Encyclopaedia Islamica
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Subject: Middle East And Islamic Studies
Edited by: Farhad Daftary and Wilferd Madelung
Encyclopaedia Islamica Online is based on the abridged and edited translation of the Persian Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī, one of the most comprehensive sources on Islam and the Muslim world. A unique feature of the Encyclopaedia Islamica Online lies in the attention given to Shiʿi Islam and its rich and diverse heritage. In addition to providing entries on important themes, subjects and personages in Islam generally, Encyclopaedia Islamica Online offers the Western reader an opportunity to appreciate the various dimensions of Shiʿi Islam, the Persian contribution to Islamic civilization, and the spiritual dimensions of the Islamic tradition.
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Encyclopaedia Islamica Online is based on the abridged and edited translation of the Persian Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī, one of the most comprehensive sources on Islam and the Muslim world. A unique feature of the Encyclopaedia Islamica Online lies in the attention given to Shiʿi Islam and its rich and diverse heritage. In addition to providing entries on important themes, subjects and personages in Islam generally, Encyclopaedia Islamica Online offers the Western reader an opportunity to appreciate the various dimensions of Shiʿi Islam, the Persian contribution to Islamic civilization, and the spiritual dimensions of the Islamic tradition.
Subscriptions: see Brill.com
Dream Interpretation
(5,815 words)
Dream Interpretation (oneirocriticism,
taʿbīr) relates to the explanation and interpretation of the various meanings a dream may have (see Anwarī, 1778; Ḥājjī Khalīfa, 1/416). The Arabic word for interpretation,
taʿbīr, stems from the root meaning ‘to cross over’, the implication being that the interpreter moves from the signs and symbols in the dream towards its apparent and hidden meanings in waking life. The interpretation of dreams was often combined with other forms of divination common to the Arab and Persian lands, s…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2021-06-17
Druze
(5,529 words)
Druze, the enigmatic personality of the sixth Fāṭimid caliph and sixteenth Ismaili Imam al-Ḥākim bi-Amr Allāh (who ruled in Cairo from 386/996 to 411/1021) incited some of his most enthusiastic
dāʿīs to proclaim publicly his divinity in the year 408/1017. Considered to be the last and ultimate manifestation of divinity in human form, al-Ḥākim was supposed to have abrogated all previous religions, both in their outward, literal (
ẓāhir), and in their hidden, esoteric (
bāṭin) aspects.This doctrine was professed initially by two Ismaili
dāʿīs: Ḥamza b. ʿAlī and Nashtakīn al-Darzī…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2021-06-17
Dualism
(2,376 words)
Dualism (
thanawiyya, also
aṣḥāb al-ithnayn and
ahl al-tathniya) a term in Islamic heresiography used to denote certain groups said to have espoused dualist beliefs (al-Ashʿarī, 327, 485; al-Bāqillānī, 60). While this term is not found in the Qurʾān and the
ḥadīth corpus, refutations of the
thanawiyya mentioned in Ibn al-Nadīm’s
Fihrist suggest that the term was widely used in the 2nd/8th century. Judging by its contexts, an accusation of dualism was often deployed by Muslim authors as a pejorative term for groups whose beliefs were deemed to contradict the core Islamic doctrine of
tawḥī…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2021-06-17
Duʿāʾ-niwīsī
(4,031 words)
Duʿāʾ-niwīsī (lit. ‘prayer writing’ or, more idiomatically, ‘amulet making’) refers to a particular method of using written supplications in order to ward off evil, fulfil wishes and cure illnesses.As a practice, the production and use of these amulets can be conceived of in terms of a kind of ‘faith healing’ or ‘supplication’ that rests on the belief that God’s will and other spiritual forces play a direct role in the everyday life of human beings. As such, it enjoys greater religious legitimacy than other practices such …
