Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

“lickers of blood”, the name given to a group of clans of Ḳurays̲h̲. According to tradition, Ḳuṣayy [ q.v.] had allocated to the different subdivisions of Ḳurays̲h̲ the quarters which they were to occupy in Mecca and had entrusted to the Banū ʿAbd al-Dār various local offices: administration of the dār al-nadwa and bearing the standard ( liwāʾ ), the furnishing of provisions ( rifāda ) and drink ( siḳāya ) to the pilgrims, and custodianship of the Kaʿba ( ḥi…

[see laʿib ].

(from Pers. lab-i āb “riverside”), the irrigated region along the banks of Amū Daryā [ q.v.] in its middle course. The name, though of Persian origin, became known apparently only in modern times, when this region became one of the main centres of the settlement of the Turkmens. The exact limits of the region have never been defined; it seems that it extended as far as Darg̲h̲ān (the southernmost town of K̲h̲wārazm [ q.v.]) in the north and as far as Kālif [ q.v.…

(Tamil ilappai , thought by Tamil ʿulamāʾ to derive from labbayka , the pilgrims’ cry [see talbiya…

[see talbiya ].

, the pen-name of a Persian poet who lived at the end of the 4th/11th and the beginning of the 5th/12th century. His personal name as well as almost any other particulars of his life are unknown. The Tard̲j̲umān al-balāg̲h̲a has preserved an elegy by Labībī on the death of Farruk̲h̲ī [ …

, Abū ʿAḳīl , Arab poet of the muk̲h̲aḍram . He belonged to the family of Banū D̲j̲aʿfar, a branch of the Kilāb, who belonged to the Banū ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, Tab. 93 and Register, ii, 374-5). According to Ibn Saʿd, vi, 21, he died in 40/660-1 in the night on which Muʿāwiya arrived in al-Nuk̲h̲ayla to conclude peace with al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī. Others, like Ibn Ḥad̲j̲ar, iii, 657, whom Nöldeke ( Fünf Moʿallaqât , ii, 51) thinks ought to be followed, give 41 A.H., others again 42. He is said to have reached an unusually great age (al-Sid̲j̲istānī, K. al-Muʿammarīn …

or Libn (coll.; singular labina , libna ) designates in Arabic the unfired brick whose use in building dates back to the earliest antiquity; to speak only of the present domain of Islam, some traces have survived above-ground on the Iranian plateau, in Mesopotamia, Palestine and Egypt, where this material was used in the Pharaonic period to build palaces and royal tombs as well as poor hovels; it is certain that it was also in use in the Arabian peninsula and North Africa. The hog-backed bricks of Mesopotamia appear to be no longer used, and the labina generally has a geometric, fairly reg…

, the name given by Arabic authors to Niebla , ancient Ilipla, which was the seat of a bishop in the Visigothic period and which is situated about 40 miles to the west of Seville in the right bank of the Rio Tin to (in the modern province of Huelva). Certain authors, notably Yāḳūt, also call it al-Ḥamrāʾ because of the reddish colour of its walls and of its environs. It was the main town of one of the kūras of the G̲h̲arb al-Andalus [ q.v.]; it must have been integrated within the great division of Is̲h̲bīliya [ q.v.], and separated from it in the course of the administrative reorganisation. The kūra …

, a group of coral islands in the south-eastern Arabian Sea lying off the Malabar Coast of India between lat. 8° and 12°30′ N., and between long. 71° and 74° E. Under British Indian rule these were formerly the Laccadive Minicoy and Amindivi Islands; but in 1956 the group was brought under a single administration to form the Indian Union Territory of Lakshadweep (Sanskrit: Lakṣadvīpa “the hundred thousand islands”). There are in all 27 islands and islets of which ten—Maliku, Kalpeni, Kavrathi, Androth, Agathi, Amin…

, a region of the extreme north of India. It lies between lat. 32° and 36° N and long. 75° and 80° E, and is bounded on the north and east by the Chinese territories of Sin-kiang and Tibet, on the south by the Indian province of Himačāl Prades̲h̲, on the north-west by Baltistān, and on the west by Kas̲h̲mīr, of which it now constitutes a province, covering an area of 30,220 sq. miles. Its capital is Leh. Ladāk̲h̲ is known to the Tibetans as Mangyāl or Māryul. The population may be divided into four racial groups, Čāmpās, Ladāk̲h̲īs, Baltīs and Dārds, of whom the first thr…

the name of several Anatolian towns, and the Turkish form, phonetically identical, of the name of Laodicea (Λαοδίκεια), which, since the imperial period often appears in inscriptions with the form Λαδίκεια, accented on the second syllable (cf. Robert, Villes d’Asie Mineure 2, Paris 1962, 283); Modern Turkish orthography Lâdik. 1. Lād̲h̲iḳ near Denizli, Laodicea of Lycos, or Laodicea of Phrygia. The ruins are located at a place called Eski Hisar, 8 km. to the north of the centre of Denizli, the acropolis standing on a hill which dominates the v…

