Art. IX.—Description of Persia and Mesopotamia in the year 1340 A.D. from the Nuzhat-al-Ḳulūb of Ḥamd-Allah Mustawfi, with a summary of the contents of that work

Abstract

What had of old been the province of Media the Arabs named Al-Jibāl—‘ the Mountains ’—a perfectly appropriate name, as will be seen by a glance at the map, for the great mountain region separating the plains of Mesopotamia from the highlands of Persia. In the time of the Saljūḳ princes, by some misnomer, this, their capital province, came to be called ‘Irāḳ ‘Ajamī, or Persian ‘Irāḳ, a name that was totally unknown to the earlier Arab geographers. Hence in after days Al-‘Irāḳayn, ‘The Two ‘Irāḳs,’ were taken to mean Media and Lower Mesopotamia, which last for distinction was thenceforth called Arabian ‘Irāḳ — ‘Ir¯ḳ ‘Arabī. Originally, it is to be observed, Al-‘Irāḳayn had been a term applied to the two great cities of (Arabian) ‘Irāḳ, namely, Kūfah and Baṣrah; but the Saljūḳs had affected the title of Sulṭān of the Two ‘Irāḳs, which in consequence, as explained above, came to be applied to the two provinces, but as Abu-l-Fidā (p. 408) writes “among the vulgar,” and wrongfully (see also Yāḳūt, ii, 15, and Lane, Dictionary, s.v. ‘Irāḳ). The name, however, has continued in use down to the present time.