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[English edition] رمضان اسم الشهر التاسع من التقويم الإسلامي، ويحيل هذا الاسم المشتق من جذر (ر،م،ض) على قيظ الصيف، وهو لذلك يكشف عن الفصل الذي اتفق تنزيل هذا الشهر فيه عندما كان العرب ما يزالون في سعي إلى التّوفيق بين سنتهم والسنة الشمسيّة بالاعتماد على تكبيس الشهور [انظر نسيء]. ورمضان هو الشهر الوحيد من السنة المذكور في القرآن(البقرة: 181، 165): «شَهْرُ رَمَضَانَ الَّذِيَ أُنزِلَ فِيهِ الْقُرْآن». هذا ما يقوله القرآن في علاقة بإرساء فريضة صوم رمضان. أمّا في ما يخصّ جذور هذا الشهر فإنّه ينبغي أن نضيف إلى ما جاء في مقال «صوم» الوارد بالطبعة الأ…

(a.), the first month of the Muslim year. The name is originally not a proper name but an adjective, as the article shows, qualifying Ṣafar. In the pre-Islamic period, the first two months of the old Meccan year were Ṣafar [ q.v.] I and II, which is reflected in the dual a potiori of al-Ṣafarān for al-Muḥarram and Ṣafar; in the old Arab year, the first half year consisted of “Three months of two months each” (Wellhausen), as the two Ṣafars were followed by two Rabīʿs and two D̲j̲umādās. The first of the two Ṣafars, as the one that belonged to the sacred months, was given the adjectival epithet al-muḥar…

(a.), name of the ninth month of the Muslim calendar. The name from the root r-m-ḍ refers to the heat of summer and therefore shows in what season the month fell when the ancient Arabs still endeavoured to equate their year with the solar year by intercalary months [see nasīʾ ]. Ramaḍān is the only month of the year to be mentioned in the Ḳurʾān (II, 181/165): “The month of Ramaḍān (is that) in which the Ḳurʾān was sent down”, we are told in connection with the establishment of the fast of Ramaḍān. Concerning the origins of this, to what is said in EI 1 Ṣawm should be added the researches of S. F. Goitein, Z…

, the tenth month in the Syriac calendar. Its name is derived from that of the fourth Jewish month with which it roughly coincides. It corresponds to July in the Roman calendar and like it has 31 days. According to al-Bīrūnī, in Tammūz the lunar stations 8 and 9 rise and 22 and 23 set; the days on which one rose and the other, 14 days apart from it, set were the 10th and 23rd. According to al-Ḳazwīnī, on the other hand, stations 7 and 8 rise, 21 and 22 set, on the 4th and 17th respectively. In t…

(a.), the first third of the night, according to the lexica, from the time of waning of the s̲h̲afaḳ (the red colour of the sky after sunset). This definition covers exactly the right time for the ṣalāt al-ʿis̲h̲āʾ , which is therefore often called ṣalāt al-ʿatama , even in quite large a number of traditions. But later on, pious circles rejected this name, since the ṣalāt al-ʿis̲h̲āʾ is expressly called thus in the Ḳurʾān. A tradition appeared which declared the use of ʿatama with regard to the prayer to be characteristic of Bedouins, who used to milk th…

, the almost exclusively used transliteration of the Greco-Latin Ptolemaeus; al-Masʿūdī, Tanbīh , writes invariably ʾ bṭlmyws , which may be read Ibṭulamayūs , the truest possible Arabic transliteration. In one place, 129, he gives the explanation “ Bṭlāmāws bi-lug̲h̲atihim ”. About his surname al-Ḳalūd(h)ī al-Masʿūdī remarks that some people believe him to be a son of Claudius, the “sixth” Roman emperor ( var. lect . “second”, i.e., Tiberius), who was in fact the third. He himself puts him in his true time, and so does Ibn Ṣāʿid al-Andalusī, Ṭabaḳāt al-umam , 29…

is the most frequently used form of the word which denotes the veterinary surgeon. It is an arabicised form of ίππιατρóς, and, as a matter of fact, the more exact form biyaṭr is to be found in ancient poetry, as well as bayṭar . The preservation of the original Greek form in Oriental languages is also proved by the 12th century Midras̲h̲ Numeri rabbā , 9, where is expressly written. However, the Greek hippiatric writings do not seem to have been known in Islam, if the quotation of Heraclides in al-Bīrūnī, al-Ḏj̲amāhir fī Maʿrifat al-D̲j̲awāhir , 101 does not mean Her…

