Qeshm

Who holds it

Name

Not pinned (the lords of Kish or of Hormuz)

Title

Not pinned

Since

Not pinned

Confidence

low

Charter

None known: the towns of the atabegs have no charters; the governor, the judge (qadi) and the market inspector (muhtasib) answer to the ruler.

Council

No sworn council; the notables (a'yan), the qadi and the headman (ra'is) speak for the town. Names for 1199-1200 not pinned.

Communities

Arab and Persian islanders.

Fairs and markets

Daily or weekly markets; no fair dates recorded.

Militia

Not recorded for 1199-1200.

Trade and crafts

Fishing, salt, water for ships.

Where the sources disagree

Evidence: No source for 1200.

Primary sources for Kish

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• Annals of Oman, from the Kashf al-ghumma, Sirhan ibn Sa'id ibn Sirhan (compiler), from earlier Ibadi chronicles (about 1728, from earlier Ibadi sources). The Ibadi imamate of Oman has no contemporary chronicle for 1200; the later Omani compilations (the Kashf al-ghumma and al-Salimi's Tuhfat al-a'yan) preserve a list of imams and the tradition of the Nabhani maliks who ruled the interior from the 12th century, with Hormuz and Kish pressing on the coast. Read online
• Dictionary of Countries, Yaqut al-Hamawi (1224 to 1228, at Aleppo). An alphabetical gazetteer of every place Yaqut had read of or seen: he travelled as a bookseller's agent through Syria, Iraq, Persia, Khurasan and Khwarazm (about 1213 to 1220) and settled in Aleppo. Read online
• History of the Observant Traveller (A Traveller in Thirteenth-Century Arabia), Ibn al-Mujawir (Jamal al-Din Yusuf ibn Ya'qub) (about 1226 to 1232). A merchant-traveller's description of western and southern Arabia a generation after 1200: Mecca and the Hijaz ports, the Red Sea crossing, Zabid and the Tihama, Aden with its customs and tariffs, the Hadramawt coast, Dhofar and Oman, Socotra, and the opposite African shore at Zeila and the Dahlak islands. Read online
• The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, Benjamin of Tudela (about 1173). A generation before 1200 but the only survey of its kind: the Jewish communities and their heads from Navarre through Provence, Italy, Constantinople and the Aegean, Antioch, Tyre, Jerusalem, Damascus, Mosul and Baghdad to the Persian Gulf, with notes on rulers, trades, the exilarch at Baghdad, the Assassins of Syria and Persia, and hearsay on India, Ceylon and China. Read online