Note 105 — Chapter VI · The First Eastern Campaigns of Kutayba ibn Muslim

Merv has been styled by almost all European writers on the subject, “The Queen of the World.” Now the origin of this high-sounding title is the expression Merv-i-Shāhijān, a title used to distinguish this town from Merv er-Rūd. This word Shāhijān has been taken as a corruption of Shah-i-jahān, or “Queen of the World.” Yakūt says that Shāhijān means “Soul of the King.” The form as it now stands is probably “Arabicised” from an old Persian form Shahgūn, “what appertains to a king.” Cf. Rückert, Gram. Poet. und Rhet. der Perser (Gotha, 1874), p. xix. The mistranslation, if such it be, has shared the fate of most mistranslations of the kind, and become universal among Europeans.