Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

(a.), “The interpretation of dreams”. As well as this expression, tafsīr al-aḥlām is employed, with taʿbīr , basically “the passage of one thing to another, one sense to another”, hence “explanation” and tafsīr , lit. “commenting, explaining”, from roots occurring in other Semitic languages and with the two Arabic verbal nouns found, once each, in the Ḳurʾān, at XII, 43, and XXV, 33, with taʾwīl [ q.v.] also at XII, 44-5. In current usage, taʿbīr is confined to the sense of “interpretation of dreams”, whilst tafsīr [ q.v.] is used for commentaries on e.g. the Bible and the Ḳurʾān. For the ter…

(a.) (sing. tābiʿ or tābiʿī ), usually translated as Successors, means the Successors of the Companions of the Prophet [see ṣaḥāba ]. The Successors are the members of the generation of Muslims that followed the Companions, or those Muslims who knew one or more of the Companions but not the Prophet himself. They played a significant role in the early stages of Ḳurʾān commentary [see tafsīr ], the biography of the Prophet including the history of his campaigns [see mag̲h̲āzī ; sīra ; taʾrīk̲h̲ ], jurisprudence [see fiḳh ] and the collection and dissemination of traditions [see ḥadīt̲h̲ …

(a), the action of cooking either in a pot, by boiling or stewing; or by roasting, broiling, frying or baking. Beyond the narrow sense of cooking only fleshmeat, ṭabk̲h̲ meant the transformation from a raw state of every conceivable foodstuff for consumption. Possibly the Arabic substantive for “cook” ( ṭabbāk̲h̲ [ q.v.]) also contained the Hebrew sense of serving food at table, in addition to its preparation. According to some lexicons, cooked food, ṭabīk̲h̲ , was distinguished from ḳadīr , the latter specifying fleshmeat cooked in a pot seasoned wit…

, the generic name for any instrument of the drum family. Islamic tradition attributes its “invention” to Tūbal b. Lamak (al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , viii, 88-9 = § 3213, and see lamak), whilst another piece of gossip says that Ismāʿīl, the founder of the mustaʿriba Arabs [ q.v.], was the first to sound it (Ewliyā Čelebi, Travels , i/2, 239). The word is connected with Aramaic tablā . According to al-Fayyūmī (733/1333-4), the term ṭabl was applied to a drum with a single membrane ( d̲j̲ild ) as well as to that with two membranes. This, however, does not include the duff or tambourine [ q.v.]. It is cer…

see daʿwa ].

(in Arabic, Ḏj̲amāʿat al-tablīg̲h̲ ), a Muslim missionary organisation founded in India around 1927 and established after 1947 throughout the world. The internal designation is dīnī daʿwat , religious mission, from the term daʿwa [ q.v.], taken here in the modern sense of a proselytizing undertaking. The movement is founded on five basic principles. The invitation ( daʿwat in Urdu, for daʿwa) to the practice of Islam is not the business of an élite of religious specialists but the individual responsibility of all Muslims who are required to devote time an…

, Naḳḳār-Ḵh̲āna , Naḳḳāra-Ḵh̲āna , Nawba-Ḵh̲āna , literally the “Drum House”, “Kettledrum House”, “Military Band House”, the name given in Islamic lands to the military band and its quarters in camp or town. These names are derived from the drums ( ṭabl, naḳḳāra) which formed the chief instruments of the military band, and from the name given to the special type of music ( nawba ) performed by this band. Originally, the naḳḳāra-k̲h̲āna or ṭabl-k̲h̲āna consisted of drums only, and in some instances of particular kinds of drums. This we know from s…

(Ṭabarsī), Abū Manṣūr Aḥmad b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib , Imāmī scholar and author. (For the vocalisation of his nisba see the next entry.) He lived in the first half of the 6th/12th century; the death-date of ca. 620/1223 given by some late sources is probably erroneous. Virtually nothing is known of his life; the claim that he hailed from Sāriya [ q.v.] (Ḵh̲wānsārī, i, 73), like the claim that he was related to al-Faḍl b. al-Ḥasan al-Ṭabrisī [ q.v.], appears to be uncorroborated. He studied with Abū Ḏj̲aʿfar Mahdī b. al-Ḥasan al-Ḥusaynī al-Marʿas̲h̲ī, and Ibn S̲h̲ahrās̲h̲ūb [ q.v.] was among his …

