Encyclopaedia Islamica
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Subject: Middle East And Islamic Studies
Edited by: Farhad Daftary and Wilferd Madelung
Encyclopaedia Islamica Online is based on the abridged and edited translation of the Persian Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī, one of the most comprehensive sources on Islam and the Muslim world. A unique feature of the Encyclopaedia Islamica Online lies in the attention given to Shiʿi Islam and its rich and diverse heritage. In addition to providing entries on important themes, subjects and personages in Islam generally, Encyclopaedia Islamica Online offers the Western reader an opportunity to appreciate the various dimensions of Shiʿi Islam, the Persian contribution to Islamic civilization, and the spiritual dimensions of the Islamic tradition.
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Encyclopaedia Islamica Online is based on the abridged and edited translation of the Persian Dāʾirat al-Maʿārif-i Buzurg-i Islāmī, one of the most comprehensive sources on Islam and the Muslim world. A unique feature of the Encyclopaedia Islamica Online lies in the attention given to Shiʿi Islam and its rich and diverse heritage. In addition to providing entries on important themes, subjects and personages in Islam generally, Encyclopaedia Islamica Online offers the Western reader an opportunity to appreciate the various dimensions of Shiʿi Islam, the Persian contribution to Islamic civilization, and the spiritual dimensions of the Islamic tradition.
Subscriptions: see Brill.com
Ḥabīb al-ʿAjamī
(1,818 words)
Ḥabīb al-ʿAjamī (d. in the early to mid 2nd/8th century), also known as Ḥabīb al-Farsī, was a Persian Sufi. While his epithet ‘al-ʿAjamī’ (‘one who is illiterate in Arabic’) appears to signify Persian origins, some biographical sources state that he was given this epithet because he was unable, at least initially, to recite the Qurʾān properly (see ʿAṭṭār, 60; Field, 81, 85).His full name is Abū Muḥammad Ḥabīb b. Muḥammad b. ʿĪsā. Regarded as one of the earliest Sufi masters, Ḥabīb was a well-known ascetic in Baṣra towards the end of the 1st/7th century a…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥabīb Allāh Rashtī
(1,598 words)
Ḥabīb Allāh Rashtī (1234–1312/1819–1894), an Uṣūlī jurist and a prominent student and propagator of the jurisprudence of Shaykh Murtaḍā al-Anṣārī (d. 1281/1864). His family were originally from the Siyāh Manṣūrī Kurdish tribe who, during the reign of the Ṣafawid Shāh ʿAbbās I (r. 995–1038/1587–1629), were settled in Amlash, Gīlān in the north of Iran. Ḥabīb Allāh’s grandfather, Jahāngīr Khān Qūchānī Gīlānī, was a notable scholar in his time (Amlashī, 34–35; al-Amīn, 4/559; Muẓaffarī, 26).BiographyMīrzā Ḥabīb Allāh completed his initial seminary studies in the city of…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥabīb b. Maslama
(2,038 words)
Ḥabīb b. Maslama, Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (d. ca. 42/662), a famous Muslim military commander from the first half of the 1st/7th century. His genealogy can be traced to Banū Muḥārib b. Fihr, an offshoot of the larger Quraysh tribe, and he is sometimes given the
nisba al-Fihrī (al-Kalbī, 119–120; al-Zubayrī, 447; al-Balādhurī,
Ansāb, 11/56; for the different
kunyas he is given, see Ibn ʿAsākir, 12/62; Ibn Ḥajar, 2/190). According to surviving historical accounts, Ḥabīb’s first activities appear to be connected to the conquests (
futūḥāt) that took place during the caliphate …
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥabīb b. Muẓāhir
(1,755 words)
