

Sort Results by Relevance | Newest titles first | Oldest titles first

Kūh-i Bābā

(445 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l (III)

(696 words)

Author(s): Houtsma, M.T. | Bosworth, C.E.
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…


(2,255 words)

, 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…


(1,010 words)

Author(s): Kramers, J.H. | Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Niẓām-I̊ Ḏj̲edīd

(1,053 words)

(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…


(1,459 words)

Author(s): Davies, C. Collin | Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(202 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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/…


(595 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(113 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(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 …


(312 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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).…


(219 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(1,323 words)



(349 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(325 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(3,688 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Burton-Page, J. | Andrews, P.A. | Ed.
(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…


(321 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.


(270 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(1,040 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(708 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.


(2,134 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Minorsky, V. | Bosworth, C. E.
, 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…

Muʾnis al-Faḥl

(227 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
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…

al-Ṭāʾiʿ Li-Amr Allāh

(429 words)

Author(s): Zettersté, K.V. | Bosworth, C.E.
(or li ʾllāh ), ʿAbd al-Karīm b. al-Faḍl, fainéant ʿAbbāsid caliph (363-81/974-91). His father was the caliph al-Muṭīʿ [ q.v.], after whose deposition on 13 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 363/5 August 974 he was proclaimed Commander of the Faithful. His mother, who survived him, was called ʿUtb. As Ibn al-At̲h̲īr justly observes (ix, 56), al-Ṭāʾiʿ during his reign had not sufficient authority to be able to associate himself with any enterprises worthy of mention. He is only mentioned in history, one may safely say, in connection …

Ibn al-Balk̲h̲ī

(286 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, 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…


(655 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(774 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(353 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(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…


(15,785 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Minorsky, V. | V. Minorsky | Calmard, J. | Hourcade, B. | Et al.
, the name of two places in Persia. I. Tihrān, a city of northern Persia. 1. Geographical position. 2. History to 1926. 3. The growth of Tihrān. (a). To ca 1870. (b). Urbanisation, monuments, cultural and socioeconomic life until the time of the Pahlavīs. (c). Since the advent of the Pahlavīs. II. Tihrān, the former name of a village or small town in the modern province of Iṣfahān. I. Tihrān, older form (in use until the earlier 20th century) Ṭihrān (Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 51, gives both forms, with Ṭihrān as the head word; al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, i…


(47,838 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Kramers, J.H. | Zachariadou, E.A. | Faroqhi, Suraiya | Alpay Tekin, Gönül | Et al.
, the name of a Turkish dynasty, ultimately of Og̲h̲uz origin [see g̲h̲uzz ], whose name appears in European sources as ottomans (Eng.), ottomanes (Fr.), osmanen (Ger.), etc. I. political and dynastic history 1. General survey and chronology of the dynasty The Ottoman empire was the territorially most extensive and most enduring Islamic state since the break-up of the ʿAbbāsid caliphate and the greatest one to be founded by Turkish-speaking peoples. It arose in the Islamic world after the devastations over much of the eastern and central lands of the Dār al-Islām

Mīr Ḳāsim ʿAlī

(336 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Parwīz, K̲h̲usraw (II)

(468 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(27,665 words)

Author(s): Khadduri, M. | Cahen, Cl. | Ayalon, D. | Parry, V.J. | Bosworth, C.E. | Et al.
, war. i.— Legal Aspect Ḥarb may mean either fighting ( ḳitāl ) in the material sense or a “state of war” between two or more groups; both meanings were implied in the legal order of pre-Islamic Arabia. Owing to lack of organized authority, war became the basis of inter-tribal relationship. Peace reigned only when agreed upon between two or more tribes. Moreover, war fulfilled such purposes as vendetta and retaliation. The desert, adapted to distant raids and without natural frontiers, rendered the Arabs habituated to warfare and fighting became a function of society. Islam, prohibiting …


(650 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Mad̲j̲d al-Dawla

(726 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(107 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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)

Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Kańbō Lāhawrī

(159 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(950 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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 …


(668 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(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…


(511 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(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…


(643 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(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…


