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Caucasica II.1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

V. Minorsky
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§ 1. Muhammad Nasawi, the biographer of the Khwarāzm-shah Jalāl al-dīn, several times refers to the story of Nuṣrat al-dīn Muhammad (*Mahmūd) b. *Bīshkīn. When in 614/1217 the atabek of Azarbayjan, Özbek, was expelled from Isfahan by the Khwārazm-shāh Muhammed, Özbek's vassal Nuţrat al-din led the army back to Azarbayjan and thus enabled his master to escape with a small detachment. In Miyāna Nuṣrat al-din was taken prisoner by the Khwarazmians and brought to Hamadan. Wishing to humiliate him and other distinguished prisoners, the Khwārazm-shāh ordered them to stand on their feet while he played polo on the hippodrome. One day the conqueror's interest was aroused by the pair of unusually large ear-rings which Nusrat was wearing. Nu๣rat explained (p. 18) that his grandfather was captured by Alp Arslan during his expedition into Georgia (possibly that of 456/1064). Later, Alp Arslan liberated the prisoners but ordered them (as his slaves) to wear ear-rings with his name.

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Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 4 , February 1951 , pp. 868 - 877
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Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1951

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References

page 868 note 2 Sīrat al-sulṭan Jalal al-dīn, ed. Houdas, 1891, pp. 3, 14, 16–8. The French translation (1895) teems with misunderstandings and needs a thorough revision. Nasawi several times writes Muhammad instead of Maḥmūd attested on the coins.

page 868 note 3 I. Athīr, x, 25–8; Brosset, Histoire de la Géorgie, i/1, 327.

page 868 note 4 The text as it stands, p. 18, makes no good sense and I have interpreted it according to my understanding, reading *wa khala‘ū ulā’ika ribqat al-tā‘a instead of wa ja‘alū ulā'ika ribqatan lil-tā'a.

page 869 note 1 A division of Mongol times.

page 869 note 2 See Juvayni, ii, 184, Bīshkīn, younger copies Mīshkīn; Rashid al-dīn, ed. Bloohet, 33: *Bīshkīn.

page 870 note 1 Lane Poole, Cat. of Orient, coins, iii, 1877, p. 256.

page 870 note 2 See Markov, A. K., Inventarnīy Katalog, 1896–8, p. 434.Google Scholar Markov still uses the wrong reading Pishtegin. See also Soret, P., in Rev. numismatique, 1860, v, pp. 71–6Google Scholar: one fels of Bīshkīn, Ahar, 594, and two felses of Nuṣrat, struck in Ahar, one with the name of Özbek (623), and another with the name of Jalāl al-dīn.

page 870 note 3 In a late Armenian source (Thomas of Metsob, fifteenth century) the name appears as Beshgēn. [In Georgia Beshken is attested as a popular name, see Janashia, Istoriya Gruzii, 1946, p. 244; a silver-smith, Beshken Opizari, twelfth century.]

page 870 note 4 See Vakhusht, Geography, p. 31, 47. The Jaqeli family received its name from the river Jaqis-tsqali, one of the left affluents of the Kur, in Samtsxe, ibid., 89.

page 871 note 1 Ed. Brosset, p. 161, and map. On modern maps this place seems to be represented by Beshtasheni (?).

page 871 note 2 One of the boroughs downstream on the Ktzia was called Liparitis-Ubani, Liparit being one of the typical names of the said family.

page 871 note 3 The events are much more clear in I. Athir, x, 483, but he omits the names of the amirs besieged in Ardabil. The identity of ‘Ayn al-daula is obscure, though in the previous year (526) the Khwārazm-shah Atsīz commanded Sanjar's left flank in the so-called “battle of Dāymarj” (more exacth1 near *Ghūlān, in the neighbourhood of Daynavar). see I. Athīr, x, 476.

page 872 note 1 The Chronicle (Brosset, i/1, 435–46) describes the campaign in great detail adding that Amir-Miran's mother (Inanch-khatun) was at that time married to Tughril-Sultan. In fact (by her third marriage) Inanch-khatun became the wife of Tughril, in Ramadan 589/Sept. 1193. The wedlock was of short duration and Tughril had his spouse strangled, see Rākat al-ṣudūr, 367. This date is important for fixing the time of Thamar's expedition.

page 872 note 2 Jahān-Pahlavān is usually taken for a distinctive title of Muhammad b. Eldiguz, but Nizāmī uses this term for his son Abū-Bakr and even for the atabek of Mossul ‘Izz al-din. Cf. in Nasawi, p. 217, the name of one of Jalāl al-dīn's generals: Jahān Pahlavān Özbek Bayan.

