, God the Unique one, the Creator and Lord of the Judgment, polarizes the thought of Islam; He is the sole reason for its existence. ¶ Allāh was known to the pre-Islamic Arabs; he was one of the Meccan deities, possibly the supreme deity and certainly a creator-god (cf. Ḳurʾān, xiii, 16; xxix, 61, 63; xxxi, 25; xxxix, 38; xliii, 87). He was already known, by antonomasia, as the God, al-Ilāh (the most likely etymology; another suggestion is the Aramaic Alāhā ).—For Allāh before Islam, as shown by archaeological sources and the Ḳurʾān, see ilāh . But the vague notion of supreme (not sole) di…

[see al-mahdī ʿubayd allāh ].

[see afg̲h̲ānistān ].

b. T̲h̲aʿlaba , an Arab tribe belonging to the branch of the Rabīʿa b. Nizār (tribes of ʿAdnān) and forming part of the great et̲h̲nical group of the Bakr b. Wāʾil. Genealogy: Taym Allāh b. T̲h̲aʿlaba b. ʿUkāba b. Ṣaʿb b. ʿAlī b. Bakr b. Wāʾil. We also find it mentioned under the form Taym Allāt, which may be the correct name, for a Muslim (or Christian) alteration of the name Allāt to that of Allāh is not at all unlikely, while the opposite is hardly conceivable. This tribe, as usual with so many other tribes of Arabia, formed an alliance ( ḥilf ) with the sister tribe of t…

b. At̲h̲arī or b. Sāriya , Jewish astrologer of Baṣra (although the frequent confusion between Baṣrī and Miṣrī has sometimes led to him being considered an Egyptian). His Hebrew name was perhaps Manasseh (the Fihrist , 273-4, and Ibn al-Ḳifṭī, 327, call him Mīs̲h̲ā) and in Persian he was known as Yazdānk̲h̲wāst which, like Mās̲h̲aʾallāh, signifies “that which God wills”. According to the Fihrist, the period of his activity extended from the reign of al-Manṣūr (135-58/754-75) to that of al-Maʾmūn (198-218/813-33), but the last date to be placed definitely wi…

, a family of Mamlūk state officials who traced their descent from the Caliph ʿUmar I, hence their nisba al-ʿUmarī, al-ʿAdawī al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī. The family received its name from its founder Faḍl Allāh b. Mud̲j̲allī b. Daʿd̲j̲ān, who was living in al-Karak (Transjordan) in 645/1247. S̲h̲araf al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, a son of Faḍl Allāh, held office as kātib al-sirr (head of the chancery) in Damascus, and was transferred to the same office in Cairo by the Sultan al-As̲h̲raf K̲h̲alīl in 692/1293. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb continued to head the central chancery of the Mamlūk state until 711/1311, when he …

— Founder of the new religion which took the name of Bahāʾī from his own name (literally, ‘Glory, Splendour, of God’). In Persian it is known commonly as Amr-i Bahāʾī , ‘Bahāʾī Cause’, or Amr Allāh , ‘Cause of God’; the adjective amrī is used of publications, matters and facts pertaining to the Cause, e.g., nas̲h̲riyyāt-i amrī ‘religious publications’, etc. Bahāʾ Allāh is generally called by his disciples Ḏj̲amāl-i Mubārak , ‘The Blessed Beauty’ and Ḏj̲amāl-i Ḳidam , ‘The Ancient Beauty’. His name was originally Mīrzā Ḥusayn ʿAlī Nūrī (from Nūr, in …

[see ag̲h̲labids ].

