According to the 13th-century Arab geographer Yaqut al-Hamawi, the origin of the word kali/khali/hali, a knotted carpet, is from one of the early and important Armenian carpet centers, Theodosiopolis, Karin in Armenian, Qaliqala in Arabic, modern Erzerum.
Maqtal al-Husayn of Muhammad bin Amr Waqidi (d. 207 or 209 AH), a mention of which book has been made by Ibn Nadim and Yaqut al-Hamawi
In particular, some historians such as Yaqut al-Hamawi's Mu'jam Al-Buldan write of the city being centered around a pre-Islamic academic center of higher learning where scholars converged to study medicine as well as Indian and Greek sciences.
But according to Yaqut, Kitāb mu'jam al-buldān, the name applies to mountains which extend up the coast of Syria to Homs and across to Damascus.