Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. ʿUt̲h̲mān al-Azdī , a versatile Moroccan scholar whose reputation rests mainly on his knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, astrology and occult sciences. Born in Marrākus̲h̲ on 9 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 654/29 December 1256, he studied the traditional sciences—Arabic language, grammar, the Ḳurʾān, ḥadīt̲h̲ and fiḳh— in his native town, where he was initiated into mathematics and medicine by masters whose identification is still in dispute, though he is known to have attached himself to the saint of Ag̲h̲māt [ q.v.], Abū Zayd ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-H…

, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Baraka al-ʿUmānī , Ibāḍī author born in the village of Bahlā in ʿUmān. The exact dates of his life are unknown. However, an Ibāḍī writer of ʿUmān, Ibn Mudād, regards him as a disciple and supporter of the imām Saʿd b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Maḥbūb, who was killed in 328/939-40. He himself played a considerable part in political life in ʿUmān and wrote several historical and juridical works, of which only the following survive: (1) K. al-Ḏj̲āmiʿ . dealing with the principles of law; (2) K. al-Muwāzana , on the state of ʿUmān in the time of ¶ the imām al-Ṣalt b. Mālik; i…

, Abu ’l-Ḥakam ʿAbd al-Salām b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Lak̲h̲mī , an Andalusian mystic theologian, born in North Africa, who taught in Seville during the first half of the 6th/12th century. His name is often associated with that of the celebrated Ṣūfī Ibn al-ʿArīf [ q.v.], head of the Almeria school. With Ibn Ḳasī and Abū Bakr al-Mayūrḳī, these two men were indeed the leaders of the resistance movement directed against the Almoravids by the canonists and traditionalists and, in general, by those men of religion who, un…

, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Barrī b. ʿAbd al-D̲j̲abbār al-Maḳdisī (so called after his family’s place of origin) al-Miṣrī al-S̲h̲āfiʿī Arab grammarian born at Cairo on 5 Rad̲j̲ab 499/13 March 1106 and died there 27 S̲h̲awwāl 582/11 January 1187. He studied under the masters of that period (see Ibn K̲h̲allikān. ii, 293); when he himself was a master, among his disciples was Abū Mūsā al-Ḏj̲azūlī al-Naḥwī [ q.v.]. During the whole of Ibn Barrī’s life the Crusades were in progress (capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders, 1099; disastrous defeat of the Crusaders at Ḥa…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥ. b. ʿAlī b. Muḥ. b. al-Ḥusayn al-Ribāṭī , Moroccan scholar born in Taza in about 660/1261-2, died in the same town in about 731/1331. Deeply versed in the Islamic sciences, Ibn Barrī owes his renown to an urd̲j̲ūza of 242 verses, al-Durar al-lawāmiʿ fī aṣl maḳrāʾ al-imām Nāfiʿ , completed in 697/1298 and dealing with the “reading” of Nāfiʿ [ q.v.]; this work, published several times in Cairo and Tunis in collections of treatises of Ḳurʾānic orthoepy and orthography, enjoyed a very great vogue in North Africa. From the same author has survived another urd̲j̲ūza of 30 …

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim K̲h̲alaf b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Masʿūd b. Mūsā, b. Bas̲h̲kuwāl b. yūsuf b. Dāḥa b. Dāḳa b. Naṣr b. ʿAbd al-Karīm b. Wāḳid al-Anṣārī , an Andalusian scholar of Spanish origin, as his name “son of Pascual” indicates, was a native of Sorrión, an unknown village of the vega of Valencia, which is not to be confused with Sarrión in the province of Teruel. He was born in Cordova on 3 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 949/29 September noi and died there on the night of Tuesday-Wednesday 8 Ramaḍān 578/4-5 Janu…

[see filāḥa, ii].

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Bassām al-S̲h̲antarīnī , Andalusian poet and anthologist, a native of Santarem. Forced to flee from his native town when it was taken by Alfonso V of Castile (485/1092-3), he went to Cordova for the first time in 493/1100 and, during the following years, undertook at Seville the compiling of his D̲h̲ak̲h̲īra and the collecting of the dīwāns of some great poets of the 5th/11th century: al-Muʿtamid, Ibn Wahbūn, Ibn ʿAmmār; he also collected the correspondence of the prince of Murcia, Ibn Ṭāhir, and collected in o…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Muḥ. b. Naṣr b. Manṣūr b. Bassām al-ʿAbartāʾī , poet and writer of Bag̲h̲dād. His grandfather, Naṣr, had held high office during the caliphate of al-Muʿtaṣim (see Sourdel, Vizirat , 252), and he himself was at one time employed in the service of the barīd [ q.v.]; he probably carried out other administrative duties, since his biographers attribute to him a collection of letters ( rasāʾil ) which are unlikely to have been of a private nature. However, his fame rests on his epigrams, very brief, for he was short-winded, bu…

