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, a rural district ( rūstāḳ , nāḥiya ) of the mediaeval Islamic province of D̲j̲ibāl [ q.v.], sc. western Persia. The geographers describe it as a fertile plain below the Kūh-i Alwand, containing 93 villages and producing high-quality saffron which was exported through the nearby towns of Hamad̲h̲ān and Nihāwand. The chef-lieu of the district, in which was situated the d̲j̲āmiʿ and minbar , was known as Karad̲j̲-i Rūd̲h̲rāwar, characterised in the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 132, § 31.8-9, as prosperous and the resort of merchants. The site of this seems…

, Abū Ḥarb, Umayyad commander and governor, the third of the many sons of Abū Sufyān’s bastard son Ziyād b. Abīhi [ q.v.], d. 73/692. The family of Ziyād already had a firm grip on the East in the later years of Muʿāwiya’s caliphate, and when Yazīd I came to the throne, he appointed Salm as governor of Ḵh̲urāsān (61/681), and the latter nominated another of his brothers, Yazid b. Ziyād, as his deputy in Sīstān. Salm proved himself a highly popular governor with the Arab troops in Ḵh̲urāsān. largely on account of his mil…

, an old Turkish word which came, in Islamic times, to mean “slave boy, male slave”, defined by Maḥmūd Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, Dīwān lug̲h̲āt al-Turk , ed. Kilisli Rifʿat Bilge, i, 282, tr. Atalay, i, 336-7, as ʿabd . However, the original meaning of ḳul in Orkhon Turkish was rather “servant, vassal, dependent” (the masculine counterpart of kün “female servant, etc.”, the two words being linked in the Kültegin inscription, text references in Talât Tekin, A grammar of Orkhon Turkish, Bloomington, Ind. 1968, 347), since slavery in the Islamic juridical sense did not exist among the ancient Turks. The…

, a small town in Central India, before Partition in the Native State of Dewās, now in the Shajapur District of the state of Madhya Pradesh in the Indian Union (lat. 23° 34′ N, long. 76° 24′ E). It is essentially a Muslim town, founded by the sultans of Mālwā [ q.v.], but on an ancient site. It was reputedly the location of a battle in 840/1437 when Maḥmūd K̲h̲ald̲j̲ī I of Mālwā was defeated by the forces of Mēwāŕ [ q.v.], and, of more certain historicity, it was captured in 932/1526 from Maḥmūd II of ¶ Mālwā by Rāṇā Sāṇgā [ q.v.] of Čitawr. Then in 968/1561 it was seized by Akbar from the local…

, Arabised as Zarand̲j̲, the main town of the early Islamic province of Sīstān. Its ruins lie a few miles north of what was in the late 19th and early 20th centuries the administrative centre of Persian Sīstān, Nuṣratābād or Nāṣirābād, modern Zābul. Its remaining traces are visible within the vast ruined site known as Nād-i ʿAlī, to the east of the present course of the Hilmand river [ q.v.] before it peters out in the Hāmūn depression [see zirih ] just inside Afg̲h̲an Sīstān; the site has, however, been much depleted by periodic flooding and the re-us…

, a town of northern Persia (long. 53° 24′ E., lat. 35° 33′ N., alt. 1,138 m/3,734 ft.), in mediaeval Islamic times coming within the province of Ḳūmis [ q.v.] and lying on the great highway connecting Rayy with the administrative centre of Ḳūmis, sc. Dāmg̲h̲ān [ q.v.], and K̲h̲urāsān. To its north is situated the Elburz Mountain chain and to its south, the Great Desert. 1. History. Simnān comes within what was the heartland of the Parthians (whose capital almost certainly was at S̲h̲ahr-i Ḳūmis, southeast of Dāmg̲h̲ān on the Simnān road), but nothing is known o…

, the name of a family settled in K̲h̲urāsān, of Arab descent, which provided secretaries and viziers for the Sāmānids and early G̲h̲aznawids [ q.vv.] in the 4th/10th and early 5th/11th centuries (from which of the ʿUtbas of early Islamic times they were descended does not seem to be specified in the sources). 1. Abū d̲j̲aʿfar ( ism and nasab variously given), vizier under the Sāmānid amīr ʿAbd al-Malik I b. Nūḥ I, from 344/956 to 348/959 and again, in company with Abū ʿAlī Muḥammad al-Balʿamī [ q.v.], under his successor Manṣūr I b. Nūḥ I, a few years later. His policy aimed at s…

