Page:Baladhuri-Hitti1916.djvu/498

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482
THE ORIGINS OF THE ISLAMIC STATE

abi-Waḳḳâs ruled over al-Kûfah in behalf of ʿUthmân ibn-ʿAffân, he assigned over Mâh and Hamadhân al-ʿAlâʾ ibn-Wahb ibn-ʿAbd ibn-Wahbân of the banu-ʿÂmir ibn-Luʾai. The people of Hamadhân acted treacherously and violated the covenant, on account of which al-ʿAlâʾ fought against them until they surrendered. The terms he made with them stipulated that, on the one hand, they should pay kharâj on their land and tax on their person and deliver to him 100,000 dirhams for the Moslems; and that, on the other hand, he should not interfere with their possessions, inviolable rights and children.

Mâdharân.' According to ibn-al-Kalbi, the castle known by the name of Mâdharan was so called after as-Sari ibn-Nusair[1] ibn-Thaur al-ʿIjli, who camped around it until he reduced it.

Sîsar. Ziyâd ibn-ʿAbd-ar-Rahmân al-Balkhi from certain sheikhs of Sîsar: Sîsar was so called because it lay in a depression surrounded by thirty hills. Hence its other name "Thalâthûn Raʾs" [thirty summits]. It was also called Sîsar Ṣadkhâniyah which means thirty summits and a hundred springs, because it has as many as one hundred springs.

Sîsar and the adjoining region were pasture-lands for the Kurds and others. It also had meadows for the beasts of burden and the cattle of caliph al-Mahdi, and was entrusted to a freedman of his called Sulaimân ibn-Ḳirâṭ—whose name Saḥrâʾ Ḳirâṭ in Madînat as-Salâm bears—and to a partner of his, Sallâm aṭ-Ṭaifûri, Ṭaifûr having been a freedman of abu-Jaʿfar al-Manṣûr and having been given by him as present to al-Mahdi. When in the caliphate of al-Mahdi the destitute [ṣaʿâlîk] and villain became numerous and spread over al-Jabal, they chose this region for their refuge and

  1. Cf. Marâṣid, vol. iii, p. 27.