Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

, is the name of a wādī in the al-K̲h̲ard̲j̲ [ q.v.] district of Nad̲j̲d [ q.v. and see al-ḥawṭa ], the central province of modern Saudi Arabia. The word itself is the feminine of an adjective of the form afʿalu , but it has no comparative or superlative signification (Wright, Grammar , i, 185A, cf. al-ṣaḥrāʾ ). It is related to sahb , pl. suhub “desert, level country”. The large valley runs eastwards into the Gulf basin across the sand desert of al-Dahnāʾ [ q.v.] and, north of Yabrīn, of al-D̲j̲āfūra (see the map in al-ʿarab , Ḏj̲azīrat ). (E. Van Donzel) Bibliography British Admiralty, A handbook …

, the name given to an orator and poet of the tribe of Wāʾil, “whose seductive eloquence has passed into a proverb and who, it is said, whilst addressing an assembly for half-a-day, never used the same word twice” (Kazimirski, Dictionnaire , i, 1057; see LʿA and the other lexica). Speaking of the random effects of chance, whereby some person became a household word whereas others, equally meritorious, do not, al-D̲j̲āḥiẓ ( Ḥayawān , ii, 104), cites Saḥbān Wāʾil, who was eclipsed by his contemporary Ibn al-Ḳirriyya, murdered by al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ in 84/703 ( loc. cit., n. 5). In his eulogy o…

(a.), “companion”, a term with various senses in Islamic usage. Formally it is an active participle of the transitive verb ṣaḥiba yaṣḥabu “to associate with”, but semantically a pure noun; it thus cannot govern an object in the accusative. The most common plural is aṣḥāb , of which the double plural ( d̲j̲amʿ al-d̲j̲amʿ ) aṣāḥīb is given in the dictionaries, while its “diminutive of the plural” ( taṣg̲h̲īr al-d̲j̲amʿ ) usayḥāb is attested (Wensinck, Concordance , s.v.). Other plurals include ṣaḥb (a collective noun), ṣiḥāb and ṣuḥbān , the verbal nouns ṣuḥba and ṣaḥāba …

, the modern designation for the descendants of the Rūm Sald̲j̲ūḳid vizier Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn ʿAlī (d. 687/1288), known as Ṣāḥib Atā. Literary sources record two sons of Fak̲h̲r al-Dīn, Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn Ḥusayn, the eldest (Ibn Bībī, ed. M.Th. Houtsma, Histoire des Seldjoucides d’Asie Mineure , Leiden 1902, iii, 337) and Nuṣrat al-Dīn (Aḳsarāʾī, ed. Osman Turan, Musāmarat al-ak̲h̲bār , Ankara 1944, 74). An anonymous Tawārīk̲h̲-i āl-i Sald̲j̲āḳ completed after 765/1363 also mentions a daughter (F.N. Uzluk, Anadolu Selçukluları devleti tarihi , Ankara 1952, facs . t…

(a.), “high chamberlain”, a title borne, in Fātimid Egypt, by a man of the sword counted amongst the first rank of amīrs (“ amīrs bearing a collar”, al-umarāʾ al-muṭawwaḳūn ). This official ranked next after the vizier, and his office, or “lesser vizierate”, was in fact the stepping-stone to the vizierate for Yānis al-Rūmī, Riḍwān al-Walak̲h̲s̲h̲ī and Abu ’l-As̲h̲bāl Ḍirg̲h̲ām b. ʿĀmir. The greater part of our information on this official duties comes from Ibn al-Ṭuwayr: he was president of the tribuna…

, k̲h̲ān of the Crimea (939-58/1532-51) and k̲h̲an of Ḳazan (927-30/1521-4), son of Mengli Girāy K̲h̲ān I [ q.v.] and his wife Nūr Dewlet, mother through an earlier marriage of Muḥammad Emīn (d. 925/1519), the last k̲h̲ān of Ḳazan [ q.v.] in direct line from Ulug̲h̲ Muḥammad, k̲h̲ān of the Golden Horde (1419-24, 1427-38). Half-brother of Meḥmed Girāy K̲h̲ān I (920-9/1515-23 [ q.v.]), Ṣāḥib Girāy was instrumental in this latter k̲h̲ān’s new hostile policy against Muscovy, their father Mengli Girāy’s traditional ally. In 927/1521, Ṣāḥib Girāy was able with t…

