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or Ruḍwān b. Tutus̲h̲ b. Alp Arslan, Fak̲h̲r al-Mulk (d. 507/1113), Sald̲j̲ūḳ prince in Aleppo after the death of his father Tutus̲h̲ [ q.v.] in Ṣafar 488/February 1095. After assuming power in Aleppo, Riḍwān and his stepfather, the Atabeg D̲j̲anāḥ al-Dawla Ḥusayn, aimed at taking over Tutus̲h̲’s former capital Damascus and thus at controlling the whole of Syria and Palestine not still in Fāṭimid hands. However, Riḍwān’s brother Duḳāḳ and his Atabeg Ṭug̲h̲tigin held on to Damascus, and after Riḍwān broke with D̲j̲anāḥ al-D…

b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. D̲j̲ābir, Abū ʿUbayd Allāh or Abū G̲h̲azwān al-Māzinī, from the Māzin tribe of Ḳays ʿAylān and a ḥalīf or confederate of the Meccan clans of Nawfal or ʿAbd S̲h̲ams, early convert to Islam and one of the oldest Companions of the Prophet. He was called “the seventh of the Seven”, i.e. of those adopting the new faith. He took part in the two hid̲j̲ras to Ethiopia, the battle of Badr and many of the raids of Muḥammad. During ʿUmar’s caliphate, he was sent from Medina to lead raids into Lower ʿIrāḳ, capturing al-Ubulla [ q.v.], killing the marzbān of Dast May…

, a dynasty of mediaeval eastern Persia which ruled 247-393/861-1003 in the province of Sid̲j̲istān or Sīstān [ q.v.], the region which now straddles the border between Iran and Afg̲h̲ānistān. The dynasty derived its name from the profession ¶ of coppersmith ( ṣaffār , rūygar ) of Yaʿḳūb b. al-Layt̲h̲. founder of the dynasty. Sīstān, on the far eastern periphery of the caliphal lands, had begun to slip away from direct ʿAbbāsid rule at the end of the 8th century, when K̲h̲urāsān and Sīstān were caught up in the great K̲h̲ārid̲j̲ite rebellion, led by Ḥamza b. Ād̲h̲arak (d. 213/828 [ q.v.]), whi…

, the name of two small islands (the Greater and the Lesser Ṭunbs) in the Persian Gulf situated to the west of the Straits of Hurmuz (lat. 26° 15′ N., long. 55° 17′ E.), whose modest history has been linked in recent times with that of the island of Abū Mūsā to their southwest (lat. 25° 52′ N., long. 55° 00′ E.). All three islands have been the subject of disputes between the ruling power in Persia to the north and the s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ s of the Arab shores of the Gulf, those now forming the United Arab Emirates [see al-imārāt al-ʿarabiyya al-muttaḥida, in Suppl.]. The Ṭunbs are mentioned by the Portugue…

, the more recent name for the town of eastern Persia known in mediaeval Islamic times as Isfīd̲h̲, Sipih, Safīd̲j̲ (written in al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and Ibn Ḥawḳal as Sanīd̲j̲, for *Sabīd̲j̲/Safīd̲j̲). It lay on what was the highway from Kirmān to Sīstān [ q.vv.], and some of the classical Islamic geographers attributed it administratively to Sīstān and others to Kirmān, reflecting its position on the frontier between these two provinces. Muḳaddasī and others describe it as a flourishing and populous town with its water from ḳanāt s, the only town in the Great Des…

, minister in Central Asia and China of the Mongol K̲h̲āns in the 13th century A.D. Barthold surmised ( Turkestan3 , 396 n. 3) that Maḥmūd Yalawač was identical with Maḥmūd the K̲h̲wārazmian mentioned by Nasawī as one of the leaders of Čingiz’s embassy of 1218 to the K̲h̲wārazm-S̲h̲āh ʿAlāʾ al-Dīh Muḥammad [see k̲h̲wārazm-s̲h̲āhs ]. It is true that the Secret history of the Mongols (tr. E. Haenisch, Die Geheime Geschichte der Mongolen2 , Leipzig 1948, 132) refers to Maḥmūd Yalawač and his son Masʿūd Beg [ q.v.] as K̲h̲wārazmians (Ḳurums̲h̲i) and that yalawač / yalawar …

