ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿd b. Abī Sarḥ al-ʿĀmirī, Abū Yaḥyā (d. 35 or 36/656), Companion of the Prophet, governor of Egypt, a commander in the army of the caliph ʿUthmān and the conqueror of Ifrīqiya. He belonged to the ʿĀmir b. Luʾayy, a clan of the Quraysh, from which his nisba al-ʿĀmirī derives (Ibn Saʿd, 7/496; al-Balādhurī, Ansāb, 11/19; see also Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, 3/918). ʿAbd Allāh embraced Islam and joined the Prophet in Medina before the conquest of Mecca (Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, 3/918). He was the first individual from the Quraysh to be appointed by the Pr…

Ḥassān b. Thābit, b. al-Mundhir b. Ḥarām al-Anṣārī, a mukhaḍram poet (i.e. a poet whose career spanned the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods), and a Companion of the Prophet Muḥammad.Ḥassān was a member of the Banū al-Najjār branch of the Khazraj tribe of Yathrib, and he appears to have been born there in the latter half of the 6th century CE (Ḥassān b. Thābit, ʿArafāt’s introd., 1/11; Ibn Sallām, 87; Farrūkh, 1/325; Blachère, 313). Some give him the teknonym ( kunya) Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān, Abū al-Muḍarrab or Abū al-Ḥusām, but he is best known as Abū al-Walīd (Abū ʿUbayd…

Ḥammād al-ʿAjrad, Abū ʿAmr (or Abū ʿUmar) Ḥammād b. Yaḥyā b. ʿUmar b. Yūnus (d. 161/778), was a poet of the late Umayyad and early ʿAbbāsid era known for composing lampoons ( hajw). Sources identify him as a freedman ( mawlā) of either the Banū Sūʾa (or Suwāʾa) b. ʿĀmir b. Saʿsaʿa or the Banū Kulayb tribes (Ibn Qutayba, 490; Abū al-Faraj, 14/313; Khaṭīb, 8/148–149; Yāqūt, 10/249–250). In some sources, his teknonym ( kunya) is given as Abū Yaḥyā (Ibn Khallikān, 2/211; Ibn Taghrībirdī, 2/28).Ḥammād was born and raised in Kūfa. However, it appears he spent some of his life in Wās…

al-Ḥārith b. Khālid al-Makhzūmī, Abū Wābiṣa (d. end of 1st/7th century), was a poet and governor of Mecca during the Umayyad period. Early sources trace his lineage to Kaʿb b. Luʾayy, the great-grandfather of the Prophet Muḥammad (Abū al-Faraj, 3/311). Al-Ḥārith’s grandfather, ʿĀṣ b. Hishām, was the leader of the Makhzūm tribe and a senior member of the Quraysh who had fought on the side of the pagans against the Prophet at the Battle of Badr (q.v.) in the year 2/624, where he was killed either by ʿUmar b. al…

Abū Yaʿqūb, Yūsuf b. ʿAbd al-Muʾmin b. ʿAlī (533–580/1139–1184), was the second Almohad caliph of the Maghrib and al-Andalus. His ancestry went back to the famous tribe of Qays ʿAylān (a large north Arabian subdivision of Muḍar) (Ibn ʿIdhārī, 3/56; Ibn Khaldūn, Yaḥyā, 1/170). His father ʿAbd al-Muʾmin was the first caliph of the Almohads and one of the ‘ten companions’ of Ibn Tūmart, while his mother ʿĀʾisha (or Zaynab) was the daughter of Mūsā b. Sulaymān, the qāḍī Ibn ʿImrān (Ibn Abī Zaraʿ, 205; al-Marrākushī, 238). Abū Yaʿqūb was born in Tinmallal and grew up there (Ib…

al-Aṣmaʿī, Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd al-Malik b. Qurayb (ca. 125–216/743–831), narrator, littérateur, and famous lexicographer in the early part of the ʿAbbāsid era. Owing to his relation to the Bāhilīs (the descendants of Mālik b. Aʿṣur), al-Aṣmaʿī, whose nisba is derived from his great-grandfather Aṣmaʿ, was also known by the name al-Bāhilī (see al-Bukhārī 3(1)/428; Ibn Qutayba, al-Maʿārif, 543; Ibn Ḥazm, 245). The ill repute of this tribe during the pre-Islamic period caused al-Aṣmaʿī to renounce his kinship to them, but despite this he was not spared the bi…

al-Ḥasan al-Muthannā, Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAlī b. Abī Ṭālib (d. ca. 97/716), an ʿAlid traditionist ( muḥaddith) and head of an important branch of Ḥasanids. The title ‘al-Muthannā’ (‘twofold’: i.e. twice Ḥasan) is not mentioned in the early sources; it first appears in works dating from the 6th/12th century. Biographers seem to have applied this name to distinguish him from his son, who was also ‘al-Ḥasan’, and sometimes referred to as al-Ḥasan al-Muthallath (threefold: al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥas…

