Guba, April-May 1918. Documented Pogroms of the Muslims
8
sometimes mutually exclusive versions, the most credible are the fol-
lowing ones: the first mosque built by Prophet Muhammad in the
vicinity of Holy Mecca was named Quba. No less interesting is the
name Bade Firuz-Qubad given to the Azerbaijani ruler Anushirvan
in the area of today’s Guba back in the 10
th
century A.D. The cita-
del was named after the Sassanid King Qubad I. According to Sarah
Ashurbeyli, a recognized Azerbaijani historian, “it was mentioned by
the Arabic historian Mas’udi (943 A.D.) who wrote: ‘there is a lot of
reports…regarding magnificent constructions erected by Qubad ibn
Firuz, father of Hisra Anushirvan, in the location known as Maskat,
which present a city built of fine stone’. Speaking of Maskat, what the
author presumably means is the area of Guba and the town of Firuz-
Qubad, i.e. the modern Guba, a town named after the Sassanid King
Qubad I, son of Firuz (488-531)”. Linking these two facts together,
S.Ashurbeyli assumes that the very name Quba is related to the to-
ponyms imported into the area by the Arabic tribes from the town of
Quba, nearby Medina, upon the conquest of territories of Azerbaijan
and Dagestan back in the 7
th
century A.D. According to her, “the vast
range of the toponym’s dissemination all over the areas overtaken by
the Arabic Caliphate is supportive of this assumption together with
the following description of the town of Guba left by Zeyn al-Abidin
Shirvani (19
th
century): “In old times, an Arabic tribe moved to Guba
and settled there”. Upon coming across the name sounding similar to
ma town in the vicinity of Arabic Medina, they started calling it Quba,
exactly like in case with Maskat”. (4)
According to other versions explain place names with element
guba or quva known back in the 12
th
century were prevalent all over
the territory of contemporary Azerbaijan, as well as North Caucasus,
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrghyzstan and Altay area indicating an
ethnic name of Turkic origin. E.g. a well-known Kyrghyz tribe named
kuba is believed to be of the Kypchak origin. (5)
As of the 12
th
century, name Guba is found in a number of Arabic
sources. E.g.
Geographic Dictionary
by Hamawi (13
th
century) men-
tions a town named
Qubba
, whereas archives of the Safavi Dynasty
(16
th
century) provide affluent information regarding the area called
Gubba, also mentioned as Gubbe in some other sources.
It is generally believed that the town of Guba was founded in
the 14
th
century.