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b. Arslan b. Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l (II), Rukn al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn, last Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ ruler in the West, reigned 571-90/1175-94. Born in 564/1168-9, when still a boy he was raised to the throne by the Ildegizid Atabeg Nuṣrat al-Dīn Pahlawān [ q.v.], after his father had been poisoned to thwart his endeavour to escape the burdensome tutelage of the Atabeg (cf. Houtsma, Some remarks on the history of the Sald̲j̲uks , in AO, iii, 140-1). It was only on the death of Pahlawān in 581 or 582/1186 that Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l, now grown up, who had enjoyed a careful education and was distinguis…

, a district in Eastern Transcaucasia. In Armenian it is called S̲h̲akʿē, in Georgian S̲h̲akʿa (and S̲h̲akik̲h̲?); the Arabs write S̲h̲akkay = S̲h̲akʿē (Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 123, al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 183, al-Balād̲h̲urī, 206), S̲h̲akkī (Yāḳūt, iii, 311), S̲h̲akkan (Ibn al-Faḳīh, 293, al-Balād̲h̲urī, Futūḥ , 194), S̲h̲akīn (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ ii, 68-9 = § 500). The usual boundaries of S̲h̲akkī were: on the east, the Gök-čay which separates it from S̲h̲īrwān [ q.v.] proper; on the west, the Alazan (Turk. Ḳani̊ḳ?) and its left tributary the Ḳas̲h̲ḳa-čay, which separ…

, modern Turkish Muş, a town and a province of eastern Anatolia lying to the west of Lake Van and Ak̲h̲lāṭ [ q.v.] or K̲h̲ilāṭ (modern Ahlat). The town lies in lat. 38° 44′ N. and long. 41° 30′ E. at an altitude of 1290 m/4,200 feet in the foothills of the valley which carries the Murad Su river—a fertile plain on which wheat, tobacco and vines have long been grown—and which in recent years has borne the railway branch from Elâziğ [see maʿmūrat al-ʿazīz ] eastwards to Tatvan on the shores of Lake Van. In the pre-Islamic period, it was the principal town of the Armenian district of Taraun (Hübschmann, ¶ Id…

(t.), literally, “new system, re-organisation”, the new military units created by the Ottoman sultan Selīm III (1203-22/1789-1807 [ q.v.]). The Treaty of Sistova between the Ottoman Empire and Austria (August 1791) and that of Jassy between the Empire and Russia (January 1792) meant that Turkey had to recognise the loss of the Crimea and the fact of Russian control over much of the Black Sea, although Austria withdrew from its conquests in Serbia, Bosnia and the Danube Principalities. Moreover, the European powers…

, a city of Muslim India, in the northwestern part of the subcontinent, now in Pakistan (lat. 34° 01′ N., long. 71° 40′ E., altitude 320 m/1,048 ft.). In modern Pākistān, it is also the name of various administrative units centred on the city (see below). The district is bounded on the east by the river Indus, which separates it from the Pand̲j̲āb and Hazāra, and on the south-east by the Nīlāb G̲h̲as̲h̲a range which shuts it off from the district of Kō…

, 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…

, a mystical and gnostic Islamic sect founded amongst the Afg̲h̲āns of the North-West Frontier region, with centres at e.g. Kāṅīgurām and Tīrāh in Wazīristān, by Bāyazīd b. ʿAbd Allāh Anṣārī of Kāṅīgurām ( ca. 931-80/ ca. 1525-73). He claimed to be, if not actually a Mahdī, at least a hādī or guide towards tawḥīd , the Divine Unity, for his followers. He styled himself pīr-i raws̲h̲an “the divinely-illuminated pīr [ q.v.] “, although his orthodox enemies called him pīr-i tārīkī “the pīr of darkness” and his adherents Tārīkiyān “devotees o…

, 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…

(a.), the measurement of plane surfaces, also in modern usage, survey, the technique ofsurv eying. In this article, measures of length and area will be considered, those of capacity, volume and weight having been dealt with under makāyīl wamawāzīn . For the technique of surveying, see misāḥa, ʿilm al- . 1. In the central Islamic lands. In pre-modern times, there were a bewildering array of measures for length and superficial area, often with the same name but differing locally in size and extent. As Lane despairingly noted, “of the measures and…

, 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…

, conventionally Van , the name of a lake and of a town (lat. 38° 28’ N., long. 43° 21’ E.) in what is now the Kurdish region of southeastern Turkey. 1. The lake (modern Tkish., Van Gölü). This is a large stretch of water now spanning the ils of Van and Bitlis. It lies at an altitude of 1,720 m/5,640 feet, with a rise in level during the summer when the snows on the surrounding mountain ranges melt. Its area is 3,737 km2/1,443 sq. miles. Being landlocked, with no outlet, it has a high content of mineral salts, especially sodium carbonate, which makes its water undrinkable, but…

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…