(European transcriptions: Lattaquié, Latakia), a major Syrian port, was known by the Greek name of Λαοδίκεια ἡ ἐπι θαλάσση, and later by the Latin name of Laodicea ad Mare, whilst the Crusaders called it La Liche. In the second millenium, the settlement bore the name of Ramitha of the Phoenicians and was dependent, before taking its place, on Ugarit, a powerful metropolis lying 8 miles/12 km. to the north. It was in 327 B.C., or six years after the death of Alexander that Seleucus Nicator (301-281 B.C.) founded on this site ¶ a city to which he gave the name of Laodicea in honour of h…

(literally “refuge”) is the largest, geologically-recent lava-field in the south of Syria, comprising a plain of ca. 900 square km. It has roughly the form of a triangle, the base of which is formed in the south by the line Izraʿ-S̲h̲ahba ( ca. 45 km.) and the apex of which lies ca. 48 km. to the north near Burrāḳ ( ca. 50 km. south-east of Damascus). In the north, the area is limited by the Wādī al-ʿAd̲j̲am, in the east by the Arḍ al-Bat̲h̲aniyya [see al-bat̲h̲aniyya ], in the south-east by the D̲j̲abal al-Durūz, in the south by the Nuḳra of Ḥawrān [ q.v.], in the south-west by D̲j̲awlān [ q.v.] and in…

, a small town in the Esdraelon plain in the vicinity of ancient Megiddo, in the north of Palestine, at lat. 32° 34′ N. and long. 35° 21′ E. It was the seat of the sixth Roman legion, on account of which it came to be known as Legio, and Lad̲j̲d̲j̲ūn is the Arabic adaptation of the Roman name. The town, which is 175 m. above sea level, is referred to by early Arab geographers as part of Ḏj̲und al-Urdunn bordering on the Ḏj̲und of Palestine. The Islamic…

( Lāčīn ), al-Malik al-Manṣūr Ḥusām al-Dīn , alias S̲h̲uḳayr or al-As̲h̲ḳar , Turkish Mamlūk sultan. Originally a mamlūk of al-Malik al-Manṣūr ʿAlī b. Aybak, Lād̲j̲īn was purchased after his master’s deposition in 658/1259 by the future sultan Ḳalāwūn [ q.v.], on whose accession he was raised to the amirate, and sent to Damascus as governor of the citadel (D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 678/April 1280). His appointment alarmed the provincial governor, Sunḳur al-As̲h̲ḳar, who proclaimed himself sultan. The revolt was suppressed by an expeditiona…

(a.), lit: “to spit out” (see WbKAS , letter L, ii/2, 989). 1. In grammar. Here it denotes primarily the actual expression of a sound or series of sounds, hence “articulation” and, more broadly, the resulting “linguistic form”. It has ¶ always been distinct from ṣawt “[individual] sound” (cf. Troupeau, ṣ-w-t , and see Bakalla, 39 ff. and 49 ff., for its use in Ibn D̲j̲innī (d. 392/1002 [ q.v.]), which provides the base for the modern Arabic terms for phonetics, ʿilm al-aṣwāt , and phonology, ʿilm waẓāʾif al-aṣwāt (and note also the neologism ṣawtiyya [ q.v.] for ¶ the collective description …

( al-Ag̲h̲wāṭ ), Algerian town and oasis, administrative centre of a wilāya (district), 420 km. to the south of Algiers (long. 0° 30′ E. [Paris], lat. 33° 48′ N. Altitude: 787 m.). It was formerly the administrative centre of one of the four “Territories of the South” forming the region of Algeria administered under martial law, until the reform instituted by the law of 20 September 1947 ( Statut de l’Algérie ). On account of its geographical position, dominating the defence of the Sahara, as well as memories connected with the dramatic story …

[see ḳabr ].

