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, 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…

, Tawwaz , a town in the western part of the mediaeval province of Fārs in Persia. It lay on or near the S̲h̲āpūr river midway between Kāzarūn [ q.v.] and the Gulf coastland, but the place fell into ruin by later mediaeval times and its site is no longer known for sure. For further details on the town, see s̲h̲āpūr , river, to whose Bibl. should be added Sir Arnold Wilson, The Persian Gulf , London 1926, 74-5; J. Markwart-G. Messina, A catalogue of the provincial capitals of Ērānsahr , Rome 1931, 94-5; Barthold, An historical geography of Iran , Princeton 1984, 163. (C.E. Bosworth)

, Indo-Muslim historian and stylist whose exact dates of both birth and death are unknown but who flourished in the 11th/17th century under the Mug̲h̲al emperors S̲h̲āh Ḏj̲ahān and Awrangzīb [ q.vv.]. He may have been the younger brother of the historian and littérateur ʿInāyat Allāh Kańbō (d. 1082/1671 [ q.v.]), if Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ’s reference to this last person, his master and patron, as birādar-i kalān “elder brother” is to be taken literally. Virtually nothing is known of his life, but he was ¶ a government official in Lahore, where his tomb still exists and where in 1079/1…

, cannanore, a port on the Malabar coast of southwestern peninsular India in lat. 11° 521 N. and long. 75° 221 E. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa sailed down this coast in 743/1342, and though he does not mention Kannanūr by name, ¶ it seems that his mention of the powerful ruler of D̲j̲urfattan, whose ships traded with the Persian Gulf, ʿUmān and South Arabia, refers to the local ruler there ( Riḥla , iv, 82-3). Aḥmad b. Mād̲j̲id (wrote ca. 895/1489-90) certainly speaks specifically of the “Bay of Kannanūr” in his account of the Malabar coastline (G. R. Tibbett, Arab navigation in the Indian Ocean before the …

(a.), usual pl. k̲h̲uzzān (the pl. k̲h̲azana is found in the Ḳurʾān in XXXIX, 71, 73, etc. for the angels who guard Paradise and Hell), literally, “he who keeps safe, stores something away”, a term of mediaeval Islamic administration for certain members of the financial departments (on which see bayt al-māl and, for Ottoman times, also k̲h̲azīne ) and also of the chancery. It was used in ʿAbbāsid times, for there was prominent in the early 4th/10th century Muʾnis al-K̲h̲āzin (so-called in the sources to distinguish him from the commander of the guard Muʾnis al-Muẓaffar [ q.v.], an associat…

(a.), literally “the wearers, or bearers, of black”, the name given to the partisans of the ʿAbbāsids at the time of the daʿwas of Abū Muslim al-K̲h̲urāsānī and Abū Salama al-K̲h̲allāl [ q.vv.], apparently from the black banners which these rebels against the Umayyads bore, so that they are described in some sources as the aṣḥāb al-rāyāt al-sawdāʾ . The origins of this use of black are obscure and have been much discussed. In the first place, the use of black may have been simply a mark of rebellion, for the anti-Umayyad rebel in K̲h̲urāsān and Transoxania, al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Surayd̲j̲ [ q.v.], act…

(t.), amongst the early Turks an emblem of royal authority, a standard or a drum (the former being used as a battle-flag and a rallying-point on the battle-field), known from the time of the Türges̲h̲ or Western Turks in Transoxania (see below) and of the Uyg̲h̲urs. 1. In older Turkish usage. The traditional old Turkish standard was a horse’s tail or a bunch of horse hair on a pole, or, in the regions of Inner Asia adjacent to Tibet, the tail of a yak ( ḳuṭās ). A great ruler would be described as having nine tug̲h̲s , the maximum ( toḳuz tug̲h̲lug̲h̲ k̲h̲an ). Maḥmūd al-Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, Dīwān lug̲h̲āt…

, Turd̲j̲umān (a.), pls. tarād̲j̲im , tarād̲j̲ima , appearing in Ottoman Turkish as Terd̲j̲üman , interpreter. The word is of Aramaic origin, and is familiar in the form Targum for the Aramaic translations or paraphrases or interpretations of the Hebrew Old Testament which came into use when the use of Hebrew as a living, spoken language amongst ordinary people declined. The Arabic term, and the verb tard̲j̲ama “to translate”, was certainly in familiar usage by ʿAbbāsid times. 1. In the Arab lands in mediaeval times. We know of interpreters in the ʿAbbāsid caliphate, some of who…

