Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

, the seventeenth letter of the Arabic alphabet, numerical value: 900 The transliteration /ẓ/ reflects an urban/sedentary pronunciation as “emphatic” (pharyngealised) /z/. Sībawayh (d. 177/793 [ q.v.]), however, describes the sound as an “emphatic” voiced interdental, thus /ḏ̣/ (iv, 436), and this is the way it is pronounced in those dialects, mainly Bedouin, that have preserved the interdentals. There is, however, an additional complication: with ¶ very few exceptions (in Northern Yemen, see Behnstedt, 5), all modern dialects of Arabic have coalesced the sou…

[see zāy ].

, the name of two left-bank tributaries of the Tigris [see did̲j̲la ] in northern ʿIrāḳ, both of them rising in the Zagros mountain chain in Kurdistān. 1. The Great or Upper Zāb ( al-Zāb al-akbar or al-aʿlā ) was already known to the Assyrians, as Zabu ēlū “the upper Zāb”, and appears in classical Greek as Λύκος (cf. PW, xiii, cols. 2391-2), Byzantine Greek as ὁ μέγας Ζάβας, in Syriac as Zāb̲ā and in later Armenian as Zav . In Kurdish it is known today as the Zēʾ-i Bādinān and in Turkish as Zap J. Markwart discussed possible etymologies and suggested a link with older Aramaic dēb̲ā …

, with its pl. Zībān , the name of a region of the Algerian Sahara around Biskra [ q.v.], ¶ extending over an area of ca. 150 km/100 miles from west to east and 40 km/25 miles from north to south. 1. Geography. The Zībān form part of the great Saharan piedmont which stretches from Agadir to Gabès. Within this, they have a special dual role, the first role derived from their position at the narrowest part of the Mag̲h̲ribī mountain rim and at the opening of the great southern axis of communication of eastern Algeria (Skikda-Constantine-Ba…

, the name currendy given to a town of Syria, and also to an administrative region ( minṭaḳa idāriyya ), to a smaller administrative unit ( nāḥiya ) composed of eight villages and six farms ( mazraʿa ), and to a river which flows from the north through the town. Various fanciful etymologies have been suggested from zabad , some of them alluding to its fertility. Whatever the case, Zabadānī was and still is known for the abundance of its apple trees. Under the Byzantines, the town of Zabadānī was attached to the bis̲h̲opric of the town of Abilla in Sūḳ Wādī Baradā, but after t…

, the name of an island placed in the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean by the Arabic geographical writers. It appears as early as the Akabār al-Ṣīn wa ’l-Hind of Sulaymān al-Tād̲j̲ir and in the K. al-Masālik wa ’lmamālik of Ibn K̲h̲urradād̲h̲bih (3rd/9th century) and then in almost all subsequent texts, and the title of its ruler, the Mahārād̲j̲[ā], is also regularly used from an early date. The location of Zābad̲j̲ in Southeast Asia is certain. The Arabic authors describe it as a trading empire, and place it in relation to known places, such as India, Ḳimār [ q.v.] (Khmer = Cambodia) an…

(a.), a word found in Ḳurʾān, XCVI, 18, usually interpreted by the commentators as the guardians of Hell or else the angels who carry off the souls at death [see malāʾika. 1]. A. Jeffery, The foreign vocabulary of the Qurʾān , Baroda 1938, 148, thought that an origin from Syriac zabūrā , the ductores who, says Ephraim Syrus, lead the departed souls for judgment was likely; but W. Eilers, Iranisches Lehngut im arabischen , in Indo-Iranian Jnal , v (1962), 220, favoured an Iranian etymology, from MP zen ( dān ) bān “warder, keeper of a prison”, NP zindānbān . (Ed.) Bibliography Given in the article.

, the more common of the two Arabic names given in the Islamic sources to the famous Queen of Tadmur/Palmyra, the other being Nāʾila, undoubtedly identifiable with the Greek and Aramaic forms of her name, Zenobia and Bat̲h̲-Zabbay, both attested epigraphically. Al-Zabbāʾ “the hairy (?)” was possibly her surname while Nāʾila was her given name. In spite of embroideries and accretions that have accumulated around her in the Islamic sources, these are valuable as they document the Arab profile of the history of al-Zabbāʾ, on which the Classical sources…

