Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

, 26th letter of the Arabic alphabet, transcribed h; numerical value: 5, as in the Syriac (and Canaanite) alphabet [see abd̲j̲ad ]. It continues h from common Semitic. Definition: unvoiced glottal spirant; according to the Arab grammatical tradition: rik̲h̲wa mahmūsa ; as regards the mak̲h̲rad̲j̲: aḳṣā ’l-ḥalḳ “the farthest part of the throat” (al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Mufaṣṣal2 , § 732). A voiced h can be found after a voiced phoneme but it is not a distinctive characteristic (see J. Cantineau, Cours , 75). Pause can develop a h to support the short final vowel of a word when it is …

, 6th letter of the Arabic alphabet, is transcribed ḥ; numerical value: 8, as in the Syriac (and Canaanite) alphabet [see abd̲j̲ad ]. Definition: unvoiced pharyngeal spirant; according to Arabic grammatical tradition: rik̲h̲wa mahmūsa , as regards the mak̲h̲rad̲j̲: awsaṭ al-ḥalḳ , “the middle part of the throat” (al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Mufaṣṣal2 , § 732). ḥ is a very much stronger and harsher spirant than h. It is produced by the friction of the expressed air against the strongly contracted walls of the pharynx (a breath sound without velar vibration), from wh…

, name of a singing slave-girl ( ḳayna [ q.v.]) of Medina who had learnt music and singing from the great singers of the 1st/7th century: Ibn Surayd̲j̲, Mālik, Ibn Muḥriz, Maʿbad, D̲j̲amīla, ʿAzza [ qq.v.]. Her talent, beauty and charm conquered Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik, who finally became her owner in circumstances which the sources describe very variously, but at a date after his accession (S̲h̲aʿbān 101/February 720); she was originally called al-ʿĀliya and it is he who is said to have given her the name by which she has remained famous. Ḥabāba is often associated with another ḳayna of Medin…

, a term found in several Sabaean inscriptions with apparent reference to Aksumite Abyssinia. Despite the absence of explicit evidence, it has generally been assumed to apply not only to the territory and people of the Aksumite empire but also to a South Arabian tribe related to the former and in close contact with them. To E. Glaser the term in its widest and most ancient usage signified no more than “incense-collectors” (Arabic ḥabas̲h̲a “to gather”) and was applicable to all the peoples of the incense regions, that is, o…

, a name said to be of S. Arabian origin [See ḥabas̲h̲at ], applied in Arabic usage to the land and peoples of Ethiopia, and at times to the adjoining areas in the Horn of Africa. Although it has remained a predominantly Christian ¶ country, Ethiopia has an important Muslim population, and has moreover had relations with the world of Islam since the days of the Prophet. These will be examined under the following headings: (1) history, (2) the spread of Islam, (3) Ḥabas̲h̲ in Muslim geographical writings, (4) Ethiopian languages spoken by Muslims. A final section will deal with the Aḥābīs̲h̲ …

, Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh , one of the most important and interesting figures in early Islamic astronomy, hailing from Marw, but living in Bag̲h̲dād. The sobriquet “Ḥabas̲h̲” (“the Abyssinian”) is nowhere explained; it may refer to the dark colour of his skin. While the Fihrist (p. 275) mentions only that he reached the age of 100, Ibn al-Ḳifṭī ( Taʾrīk̲h̲ , 170) gives more detailed information on his life and the various stages of his scientific activity. According to him, he lived in the reigns of al-Maʾmūn and al-Muʿtaṣim, which is co…

, South Arabian name for a sacred area which is under the protection of a saint and which is a place of refuge; see ḥawṭa .

