(a.), “the rightly guided one” is the name of the restorer of religion and justice who, according to a widely held Muslim belief, will ¶ rule before the end of the world. The present article will trace the history of this belief and will deal with the political history of Mahdist movements only in so far as relevant (for the Sudanese movement, see al-mahdiyya). Origin and early development during the Umayyad age. The term mahdī as such does not occur in the Ḳurʾān; but the name is clearly derived from the Arabic root h-d-y commonly used in it in the meaning of divine guidance. As an hon…

is the name (i) of an organized religious community, standing in continuity with its eponym, Mīrzā G̲h̲ulām Aḥmad of Ḳādiyān; and (ii) of a small organization or movement derived from (i). G̲h̲ulām Aḥmad was born into the leading family of the small town of Ḳādiyān, Gurdāspur district, Pand̲j̲āb, India, about 1255/1839. The title Mīrzā relates to the family’s having corne in with the conquering Mug̲h̲als, in this case under Bābur. The boy received a good traditional education, in Arabic and Persian, and was from childhood studious and reflective. Rather than follow his father as ḥakīm …

, Luxor, the present site of ancient Thebes, the capital of the New Kingdom on the eastern bank of the Nile in Upper Egypt. In the mediaeval Arabic geographical sources we find side-by-side the following renderings of the name of the city: (a) al-Aḳṣur "castles" (in the pluralis paucitatis as is explained by Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am , Beirut, i, 237a); the vocalisation with fatḥa is explicitly stated by Abu ’l-Fidāʾ, Taḳwīm , 110. (b) al-Uḳṣur, the colloquial equivalent to al-Aḳṣur with ḍamma , as given by al-Ḳalḳas̲h̲andī, Ṣubḥ , iii, 380, only a few decades after A…

, a rogatory rite still practised at the present day (notably in Jordan and Morocco) and dating back to the earliest Arab times (ʿĀdite according ¶ to Ibn al-At̲h̲īr, i, 61; Abrahaniic according to Ibn Saʿd, i/1, 22) which is a supplication for rain during periods of great drought. The rite must have been both astral and magical in nature. Obliged to retain it because of its great popularity, primitive Islam tried to remove these features. A precise ritual was established—as in the case of istik̲h̲āra [ q.v.], another custom deriving from pagan cultic practices —so that the faithf…

(i) Muslim Bengali Language. Bengali belongs to the Indo-European family of languages. It may have begun to evolve as a separate language with a distinct identity, out of Gauṛa Apabhramsa, about the 8th or 9th century A.D. The greater part of the vocabulary of Bengali was derived or borrowed from Sanskrit. The Muslims conquered Bengal at the beginning on the 13th century, and ruled the country for nearly six hundred years. Under Muslim rule Persian was one of the languages of culture, provincial administration, and inter-state communication. Bec…

, a province in the north-west of China, bounded in the south and east by the provinces of Szechwan and Shensi and in the west and north by the province of Chinghhai and the Sinkiang Uighur and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regions. The province, first formed under the Great Khan Ḳūbīlāy in 1282 A.D., received its name from the towns in the extreme north-west, Kanchou (Changyeh) and ¶ Suchou (Kiuchuan); both towns are already mentioned in the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam and Gardīzī, the former in the form K̲h̲āmd̲j̲ū (in the Mongol period Kamd̲j̲ū) and the latter as Suk̲h̲d̲j̲ū or Sūkd̲j̲ū. 1. To the end of t…

( ḥarawrāʾ , according to Yāḳūt, ii, 246, but wrongly), a locality, village or district ( kūra ) near al-Kūfa. During the pre-Islamic period and in the first century of Islam at least, Ḥarūrāʾ stood on the banks of the Euphrates or one of its canals, for a line of al-Aʿs̲h̲ā (al-Ṭabarī, ii, 730) speaks of “ s̲h̲aṭṭ Ḥarūra ”, but in the 3rd/9th century it was described as being in the desert ( ṣaḥrāʾ ) by the traditionist Ibn Dīzīl al-Hamdānī (d. 283/896; see Ibn Abi ’l-Ḥadīd, i, 215); the hydrographic system of the region had thus probably undergone a transformation. Of no importance from the po…

