Page 130 - Arabian Studies (II)
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122                                               Arabian Studies II
                            at some length on the place. It was, however, already a ruin in his
                            day, but had once been a great town in the area of KhadTr. Its name
                            at that time, he said, was HabTl al- R y bah (vocalisation?) in which
                            there were the remains of a great town. The dross of iron, cuttings of
                            silver, gold, ornaments and coins were all to be found in it.  2 6  KhadTr
                            is in the region of Wadi’ 1-Jannat and the chief settlements of the area
                            in medieval times were al-Dumluwah and al-Juwwah.27 Kirsh2 8 and
                            al-Janad29 were not far away. A modern geographical source,
                            al-Ways!,30 indicates a place called Sabir al-Habll (vocalisation?) in
                            KhadTr which is also known as Jabal al-R y bah. Saluq then, to be
                            more precise close to the town of Ta‘izz to the south east (see map,
                            Fig. 1), was a centre for the mining of metals, and coats of mail
                            became the prime industry. As well as these, the place gave its name
                            to a breed of hunting dog.31 It might be mentioned here that there is
                            so far no trace of the town of Saluq in the pre-Islamic South Arabian
                            inscriptions.32 One might have expected mention of an important
                            town in the inscriptions, as also in earlier Islamic sources.
                              But there was also a place named Saluq in the area of al-Lan on
                            the border of Armenia, adjoining the territory of the Khazar, that is
                            to say to the west of the Caspian Sea (Fig. I).3 3
                              Apart from the two possibilities above, the Arabic sources
                            mention two towns with the name Saluqlyah, from which the nisbah
                            saluql might have been derived. The first is a town on the coast near
                            Antioch and it may be that the coats of mail and the hounds derived
                            their name from there.34 The second, more commonly called
                            Sallqlyah, is placed in Byzantine territory and is undoubtedly the
                            Silifke of modem Turkey (Fig. 1). It was also called Salaqyah.  3 5
                              The final possible origin of the name saluql finds no place in the
                            Arabic sources. That is that it is derived from Seleucia (Saluqlyah in
                            Arabic), a city on the west bank of the Tigris downstream from
                            Baghdad and founded by Seleucus I (305-281 B.C.) in 312 B.C. The
                            city was the capital of the Seleucid dynasty which survived down to
                            ca. A.D. 65.3 6
                              We may now therefore take our choice. The name saluql may be
                            derived from Saluq, a town of the Yemen or lying to the west of the
                            Caspian, or from Saluqlyah, on the Mediterranean coast near
                            Antioch or the modern Silifke, or again the city in Iraq. It must be
                            stressed here that this discussion has concerned the origin of the
                            name of the hound in Arab tradition, not of the origin of the hound
                            itself. The saluki type was clearly employed as a hunter from very
                            early days throughout the area of the Near and Middle East and no
                            serious attempt can now be made to ascertain its precise origin.  3 7









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