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, Abū Naṣr Ḵh̲usraw-Fīrūz , Būyid amīr , d. 450/1058. When Abū Kālīd̲j̲ār, ruler in K̲h̲ūzistān. Fārs, Kirmān, ʿUmān and Baṣra in parallel with his uncle D̲j̲alāl al-Dawla [ q.v.] of Bag̲h̲dād, died in 440/1048, the eldest of his ten or so sons, K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz. succeeded as amīr with the title, unwillingly extracted from the caliph, of al-Malik al-Raḥīm. However, his succession was challenged by various of his brothers, and especially by Fūlād-Sutūn, and during his seven years’ reign, K̲h̲usraw-Fīrūz reigned undisputedly only in ʿIrāḳ, wit…

, a region of central Afg̲h̲ānistān spanning the modem (post-1964 reorganisation) provinces of Bāmiyān, Wardak, G̲h̲aznī, G̲h̲ōr and Uruzgān. The region is almost wholly mountainous, its northem backbone being formed by the Kūh-i Bābā range [ q.v.] and its outliers. There are consequently very few towns and these tend to lie in the river valleys, e.g. Dawlatyār on the upper Herī Rūd and Pand̲j̲āb or Pand̲j̲āō on the Pand̲j̲āb tributary of the upper Helmand. The sedentary agriculturist Hazāras [ q.v. below] are the main Ethnic element of the region, but there are also Pas̲h…

b. Nāṣir al-Dīn Maḥmūd S̲h̲āh, Bengal Sultan of the restored Ilyās S̲h̲āhī line, r. 864-79/1460-74. Bārbak was one of the most powerful of the medieval rulers of Bengal, achieving a great reputation from his warfare against the Hindu rulers of Orissa and northern and eastern Bengal, regaining Silhet [ q.v.] (Sylhet) and also Chittagong [ q.v.] from the Arakanese. He recruited for his armies Ḥabas̲h̲ī military slaves and Arab mercenaries, and popular hagiographical tradition attributed many of Bārbak’s conquest to one of this latter group, the warrio…

b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib , Abū Muḥammad, Companion and paternal cousin of the Prophet Muḥammad and younger brother of the famed scholar and reciter of traditions ʿAbd Allāh b. al-ʿAbbās [ q.v.], born in the year of the Hid̲j̲ra , died in the reign of Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya or in 85/704 or in 87/706. He was further related to the Prophet in that his mother Umm al-Faḍl bt. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ al-Hilāliyya was the sister of Muḥammad’s wife Maymūna [ q.v.] (Ibn Ḳutayba, Maʿārif , ed. ʿUkās̲h̲a, 121, 367; al-Balād̲h̲urī, Ansāb al-as̲h̲rāf , iii, ed. al-Dūrī, 447). Unlike his brother,…

, Arabic orthography Ḳūn, a Turkish tribe of Inner Asia known in the pre-Mongol period, but only in a shadowy fashion. The earliest mention of the Ḳun is in Bīrūnī’s K. al-Tafhīm (420/1029), ed. R. R. Wright, London 1934, 145, and he places them in the Sixth Clime, in the territory of the eastern Turks between the Ḳāy and the K̲h̲irkīz [see ḳāyi̊ and ḳi̊rgi̊z ]. The tribe is not, however, mentioned in Bīrūnī’s al-Ḳānūn al-Masʿūdī ( pace Pelliot, À propos des Comans , in JA, Ser. 11, Vol. xv [1920], 134-5). Nor are the Ḳun given in Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī (who does however deal with the ot…

(p.), lit. “head [of] affairs”, a term used in Mug̲h̲al Indian administration and also in the succeeding British Indian domination of the subcontinent. 1. In the structure of Mug̲h̲al provincial government, as elaborated under the Emperor Akbar [ q.v.] in 989/1580, there was a hierarchy of the ṣūba [ q.v.] or province, under the ṣūbadār [ q.v.] (also called sipāhsālār , nāẓim and ṣāḥib-i ṣūba ); the sarkār , or district, under the fawd̲j̲dar [ q.v.], who combined both administrative and military functions, corresponding to the two separate officials of British India, t…