, more generally known under the name of Ibn Baṭṭa , Ḥanbalī theologian and jurisconsult, born at ʿUkbarā in 304/917. He received his early education at Bag̲h̲dād, where he went while still very young, in 315 or 316/927 or 928, his principal teachers being, together with a number of less well-known ʿulamāʾ , Abu ’l-Ḳāsim al-K̲h̲irakī (d. 334/945), the author of the famous Muk̲h̲taṣar , and Abū Bakr al-Nad̲j̲d̲j̲ād (d. 348/960), the renowned jurisconsult, traditionist and preacher, who gave his courses in the mosque of al-Manṣūr. He stud…

(sometimes Baṭūṭa ), S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm b. Yūsuf al-Lawātī al-Ṭand̲j̲ī , Moorish traveller born at Tangier on 17 Rad̲j̲ab 703/25 February 1304, died in Morocco in 770/1368-9 or 779/1377, after many lengthy journeys which make him one of the world’s most famous travellers ( d̲j̲awwāla ) and authors of travel-books ( riḥla ). The chronology of his journeys may, in spite of some uncertainties of detail, be set out as follows: (1) Departure from Tangiers 2 Rad̲j̲ab 725/13 June 1325; Nor…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. Hilāl , known also under the name of Ibn al-Sitrī, famous calligrapher of the Buwayhid period who died in Bag̲h̲dād in 413/1022 (This date is more probable than 423/1031). He frequented the governmental circles of the period, as he was closely attached to the vizier Fak̲h̲r al-Mulk Abū G̲h̲ālib Muḥammad b. K̲h̲alaf at Bag̲h̲dād and was for some time in charge of the library of the Buwayhid Bahāʾ al-Dawla at S̲h̲īrāz. He was also an illuminator (at least one…

, Abu Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad al-Dīn b. al-Bayṭār al-Mālaḳī , botanist and pharmacologist, born in Malaga at the end of the 6th/12th century. He probably belonged to the family of the same name whose existence in Malaga is attested by Ibn al-Abbār ( Muʿd̲j̲am , nos. 35, 165, 241). He studied in Seville and collected plants in the districts round the town with his teachers Abu ’l-ʿAbbās al-Nabātī, ʿAbd Allāh b. Ṣāliḥ and Abu ’l-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲. In about 617/1220 he emigrated to the East: after crossing North Africa…

, Tawakkulī ( Tūklī ) b. Ismāʿīl , murīd of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Ardabīlī (d. 794/1391-2), son and first successor of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ardabīlī (d. 735/1334), the founder of the Ṣūfī order of the Ṣafawiyya and, as ancestor of S̲h̲āh Ismāʿīl I (d. 930/1524 [ q.v.]), the eponym of the Ṣafawids [ q.v.; see also ardabīl ]. The exact dates of Ibn al-Bazzāz are unknown. At the stimulus of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Ṣadr al-Dīn he composed a biography of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Ṣafī al-Dīn, with the title Ṣafwat al-ṣafāʾ or Mawāhib al-saniyya fī manāḳib al-ṣafawiyya . Written in a simp…

, al-Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-D̲j̲aʿfarī al-Rug̲h̲adī , known by the name of Ibn al-Bībī al-Munad̲j̲d̲j̲ima (son of the “lady”, the astrologer) or simply Ibn Bībī, is the author of al-Awāmir al-ʿAlāʾiyya fi ’l-umūr al-ʿAlāʾiyya , written in Persian, which was completed early in 680 A.H. (beg. 22 April 1281); it deals with the period from 588/1192 to 679/1280 and is an extremely important work for the history of the Seld̲j̲ūks of Rūm in whose domains it was written. This work is neither a chronicle nor a …

, Yūsuf ( Yünus ?) b. Isḥāḳ al-Isrāʾīlī , Judaeo-Arab physician and pharmacist who lived in Almeria ca. 1100 A.D. There he wrote the K. al-Mustaʿīnī for al-Mustaʿīn billāh Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Aḥmad b. Yūsuf al-Muʾtamin billāh (reigned 478-503/1085-1109), the Hūdid ruler of Saragossa [see hūdids ], after whom the work was named. The book must have attracted attention immediately, for it is often quoted by al-G̲h̲āfiḳī [ q.v. above], a younger contemporary of Ibn Biklāris̲h̲, in his K. al-Adwiya al-mufrada ; in the Latin version of the latter under the name Bu…

, Abū Bakr Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥasan (or al-Ḥusayn) al-Ṣiḳillī , lexicogragrapher and philologist born in Sicily towards the end of the 4th/10th century. After studying in the east (in 415/1024 he was at Alexandria and Mahdiyya with Abu ’l-Ṭāhir Ismāʿīl al-Tud̲j̲ībī al-Barḳī) he returned to the island at the end of the Kalbī period at the time when the country was split up by the greed of several ḳāʾids . It was one of these ḳāʾids, Ibn Mankūd (the sources do not agree on the spelling of this name), the ruler of Mazara, who welcomed him warmly. Ibn al-Birr devoted him…

[see al-birzālī ].

, [see ʿut̲h̲mān b. ʿabd allāh].

[see saʿīd b. al-biṭrīḳ ].