, literally grain or kernel, a fraction in the Troy weight system of the Arabs, of undefined weight. Most Arab authors describe the ḥabba as 1/60 of the unit of weight adopted, as a 1/10 of the dānaḳ (which in Arab metrology is a sixth part of the unit [see sikka ]), but there are other estimates which vary from 1/48 to 1/72. The ḥabba thus means someting very different according to the unit of weight; there is a ḥabba of the silver measure, a ḥabba of the gold measure, a ḥabba of the mit̲h̲ḳāl , later of the dirham etc. On the supposition that the oldest Arab unit of Troy weight was the mit̲h̲ḳāl [ q.v.] of …

, Kas̲h̲mīrī singer and poetess. Galled Zūn (“moon”) before her marriage, she is a serni-legendary figure in the Valley of Kas̲h̲mīr. Daughter of a peasant of the village of Čandahār, near Pāmpūr, 8 miles to the south-east of Srīnagar, she was unhappy with her husband who ill-treated her, so she left him. Bīrbal Kāčrū in his Wāḳiʿāt-i ¶ Kas̲h̲mīr , which he wrote in the middle of the 19th century, says that, being a good singer and possessed of a melodious voice, she captivated the heart of Yūsuf S̲h̲āh Čak (986-94/1578-86), who ma…

, a town in the Wāḥidī Sultanate of the former Aden Protectorate, situated in the wādī of the same name. It is very old and may be referred to as early as 400 B.C. in the inscription RES 3945. Many ancient graffiti have been copied in the vicinity and a subterranean water-conduit leading to a cistern within the city may be pre-Islamic. The population figure is not known but was estimated at 4,000 in the mid-nineteenth century. The town is dominated by the walled fortress of Maṣnaʿa Ḥāḳir which stands on an isolated hill in the midd…

, Ottoman name of a province covering the African coastlands of the Red Sea south of Egypt as far as the Gulf of Aden, and including also the sand̲j̲aḳ of D̲j̲idda; the principal sand̲j̲aḳs were Ibrīm, Sawākin, Arkiko, Maṣawwaʿ, Zaylaʿ and D̲j̲idda, so that its area corresponded approximately to the coastal districts of the present-day Sudan, Ethiopia, French Somaliland and the Zaylaʿ district of the Somali Republic. The province was founded with the intention of expelling the Portuguese, who, since the last years of the Mamlūk sultanate, had been endeavouring …

(1872-1919), son of the amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān [ q.v.] and of the concubine Gulrīz, who came from the Wak̲h̲ān; ruler of Afg̲h̲ānistān in succession to his father, from 1 October 1901 to 20 February 1919, when he was assassinated at Kalla-gūs̲h̲ in the valley of Alingār not far from the residence of Ḳalʿat al-Sirād̲j̲ (Lag̲h̲mān). In foreign affairs he adopted a pro-British policy, reinforced by frequent visits to India, by requests for British arbitration on the question of the frontier with Iran (MacMaho…

al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī al-Marwānī , great grandson of the Umayyad caliph of Damascus al-Walīd I. After the ¶ fall of the Umayyad dynasty, Ḥabīb b. ʿAbd al-Malik fled from Syria and arrived in Spain in advance of his cousin, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muʿāwiya, the future ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I of Cordova; when this Umayyad claimant arrived, Ḥabīb gave him his support and encouraged him in his aspirations. On the eve of the battle of al-Muṣāra (138/756), which was to decide the fate of the throne of Cordova, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān appointed Ḥabīb commander in chief of the cavalry. After victory had been achieved, ʿAbd al…

[see abū tammām ].

, a military commander of Muʿāwiya. He was born at Mecca c. 617 A.D. in a family belonging to the Ḳurays̲h̲ī clan Fihr. He took part in the conquest of Syria and distinguished himself in the fights against the Byzantines. By order of Muʿāwiya he conquered Armenia in 21/642 and the following years (for details vide supra i, 635); then he was given the governorship of Northern Syria and fought against the Mardaites (Ḏj̲arād̲j̲ima [ q.v.]) and the Byzantines. After ʿUt̲h̲mān’s death he supported the cause of Muʿāwiya against ʿAlī. At Ṣiffīn (37/657) he commanded the left …

(the carpenter), legendary character who gave his name to the sanctuary below mount Silpius at Antāḳiya [ q.v.] where his tomb is reputed to be. He is not mentioned in the Ḳurʾān; nevertheless Muslim tradition finds him there, in sūra XXXVI, 12 ff., under the description of the man who was put to death in a city ( ḳarya ) not otherwise specified, having urged its inhabitants not to reject the three apostles who had come to proclaim the divine message to them. According to Muslim tradition the “city” was Antioch and the anonymous be…

, names of the two sons of Adam [ q.v.] in Muslim tradition: Heb̲el and Ḳāyin in the Hebrew Bible (for the distortion and assimilation through assonance of the two words, compare the pairs of words Ḏj̲ālūt-Ṭālūt, Hārūt-Mārūt, Yād̲j̲ūd̲j̲-Mād̲j̲ūd̲j̲; Ḳāyin is, however, attested sporadically). Although the Ḳurʾān does not give these names, it tells however (CV, 27-32/30-5, Medinan period) the story of the two sons of Adam, one of whom killed the other because his own sacrifice was refused when his brother…

, followers of Aḥmad b. Ḥābiṭ [ q.v.].