, the name given in mediaeval Arabic geographical and travel literature to the port of Quilon at the southern extremity of the Malabar coast of southwestern peninsular South India, in ancient and modern Kerala (lat. 8° 53′ N. and long. 76°36′ E.). Quilon early became a centre of the St. Thomas Christians of South India, and is mentioned in a letter of the Nestorian Patriarch Īs̲h̲ūʿyāb of Adiabene (d. 660) to Simon, Metropolitan of Fārs, under the name of Colon and as lacking at that time a settled ministry (Assemanus, Bibliotheca orientalis, iii/2, Rome 1728, 437). The first mention …

, the name of a District and of ¶ its administrative centre, in the western Deccan of India. In British Indian times, these fell within the Bombay Presidency; within the Indian Union, they are now on the southeastern fringe of Mahāras̲h̲tra State. The town (lat. 17° 43′, long. 75° 56′ E.) was an early centre of the Marāt́hās [ q.v.]. In 718/1318 it came finally under the control of the Dihlī Sultans, being governed from Deogīrī or Dawlatābād [ q.v.], then under the Bahmanīs, then oscillating between the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs of Bīd̲j̲āpur and the Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs of Ahmadnagar befo…

, Abū Ṭālib Muḥammad b. Mīkāʾīl (b. towards the end of the 10th century A.D., d. 455/1063), leading figure of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ family and, with his brother Čag̲h̲ri̊ Beg Dāwūd [ q.v.], founder of the Great Sald̲j̲ūḳ Sultanate in Persia and ʿIraḳ. Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l and Čag̲h̲ri̊ must have been born when the Og̲h̲uz tribe [see g̲h̲uzz ] was still in the Central Asian steppes to the north of K̲h̲wārazm and Transoxania, and after their father’s death were apparently brought up in the D̲j̲and [ q.v. in Suppl.] region by their grandfather Sald̲j̲ūḳ b. Duḳāḳ, eponymous founder of the Sald̲j̲ūḳ…

(a., the noun of instrument from wat̲h̲iḳa “to trust, have confidence in”, or wat̲h̲uḳa “to be firm”, in usage the equivalent of the maṣdar mīmī or noun of place and time mawt̲h̲ik ), covenant, agreement, used 25 times in the Ḳurʾān and often linked with its synonym ʿahd [ q.v.]. In a few places, it refers to political compacts (IV, 92/90, 94/92, VIII, 73/72, and cf. the use of ʿāhada in VIII, 58/56), and once to the compact between husband and wife (IV, 25/21), but the majority of usages relate to compacts between God and various members of…

, the leader of a revolt in the Buk̲h̲ārā oasis, one with popular religious and social overtones, against Mongol domination (636/ 1238-9). Maḥmūd was a sieve-maker from the village of Ṭārāb or Tārāb, four farsak̲h̲s from the city of Buk̲h̲ārā on the K̲h̲urāsān road (see al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, ix, 5; Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 4; Barthold, Turkestan down to the Mongol invasion 3 , 114 n. 9, 117, 132), who led a movement against the financial oppression of the Mongol basḳaḳs or tax-collectors and also, it appears, against local landowners a…

, the name of a mediaeval Hindu power which covered large parts of the Deccan from the mid-14th century to the later 17th century and which is relevant to this Encyclopaedia because of the incessant warfare between its Rād̲j̲ās (some sixty of whom, from various, distinct lineages, issued royal inscriptions claiming sovereignty over India south of the Krishna river) and the Muslim sultanates of the Deccan. It appears in Indo-Muslim sources as Bid̲j̲anagar. The name Vid̲j̲ayanagara, meaning “City of victory”, was that of the state’s original capital on the upper Tungab…

, the coastal region of southern Balūčistān, extending roughly from the Somniani Bay in the East to the eastern fringes of the region of Bas̲h̲kardia [see bas̲h̲kard in Suppl.] in the west. The modern political boundary between Pakistan and Iran thus bisects the mediaeval Makrān. The east-to-west running Siyāhān range of mountains, just to the north of the Mas̲h̲kēl and Rak̲h̲s̲h̲ān valleys, may be regarded as Makrān’s northern boundary. In British Indian times, this range formed the boundary between the southwestern part of the Kalāt native state [see kilāt ] and the K̲h̲ārān one [ q.v.]…

, modern Turkish Simav , a town of northwestern Anatolia, lying on the river of the same name and just to the south-east of the Simav Gölü, 90 km/58 miles as the crow flies to the southwest of Kütahya [ q.v.] and on the road connecting Balıkesir with Usak (lat. 39° 05′ N., long. 28° 59′ E., altitude 823 m/2,700 feet). In later Ottoman times, it was the chef-lieu of a ḳaḍāʾ of the same name, and is now the centre of the ilçe or district of Simav in the il or province of Kütahya. One should not confuse it, as did Babinger in his EI 1 art., with Simāwnā in eastern Thrace, the birthplace of the early Ot…