( Matthews’ Chinese-English Dictionary, Revised American Edition 1969, characters nos. 4310, 4534, 2735), also known as Muḥammad Amīn , a Chinese Muslim leader of the mid-12th/18th century who was instrumental in the development and spread of the “New Teaching”, a neo-orthodox reformist movement in Chinese Islam which swept Northwest China in the latter half of the 12th/18th century, and which played an important part in the great mid-13th/19th century Muslim revolt of Ma Hua-lung [ q.v.]. Ma Ming-hsin was born at an unknown date during the first h…

(a.), a type of decoration typical for Islamic architecture all over the central and eastern parts of the Muslim world; for its counterpart in the Muslim West, see muḳarbaṣ. The term derives from the Greek κορωνίσ (Latin coronis , Fr. corniche , Eng. cornice ), and has no explanation whatsoever in any of the Arabic dictionaries that could be associated with its function in Islamic architecture. It is therefore a popular term, or rather, a mason’s technical term. Muḳarnas decoration is composed of a series of niches embedded within an architectural fr…

(a.) “metamorphosis”, that is, according to LA, s.v., “transformation of an exterior form ( ṣūra ) into a more ugly form”; the product of the metamorphosis is itself called mask̲h̲ / misk̲h̲ or masīk̲h̲ / mamsūk̲h̲ . Belief in the fact that, as a result of supernatural intervention—divine punishment in the majority of cases—humans have been transformed into animals, statutes or even into stars was as widespread, before Islam, among the Arabs as among the peoples of Antiquity whose mythologies are known to us. The growth of the conc…

(a.), creation. I.— Lexicographical data. K̲h̲alḳ, noun of action of the verb k̲h̲alaḳa , which properly means the act of creating, can also be used to designate Creation in its entirety: wa’l-k̲h̲alḳ yakūn al-maṣdar wa-yakūn al-mak̲h̲lūḳ ( LA). The noun of the agent, al-k̲h̲āliḳ , defined by the article, is applied only to God and is one of His Names. According to the LA, in the speech of the Arabs al-k̲h̲alḳ is used to designate the production of some new thing ( ibtidāʿ ) on a pattern which has not been previously employed ( ʿalā mit̲h̲āl lam yusbaḳ ilayh ). Abū …

, son of ʿAlī and Fāṭima [ q.v.], claimant to the caliphate until he renounced the office in favour of Muʿāwiya b. Abī Sufyān, and, in the eyes of the S̲h̲īʿīs, the second imām . Early years. He was born in 3/624-5 (the month is uncertain; mid-Ramaḍān?) and given the name al-Ḥasan by Muḥammad, while his father wanted to call him Ḥarb; he lived with the Prophet for only seven years, but was nevertheless able later to recollect some of his phrases and actions (for example that Muḥammad threw back into the heap of ṣadaḳa dates one which he had already put into his mout…

, sc. Gog and Magog, the names of apocalyptic peoples known from biblical (Ezekiel xxxviii, xxxix, Apocalypse, xx. 7-10) and Ḳurʾānic eschatology. Ḳurʾān, XVIII, 93-8, refers to D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳarnayn erecting a barrier/rampart ( sadd/radm) against them, which, at the end of time, God Himself will raze. Ḳurʾān, XXI, 96, is an apocalyptic metaphor: “Till, when Gog and Magog are unloosed, and they slide down ( yansilūna ) out of every slope” (tr. A.J. Arberry). Names . The reading ϒād̲j̲ūd̲j̲ wa-Mād̲j̲ūd̲j̲ (without hamza ) was preferred by most of the Ḥid̲j̲āzī and ʿIrāḳī ḳurrāʾ , while ʿĀṣim [ q.…

