"دليل بلاد فارس، المجلد I ويشمل محافظات أستراباد، شاهرود-بوستان، خراسان، وسيستان" [و‎‎١‎٨‎٠] (٧٢٢/٣٦٤)

MAZlNAN— Lat. 36° 19' 30", Long. 56° U ' 0"; Eley. 2,800'.
A village in Khurasan, 22 miles from Abbasabad, 111 miles from Shahmd,
and 98 miles from Nisbapur. It is a fortified village of 300 houses, and has
a very fine caravansarai. The ruins here are very extensive, and there are
whole streets standing without a single inhabitant.
Mazfnan had formerly 900 houses, and the whole district was populous and
well-cultivated. Barley, wheat, and cotton, and fruit of various sorts, are pro
duced in large quantities in favourable seasons. A good deal of silk was raised
up to about 1870, and copper ore found in the district was smelted. In 1874
but a small quantity of silk was raised, and the copper mines were closed.
The water here is good and plentiful, and there is some cultivation around;
and wild game is very abundant. It is one of the nine divisions of Sabza-
war. Its revenue is said to be 1,100 tumans employed in maintaining a guard
of 15 gunners, 100 foct-soldiers, and 2 fieldpieces, to accompany and protect
caravans passing and repassing the Khurasan desert.— {Connolly, Ferrier,
Clerk, Taylor, Mastwick, Napier, Goldsmid, Eozario.)
MAZRAI— Lat. , Long. ; Elev. '.
A village in Khurasan, on the road from. Sabzawar to Khur. Water is
procurable.— {MacGregor.)
MAZRTJA—Lat. , Long. ; Elev.
A village in the Narjun buluk of the Kam district of Khurasan.—
MAZUL— Lat. , Long. ; Elev.
A buluk of the Nfshapur district {c[. v.) .— {Belleiv.)
MEGfASI— Lat. , Long. ; Elev. '.
Some caves in Khurasan, halfway between Miandara and Chahardih,
on the road from Astarabad to Tibran. They are excavated on the side of a
clayey hill to the number of 30 or 40. A clear rivulet flows near at
hand.— {Holmes.)
ME IIANABAD— Lat. , Long. ; Elev. '.
A halting-place in Khurasan, the fifth on the road from Nisbapur to
Damghan via Sangkhar and Jajarm, 133 miles west of Nishapur.—
{Kinneir.)
MEHDIABAD— Lat. , Long. „ ; Elev.
A village in Khurasan, about 22 miles west of Khaf, on the road to Turshfz.
■— {Taylor.)
MEHNA, (?), on MEGNA (?)— Lat. _ , Long. ; Elev.
One of the posts on the north frontier of the Kalat Atak. It is now in
ruins, close to Hazrat Sultan {q. v.), and about 16 to 19 miles west of
Chacha. Crops are sometimes raised hereby the Turkomans from Iviarv,
about 100 families residing here during the sowing and harvest. They
render one kharwar of grain out of every seven gathered to the Khan of
Kalat.
The Mehnais were, and are still, Sunnis, and were in possession of their vil
lages at the time of Kurd occupation. They were gradually forced out ^of the
plain by the pressure of the aggressive Turkoman tribes, and retired to Auchan,
Shu-wan, &c. No information exists as to the origin of these former occu
pants of Mehna and other towns in the Atak. They are known now only
by the names of the towns they occupied. They were probably immigrants
or invaders from Turkistan, subsequent to the Tartar conquests whence
their distinction from the other Turki tribes of Iran.