(10,023 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Hartmann, M. | Israeli, R.
, the usual designation in mediaeval Arabic for China; properly, it means the Chinese people, but is normally used, with the prefixed bilād , for the land of China itself. 1. The name. The initial consonant of the word represents the customary rendering of Persian čīm into early Arabic as ṣād. Thus the forms Čīnistān and Čin appear in the Persian Ḥudūd al-ʿālam ( ca. 372/982), the first form going back to the 2nd century A.D. Sogdian letters and appearing subsequently in Middle Persian and Armenian; in New Persian, the form Čīn is more common. The Arabic version al-Ṣīn appears in geographical ¶ …


(447 words)

Author(s): Wensinck, A.J. | Bosworth, C.E.
(a., from the root w-s-m “to mark, imprint”), market, festival. In this sense the term is used in ḥadīt̲h̲ , especially in connection with the markets of early Arabia, such as those which were held in ʿUkāẓ, Mad̲j̲anna, D̲h̲u ’l-Mad̲j̲āz, ʿArafa, etc. (al-Buk̲h̲ārī, Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ , bāb 150; Tafsīr , sūra II, bāb 34). At these markets, the worst elements of Arabia gathered ( al-mawsim yad̲j̲maʿ raʿāʿ al-nās , al-Buk̲h̲ārī, Ḥudūd , bāb 31). Advantage was also taken of these assemblies to make public proclamations and inquiries, e.g. in order to regulate the affairs of d…


(3,259 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(1,179 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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 …


(250 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…

Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l (I) Beg

(1,374 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(1,621 words)

Author(s): Honigmann, E. | Bosworth, C.E.
or Tortosa , earlier Anṭarṭūs, frequently Anṭarsūs (by analogy with Ṭarsūs), a town on the Syrian coast, the ancient Antarados opposite the island of Arados (Ar. D̲j̲azīrat Arwād, also written Arwād̲h̲; now Ruwād; concerning the Arab conquest of the island, see L.I. Conrad, The conquest of Arwād : a source-critical study in the historiography of the early medieval Near East , in Averil Cameron and Conrad (eds.), The Byzantine and early Islamic Near East . I. Problems in the literary source material, Princeton 1992, 317-401). Under the Roman empire, Antarados was called Const…


(1,028 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Lee, J.L.
, Ṭālḳān , the name of three places in the Iranian lands. The biographical and geographical dictionaries mention only two of these specifically (thus al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, ix, 8-13; Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iv, 6-8: both distinguish just a Ṭālaḳān of Marw al-Rūd̲h̲ and a Ṭālaḳān of Ḳazwīn). These are nos. 1 and 2 below. There was, however, a further Ṭālaḳān in the Ṭuk̲h̲āristān-Badak̲h̲s̲h̲ān region; this is no. 3 below. 1. A town of mediaeval Gūzgān or D̲j̲ūzd̲j̲ān [ q.v.], in what is now northern Afg̲h̲ānistān but adjacent to the frontier with the Turkmenis…


(670 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(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…


(856 words)

(the contracted form Rāmiz , Rāmuz is found as early as the 4th/10th century), a town and district in K̲h̲ūzistān [ q.v.] in southwestern Persia. Rām-Hurmuz lies about 55 miles southeast of Ahwāz, 65 miles south-south-east of S̲h̲ūs̲h̲tar, and 60 miles north-east of Bihbihān. Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih, 43, reckons it 17 farsak̲h̲ s from Ahwāz to Rām-Hurmuz and 22 farsak̲h̲s from Rām-Hurmuz to Arrad̲j̲ān. Ḳudāma, 194, who gives a more detailed list of stages, counts it 50 farsak̲h̲s from Wāsiṭ to Baṣra, thence 35 farsak̲h̲s to Ahwāz, thence 20 farsak̲h̲s to Rām-Hurmuz, and then 24 farsak̲h̲s …

Ṭārābī, Maḥmūd

(278 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, 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…


(1,244 words)

Author(s): Streck, M. | Bosworth, C.E.
, the early Islamic form for the ancient site of Susa in the south-west Persian province of K̲h̲ūzistān, modern Persian S̲h̲ūs̲h̲. It lies on the plain between the two main rivers of K̲h̲ūzistān, the Kārūn and the Kerk̲h̲ā [ q.vv.], which were once connected by canals, and the S̲h̲āwūr river runs along the western side of the site. From at least the second millennium B.C., it was the capital of the Elamite kingdom, destroyed by the Assyrian Ashurbanipal in the 7th century B.C., but rebuilt by the Achaemenids and a flourishing town under the Sāsānids; S…

