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, Ḥamza b. Yūsuf al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī al-D̲j̲urd̲j̲ānī. Abu ’l-Ḳāsim (b. at an unknown date towards the middle of the 4th/10th century, d. 427/1038 at Nīs̲h̲āpūr), traditionist and legal scholar. A native of Gurgān [ q.v.] in the Caspian coastlands, where he was a k̲h̲aṭīb and preacher, his major work, and apparently the sole surviving one, is his Taʾrīk̲h̲ D̲j̲urd̲j̲ān or Kitāb Maʿrifat ʿulamāʾ ahl D̲j̲urd̲j̲ān , essentially a rid̲j̲āl [ q.v.] work devoted to the scholars and muḥaddit̲h̲ūn of his native province, to which is prefixed (ed. Ḥaydarābād 1369/…

, the name of a wadi and of a settlement in western Arabia, and also of a settlement in northern Arabia. 1. The wadi. This runs in a northeasterly direction from the mountains of the Sarāt [ q.v.] to the south of al-Ṭāʾif and past the setdement of Turaba, when it becomes the Wādī Ṣubayʿ. It flows through a region of ḥarras [ q.v.] through the Ṣubayʿ [ q.v.] country and disappears into the ʿArḳ al-Ṣubayʿ of Nad̲j̲d. The mediaeval Islamic geographers describe it as being three nights’ journey long and as having date palms, trees, fruits and cultivation. They place…

(a.), the verbal noun of a form II verb ḳassaṭa “to distribute”, especially used as a term of early Islamic financial administration. It denoted the allocation or distribution amongst the taxpayers of the global amount of taxation due. The synonyms ḳasṭ/ḳisṭ are also found. The term could also denote the total amount of taxation due or the instalments by which it was paid. See the references given by F. Løkkegaard, Islamic taxation in the classic period, with special reference to circumstances in Iraq , Copenhagen 1950, 127, and also H.F. Amedroz, Abbasid administration in its decay, from …

, modern form Mezzé, a village lying, according to the mediaeval geographers, half-a-farsak̲h̲ (i.e. about 4 km./2½ miles) to the west of Damascus [see dimas̲h̲ḳ ], described as extensive, populous and agriculturally rich, being irrigated by one of the streams of the Baradā river. It was also known as Mizzat Kalb, having been in the Umayyad period a locality heavily settled by South Arabian, Kalbī supporters of the Sufyānids, and being also the spot where the Companion of the Prophet Diḥya b. K̲h̲alīfa al-Kalbī was reputedly buried (al-Harawī, Ziyārāt , 11/27).…

, the site of a battle about 617 A.D. between most sections of the two Medinan tribes of Aws and Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲. It lay in the south-eastern quarter of the Medinan oasis in the territory of the Banū Ḳurayẓa. The battle was the climax of a series of internal conflicts. The Aws, whose position had deteriorated, were joined by the two chief Jewish tribes, Ḳurayẓa and al-Naḍīr, and by nomads of Muzayna; their leader was Ḥuḍayr b. Simāk. The opposing leader ʿAmr b. al-Nuʿmān of Bayāḍa was supported by most of the Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲, and by some nomadic D̲j̲uhayna and As̲h̲d̲j̲aʿ, but ʿAbd Allāh b. Ubayy [ q.v.] a…

, Abū Manṣūr , the author of a history in Arabic, the Taʾrīk̲h̲ G̲h̲urar al-siyar or al-G̲h̲urar fī siyar al-mulūk wa-ak̲h̲bārihim , which he dedicated to the G̲h̲aznawid Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Naṣr b. Sebüktigin, governor of K̲h̲urāsān, d. 412/1021. According to Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa, tr. Flügel, iv, 319 no. 8592, this universal history comprised four volumes, going from the Creation to Mahmud of G̲h̲azna [ q.v.] in the author’s own time. From the first part, H. Zotenberg published a text and French translation, Histoire des rois de Perse , Paris 1900. It is espec…