(Ṭabarsī), Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ Mīrzā Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad Taḳī Nūrī (1254-1320/1839-1902) It̲h̲nā-ʿas̲h̲arī S̲h̲īʿī scholar and divine considered by some to have been the greatest S̲h̲īʿī exponent of ḥadīt̲h̲ and ak̲h̲bār since Muḥammad Bāḳir al-Mad̲j̲lisī (d. 1699 [ q.v.]). Ṭabrisī first studied in his home province of Nūr in northern Persia under S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Burūd̲j̲irdī, with whom he later travelled to the S̲h̲īʿī shrine centres in ʿIrāḳ. He studied in Nad̲j̲af, Karbalāʾ and Sāmarrā for several years (with intervals in Pers…

(Ṭabarsī), Amīn al-Dīn (or Amīn al-Islām ) Abū ʿAlī al-Faḍl b. al-Ḥasan , Imāmī scholar and author. His nisba refers to Ṭabris (Ṭabris̲h̲), which is the Arabicised form of Tafris̲h̲, a village between Ḳās̲h̲ān and Iṣfahān mentioned by ʿAlī b. Zayd al-Bayhaḳī (d. 565/1169-70) as the place of origin of al-Ṭabrisī’s family ( Tārīk̲h̲-i Bayhaḳ , 420). The pronunciation Ṭabarsī was first defended by some 17th-century Ṣafawid scholars, who took the nisba Ṭ-b-r-s-ī to refer to Ṭabaristān; and in the following two centuries, a number of S̲h̲īʿī author…

, the traditional capital of the Persian province of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān [ q.v.] and now the administrative centre of the ustān of eastern Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān (lat. 38° 05′ N., long. 46° 18′ E., altitude ca. 1,340 m/4,400 feet). 1. Geography and history. Geographical position. The town lies in the eastern corner of the alluvial plain sloping slightly towards the north-east bank of Lake Urmiya. The plain is watered by several streams, the chief of which is the Ad̲j̲i̊ čay (“bitter river”) which, rising in the south-west face of Mount Sawalān…

, Muḥammad Ḥusayn [see muḥammad ḥusayn tabrīzī ]. ¶

, the nisba normally to be expected from the name of the city in Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān of Tabrīz [ q.v.]. This was, however, hypercorrected by early Arab writers to al-Tibrīzī Hence in the EI early scholars writing in Arabic appear under this latter form, whereas those writing in Persian during later times or emanating from Tabrīz appear under Tabrīzī

, Aḥmad Kasrawī [see kasrawī tabrīzī ].

, S̲h̲ams-i [see s̲h̲ams-i tabrīz(ī)].

, Muḥammad Ḥusayn b. Ḵh̲alaf [see burhān ].

, Muḥammad ʿAṣṣār [see ʿaṣṣār ].

, Ḳāsim-i Anwār [see ḳāsim-i anwār ].

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim, a saint of the Suhrawardiyya [ q.v.] order (date of death perhaps 642/1244; G̲h̲ulām Sarwar-i Lāhawrī, Ḵh̲azīnat al-asfiyāʾ ). Together with Bahāʾ al-Dīn Zakariyyā [ q.v.], D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn is to be counted as the founder of the order in India (Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, A history of Sufism in India, New Delhi 1978, i, 190). After the death of his teacher Badr al-Dīn Abū Saʿīd Tabrīzī, D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn went to Bag̲h̲dād to join Abū Ḥafṣ ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī (d. 632/1234 [ q.v.]), the eponym of the order, as a disciple, when al-Suhrawardī was already old. D̲j̲alāl a…

(a.), lit. “proclamation, spreading of the good news”, a term used in modern works for Christian proselytism in various forms and the work of missionaries ( mubas̲h̲s̲h̲irūn ) within the Islamic world. The use of the word, if not the activity which it denotes, does not seem to go back beyond the end of the 19th century, being at one and the same time contemporaneous with the Arab renaissance ( Nahḍa [ q.v.]), European colonialism and the development of Christian missions. It seems to be a term of Christian origin, corresponding to its usage in Arabic translations of the Bible for Grk. evangelion…