Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

, Sayyid Aḥmad b. Zaynī , born in Mecca towards the beginning of the 19th century, was from 1288/1871 Muftī of the S̲h̲āfiʿīs and S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ al-ʿUlamāʾ (head of the corporation of scholars and therefore of the body of teachers in the Ḥaram ) in his native city. When the Grand S̲h̲arīf ʿAwn al-Rafīḳ, because of a dispute with the Ottoman Governor ʿUt̲h̲mān Pas̲h̲a, removed himself to Madīna, Daḥlān followed him there but died soon afterwards from the fatigue of the journey in 1304/ 1886. Particularly in his later ye…

—in Saʿūdī Arabia—a long, narrow arch of nafūd or dune desert, varying in width from 10 to 75 km., extending around an eastward curve for a total length of over 1,000 km., connecting the Great Nafūd of the northwest with the Empty Quarter (al-Rubʿ al-K̲h̲ālī [ q.v.]) of the south, lacking in natural water sources except along the fringes, but furnishing a favourite area of pasturing. In the past separating the interior area of al-Yamāma from the coastal region of al-Baḥrayn, al-Dahnāʾ today serves as an informal boundary between the Province of Nad̲j̲d and the…

, Persian dahna , dahāna , marmar-i sabz (‘green marble’), Turkish dehne-i frengi, malachite, the well known green copper-ore. The description of the mineral in the Rasāʾil Ik̲h̲wān al-Ṣafā goes back to the pseudo-Aristotelian lapidary. According to that, the malachite is formed in copper mines from the sulphur fumes which combine with ¶ copper to form layers. Its colour is compared to that of the chrysolith ( zabard̲j̲ad ), although it does appear in different shades: dark green, veined, the shade of peacock’s feathers, and pale green, wit…

, a corridor 418 miles long by 125 miles wide, between Togoland and Nigeria, is one of the earliest known countries on the Gulf of Guinea. The coast is low-lying, fringed with lagoons, while the central zone is formed of table-land and isolated mountains; the northern part is higher, slanted across by the mountains of Atacora, which rise to about 800 metres. In the south especially, the humidity is high and the temperature fairly constant although there are two rainy and two dry seasons. The population of Dahomey, nearly two million inhabitants, is chiefly composed of Fon (cent…

, time, especially infinitely extended time (cf. Lane; al-Bayḍāwī on K. 76.1). The pre-Islamic Arabs, as is shown by many passages in their poetry, regarded time (also zamān , and al-ayyām , the days) as the source of what happened to a man, both good and bad; they thus give it something of the connotation ¶ of Fate, though without worshipping it (W. L. Schrameier, Über den Fatalismus der vorislamischen Araber , Bonn 1881; Th. Nöldeke, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics , i, 661 b; for possible parallels cf. A. Christensen, Iran , 149 f., 157—Zurvān as both time …

, holders of materialistic opinions of various kinds, often only vaguely defined. This collective noun denotes them as a whole, as a firḳa , sect, according to the Dictionary of the Technical Terms , and stands beside the plural dahriyyūn formed from the same singular dahrī , the relative noun of dahr, a Ḳurʾānic word meaning a long period of time. In certain editions of the Ḳurʾān it gives its name to sūra LXXVI, generally called the sūra of Man; but its use in XLV, 24 where it occurs in connexion with the infidels, or rather the ungodly, erring and blinded, appears to …

, a place in the province of D̲j̲īza, some 40 kms. south of Cairo, to the west of the Nile on the edge of the desert. A necropolis and pyramids dating from the first dynasties of the Old Kingdom are situated there. These relics of the age of the Pharaohs are mentioned by al-Harawī and al-Maḳrīzī without a precise description being given. Abū Ṣāliḥ speaks of a great church and an important monastery there. The present-day hamlet is insignificant and the name continues to be well known solely on account of the pyramids. (G. Wiet) Bibliography Ibn Mammātī, 138 al-Harawī, Ziyārāt, 39 Abū Ṣāliḥ, fol.…

, aḥmad b. ibrāhīm , Turkish poet of the end of the 8th/14th and the beginning of the 9th/15th century. The scanty information about his life is scattered in his works and in ted̲h̲kires . A ḳādī by profession, he began to gain prominence as a poet at the court of the Germiyān in Kütahya under princes Sulaymān and Yaʿḳūb II. He seems to have travelled a great deal in Anatolia and in the Balkans. During the chaotic years of struggle between the sons of Bāyezīd I after the battle of Ankara (804/1402), he entered the service of one of them, amīr Sulaymān in Edirne, whose court had become a gatheri…

(rarely, dāʿiya ), “he who summons” to the true faith, was a title used among several dissenting Muslim groups for their chief propagandists. It was evidently used by the early Muʿtazilites [ q.v. in EI 1]; but became typical of the more rebellious among the S̲h̲īʿīs. It appears in the ʿAbbāsid mission in K̲h̲urāsān; and in some Zaydī usage. It was ascribed to followers of Abu ’l-K̲h̲aṭṭāb. It was especially important in the Ismāʿīlī and associated movements (which were called daʿwa , “summons”), where it designated generically the chief authorized representatives of the imām . Among the …

[see al-d̲j̲arḥ waʾl taʿdīl ].