(a. and p.), a title meaning “Lord of the (auspicious) conjunction”. Ḳirān means a conjunction of the planets, ḳirān al-saʿdayn [see al-saʿdān ] a conjunction of the two auspicious planets (Jupiter and Venus), and ḳirān al-naḥsayn a conjunction of the two inauspicious planets (Saturn and Mars). In the title, the word refers, of course, to the former only. The Persian i of the iḍāfa is omitted, as in ṣāḥib-dil , by fakk-i iḍāfa. The title was first assumed by the Amīr Tīmūr, who is said to have been born under a fortunate conjunction, but with whom its assumption was…

(a.), an administrative function found in mediaeval Islamic Spain. Documentation for this is almost exclusively found in regard to al-Andalus. The Granadan jurist Ibn Sahl [ q.v.], in his al-Aḥkām al-kubrā , mentions it amongst the six traditional functions ( k̲h̲uṭṭa or “magistratures”) which gave their holders the right to pronounce judgements (the ḳāḍī , the ṣāḥib al-s̲h̲urṭa , the s. al-maẓālim , the ṣ. al-radd , the ṣ. al-madīna and the ṣ. al-sūḳ ). According to the Valencian Ibn al-Abbār [ q.v.], there existed until the 7th/13th century two distinct magistratures, se. the ṣāḥib al-…

(a.), lit. “a flat object, a plaque, a leaf, whence “a surface or material on which one can write”, applied especially to fragments of the Ḳurʾān or ḥadīt̲h̲ or any other document of a solemn nature, whence finally, the written texts themselves. The pl. ṣuḥuf is uncommon for feminine nouns (but cf. madīna , pl. mudun “town”, safīna pl. sufun “ship”). 1. Linguistic usage. The term appears contemporaneously with the advent of Islam, but must evidently have existed before then. In Ḳurʾān, XLIII, 71, ṣiḥāf also appears as a pl. of ṣaḥfa , with the sense “plates, platters”, but ṣuḥuf appears eight…

(a.), literally, “sound, healthy”. 1. As a technical term in the science of ḥadīt̲h̲ [ q.v.], i.e. Muslim tradition. It did not come into use immediately with the onset of isnād criticism, for al-Rāmahurmuzī (d. 360/970 [ q.v.]), who wrote the first systematic work on ḥadīt̲h̲, does not seem to have applied it yet. It is used by mediaeval as well as modern Muslim tradition experts (sometimes followed in this by some western scholars) to describe or qualify one particular prophetic tradition or a whole collection of such traditions. Ṣaḥīḥ traditions constitute o…

(a.), European form Sahel, a geographical term meaning “edge, border zone”. It is, grammatically, an active participle with a passive meaning ( fāʿil bi-maʿnā mafʿūl , see e.g. LʿA , ed. Beirut ¶ 1375/1956, xi, 328a, “eaten away by the sea” whence “shore”. The term has various regional applications, in accordance with the meaning “fringe area, zone”. 1. In the Mag̲h̲rib . The Sāḥil of Tunisia (Sāḥil of Sousse, Sāḥil of Sfax). This is the coastal region of the low steppes of the north, around the towns of Sousse, Monastir and Mahdia, having a maritime clima…

( Celal Sahir Erozan ), Ottoman and early Republican Turkish poet and author, born in 1299/1883, died in 1935. He was the son of Ismāʿīl Ḥaḳḳi̊ Pas̲h̲a of Yemen and Fehime Nüzhet of the Tatar Ḥād̲j̲ī Dāwūd K̲h̲ān family, herself an author and poet. Sāhir grew up with his mother in Istanbul, attended the Dāwūd Pas̲h̲a Rūs̲h̲diyye and the Wefā Iʿdādī schools and took private French lessons. He began writing poetry at the age of 14, and his poems were first published in T̲h̲erwet-i fünān [ q.v.], the journal of the literary group Edebiyyāt-i̊ d̲j̲edīde . When the group renewed itself under the name F…

, literally, “level, smooth place”. There must have been several places in the Arabic lands named after this obvious topographical feature. Yāḳūṭ, Buldān , ed. Beirut, iii, 290-1, mentions a village in Bahrayn and a masd̲j̲id of that name in Kūfa (perhaps the mosque also known as the Ẓāfir one or that of ʿAbd al-Ḳays, cf. Hichem Djaït, Al-Kūfa , naissance de la ville islamique, Paris 1986, 298). (Ed.) Bibliography Given in the article.

