Aryab, a town of British Burmah, capital of the province of Aracan, situated in lat. 20° 8' N., lon. 92° 54' E., on the E. side of the island of Akyab, at the mouth of the Aracan river, 50 m. S. S. W. of the town of Aracan, the former capital; pop. in 1864, 15,512. Its origin dates from 1826. The houses are built chiefly of bamboo; the streets are broad; there are several public buildings and barracks, besides the British government house. It is a free port, opium being the only article subject to duty. The harbor is safe, and the coasting and foreign trade extremely active. It is an important Protestant missionary station.

AL, il, or ul (improperly pronounced by those of other nations eZ), the Arabic definite article, and indeed the only article in use in the Arabic language, words indefinitely used standing alone, as yad, a hand, al or il yad, the hand. When this article stands before a lingual or dental (of which there are in Arabic 13, called shamsi), the sound of the letter I (lam)is dropped for the sake of euphony, and the initial dental or lingual takes a double sound; thus, il shams, the sun, is pronounced ish shams. When the word preceding the article ends in a long vowel, a wasla (marked thus ~) is placed over the a (alif) indicating that it is to be dropped in pronunciation, and the I joined to the vowel sound. Thus, Abu il Feda is pronounced Abulfeda.