'The lands of the Eastern Caliphate Mesopotamia, Persia, and Central Asia from the Moslem conquest to the time of Timur' [‎172] (207/586)

CHAPTER XII.
gilan and the north-west provinces.
The Gilans. Daylam and the Talish districts. Barvan, Dulab, and Khashm.
Lahijan, Rasht, and other towns of Gilan. The district of Mughan.
Bajarvan and Barzand. Mahmudabad. Warthan. The province of
Arran. Bardha^h. Baylakan. Ganjah and Shamkur. The rivers Kur
and Aras. The province of Shirvan. Shamakhi. Bakuyah and Bab-al-
Abwab. The province of Gurjistan, or Georgia. Tiflis and Kars. The
province of Armenia. Dabil or Duwin. The lake of Van. Akhlat,
Arjish, Van, and Bitlis. Products of the northern provinces.
The Safid RM, as described in the last chapter, after traversing
the chain of the Alburz mountains by a tortuous course, flows
into the Caspian Sea at the western end of its southern shore,
and here forms a delta with marshlands of some breadth backed
by the mountain chain. This delta of the Safid RM, with the
great amphitheatre of forest-clad foot-hills surrounding it on the
south and west, is the small province of Gilan, which the Arabs
called Jil or Jilan, and which comprised three very different
districts 1 .
The alluvial delta lands are those more especially called Jil
or Jilan by the Arab geographers, who when referring to the
whole province often give the name in the plural form, Jilanat,
'the Gilans,' which may then be taken to include the mountain
districts. To the south and west, the mountain range bordering
on the districts of Talikan and Tarum in the Jibal province, was
the Daylam country, generally also given in the plural form as
Ad-Daylaman; and this country became famous in history as
the original home of the Buyids, or Daylamites, whose chiefs
were masters of Baghdad, and of the Caliphate for the most part,
1 For Gilan see Map v, at the beginning of the following chapter.