Ahwaz

AHWAZ, a town of south-west Persia, in the province of Khuzistan, on the left bank of the River Karun, 85m. by road and io5m. by river from Mohammerah 20' N., 48° 48' E. It has been identified with the Aginis of Nearchus, and occupies the site of what was once an extensive and important city, of which, however, very few vestiges remain, the present town having been built in the last 5o years from the ruins of the old. Close by are to be seen the ruins of a stone dam of great strength, constructed across the Karun for the purposes of irriga tion. Dependent on it was a system of great canals on both banks which served in the i2th and i3th centuries, if not before, to irrigate an area which was estimated by Major W. R. Morton, R. E., in 1907, at approximately half a million acres. Arab historians of the 12th and 13th centuries describe Ahwaz as the centre of a great sugar, rice and silk growing area, exporting its products all over Persia and as far west as Syria. Since the opening of the Karun to foreign commerce in Oct. 1888 another settlement, called Bandar Nasiri, in compliment to the Shah Nasir ed Din (d. 1896), has arisen, mi. below Ahwaz, at the point below the rapids where steamers come to anchor. Here are situated the Govern ment post and telegraph offices, the British consulate and the Soviet consular agency. Bandar Nasiri is an official port of entry under the Anglo-Persian Commercial Convention of 1903, and a custom-house is established there. The climate is dry and healthy and the town, which was well laid out between 1903 and 1925 by the Arab governor of the province, Shaikh Khazal, has a mixed Persian and Arab population of some 15,00o souls. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company's European staff at Ahwaz, where some 70,000 tons of cargo are transhipped annually and where their work-shops and stores are situated, number about 7o, to gether with some 2,000 Persians, for most of whom special quar ters have been built north of the old town. Motor routes run from Ahwaz along the right bank of the Karun and Diz to Dizful (85m.), to Shushtar (64m.), crossing the Karun at Band-i-Qir (28m.), and to Ram Hormuz (6om.) and Behbehan (126m.) (q.v.) and Masjid Suleiman (7o miles). An important caravan route also runs from Ahwaz to Isfahan (2 71m.) via Malamir.

AI

(ah'e), a three-toed sloth (Bradypus tridactylus), a tree dwelling mammal native to dense forests in tropical America, so called because of its plaintive cry which somewhat resembles the sound indicated by its name. For descriptive details and illustra tion see EDENTATA: Pilosa; SLOTH.

AI,

in Hebrew always with the definite article, Haai, "the heap of ruins." Other forms of the name are `Ayya (Neh. ii. 31), `Ay yath (Isa. x. 28). Some mss. read, probably correctly, `Ayya for Gaza in I Chron. vii. 28. It was a royal city of the Canaanites and is best known for its complete destruction by Joshua (viii. 28), from which time, indeed, the name may date. Abraham pitched his tent between Ai and Bethel (Gen. xii. 8, xiii. 3). It lay some where east of Bethel (Beitin) near Beth-Aven with valleys to the north and west (Josh. viii. I2). Identifications have fluc tuated. Et-Tell (Tell el-Hajar), Khirbet el-Qudeira, Khirbet el-Haya and Khirbet Hayyan, all of which are mounds or ruined sites in the neighbourhood, have had their advocates. The weight of authority now favours Khirbet Hayyan with visible evidence of extensive habitation in rock-hewn reservoirs and debris of stone buildings. This site is rather more than 2m. south-east of Beitin on the road leading to the Jordan valley.

See Pal. Expl, Fund Quart. Statement (1869) , p. 123 ; (1874), P. 0878), pp. 10, 132, 195; (1881) , p. 254; E. Robinson, Bib. Researches, i. 143, ii. 352 ff. ; Sellin, Mitt. des Deutsch. Paliistina Vereins (1900), p. 1 ff.; W. F. Albright, Annual Amer. Schools of Orient. Research (1924), appendix v. (E. Ro.)