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, the name of several places in the Islamic world, from Cordova in the west to Nīs̲h̲āpūr in the east (see Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 46-50). Amongst the Ruṣāfa settlements of ʿIrāḳ were: 1. Ruṣāfat Abi ’l-ʿAbbās (ʿAbd Allāh al-Saffāḥ), begun by the first ʿAbbāsid caliph in lower ʿIrāḳ on the banks of the Euphrates, near al-Anbār [ q.v.], and probably identical with that town called al-Hās̲h̲imiyya. Bibliography Yaʿḳūbī, Buldān, 237, tr. Wiet, 9 Yāḳūt, Buldān, iii, 46. 2. al-Ruṣāfa, the name of a quarter of the city of Bag̲h̲dād [ q.v.] founded soon after the caliph al-Manṣūr [ q.v.] buil…

, the name (of unknown etymology) of a mountain massif of Inner Asia. Its core is in the modern Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous oblast of the former USSR, but it spills over into Kirghizia and Tadjikistan to the north and west, and into the Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China to the east, and Afg̲h̲ānistān (including the Wak̲h̲ān corridor) and Pākistānī Kas̲h̲mir (Āzād Kas̲h̲mīr) to the south. Comprised mainly of east-west-running ranges, its many river valleys being right-bank affluents of t…

, an ancient oasis settlement of northwestern Arabia, now in Saudi Arabia (lat. 27° 37’ N., long. 38° 30’ E.). According to the mediaeval Islamic geographers, it lay in the region called al-Maḥad̲j̲d̲j̲āt, and was four days’ journey south of Dūmat al-D̲j̲andal [ q.v.]; al-Muḳaddasī, 107, 250, 252, localises it at three stages from al-Ḥid̲j̲r [ q.v.] (in fact, Taymāʾ is some 110 km/70 miles from al-Ḥid̲j̲r/ Madā’in Ṣāliḥ), four stages from Tabūk [ q.v.] and four from the Wādī ’l-Ḳurā [ q.v.]. It lies in a depression, the length of which J.A. Jaussen and R. Sauvignac put at 3.2…

, Muʿīn al-Dīn Muḥammad Zamčī, epistolary stylist and historian in Tīmūrid Ḵh̲urāsān whose birth and death dates are unknown but who flourished in the second half of the 8th/14th century. From what he says in his own works, he arrived in Harāt, probably from Isfizār in what is now western Afg̲h̲ānistān, in 873/1468-9, and was employed as a muns̲h̲ī at the court of Sultan Ḥusayn Bayḳara [see Ḥusayn at Vol. III, 603a] under the patronage of the vizier Ḳiwām al-Dīn Niẓām al-Mulk (d. 903/1497-8). Isfizārī is most famous as the author of a history and compendium of …

, the form in early Arabic usage for the name of a northwestern Indian people, the Jhāt́s [see d̲j̲āt́ ], members of whom were brought into the Persian Gulf region in the first Islamic centuries and possibly earlier. According to al-Balād̲h̲urī, the Sāsānid emperor Bahrām V Gūr ( r. 420-38) transported Zuṭṭ from India to K̲h̲ūzistān and the Persian Gulf shores; these subsequently became Muslim and were settled by Abū Mūsa al-As̲h̲ʿarī [ q.v.] at Baṣra, being attached to the tribe of Ḥanẓala of Tamīm. At least some of them were caught up in the rebellion of Ibn al-As̲h̲ʿat̲h̲ [ q.v.], and after…

, Afg̲h̲ān commander in northern India during the 18th century, whose power-base was in Rohilkand, where he founded the town of Nad̲j̲ībābād [ q.v.]. Involved in the confused struggles for power in Dihlī during the reigns of the fainéant Mug̲h̲al Emperors Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Bahādur [ q.v.] and ʿAlamgīr II in the 1750s, as opponent of the Nawwāb-wazīr of Awadh (Oudh) [ q.v.] Ṣafdār D̲j̲ang, he worked closely with the Afg̲h̲ān ruler Aḥmad S̲h̲āh Durrānī [ q.v.] and received from him in 1757 the title of amīr al-umarāʾ and custodianship of the Emperor ʿĀlamgīr II. At…

