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(p.), a form current in Muslim India, passing into Urdu and Hindi and derived from Pers. s̲h̲ikar “game, prey; the chase, hunting”, with the senses of “a native hunter or stalker, who accompanied European hunters and sportsmen”, and then of these last sportsmen themselves (see Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson , a glossary of Anglo-Indian colloquial words and phrases, 2London 1903, 827-8, s.v. Shikaree , Shekarry ). The native hunters stemmed from the many castes in India whose occupation was the snaring, trapping, tracking, or pursuit of …

bi-llāh , Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī b. Aḥmad , ʿAbbāsid caliph, reigned 289-95/902-8, son of al-Muʿtaḍid and a Turkish slave concubine named Čiček (Arabic D̲j̲īd̲j̲ak). In 281/894-5 he was appointed by his father governor of al-Rayy and several towns in the neighbourhood, and five years later he was made governor of Mesopotamia and took up his quarters in ¶ al-Raḳḳa. After the death of al-Muʿtaḍid on 22 Rabīʿ II 289/5 April 902, he ascended the throne and at once won the good-will of the people by his liberality, by destroying the subter…

, locally Kōĺikōd́u (interpreted in Malayalam as “cock fortress”, see Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson , a glossary of Anglo-Indian colloquial words and phrases, 2London 1903, 148), conventionally Calicut and, in modern Indian parlance, Kozhikode , a town of the Western Deccan or Peninsular Indian coastland (lat. 11° 15′ N., long. 75° 45′ E.) in what was known in pre-modern times, and is still known, as the Malabar coast [see maʿbar ]. In British Indian times it was the centre of a sub-district ( tālūk ) of the same name in the Malabar District of the Madra…

, a small settlement in the modern Afg̲h̲ān province, and the mediaeval Islamic region, of Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān [ q.v.]. It lies in lat. 36° 43′ N., long. 71° 34′ E., and should not be confused with Is̲h̲kāmis̲h̲, further westwards in the Ḳunduz or Ḳaṭag̲h̲ān district of Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān. The historic Is̲h̲kās̲h̲im is on the left or southern bank of the Pand̲j̲ or upper Oxus river (only in Soviet times did a smaller settlement on the other side of the river become the chef-lieu of the so-called Is̲h̲kās̲h̲im tuman or district of the Gorno-Badak̲h̲ s̲h̲ān Autonomous…

, an Indian coin, a rupee. In the later 9th/15th and early 10th/16th centuries, the silver tanka [ q.v.] of the sultans of Dihlī had become so debased that when S̲h̲īr S̲h̲āh (947-52/1540-5) reformed the coinage, the name could no longer be given to a silver coin. To his new silver coin, corresponding to the original fine silver tanka, he therefore gave the name rūpiyya = rupee, i.e. the silver coin (Sanskrit, rūpya , rūpaka ), and tanka became a copper denomination. The weight of the rupee was 178 grains (11.53 gr) and it rapidly established itself in popular favour. Un…

, a native dynasty of northern India who were the first great opponents of G̲h̲aznawid and Islamic expansion into the Pand̲j̲āb. Bīrūnī in his Taḥḳīḳ mā li ’l-Hind describes them as originally Turks from Tibet who ruled in the Kābul river valley; it is possible that these “Turks” were Hinduized epigoni of the Kushans and Kidarites pushed eastwards by the Hephthalites [see hayāṭila ]. During the 4th/10th century these first Hindū-S̲h̲āhīs were replaced by a Brāhmanic line. In the time of the first G̲h̲aznawids Sebüktigīn and Maḥmūd [ qq.v.], the Hindū-S̲h̲āhīs constituted a powerful…

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…

, the name of three dynasties of mediaeval Islam. 1. A line of governors for the ʿAbbāsid caliphs in K̲h̲urāsān and the holders of high offices in ʿIrāḳ, who flourished in the 3rd/9th century (205-78/821-91). The founder of the line was the Persian commander, of mawlā origin, Ṭāhir (I) b. al-Ḥusayn D̲h̲u ’l-Yamīnayn [ q.v.], who became governor of K̲h̲urāsān in 205/821 but who died almost immediately afterwards, after showing signs of asserting his independence of Bag̲h̲dād. Nevertheless, the caliph—possibly being unable to find anyone else with th…