(a.), dried grapes, raisins, or currants. In the mediaeval Islamic culinary tradition, raisins were deemed indispensable for meat dishes of chicken or mutton with a sweet-sour character, such as those of Persian origin called zirbād̲j̲ or sikbād̲j̲ . [ q.v.], in which the sweetness of the dried grapes (sometimes combined with another dried fruit like apricot or additional sugar) is balanced by the acidity of vinegar. In another kind of preparation, the meat is initially cooked in a vinegar and raisin stock. A dish called zabībiyya , probably of Egyptian prov…

, a town in the Tihāma [ q.v.] coastal plain of Yemen, at about 25 km/15 miles from the Red Sea, in a region of fertile agricultural lands irrigated by two major wādīs , Zabīd to the south and Rimaʿ to the north. It is the centre of an administrative district, a mudīriyya , with the same name, which falls under the jurisdiction of the governorate of al-Ḥudayda [ q.v.]. 1. History. Originally known as al-Ḥuṣayb, a village of the As̲h̲āʿir tribe, Zabīd took on the name of the wādī , to which it owed its prosperity, when it was founded in S̲h̲aʿbān 204/January 820 by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Ziyād [see ziyād…

[see muḥammad murtaḍā ].

, the name found in early Islamic times for a region of what is now eastern Afg̲h̲anistān, roughly covering the modern Afg̲h̲ān provinces of G̲h̲aznī and Zābul. The early geographers describe what was a remote region on the far eastern frontiers of the Dār al-Islām in understandably vague terms as an extensive province with G̲h̲azna [ q.v.] as its centre. It thus emerges that it lay between Kābul and the Kābul river valley on the north and the territories around the confluence of the Helmand river and Arg̲h̲andāb known as Zamīndāwar and al-Ruk̲h̲k̲h̲ad̲j̲ [ q.vv.], but the boundaries her…

(a.), a term found in pre-Islamic poetry referring to a written text, and in the Ḳurʾān referring to divine scripture, in some contexts specifically to a scripture of David [see dāwūd ], probably the Psalms. The Arabic root z-b-r is associated with “stone” ( ḥid̲j̲āra ), and verbal forms from it convey such meanings as stoning, lining a well with stones or setting stones in walls according to an overlapping pattern (an unrelated word is zubra , said to designate a piece of iron). A further range of meanings associated with the root conveys the sens…

(a.), the name of a genre of vernacular strophic poetry that acquired literary status around 500/1100 in al-Andalus. It was cultivated by numerous Andalusian poets (the most famous being Ibn Ḳuzmān ( q.v.]), later also spreading to the Mag̲h̲rib and the Arabic-speaking East. Since the 7th/13th century its strophic structure is also encountered in the poetry of several Romance languages. In presentday Arabic the term zad̲j̲al may denote various types of dialect poems, even those with monorhyme. The non-technical meaning of zad̲j̲al is “a voice, sound or cry, or the uttering o…

, Abū Isḥāḳ Ibrāhīm b. al-Sarī , Arabic grammarian who worked most of his life in Bag̲h̲dād; he was born ca. 230/844 and died in 311/923. He was the main teacher of al-Zad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ī [ q.v.], who took his nisba from him. Among his other pupils are al-Fārisī, Ibn Wallād and al-Rummānī [ q.vv.]. Al-Zad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ himself had learnt grammar from both T̲h̲aʿlab and al-Mubarrad [ q.vv.], combining in his own teachings what he had learnt from these representatives of both the Baṣran and the Kūfan schools. He may be regarded as the link between the old generations ¶ of Kūfan and Baṣran grammar…

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Isḥāḳ, famed Arabic grammarian. He was born in Nihāwand in western Persia in the second half of the 3rd century A.H. (i.e. around 860-70), received his training as a grammarian in Bag̲h̲dād, and was active in Damascus and Aleppo. He probably died in Ṭabariyya (Tiberias), either in 337/948 or 339-40/949-50. Almost nothing is known about his life except for a few anecdotes. It is clear from his grammatical writings that he was a Muʿtazilī (he mentions with approval such typically Muʿtazilī tenets as al-kalām fi ’l al-mutakallim and the non-identity of ism and mu…

[see ʿiyāfa ].