(a.) “equality”, the maṣdar of form III of the verb sawiya “to be equal to, be worth”, with the same sense as form I; in modern times, it has been ¶ used for the political concept of human equality (Ottoman Turkish müsāwāt , modern Turkish mūsavat , Persian musāwāt , barābārī ). The root is found frequently in the Ḳurʾān, though only once in form III (XVIII, 95/96), in the sense “to make level, even up”. In the literary and cultural controversies of the ʿAbbāsid period, those of the S̲h̲uʿūbiyya [ q.v.], the non-Arabs seeking social equality with the ruling class of Arabs were sometimes known as the a…

, in mediaeval times a district and town, now a district only, of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān in northwestern Persia. It lies to the south of Ardabīl, and is bounded on the east by that part of the Elburz chain which separates Gīlān and Tālis̲h̲ in the Caspian coastlands from the upland interior of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, the mountains here rising to over 10,000 feet. Much of the district is drained by the left-bank tributaries of the Ḳi̊zi̊l Uzun affluent of the Safīd-Rūd. In mediaeval times it adjoined on the east the district of Ṭārom and was part of the general region called Daylam [ qq.v.]. The actual name…

, a former Native State of British India, when three of its component districts fell within Rād̲j̲pūtānā and three in Central India, with its centre in the town of the same name (lat. 26° 10’ N., long 75° 50’ E.). The former Tonk State is now a District of Rād̲j̲āst̲h̲ān in the Indian Union. Tonk was founded by Amīr K̲h̲ān (d. 1834 [ q.v.]), a Pathan from Bunēr who rose, first in the service of the Rohillas [ q.v.] and then in the army of D̲j̲aswant Singh Holkar (1798). He submitted to the British in 1817. During the Sepoy Mutiny, his son Wazīr Muḥammad K̲h̲ān remained lo…

(Turkish “black lake”), ḳarakul , the name of various lakes in Central Asia and of a modern town in the Uzbek SSR. The best-known lake is that lying at the western extremity of the Zarafs̲h̲ān River in Sog̲h̲dia (modern Uzbekistan), midway between Buk̲h̲ārā and Čārd̲j̲ūy (mediaeval Āmul-i S̲h̲aṭṭ, see āmul . 2). The basin in which it lay was known as the Sāmd̲j̲an basin, see Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, 315, and Ibn Ḥawḳal, ed. Kramers, 485, tr. Kramers and Wiet, 466. In Nars̲h̲ak̲h̲ī’s Taʾrīk̲h̲-i Buk̲h̲ārā , ed. Schefer, 17, tr. Frye, 19, the lake is given both the Tur…

, the name of an eastern Iranian dynasty which flourished as an independent power in the 6th/12th century and the early years of the 7th/13th century and which was based on the region of G̲h̲ūr [ q.v.] in what is now central Afg̲h̲ānistān with its capital at Fīrūzkūh [ q.v.]. 1. Origins and early history. The family name of the G̲h̲ūrid Sultans was S̲h̲anasb/S̲h̲ansab (< MP Gus̲h̲nasp; cf. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch , 282, and Marquart, Das Reich Zābul , in Festschrift E. Sachau , 289, n. 3), and in the time of their florescence, attempts were made to at…

bi ’llāh , Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAbd Allāh , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 333-4/944-6, son of the caliph al-Muḳtafī [ q.v.] by a Greek slave concubine called G̲h̲uṣn. When the commander-in-chief of the Turkish soldiery in Bag̲h̲dād, Tūzūn, deposed and blinded al-Muttaḳī b. al-Muḳtadir [ q.v.], he raised to the throne one of the latter’s cousins as al-Mustakfī in Ṣafar 333/September-October 944, al-Mustakfī being then aged 41. The situation in ʿIrāḳ was unpropitious for the new ruler. The caliphs were puppets in the hands of the Turkish troops, whose…

, a town in northern Bihār State of the Indian Union (lat. 26° 7′ N.,85° 24″ E.), and also the name of a District of which it is the administrative centre; the District covers the ancient region of Tirhut between the Ganges and the southern border of Nepal. The region was attacked in the 8th/14th century by the Muslim rulers of Bengal; in the next century it passed to the S̲h̲arḳī rulers of D̲j̲awnpur [ q.v.], and then to Sikandar Lōdī of Dihlī. The town of Muẓaffarpur enshrines the name of its founder, the Emperor Akbar’s commander Muẓaffar Khān, dīwān or head of revenue and finance [see dīwān. v] a…