, 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 simply Ṭarābulus, with the local variants of Itrābulus, Iṭrābulus al-G̲h̲arb and Ṭrablus, the name for the city of Tripoli, of Africa or of Barbary, in Libya, a designation which is also extended to Tripolitania, a region of North Africa bordering the Mediterranean which, with Cyrenaica and the Fezzan, constitutes the State of Libya [see lībiyā ; barḳa ; fazzān ]. 1. General. The name derives from an Arabisation of the Greek term Tripolis which dates back to ancient times. The qualificative al-G̲h̲arb (= “of the West”) was added after the Tur…

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 town in the mediaeval Islamic province of northern D̲j̲ibāl some 50 km/32 miles to the southeast of Zand̲j̲ān [ q.v.] (lat. 36° 24′ N., long. 48° 50′ E.). 1. History. Sulṭāniyya was founded towards the end of the 7th/13th century by the Mongol Il K̲h̲ānids and served for a while in the following century as their capital. The older Persian name of the surrounding district was apparently S̲h̲āhrūyāz or S̲h̲ārūyāz/S̲h̲arūbāz (which was to be the site, adjacent to Sulṭāniyya, of the tomb which the Il K̲h̲ānid Abū Saʿīd [ q.v.] built for himself, according to Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū). It was orig…

, 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…

, sing. Ṣaḳlabī, Ṣiḳlabī, the designation in mediaeval Islamic sources for the Slavs and other fair-haired, ruddy-complexioned peoples of Northern Europe (see A.Z. Velidi Togan, Die Schwerter der Germanen , 19-38). 1. The Ṣaḳāliba of Northern and Eastern Europe. The actual name was a borrowing from Middle Greek Σλάβος, “Slav.” this, in turn, is to be connected with the self-designation of the Slavs, Slověne (cf. the Rus’ usage Slověne, Slovyane , Sloven’ski̊y yazi̊k “Slavs”, “Slavic nation” in the Povest’ vremyanni̊k̲h̲ let , in PSRL, i, 5-6, 28, Mod. Russ. Slavyane , Ukr. Slov’yani̊ …

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…

, Syria, etymologically, “the left-hand region”, because in ancient Arab usage the speaker in western or central Arabia was considered to face the rising sun and to have Syria on his left and the Arabian peninsula, with Yaman (“the rig̲h̲thand region”), on his right (cf. al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ ., iii, 140-1 = § 992; al-Muḳaddasī, partial French tr. A. Miquel, La meilleure répartition pour la connaissance des provinces , Damascus 1963, 155-6, both with other, fanciful explanations). In early Islamic usage, the term bilād al-S̲h̲ām covered what in early 20th-…

, the Ottoman Turkish form for the name of the Italian city of Venice, in earlier Arabic usage, however, there appears Bunduḳiya and similar forms. 1. In earlier Islamic times. The city was known to early Arabic geographers, such as Ibn Rusta, Ibn Ḥawḳal, etc., and these geographers had a fair knowledge of the names of many of the Italian cities and towns of the Lombard and Carolingian periods; the knowledge of later writers like al-Idrīsī was a fortiori much profounder after some three centuries during which the Arabs had controlled Sicily [see siḳilliya ] and, at times, Calabria [see Ḳillawr…

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…

, the name given to a complex of military encampments, settlements and royal palaces in southern Afg̲h̲ānistān which apparently flourished in the 5th/11th and 6th/12th centuries. The site (lat. 31° 28′ N. and long 64° 20′ E.) is an extensive one, stretching along the left bank of the Helmand River [see hilmand ] near its confluence with the Arg̲h̲andāb with the mediaeval Islamic town of Bust [ q.v.], modern ruins of Ḳalʿa-yi Bist, at its southern end, and the modern, new town (named after the mediaeval complex of buildings) of Las̲h̲kar-gāh at its northern one.…

, a mythical dynasty of ancient Persia, given a considerable role in the national historical tradition of Persia. This tradition was essentially put together in the k̲h̲ w adāy-nāmags of late Sāsānid times and, like most of our information on Sāsānid history, has to be reconstructed from post-Sāsanid, ¶ mainly early Islamic sources. Hence we find information on the Pīs̲h̲dādids in such sources as al-Ṭabarī, al-Masʿūdī, Ḥamza al-Iṣfahānī and al-T̲h̲aʿālibī. Ḥamza, ed. Beirut n.d. [ ca. 1961], 13, 16-17, makes the Fīs̲h̲dādiyya the first ṭabaḳa of the kings …