Suleymān Čelebi

(430 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Ottoman prince and eldest son of Bāyezīd I [ q.v.], ruler in Rumelia and a considerable part of northern and northwestern Anatolia in the confused years after Bāyezīd’s defeat and capture by Tīmūr at the Battle of Ankara in 804/1402, b. ?779/1377, d. 813/1411. He is heard of in 800/1398, when his father sent him against the Aḳ Ḳoyunlu Ḳara Yülük at Sivas, and he fought at Bāyezīd’s side, together with his brothers, at Ankara. He managed to escape to Europe with his retainers by being ferried across the Bosphorus by the Genoese. He had to…


(2,286 words)

Author(s): Ruska, J. | Carra de Vaux, B. | Bosworth, C.E.
, also tilsim , tilism , tilasm , etc. from the Greek τέλεσμα, a talisman, i.e. an inscription with ¶ astrological and other magic signs or an object covered with such inscriptions, especially also with figures from the zodiacal circle or the constellations and animals which were used as magic charms to protect and avert the evil eye. The Greek name is evidence of its origin in the late Hellenistic period and gnostic ideas are obviously reflected in the widespread use of such charms. The sage Balīnās or Balīnūs [ q.v.], i.e. Apollonius of Tyana ( fl. 1st century A.D.), is said to have been…


(373 words)

Author(s): Barthold, W. | Bosworth, C.E.
(t. “Red sand”), a desert between the Si̊r-Daryā and Āmū-Daryā rivers [ qq. v., and also ḳarā-ḳum ], falling within the modern Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan SSRs. The country is less uniform, especially in the central part, than in the Ḳarā-Ḳum; the sand desert is crossed by several ranges of hills, and in some places is rocky. The Ḳi̊zi̊l-Ḳum ¶ becomes more and more inhospitable as one goes southwards. The region called Adam-Ḳi̊zi̊lg̲h̲an (“where man perishes”) between the Āmū-Daryā and the cultivated region of Buk̲h̲ārā, consisting of sandhills ( bark̲h̲ān ), is …


(5,580 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Abū Ḏj̲aʿfar Muḥammad b. Ḏj̲arīr b. Yazīd, polymath, whose expertises included tradition and law but who is most famous as the supreme universal historian and Ḳurʾān commentator of the first three or four centuries of Islam, born in the winter of 224-5/839 at Āmul, died at Bag̲h̲dād in 310/923. . 1. Life. It should be noted at the outset that al-Ṭabarī’s own works, in so far as they have been preserved for us, give little hard biographical data, though they often give us leads to his teachers and authorities and help in the evaluation of his per…


(2,444 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a town of the Tarim basin, Eastern Turkestan, now coming within the Sinkiang/Xinjiang Autonomous Region of the People’s republic of China and having in Chinese the (revived) name of So-chʾe/Shache (lat. 38° 27’ N., long. 77° 16’ E., altitude 1,190 m/3,900 feet). Yārkand lies on the river of the same name, which rises in the northern part of the Karakoram mountains near the imperfectly delineated border between Kas̲h̲mīr and China and then flows eastwards to join the Tarim river; with its perennial flow, it is the main source stream of …

Tamīm b. Baḥr al-Muṭṭawwiʿ

(201 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Arab traveller in Central Asia in early ʿAbbāsid times and the only Muslim one who has left us a record of his visit to the capital of the Uyg̲h̲ur Turks (pre-840) on the Ork̲h̲on river [ q.v.] in Mongolia, most probably Ḳarabalg̲h̲asun, the Khara Balghasun of the modern Mongolian Republic. It may be assumed that Tamīm was an Arab, possibly one of those settled within K̲h̲urāsān, and his nisba implies that he had been a fighter for the faith against pagans. He certainly seems to have been a great traveller in the steppes, since he says that he also visited the Turkish Kimäk [ q.v.] and their king…

ʿUd̲j̲ayf b. ʿAnbasa

(220 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, ʿAbbāsid army commander who served al-Maʾmūn and al-Muʿtaṣim in the first half of the 3rd/9th century, d. 223/838. Nothing is recorded of his antecedents, but he seems to have been of Ḵh̲urāsānian or Transoxanian Arab stock; at the height of his career, he had a grant of the revenues of the market at Is̲h̲tīk̲h̲ān [ q.v. in Suppl.] near Samarḳand (Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, i, 196). He was originally a partisan of the rebel in Transoxania Rāfiʿ b. al-Layt̲h̲ [ q.v.], during the latter part of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd’s reign, but went over to the caliphal side in 192/807-8 (al-Ṭa…