, the name of the capital of a district in Diyār Rabīʿa [q. v.] (Balad Sind̲j̲ār) and of the ranges running north of it (Ḏj̲abal Sind̲j̲ār). The town, which is identical with the ancient Singara is situated a very little east of 42° East Long. (Greenwich) and in 36° 22′ N. Lat. in a valley of the Ṭawḳ (now pronounced Ṭōg) range which is south of and parallel to the Ḏj̲abal Sind̲j̲ār, through which the Nahr T̲h̲art̲h̲ār enters the steppes on the south. On the alleged navigability of the river in the middle ages cf. Sarre-Herzfeld ( Bibl.), i. 193 sq. As the walls show, the town was at one time …

, one of the many words used as a euphemism for eunuch. According to al-Maḳrīzī, the word is Turkish and was originally ṭābūs̲h̲ī. The reference is clearly to the word which is tapug̲h̲či̊ in Ottoman Turkish and means “servant”. The word has therefore undergone the same change of meaning as k̲h̲ādim [q. v.] and refers not to the physiological peculiarity of a eunuch — k̲h̲aṣīy is used for this — but to a particular “servant”, an official in a definite position which was usually filled by a eunuch. Thus we find the word in the language of administration in Eg…

, a town in Diyār Muḍar [q.v.] on the most southerly of the three roads from Bīred̲j̲ik [q. v.] to Urfa [q. v.] in 36° 58′ N. Lat. and 38° 27′ E. Long. As the name of the town is also that of the district, its relation to the ancient names Anthemusia and Batnae is disputed; cf. Bibliography. On account of the fertility of the district in which the town is situated and its central position between the Euphrates on the one side and Urfa and Ḥarrān [q.v.], from each of which it is about a day’s journey distant, on the other, the traffic through it brough…

, the nisba of three mathematicians and astronomers, of whose lives very little is so far known. 1. ʿAbd Allāh b. Ḵh̲alīl b. Yūsuf was muʾad̲h̲d̲h̲in in the mosque of the Omaiyads in Damascus and died in the first decade of the ixth (xvth) century. As a result of careless transmission, his works are often mixed up with those of his grandson Sibṭ al-Māridīnī (3). Lists of his works are given in Brockelmann, G A. L., ii. 169 and in Suter, Die Mathematiker und Astronomen der Araber und ihre Werke, 1900, N°. 421. 2. Ismāʿīl b. Ibrāhīm b. G̲h̲āzī, known as Ibn Fallūs, lived in the first half of the viith (xi…

, the tenth month in the Syriac calender. Its name is derived from that of the fourth Jewish month with which it roughly coincides. It corresponds to July in the Roman calendar and like it has 31 days. According to al-Bīrūnī, in Tammūz the lunar stations 8 and 9 rise and 22 and 23 set; the days on which one rose and the other, 14 days apart from it, set were the 10th and 23rd. According to al-Ḳazwīnī on the other hand, stations 7 and 8 rise, 21 and 22 set, on the 4th and 17th respectively. In the year 1300 of the Seleucid era (989 a. d.) according to al-Bīrūnī the stars of the stations mentioned by a…

