Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

b. Zayyān b. T̲h̲ābit , Abū Yaḥyā, s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ of the Banū ʿAbd al-Wād, a branch of the Zanāta [ q.v.] Berbers, who lived in the region of Tlemcen [see tilimsān ] under the suzerainty of the Almohad sultans of Morocco, and who was the founder of the independent dynasty of the Zayyānids or ʿAbd al-Wādids [ q.v.] of Tlemcen, d. 681/1283. Born in 603/1206-7 or 605/1208-9, he succeeded his brother Abū ʿUzza Zaydān as head of the ʿAbd al-Wādids in 633/1236, but not till 637/1239-40 was he formally invested by the Almohad sultan ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Ras̲h̲īd. T…

, a god of pre-Islamic Arabia, mentioned in the Ḳurʾān in a speech of Noah: “They have said: Forsake not your gods. Forsake not Wadd, nor Suwāʿ, nor Yag̲h̲ūt̲h̲, Yaʿūḳ and Nasr (LXXI, 22-3). Traditionists and commentators (see the references given by Hawting, The idea of idolatry, 113 and n. 6) have exercised their ingenuity in the search for the traces of Yag̲h̲ūt̲h̲ in Arabia. Ibn al-Kalbī (d. 204/819 or 206/821) in his Book of the Idols ( Kitāb al-Asnām , §§ 7c, 9d, 45e, 52a) relates in laconic style: “[the tribe of] Mad̲h̲ḥid̲j̲ and the people of Ḏ…

, the common collective (sing. ϒahūdī ) in Arabic for “Jews”. A less common plural Hūd is also used (e.g. Ḳurʾān, II, 111, 135, 140). The word is borrowed from Aram. ϒahūd , and ultimately from late bibl. Heb. yehūdīm , “Judaeans”, the latter itself derived from members of the tribe of Judah). The Ḳurʾān also uses a stative verb hāda , “to be Jewish” or “to practice Judaism”. 1. In the D̲j̲āhiliyya. Jews had lived in various parts of the Arabian Peninsula since Antiquity, and the numbers of those living in northwestern Arabia must have been swelled by refugees from J…

, S̲h̲eyk̲h̲ al-Islām , Ottoman legal scholar and poet, d. 1053/1644. ¶ The son of S̲h̲eyk̲h̲ al-Islām Bayrāmzāde Zekeriyyā Efendi, Yaḥyā was born in Istanbul in 969/1561 (some sources give the birth date 959). As the scion of an important ʿulemāʾ family, he underwent a rigorous private education under the tutelage of his father and several other noted scholars, including ʿAbd al-Ḏj̲ebbārzāde Dervīs̲h̲ Meḥmed Efendi and Maʿlūlzāde Seyyid Meḥmed Efendi. In 988/1580, at 19 years of age, he was granted a mulāzimet and went on to teach in the most important madrasa s …

[see al-anṭāḳī ].

b. al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī, Medinan ʿAlid leader of a revolt in Daylam and Zaydī imām . His mother was Ḳurayba bt. Rukayḥ b. Abī ʿUbayda b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Zamʿa b. al-Aswad, niece of the mother of his paternal brothers Muḥammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya [ q.v.] and Ibrāhīm, leaders of the Ḥasanid revolt against the caliph al-Manṣūr in 145/762. As a much younger brother, born perhaps around 128/745-6, he did not participate in that revolt. He was partly brought up and taught by the Imāmī S̲h̲īʿī imām D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ [ q.v.], presumably after the imprisonment of his father in 140/758, a…

b. Sulaymān, Abū Zakariyyāʾ al-Kūfï, Ḳurʾān, ḥadīt̲h̲ and fiḳh scholar, d. 203/818. He had the nisbas al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī and al-Umawī because, through his father Ādam who was probably of Persian origin, he was a client ( mawlā ) of a certain K̲h̲ālid b. K̲h̲ālid b. ʿUmāra b. al-Walīd b. ʿUḳba b. Abī Mu’ayt al-Umawī, also al-Mak̲h̲zūmī (e.g. in al-Nawawī, but according to Schacht in EI 1, this is a mistake), and the laḳab is al-Aḥwal (Sezgin, i, 520; S̲h̲ākir, 8). His biography as transmitted is very sparse. Born after 130/747-8, probably ca. 140/757-8, he grew up and for the most part live…

, Christian Arab philosopher and theologian, translator and commentator of the works of Aristotle. Coming from the Christian town of Takrīt on the Tigris (but given a Persian genealogy in some of the manuscripts), he spent his active life in Bag̲h̲dād, where he earned his living as a copyist and bookseller ( warrāk ) ; this activity is recorded by his contemporary Ibn al-Nadīm (d. 380/990 [ q.v.]), who drew extensively on Yaḥyā’s library for information on the Greek philosophers and their Arabic transmitters ( Fihrist , 264, cf. 246, 250-3). There he died on…