(239 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a settlement in the Semirečye region of Central Asia [see yeti su ] mentioned in the history of the Early Turks and their connections with the adjacent Islamic lands. It apparently lay slightly to the north of the Ču river valley, hence just north of the modern Kirghizia-Kazakstan border. Minorsky suggested that the name means “canal ( āb ) on the Ču”. At the time of the Arab incursions into Central Asia, the chief ordu or encampment of the Türgesh ruler Su-lu was located at Sūyāb; it was sacked by the incoming Chinese army in 748, and then in 766 the site was occupied by the Ḳarluḳ [ q.v.] when they…


(194 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Nūbandad̲j̲ān (also Nūband̲j̲ān, according to Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am , ed. Beirut, v, 307), a town of the province of Fārs in mediaeval Islamic Persia. It lay in the district of S̲h̲ābūr K̲h̲urra roughly midway between Iṣṭak̲h̲r and Arrad̲j̲ān [ q.vv.] on the road linking S̲h̲īrāz with K̲h̲ūzistān. The geographers describe the town as populous and ¶ flourishing, with fine markets and a good running water supply. It flourished under the Būyids, was destroyed by the S̲h̲abānkāra Kurds of Abū Saʿd in the 5th/11th century, but was rebuilt by the Sald̲j̲ūḳ M…


(477 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name for two towns of the eastern Iranian world. 1. Sabzawār in western Ḵh̲urāsān was, together with Ḵh̲usrūd̲j̲ird, one of the two townships making up the administrative district of Bayhaḳ [ q.v.], the name by which the whole district was generally known in mediaeval Islamic times. It lay in the cultivable zone on the northern rim of the Das̲h̲t-i Kawīr or Great Desert. Sabzawār itself is described in the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 102, §23.2, as a small town and as the chef-lieu ( ḳaṣaba ) of a district; the Arabic geographers merely mention it as a stage along the roads of Ḵh̲urāsān and as a rūstāḳ…

Ṭūr ʿAbdīn

(5,793 words)

Author(s): Streck, M. | Bosworth, C.E. | W.P. Heinrichs
, “mountain of the [Christian] devotees”, a mountainous plateau region of northern Mesopotamia, in early Islamic times coming within the province of Diyār Bakr [ q.v.] and now, in the Turkish Republic, coming within the il of Mardin. It has been notable throughout the Islamic period for the survival—at least until the later 20th century—of a vigorous Syriac Christianity, with many churches and monasteries. 1. Geography. Ṭūr ʿAbdīn stretches roughly from Mārdīn [ q.v.] in the west to D̲j̲azīrat Ibn ʿUmar [ q.v.], the modern Turkish town of Cizre, in the east. To its north and …


(1,978 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.


(182 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.

Yaʿḳūb b. al-Layt̲h̲

(1,282 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.

Masʿūd b. Maḥmūd

(795 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.

Rūm Ḳalʿesi

(1,691 words)

, ḳalʿat al-rūm , a fortress in mediaeval northern Syria, which lay on the right bank of the Euphrates river where it takes its great westernmost bend, hence to the north-north-west of Bīred̲j̲ik [ q.v.]. Its site accordingly comes within the modern Turkish province ( il) of Gaziantep. According to Arnold Nöldeke’s description, it is situated “on a steeply sloping-tongue of rock, lying along the right bank of the Euphrates, which bars the direct road to the Euphrates from the west for its tributary the Merziman as it breaks through the edge o…

Kilāt, Kalāt, Kelāt

(1,246 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.


(249 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.


(1,417 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Gerber, H.
(a.), lit. “dividing out”, a system of raising the k̲h̲arād̲j̲ or land tax. 1. In the caliphate. This involved the levy, by agreement, of a percentage or share of the crops, usually taken when these last had ripened. The early sources on law and finance, up to the time of al-Māwardī [ q.v.], distinguished it from the system of misāḥa [ q.v.] “measurement” or assessment of a fixed lump sum on the land according to its fertility, location, etc, and from the system of muḳāṭaʿa [ q.v.] which implied a fixed annual sum payable without regard to the variations of prosperity and harvest and often the ¶ sub…


(436 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.


