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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
At a distance of about two miles along the coast to the east of Ṣalālah, chief town of Dhofar in Oman, lie the remains of a medieval maritime settlement called by present day Omanis al-Balīd. This is undoubtedly that named by the medieval historians and geographers Ẓafār. The site is an imposing one and has been described fairly recently by Costa. The area of the site measures approximately 1600 m by 400 m.
page 26 note 1 Costa, Paolo M., “The study of the city of Zafār (al-Balīd)”, Journal of Oman Studies, Muscat, 1979, V, pp. 111–50Google Scholar. Costa's ‘Uqad should read ‘Awqad. Guest, R., “Zufâr in the Middle Ages”, Islamic Culture, Hyderabad, 1935, IX, p. 402Google Scholar, states that, “Under Islam it can never have been a prominent place,…”. Guest, however, could not be more wrong and never, as far as we know, visited the site. Costa and I surveyed the site from the large unexcavated mound near the Great Mosque and came to the positive conclusion that the site covered a wider area than medieval Ta'izz, the Rasulid capital.
page 26 note 2 Cf. Costa, , “Zafār”,Google Scholar figs. 1, 2 and 37.
page 27 note 3 Cf. Smith, G. R., The Ayyubids and early Rasulids in the Yemen…, London, 1978, II, pp. 83–90;Google Scholar “The Ayyubids and Rasulids – the transfer of power in 7th/13th century Yemen”, Islamic Culture, Hyderabad, 1969, XLII, pp. 175–88.Google Scholar
page 28 note 4 The best early source for these events (and indeed for the conquest of Zafār by the Rasulids, see below) is Hatim's, Muhammad b.Kitāb al-Simt al-ghāli ’l-thaman fī akhbār al-mulūk min al-Ghuzz bi-'l-Yaman, the text of which is I of my Ayyubids, London, 1974.Google Scholar The events of this paragraph can be found in I, pp. 192–97. Cf. also Ayyubids, II, pp. 88–90 and “Transfer”, p. 180.
page 28 note 5 In Kay, H. C., Yaman, its early mediaeval history, London, 1892, p. 182 and Kay's note pp. 121, 311.Google Scholar
page 28 note 6 Cf. Tārīkh al-Mustabsir, ed. Löfgren, Oscar, Leiden, 1951–54, pp. 260–62.Google Scholar Also my “Ibn al-Mujāwir on Dhofar and Socotra”, Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, XV, London, 1985, XV, pp. 79–93.Google Scholar
page 28 note 7 Ibn al-Mujāwir, pp. 265–66.
page 28 note 8 Ibn Ḥātim's Simṭ is by far the best source; cf. my Ayyubids, I. pp. 505–29.Google Scholar The events are also recorded in al-Khazrajī's al-‘Uqūd al-lu'lu'iyyah, cf. The Pearl-Strings; a history of the Resúliyy dynasty of Yemen, Leyden and London, 1906–1918, 5 vols., III, pp. 207–17,Google Scholar although it should be noted that he relies heavily on Ibn Ḥātim. It is interesting to note that the Zaydī author of Ghāyat al-amānī fī akhbār al-quṭr al-yamānī, Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn, ed. Āshūr, S., Cairo, 1968,Google Scholar 2 vols, has much to report on the matter (pp. 463–66). Cf. also Löfgren, Oscar, Arabische Texte zur Kenntnis der Stadt Aden im Mittelalter, Leipzig, Uppsala and Haag, 1936–1950, pp. 83–4.Google Scholar
page 30 note 9 I have tried to reconstruct the march on the map, cf. p. 44.
page 30 note 10 For Qabr Hūd, cf. Serjeant, R.B., “Hūd and other pre-Islamic prophets of Ḥaḍramawt”, Le Muséon, Louvain, 1954, LXVII, pp. 121–79.Google Scholar
page 32 note 11 Khazrajī, , al-‘Uqūd, V, p. 134.Google Scholar
page 32 note 12 al-‘Uqūd, V, p. 285.Google Scholar
page 32 note 13 al-‘Uqū, V, p. 276.Google Scholar
page 32 note 14 al-‘Uqūd, V, pp. 277–78.Google Scholar
page 32 note 15 al-‘Uqūd, IV, p. 441.Google Scholar
page 32 note 1 Guest, , “ຒufâr”, pp. 402–10.Google Scholar Cf. Part I above for a more detailed description of the conquest.