, the name of a mysterious potentate, said to be a Nestorian Christian and inimical to Islam, whom the Christians of medieval Europe placed beyond the Islamic lands in Inner or Far Asia. The name Presbyter Johannes first occurs in the chronicle, called Historia de duabus civitatibus, of the German prelate Otto, Bishop of Freising, in which he describes, on the authority of a meeting in 1145 with the Latin Bishop Hugh of D̲j̲abala (= ancient Byblos, in Lebanon), how Prester John was a monarch, of the lineage of the Magi of the Gospels, living in the Far East ( in extremo oriente) beyond Persia an…

, ʿAbd al-Bāḳī b. Abī Bakr Kurd, Indo-Muslim historian of the Mug̲h̲al period (978-after 1046/1570-after 1637). Of Kurdish origin from D̲j̲ūlak near Nihāwand [ q.v.], he served the Ṣafawids as a tax official and eventually became a wazīr in the administration. But then he fell from grace, and like many Persians of his age, decided to migrate to India, and entered the service of the K̲h̲ān-i K̲h̲ānān [ q.v.] Mīrzā ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, one of Akbar’s generals, subsequently holding official posts in the Deccan and Bihar. The K̲h̲ān-i K̲h̲ānān asked him to write a biography of himself, the Maʾāt̲h̲ir…

, a small town in the Persian province of Fārs (lat. 29° 16′ N., long 53° 13′ E., alt. ¶ 1,597 m/5,238 ft.), some 80 km/50 miles to the southeast of S̲h̲īrāz on the road to Nayrīz [ q.v.]. It seems to be identical with the K̲h̲awristān of the early Arab geographers, but first appears under the name Sarwistān (“place of cypresses”) in al-Muḳaddasī at the end of the 4th/10th century. It is notable for the tomb and shrine of a local saint, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Yūsuf Sarwistānī, dated by its inscription to 682/1283, and for a nearby mysterious building situated on the S̲h̲īrāz-F…

(“land of the unbelievers”), the name of a mountainous region of the Hindu Kush massif in north-eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān, until 1896 very isolated and politically independent, but since the Afg̲h̲ān conquest of that date and the introduction of Islam known as Nūristān (“land of light”). Some older European writers mentioned what might be termed a “greater Kāfiristān”, comprising such regions as Kāfiristān in the restricted sense (see below), Lag̲h̲mān, Čitral, Swāt, Bad̲j̲awr, Gilgit, etc. This cor…

, today the north-easternmost ustān or province of Persia, with its administrative capital at Mas̲h̲had [ q.v.]. But in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, the term “K̲h̲urāsān” frequently had a much wider denotation, covering also parts of what ¶ are now Soviet Central Asia and Afg̲h̲ānistān; early Islamic usage often regarded everywhere east of western Persia, sc. D̲j̲ibāl or what was subsequently termed ʿIrāḳ ʿAd̲j̲amī, as being included in a vast and ill-defined region of K̲h̲urāsān, which might even extend to the Indus Valley …

, early ʿAbbāsid prince and uncle of the first ʿAbbāsid caliphs al-Saffāḥ and al-Manṣūr [ q.vv.], d. at Baṣra in D̲j̲umādā II 142/October 759 aged 59 (al-Ṭabarī, iii, 141). He was appointed governor of Baṣra, including also eastern Arabia and western Persia, by al-Saffāḥ in 133/750-1 ( ibid., iii, 73), and remained in this important power base until forced out of the governorship in 139/756. As one of the ʿumūma or paternal uncles, whose position vis-à-vis their nephews the caliphs was ambiguous, Sulaymān sheltered for many years the failed rebel ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAlī [ q.v.], until ʿAbd All…

, Nīrīz , the name of a mediaeval Islamic region and of a town of Fārs in southern Persia. The Nayrīz plain is essentially a landlocked region in the southern Zagros mountains, drained by the Kūr and Pulwār rivers which rise in the Zagros and flow southeastwards into the shallow lake known in mediaeval Islamic times as the Lake of Nayrīz and in more recent ones as Lake Bak̲h̲tigān [ q.v., and also E. Ehlers, art. Bak̲tagān Lake , in EIr ]; although the lake itself is salt, the plain forms an agriculturally prosperous region, and in ancient times was the…

b. Aḥmad Farīd Pas̲h̲a (1284-1338/1867-1919), Egyptian nationalist politician, active in the first two decades of the 20th century. Of aristocratic Turkish birth, he had a career as a lawyer in the Ahliyya courts and then as a supporter of Muṣṭafā Kāmil Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.], leader of the nationalist opposition to the British protectorate over Egypt and founder in 1907 of the Nationalist Party ( al-Ḥizb al-Waṭanī ) [see ḥizb. i. In the Arab lands]. When Muṣṭafā Kāmil died at the beginning of 1908, Muḥammad Farīd succeeded him as leader of the party, but being by temperame…