(202 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.


(226 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.


(2,094 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Temimi, Abdeljelil | Haig, T.W.
(p.), from the Persian sipah , sipāh “army”, hence basically meaning soldier. It has given such European words as English sepoy (see below, 2.) and French spahi (see below, 3.). 1. In the Ottoman empire. Here, sipāhī had the more specific meaning of “cavalryman” in the feudal forces of the empire, in contrast to the infantrymen of the professional corps of the Janissaries [see yeñi čeri ]. Such feudal cavalrymen were supported by land grants ( dirlik “living, means of livelihood”) at different levels of income yield. Below the k̲h̲āṣṣ [ q.v.] lands granted to members of the higher ech…


(647 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.


(1,300 words)

, S̲h̲irwān or S̲h̲arwān , a region of eastern Caucasia, known by this name in both mediaeval Islamic and modern times. S̲h̲īrwān proper comprised the easternmost spurs of the Caucasus range and the lands which sloped down from these mountains to the banks of the Kur river [ q.v.]. But its rulers strove continuously to control also the western shores of the Caspian Sea from Ḳuba (the modern town of Kuba) in the district of Maskat (< *Maskut, Mas̲h̲kut, to be connected with the ancient Eurasian steppe people of the Massagetes) in the north, to Bākū [ q.v.] (modern Baku) in the south. To the …


(112 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.


(174 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.


(7,117 words)

Author(s): Minorsky, V. | Bosworth, C.E. | Vasmer, R.
, a province to the south of the Caspian Sea bounded on the west by Gīlān [ q. v.] and on the east by what was in Ḳad̲j̲ār times the province of Astarābād [ q.v., formerly Gurgān); Māzandarān and Gurgān now form the modern ustān or province of Māzandarān. 1. The name. If Gurgān to the Iranians was the "land of the wolves" ( vәhrkāna , the region to its west was peopled by "Māzaynian dēws" (Bartholomae, Altir . Wörterbuch , col. 1169, under māzainya daēva ). Darmesteter, Le Zend-Avesta , ii, 373, n. 32, thought that Māzandarān was a "comparative of direction" (* Mazana-tara ; c…


(1,839 words)

Author(s): Minorsky, V. | Bosworth, C.E. | Schaeder, H.H.
(older form Sāwad̲j̲, cf. the nisba Sāwad̲j̲ī, found at the side of Sāwī), a town of northern Persia some 125 km/80 miles to the southwest of Tehran (lat. 35° 00′ N., long. 50° 22′ E., altitude 960 m/3,149 feet). It was formerly on the Ḳazwīn-Ḳumm road used in mediaeval times but now replaced by the modern paved roads-system centred on Tehran, and on the main caravan and pilgrimage route from southwestern…

al-Walīd b. ʿUḳba

(216 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. Abī Muʿayṭ , Companion of the Prophet and member of the Abū ʿAmr family of the Umayyad clan in Mecca, d. 61/680. His father ʿUḳba fell at Badr opposing Muḥammad, but al-Walīd became a Muslim at the conquest of Mecca in 8/630. He acted as collector of the ṣadaḳa [ q.v.] from the Banū Muṣṭaliḳ under the Prophet and that from the Christian Banū Tag̲h̲lib [ q.v.] in al-D̲j̲azīra under ʿUmar. Through his mother, he was a half-brother of the ʿUt̲h̲mān b. ʿAffān, and when the latter became caliph he appointed al-Walīd governor of Kūfa after Saʿd b. Abī Waḳḳāṣ (29/6…


(527 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
b. Il Arslan , Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Tād̲j̲ al-Dunyā wa ’l-Dīn, one of the K̲h̲wārazm S̲h̲āhs of Anūs̲h̲tigin’s line, reigned 567-96/1172-1200. The name (thus vocalised in Maḥmūd al-Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī, tr. Atalay, i, 368) means something like “confronted, attacked, struck [in battle]”; see Hikmet Bayur,


(741 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name of two rulers of the D̲j̲alāyirids [ q…


(248 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Warwālīd̲j̲ , a town of mediaeval Ṭuk̲h̲āristān, in what is now northern Afg̲h̲ānistān, mentioned in the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 72, 109, as the ḳaṣaba