( Lahore ), the principal city of the Pand̲j̲āb [ q.v.], situated on the left bank of the Rāwī about 700 feet above sea level, at lat. 31° 35′ N. and long. 74° 20′ E. Its strategic location in the ¶ fertile alluvial region of the upper Indus plain has guaranteed it an important rôle in Indian history, very often as a frontier stronghold and more recently as the capital of the Sikh [ q.v.] empire. Since 1947 it has been included in the republic of Pākistān, of which it is the second largest city. 1. History. Popular etymology connects the foundation of Lāhawr with the mythical Lava (Lōh), …

colloquially called Laḥid̲j̲, a town and area of south-western Arabia, now situated in the second governorate of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. The town, also known as ¶ al-Ḥawṭa, lies between the two tributaries of the Wādī Tuban, al-Wādī al-Kabīr and al-Wādī al-Ṣaghīr, about 25 miles north-west of Aden. The town is surrounded by a fertile area which is cultivated by means of an elaborate system of irrigation using the water of the wadis and also of wells. Datepalms abound, as well as cer…

1. A town in the Caspian coastal province of Gīlān [ q.v.] in north-western Persia, in long. 50° 0′ 20″ E. and lat. 37° 12′ 30″ N. It is situated on the plain to the east of the lower reaches of the Safīd-Rūd and to the north of the Dulfek mountain, and on the small river Čom-k̲h̲ala or Purdesar, but at some 14 miles/20 km. from the Caspian Sea shore. Lāhīd̲j̲ān does not seem to have been known as such to the earliest Arabic geographers, though legend was to attribute its foundation to Lāhīd̲j̲ b. Sām b. Nūḥ. It does, however, appear in the Persian Ḥudūd al-ʿālam (372/982) as L…

the nisba of several eminent persons connected with Lāhīd̲j̲ān [ q.v.] in the Caspian region of Persia, among whom the following may be mentioned. 1. S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā Gīlānī , theologian, mystic, and poet of the Tīmūrid-Ṣafawid period and a renowned s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ of the Nūrbak̲h̲s̲h̲iyya Ṣūfī order in S̲h̲īrāz. He joined his master Sayyid Muḥammad Nūrbak̲h̲s̲h̲ in 849/1445, and during a period of 16 years, under Nūrbak̲h̲s̲h̲’s spiritual direction, accomplished considerable progress along the Ṣūfī path.…

(a.). In music. This is one of the basic terms of secular music in Islamic times, used in Arabic and Persian [see mūsīḳī ]. In its early terminological sense, laḥn (pl. luḥūn , rarely alḥān ) denoted a musical mode, comparable to the later terms nag̲h̲ma (pl. ang̲h̲ām ) and maḳām [ q.v.]. It was a loan from the Byzantine Greek concept of ēchos , adopted probably in Umayyad Syria. A Kitāb al-Luḥūn al-t̲h̲amāniya (“Book on the modal system called oktōēchos ”), wrongly attributed to Ptolemy, was known to Ibn al-Kalbī [ q.v.], according to a quotation in Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih’s al-ʿIḳd al-farīd …

, “errors of language made by the common people”, is an expression which characterises a branch of lexicography designed to correct deviations by reference to the contemporary linguistic norm, as determined by the purists. The treatises which could be classed under this heading, correspond, broadly speaking, to our “do not say... but say...”, the incorrect form generally being introduced by “you say” or “they say = one says” ( taḳūl , yaḳūlūn ) and the correct form by wa ’l-ṣawāb ... “whereas the norm is...”; they are most often intitled Kitāb Laḥn al-ʿāmma or Kitāb mā talḥan/yalḥan fīhi…

, meaning “west” in Pand̲j̲ābī, was first given wide currency as a linguistic term by Grierson in the Linguistic survey of India. Following this authority, the name is often applied to the Indo-Aryan dialects of the western Pand̲j̲āb (Pākistān), as opposed to the Pand̲j̲abī [ q.v.] of the central and eastern districts. The more natural feminine “Lahndī” is now general in South Asian scholarly usage, but neither form has ever achieved popular local currency. 1. Status and dialects. Grierson distinguished the dialects of the westen Pand̲j̲āb as belonging to a “Lahndā la…

[see lahawr ].