, the term used for the administration of crown lands in the Ottoman Empire during the last quarter of the 19th century. Saniyya lands were the mulk (private freehold) of the Sultan. They were administered by a well-organised establishment, the Dāʾira Saniyya , which had branch offices in areas where these lands were abundant. After the revolution of 1908, Sultan ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd II ceded his private properties to the state. The lands continued to be called saniyya , but they were transferred to the newly-formed department of al-Amlāk al-mudawwara . Within months of the accession to the…

, name of an Egyptian province in the eastern region of the Delta. It owes its name, which is an Arabicized form of the Coptic Tkehli, to the town called Daḳahla which was situated between Damīra and Damietta, a little closer to the latter than the former. At one time famous for its paper mills, it is now but an insignificant village. The province was created at the end of the 5th/11th century and it has survived till today with some changes in its boundaries. At present it extends along the eastern bank of the Damietta branch of the Nile, which marks its …

, the capital of Senegal, is situated at the tip of the Cape Verde peninsula. Its position ¶ is the westernmost outpost of the ancient world (its longitude reaches 17° 16′ W. at the point of the Almadies). The region of Dakar, which covers almost the whole of the peninsula, is subdivided into three parts: (1) An eastern highland area (more than 100 m. in altitude); the N’Diass range rises some 70 m. above lake Tanma; to the east, the relief consists of hills or low plateaux with very gentle…

[see daḳahliyya ].

(deccan). This word is derived from the Sanskrit word daks̲h̲iṇa ‘right (hand)’, hence ‘south’, since the compass points were determined with reference to the rising sun. The conventional line dividing north India from the south is formed by the south-western spurs of the Vindhyas along with their continuation called the Satpuŕās; peninsular India to the south of this line is usually further divided into (i) Deccan proper, extending up to the Tungabhadra, and (…

[see urdū ],

The dictionaries ( LA, TA, etc.) give a general meaning, “interior, inward, intimate”, and two particular derived meanings, (1) guest, to whom protection should be assured, and (2) stranger, passing traveller, person of another race. The first of the particular meanings relates to an institution of nomadic common law which guarantees protection, in traditional ways, to whoever requests it. Although the concept has at all times existed, it has never been incorporated into Islamic law, which has no te…

, [see ʿabd al-raḥmān ].

[see al-wāḥāt ].

[see urdū ].

, Abū Manṣūr Muḥammad b. Aḥmad (or Muḥammad b. Muḥammad b. Aḥmad), the poet to whom we owe the oldest known text of the national epic in the Persian language. His place of birth is uncertain (Ṭūs, Buk̲h̲ārā, Balk̲h̲ or Samarḳand); he was born between 318 and 329/930 and 940, for he was at least twenty years old when he became panegyrist to the amīrs of Čag̲h̲āniyān, then of the Sāmānid amīr Manṣūr b. Nūḥ (350-366/961-976); further, Firdawsī, who continued after him the composition of The Book of the Kings ( S̲h̲āhnāma ), assures us that Daḳīḳī was a young man when…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh , Moroccan saint born at Sid̲j̲ilmāsa. He and a certain Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad b. ʿUmar al-Aṣamm who was assassinated in 542/1147-8 belonged to one of the small circles of Ṣūfīs generally disapproved of by authority. This Abū ʿAbd Allāh had already been imprisoned at Fez at the same time as some of his companions, among whom one was al-Daḳḳaḳ, who on the orders of Tās̲h̲ufīn b. ʿAlī the Almoravid was afterwards released. No one knows the date of birth of this saint, nor that of his death. All the same, one can be sure that towards the middle of the 6th/…

(or Daḳūḳ ), a small town in the D̲j̲azīra province of the ʿAbbāsid empire, some 25 miles S.E. of Kirkūk on the Mosul-Bag̲h̲dād trunkroad, was known to the later Arab geographers and perhaps emerged into urban status, though never eminence, in the 5th/11th century. Some medieval brickwork and a minaret survive. The later and present name (from 9th/15th century, or earlier) was Ṭāwūḳ or Ṭāʾūḳ. The town, on flat ground immediately west of the foothills, stands healthy and well-…

, 8th letter of the Arabic alphabet, transcribed d; numerical value 4, in accordance with the order of the letters in the Syriac (and Canaanite) alphabet, where d is the fourth letter [see abd̲j̲ad ]. It continues a d of common Semitic. Definition: voiced dental occlusive; according to the Arab grammatical tradition: s̲h̲adīda , mad̲j̲hūra . For the mak̲h̲rad̲j̲ : niṭʿiyya according to al-K̲h̲alīl (al-Zamak̲h̲s̲h̲arī, Mufaṣṣal , 2nd ed. J. P. Broch, 191, line 1), who places the point of articulation at the niṭʿ (or niṭaʿ ), the anterior part of the hard pala…