, a district and town of K̲h̲urāsān. The town (modern Turbat-i Ḥaydarī or Ḥaydariyya, see below) is some 140 km/88 miles south of Mas̲h̲had on the road to Gunābād and lies at an altitude of approximately 1,280/4,200 feet (lat. 35° 16’ N., long. 59° 08’ E.). Al-Muḳaddasī, 319 n. a, describes it as being just a rural district with no town, but Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 128, names its ḳaṣaba as Ruk̲h̲k̲h̲ or Rīk̲h̲. In Il-K̲h̲ānid times, the town of Zāwa seems to have flourished, with 50 villages dependent on it, producing silk and fruits (Mustawfī, Nuzha , ed. Le St…

, the putative title borne by a line of rulers in eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān in pre- and early Islamic times, who opposed the extension of Muslim arms into their region for some two centuries. In the Arabic historical texts, there is uncertainty about the vocalisation of the name, with forms like *Rutbīl and *Ratbīl, etc. given. The origin of the title is quite obscure. Marquart was probably correct in seeing in it a theophoric name which included the element Zūn [ q.v.] or Z̲h̲ūn, the name of the god mentioned in the Arabic sources as worshipped in the region of Zamīndāwar [ q.v.]; but other, less …

, Ningrahār , the name of the province of modern Afg̲h̲ānistān (post-1964 administrative organisation) which covers essentially the basin of the middle Kābul River from the Pakistan frontier near Land́ī Kōtal to a short distance to the west of the province’s administrative centre, D̲j̲alālābād [ q.v. in Suppl.] and the mountain regions on each bank. Before Lag̲h̲mān and Kunaŕ provinces were carved out from it in 1964, Nangrahār province extended northwards to include Nūristān (L. Dupree, Afghanistan , Princeton 1973, 156-7). The name itself goes back to the pre-Islamic perio…

, a town of northern Afg̲h̲ānistān lying in the lowland region to the south of the upper Oxus at an altitude of 1,400 ft./450 m. and in lat. 36° 42′ N. and long. 67° 41′ E.; it is situated some 30 miles/50 km. to the east of modern Mazār-i S̲h̲arīf and, according to the mediaeval Islamic geographers, two marḥala s or 10 farsak̲h̲ s to the east of Balk̲h̲ [ q.v.]. It further lies on the K̲h̲ulm River which flows down a narrow valley from the Hindu Kus̲h̲ past the town of Haybak and then K̲h̲ulm itself until it peters out short of the Oxus. It is possible that this river is the Artamis of the Greek geographers. T…

, modern Kütahya , a town of north-western Anatolia, lying at an altitude of 3,251 feet/991 m. in lat. 39° 25′ north and long. 29° 59′ east. It is in the south-western corner of the well-cultivated plain of the Porsuk Çay, which eventually runs into the Sakarya river; the old town nestles on the slopes of the hill called ʿAd̲j̲em Dag̲h̲, which is crowned by the ruined citadel. In classical times it was Cotyaeum, the city of Cotys, and the largest city of Phrygia Salutaris, an early centre of Christianity and then in Byzantine times the seat of an archbishopric. Kutāhiya was taken by the Turkme…

or Muʾnis al-K̲h̲āzin , commander of the ʿAbbāsids, prominent during the caliphates of al-Muʿtaḍid, al-Muktafī and al-Muḳtadir [ q.vv.], i.e. the end of the 3rd/9th and the opening of the 4th/10th centuries. He was called “the stallion” ( al-faḥl ) to distinguish him from his more celebrated contemporary Muʾnis al-K̲h̲ādim (“the eunuch”) [see muʾnis al-muẓaffar ]. Muʾnis al-Faḥl was ṣāḥib al-ḥaras or commander of the guard for al-Muʿtaḍid, and was sent by the caliph on various punitive expeditions against unruly Bedouin and other re…

, Persian author of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ period who wrote a local history and topographical account of his native province Fārs, the Fārs-nāma . Nothing is known of him save what can be gleaned from his book, nor is the exact form of his name known, but his ancestors came from Balk̲h̲. His grandfather was mustawfī or accountant for Fārs under Berk-yaruḳ b. Malik S̲h̲āh’s governor there, the Atabeg Rukn al-Dawla or Nad̲j̲m al-Dawla Ḵh̲umārtigin, and Ibn al-Balk̲h̲ī acquired his extensive local knowledge of Fārs through accompanying hi…