(Persian orthography, k.w.twāl ), commander of a fortress, town, etc. The word is used throughout mediaeval times in the Iranian, Central Asian and Muslim Indian worlds, and has spread westwards into the regions of ʿIrāḳ and the Persian Gulf, where we find it, for instance, as a component of place names like Kūt al-ʿAmāra [ q.v.], and given an Arabic-pattern diminutive form in al-Kuwayt [ q.v.]. Although the word appears from the Mongol period onwards in Turkish, including Čag̲h̲atay, in such versions as ketaul , kütäül , etc., so that many native authoritie…

, Turkish adherent of the Ṣūfī order of the K̲h̲alwatiyya [ q.v.] and poet in both Persian and Turkish. He was born at an unspecified date at Güzel Ḥiṣār in Aydi̊n, western Anatolia, being connected maternally with the ruling family of the Aydi̊n Og̲h̲ullari̊ [see aydi̊nog̲h̲lu ] and died at Tabrìz in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān in 892/1487. Dede ʿUmar was the k̲h̲alīfa of Sayyid Yaḥyā S̲h̲īrwānī, the pīr-i t̲h̲ānī or second founder of the Ḵh̲alwatī order, and as head of the Rūs̲h̲anī branch of the order engaged in missionary work in northern Ād̲h̲a…

, Isbayta , the Arabic name for a settlement in the Negev [see al-nakb ] region of southern Palestine, which had the Nabataean name, rendered in Greek sources as Sobata (whence the Arabic one), Hebrew Shivta. Its ruins lie 43 km/27 miles to the southwest of Beersheba at an altitude of some 350 m/1,150 feet. First described by E.H. Palmer in 1870, it has been extensively excavated since the 1930s. The town flourished in Late Nabataean, Late Roman and Byzantine times as an unwalled, essentially agricultural centre, it being away fro…

(p.), literally “record of the day”, hence acquiring meanings like “almanac, calendar, daily journal” etc. 1. As a mediaeval Islamic administrative term. In the ʿAbbāsid caliphate’s financial departments, the rūznāmad̲j̲ was the day-book ( kitāb al-yawm) in which all the financial transactions of the day—incoming taxation receipts, items of expenditure— were recorded before being transferred to the awārad̲j̲ , the register showing the balance of taxation in hand. The form rūznāmad̲j̲ points to an origin of this practice in Sāsānid administration. Later, in Fāṭimid…

or G̲h̲uld̲j̲a , modern Hi or I-ning, a town in the fertile and mineral-rich upper valley of the Ili river [ q.v.] in Central Asia. For the mediaeval history of the district in which modern Ḳuld̲j̲a lay, see almali̊g̲h̲ . The town of Ḳuld̲j̲a (“Old Ḳuld̲j̲a”) was probably a new foundation in 1762 by the Chinese after their victory over the Kalmucks [see kalmuk ] in 1759, and they named it Ning-yüan-chen. Two years later the town of Hoi-yuan-chen was founded as the headquarters of the Chinese governor-general ( dsandsün ) of Chinese Turkestan; this was known as “…

, a mountain massif of the central Sahara, forming part of the elevated land running from the Adrar of the Ifog̲h̲as [see adrar ] in northeastern Mali to the Nuba mountains of Sudan. It lies roughly between lats. 23° and 19° 30′ N. and longs. 16° and 19° 30′ E., being about 480 km/300 miles long and up to 350 km/200 miles wide, and includes the highest peak of the Sahara, the volcanic summit Emi Koussi (3,415 m/11,200 feet). Three great, deeply-cut dry wadis indicate, as elsewhere in the Sahara, a formerly…

, a town in the northwestern part of the former Ḥaydarābād state, now in Maharashtra state of the Indian Union, and situated in lat. 20° 1′ N. ¶ and long. 75° 12′ E; it is also known as Rauza (sc. Rawḍa). It is 14 miles from Awrangābād and 8 from Dawlatābād [ q.vv.], and a particularly holy spot for Deccani Muslims, since it contains the tombs of several Muslim saints and great men, including the Niẓām-S̲h̲āhī minister Malik ʿAnbar [ q.v.]; Niẓām al-Mulk Āṣaf D̲j̲āh, founder of Ḥaydarābād state [ q.v.]; and above all, of the Mug̲h̲al Emperor Awrangzīb [ q.v.], who died at Aḥmadnagar in D̲h̲u ’…