[see waḳf ].

, term used in India for those African communities whose ancestors originally came to the country as slaves, in most cases from the Horn of Africa, although some doubtless sprang from the slave troops of the neighbouring Muslim countries. The majority, at least in the earlier periods, may well have been Abyssinian, but certainly the name was applied indiscriminately to all Africans, and in the days of the Portuguese slave-trade with India many such ‘Ḥabs̲h̲īs’ were in fact of the Nilotic and Bantu races. There is little detailed information concerning the numbers, the status an…

, a poem dealing with the theme of imprisonment. The term occurs in the Persian tradition for the first time about the middle of the 6th/12th century in Niẓāmī ʿArūḍī’s Čahār maḳāla (ed. Ḳazwīnī-Muʿīn, Tehrān 1955-7, matn 72). It is applied there to poems that were written by Masʿūd-i Saʿd-i Salmān [ q.v.] more than half-a-century earlier and which were still greatly admired as the sincere expression of the poet’s sufferings. Although several Persian poets have composed poetry of this nature, the ḥabsiyyāt of Masʿūd have remained both exceptional and exe…

[see zīrids ].

[see mezö-keresztes ].

, (A.), ḥiḍāna , in the technical language of the fuḳahāʾ , is the right to custody of the child, a ramification of guardianship of the person which though exercised as a rule by the mother or a female relative in the maternal line may in certain circumstances devolve upon the father or other male relative. This institution is of very great importance in judicial practice because of the numerous conflicts to which the subject gives rise, particularly where the spouses are ‘‘separated” and above all where the cause of separation is repudiation of the wife. A.—In theory this right of custody…

, minor ritual impurity which, in fiḳh, is distinguished from major impurity ( d̲j̲anāba [ q.v.]). Ḥadat̲h̲ is incurred: 1.—by contact with an unclean substance ( k̲h̲abat̲h̲ , nad̲j̲as ) which soils the person or clothing, etc.: sperm, pus, urine, fermented liquor, and some other kinds. There is some controversy about corpses or the bodies of animals. It is only in the view of the Mālikī school that the pig and dog, when alive, do not soil. Except with the S̲h̲īʿīs, contact with a human being never so…

, town, which today has disappeared, in the province of the ʿAwāṣim [ q.v.], situated in a plain at an altitude of 1000 metres at the foot of the Taurus, near to the three lakes on the upper course of the Ak Su, one of the principal tributaries of the D̲j̲ayḥān. Known as al-Ḥadat̲h̲ al-Ḥamrāʾ (probably to avoid confusion with Ḥadat̲h̲ al-Zuḳāḳ in the Palmyra desert), it owed its importance to its situation on the Arabo-Byzantine frontier, between Marʿas̲h̲ and Malaṭiya, at the entry of the saddle ¶ which guarded the route to Albistān. Its protection was assured by a fortress built…

(a.), plural ḥudūd , hindrance, impediment, ¶ limit, boundary, frontier [see ʿawāṣim , g̲h̲āzī , t̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr ], hence numerous technical meanings, first and foremost the restrictive ordinances or statutes of Allāh (always in the plural), often referred to in the Ḳurʾān (sūra ii, 187, 229, 230; iv, 13, 14; ix, 97, 112; lviii, 4; lxv, 1). In a narrower meaning, ḥadd has become the technical term for the punishments of certain acts which have been forbidden or sanctioned by punishments in the Ḳurʾān and have thereby become crimes against religion. These are: unlawful intercourse ( zinā [ q.v.]…

, nationalist and reformist Tunisian writer, considered as the pioneer of the movement for feminine liberation in his country. Born in Tunis ca. 1899 into a family of modest status originally from the Ḥāma of Gabès, he studied at the Zaytūna [ q.v.] from 1911 to 1920 and gained the taṭwīʿ (corresponding to the diploma for completing secondary education). He then took part in the trade union movement and was put in charge of propaganda in an organisation founded in 1924, the D̲j̲āmiʿat ʿumūm al-ʿamala al-tūnisiyya , ¶ whose chief promoters were hunted down and banished in 1925. His…

[see bed̲j̲a ].