al-Ḥarīrī, Abū Muḥammad Qāsim b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. ʿUthmān al-Ḥarīrī al-Baṣrī (446–516/1054–1122) was a well-known man of letters and the author of the Maqāmāt (‘Assemblies’), an outstanding example of non-religious ( adab) literature which is full of didactic tales, erudite allusions and witty anecdotes; and which has served as the reference point for the genre ever since.Al-Ḥarīrī’s family came from al-Mashān, in the vicinity of Baṣra (q.v.), and it appears that the former was his place of birth (see Ibn Khallikān, 4/67; al-Dhahabī, 19/461; Yāqūt, Udabāʾ, 16/261; Ibn Taghrībi…

Abū ʿUbayda, Maʿmar b. Muthannā (114–ca. 210/732–825), was a transmitter ( rāwiya) and leading philologist of the early ʿAbbāsid period. The origins and lineage of Abū ʿUbayda are not known in any detail, but there seems to be almost no doubt that his ancestors were originally Iranian Jews from Bājarwān (near al-Raqqa, then in Iraq). He himself referred to his Jewish origins in one of the accounts (see Abū al-Faraj, 18/189; al-Sīrāfī, 68; Ibn al-Nadīm, 59; Ibn Khallikān, 5/243; see also Abū ʿUbayda, Majāz, 9, who views the description given by Abū ʿUbayda as dubious and believ…

Ḥasan b. Ayyūb al-Rammāḥ (636–694/1239–1294), given the title Najm al-Dīn and known as al-Aḥdab (‘the hunchback’), an engineer and writer on the arts of war (see al-Rammāḥ, intro. 17; Sarton, 2/1039). According to several sources he is likely to have been born and raised in Syria (Sarton, 2/1039), lived during the early period of Mamlūk rule there (648–922/1250–1515), and died there in 694/1294 (see al-Hassan, Islamic Technology, 94; Cook, 44; Brockelmann, SI/905). Ḥasan, whose name al-Rammāḥ means lancer, seems to have been an experienced soldier himself an…

Abū ʿAlī al-Fārisī, al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Ghaffār (288–377/901–987), was a Persian grammarian ( naḥwī), lexicographer ( lughawī) and Qurʾān reader ( muqriʾ). He was born in Fasā, in the province of Fārs, and for that reason was called al-Fasawī or al-Fārisī (al-Zubaydī, 120; al-Tanūkhī, 4/43). His father was Persian and his mother Arab. She came from the tribe of Sadūs b. Shaybān (a branch of Rabīʿat al-Faras), which had migrated to Fārs (Yāqūt, 7/232–233). Some biographers suggest that his mother was also Persian (Amīn, Aḥmad, 2/91). Abū ʿAlī apparently completed his early …

Abū Ḥayyān al-Gharnāṭī, Athīr al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Yūsuf b. ʿAlī b. Ḥayyān al-Nifzī al-Gharnāṭī (654–745/1256–1344), was a grammarian, poet and man of letters during Naṣrid rule in Granada (Gharnāṭa) and under the Mamlūks in Egypt. He was descended from the Berber tribe of Nifza (Ibn Ḥajar, 6/62). His father was an inhabitant of Jayyān (Jaén) (Ibn Ḥajar, 6/63), but he fled the city in 643/1245 or 1246 after it was captured by the Christians (ʿAnnān, 20). Abū Ḥayyān was born in Maṭakhshārash, a dependency of Granada, and spent his early life there (al-Ṣafadī, Aʿyān, 11/163; Ibn Qāḍī Shuhba, Ṭab…

Abū Aḥmad al-ʿAskarī, al-Ḥasan b. ʿAbd Allāh b. Saʿīd Abū Aḥmad al-ʿAskarī (293–Ḍhū al-Ḥijja 382/906–February 993) was a lexicologist, man of letters and traditionist ( muḥaddith) from Persia. He lived in ʿAskar Mukram, a town in Khūzistān, hence the nisba al-ʿAskarī (al-Samʿānī, 9/298; al-Qifṭī, 1/310; Abū al-Fidāʾ, 4/26). Early sources make no direct reference to his place of birth, but certain contemporaneous accounts (al-Ziriklī, 2/196) maintain it was ʿAskar Mukram. It seems that Abū Aḥmad began his education with his father and uncle (see Abū Aḥmad, al-Maṣūn, 64, 99, 176 et…

