Page 129 - Arabian Studies (II)

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Hunting Techniques and Practices in the Arabian Peninsula 121
The Origin of the name Saluql

The name saluql must have been used in pre-Islamic times, though its
occurrence in the poetry of the period is rare.22 The earliest
indication in Arabic literature that saluql is the nisbah (relative
adjective) of a place named Saluq appears in a line of poetry
composed by the Umayyad poet, TJmayr b. Suyaym al-Qutaml, who
died in 110/728.2 3 It reads as follows: ‘They have with them hounds
of Saluq, like horses, wheeling round in battle, dragging on their
halters.’2 4 Saluq is in the Yemen.2 5 Our earliest geographical source,
HamdanT, who died in 334/945—46 and was himself a Yemeni, wrote

BLACK SEA
casp:
Saluq.
ARMESIA . SEA

Sallqlyah/Saluolyah (Silifke)
, Antioch
\>aluqiyah
m Baghdad
, Damascus #Saluqlyah (Seleucia)

. Cairo

, Medina

. Mecca

SanCa*
Saluq/
,^/den
Fig. 1
1 inch to 300 oiles approx.