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, name given in some parts of the Arab Middle East to a group of people who claim descent from a common ancestor, usually five to seven generations removed from the living. The word is derived from the Arabic verb ḥamala , to carry, and literally means a “female carrier”. Some writers believe that the reference is to a beast of work and that the word was originally used in this sense to describe the landless patronymic groups who worked as tenants for landowners. A more plausible explanation is that the reference is to a woman in her capacity of bearing children. E. Peters [see Bibl.] suggests that…

, town in the Western Region of Nigeria, originated during the 1820’s on the site of an Egba village as a war encampment set up by groups of wandering Yoruba soldiers from the old Oyo Empire, Ile Ife and Ijebu. Those were times of great upheavals in Yorubaland. The Oyo Empire had been rapidly disintegrating as a result of serious internal cleavages and mounting external pressure. The Fulani had been pushing southward, using Ilorin as a base, and eventually in 1837 they forced the evacuation of o…

(a.), a shortened form of amīrī , in Ottoman Turkish emīrī , literally, “pertaining to the commander or governor, the amīr ”. Although in early Islam this latter title [ q.v.] used to denote the head of the Muslim community, it was downgraded over the ages, and during Ayyūbid and Mamlūk times was given to military officers, including low-ranking ones. Under the Ottomans, the term resumed its initial importance and was singled out to designate assets that belong of right to the highest Muslim authority, the Sultan. Throughout…

, “the plain of the Banū ʿĀmir”, the largest of its kind in Palestine, named after the Arabian tribe ʿĀmir b. Ṣaʿṣaʿa [ q.v.], parts of which reached Palestine after the Arab conquests and settled there. Stretching between the mountains of Nābulus and those of Galilee, it constituted an important link on the Cairo-Damascus highway. Ever since the Neolithic era, it has encompassed fortified urban centres, some of which (e.g. Megiddo) flourished in biblical times. Its strategic location turned it into a scene of crucial…