, the Arabic form of the name of the city of Tarsus in Cilicia, situated on the classical River Cydnus, the Nahr Baradān of early Islamic times and the contemporary Turkish Tarsus Çay, in the rich agricultural plain of the modern Çukurova. The ancient city appears first firmly in history under the Assyrian kings, then as being in the Persians’ sphere of influence, then as disputed by the Seleucids and Ptolemies, being for a while styled Antioch-onthe-Cydnus in honour of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (1…

Meḥmed Ṣāḥib Efendi (1085-1162/1674-1749), Ottoman S̲h̲eyk̲h̲ al-Islām [ q.v.] in Istanbul and the pioneer translator into Turkish of Ibn K̲h̲aldūn. Ibn K̲h̲aldūn’s Muḳaddima was quite early known in Ottoman Turkey, being cited by e.g. Maḥmūd b. Aḥmed Ḥāfiẓ al-Dīn (d. 937/1550) and by Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa in his Kas̲h̲f al-ẓunūn . But during the years 1138-43/1725-30 Pīrī-zāde translated the Muḳaddima from the beginning to the end of the fifth chapter, i.e. about two-thirds of the whole, and this was lithographed at Cairo in 1275/1859, with Aḥmed D̲j̲ewdet Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.] shortly …

, a minor seaport, modern Bandar-i Linga, on the northern shore of the Persian or Arab Gulf, in lat. 26° 34′ N. and long. 54° 53′ E., to the south of Lāristān [see lār , lāristān ] and facing the islands of Ḳis̲h̲m [ q.v.] and the Ṭūnbs. Linga has a harbour of some depth, allowing traffic by dhows and coastal craft; behind the town lies a salt marsh, and then the Band-i Linga mountains, which rise to 3,900 ft./1,190 m. The population, formerly largely Arab, is now predominantly Persian, but with strong admixtures of Arabs, Baluchis, India…

, Abu ’l-Fatḥ , s̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn wa ’l-Dawla , Ḳuṭb al-Millā , sultan of the G̲h̲aznawid [ q.v.] dynasty, reigned 432-40/1041-winter of 1048-9. ¶ He was probably born in 401/1010-11 or 402/1011-12 as the eldest son of Masʿūd b. Maḥmūd [ q.v.], and during his father’s reign was closely associated with the sultan on various military expeditions. When Masʿūd was deposed and then killed in D̲j̲umādā I 432/January 1041, Mawdūd made himself the avenger against the rebellious commanders and their puppet, his uncle Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd. He marche…

(a.) nickname, and at a later date under Islam and with a more specific use, honorific title (pl. alḳāb ). For suggestions about its etymology, see L. Caetani and G. Gabrieli, Onomasticon arabicum . i. Fonte-introduzione , Rome 1915, 144-5; and for its place in the general schema of the composition of Islamic names, see ism. The laḳab seems in origin to have been a nickname or sobriquet of any tone, one which could express admiration, be purely descriptive and neutral in tenor or be insulting and derogatory. In the latter case, it was often termed nabaz , pl. anbāz , by-form labaz …

or Banū S̲h̲addād , a minor dynasty of Arrān and eastern Armenia which flourished from the 4th/10th to the 6th/12th century ( ca. 340-570/ ca. 951-1174), with a main line in Gand̲j̲a and Dwīn [ q.vv.] and a junior, subsequent one in Ānī [ q.v.] which persisted long after the end of the main branch under Sald̲j̲ūḳ and latterly Ildeñizid suzerainty. There seems no reason to doubt the information in the history of the later Ottoman historian Müned̲j̲d̲j̲im Bas̲h̲i̊ that the S̲h̲addādids were in origin Kurdish. Their ethnicity was complicated by the fact that…

, a line of Turkish commanders and governors, originally of slave origin, for the Sāmānids in 4th/10th-century K̲h̲urāsān. The founder, Abū ʿImrān Sīmd̲j̲ūr, was the amīr Ismāʿīl b. Aḥmad’s [ q.v.] ceremonial ink-stand bearer ( dawātī ). He became Sāmānid governor of Sīstān [ q.v.] in 300-1/913-14 when the local dynasty of the Ṣaffārids [ q.v.] were temporarily driven out. Thereafter, the family was prominent as governors of K̲h̲urāsān for the amīrs , involved in warfare with the Sāmānids’ rivals in northern Persia such as the Būyids, and they …