page 33 note 2 Miles, S.B., The Countries and tribes of the Persian Gulf, London, 1966 (new edit.), p. 547.Google Scholar
page 33 note 3 Costa, , “ຒafâr”, p. 147.Google Scholar
page 33 note 4 Guest, , “ຒufâr”, p. 409.Google Scholar
page 33 note 5 Defrémery, C. and Sanguinetti, B.R.Defrémery, C. and Sanguinetti, B.R.(ed. and tr.) Voyages d'lbn Batoutah, Paris, 1926, II, p 201.Google Scholar
page 33 note 6 V. A. Museum records R.P. 31/7304.
page 33 note 7 Guest, , “ຒufâr”, pp. 408–09.Google Scholar
page 34 note 8 Burgess, J.A.S., Archaeological survey of Western India, Vol. VI:Google ScholarOn the Muhammadan architecture of Baroch, Cambay, Dholkha, Champanir and Mahmudabad in Gujarat, London, 1896, p. 23.Google Scholar
page 34 note 9 Voyages, IV, p. 53.Google Scholar
page 34 note 10 Voyages, IV, p. 54.Google Scholar
page 34 note 11 Desai, Z.A., “Some 14th century epitaphs from Cambay in Gujerat”, Archaeological survey of India, Epigraphia lndica, Arabic and Persian supplement, 1971.Google Scholar
page 35 note 12 Archaeological Survey, 25 ff., plate XIX.
page 35 note 13 Kāzarūn is in south-western Iran in the province of Fars. It was an important trading town in the medieval period and particularly known for its production of cotton cloth which was exported. Cf. Boyle, J.A. (ed.), Cambridge History of Iran, V. The Saljuq and Mongol periods, Cambridge, 1968, pp. 506,Google Scholar 508. Kāzarūnī's important position in Cambay and the inscription on his tombstone are extensively discussed by Desai, , loc. cit., pp. 39–41.Google Scholar He does not believe that this mosque is Kāzarūnī's own but that it was somewhere in the immediate vicinity and does not seem to be extant (p. 41). See also Begley, W.E., Monumental Islamic calligraphy from India, Illinois, 1985,Google Scholar No. 15.
page 35 note 14 Desai, , loc. cit.,Google Scholar p. 55, No. XXVIII.
page 35 note 15 Jain-Neuhauer, Jutta, The stepwells of Gujarat, New Delhi, 1981Google Scholar eg. plates 60, 228. The mosque at Broach is published in Archaeological Survey, pp. 20–23Google Scholar and plates II–XVI.
page 36 note 16 e.g. Lane, A., Early Islamic Pottery, London, 1948,Google Scholar Pl. 8B. Although in this example the drawing is quite schematic and has none of the plastic qualities of the palms on the tombstones.
page 36 note 16a Since writing this, my attention has been drawn to a study of the sacred use of tree motifs in the art of western India, including the palm tree. Crowe, Y., “Some aspects of the tree motif in medieval Indian architecture” in Dimensions of Indian art, Pupul Jayakar Seventy, Vol. I, ed. Chandra, L., Jain, J. and Prasad, A., Delhi, 1986.Google Scholar
page 36 note 17 Unpublished. One belongs to al-Ashraf II (779–804/1377–1401), the other to al-Nāṣir Aḥmad (804–831/1401–26). These are in the main tomb chamber of the Ashrafiyyah in Ta‘izz which is published by Lewcock, R. and Smith, G. R. “Three medieval mosques in the Yemen-a preliminary report”, Oriental Art, London, 1974, Part II, XX, pp. 192–203.Google Scholar
page 36 note 18 Schneider, M., “Stèles funéraires musulmanes”, Revue des Etudes Islamiques, Paris, 1979, XLVII, pp. 71–100.Google Scholar
page 36 note 19 Baldry, J., Textiles in Yemen, British Museum Occasional Paper, No. 27, London, 1982, p. 20.Google Scholar
page 36 note 20 Idem.
page 36 note 21 Oman, G., “Preliminary epigraphic survey of the Islamic material in Dhofar”, Journal of Oman Studies, 6, part 2, 1983, pp. 277–290.Google Scholar
page 37 note 22 Miles, , op cit., p. 510.Google Scholar
page 37 note 23 Costa, , “ຒafâr”.Google Scholar
page 37 note 24 Guest, , “ຒufâr”, p. 410.Google Scholar Cf. Also Smith, G.R., “The Yemenite settlement of Tha‘bāt. ….”, Arabian Studies, Cambridge, 1974, I. pp. 121–22,Google Scholar and the author's “The Art of the Rasulids” in Daum, W. (ed.), Jemen, Innsbruck and Frankfurt/Main, 1987, pp. 225–37Google Scholar (German edition).
page 37 note 25 Guest, , “ຒufâr”, p. 406.Google Scholar