Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

, 26th letter of the Arabic alphabet, transcribed h; numerical value: 5, as in the Syriac (and Canaanite) alphabet [see abd̲j̲ad ]. It continues h from common Semitic. Definition: unvoiced glottal spirant; according to the Arab grammatical tradition: rik̲h̲wa mahmūsa ; as regards the mak̲h̲rad̲j̲: aḳṣā ’l-ḥalḳ “the farthest part of the throat” (al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Mufaṣṣal2 , § 732). A voiced h can be found after a voiced phoneme but it is not a distinctive characteristic (see J. Cantineau, Cours , 75). Pause can develop a h to support the short final vowel of a word when it is …

, 6th letter of the Arabic alphabet, is transcribed ḥ; numerical value: 8, as in the Syriac (and Canaanite) alphabet [see abd̲j̲ad ]. Definition: unvoiced pharyngeal spirant; according to Arabic grammatical tradition: rik̲h̲wa mahmūsa , as regards the mak̲h̲rad̲j̲: awsaṭ al-ḥalḳ , “the middle part of the throat” (al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Mufaṣṣal2 , § 732). ḥ is a very much stronger and harsher spirant than h. It is produced by the friction of the expressed air against the strongly contracted walls of the pharynx (a breath sound without velar vibration), from wh…

, name of a singing slave-girl ( ḳayna [ q.v.]) of Medina who had learnt music and singing from the great singers of the 1st/7th century: Ibn Surayd̲j̲, Mālik, Ibn Muḥriz, Maʿbad, D̲j̲amīla, ʿAzza [ qq.v.]. Her talent, beauty and charm conquered Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik, who finally became her owner in circumstances which the sources describe very variously, but at a date after his accession (S̲h̲aʿbān 101/February 720); she was originally called al-ʿĀliya and it is he who is said to have given her the name by which she has remained famous. Ḥabāba is often associated with another ḳayna of Medin…

, a term found in several Sabaean inscriptions with apparent reference to Aksumite Abyssinia. Despite the absence of explicit evidence, it has generally been assumed to apply not only to the territory and people of the Aksumite empire but also to a South Arabian tribe related to the former and in close contact with them. To E. Glaser the term in its widest and most ancient usage signified no more than “incense-collectors” (Arabic ḥabas̲h̲a “to gather”) and was applicable to all the peoples of the incense regions, that is, o…

, a name said to be of S. Arabian origin [See ḥabas̲h̲at ], applied in Arabic usage to the land and peoples of Ethiopia, and at times to the adjoining areas in the Horn of Africa. Although it has remained a predominantly Christian ¶ country, Ethiopia has an important Muslim population, and has moreover had relations with the world of Islam since the days of the Prophet. These will be examined under the following headings: (1) history, (2) the spread of Islam, (3) Ḥabas̲h̲ in Muslim geographical writings, (4) Ethiopian languages spoken by Muslims. A final section will deal with the Aḥābīs̲h̲ …

, Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh , one of the most important and interesting figures in early Islamic astronomy, hailing from Marw, but living in Bag̲h̲dād. The sobriquet “Ḥabas̲h̲” (“the Abyssinian”) is nowhere explained; it may refer to the dark colour of his skin. While the Fihrist (p. 275) mentions only that he reached the age of 100, Ibn al-Ḳifṭī ( Taʾrīk̲h̲ , 170) gives more detailed information on his life and the various stages of his scientific activity. According to him, he lived in the reigns of al-Maʾmūn and al-Muʿtaṣim, which is co…

, South Arabian name for a sacred area which is under the protection of a saint and which is a place of refuge; see ḥawṭa .

, literally grain or kernel, a fraction in the Troy weight system of the Arabs, of undefined weight. Most Arab authors describe the ḥabba as 1/60 of the unit of weight adopted, as a 1/10 of the dānaḳ (which in Arab metrology is a sixth part of the unit [see sikka ]), but there are other estimates which vary from 1/48 to 1/72. The ḥabba thus means someting very different according to the unit of weight; there is a ḥabba of the silver measure, a ḥabba of the gold measure, a ḥabba of the mit̲h̲ḳāl , later of the dirham etc. On the supposition that the oldest Arab unit of Troy weight was the mit̲h̲ḳāl [ q.v.] of …

, Kas̲h̲mīrī singer and poetess. Galled Zūn (“moon”) before her marriage, she is a serni-legendary figure in the Valley of Kas̲h̲mīr. Daughter of a peasant of the village of Čandahār, near Pāmpūr, 8 miles to the south-east of Srīnagar, she was unhappy with her husband who ill-treated her, so she left him. Bīrbal Kāčrū in his Wāḳiʿāt-i ¶ Kas̲h̲mīr , which he wrote in the middle of the 19th century, says that, being a good singer and possessed of a melodious voice, she captivated the heart of Yūsuf S̲h̲āh Čak (986-94/1578-86), who ma…

