasangs ( ca. 130 miles) or 5½-6 days’ journey, cf. M. Streck, Babylonien nach den arab. Geographen , i, 8. Some Arab geographers (al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and Ibn Ḥawḳal) include Hīt in the D̲j̲azīra; it was generally considered, however, to be a frontier town of ʿIrāḳ. In al-Muḳaddasī’s time (4th/10th century) it was of some imp…

, Muḥammad b. ʿUmar b. Sulaymān, Tunisian author of the 19th century (1204-74/1789-1857). He stemmed from a family of scholars in Tūnis, his grandfather having been a manuscript copyist who had gone on the Pilgrimage to Mecca and had then setded at Sennar [see sinnār ] in the Sūdān, thus establishing a family connection between that region, Cairo (where Muḥammad’s father became naḳīb al-riwāḳ , i.e. superintendent of the Mag̲h̲ribī students at al-Azhar) and Tūnis. Muḥammad was born in Tūnis in 1204/1789, and after studying at al-Azhar, made his way to the Sūdān, where …

, under the ʿAbbāsid Caliphate a district south-west of Bag̲h̲dād, the land south of the Nahî Ṣarāt, a branch of the Euphrates canal Nahr ʿĪsā [ q.v.]. The Ṣarāt separates it from the Ḳaṭrabbul district; the southern part of the western half of Bag̲h̲dād (the so-called town of al-Manṣūr) as well as the suburb of Kark̲h̲ were situated within the bounds of the district of Bādūrayā; the latter formed, like the district of Ḳaṭrabbul, a subdivision of the circle of Astān al-ʿĀlī. (M. Streck*) Bibliography Muḳaddasī, iii, 119, 120 Ibn Ḵh̲urradād̲h̲bih, 7, 9, 235, 237 Balād̲h̲urī, Futuḥ, 250, 254…

( ʿAḍēm ), an eastern tributary of the Tigris (Did̲j̲la, [ q.v.]). It is formed of the junction of several rivers which have their sources in the range east of and parallel to the Ḏj̲abal Ḥamrīn and which in their course from N.E. to S.W. break through deeply cut ravines. The most important of these rivers are: the river of Kirkūk, viz. the Ḵh̲āṣa (Kaza, Kissa) -čay (on some maps it figures also under the name of Ḳara-ṣū), which rises from several sources north of Kirkūk; further the river of Tāʾūk (Daḳūkā [ q.v.]), viz. the Tāʾūk-ṣū (or -čay), the most important of all, which joins the…

, the name of several places, generally in districts where Aramaic was once spoken, for al-Bīra is a translation of the Aramaic bīrt̲h̲ā — “fortress”, “citadel”. The best known is al-Bīra on the east bank of the Euphrates in North-west Mesopotamia, the modern Bīred̲j̲ik [ q.v.]: on other places, bearing the name Bīra, cf. Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am (ed. Wüstenfeld), i, 787; Nöldeke in the Nachr. der Götting . Ges. der Wiss. , 1876, 11-12 and in De Goeje, BGA, iv, (gloss.), 441; Le Strange, Palestine under the Moslems (1890), 423. (M. Streck)

, the name of a celebrated citadel in Northern Syria, on the right bank of the Euphrates in 36° 53′ N. Lat. and 38° 18′ E. Long. (Greenwich). Its importance lay in the fact that it commanded the passage of the river here, where it was crossed by a bridge. It was here that a caravan route from Syria to Mesopotamia, much used in the middle ages, crossed the river. The route ran from Ḥalab via al-Bāb [q. v.] to Manbid̲j̲, thence in a fairly straight line to the Euphrates, then across the river in a…

(Elvend), is an isolated mountain-group lying to the west and south-west of Hamad̲h̲ān in al-Ḏj̲ibāl (Media), rising to a height of 3746 metres according to the latest calculations of Stahl. For the rest the accounts of travellers and maps differ considerably in the statement of the actual height (3400, 3270 metres, and so on). To the north and north-east the Alwand-Kōh steeply descends to the plain by some rocky spurs and more rounded foot-hills; to the north-west it is united to the Kelagez, a…

, one of the principal rivers of Central Persia. Its source lies about 90 miles W. of Iṣfahān in the province of ʿArabistān (Ḵh̲ūzistān) in the Zardeh-Kūh, “the yellow hills” (so-called after the yellow limestone found there) which are included among the Bak̲h̲tiārī mountains, in which also rises the Kārūn [q. v.], the greatest river of southern Persia. After leaving the mountains the Zende-rūd flows through the district of Iṣfahān after which it is often called Iṣfahān-Rūd, “the river of Iṣfahā…

(Nuffar), a ruined site in southern ʿIrāḳ, in 32° 7′ N. Lat. and 45° 10′ East Long. (Greenw.), now in the ḳaḍā of ʿAfek in the liwā al-Dīwānīye. Niffar corresponds, as J. Oppert was the first to point out, to the town of Nippur well known from cuneiform inscriptions, one of the oldest and most important places in Babylonia. Its great importance was not political but religious, as the temple of the chief deity of the town formed a kind of central sanctuary or place of pilgrimage for the whole of …

, Ḏj̲ebel Ḏj̲ūdī or Ḏj̲ūdī Dag̲h̲, a lofty mountain mass in the district of Bohtān, about 25 miles or 7 hours journey N.E. of Ḏj̲azīrat ibn ʿOmar, in 37° 30′ N. Lat. It is as yet practically unexplored and is believed to be about 13,500 feet high. Ḏj̲ūdī owes its fame to the Mesopotamian tradition, which identifies it, and not Mount Ararat, with the mountain on which Noah’s ark rested. It is practically certain from a large number of Armenian and other writers that, down to the xth century, Mt Ararat was in no way connected with the Deluge. Ancient Armenian tradition certainly kno…

(also Ḏj̲annābā, Ḏj̲unnāba) a town in Persia. In the middle ages it belonged to the province of Arrad̲j̲ān and played a not inconsiderable part as one of the more important harbours of the Persian Gulf. It did not lie directly on the coast but (in N. Lat. 29° 30’; E. Long. 50° 40’ Greenw.) about 2½ miles from it at the top of a bay (northeast of the island of Ḵh̲ārak), ¶ which connects it with the open seq. Ḏj̲annāba used to be a flourishing industrial centre; the cloths manufactured there were particularly priced and formed one of the principal exports. The town i…