(p.), the NP form of MP S̲h̲āhpūr “king’s ¶ son”, usually Arabised as S̲h̲ābūr, Sābūr, Syriac S̲h̲ābhōr, Greek Σαπώρης or Σαβουρ (see Justi, Iranisches Mamenbuch , 284 ff.), the name of various monarchs of the Sāsānid dynasty in pre-Islamic Persia. For the detailed history of their reigns, see sāsānids . Here, only such aspects as impinged on the Arabs will be noted. S̲h̲āpūr I, son of Ardas̲h̲īr Pāpakān (r. 239 or 241 to 270 or 273) is known in Arabic sources as S̲h̲āpūr al-D̲j̲unūd “S̲h̲. of the armies” (e.g. in al-Ṭabarī, i, 824, tr. Nöldeke, Gesch . der Perser und Amber …

b. Nāṣir al-Dīn, Sayyid, Persian commander, diplomat and historian of the Caspian region, b. ca . 815/1412, d. after 894/1489. He was a scion of the important family of Marʿas̲h̲ī Sayyids who dominated Māzandarān from the later 8th/14th century until the province’s incorporation into the Ṣafawid empire by S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās I in 1005/1596 [see marʿas̲h̲īs ]. ¶ Ẓahīr al-Dīn stemmed from the main branch of the Marʿas̲h̲īs, that of Kamāl al-Dīn b. Ḳiwām al-Dīn (d. 801/1379). He owned estates at Bāzargāh in Gīlān, and was employed by Sult…

, the name of two left-bank tributaries of the Tigris [see did̲j̲la ] in northern ʿIrāḳ, both of them rising in the Zagros mountain chain in Kurdistān. 1. The Great or Upper Zāb ( al-Zāb al-akbar or al-aʿlā ) was already known to the Assyrians, as Zabu ēlū “the upper Zāb”, and appears in classical Greek as Λύκος (cf. PW, xiii, cols. 2391-2), Byzantine Greek as ὁ μέγας Ζάβας, in Syriac as Zāb̲ā and in later Armenian as Zav . In Kurdish it is known today as the Zēʾ-i Bādinān and in Turkish as Zap J. Markwart discussed possible etymologies and suggested a link with older Aramaic dēb̲ā …

, a town of mediaeval ʿIrāḳ, lying, in the time of the classical Arabic geographers (3rd-4th/9th-10th centuries) on the left, i.e. eastern, bank of the Tigris, ten farsak̲h̲ s to the north of Bag̲h̲dād, roughly halfway between the capital and Sāmarrāʾ. As Yāḳūt noted ( Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 142), the name is orginally Aramaic ( sūriyānī ), sc. ʿOkbarā, and the history of the place can be traced back at least to early Sāsānid times. In the reign of the emperor S̲h̲āpūr I (mid-3rd century A.D.), Roman captives were settled there,…

, Muḥammad , youngest son of Muḥammad ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.] and hereditary viceroy of Egypt, theoretically under Ottoman suzerainty, 1854-63. He was styled Pas̲h̲a, but was already known in informal and unofficial usage as Khedive before this latter title was formally adopted after his death [see k̲h̲idīw ]. Born in 1822, his father had had a high opinion of his capabilities and had sent him at the age of only nineteen to Istanbul for negotiations over the tribute payable by Egypt to the Porte. Saʿīd’s uncle and predecessor in the governorship of Egypt, ʿAbbās Ḥilmī I b. Aḥmad Ṭūsūn [ q.v.], had…

b. Alī Yabg̲h̲u , the Og̲h̲uz Turkish [see g̲h̲uzz ] ruler in the town of D̲j̲and [ q.v. in Suppl.] on the lower Syr Darya in Transoxania during the second quarter of the 11th century A.D. S̲h̲āh Malik, who is given by Ibn Funduḳ the kunya of Abu ’l-Fawāris and the laḳab s of Ḥusām al-Dawla and Niẓām al-Milla, was the son and successor of the Og̲h̲uz Yabg̲h̲u, head of a section of that Turkish tribe in rivalry with that one led by the Sald̲j̲ūḳ family of chiefs [see sald̲j̲ūḳids. ii]. It was this hostility that made S̲h̲āh Malik ally with the G̲h̲aznawid Masʿūd b. Maḥmūd [ q.v.] against his kinsmen t…