(a.), two terms meaning divinity (or deity) and humanity, and forming a pair which plays an important role in the theology of certain Muslim mystics and in the theosophical conceptions of the extremist Imāmate. ¶ 1. Philological considerations. The termination -ūt of these two words may be traced to an Aramaic origin. It is also present in the words malakūt (which is Ḳurʾānic, XXXVI, 83), and d̲j̲abarūt which appears in the ḥadīt̲h̲ : “Glory to the One to whom belongs Ruling Power ( d̲j̲abarūt) and Kingship ( malakūt ).” So malakūt was already Arabised in the time of the Prophet. It …

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim , Persian poet and revolutionary, was born in Kirmāns̲h̲āh on 4 December 1887, the son of a petty shoemaker. As a youth he joined the struggle for constitutionalism in Persia, and in 1908 took part in the fight against the royalist troops in Ras̲h̲t, following Muḥammad ʿAlī S̲h̲āh’s attempt to reimpose autocracy. After the restoration of the Constitution in 1909 he entered the gendarmerie and was eventually promoted to the rank of major. There, charged with subv…

( Liʿb , Laʿb ), the Arabic word for “play” (also used variously in Persian, against Turkish oyun ), in the Muslim world as fundamental a concept of vast sociological and psychological implications as in other civilisations. Only a few of its aspects can be briefly discussed here. The “play” character of many important human activities (dance, theatre, music, etc.) does not come under our purview, nor do ritual games as survivals of pre-Islamic religiously-motivated customs. We find them occasionally mentioned, as, for instance, in references to New Year practices, cf. al-Bīrūnī, Āt̲h̲…

1. The most southern group of Kurd tribes in Persia. According to Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, their name (Läk, often Läkk) is explained by the Persian word läk (100,000), which is said to have been the original number of families of Lak. The group is of importance in that the Zand dynasty arose from it. The Lak now living in northern Luristān [ q.v.] are sometimes confused with the Lur (Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn), whom they resemble from the somatic and ethnic point of view. The facts of history, however, show that the Lak have immigrated to their present settlements from lan…

(self-designation: Laḳ, Laḳuču; Russian variants: Lak(tsi), Kazikumuk̲h̲(tsi); Avar: Tumaw, pl. Tumal; Lezg: Yak̲h̲ols̲h̲u: Dargin: Vuluguni, Vulečuni; other: Ḳaziḳumuk̲h̲ [from Arabic G̲h̲āzī, warrior for the faith, and Ḳumuk̲h̲, the political and cultural centre of the Laḳ territory, see Ḳumuḳ]), a Muslim people of the Caucasus. The Laḳ language belongs with Dargin, Ḳaytaḳ and Ḳubači [ q.vv.] to the Dargino-Laḳ (Laḳ-Dargwa) group of the Northeast-Caucasian language family. There are five dialects of the Laḳ language, As̲h̲ti Ḳuli, Balk̲h̲ar, Vits…

(a.) nickname, and at a later date under Islam and with a more specific use, honorific title (pl. alḳāb ). For suggestions about its etymology, see L. Caetani and G. Gabrieli, Onomasticon arabicum . i. Fonte-introduzione , Rome 1915, 144-5; and for its place in the general schema of the composition of Islamic names, see ism. The laḳab seems in origin to have been a nickname or sobriquet of any tone, one which could express admiration, be purely descriptive and neutral in tenor or be insulting and derogatory. In the latter case, it was often termed nabaz , pl. anbāz , by-form labaz …

, the name of two places in al-Andalus. The first, which has now disappeared, was situated some 60 km. to the south of Mārida [ q.v.] in the district where la Fuente de Cantos is at present to be found, on or near to the road connecting Mérida with Seville and followed by Mūsā b. Nuṣayr, and on the left bank of the Guadiana (see F. Hernandez Jiménez, Ragwāl y el itinerario de Mūsā , de Algeciras a Mérida , in al-And ., xxvi [1961], 106-13, and La kūra de Mérida en el siglo X , in ibid., xxv [1960], 320, 361, 368). Yāḳūt (iv, 363) speaks of two fortresses dependent on Mérida, Laḳant al-Kubrā…

, an Arab tribe, especially influential in the pre-Islamic period. With the exception of the Lak̲h̲mid family [see lak̲h̲mids ] in ʿIrāḳ, so frequently celebrated in the old Arab poetry, the pre-Islamic history of this family is not well-known and is full of legend. According to the traditional genealogy, Lak̲h̲m was of Yemenī origin and was the brother of D̲j̲ud̲h̲ām and ʿĀmila [ q.vv.]. Yemenīs and Maʿaddīs claimed descent from the powerful Lak̲h̲mid dynasty of ʿIrāḳ. Of the three sister-tribes, Lak̲h̲m was undoubtedly the most illustrious and the oldest also. Legend …