, the name of two places in eastern Persia, denoted in the early mediaeval Islamic sources by the dual form al-Ṭabasāni (e.g. in al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, ix, 45, and Yāḳūt, Buldān, ed. Beirut, iv, 20) and distinguished as Ṭabas al-Tamr “Ṭ. of the date-palms” and Ṭabas al-ʿUnnāb “Ṭ. of the jujube trees”, later Persian forms Ṭabas Gīlakī and Ṭabas Masīnān respectively. Ṭabas al-Tamr lay to the west of Ḳuhistān [ q.v.] in the central Great Desert at a junction of routes between the Das̲h̲t-i Lūt in the south and the Das̲h̲t-i Kawīr in the north and west. Ṭab…

, a mediaeval town on the lower reaches of the Si̊r Daryā in Central Asia, towards its debouchure into the Aral Sea, in what is now the Kazakhstan SSR; its fame was such that the Aral Sea was often called “the Sea of D̲j̲and”. D̲j̲and is first mentioned by certain Muslim geographers of the mid-4th/10th century, in particular, by Ibn Ḥawḳal, and following him, by the anonymous author of the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (wrote 372/982). Ibn Ḥawḳal mentions three settlements on the lower Si̊r Daryā amongst the Og̲h̲uz Turks of that region: D̲j̲and; the “New Se…

b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib al-Hās̲h̲imī , Companion of the Prophet, son of the Prophet’s uncle and of Umm al-Faḍl Lubāba al-Hilāliyya, herself Muḥammad’s sister-in-law. Although the Sīra brings him into contact with Muḥammad by making him one of the inner circle of the Hās̲h̲imī family who washed the Prophet’s corpse and descended into his grave, and although his physical resemblance to the Prophet is also stressed, he was obviously a late convert to Islam, doubtless following his father al-ʿAbbās [ q.v.] in this after the conquest of Mecca. Nothing is heard of him during the reigns of t…

, Abu ’l-Faḍl al-Minḳarī al-Tamīmī, early S̲h̲īʿī historian (though probably not, as Sezgin rightly observes, the first one) and traditionist; his date of birth is uncertain, but he died in 212/827. He lived originally in Kūfa but later moved to Bag̲h̲dād; amongst those from whom he heard traditions was Sufyān al-T̲h̲awrī [ q.v.]. His own reputation as an ak̲h̲bāri and muḥaddit̲h̲ was, however, weak, and he was regarded by some Sunnī authors as a fervent ( g̲h̲ālī ) S̲h̲īʿī. He is best known for his Kitāb Waḳʿat Ṣiffīn (this has been reconstructed, from the p…

, the nisba of two scholars from the small town of Maybud [ q.v.] near Yazd in Persia and also of a vizier of the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳs. 1. ras̲h̲īd al-dīn abu ’l-faḍl aḥmad b. muḥammad , author of an extensive Ḳurʾān commentary in Persian, begun in 520/1126, the Kas̲h̲f al-asrār waʿuddat al-abrār , extant in several mss. Bibliography Storey, i, 1190-1 Storey-Bregel, i, 110-11 and on the nisba in general, al-Samʿānī, Ansāb, f. 547b. 2. mīr ḥusayn b. muʿīn al-dīn al-manṭiḳī , pupil of D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn al-Dawānī [ q.v.], ḳāḍī and philosopher, author of several works on…

, Ẓahīr al-Dīn , Persian author who wrote a valuable history of the Sald̲j̲ūḳs during the reign of the last Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ of Persia, Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l (III) b. Arslan [ q.v.]; he must have died ca. 580/1184-5. Nothing is known of his life except that Rāwandī [ q.v.] states ( Rāḥat al-ṣudūr , ed. M. Iqbál, 54) that he had been tutor to the previous sultans Masʿūd b. Muḥammad [ q.v.] and Arslan b. Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l (II). His Sald̲j̲ūḳ-nāma was long believed lost, but was known as the main source for Rāwandī’s information on the Sald̲j̲ūḳs up to the latter’s own time (see Rāḥat al-ṣudūr, Preface, pp. XXVI, XXI…

, a city in southeastern Afg̲h̲ānistān (in modern times giving its name to a province) situated in latitude 31°27′ N. and longitude ¶ 65°43′ E. at an altitude of 3,460 ft. (1,000 m.), and lying between the Arg̲h̲andāb and S̲h̲orāb Rivers in the warmer, southern climatic zone ( garmsīr ) of Afg̲h̲ānistān. Hence snow rarely lies there for very long, and in modern times the city has been favoured as a winter residence for Kābulīs wishing to avoid the rigours of their winter (see J. Humlum et al., La géographie de l’Afghanistan , étude d’un pays aride , Copenhagen 1959, 14…