[see naḥw ].

[see nud̲j̲ūm ].

, iron. According to the Sūrat al-Ḥadīd (LVII, 25) God sent iron down to earth for the detriment and advantage of man, for weapons and tools are alike made from it. According to the belief of the Ṣābians, it is allotted to Mars. It is the hardest and strongest of metals and the most capable of resisting the effects of fire, but it is the quickest to rust. It is corroded by acids; for example, with the fresh rind of a pomegranate it forms a black fluid, with vinegar a red fluid and with salt a yellow. Collyrium ( al-kuḥl ) burns it and arsenic makes it smooth and white. Ḳa…

, mak̲h̲laṣ of a minor Ottoman poet who flourished in the first decades of the 10th/16th century, the author of a verse-chronicle. According to his near-contemporay Sehī, his home was Fered̲j̲ik (near Enos), where he was k̲h̲aṭīb ; he adopted the mak̲h̲laṣ Ḥadīdī because he was a blacksmith by trade. His unpublished history of the Ottoman dynasty, completed in 930/1523-4, consists of some 7000 very pedestrian couplets in the hazad̲j̲ metre; the last incident recorded is the appointment of Ibrāhīm ¶ Pas̲h̲a as Grand Vizier (in 929/1523). In an introduct…

, Abu ’l-Ḥusayn Yaḥyā b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Ḳāsim b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥasanī , the founder of the Zaydī imāmate in Yaman, was born in al-Madīna in 245/859. His mother was Umm al-Ḥasan Fāṭima bint al-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. Sulaymān b. Dāwūd b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥasan. He excelled early in religious learning and by the age of seventeen is said to have reached the level of rendering independent judgments in fiḳh and composing treatises. Because of his erudition, physical strength, bravery, and asceticism he soon carne to be considered ¶ by his family, including his fathers and uncles, as the most …

, regnal name of the fourth ʿAbbāsid caliph Mūsā, son of al-Mahdī, who had been proclaimed heir in 159/775-6. His accession took place in Muḥarram 169/August 785, but it did not pass off smoothly. Al-Mahdī died when he was actually on the way to D̲j̲urd̲j̲ān intending to force Mūsā, resident in that province, to renounce his rights in favour of his brother Hārūn, who had been appointed second heir in 166/782-3. Although the chamberlain al-Rabīʿ procured that the oath of allegiance to Mūsā was sw…

, founder of the Zaydī dynasty of the Yemen [see zaydīs ].

, a small independent region of South Arabia, now in the Upper ʿAwlaḳī Sultanate. It is one of the most fertile districts of South Arabia and is irrigated by canals from the Wādī ʿAbadān. The products of the soil, which is of volcanic origin, include indigo, which is exported to al-Ḥawṭa, d̲h̲ura and millet. Al-Ḥāḍina is inhabited by the tribe Ahl K̲h̲alīfa which claims descent from the Hilāl [ q.v.]. When the Hilāl emigrated from South Arabia they remained behind, whence their name K̲h̲alīfa. In the past they ordinarily acknowledged no authority, but in time of …

( al-Ḥuwaydira ), nickname of the Arabic poet Ḳuṭba b. Aws. Very little is known of his life; he belongs to the Banū T̲h̲aʿlaba b. Saʿd b. D̲h̲ubyān, a tribe of the group G̲h̲aṭafān. He had a quarrel with Zabbān b. Sayyār al-Fazārī and ¶ satirized him in his verses. In another poem he boasts of the victory of his kinsmen at al-Kufāfa. The leader in this battle, K̲h̲ārid̲j̲a b. Ḥiṣn al-Fazārī, later on turned Muslim (Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, Isāba , i, 222) whilst al-Ḥādira is called a pagan poet ( d̲j̲ahilī ); so we may infer that he lived into the beginning of the 7th cent…

[see sabzawārī ].