, a pre-Islamic Arab dynasty of ʿIrāḳ that made al-Ḥīra [ q.v.] its capital and ruled it for some three centuries from ca. 300 A.D. to ca. 600 A.D. Strictly speaking, the dynasty should be called the Naṣrids after their eponym, Naṣr, Lak̲h̲m [ q.v.] being the tribe to which they belonged. As semi-independent kings and as clients of the Sāsānids, the Lak̲h̲mids were the dominant force in the political, military, and cultural history of the Arabs during these three centuries before the rise of Islam. 1. History. The founder of the dynasty, whose floruit may be assigned to the last quarter of the ¶ 3…

, conventional English spelling Lucknow , the capital city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (the United Provinces of British India). It is situated on the south bank of the winding Gumti river at lat. 26° 52′ N. and long. 80° 52′ E. It is the eleventh largest city in the country (population, 1971 census: 750, 512) and the second largest town of the State. Besides being the seat of the State government, the city also serves as the administrative headquarters of Lak̲h̲naw district and division. 1. History. Though legend connects the origin of Lak̲h̲naw to a mythical local mound …

(shortened form of Lak̲h̲anawatī, “home of Lak̲h̲an”, which is a derivation from Laks̲h̲manā , son of Dasarata and half-brother of Rāma Čandrā, and watī , meaning “home” or “habitation”, the name of an ancient city which served as the principal seat of government in Bengal under Muslim rule for nearly four centuries. Its ruins are still found spread over a narrow and deserted channel of the River Ganges in lat. 24° 52′ N. and long. 88° 10′ E., 10 miles/1…

(a.) “foundling”, according to the definition of Mālikī law, a human child whose parentage and whose status (free or slave) is unknown. It is a collective duty ( wād̲j̲ib ) to pick up an abandoned or exposed child. A person finding such a child may not, having taken it up, replace it in the place where found. If two persons wish to take up the child, preference is given to the one finding it first; if they have both found the child together, it should go to the one best fitted to rear it, but if both a…

b. ʿUdus b. Zayd b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Dārim , Abu Nahs̲h̲al , poet and sayyid of the second half of the 6th century A.D. His name apparently appears for the first time in a tradition concerning the assassination by his brother-in-law Suwayd b. Rabīʿa b. Zayd (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, D̲j̲amhara , Tab. 60, and Register, ii, 521) of a son (or of a young brother) Mālik, of al-Mund̲h̲ir b. Māʾ al-Samāʾ, who had entrusted him to Zurāra, and the vengeance of ʿAmr b. Hind [ q.v.], in the first place on the seven sons of the murdered man and then on the Banū Ḥanẓala b. Mālik (Ibn al-Kalbī-Ca…

, pre-Islamic Arab poet. The name Laḳīt does not necessarily mean that the person bearing it was a foundling; but in the present instance, whilst the genealogists know all the poet’s ancestors (see Ibn al-Kalbī-Caskel, D̲j̲amhara , Tab. 174 and Register, ii, 377), the ductus of his father’s name has given rise to divergent readings; maʿbad (Ibn al-Kalbī, loc. cit.; al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ, Bayān , i, 42, 43, 52; Ibn Durayd, Is̲h̲tiḳāḳ , 104; al-Āmidī, Muʾtalif , 175); maʿmar (Ibn Ḳutayba, S̲h̲iʿr , 152-4; LA, s.v. l-ḳ-ṭ ); and yaʿmar/yaʿmur (al-S̲h̲ammāk̲h̲, apud al-Mubarrad, Kāmil …

, Lala (p.), a term found amongst the Turkmen dynasties of Persia and, especially, amongst the Ṣafawids, with the meaning of tutor, specifically, tutor of royal princes, passing also to the Ottoman Turks. Under the Aḳ Ḳoyunlu [ q.v.], both atabeg [see atabak ] and lālā are found, but after the advent of the Ṣafawids (sc. after 907/1501), the latter term becomes more common, with the Arabic term muʿallim “instructor” also found. Such persons were already exalted figures in the state. The lālā of S̲h̲āh Ismāʿīl I’s second son Sām Mīrzā was the īs̲h̲īk-āḳāsī [ q.v.] or Grand Marshal of the great dī…

, grand vizier under Aḥmad I. He was a Bosnian by origin and a relation of Meḥmed Soḳollu Pas̲h̲a. The year of this birth is not given. After having had higher education ¶ in the palace, he was mīr-āk̲h̲ūr , and became in 1003/1595 ag̲h̲a of the Janissaries. In the next year he took part in the Austrian wars as beglerbegi of Rūmili and was commander of Esztergom (Gran, Turkish: Usturg̲h̲on) when this town capitulated to the Austrian army in Muḥarram 1004/September 1595. During the following years, Lala Meḥmed was several times ser-ʿasker in Hungary and when, in Ṣa…