(or Rāhīyūn, Rāhyūn, Rāmnūy), Persian author, translator, and a poet of great repute who wrote in Arabic in the early ʿAbbāsid period and died in 215/830. He was born in Dast-i Maysān or in Maysān [ q.v.] in southeastern ʿIrāḳ. His family, originally from Nīs̲h̲āpūr, had moved to the Maysān region and then to Baṣra, whence his nisba al-Baṣrī. The period of his youth and early education remains in obscurity. He attracted public attention first as the secretary of Hārūn al-Ras̲h̲īd’s vizier Yaḥyā b. K̲h̲ālid al-Barmakī (170-87/786-803). Under Yaḥyā, he wa…

, Abū Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Yūnus b. ʿĪsā b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Rafīʿ, an influential Ṣūfī of mediaeval Islam, was probably born in 203/818 in Tustar, K̲h̲ūzistān, and died in 283/896 in Baṣra. The essential course of his life can be reconstructed on the basis of fragmentary hagiographical accounts, included in the Ṣūfī primary sources, and incidental references of Islamic historical literature. Until a short time after his pilgrimage to Mecca in 219/834, al-Tustarī received his basic education from his maternal uncle Muḥammad b. Sawwār (who transmitted ḥadīt̲h̲ …

(a.) “arrow”. For the use of arrows in archery, see ḳaws . 1. In science. a. Geometrical term. If one erects a perpendicular c b in the middle of a chord of an arc, which reaches to the arc, this is called al-sahm, the versed sine ( al-d̲j̲ayb al-maʿkūs ) of the arc a b; the sine ( al-d̲j̲ayb al-mustawī ), which corresponds to our sine, is a c (see—in ¶ addition to many other passages— al-K̲h̲wārazmī. Mafātīh al-ʿulūm ed. van Vloten, 205). The versed sine played a much more important part in the older mathematics from the Hindus onwards than it does in modern mathematics (cf. e.g. A. von Braunmühl, Gesch…

, Ḥamza b. Yūsuf al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī al-D̲j̲urd̲j̲ānī. Abu ’l-Ḳāsim (b. at an unknown date towards the middle of the 4th/10th century, d. 427/1038 at Nīs̲h̲āpūr), traditionist and legal scholar. A native of Gurgān [ q.v.] in the Caspian coastlands, where he was a k̲h̲aṭīb and preacher, his major work, and apparently the sole surviving one, is his Taʾrīk̲h̲ D̲j̲urd̲j̲ān or Kitāb Maʿrifat ʿulamāʾ ahl D̲j̲urd̲j̲ān , essentially a rid̲j̲āl [ q.v.] work devoted to the scholars and muḥaddit̲h̲ūn of his native province, to which is prefixed (ed. Ḥaydarābād 1369/…

, a small town in the Zagros Mountains of western Persia on the highroad between Kangāwar and Bīsutūn at 61 km/38 miles from Kirmāns̲h̲āh [ q.v.]. The district of Ṣaḥna contains about 28 villages inhabited by settled Turks belonging to the tribe of K̲h̲odābandalū (of Hamadān). At Ṣaḥna there are a few Ahl-i-Ḥaḳḳ [ q.v.], who are in touch with their spiritual superiors in Dīnawar [ q.v.], a frontier district in the north. Ṣaḥna must not be confused with Sinna [ q.v.] or Sanandad̲j̲ [ q.v.], the capital of the Persian province of Kurdistān, the former residence of the Wālīs of Ardalān [ q.v.]. Quit…

or Medāris-i T̲h̲amāniyye , the eight medreses or colleges [see madrasa ] founded by the Ottoman sultan Meḥemmed II [ q.v.] as part of the ancillaries to his great Fātiḥ Mosque, the whole forming a külliyye [ q.v.] or complex. The külliyye was begun in 867/1463 and completed in 875/1471, and the architect responsible was one Sinān, called variously “the Elder”, to distinguish him from the great architect of the following century, Ḳod̲j̲a Sinān [see sinān ], or ʿĀṭik or Āzādli “the freedman”, implying that he had been of non-Turkish slave status. The eight medreses were situated to the eas…

, Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Salām b. Saʿīd b. Ḥabīb b. Ḥassān b. Hilāl b. Bakkār b. Rabīʿa al-Tanūk̲h̲ī (160-Rad̲j̲ab 240/777-December 855) (nicknamed Saḥnūn, it is said, on account of his shrewdness, or from the name of a bird), a Kairouan faḳīh who played a decisive role in the conversion to the Mālikiyya [ q.v.] of Muslim Spain and of the entire Mag̲h̲rib where, even today, there exist only a few Ibāḍī pockets (the island of D̲j̲erba and Mzab), and a small number of Ḥanafīs. The question as to whether Saḥnūn was an Arab by ¶ pedigree or by virtue of clientship was sometimes asked, and was res…