The desert infested by the Baloch

Istakhri also, in his account of Sijistan, gives a list of the provinces of that country,

among which two (Nos. 19 and 22) are described as ‘country of the Baloch’

2

The desert infested by the Baloch seems in reality to have been not that to the
south of the Karman Mountains, but the great desert now known as the Lut,
which lies north and east of Karman, and separates it from Khorasan and Sistan.
Idrisi, who was a careful writer, says that the Koch Mountains were inhabited by
a savage race—a sort of Kurds—while the Baloch live to the north, and some to
the west of them.

3 He adds that they are prosperous, have much cattle, and are

feared by their neighbours, and also confirms the statement that they do not
infest the roads. Yakut is in substantial agreement with Idrisi.

4 He also compares

the Koch to the Kurds, and quotes an Arabic poem as follows: ‘What wild
regions have we traversed, inhabited by Jatts (Zutt), Kurds, and savage Qufs! He
gives a long account of the Qufs quoted from er-Rohini, in which he traces them
to pre-Islamic Arabs of Yemen, and says they have never had any religion, either
pagan or Muhammadan. He speaks of them as irreclaimable savages, and says it
would be well to exterminate them. He adds that they do show some respect to

Ali, but only out of imitation of their neighbours. This gives rise to a suspicion

that they may have been Shias, and that er-Rohini had some grudge against them.
Yakut also quotes el-Bishari as classifying the mountains of Karman into those of
the Koch, the Baloch, and the Qaran, which corresponds with the description of
Istakhri. He says that the Koch (Qufs) are tall, slender people, who call
themselves Arabs, given to all sorts of wickedness, barbarous and cruel, and
living by plunder. The Bulus were formerly the most terrible of the marauding
tribes, but were destroyed by Adad-u’d-daula,

1 who also slew a great number of

the Quf They call them selves Musalmãns (this apparently refers to the Qufs but
are more bitter against Musalmans than are the Greeks and Turks.