, “The Tulip Period”, the name given to one of the most colourful periods of the Ottoman Empire, corresponding to the second half of the reign of Aḥmed III (1703-30 [ q.v.]) and more precisely to the thirteen years of the vizierate of Nevs̲h̲ehirli Ibrāhīm Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.]. The tulip which gave its name to this era had been exported from Turkey to Austria by Ogier Ghislain de Busbecq, the ambassador of Ferdinand I of Habsburg (1503-64) at the court of the Sultan, but it was in Holland that its cultivation was developed, through the efforts of…

, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Meḥmed Ṭāhir , Ottoman ḳāḍī and author of several theological works, often known as Ḳāḍī Meḥmed. The date of his birth is unknown, but he was born in Istanbul and was presumably connected with the Lālezār quarter near the Fātiḥ Mosque. He became a mollā and a müderris . In 1201/1786-7 he was ḳāḍī at Eyyūb, and then on 30 Muḥarram 1204/20 October 1789 he died at his house in Rumeli Ḥiṣār. None of his extant works has been printed, but these all exist in manuscript in Istanbul libraries. They include a series of theological commentaries, such as the Mīzān al-muḳīm fī maʿrifat al-ḳisṭ…

, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Meḥmed , Ottoman author of a work on tulips, the Mīzān al-azhār “Balance of flowers”. This treatise on the cultivation of tulips was composed in the reign of Sultan Aḥmad III (1115-43/1703-30), who had given the author the title of S̲h̲ükūfe-perwerān “cultivator of blossoms” on the suggestion of the grand vizier Ibrāhīm Pas̲h̲a between 1718 and 1730. (Th. Menzel) Bibliography H. Fr. von Diez, Denkwürdigkeiten aus Asien, Halle and Berlin 1815, ii, 1 ff., reprinted as Vom Tulpen- und Narcissen-Bau in der Türkey aus dem Türkischen des Scheich Muhammed Lalézari, Halle and Ber…

, a valley some 30 miles/50 km northnorth-east of Mawṣil in ʿIrāḳ, in the ḳaḍāʾ of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲an and in a largely Kurdish mountain area, famed as the principal pilgrimage centre of the Yazīdī sect [see yazīdīs ]. The d̲j̲amāʿiyya of the Yazīdīs is held from the 23th to the 30th September O.S. (6th to the 13th October N.S.) each year, and revolves round the shrine of the founder, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ ʿAdī b. Musāfir [ q.v.] and the tombs of other early saints of the sect. The first European to attend and ¶ describe the festival seems to have been Sir Henry Layard in 1846 and 1849; a valuable des…

, the name of a town in the Bundelkhand region of Central India, administratively in the southwards-protruding tongue of the former United Provinces, Uttar Pradesh of the Indian Union. It is situated in lat. 24° 42′ N. and long. 78° 28′ E. on the Great Indian Peninsula Railway and on the Kānpūr (Cawnpore)—Saugor road. Tradition ascribes its foundation to Lalitā, wife of a Deccani Rād̲j̲ā, and till the early 16th century it was held by the Gonds. In the…

, the most important translator of Sanskrit works into Brad̲j̲-bhās̲h̲ā prose at the Fort William College, Calcutta. Born at Agra in 1763 of a family of Brahmin priests, in 1786 he sought employment with Nawwāb Mubārak al-Dawla of Murs̲h̲idābād and then settled in Calcutta, where he died in 1835. In 1802 John Gilchrist, the Professor of Hindustānī (later known as Hindī and Urdū) at the Fort William College, appointed Lallūd̲j̲ī as an assistant in Brad̲j̲bhās̲h̲ā. His primary duties were to help the Professor in his publications of a Hindustānī…

, Banū , a numerous and formerly powerful Arab tribe living on the borders of Iran and ʿIrāḳ, principally on the plain between the foothills of the Pus̲h̲t-i Kūh mountains and the river Tigris. The easterly limit of the main tribal territory follows the course of the Rūd-i Kark̲h̲a southwards from Pā-yi Pul to the area north of Ḥawīza where the river peters out into salt flats. The course of the Tigris between S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Saʿd and ʿAmāra forms the westerly limit of that territ…