, cawnpore, a city situated on the banks of the Ganges river in Uttar Pradesh province in the Indian Republic at lat. 26° 281 N. and long. 80° 201 E., and also the name of an administrative district of that province. Until the later 18th century, Kānpur was little more than a village known as Kanbaiyāpur or Kanhpur, and since it was situated on the western frontiers of Awadh or Oudh [ q.v.], the district of Kānpur was disputed in the middle decades of the 18th century by the Nawwābs of Awadh, the Mug̲h̲al emperors in Dihlī and the expanding power of the Marāthās. Af…

b. Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya I, last caliph of the Sufyānid line of the Umayyads, reigned briefly in 64/683-4. When Yazīd I b. Muʿāwiya [ q.v.] died at Ḥuwwārīn in the Syrian Desert in Rabīʿ I 64/November 683, he left behind Three young sons by free mothers; Muʿāwiya and his brother K̲h̲ālid b. Yazīd [ q.v.] cannot have been much more than 20 years old, Muʿāwiya’s age being given by the sources variously at between 17 and 23. Most of the surviving Sufyānids were in fact young and inexperienced, with their leadership qualities unproven. Yazīd had had the bayʿa [ q.v.] made to Muʿāwiya before his death…

, S̲h̲araf al-Zamān Ṭāhir , presumably a native of Marw [see marw al-s̲h̲āhid̲j̲ān ] or a descendant of such a native, physician and writer on geography, anthropology and the natural sciences, died after 514/1120. He acted as physician to the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan Malik-S̲h̲āh [ q.v.] and possibly to his successors down to the time of Sand̲j̲ar [ q.v.]; little else is known of his life. His main fame comes from his book the Ṭabāʾiʿ al-ḥayawān , which is essentially zoological in subject, but also with valuable sections on human geography, i.e. the vari…

, a South Arabian tribe. In early Islamic times D̲j̲aʿda had lands in the southernmost part of the Yemen highlands, the Sarw Ḥimyar, between the present-day towns of al-Ḍāliʿ and Ḳaʿṭaba in the north and the Wādī Abyan in the south. The road from Aden to Ṣanʿāʾ passed through the territory, and their neighbours were the Banū Mad̲h̲ḥid̲j̲ and Banū Yāfiʿ. These South Arabian D̲j̲aʿda are described by Hamdānī as a clan of ʿAyn al-Kabr, and are to be distinguished from the North Arabian tribe of D̲j…

, a town of the Ḥid̲j̲āz in north-western Arabia, lying in what was the early Islamic Wādī ’l-Ḳurā, at the southeastern end of the Ḥarrat al-ʿUwayriḍ and below a hill called Umm Nāṣir (lat. 26° 38ʹ N., long. 37° 57ʹ E., altitude 674 m/2,210 feet). The area is extremely rich archaeologically, and clearly flourished in pre-Islamic times as a major centre along the caravan route southwards from Syria, with ancient Dedan at the base of the Ḏj̲abal al-Ḵh̲urayba, to the south of what was al-Ḥid̲j̲r [ q.v.] and is now Madāʾin Ṣāliḥ some 18 km/12 miles north of al-ʿUlā. The mediaeval Isl…

, S̲h̲ig̲h̲nān , a district on the upper Oxus, there known as the Pand̲j̲ River, extending over both banks from where the river leaves the district of Wak̲h̲ān [ q.v.] and turns directly northwards before flowing westwards again. The left bank part of S̲h̲ug̲h̲nān now falls within the Afg̲h̲ān province of Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān [ q.v.] and the right bank one within the Pamir region of the former USSR, a division likewise reflected in the districts of G̲h̲ārān immediately to the north of S̲h̲ug̲h̲nān and Raws̲h̲ān to its south. The whole district is extrem…

Abū Naṣr Bahāʾ al-Dīn (330-416/942-1025), official and vizier of the Buy ids in Fārs. Beginning his career in high office as deputy to S̲h̲araf al-Dawla’s vizier Abū Manṣūr b. Ṣāliḥān, he subsequently became briefly vizier himself for the first time in 380/990 and for S̲h̲araf al-Dawla’s successor in S̲h̲īrāz. Bahāʾ al-Dawla [ q.v. in Suppl.]. He was vizier again in S̲h̲īrāz in Ḏj̲umādā I 386/May-June 996, this time for over three years, and in 390/1000 in Baghdād as deputy there for the vizier Abū ʿAlī al-Muwaffaḳ. Sābūr, although a native of S̲…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. Ḥasan, early poet in New Persian, of whom almost nothing is known but who must have flourished in the middle decades of the 4th/10th century, since odd verses of his survive that were allegedly dedicated to the Sāmānid Amir ʿAbd al-Malik (I) b. Nūḥ (I) (343-50/954-61), and he may have been at the court of the Ṣaffārid ruler of Sīstān, Ḵh̲alaf b. Aḥmad (352-93/963-1003). Fragments amounting to some 45 verses, mainly love poetry and satires, have been collected by G. Lazard, Les premiers poètes persans ( IX e-Xe siècles ), Tehran-Paris 1964…