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2021-06-17
Dū Dar, Madrasa
(1,765 words)
Dū Dar, Madrasa, is a Tīmūrid-era building in Mashhad. It is situated in the centre of the Āstān-i Quds-i Raḍawī complex, west of the great bazaar and across from the Parīzād school. It was built in 843/1439, and is the oldest school of Mashhad that has inscriptions (Iʿtimād al-Salṭana, 2/255; Ḥakīm, 557). Judging by the seals found on the manuscripts kept at the school (Fāḍil, 1661; see Mawlawī, 76), its original name was the Yūsufiyya, which probably refers to Yūsuf Khwājah Bahādur, the person who built it (see below).Dū Dar has been mentioned in the accounts of travellers such a…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2021-06-17
Duhul
(2,588 words)
Duhul, a musical instrument in the skin percussion family. The
duhul is a round two-headed drum usually with a hollow cylindrical body; although occasionally it is octagonal, it has skins at both ends (Sarīr and Wijdānī, 145). The name ‘
duhul’ derives from the Sanskrit word
doholala (Jawādī, 1/105).The body of the
duhul is usually made of wood, although sometimes it is metal; the diameter of the body is usually more than its height (Bulūkbāshī and Shahīdī, 156). The instrument is hung over the player’s neck by two belts attached to the sides of …
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2021-06-17
al-Dūryastī
(3,408 words)
al-Dūryastī, the name of a Imāmī Shiʿi family distinguished in the fields of
ḥadīth and jurisprudence from the 4th–6th/10th–12th centuries.Yāqūt (2/621) provides an accurate version of this name ‘Dūryast’ and refers to it as that of a village in the vicinity of Rayy. This is corroborated by the
nisba al-Rāzī that is given to some members of the family (Ibn Nuqṭa, 3/295; Ibn Ḥajar, 3/269). In some sources the distorted forms of al-Dūyasī and al-Dūrī are given (Ibn Ḥajar, 3/269; al-Ṣarīfīnī, 261). Al-Shūshtarī affirms that Dūryast was pronounced…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2021-06-17
Dūst Muḥammad Khān
(3,288 words)
Dūst Muḥammad Khān (first r. 1241–1255/1826–1839; second r. 1259–1279/1842–1863) was the emir of Ghazna, Kabul and their environs during his first period of rule, and during his second his emirate eventually extended his authority over all Afghanistan. He was the first of the Bārakzay/Muḥammadzay line of Durrānī emirs, which overthrew the Sadūzay line, and became the last line of kings in Afghanistan before the creation of a republic in 1973 (see also, Abdālī q.v.). During one of the most tumultuou…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2021-06-17
Dustūr al-Munajjimīn
(3,951 words)
Dustūr al-Munajjimīn (‘canon of the astronomers’) was written ca. 500/1106 in the fortress of Alamūt (cf. Blochet,
Catalogue, 151; Qazwīnī, ‘Dustūr’, in
Yāddāsht-hā, 8/110–143; Zimmermann, 184–192). It is the only text remaining from the era of Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ (d. 518/1124), the Nizārī Ismaili leader and founder of the Nizārī state of the Alamūt period. It is written in Arabic and discusses astronomy, astrology and history in three parts which are further divided into a total of ten sections or
maqālas (see Casanova, 126–135; Blochet, ‘Notes’, 385; Karimi,
Dār al-ʿIlm, 120–124; idem…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2019-08-21
Dustūr al-Munajjimīn
(3,947 words)
Dustūr al-Munajjimīn (‘canon of the astronomers’) was written ca. 500/1106 in the fortress of Alamūt (cf. Blochet,
Catalogue, 151; Qazwīnī, ‘Dustūr’, in
Yāddāsht-hā, 8/110–143; Zimmermann, 184–192). It is the only text remaining from the era of Ḥasan-i Ṣabbāḥ (d. 518/1124), the Nizārī Ismaili leader and founder of the Nizārī state of the Alamūt period. It is written in Arabic and discusses astronomy, astrology and history in three parts which are further divided into a total of ten sections or
maqālas (see Casanova, 126–135; Blochet, ‘Notes’, 385; Karimi,
Dār al-ʿIlm, 120–124; idem…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14