page 872 note 3 The third son of Kay Qubād, see Shāh-nāma, Tehran, 1313, ii, 314 (Kay Qubād, verse 227).

page 872 note 4 The difficulty is that this prince ascended the throne at the age of seventeen, which is in obvious contradiction with Nizami's sixty. Should the latter be correct, one has to revert to Dr. Bacher's theory that the reference is to ‘Izz al-din Mas'ūd I b. Maudūd, who ruled in 572–89/1176-August 1193, and that it belongs to some earlier recension of the Iskandar-nāma. However, this involves a new difficulty. Al-Malik al-Qāhir was the title of ‘Izz al-dīn II and we do not know whether it also belonged to Izz al-dīn I.

page 872 note 5 Or some later copies of it. In my own MS. of the Khamsa (889/1484) both the dedication and the conclusion are in the name of ‘Izz al-din.

page 873 note 1 Rieu, “Catalogue of Persian manuscripts,” pp. 568–70; Supplement, p. 154; Darab, G. H., Makhzanol Asrār, 1945, pp. 55–61Google Scholar (reviewed by Minorsky, BSOAS., 1948, xii/2, 441–5). Professor Berthels, E., in his recent book Roman ob Alexandre i yego glavnïye versii na Vostoke, Moscow, 1948, pp. 50–2Google Scholar, solves the difficulty by assuming that Bīshkīn was the name of Nuṣrat al-dīn himself. I do not know the authority for such a statement. The new interesting fact is that A. A. Alesker-zadeh is reported to have discovered the tomb-stone of Nizāmī giving the date of his death as 4 Ramadan 605/Thursday 12 March 1209, see Voprosī istorii, 1948, No. 9, p. 121.

page 873 note 2 The text is more expressive: ghamada sayfahu wa salla ayrahu.

page 874 note 1 This may be the explanation of Nizami's term kay-nishīn “living in a Kayānid place”. According to the Nuzhat al-qulūb, 83, one of the towns of Mishkīn (*Alār) was founded by Qubād and, though this king was a Sasanian, poetically his name may have been taken for that of the legendary Kay-Qubād.

page 874 note 2 See their history in S. Orbelian, Histoire de la Siounie (in Armenian), tr. by Brosset, St. Petersbourg, 1864, i, ch. 66 (first published by St. Martin, Mémoires, ii, 15–300, see especially pp. 101–11 and commentary), and Brosset, Histoire de la Géorgie, i/2, pp. 257–64, and 334–52.

page 874 note 3 Said to have died in 1062, see Brosset, i/2, 350.

page 875 note 1 This is the date given in Brosset, i/2 (1851), p. 256. The Russian translation of Vardan by N. Emin, 1861, p. 158, gives Arm.623/1174, which allows more time for the subsequent events.

page 875 note 2 S. Orbelian calls him Eldiguz, but it must be remembered that since 1176 Muhammad Pahlavan was ruling in Azarbayjan (see below).

page 875 note 3 This name must correspond to Hamadan as it appears from S. Orbelian's statement, i, 235, that Abagha-khan died in Haminn, cf. Rashīd al-dīn, ed. K. Jahn, Prague, 1941, p. 41: Abagha died in Hamadān.

page 876 note 1 Queen Thamar's (1184–1213) famous generals Zakare and Ivane. Their family was of Kurdish extraction but was converted to Christianity by the Armenian princes under whom it had taken service. Finally, Ivane opted for the Georgian orthodoxy but Zakare remained faithful to the Armenian creed.

page 876 note 2 Siunik’ is the western part of the highlands separating the Araxes from the Kur, and stretches south of Lake Sevan (Gelarkuni district). Vayo-dzor is the long valley of the Lower Arpa-chay which flows into the Araxes through the district of Sharur.

page 876 note 3 I could not check the position of this Sembat by the family tree drawn up by Brosset, i/2, 351. S. Orbelian refers only to two sons of Liparit namely Elikum and Ivane. Some details of the story of Elikum resemble what happened to Sembat.

page 876 note 4 It was the grandson of this Sembat (also called Sembat) who gave shelter to David, son of Rusudan, when he fled from the Mongols.

page 876 note 5 Brosset's introduction to S. Orbelian, ii, 98 (quoting S. Jalaliants's description of the monastery).

page 877 note 1 See al-Fāriqī, fol. 199b, and Bahat al-sudūr, p. 300. Ibn al-Athir's date 568/1172, adopted by Lane Poole and Zambaur, is wrong.