, a large river in Central Asia. It is formed by the two rivers Tekes and Kunges, which rise on the northern slopes of the T’ien-Shan Mts.; the united stream of the Ili then flows for some 950 kms. across the northern part of the region known in mediaeval times as “the land of the seven rivers”, Yeti-su or Semirečye, into Lake Balk̲h̲as̲h̲. The lower course of the Ili falls within the Soviet Kazakhstan Republic, whilst the eastern part of the Ili river system belongs to the Chinese Sinkiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region. The Ili is first mentioned in the history of the Chinese T’ang dynast…

, abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 329-33/940-4, son of al-Muḳtadir [ q.v.] and a slave-girl named K̲h̲alūb. At the age of 26 on 21 Rabīʿ I 329/24 Dec. 940 he succeeded his half-brother al-Rāḍī [ q.v.]; by this time the caliphate had sunk so low that five days passed after the death of al-Rāḍī before steps were taken to choose his successor. Al-Muttaḳī at once confirmed the Amīr al-Umarāʾ Bed̲j̲kem [ q.v. in EI 1] in office; after his death however, in Rad̲j̲ab 324/April 941, the Turks and Daylamīs in the army began to quarrel with one another. Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Barīdī [see al-barīdī …

, Takīn (t.), in the oldest known Turkish tégin , an ancient Turkish title with the original meaning of “prince”. In the early Türk empire, it denoted the legitimate son or grandson of the Supreme Ḳag̲h̲an. It appears as such in the Ork̲h̲on [ q.v.] inscriptions, one of which is known as that of Kül Tigin (literally “the younger brother [of Elteris̲h̲ Ḳag̲h̲an], the crown prince”), cf. Talât Tekin, A grammar of Orkhon Turkic , Bloomington 1968, 237. G. Doerfer ( Türkische und mongolische Elemente im Neupersischen , Wiesbaden 1963-7, ii, 533-41, no. 922) and Sir Gerard Clauson ( A dictionary o…

or Banū rawwād , a minor dynasty of northwestern Persia which flourished during the period which Minorsky characterised as the “Iranian intermezzo” between the decline of Arab power there and the incoming of Turkish peoples like the Sald̲j̲ūḳs, essentially during the 4th-5th/10th-11th centuries. Although the Daylamīs [see daylam ] were the most prominent in this upsurge of northern Persian mountain peoples, the part of other races like the Kurds was not negligible. The Rawwādids (the form “Rawād” later becomes common in …

, Banū , a family of officials in caliphal service, especially noted as secretaries and viziers to the ʿAbbāsids during the 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th centuries. The majority of sources state that the family came from Wāsiṭ and were of Nestorian Christian origin before converting to Islam, nevertheless claiming a pure Arabic origin going back to the Yemeni tribe of Balḥārit̲h̲ of Nad̲j̲rān. The Wahbīs thus belong to the tradition of servants of the caliphs with Nestorian backgrounds who were prominent in the administrations of the 3rd/9th century (cf. L. Massignon, La politique islamo-c…

bi-llāh , Abu ’l-Faḍl D̲j̲aʿfar . ʿAbbāsid caliph, son of al-Muʿtaḍid by a Greek slave concubine named S̲h̲ag̲h̲ib, reigned 295-320/908-32, but with two episodes when he was temporarily deposed, the first on 20 Rabīʿ I 296/17 December 908 in the fourth month of his caliphate, when Ibn al-Muʿtazz [ q.v.] replaced him for a day, and the second on 15 Muḥarram 317/28 February 929, when his brother Muḥammad al-Ḳāhir [ q.v.] was raised to the throne for two days. After the death of his brother al-Muḳtafī in D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 295/August 908, al-Muḳtadir, who was only 13 at the time,…

(a.), the verbal noun of the form II verb ḥaṣṣala “to collect together, acquire”. In Indo-Muslim usage, this term—taken over from previous régimes— denoted in the British Indian provinces of Bombay, Madras and the United Provinces the collection of revenue and, thence, the administrative area from which this taxation was collected. Thus ¶ in the above-mentioned provinces, the taḥṣīl was a subdivision of a District ( taʿalluḳa , corruptly, tālūḳ ) with an area of up to 600 square miles. Hence in size, a taḥṣīl came between the pargana [ q.v.] and the sarkār of the Mug̲h̲al empire [see mug̲h̲al…

