Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

, 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…

, the 23rd letter of the Arabic alphabet, transcribed as l; numerical value 30 [see abd̲j̲ad ]. Definition: fricative , lateral , voiced . It is called a liquid (H. Fleisch, Traité , i, § 3 b) because of the fluidity of its emission. This act of emission comes ¶ normally from the two corners of the mouth, l bilateral; it can be made from one side only, with unchanged acoustic results, l unilateral (M. Grammont, 71 penult. This last was probably the case with the ḍād (a lateralised consonant [see Ḍād ]), called al-ḍaʾīfa , which was made from the right or left side of…

, the Biblical personage Lamech. In Gen. iv, 21, the invention of music is attributed to Jubal, son of Lamech, but various Arabic sources give primacy here to Lamech/Lamak, of Cain’s posterity. Bringing together the origin of the ʿūd with the invention of music, the story goes that Lamech had an only son in his old age, who died at the age of five, leaving his father full of grief. Not wishing to be separated from him, Lamech hung the corpse up until it decomposed. There then came to him the idea of making from his foot an ʿūd, on which he could accompany himself in his lamentations. The mos…

[see lanbasar ].

…

, an ethnic designation stemming from Lamaṭa, a quarter of the Moroccan town of Sid̲j̲ilmāssa, borne in particular by two mystics: 1. Aḥmad al-Ḥabīb b. Muḥammad al-G̲h̲umārī b. Ṣālīḥ al-Ṣiddīḳī (since he traced hi…

, a name of unknown origin designating in general a group of tribal peoples, ancient nomads, who were active in western and southern India as salt carriers, cattle herders and porters of general merchandise. They were known by different names in different pa…

[see niyāḥa ].

, a district of eastern Afg̲h̲ānistān, ¶ thus designated in the Islamic sources of the later mediaeval period, deriving its name from its urban centre Lamg̲h̲ān (later form, Lag̲h̲mān). It comprises the fertile plain of the middle course of the Kābul River, much of it lying to the north and east of Kābul city [ q.v.] itself. It is bounded on the north by the mountains of Kāfiristān [ q.v.], modern Nūristān, and includes the lower reaches of the Alingār and Alis̲h̲ang Rivers; on the south and east, it adjoins, and was sometimes considered (e.g. by Bābur) to includ…

, S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Maḥmūd b. ʿOt̲h̲mān b. ʿAlī al-naḳḳās̲h̲ b. Ilyās , a celebrated Ottoman Ṣūfī writer and poet of the first half of the 10th/16th century. He was born in 877/1472-3 at Bursa, where he spent all his life. His grandfather, Naḳḳās̲h̲ ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a, teacher of Fawrī [ q.v.] and one of the great painter-carvers ( naḳḳās̲h̲ ) of his time, had in his youth been taken by Tīmūr to Samarḳand, where he perfected his art; after his return, he contributed masterly decorations to the Yes̲h̲il D̲j̲āmiʿ and the Yes̲h̲il Türbe in Bursa.…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl , Persian court poet, born about 402/1011, died some time after 460/1067, who left a dīwān of ḳaṣīdas , only some 1,100 bayts of which have survived. Although Lāmiʿī was a contemporary of, and panegyrist to, such major historical figures as Ṭug̲h̲ri̊l Beg, Alp Arslan and Niẓām al-Mulk, very little reliable information about his life and work has come to light. From his Dīwān we learn only that he was a native of Gurgān and that he went to Bag̲h̲dād in the train of Ṭug̲h̲ri̊l Beg in 447/1055. The tad̲h̲kiras of Dawlat-S̲h̲āh, Ād̲h̲…