, conventionally Irtysh, a river of Siberia and the main left-bank affluent of the Ob [ q.v.]. It rises from glaciers on the southern slopes of the Altai mountains near the modern frontier of the Mongolian Republic and Chinese Turkestan or Sinkiang [ q.v.] through the Zaysan lake into the Kazakhstan Republic, then out of it into the Omsk oblast of the Russian Federation and joins the Ob at Khanty Mansiysk, its complete course being 3,720 km/2,312 miles, the greater part of it navigable. The Irtis̲h̲ is mentioned, as ärtis , in the Ork̲h̲on inscriptions (Kültégin…

, a town of northwestern Persia, situated on the Zand̲j̲ān Rūd, a right-bank affluent of the Safīd Rūd [ q.v.]. It lies on the highway from Tehran and Ḳazwīn to Tabrīz at a distance of 314 km/195 miles from Tehran and 302 km/188 miles from Tabrīz, and at an altitude of 1,625 m/5,330 feet (lat. 36° 40′ N., long. 48° 30′ E.). The mediaeval geographers mostly placed Zand̲j̲ān in D̲j̲ibāl province, usually linking it with Abhar [ q.v.] or Awhar some 80 km/50 miles to its south-east, but they usually stated that it was on the frontier with Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, and some authoriti…

(a.), noun of place from the verb s̲h̲ahida “to witness, be present at” > “be a martyr, s̲h̲ahīd’ ‘ (a post-Ḳurʾānic semantic development which Goldziher thought was influenced by Eastern Christian Syriac parallel usage; see Muh . Studien , ii, 387-9, Eng. tr. ii, 350-2). In post-Ḳurʾānic times also, the noun mas̲h̲had developed from its designating any sacred place, not necessarily having a construction associated with it, but often in fact a tomb in general, the burial place of an earlier prophet, saint or forerunner of Muḥammad or of any Muslim who had had pronounced over him the s̲h̲ahād…

, Indo-Muslim commander and Nawwāb [ q.v.] of Bengal 1760-4, died in 1777. ¶ Mīr Ḳāsim’s rise to power was an episode in the British East Indian Company’s extension of power in eastern India in the latter decades of the 18th century. Since the Nawwāb of Bengal Mīr D̲j̲aʿfar [see d̲j̲aʿfar , mīr ] was unable to fulfill financial obligations contracted to the Company, he was in October 1760 deposed in favour of his son-in-law Mīr Ḳāsim, who now became Nawwāb but had to cede the districts of Burdwan, Midnapur and Chittagong to the British. However, he now attempted to build up…

, Sāsānid emperor 591-628, and the last great ruler of this dynasty before the invading Arabs overthrew the Persian empire. The MP name Parwīz “victorious” is explained in al-Ṭabarī, i, 995, 1065, as al-muẓaffar and al-manṣūr ; the ¶ name was Arabised as Abarwīz (see Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch , 19). For the main events of his long reign (dominated by the struggles with the Byzantines over the buffer-state Armenia and over control of the Fertile Crescent in general, culminating in the Persian invasion of Egypt in 619, but then the riposte by t…

, a term often used in the sources for Sald̲j̲ūḳ history to designate the partisans and protégés of the great vizier Niẓām al-Mulk [ q.v.], after his death attached to and operating with the sons and descendants of Niẓām al-Mulk. The influence of these partisans was especially notable in the years just after Sultan Malik S̲h̲āh’s death in 485/1092, when they actively promoted the cause of and secured the sultanate for Berk-yaruḳ b. Malik S̲h̲āh [ q.v.] against his infant half-brother Maḥmūd, the candidate of Mālik S̲h̲āh’s widow Terken K̲h̲ātūn and her ally the vizier T…

, Abū Ṭālib Rustam b. Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla ʿAlī , Kahf al-Umma , ruler of the northern Būyid amīrate of Ray and Ḏj̲ibāl (387-420/997-1029). When Fak̲h̲r al-Dawla [ q.v.] died in S̲h̲aʿbān 387/August-September 997, his young son Rustam succeeded him at the age of eight (thus according to the anonymous Mud̲j̲mal al-tawārīk̲h̲ wa ’l-ḳiṣaṣ , ed. Bahār, Tehran 1318/1939, 396, giving Rustam’s birth-date as Rabīʿ II 379/July-August 989, and Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, ed. Beirut, ix, 69, but according to al-Rūd̲h̲rāwarī, in Eclipse of the ʿAbbasid caliphate, iii, 297, and Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, ix, 132, at…