, in European sources usually rendered as Mosul, a city of northern Mesopotamia or ʿIrāḳ, on the west bank of the Tigris and opposite to the ancient Nineveh. In early Islamic times it was the capital of Diyār Rabīʿa [ q.v.], forming the eastern part of the province of al-D̲j̲azīra [ q.v.]. At the present time, it is the third largest city of the Republic of ʿIrāḳ. 1. History up to 1900. Al-Mawṣil takes its name from the fact that a number of arms of the river there combine (Arabic, waṣala ) to form a single stream. The town lies close beside the Tigris on a spur of the western steppeplateau ¶ which juts …

(p.), lit. “upper frontier, boundary”, a general geographical term specifically applied in southeastern Persia to the mountain region in the modern Persian province of Balūčistān and Sīstān adjoining the frontier with Pākistānī Balūčistān. Its mountain chains run generally from northwest to southeast, and include the volcanic (still partially active) Kūh-i Taftān (4,042 m/13,262 feet), the highest point, but there are also east-west-running outliers, such as the Kūh-i Bazmān (3,489 m/11,478 feet) which connects the Sarḥadd with the D̲j̲abal Bāriz [ q.v. in Suppl.]. The only…

, also written Sifri Ḥiṣār , i.e. strong fortress (see Aḥmed Wefīḳ, Lehd̲j̲e-yi ʿOt̲h̲mānī , 459), the early Turkish and Ottoman name of two small towns in northwestern and western Anatolia respectively. 1. The more important one is the modern Turkish Sivrihisar, in the modern il or province of Eskişehir. It lies on the Eskişehir-Ankara road roughly equidistant from each, south of the course of the Porsuk river and north of the upper course of the Saḳarya [ q.v.] (lat. 39° 29′ N., long. 31° 32′ E., altitude 1,050 m/3,440 feet). …

b. Malik S̲h̲āh , ʿAḍud al-Dawla Abu ’l-Ḥārit̲h̲ Aḥmad, Sald̲j̲ūḳ malik in K̲h̲urāsān 490-511/1097-1118 and then supreme sultan of the Great Saldjuḳs, ruling K̲h̲urāsān and northern Persia till his death in 552/1157; he accordingly ruled for some 60 years. The name Sand̲j̲ar, which occurs for other members of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ family and elsewhere in the Turkish world, seems to mean in Turkish “he who pierces, thrusts”, cf. M.Th. Houtsma, Ein türkisch-arabisches Glossar , Leiden 1894, text 29, glossary 78, 80, and the detailed discussion by P. Pelliot, in Oeuvres posthumes, ii, Paris 19…

, 1. In Arabie literature. Rūm occurs in Arabic literature with reference to the Romans, the Byzantines and the Christian Melkites interchangeably. This issue of nomenclature is the first problem that confronts the reader of Arabic literature. Most often, however, the reference is to the Byzantines, which is the meaning followed in this entry. The sources for the pre-Islamic times include the important Namāra [ q.v.] inscription. All the literary sources were written in later Islamic times, deriving from the historian Ibn al-Kalbī. In the Islamic period, the first reference to…

, Abū Ḥāzim al-Mak̲h̲zūmī, called al-Aʿrad̲j̲ “the Lame” (d. ca. 140/757), traditionist and judge in Medina, regarded as a protein Ṣūfī mystic; he was of Persian origin. Various aphorisms ( ḥikam ) and elegant sayings of his are preserved in citations, and also his answers to questions put to him by the Umayyad caliph Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik [ q.v.]; also, a collection of his masāʾil [see al-masāʾil wa ’l-ad̲j̲wiba ] is extant in manuscript. (C.E. Bosworth) Bibliography Zirikli, Aʿlām, iii, 171-2 Sezgin, GAS, i, 634-5 R. Eisener, Zwischen Faktum und Fiktion. Eine Studie zum Umayyaden…

, the mountain massif of central Afg̲h̲ānistān, being the westwards and southwards extension of the Pamirs “knot” and the Hindū Kus̲h̲ [ q.v.] of north-eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān. The name Kūh-i Bābā is properly given to the east-west chaîne magistrale running westwards from Kābul and lying to the south of the upper Herī Rūd, with outliers running southwards and westwards through the regions of the G̲h̲ōrāt and Hazārad̲j̲āt [see g̲h̲ūr and hazārad̲j̲āt in Suppl.] between such river valleys as those of the Helmand, Arg̲h̲andāb and Tarnak. On the northern side of the He…