Ḥabīb b. Muẓāhir (d. 10 Muḥarram 61/10 October 680), a prominent Shiʿi figure in Kūfa during the first half of the 1st/7th century, a companion of Imams ʿAlī, al-Ḥasan, and al-Ḥusayn, and one of the martyrs of Karbalāʾ. Ḥabīb b. Muẓāhir was a member of the Banū Asad tribe. In sources, he is sometimes given the
nisba ‘al-Asadī’, although ‘al-Faqʿasī’ (indicating descent from Banū Faqʿas), is also used. His lineage is given as Ḥabīb b. Muẓahhar b. Riʾāb b. al-Ashtar of Banū Faqʿas (al-Kalbī, 170). There is disagreement in the primary sources o…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥabībī
(1,163 words)
Ḥabībī, (lit. ‘beloved’) a nom de plume (
takhalluṣ) shared by two Persian-speaking poets.1. Ḥabībī Bargushādī, an Ādharbāyjānī poet (late 9th/15th and early 10th/16th century). He was born in the village of Bargushād (Bərgüşad), in the Ujar Rayon of Ādharbāyjān (Dawlatābādī, 169). Ṣabā erroneously renders ‘Ḥabībī’ as ‘Jayshī’, and claims he was an ethnic Turk (
Tadhkira, 187); and Tarbiyat (
Dānishmandān, 102) proposes Turkoman origins. However Sāmī considers Ḥabībī to have been of Tājīk (Persian) origin (
Qāmūs, 3/1927).Sām Mīrzā Ṣafawī (pp. 357–358) describes Ḥabībī’s e…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥābis al-Ṣaʿdī
(1,450 words)
Ḥābis al-Ṣaʿdī, Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Aḥmad b. Ḥābis (d. 1061/1651) was a Zaydī jurist (
faqīh), theologian (
mutakallim) and judge (
qāḍī) in Yemen. His date of birth is not mentioned in the sources, but since he wrote a commentary on
al-Takmila li al-aḥkām in 1019/1610 when he was aged 18, his birth can be dated to ca. 1001/1593 (Ibn Abī al-Rijāl, 1/510–511; see below).Ḥābis was born in Ṣaʿda (near Ṣanʿāʾ) into a learned family from the clan of Banū Ḥābis, one of the branches of the Banū al-Dawwārī, hence he was called al-Dawwārī. Ḥābis’s father was o…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥabs
(2,280 words)
Ḥabs, a legal term that is generally synonymous with waqf except in Twelver Shiʿi jurisprudence. It has widest use in the sense of waqf among Mālikī jurists. Ḥabs is a verbal noun with the literal meaning of ‘to withhold, restrict, detain’, and is the opposite of
takhliya (‘granting unrestricted access’) (al-Jawharī, 3/915; Ibn Manẓūr, 6/44). In modern usage, the term
ḥubs or
ḥubus (especially in North Africa, and Fr. habous) is used to signify a pious endowment, while
ḥabs tends to refer to the act of sequestration or detaining, but in the early period of Islam such a di…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥabwa
(1,821 words)
Ḥabwa (lit. ‘gift’), a legal term unique to Twelver Shiʿi jurisprudence that is dealt with as a subcategory of farāʾiḍ (dues) or irth (inheritance). The Arabic word ḥabwa literally means a ‘gift’ or ‘award’ (Ibn Manẓūr, 14/162; al-Fīrūzābādī, 4/341; al-Ṭurayḥī, 1/94–95), and is understood to mean specific assets which are only given to the eldest son from his father’s inheritance, before the remainder of the estate is shared out (al-Ḥusaynī al-ʿĀmilī, 8/134 ff.; Narāqī, 19/201; al-Shahīd al-Thān…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥādhiq, Junayd Allāh
(1,083 words)
Ḥādhiq, Junayd Allāh (d. 1259/1844) was a 13th/19th century Tajik poet and physician. He was born in the village of Karkh, near Herat (Amīrqūlūf, 7). In 1216/1801 he went to Bukhārā, where he studied in the Madrasa-yi ʿĀlī (ʿAynī, 131; Maʿṣūmī, 1/43; Amīrqūlūf, 7–8). While he was studying, Ḥādhiq caught the attention of the emir of Bukhārā, Ḥaydar b. Shāh Murād (r. 1215–1242/1800–1826) and, upon the conclusion of his studies, was given the position of teacher in the same
madrasa. From there he gained admission to Ḥaydar’s court (Amīrqūlūf, 8). However, because he was a fr…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥāfiẓ
(38,165 words)
Ḥāfiẓ, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad of Shīrāz (d. ca. 791/1389), a world-renowned Persian lyrical poet, is universally regarded as one of the greatest exponents of the ghazal form. Among the most distinctive features of the poetry of Ḥāfiẓ is his exploration of mystical themes, often ambiguously couched in the language of worldly love and carousing; his espousal of the values of the Malāmatī Sufis, who actively sought public disapproval as a safeguard against ostentatious piety and hypocrisy; his exqui…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥāfiẓa in Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism
(2,221 words)
Ḥāfiẓa in Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism. In Islamic philosophy,
ḥāfiẓa (‘memory’) refers to the faculty of the soul which is a repository for the meanings/intentions (
maʿānī) which the inner senses (
ḥawāss) receive from the faculty of estimation (
wahm) in both humans and animals (Ibn Sīnā, al-Shifāʾ, 148–149).In the Islamic intellectual tradition, the words
dhākira (‘recollection’, see idem, al-Najāh, 2/100),
mudhakkira and
mutadhakkira (both ‘recollection’),
mustarjiʿa (‘recall’) (Ibn Sīnā, al-Qānūn, 1/72; Jurjānī, 142), and
taḥaffuẓ (‘retention’, see Naṣīr al-D…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū
(6,630 words)
Ḥāfiẓ-i Abrū (the
laqab by which he was known), ʿAbd Allāh (or Nūr Allāh) b. Luṭf Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Rashīd Bihdādīnī (also Harawī or Khwāfī), was one of the foremost and most prolific historians of the later medieval Iranian world (ca. 763–d. Shawwāl 833/1362–d. June 1430). He produced a series of continuations of the works of other historians to provide a continuous history up to his own day. He wrote a chronology of recent history and also wrote a geography which is of importance because it consists mainly of a series of local histories. He was also a boon companion (
nad
īm) to Tīmūr/Temür (d.…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
al-Ḥāfiẓ li-Dīn Allāh
(2,365 words)
al-Ḥāfiẓ li-Dīn Allāh, Abū al-Maymūn ʿAbd al-Majīd b. Abī al-Qāsim Muḥammad b. al-Mustanṣir bi’llāh (467–Jumādā II 544/1074–October 1149). The eleventh Fāṭimid caliph and the progenitor of the Ḥāfiẓī Ismaili Imams (in the Ḥāfiẓī-Ṭayyibī schism). He was the twenty-first Imam of the Ḥāfiẓī Ismailis.ʿAbd al-Majīd was born in ʿAsqalān (Ibn Khallikān, 3/236, cf. al-Maqrīzī,
al-Khiṭaṭ, 2/196–197, who erroneously gives his year of birth as 497/1104). There is little information regarding his life prior to his involvement in Fāṭimid politics, which took …
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥafṣa bint Ḥamdūn
(815 words)
Ḥafṣa bint Ḥamdūn, a 4th/10th century Andalusī poetess. Our information about her life is limited to the fact that she grew up in a wealthy family in the village of Wādī al-Ḥijāra (Guadalajara). Hence she is also known as Ḥafṣa al-Ḥijāriyya (or ‘Ḥafṣa of Guadalajara’; Ibn al-Abbār, 248; Yāqūt, 2/204; Aʿlamī Ḥāʾirī, 2/20).Sources place Ḥafṣa as living during the 4th/10th century, as she is mentioned by Ibn Faraj al-Jayyānī (d. 366/976) in his anthology
Kitāb al-Ḥadāʾiq, and roughly contemporaneous with another famous Andalusī poet, ʿĀʾisha bint Aḥmad al-Qurṭubiyya (d. 4…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥafṣa bint ʿUmar
(2,380 words)