, a town in the Wāḥidī Sultanate of the former Aden Protectorate, situated in the wādī of the same name. It is very old and may be referred to as early as 400 B.C. in the inscription RES 3945. Many ancient graffiti have been copied in the vicinity and a subterranean water-conduit leading to a cistern within the city may be pre-Islamic. The population figure is not known but was estimated at 4,000 in the mid-nineteenth century. The town is dominated by the walled fortress of Maṣnaʿa Ḥāḳir which stands on an isolated hill in the midd…

, Ottoman name of a province covering the African coastlands of the Red Sea south of Egypt as far as the Gulf of Aden, and including also the sand̲j̲aḳ of D̲j̲idda; the principal sand̲j̲aḳs were Ibrīm, Sawākin, Arkiko, Maṣawwaʿ, Zaylaʿ and D̲j̲idda, so that its area corresponded approximately to the coastal districts of the present-day Sudan, Ethiopia, French Somaliland and the Zaylaʿ district of the Somali Republic. The province was founded with the intention of expelling the Portuguese, who, since the last years of the Mamlūk sultanate, had been endeavouring …

(1872-1919), son of the amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān [ q.v.] and of the concubine Gulrīz, who came from the Wak̲h̲ān; ruler of Afg̲h̲ānistān in succession to his father, from 1 October 1901 to 20 February 1919, when he was assassinated at Kalla-gūs̲h̲ in the valley of Alingār not far from the residence of Ḳalʿat al-Sirād̲j̲ (Lag̲h̲mān). In foreign affairs he adopted a pro-British policy, reinforced by frequent visits to India, by requests for British arbitration on the question of the frontier with Iran (MacMaho…

al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī al-Marwānī , great grandson of the Umayyad caliph of Damascus al-Walīd I. After the ¶ fall of the Umayyad dynasty, Ḥabīb b. ʿAbd al-Malik fled from Syria and arrived in Spain in advance of his cousin, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muʿāwiya, the future ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I of Cordova; when this Umayyad claimant arrived, Ḥabīb gave him his support and encouraged him in his aspirations. On the eve of the battle of al-Muṣāra (138/756), which was to decide the fate of the throne of Cordova, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān appointed Ḥabīb commander in chief of the cavalry. After victory had been achieved, ʿAbd al…

[see abū tammām ].

, a military commander of Muʿāwiya. He was born at Mecca c. 617 A.D. in a family belonging to the Ḳurays̲h̲ī clan Fihr. He took part in the conquest of Syria and distinguished himself in the fights against the Byzantines. By order of Muʿāwiya he conquered Armenia in 21/642 and the following years (for details vide supra i, 635); then he was given the governorship of Northern Syria and fought against the Mardaites (Ḏj̲arād̲j̲ima [ q.v.]) and the Byzantines. After ʿUt̲h̲mān’s death he supported the cause of Muʿāwiya against ʿAlī. At Ṣiffīn (37/657) he commanded the left …

(the carpenter), legendary character who gave his name to the sanctuary below mount Silpius at Antāḳiya [ q.v.] where his tomb is reputed to be. He is not mentioned in the Ḳurʾān; nevertheless Muslim tradition finds him there, in sūra XXXVI, 12 ff., under the description of the man who was put to death in a city ( ḳarya ) not otherwise specified, having urged its inhabitants not to reject the three apostles who had come to proclaim the divine message to them. According to Muslim tradition the “city” was Antioch and the anonymous be…

, names of the two sons of Adam [ q.v.] in Muslim tradition: Heb̲el and Ḳāyin in the Hebrew Bible (for the distortion and assimilation through assonance of the two words, compare the pairs of words Ḏj̲ālūt-Ṭālūt, Hārūt-Mārūt, Yād̲j̲ūd̲j̲-Mād̲j̲ūd̲j̲; Ḳāyin is, however, attested sporadically). Although the Ḳurʾān does not give these names, it tells however (CV, 27-32/30-5, Medinan period) the story of the two sons of Adam, one of whom killed the other because his own sacrifice was refused when his brother…

, followers of Aḥmad b. Ḥābiṭ [ q.v.].

[see waḳf ].

, term used in India for those African communities whose ancestors originally came to the country as slaves, in most cases from the Horn of Africa, although some doubtless sprang from the slave troops of the neighbouring Muslim countries. The majority, at least in the earlier periods, may well have been Abyssinian, but certainly the name was applied indiscriminately to all Africans, and in the days of the Portuguese slave-trade with India many such ‘Ḥabs̲h̲īs’ were in fact of the Nilotic and Bantu races. There is little detailed information concerning the numbers, the status an…