(461 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(also spelt Sīwī in mediaeval Islamic sources, e.g. the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam ) a town and district of northeastern Balūčistān, lying on the plain below the entrance to the Bolān Pass and the route to Quetta [see kwat́t́a ], which is some 140 km/88 miles beyond Sībī town. The town is situated in lat. 29° 31′ N. and long. 67° 54′ E. Because of its strategic position between the mouths of the Bolān and Harnaī Passes, and on the way down to the Indus valley, it has always played a part in history. …


(3,019 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Faroqhi, Suraiya
(a.), pl. raʿāyā , literally “pasturing herd of cattle, sheep, etc.”, a term which in later Islam came to designate the mass of subjects, the taxpaying common people, as opposed to the ruling military and learned classes. 1. In the mediaeval Islamic world. Ḳurʾānic use of the verb raʿā and its derivatives ¶ covers the two …


(327 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, son of Kāmd̲j̲ār, a Persian general of K̲h̲usraw Anūs̲h̲arwān (A.D. 531-79 [see kisrā ]). The name would apparently stem from MP vēhrēz “having a good abundance”, see Nöldeke, Gesch . der Perser und Araber , 223 n. 2, and Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch , 340, but was in origin a title, since the Byzantine historian Procopius names the commander of the Sāsānid emperor Kawād’s expedition into Georgia and Lazica (early 5th century) as having the title Ouarizēs (< * wahriz ); see daylam, at Vol. II, 190a. In response to an appeal ca. 570, via th…


(636 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, a small town of northern Persia (lat. 35° 19’ N., long. 51° 40’ E.) lying in the fertile Warāmīn plain, which benefits from a good water supply from the D̲j̲ād̲j̲a Rūd and has been much frequented by Turkmen nomads up to modern times. 1. History. The mediaeval Islamic geographers place it at two stages from al-Rayy (al-Muḳaddasī, 401) or at 30 mīl s from it (Yāḳūt, Buldān , ed. Beirut, v, 370). Already in Būyid times it was a flourishing little town with a bazaar, but it developed especially after the Mongols sacked al-Rayy in 617/1220 an…


(1,862 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E. | Shinar, P.
(a.), pl. ṣufūf , literally “rank, row or line, company of men standing in a rank, row or line” (Lane, 1693 col. 3), a term with various usages. 1. In religious practice. Here, ṣaff is used for the lines of worshippers assembled in the mosque or elsewhere for the prescribed worship; see on This, ṣalāt . 2. In military organisation. In the traditional formation of armies on the march or on the battlefield ( taʿbiya ), there was a classic five-fold division of a centre, its left and right wings, a vanguard and a ¶ rearguard (whence the term k̲h̲amīs for an army). In actual…


(212 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a.), the active participle of the verb istak̲h̲rad̲j̲a in the sense of “to extract”, used in the mediaeval Islamic terminology for the person responsible for collecting money, such as that of the ṣadaḳa or poor-tax (al-Ṭabarī, i, 2746) or of the k̲h̲arād̲j̲ or land-tax; thus in ʿAbbāsid times he was an offical of the Dīwan al-K̲h̲arād̲j̲ charged with the latter task ( ibid., hi, 1856, year 257/871, caliphate of al-Muʿtamid). In Muslim Spain, it seems to have been the original of the Latin term exceptor , the official who collected on behalf of the Muslim s…


(459 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C. E.
, Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Mīrzā Ḥasan , Persian scholar of the 19th century and author of a historicalgeographical work on his native province of Fārs, the Fārsnāma-yi Nāṣirī (the latter part of the book’s title being a reference to the Ḳād̲j̲ār sultan Nāṣir al-Dīn S̲h̲āh, in whose reign Ḥasan Fasāʾī wrote). He was born, according to the autobiography inserted into his book, in 1237/1821-2 in the small town of Fasā [ q.v.] in Fārs, of a family which had been prominent in the intellectual and religious life of S̲h̲īrāz for at least four centuries; various members of it had be…


(376 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name in Arabic geographical writing for the Araxes River (Perso-Turkish form Aras, Armenian Eraskʿ, Georgian Rak̲h̲s̲h̲ī, modern Aras). It rises in what is now eastern Turkey near Erzurum and flows generally in an eastwards direction for 1,072 km/670 miles into the Caspian Sea. Its middle reaches, from a point near Mount Ararat, today form the boundary between the former Azerbaijan SSR and Persia, with the lower stretch receiving the Kur River and flowing through the Mūḳān [ q.v.] steppes and what is now wholly Azerbaijani territory. The early Arabic name al-Rass led the Musl…