, abū s̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ muḥammad b. al-ḥusayn , zaḥīr al-dīn , vizier to the ʿAbbāsid caliphs and adīb (437-88/1045-95). He was actually born at Kangāwar [see kinkiwar ] in D̲j̲ibāl, but his father, a member of the official classes, stemmed from the nearby district of Rūd̲h̲rāwar [ q.v.]. Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ Muḥammad served al-Muḳtadī as vizier very briefly in 471/1078-8 after the dismissal of ʿAmīd al-Dawla Ibn D̲j̲ahīr [see d̲j̲ahīr , banū ] ¶ and then for a longer period, S̲h̲aʿbān 476 Ṣafar or Rabīʿ I 484/December 1083 to January 1084-April or May 1091, after the second …

(I) b. Naṣr b. Aḥmad , Sāmānid amīr of Transoxania and Khurāsān (331-43/943-54), given after his death the honorific of al-Amīr al-S̲h̲āhīd (“the Praiseworthy”). ¶ Continuing the anti-S̲h̲īʿī reaction which marked the end of the reign of Nūḥ’s father Naṣr [ q.v.], the early years of the new reign were dominated by the vizierate of the pious Sunnī faḳīh Abu i-Faḍl Muḥammad Sulamī, but very soon, ominous signs of decline began to appear in the state. There were revolts in the tributary kingdom of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.] and in K̲h̲urāsān under its governor Abū ʿAlī Čag̲h̲ānī, whom Nūḥ a…

, Arabic spellings K̲h̲.w.st or K̲h̲.wāst, the name of various places in Afg̲h̲anistān. The most likely etymology for the name is that given by G. Morgenstierne in his An etymological vocabulary of Pashto , Oslo 1928, 98: that it is an Iranised form * hwāstu , cf. Skr. suvāstu- “good site” (which became the place-name Swāt [ q.v.] in the North-West frontier region of Pakistan). The mediaeval Arabic and Persian geographers mention what appear to be two places of this name in northern Afg̲h̲anistān. Those of the 4th/10th century mention K̲h̲as̲h̲t as a town on …

al-Layt̲h̲ī al-Kinānī , the last ¶ governor of K̲h̲urāsān under the Umayyads, d. 131/748. Naṣr’s whole career seems to have been spent in K̲h̲urāsān and the East. In 86/705 he campaigned in the upper Oxus region under Ṣāliḥ, brother of the governor of K̲h̲urāsān Ḳutayba b. Muslim [ q.v.], and received a village there as reward. Then in 106/724 he was campaigning in Farg̲h̲āna under Muslim b. Saʿīd al-Kilābī, and served as governor of Balk̲h̲ for some years. Hence on the death of the governor of the East Asad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḳasrī [ q.v.], the caliph His̲h̲ām was advised to appoint as hi…

the title given to local Iranian rulers of Sog̲h̲dia and Farg̲h̲āna in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period. Although Justi ( Iranisches Namenbuch , 14 ), Unvala ( The translation of an extract from Mafâtîh al-ʿUlûm of al-K̲h̲wârazmî , in J. of the . Cama Ins xi (1928), 18-19) and Spuler ( Iran , 30-1, 356) derive it from O. Pers. k̲h̲s̲h̲aeta- ‘shining, brilliant’, an etymology from O. Pers. k̲h̲s̲h̲āyat̲h̲iya- ‘king, ruler’ (M. Pers. and N. Pers. s̲h̲āh ) is more probable (Christensen, and Bosworth and Clauson, see below). This O. Pers. term k̲h̲s̲h̲āyat̲h̲iya- penetrated beyond T…

(a.), the verbal noun of the form III verb nād̲j̲ā “to whisper to, talk confidentially with someone”, which is used in Ḳurʾān, LVIII, 13, in this sense, and in the reciprocal form VI in LVIII, 9, 10, of the murmurs of discontent amongst the Prophet’s followers, probably after the Uḥud reverse (see Nöldeke-Schwally, G des Q, i, 212-13). Munād̲j̲āt becomes, however, a technical term of Muslim piety and mystical experience in the sense of “extempore prayer”, as opposed to the corporate addressing of the deity in the ṣalāt (see Hughes, A dictionary of Islam, 420), and of the Ṣūfīs’ communio…