Ḥafṣa bint ʿUmar (d. 45/665), daughter of the second caliph, ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, who became one of the Prophet Muḥammad’s wives.According to the sources, Ḥafṣa was born in 604 CE, five years before the beginning of the Prophet’s mission (Ibn Saʿd, 8/81; al-Dhahabī, 2/227, 230). Her mother was Zaynab bint Maẓʿūn of the Banū Jumaḥ clan, one of the branches of the Quraysh tribe, and the sister of a prominent Companion of the Prophet, ʿUthmān b. Maẓʿūn. Zaynab was also the mother of Ḥafṣa’s brothers ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿUmar (q.v.) and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿUmar (Khalīfa b. Khayyāṭ,
Ṭabaqāt, 334; Ibn Ḥa…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
al-Ḥāʾirī
(2,189 words)
al-Ḥāʾirī, Abū al-Fatḥ Naṣr Allāh b. Ḥusayn al-Mūsawī al-Fāʾizī, who was given the honorific (
laqab) ʿIzz al-Dīn, an Imāmī belletrist, poet, preacher, traditionist and historian of the 12th/18th century.Abū al-Fatḥ al-Ḥāʾirī was born in Karbalāʾ in 1109/1697. Even though he was quite well known during his lifetime, the precise date of his death is the subject of some uncertainty, with different sources offering a range of years between 1156/1743 and 1168/1755. However, based on the date of the Najaf Conference (
muʾtamar) and his mission on behalf of Nādir Shāh (q.v. Afshāri…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥajb
(917 words)
Ḥajb (lit. ‘to bar’) a technical term in Islamic inheritance law, denoting a situation in which an heir is legally prevented from obtaining his or her share of the deceased’s estate, whether in whole or in part, to which he or she is otherwise entitled (al-Muḥaqqiq al-Ḥillī, 4/719; al-Zuḥaylī, 8/345; Jaʿfarī Langarūdī,
Tirmīnuluzhī, 210). The literal meaning of the word
ḥajb in Arabic is ‘to prevent’ or ‘to bar’ someone (Ibn Manẓūr, 777–778). In the Iranian Civil Law Code,
ḥajb refers to a state of affairs where a beneficiary is excluded from obtaining all or part of the i…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥājī Bābā Āfshār
(1,733 words)
Ḥājī Bābā Āfshār was the first Persian doctor to practise modern European medicine. He served as
ḥakīm-bāshī (head physician) at the courts of the crown prince, ʿAbbās Mīrzā Nāʾib al-Salṭana (d. 1249/1833) and Muḥammad Shāh Qājār (r. 1250–1264/1834–1848).Mīrzā Bābā, also known as Mīrzā Ḥājī Bābā Āfshār, was the son of one of the officers of ʿAbbās Mīrzā. He and another young man called Muḥammad Kāẓim were the first Persians to be sent to study in England. ʿAbbās Mīrzā was conscious of a sense of his country’s educational and milita…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥajjat al-wadāʿ
(2,133 words)
Ḥajjat al-wadāʿ (the Farewell Pilgrimage), the only full pilgrimage made by the Prophet Muḥammad, which took place in the last year of his life. This is regarded as a seminal event in his prophetic mission and in the history of Islam.In 10/631, the Prophet undertook a pilgrimage with a large number of his Companions, friends, and relatives. It was called ‘Ḥajjat al-wadāʿ’ (lit. ‘the farewell pilgrimage’; see Peters,
Hajj, 53–57) because during it he gave an address (
khuṭba) at ʿArafāt in which he announced to his followers that this would be their final meeting. It has b…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14
Ḥājjī Baktāsh Walī
(3,780 words)
Ḥājjī Baktāsh Walī (Hacı Bektaş Veli, d. second half of the 7th/13th century) was a famous Anatolian Sufi teacher, after whom the Bektashi (q.v.) mystical Order is named.Historical sources do not preserve a great deal of detail concerning the life of Ḥājjī Baktāsh, and early biographical accounts of him tend to be extremely hagiographical in nature, consisting of a mixture of legendary accounts, stories of his miracles, and mixed anecdotes. The oldest source to mention him is the Persian work
Manāqib al-ʿārifīn (‘Accomplishments of the Gnostics’) by Shams al-Dīn Aḥmad Aflākī…
Source:
Encyclopaedia Islamica
Date:
2022-10-14