(333 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the Ottoman Turkish form of modern Turkish Payas, a small town at the head of the Gulf of Alexandretta 18 km/12 miles north of Iskandarūn [ q.v.] (lat. 36° 46′ N., long. 36° 10′ E.). Lying as it ¶ does in the very narrow coastal corridor between the sea and the Amanus Mts. or D̲j̲abal al-Lukkām [ q.v.], the modern Turkish Gavur Dağlari, Payās has always been a strategically important point on the route from Cilicia to Antioch; the name itself goes back to that of the classical Greek town of Baiae (see PW, ii/2, col. 2775 (Ruge)). In the early Islamic period, Payās was on the road connecting…


(467 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name found in pre-modern usage for a region of what is now eastern Afgh̲ānistān, also appearing in mediaeval Arabic usage as its Arabic equivalent Bilād al-Dāwar. The region straddled the courses of the upper Helmand river and the Arg̲h̲andāb to the north of their confluence at Bust, hence it was bounded on the north by Zābulistān and al-Ruk̲h̲k̲h̲ad̲j̲ [ q.vv.] on the south and southeast, but the boundaries of all these regions were indeterminate, and Zamīndāwar, in particular, seems often to have been confused in the sources with that of Zābulistān. The early Arabic geographers …


(305 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, scene of a battle in eastern Syria in 73/692-3 between the Arab tribes of Sulaym and Tag̲h̲lib. Ḵh̲ālid b. al-Walīd campaigned here in 12/633 (Ṭabarī, i, 2068, 2072-3). Yāḳūt describes it as a range of hills stretching from ʿUrḍ near Palmyra to the Euphrates, corresponding to the modern D̲j̲ebel el-Bis̲h̲rī. The battle is also sometimes called after al-Raḥūb, a local water-course. The “Day of al-Bis̲h̲r” was the climax of several clashes between the two tribes. This strife lay to some extent outside the Ḳays-Kalb tribal feud of the period; both tribes we…


(1,082 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, the name generally given by the classical Islamic geographers to the Indus river (Skr. Sindhu, Σίνθος, “Ινδς, Lat. Sindus, Indus), but Nahr al-Sind, Sind-Rūdh, Nahr Multān, etc. were also used by them. There was, in fact, considerable confusion over the precise nomenclature of the Indus and its constituents, with, in particular, uncertainty over what was to be regarded as the main river channel. Thus al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī, followed by Ibn Ḥawḳal, records the Nahr Multān or Mihrān as rising in the mountains of Central Asia. They compa…


(279 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
(a., pl. mak̲h̲ālīf ), a term of mediaeval Islamic administrative geography used particularly in Yemen. The sources usually state that it is the equivalent of Arabic kūra [ q.v.] “administrative province” (Nas̲h̲wān al-Ḥimyarī, Die auf Südarabien bezüglichen Angaben im Šams al-ʿulūm , Leiden-London 1916, 34) or Persian rustāḳ [ q.v.] “rural area” (al-K̲h̲alīl b. Aḥmad, cited by Yāḳūt, Buldān , Beirut 1374-6/1955-7, i, 37, tr. Wadie Jwaideh, The introductory chapters of Yāqūt’s Muʿjam al-buldān , Leiden 1959, 56-7), with a fanciful explanation tha…

Ziyād b. Ṣāliḥ al-K̲h̲uzāʿī

(397 words)

Author(s): Bosworth, C.E.
, Arab commander in the service of Abū Muslim at the time of the ʿAbbāsid Revolt (d. 135/752-3). He was one of the naḳībs [ q.v.] chosen by Abū Muslim from the leaders of the Arabs in K̲h̲urāsān in 1340/747-8. With the triumph of the ʿAbbāsid cause, Abū Muslim appointed Ziyād governor of Buk̲h̲ārā and Sogdia, where he suppressed a rebellion of the discontented Arab garrison in Buk̲h̲ārā led by S̲h̲arīk (or S̲h̲urayk) b. S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Mahrī (133/750-1). Shortly afterwards he commanded the Arab expedition sent into the la…
▲   Back to top   ▲