(a.), the name of the third and fourth months of the Muslim calendar. The name is an Aramaic loanword and in the Syriac translation of the Bible corresponds to the Hebrew malḳōs̲h̲ (late rain). This and the fact that the two months following Rabīʿ II are called Ḏj̲umādā (month of frost) suggested.to Wellhausen that these four months originally fell in winter and that the old Arab year began with the winter half-year [see al-muḥarram]. Rabīʿ means originally the season in which, as a result of the rains, the earth is covered with green; this later led to the name Rabī…

a very old town of ʿIrāḳ, on one of the canals joining the Euphrates and Tigris and one stage from Bag̲h̲dād on the Kūfa road. The town as well as the canal are often mentioned in cuneiform inscriptions (cf. the references in Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien , 1920-5, Indices, s.v. Kutû and the map by Schwenzner in vol. i). The town is said to be identical with the place mentioned in 2 Kings, xvii, 24, from which came a part of the people whom the king of Assyria settled in Samaria in place of the deported Israelites.…

, Agathodaemon. The correct transliteration of the name occurs, e.g., in Ibn Abi Uṣaybiʿa, ʿUyūn al-Anbāʾ , i, 18. Other forms are Ag̲h̲āt̲h̲ād̲h̲īmūn and similar spellings, Ag̲h̲ād̲h̲īmūn and similar spellings, as well as more serious distortions. In Latin translations from Arabic we find various representations of different accurateness, e.g. in the Turba Philosophorum : Agadimon, Adimon, Agmon. The Graeco-Egyptian god Agathodaemon (see Ganschinietz, in Pauly-Wissowa, iii. Suppl.-Bd., s.v.) is represented in Arabic tradition as one of the ancient Eg…

, a town in K̲h̲ūzistān, on the road from Wāsiṭ to Sūs (Susa). The statments regarding distances given by the Arab geographers were collected and arranged in P. Schwarz, Iran im Mittelalter nach den arab. Geographen , 1921, iv, 396 ff.; cf. also 431. The town was noted for its carpets; there was also a state ṭirāz [ q.v.] manufacture there. A material called sūsand̲j̲ird was made there, cf. de Goeje’s glossary in BGA iv, s.v. Al-Iṣṭak̲h̲rī and Ibn Ḥawḳal say that the sūsand̲j̲ird of Fasā [ q.v.] was better than that of Ḳurḳūb ; the latter was a mixture of silk and cotton, while in…

, the seventh month in the Syrian calendar. Its name is taken from the first month of the Jewish religious (seventh of the civil) year with the period of which it roughly coincides. It corresponds to April of the Roman year and like it has 30 days. On the 10th and 23rd Nīsān, according to al-Bīrūnī, the two first stations of the moon rise (the numbering of these two as first and second shows that the numbering was established by scholars for whom Nīsān was the first month) and on the 15th and the 16th set. In 1300 of the Seleucid era (989 a.d.), according to al-Bīrūnī, the stars of the 28th and 1…

is a very old town in the ʿIrāḳ, on one of the canals joining the Euphrates and Tigris. The town as well as the canal are often mentioned in cuneiform inscriptions (cf. the references in Meissner, Babylonien und Assyrien, 1920—1925, Indices, s. v. Kuta or Kutû and the map by Schwenzner in the first volume). The town is said to be identical with the place mentioned in Kings ii., xvii. 24, from which came a part of the people whom the king of Assyria settled in Samaria in place of the deported Israelites. The course of the canal, at l…

(a.) means in the old language sense, significance and is so used as a grammatical term. In philosophical language the use of the word varies from the most general to the most particular so that it is impossible to give a general translation for it. It occurs in quite untechnical connections as “thought”, “what is meant” or simply “thing” etc. but also has the special meaning of “conception” or as the Dictionary of Technical Terms, ed. by Sprenger, has it “an image of the intelligence ( ṣūra d̲h̲ihnīya) in so far as a word corresponds to it, i. e. in so far as ¶ it is meant by a word”. Horten has…

(a.), “placed in front”. Applied to persons the word means the chief, the one in command, e. g. of a body of troops or of a ship (captain). Dozy, Supply s. v., gives a number of police appointments which have this name. In the dervish orders the word is used for the head of the order or the head of a monastery. As a neuter noun the word is a technical term in logic and arithmetic. In logic it means the protasis in a premise in the form of a conditional sentence, e. g. “If the sun rises (it becomes day)”, where this whole sentence is to be regarded as premise of a syllogism. But as every sentence can be a premise, m…