, the vision of God. It is usually qualified by the phrase bi ’l-abṣār , “through perception”, to distinguish it from a metaphorical concept, sometimes acknowledged, of vision “through the heart”, cf. al-As̲h̲ʿarī, Maḳālāt , 157, ll. 10-13 and 216, ll. 10-13. Whether it is or will be possible for men to see God with their own eyes is one of the questions which have deeply divided Muslim theologians. Sunnīs of all persuasions (Ḥanbalīs, Kullābiyya, As̲h̲ʿarīs, Karrāmiyya and Māturīdīs) maintain that it is so. The notion was absolutely re…

[see k̲h̲umaynī in Suppl.].

al-Sayyid b. al-Sayyid S̲h̲arīf al-Marʿas̲h̲ī al-Ḥusaynī al-S̲h̲us̲h̲tarī , commonly called Ḳāḍī Nūr Allāh, was born in 956/1549. He was descended from an illustrious family of the Marʿas̲h̲ī Sayyids [ q.v.] and settled in S̲h̲us̲h̲tar. He left his native place for India and settled in Lahore where he attracted the notice of Ḥakīm Abu ’l-Fatḥ (d. 997/1588) and through his presentation to Emperor Akbar (963-1014/1556-1605), he was appointed ḳāḍī of Lahore in lieu of al-S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Muʿīn (d. 995/1586). ʿAbd al-Ḳādir Badāʾūnī, iii, 137, says t…

(a.), a phrase occurring in the Ḳurʾān (VI, 128; VII, 188; X, 50; XVIII, 37; LXXXVII, 7; cf. XI, 109-10, LXXII, 8) and widely used in the Islamic lands of the Middle East with the general meaning of “what God does, is well done”. The formula denotes that things happen according to God’s will and should therefore be accepted with humility and resignation. In a cognate signification, the phrase is often used to indicate a vague, generally a great or considerable, but some times a small, number or quantity of time (Lane, Lexicon , s.v., who refers to S. de Sacy, Relation de l’Egypte, 246, 394). One …

b. D̲j̲aʿfar al-ʿImādī , Ottoman S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Islām [ q.v.], d. 1021/1612. Born in 960/1553, the son of the ḳāḍī ʿasker [ q.v.] D̲j̲aʿfar Efendi, a first cousin of Abu ’l-Suʿūd Efendi [ q.v.], Ṣunʿ Allāh studied under Mollā Fuḍayl al-Ḏj̲amālī ¶ and afterwards under Abu ’l-Suʿūd, then S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-Islām , whom he served as muʿīd and through whom he became mulāzim [ q.v.] in 977/1569-70. Because of his family connections, his first madrasa appointment (Ramaḍān 978/February 1571) was at the 40- aḳčes level. He passed through the ranks of the madrasas until, with his appointment to the…

[see nafs . I. B.].

( S̲h̲āh ), d. 866/1460, the son of S̲h̲āh Niʿmat Allāh Kirmānī (730-834/1329-1431), “a great saint and mystic as well as a poet.” Hearing the fame of Niʿmat Allāh’s great piety and learning, the Bahmanī ruler S̲h̲ihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad I (825-39/1422-34) invited him to Muḥammadābād-Bīdar, his capital. The saint declined the invitation, but sent one of his disciples. The Sultan repeated the invitation with the request to send one of his sons, if he could not himself come. Niʿmat A…

, Amīr of Afg̲h̲ānistan and the successor and third son of Habīb Allāh [ q.v.] by his chief wife, ʿUlyā Ḥaḍrat (d. 1965). He was born on 2 June 1892 in Pag̲h̲mān and educated at the Military Academy. Intelligent, energetic and hardworking, he was attracted to the nationalist and Islamic modernist ideas of Maḥmūd Ṭarzī (1866-1935), the editor of Sirād̲j̲ al-ak̲h̲bār , and in 1914 married Ṭarzī’s daughter, Soraya (T̲h̲urayyā) (d. 21 April 1968). At the time of his father’s murder on 20 February 1919, Amān Allāh, as Governor of Kābul, c…

[see ras̲h̲īd al-dīn ].

[see takbīr ]

, s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ . Ottoman calligrapher [see k̲h̲aṭṭ ]

[see mūsā ].