, i.e. Ẓafār i, the name of the ancient capital of the South Arabian kingdom of Ḥimyar. The present small village of the same name on the ruins of the ancient town is located approximately 8 km/5 miles to the south of the town of Yarīm; the geographical co-ordinates of Ẓafār are lat. 14° 13′ N. and long. 44° 24′ E. The identity of the site has been known in Yemen since Antiquity and is confirmed by Late Sabaic inscription ¶ found at this place. The site of Ẓafār is located at the foot of a hilltop with the ruins of an ancient castle, and remains of foundations and walls can…

, a former settlement on the Indian Ocean coast and modern name of the Southern Region of the Sultanate of Oman. In early, mediaeval and late mediaeval times it was never actually a port, and is now a ruined site called al-Balrd, a few miles to the east of the chief town of the southern region, Ṣalāla [ q.v.]. In modern times, the name came to be used for the whole of the Southern Region of the Sultanate of Oman [see ʿumān ] and was officially Anglicised as Dhofar. There can be no longer any doubt about the correct vocalisation of the Arabic name, for both lexicographers (e.g. Ibn Manẓūr, LA, Beirut 195…

(a.) saffron, Crocus sativus L. or Crocus officinalis Pers., one of some eighty species of low-growing perennial plants of the family Iridaceae, found throughout the Mediterranean area, mid-Europe and Central Asia. A product, used in antiquity as an important source of yellow orange dye, was obtained from the stigma ( s̲h̲aʿr , s̲h̲uʿayra ) of the sterile cultigen C. sativus. 1. Domestic uses. Saffron was, and remains, also widely used in Middle Eastern culinary traditions. In the extant Arabic culinary manuals of the mediaeval period (4th/10th to 8th/14th …

, ʿAṭāʾ b. Usayd (or Asīd) Abu ’l-Mirḳāl al-ʿUwāfī al-Saʿdī, Umayyad rad̲j̲az poet, fl. ca. 80/700. His Dīwān , collected by Muḥammad b. Ḥabīb, has been only incompletely preserved (ten fragmentary poems, 230 verses) and published by W. Ahlwardt ( Sammlungen alter arabischer Dichter , ii, 1903, lx-lxv, 91-100; with four additional fragments, 30 verses). The Dīwān was in better condition when used by al-Ṣag̲h̲ānī in the 7th/13th century. Further fragments (41 verses), with corrections to the edition of Ahlwardt, have been collected in J. Hämeen-Anttila, az-Zafayān and his place in…

, Abū Manṣūr Ismāʿīl , twelfth Fāṭimid caliph and the ninth to reign in Egypt (born mid-Rabīʿ II 527/February 1133, r. 544-9/1149-54). His four older brothers having predeceased their father, ʿAbd al-Mad̲j̲īd al-Ḥāfiẓ, the latter appointed him, in writing, as heir to the caliphate. Al-Ẓāfir, at sixteen years of age, received the bayʿa on Sunday, 4 ¶ D̲j̲umādā II 544/10 October 1149, the day following the night of his father’s death, at a time when Cairo was the scene of confrontation between Turkish cavalry and black military sl…

, Abū Manṣūr (Abū Naṣr in al-Dānī, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim in al-Maḳrīzī, see Bibl .) b. al-Ḳāsim al-Barḳī, Fāṭimid poet from Alexandria. His father was from D̲j̲ud̲h̲ām and his mother from Lak̲h̲m, tribes which had migrated to Egypt in early Islamic times. His date of birth is unknown. He died in D̲h̲u ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 528/Sept.-Oct. 1134 or Muḥarram 529/Oct.-Nov. 1134. At first he worked as a blacksmith like his father, but was drawn to literature and frequented meetings of poets until they acknowledged him as one of their own. He wrote panegyrics on governors an…

, conventionally Dhafarah, the interior region of the shaykhdom of Abū Ẓaby [ q.v.], now a constituent of the United Arab Emirates [see al-imārāt al-ʿarabiyya al-muttaḥida , in Suppl.], the undefined southern frontier of which marches with the easternmost part of Saudi Arabia. Al-Ẓafra forms the traditional territory of the Banū Yās [ q.v.] and the Banu ’l-Manāṣīr [ q.v.]. (Ed.) Bibliography J.G. Lorimer, Gazeteer of the Persian Gulf, ʾ Oman and Central Arabia, Calcutta 1908-15, ii.A, 412-26.