, the name of a popular figure, who plays a prominent part in legend and story. Al-K̲h̲aḍir is properly an epithet (“the green man”); this was in time forgotten and this explains the secondary form K̲h̲iḍr (approximately “the green”), which in many places has displaced the primary form. (i) In the Ḳurʾān and in oriental legend Legends and stories regarding al-K̲h̲aḍir are primarily associated with the Ḳurʾānic story in Sūra XVIII, 59-81, the outline of which is as follows. Mūsā goes on a journey with his servant ( fatā ), the goal of which is the mad̲j̲maʿ al-baḥrayn . …

, the Prophet of Islam. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. 2. The Prophet in popular Muslim piety. 3. The Prophet’s image in Europe and the West. 1. The Prophet’s life and career. Belief that Muḥammad is the Messenger of God ( Muḥammadun rasūlu ’llāh ) is second only to belief in the Oneness of God ( lā ilāha illā ’llāh ) according to the s̲h̲ahāda [ q.v.], the quintessential Islamic creed. Muḥammad has a highly exalted role at the heart of Muslim faith. At the same time the Ḳurʾān and Islamic orthodoxy insist that he was fully human with no supernatural powers. That Muḥammad was one of the greate…

, a Ṣūfī ṭarīḳa which was founded by Aḥmad al-Tid̲j̲ānī [ q.v.] in the oasis of Abī Samg̲h̲ūn in Algeria in 1196/1781-2. Aḥmad al-Tid̲j̲ānī settled in Fās in 1789, where he developed a local following and initiated into his ṭarīḳa Muslims from other parts of the Mag̲h̲rib and West Africa, through whom it spread in these regions. The papers presented at the Paris conference of 1982 on the present state of the Ṣūfī orders, which were published by A. Popovic and G. Veinstein as Les ordres mystiques dans l’Islam . Cheminements et situation actuelle , document the presen…

(Turkic Toḳuz Og̲h̲uz “the Nine Og̲h̲uz”), the name of a Turkic tribal confederation that was used in often chronologically confused Muslim accounts as the general designation of the Uyg̲h̲urs until the late 5th/11 th century. Chinese sources, in which they are first attested in 630, invariably translate rather than transcribe this name as Chiu hsing , the “Nine Surnames”, i.e. clans or tribal groupings. The ethnonyms Uyg̲h̲ur and Toḳuz Og̲h̲uz were not, stricdy speaking, coterminous. The Uyg̲h̲urs (consisting of ten tribes or …

, a term denoting four distinct ʿAlid groups: (1) The descendants of Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya. In the 4th/10th century they are reported to have been few in number, but to have none the less held positions of leadership in Fārs, ¶ Ḳazwīn, Ḳumm and Rayy. By the 6th/12th century their numbers appear to have grown. (2) Believers in the Mahdīship of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Nafs al-Zakiyya (d. 145/762 [ q.v.]). This Ḥasanid pretender enjoyed widespread support among a variety of S̲h̲īʿīs long before his uprising against the ʿAbbāsids. The term Muḥammadiyya denotes tw…

, the seventh month of the Islamic calendar, was observed as a holy month in the period of the D̲j̲āhiliyya in spring. It was the month of the sacrifices of the ʿatāʾir offered to the pagan deities as a token of gratitude for the augmentation of their flocks and herds. It was also the time of invocations of their deities to increase the number of their flocks. It was as well the month of the sacrifices of the furuʿ , the firstlings of the flocks and herds. The owner of the flock had to sacrifice one ewe out of fifty (or hundred) of his herd. The holy month of Rad̲j̲ab was also the month of peace in…

, Yazīdiyya , the name of a mainly Kurdish-speaking group whose communal identity is defined by their distinctive religious tradition. Appellations and definitions. The Kurdish appellation generally used by the community itself is Ēzdī , with a variant Ēzīdī . Most Western scholars now hold that the word derives from the name of Yazīd b. Muʿāwiya [ q.v.]; a derivation from Old Iranian yazata , Middle Persian yazad “divine being”, was once widely accepted and is still preferred by many Yazīdīs. Popular etymologies include a derivation of the term from ez dā , which…