al-Akhfash, cognomen of a number of grammarians of Arabic, the most famous of whom is Abū al-Ḥasan Saʿīd b. Masʿada al-Mujāshiʿī (d. 215/830) known as Akhfash al-Awsaṭ, a Baṣran grammarian and man-of-letters. He was a mawlā (client) of the Banū Mujāshiʿ b. Dārim, hence his nisba al-Mujāshiʿī (see al-Sīrāfī, 50; al-Zabīdī, 72; al-Mufaḍḍal, 85). Some earlier writers, like al-Mubarrad (see al-Qifṭī, 2/39) and Abū al-Ṭayyib al-Lughawī (p. 68), believed him to have been Iranian and a resident of Balkh. Al-Balkhī, the author of Faḍāʾil Khurāsān, however, says he was from Khwārazm (see Ibn …

Al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAmr al-Ghanawī (d. 305/917), a military commander and provincial governor in the late 3rd/9th century, during the ʿAbbāsid era. Nothing is known of his life prior to 286/899, when he was governor of Fārs. In that year, as the missionary activity ( daʿwa) of Abū Saʿīd al-Jannābī (q.v.) in Bahrain was intensifying, and the Qarmaṭīs were mounting attacks against the regions of Hajar, advancing as far as the vicinity of Baṣra, the caliph al-Muʿtaḍid appointed al-ʿAbbās b. ʿAmr as governor of Yamāma and Bahrain, and charged him w…

Al-Abīwardī, Abū al-Muẓaffar Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Kūfānī (d. 507/1113), was an Iranian poet and man of letters. Al-Abīwardī is first mentioned in a work by his contemporary, Ibn al-Qaysarānī, who does no more than refer to his genealogy. Subsequently, Kharīdat al-qaṣr, Muʿjam al-udabāʾ, Wafayāt al-aʿyān, Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ and Masālik al-abṣār were the most important sources for all the authors and scholars who wrote biographies of him, or examined his life and personality. The first author to write an independent account of al-Abīwardī's l…

Ḥammād al-Rāwiya (d. 155/772) was an important narrator of ancient Arabic poetry. Some sources give his father’s name as Hurmuz, while others say it was Shāpūr (Sābūr) (Ibn Qutayba, al-Maʿārif, 541; Ibn Nadīm, 104; Abū al-Faraj, 6/79; Ibn Khallikān, 2/206), both names pointing to his Persian roots. However, like all other Iranian converts to Islam, he became the client ( mawlā) of an Arab tribe and gave himself an Arab lineage, calling himself Ḥammād b. Maysara b. Mubārak b. ʿAbīd and adopting the teknonym ( kunya) Abū al-Qāsim (Yaghmūrī, 269; Yāqūt, 10/258; Ibn Khallikān, 2/2…

Bashshār b. Burd, Abū Muʿādh, called al-Muraʿʿath (d. 167/783 or 168/784), a blind poet and orator of Persian extraction who flourished under the first ʿAbbāsids.Early sources contain differing details as to Bashshār’s origins. Abū al-Faraj al-Iṣfahānī lists some twenty-five of his Iranian forebears, and traces his line back to the Kiyānid dynasty (Abū al-Faraj, 3/135; see also Bashshār, 1/101; al-Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī, 10/136); the poet himself at times vaunts this ancestry (see Bashshār, 1/377, 3/229–230). Such claims are, however, historically dubious. In a…

Badīʿ al-Zamān Hamadānī (also Hamadhānī), Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad b. Ḥusayn b. Yaḥyā (358–398/969–1007), was a Persian writer and literary figure who wrote in Arabic and was the pioneer of the literary genre of the maqāma (a form of extemporising which allowed the display of prowess in poetry and prose).Information about his life is drawn from accounts and reports produced by his contemporary ʿAbd al-Malik al-Thaʿālabī (4/256–301). Later writers reproduced in essence what al-Thaʿālabī wrote: even Yāqūt (2/161–167), who took his brief biography from the Tārīkh-i Hamadān by Abū Shujāʿ S…

Abū Zayd al-Anṣārī, Saʿīd b. Aws b. Thābit al-Khazrajī al-Anṣārī (121–215/739–830), was a philologist, grammarian and traditionist. Being a grandson of Thābit b. Bashīr, who was a member of the Khazraj tribe and one of the Helpers (Anṣār), he was known as both al-Anṣārī and al-Khazrajī. Thābit took part in the battle of Uḥud as well as subsequent battles, and was one of the six people who made a compilation of the Qurʾān during the lifetime of the Prophet (Ibn Saʿd, 7/27). Abū Zayd learnt Qurʾānic recitation ( qirāʾa) from Abū ʿAmr b. al-ʿAlāʾ (q.v.), the distinguished traditionist…