, Abū Muḥammad al-Marwazi al-Tamīmī, faḳīh who had been a pupil of al-S̲h̲āfiʿī. judge and counsellor of ʿAbbāsid caliphs, d. 242/857. A native of Marw, he became Grand Judge ( ḳāḍī ’l-ḳuḍāt ) of Bag̲h̲dād after having been being appointed judge in Baṣra by al-Ḥasan b. Sahl [ q.v.] in 202/817-18. He soon became a member of al-Maʾmūn’s court circle as an adviser and boon-companion, thus exemplifying a trend under this caliph to take legal scholars rather than administrators as political counsellors. He accompanied al-Maʾmūn to Syria and Egypt …

[see munad̲j̲d̲j̲im , banu ’l -. 4].

(Beg) [see tas̲h̲li̊d̲j̲al i̊ yaḥyā ].

, rhetorician, Zaydī scholar and imām (669-745/1270-1344; a death date of 749/1348 is also mentioned). Yaḥyā b. Ḥamza b. ʿAlī b. Ibrāhīm al-Ḥusaynī al-ʿAlawī al-Ṭālibī, a versatile and prolific Yemeni scholar, was descended from ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib and the imām ʿAlī al-Riḍā [ q.vv.]. He was born in Ṣanʿāʾ and played a role in politics, for after the death of al-Mahdī Muḥammad b. al-Muṭahhar in 729/1329 he ruled over part of Yemen as Zaydī imām under the name al-Muʾayyad bi ’llāh until his death. It is said that the number of quires ( karārīs ) written by him equalled t…

[see al-barāmika ].

b. ʿAwn al-Murrī al-G̲h̲aṭafanī al-Bag̲h̲dādī, Abū Zakariyyāʾ , traditionist, b. 158/775 near al-Anbār, d. 233/847 on pilgrimage in Medina. A client ( mawla ) of al-D̲j̲unayd b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Murrī, he inherited considerable wealth from his father and is reported to have spent it all on the acquisition of ḥadīt̲h̲ . Among his teachers were Sufyān b. ʿUyayna and Ibn al-Mubārak [ q.vv.]. Authorities like Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, al-Buk̲h̲ārī and Ibn Saʿd are reported to have been among his pupils. Together with Ibn Saʿd and five others, he was ordered in 218/833…

, al-Manṣūr al-Mutawakkil, of the Ḥamīd al-Dīn family, from the Ḳāsirm branch, Zaydī Imām and first ruler of the Mutawakkilī Kingdom of Yemen, b. ca . 1869, d. 1948. ¶ On the death in June 1904 of his father Muḥammad b. Yaḥyā Hamfd al-Dīn, who had in 1891 rebelled against the Ottomans, Yaḥyā obtained the bayʿa of most of the tribes and sayyid clans of Yemen and assumed the laḳab of al-Mutawakkil ʿalā ’llāh. Rejecting, like his predecessors, the authority of the Porte, he rose against the Turks and in April 1905 captured the capital Ṣanʿāʾ an…

[see newʿī ].

[see al-Ḳurṭubī ].

(d. 234/848), Cordovan faḳīh , descendant of a Berber (Maṣmūda) soldier who entered the Peninsula at the time of the conquest. His family, known as the Banū Abī ʿĪsā, was always closely connected to the Umayyad family whom they served with the pen and the sword. Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā was the first member of the family to devote himself to religious knowledge ( ʿilm ). He took part in movements of opposition against the Umayyad amīr al-Ḥakam I, being mentioned among the participants in the famous Revolt of the Arrabal (al-Rabaḍ). He …

, the New Testament John the Baptist, mentioned by name five times in the Ḳurʾān. The spelling of the name is evidenced from pre-Islamic times and is probably derived from Christian Arabic usage (see J. Horovitz, Koranische Untersuchungen , Berlin 1926, 151-2; A. Jeffery, Foreign vocabulary of the Quran , Baroda 1938, 290-1); Muslim exegetes frequently trace the name from a root sense of “to quicken” or “to make alive” in reference to John’s mother’s barrenness and his people’s absence of faith. In Ḳurʾān, III, 39, John i…

b. ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn , ʿAlid fugitive and rebel killed late in 125/summerautumn 743. His mother was Rayṭa, daughter of Abū Hās̲h̲im [ q.v.] b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya. As the eldest son of Zayd b. ʿAlī, he participated in Zayd’s revolt in Kūfa in Muḥarram 122/end of 739. After his father’s death, he escaped, relentlessly sought by Yūsuf b. ʿUmar al-T̲h̲akafī, governor of ʿĪrāḳ [ q.v.] Yaḥyā went first to Nīnawā near Karbalāʾ. He was then given protection by the Umayyad ʿAbd al-Malik b. Bis̲h̲ī b. Marwān, who concealed him in a village owned by him that later became Ḳaṣr Ibn Hubayra [ q.v.]. Afte…