(Greek forms Záganos, etc., cf. Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica 2, ii, Berlin 1958, 128-9), Ottoman official and general of the 9th/15th century, Grand Vizier 1444-52 and commander-inchief of the army 1452-64, in which last year he probably died. He was an ex-Christian of the dews̲h̲irme [ q.v.], possibly of Greek or Albanian origin, and was both the son-in-law of sultan Murād II and father-in-law of Meḥemmed II [ q.vv.]. He was tutor and chief counsellor of the latter, together with the second vizier, S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Pas̲h̲a. The two of them exercised considerable…

(t.), the title of one of the three commanders who formed the dīwān or administrative focus of the Janissary corps of the Ottoman army (the other two being the S̲h̲amsund̲j̲i̊ Bas̲h̲i̊ and the Turnad̲j̲i̊ Bas̲h̲i̊). Since zag̲h̲ar means “hound” and zag̲h̲ard̲j̲i̊ “keeper of the hounds”, the orta or company of the zag̲h̲ard̲j̲i̊s (no. 64 in the Janissary corps) was probably in origin part of the hunting force of the early Ottoman sultans (cf. also the Segbāns [ q.v. in Suppl.]). (Ed.) Bibliography İ.H. Uzunçarşili, Osmanli devleti teşkilâtindan kapi kulu ocaklar, Ankara 1943-4, i, 19…

, the name given to a part Saharan, part-Sahelian tribe or people, who inhabit parts of the Republics of the Sūdān and Chad. They appear in the mediaeval Arabic sources and in more recent travel and anthropological literature in three distinct contexts: (a) A pagan, albeit superficially Islamised, divine monarchy, which held sway within the existing territories of Wadai (Wādāy) and Kanem. E.W. Bovill, in his Caravans of the Old Sahara , Oxford and London 1933, remarked (264) that “Probably no event in the history of the Western Sudan had more …

, a mountain chain of western and southwestern Persia; the geographers of Classical times identified the Zagros Mountains as the range that separated the empires of Assyria (Mesopotamia) and Media (Central Persia). This is one of the great Tertiary fold ranges of the Middle East, which begins in the high knot of volcanic mountains, Ararat, Nemrut and others, around Lake Van, and sweeps south-south-east to the eastern edge of the Persian Gulf. At the Straits of Oman the ranges turn eastwards through Fārs and Makrān, beyond wher…

, (b. 18 June 1863 in Bag̲h̲dād, d. 23 February 1936), neo-classical poet and eminent representative of the Nahḍa [ q.v.] in ʿIrāḳ. A son of the Kurdish élite family of al-Bābān from Sulaymāniyya [ q.v.]—his father Muḥammad Fayḍī was Muftī of Bag̲h̲dād and his mother of Kurdish upperclass origin also—he spent his childhood with his mother, who lived separately from his father. At about 7 years old he became his father’s pupil in traditional Arabic learning at a time when modern-type Arabic schools did not exist i…

see zuhd ].

, a city of southeastern modern Iran (lat. 29° 32’ N., long. 60° 54’ E.), this being the new name, adopted in the time of Riḍā S̲h̲āh Pahlawī [ q.v.], for the older settlement of Duzdāb. Duzdāb/Zāhidān lies on the north-south highway connecting Čābahār on the Persian coast of the Gulf of Oman through Bird̲j̲and to K̲h̲urāsān (now of ¶ special importance as a supply link to the newlyindependent central Asian republics), at some 40 km/25 miles south of the point where the borders of Iran, Afg̲h̲ānistān and Pakistani Balūčistān meet. Though situated in a h…

[see barḳūḳ ; baybars i ].

(a.), conventional form dahir , an administrative term of the Muslim West. Here ẓahīr , meaning “help, support”, came to mean a royal decree issued by the sovereign and conferring an administrative prerogative, such as nomination to a political or religious post, or granting a privilege, either moral or material, upon the beneficiary. In the case of conferred privileges, the beneficiary could share them with his relatives or even pass them on to his descendants if the sovereign was generous enough to include such a favour in the document. The early dynasties The term first appeared und…

(a., pl. ẓawāhir ), lit. the outward meaning of a word, language or event, a term of uṣūl al-fiḳh [ q.v.]. It is the meaning first comprehended by the mind upon hearing a particular term or expression that potentially has two or more meanings. Deriving from a root suggesting a notion of strength, ẓāhir is applied to that meaning which in effect takes over the term, thus imparting it before it does the other meanings carried therein. That particular meaning is made prominent by virtue of conventional ( ʿurfī ) or technical ( ṣināʿī ) usage. Cast in opposition to naṣṣ , whic…