, the name of a region and a town of northwestern India, now in the Hariyana State of the Indian Union. The region is not mentioned in the earliest Indo-Muslim sources, but from the Sultanate period onwards, its history was often linked with that of nearby Dihlī, to its southeast. In the 18th century, it was fought over by commanders of the moribund Mug̲h̲als and the militant Sikhs [ q.v.]; for its history in general, see hariyānā . In early British Indian times, till 1832, it was administered by a Political Agent under the Resident in Dihlī. During…

, a town of northern India situated 75 miles south-east of Dihlī and coming within the United Provinces in British India, now Uttar Pradesh in the Indian Union. The more modern town of ʿAlīgaŕh [ q.v.] has expanded out of a suburb of Koyl. In 590/1194 the commander of the G̲h̲ūrids, Ḳuṭb al-Dīn Aybak [ q.v.], captured Koyl on a raid from Dihlī, and henceforth there were usually Muslim governors over local Rād̲j̲put rulers, such as Kučuk ʿAlī under Bābur (932/1526) ( Bābur-ndma , tr. Beveridge, 176). Ibn Baṭṭūṭa visited Koyl on his way southwards from Dihl…

1. A town in the Caspian coastal province of Gīlān [ q.v.] in north-western Persia, in long. 50° 0′ 20″ E. and lat. 37° 12′ 30″ N. It is situated on the plain to the east of the lower reaches of the Safīd-Rūd and to the north of the Dulfek mountain, and on the small river Čom-k̲h̲ala or Purdesar, but at some 14 miles/20 km. from the Caspian Sea shore. Lāhīd̲j̲ān does not seem to have been known as such to the earliest Arabic geographers, though legend was to attribute its foundation to Lāhīd̲j̲ b. Sām b. Nūḥ. It does, however, appear in the Persian Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (372/982) as L…

, the name of a group of nineteen islands in the Indian Ocean, to the south of the Bay of Bengal and lying between lats. 6°40′ and 9°20′ N.; the largest southernmost of them, Great Nicobar, is 190 km/120 miles to the northwest of the northern tip of Sumatra. Their area is 1,953 km2/627 sq. miles. The Arabic geographers place them at 15 days’ voyage from Sarandīb ( = Ceylon ) and 6 days’ voyage from Kalah [ q.v.] ( = probably in the Malacca peninsula or, less probably, at Kedah). The Nicobar Islands appear in Arabic travel and geographical literature as early as the Ak̲h̲bār al-Ṣīn wa ’l-Hind …

, a small town of the mediaeval central Deccan, now in the Bīd̲j̲apur District of the Karnataka State of the Indian Union (lat 16° 31’ N., long. 76° 20’ E.). It is famed as the assembly point and base camp for the combined forces of the South Indian sultanates (the ʿĀdil S̲h̲āhīs, Barīd S̲h̲āhīs, Ḳuṭb S̲h̲āhīs and Niẓām S̲h̲āhīs [ q.vv.]). These all marched southwards some 50 km/30 miles southwards to the Krishna river and the villages of Raks̲h̲asa and Tangadi, crossed the river and, at a point 20 km/12 miles south of the Krishna, after several skirmish…

bi ’llāh , Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Muḥammad b. D̲j̲aʿfar , ʿAbbasid caliph, reigned 247-8/861-2, and son of the preceeding caliph al-Mutawakkil by a Greek slave concubine Ḥubs̲h̲iyya. Towards the end of al-Mutawakkil’s reign, it had been the aim of his vizier ʿUbayd Allāh b. Yaḥyā b. K̲h̲āḳān to get the succession changed from the caliph’s original choice as walī al-ʿahd to another son al-Muʿtazz. Al-Muntaṣir was involved in the conspiracy of the Turkish soldiery which led to the caliph’s death [see al-mutawakkil ], and himself received the bayʿa [ q.v.] at the palace of al-D̲j̲aʿfariyya on …

(a.), lit. “hirer”, a dealer in riding beasts and beasts of burden (see WbKAS , Letter K, s.v., 164-5), usage being extended from the person buying and selling and hiring to the muleteer or other person accompanying a loaded beast. Terminology in this overlaps here with other, more specific terms like ḥammār , donkey driver and dealer, and bag̲h̲g̲h̲āl , mule driver and dealer, whilst in 19th century Damascus, rakkāb was also used for the hirer of donkeys and the man accompanying them on trading journeys. In pre-modern times, the mukārūn/mukāriya and their assoc…