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Qalat (fortress)
Type of castle / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Qalat[citation needed] or kalata (قلعه) in Persian,[1] and qal'a(-t) or qil'a(-t) (قلعہ, قلعة) in Arabic, means 'fortress', 'fortification', 'castle',[2] or simply 'fortified place'.[3] The common English plural is "qalats".[Note 1][dubious – discuss]
This article appears to be a dictionary definition. (November 2022) |
Qalats can range from forts like Rumkale to the mud-brick compound common throughout southwest Asia. The term is used in the entire Muslim world to indicate a defensive fortress.[4] The term took various forms in different languages, such as qala/qal'a and qalat/qal'at (Persian and Arabic), kale (Turkish),[3] kaleh and kalleh (Persian), qila (Urdu and Hindi), and often became part of place-names. It is even preserved in toponyms in places such as Sicily, which was occupied by the Aghlabid dynasty and then the Fatimids from the ninth to the twelfth centuries.[5]
The word is used an various Arabic placenames.