, a small province of mediaeval Islamic Persia, lying to the south of the Alburz chain watershd and extending into the northern fringes of the Das̲h̲t-i Kavīr. Its western boundaries lay almost in the eastern rural districts of Ray, whilst on the east it marched with K̲h̲urāsān, with which it was indeed at times linked. It was bisected by the great Ray-K̲h̲urāsān highway, along which ¶ were situated the chief towns of Ḳūmis, from west to east K̲h̲uwār or K̲h̲awār (classical Χοαρηνή, modern Aradūn), Simnān [ q.v.]. Dāmg̲h̲ān [ q.v.], and Bisṭām [ q.v.], whilst at its south-eastern extrem…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad , official and vizier of the Būyids in the second half of the 4th/10th century and patron of scholars, d. 374/984-5. Virtually nothing is known of his origins, but he served the great amīr ʿAḍud al-Dawla Fanā-Ḵh̲usraw [ q.v.] as one of his two inspectors of the army ( ʿāriḍ al-d̲j̲ays̲h̲ ) in Bag̲h̲dād, the ʿāriḍ responsible for the Turkish, Arab and Kurdish troops. Then when ʿAḍud al-Dawla died in 372/983 and his son Ṣamṣām al-Dawla Marzubān assumed power in Bag̲h̲dād as supreme amīr, he nominated Ibn Saʿdān as his vizier. He occupied this post fo…

1. Town in the Persian province of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. Position. The town lies about 40 miles north of Tabrīz, halfway between it and the Araxes or Aras in lat. 38° 25′ 30″ N. and 45° 46″ E. at an altitude of ca. 4,400 feet/1,360m. (it is 42 miles from Marand to D̲j̲ulfā). The road from Tabrīz to K̲h̲oy also branches off at Marand. A shorter road from Tabrīz to K̲h̲oy follows the north bank of Lake Urmiya and crosses the Mis̲h̲owdag̲h̲ range by the pass between Tasūd̲j̲ [ q.v.] and Ḍiyā al-Dīn. Marand, which is surrounded by many gardens, occupies the eastern corner of a rather beau…

, the region of Transoxania lying within the great northwards bend of the middle reaches of the Jaxartes river and to the south of the rightbank affluent the Āhangarān (Russian form, Angren) river. It thus lay between the provinces of S̲h̲ās̲h̲ [see tas̲h̲kent ] on the northwest and Farg̲h̲āna [ q.v.] on the east. The Arabic and Persian geographers of the 3rd-5th/9th-11th centuries describe it as a flourishing province, with its mountains producing silver and salt. They give the names of many towns there, the chief one being Tūnkat̲h̲, whose ru…

, Abū Saʿīd Tād̲j̲ al-Dawla (458-88/1066-95), Sald̲j̲ūḳ ruler in Syria 471-88/1078-95. The name, < Tkish. tut-, “he who grasps, seizes”, was already familiar as a personal name to Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, tr. Atalay, i, 367. During his brother Malik S̲h̲āh’s [ q.v.] lifetime, the youthful Tutus̲h̲ was given Syria in 471/1078 or 472/1079 as his appanage. The Turkmen commander Atsi̊z b. Uvak [ q.v.], who had overrun southern Syria and Palestine and had seized Jerusalem from the Fāṭimids, had been swept out of these temporary conquests by the returning armies of al-Mu…

(p., “mountains”), a directly-administered District of what was the North West Frontier Province of British India and of Pakistan till 1955, covering some 2,694 sq. miles and with its administrative centre at the town of Kōhāt. The District is bounded by the Khyber Agency [see k̲h̲aybar Pass] on the north, by the Kurram and North Wāziristān Agencies in the west, by the Bannū District [ q.v.] on the south, and by the Indus River and the ʿĪsā K̲h̲ēl taḥṣīl of the Pand̲j̲āb on the east. The terrain of the District is that of a rugged tableland lying at an average of 2,000 ft., with…

, 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 …