, “the rearwards region”, conventionally Dhahirah, the name given to the interior, landwards part of ʿUmān, that lying behind the D̲j̲abal Ak̲h̲ḍar range and merging into the desert fringes of the Empty Quarter [see al-rubʿ al-k̲h̲ālī ]. The term al-Ẓāhira contrasts with that of al-Bāṭina, the coastlands of ʿUmān. The religious and political history of this “inner ʿUmān”, and its social and cultural development, with local Ibāḍī elements mingled with Sunnīs, have frequently diverged from that of the Sultanate…

, Abū Naṣr Muḥammad b. al-Nāṣir, 35th ʿAbbāsid caliph, r. 622-3/1225-6. In 585/1189 he was designated by al-Nāṣir [ q.v.], as his father’s elder son, to succeed him, but in 601/1205, probably under the influence of the S̲h̲īʿī vizier Ibn Mahdī, the caliph changed his mind and made his heir his younger son ʿAlī, more favourable towards S̲h̲īʿism than the elder one, who was very attached to Sunnī orthodoxy. To explain and justify this decision, a letter was produced, signed by two witnesses, in which the prince Abū Naṣr Muḥammad asked his father to relieve him of the function of walī al-ʿahd …

[see čaḳmaḳ ].

b. Nāṣir al-Dīn, Sayyid, Persian commander, diplomat and historian of the Caspian region, b. ca . 815/1412, d. after 894/1489. He was a scion of the important family of Marʿas̲h̲ī Sayyids who dominated Māzandarān from the later 8th/14th century until the province’s incorporation into the Ṣafawid empire by S̲h̲āh ʿAbbās I in 1005/1596 [see marʿas̲h̲īs ]. ¶ Ẓahīr al-Dīn stemmed from the main branch of the Marʿas̲h̲īs, that of Kamāl al-Dīn b. Ḳiwām al-Dīn (d. 801/1379). He owned estates at Bāzargāh in Gīlān, and was employed by Sult…

, or Ẓahīr al-Dīn Abu ’l-Faḍl Ṭāhir b. Muḥammad al-Fāryābī , Persian poet of the 6th/12th century, born at Fāryāb (modern Dawlatābād) near Balk̲h̲ about 550/1156, d. 598/1201. As a court poet he served patrons in various parts of Persia; the earliest known to us was ʿAḍud al-Dīn Ṭug̲h̲āns̲h̲āh, a local ruler of Nīs̲h̲āpūr. In 582/1186-7 he went to Iṣfahān and three years later from there to Māzandarān, where he was attached to the ispahbād Ḥusām al-Dīn Ardas̲h̲īr b. Ḥasan of ¶ the Bāwandids [ q.v.]. Still later he settled down at the court of the Eldigüzids or Ildeñizids [ q.v.], writing paneg…

[see ibn s̲h̲āhīn ].

, a theologico-juridical school in mediaeval Islam which may be situated, among mad̲h̲hab s as a whole, “at the furthest limit of orthodoxy” (R. Brunschvig, Polémiques médiévales autour du rite de Mālik , in Études d’Islamologie , ii [1976], 83). It is, furthermore, the only school that owes its existence and its name to a principle of law, Ẓāhirī in this case. Thus it relies exclusively on the literal ( ẓāhir ) sense of the Ḳurʾān and of Tradition, rejecting raʾy , but also ḳiyās [ q.vv.], although the latter is retained by al-S̲h̲āfiʿī (d. 204/820 [ q.v.]) who is regularly cited as the po…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan (or Abū Hās̲h̲im) ʿAlī b. al-Ḥākim bi-amr Allāh, seventh Fāṭimid caliph and the fourth to reign at Cairo in Egypt. After the death of al-Ḥākim on 27 S̲h̲awwāl 411/14 February 1021, Sitt al-Mulk [ q.v.], the latter’s half-sister, refused to recognise the rights of the heir presumptive, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥīm (or ʿAbd al-Raḥmān) b. Ilyās, al-Ḥākim’s cousin, designated walī al-ʿahd by the latter in 404/1014-5 and at the time governor of Damascus (A.F. Sayyid, al-Dawla al-fāṭimiyya , tafsīr d̲j̲adīd , Cairo 1413/1992, 108-9, 117-18). Recall…