(narrative, talk) with the definite article ( al-ḥadīt̲h̲ ) is used for Tradition, being an account of what the Prophet said or did, or of his tacit approval of something said or done in his presence. K̲h̲abar (news, information) is sometimes used of traditions from the Prophet, sometimes from Companions or Successors. At̲h̲ar , pl. āt̲h̲ār (trace, vestige), usually refers to traditions from Companions or Successors, but is sometimes used of traditions from the Prophet. Sunna (custom) refers to a normative custom of the Prophet or of the early community. I. The development of Ḥadīt̲h̲ Tra…

, “New [town]”, the name of several cities. 1. Ḥadīt̲h̲at al-Mawṣil, a town on the east bank of the Tigris, one farsak̲h̲ below the mouth of the upper (Great) Zāb. Its ruins are to be recognized in the mound of Tell al-S̲h̲aʿīr. Various accounts of its origin are given. According to His̲h̲ām b. al-Kalbī ( apud Ibn al-Faḳīh, 129 and Balād̲h̲urī, Būlāḳ ed., 340) Hart̲h̲ama b. ʿArfad̲j̲a, after making Mawṣil the capital, came to Ḥadīt̲h̲a in the reign of ʿUmar b. al-K̲h̲aṭṭāb, where he found a village with tw…

(sacred, or holy tradition), also called ḥadīt̲h̲ ilāhī , or rabbānī (divine tradition), is a class of traditions which give words spoken by God, as distinguished from ḥadīt̲h̲ nabawī (prophetical tradition) which gives the words of the Prophet. Although ḥadīt̲h̲ ḳudsī is said to contain God’s words, it differs from the Ḳurʾān which was revealed through the medium of Gabriel, is inimitable, is recited in the ṣalāt , and may not be touched or recited by the ceremonially unclean. Ḥadīt̲h̲ ḳudsī does not necessarily come through Gabriel, but may have come through inspiration ( ilhām …

[see hiba ].

[see ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ ].

(a.), stone. The word is applied in Arabic as indiscriminately as in European languages to any solid inorganic bodies occurring anywhere in Nature; sometimes indeed it is used in a still broader sense, as in Sūra II, 60/57 and VII, 160, where the rock from which Mūsā procures water is called also ‘stone’. Although Sūra XVII, 50/53: “Say: Be ye stones, or iron” may indicate a certain discrimination between stones and minerals, later texts, or at least some of them, do not maintain it. In the Book of Stones ascribed to Aristotle all the substances ¶ described—metals, and even glass and merc…

(locally pronounced hagar ) is a cognate of the Ethiopie hagar “town”, and was the normal word for “town” in the epigraphic dialects of pre-Islamic South Arabia. It is still in use today as an element in the place-names given to ruins of pre-Islamic town sites in South Arabia. See Azimuddin Aḥmad, Die auf Südarabien bezüglichen Angaben Našwān’s in Šams al-ʿulūm , Leyden 1916, 108. (A.F.L. Beeston)

[see al-ḥasā ].

[see al-kaʿba ].

, a town in Ḥaḍramawt on the D̲j̲abal of the same name, about five miles south of Mas̲h̲had ʿAlī [ q.v.] on the Wādī Dūʿan. Situated amid extensive palm-groves, it is built against the slopes of the D̲j̲abal. The surrounding land is very fertile and produces d̲h̲ura . Irrigation is provided through channels from the say ! and from very deep wells. The town is of importance as a centre on the motor road between Mukallā and S̲h̲ibām. Its houses are built of brick and are large but the streets are narrow and steep. It belongs to the Ḳuʿaytīs of S̲h̲ibām [ q.v.] who are represented in it by a member…

(“the rock of the vulture”), a fortress founded by the last Idrīsids [ q.v.] in a natural mountainous retreat, placed by Ibn K̲h̲aldūn among the dependencies of the town of al-Baṣra [ q.v.]. Its site has now been identified in the territory occupied by the small tribe of the Sumatra, east-north-east of the Moroccan town of al-Ḳaṣr al-Kabīr (Alcazarquivir). It is reported to have been known also by the name of Ḥad̲j̲ar al-S̲h̲urafāʾ. In 317/929-30 the Banū Muḥammad, expelled from Fās after the assassination of their prince, the…