, local ruler in northern Palestine in the 18th century ( ca. 1690-1775). His father and grandfather had already been multazim s of Tiberias, and as a young man, Ẓāhir al-ʿUmar struck an alliance with the al-Ṣaḳr tribe of eastern Galilee and made Tiberias his first power base. The 1730s were filled with efforts to expand his realm and consolidate his rule. In 1738 he conquered the fortress of D̲j̲iddīn, which controlled the region of Tars̲h̲īḥa, Wabar and Abū Sinān, and Ṣafad surrendered to him…

(a.), two terms of Arabic theological and philosophical discourse, the first, ẓāhir , meaning “outward, external, exoteric sense”, hence “apparent, manifest sense”, and the second, bāṭin , its antonym, meaning “hidden, inner, esoteric sense”. This pair of words occurs together four times in the Ḳurʾān: in VI, 120, to describe the outwardness and the inwardness of a sin; in XXXI, 20, as adjectives to describe God’s blessings, both manifest and hidden; in LVII, 3, as names of God to mean that He is th…

, conventionally Dhahran, a town of Saudi Arabia (lat. 26° 18’ N., long. 50° 05’ E.) in the eastern province ( al-minṭaḳa al-s̲h̲arḳiyya ), situated in the Dammām oilfield just south of the Gulf port of al-Dammām. Near the site of the original discovery of oil in Saudi Arabia in 1938, the town did not really develop until after 1945 with the exploitation of oil by the Aramco company, one of whose main centres it still remains today. Situated on a hill in the town, the government-sponsored College…

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim K̲h̲alaf b. al-ʿAbbās, important Andalusian physician. Virtually nothing is known of his life or education, though it is assumed from his nisba that he came from or resided in Madīnat al-Zahrāʾ [ q.v.], near Cordova, where a royal residence and governmental centre was established in 325/936 by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III al-Nāṣir [see ʿabd al-raḥmān. 3]. His residence there is confirmed by references within his writings to patients being “amongst us in al-Zahrāʾ” ( ʿindanā bi ’l-Zahrāʾ ). His direct connection with the court is a matter of specu…

, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd , Syrian Arab politician and journalist, author of numerous writings advocating political, social and religious reform ¶ [see iṣlāḥ. i.]. The date of his birth in Ḥimṣ is not certain; in Arabic sources, it ranges from 1855 to 1863 or even 1871 (see Tarabein, 118 n. l, and ʿAllūs̲h̲, Madk̲h̲al , 12). He was born into a Sunnī family claiming descent from al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī and Fāṭima [ q.vv.], and from the latter’s honorific title, al-Zahrāʾ , the family derived its nisba . Over several generations, it had held the position of naḳīb al-as̲h̲rāf [ q.v.] in Ḥimṣ. ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd receiv…

(a.), sing, zahriyya , from zahr “flower, blossom” (or, more precisely, “yellow flower, yellow blossom”), like nawriyyāt [ q.v.], designates poetry dedicated to the description of flowers. The term is attested in the list of chapters of the Dīwān of Ṣafī al-Dīn al-Ḥillī [ q.v.]. 1. In Arabic. Descriptions of meadows ( rawḍ , riyāḍ ) and flowers are encountered sporadically already in d̲j̲āhilī poetry. In the nasīb [ q.v.], the comparison of the scent of the beloved with the fragrance of a blooming meadow could result in a detailed description of the meadow (in th…

(a., pl. zuʿamāʾ ), “chief”, “leader”. Etymologically, zaʿīm denotes the spokesman of a group of individuals such as a tribe, or, metaphorically, claimant to the name of this group; but zaʿīm has long been used, according to different periods of history, in a political or military sense. Of the seventeen occurrences of the term in the Ḳurʾān, in two cases (LXVIII, 40: sal-hum ayyahum bid̲h̲ālika zaʿīmun ; and XII, 72: wa-anā bihi zaʿīm un) it appears in the sense of “guarantor”, “trustee”, a meaning which recurs in numerous treatises of Islamic law. Al-Ḳalkas̲h̲andī ( Ṣubḥ al-aʿs̲h̲ā …

, Ḥusnī (1889-1949), the first head of state in the Syrian Republic to arise out of a military coup. An officer in the Ottoman Army and then in the Special Forces of the French mandate [see mandates and al-s̲h̲ām. 2 (b)], Ḥusnī al-Zaʿīm was born in Aleppo into a Kurdish family of Hamāt. He was imprisoned in 1944-5 for complicity with the Vichy army, but at independence, the colonel al-Zaʿīm was made inspector-general of the police. Wishing to put an end to the corruption (to which he himself was no stranger), on 30 March 1949 he overt…