, Abū Zayd Nāḳid , mawlā of the Fahm tribe, musician and ẓarīf in Medina, born about 70/690, died about 145/762. Like his teacher Ṭuways (d. 92/710) he was a muk̲h̲annat̲h̲ —hence the proverb “more effeminate than al-Dalāl”—and is said to have been castrated by order of one of the caliphs, either Sulaymān or His̲h̲ām [but see K̲h̲aṣī ]. His musical gifts and ready wits he used as an entertainer of Qurays̲h̲ women and a singer at weddings, accompanying himself on a tambourine ( duff ). He composed highly artistic ( kat̲h̲īr al-ʿamal ) melodies in a style called g̲h̲ināʾ muḍʿaf …

(Gr. σημεῖον) is an ambiguous term; it can mean sign or indication, every proof through the inference of a cause from its effect or the inference of the universal from the particular in opposition to the proof from a strictly deductive syllogism in which the particular is deduced from the universal; and finally it is used as synonymous with proof, ἀπόδειξις, burhān generally.. Aristotle treats the “proof from a sign” in the last chapter of his Analytica Prior a. According to him “proof from a sign” is an enthymeme, i.e., a syllogism in which one premiss is suppressed (ἐνθύμημα, ḳiyās iḍmārī or ḳ…

(ar.) “broker”, “agent”. Dallāl , literally “guide”; is the popular Arabic word for simsār , sensal . In the Tād̲j̲ al-ʿArūs we find, on the word simsār: “This is the man known as a dallāl ; he shows the purchaser where to find the goods he requires, and the seller how to exact his price”. Very little is known from the Arabic sources about the origins of these brokers, who have been of such great importance in economic affairs. The dallāl corresponded to the Byzantine μεδίτης. In the absence of any systematic earlier studies, only certain items of information collected at r…

(Dalmacija in Serbocroat), a historic province of Yugoslavia, formerly covering parts of the Federal Republics of Croatia (the territory of contemporary Dalmatia), of Montenegro and a very small section of Bosnia-Herzegovina. I. Generalities Skirted by the Adriatic Sea, Dalmatia stretches in a north-west-south-east direction at the foot of the Dinaric mountain ranges (Velebit, Svilaja, Biokovo) from the peninsula of Istria (according to some authors, only from the island of Pag) to the Albanian frontier, marked by the river Bojana. But in fact, the territory designated by …

, the headquarter town of the Ḳaḍā of K̲h̲āliṣ in the liwā of Diyālā, central ʿIrāḳ (44° 30′ E, 33° 50′ N). The population of the town —all settled ʿIrāḳī Arabs, with S̲h̲īʿī predominance over Sunnī—was some 10,000 in 1367/1947, and that of the ḳaḍā 70,000; the two dependent nāḥiyas are those of K̲h̲ān Banī Saʿd and Manṣūriyya (formerly Dalī ʿAbbās). The name Daltāwa is said by ʿIrāḳī scholars to be a corruption of an original Dawlatābād. Surrounded by date-gardens, the town is watered from the K̲h̲āliṣ canal, an important offtake from the Diyālā, right bank. Though stil…

[see Nud̲j̲ūm ].

[see sikka ].

(A.), pl. dimāʾ “blood”, also “blood-guilt” [see diya , ḳatl ]. In the present article it will be appropriate to mention the numerous blood sacrifices offered by the Muslims, but we will not concern ourselves with the theory, nor is it our intention to list them [see d̲h̲abīḥa , [see ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ , ʿīd al-aḍḥā ]. We will confine ourselves to a brief survey of the beliefs relative to blood and the uses to which it is put or to which it may be put by Muslims in the various circumstances where the sacrifice of an animal is required, and the role attributed to it in magic and therapy. Arabic texts of the Mi…

, “son-in-law”, an honorific title given to mīr muḥammad bāḳir b. s̲h̲ams al-dīn muḥammad al-Ḥusaynī al-astarābadī , Called also al-Muʿallim al-T̲h̲ālit̲h̲ , the “third teacher” in philosophy ¶ after al-Fārābī. This title properly belongs to his father who was the son-in-law of the famous S̲h̲īʿī theologian ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-ʿĀlī al-Karakī, called al-Muḥaḳḳiḳ al-T̲h̲ānī (Brockelmann, S II, 574), but it was extended to the son, who is more correctly called Dāmādī or Ibn al-Dāmād. Born at Astarābād, Mīr-i Dāmād spent h…

, a Persian word meaning son-in-law, used as a title by sons-in-law of the Ottoman Sultans. Under the early Sultans, princesses ( sulṭān ) of the reigning house were occasionally given in marriage to the vassal princes of Asia Minor, for example, to the Ḳaramānog̲h̲lu, and even to the vezirs and generals of the sovereign; the case of the saint Amīr Sulṭān of Bursa, who married a daughter of Bāyazīd I is, however, unique not only for that but also for later periods. We afterwards find Grand Vezirs…

, one of the last Grand Vezirs of the Ottoman Empire. Meḥmed Ferīd, son of Ḥasan ʿIzzet, a member of the Council of State (S̲h̲ūrā-yi Dewlet), was born in Istanbul in 1853, served in minor diplomatic posts, and, upon his marriage (1886) to ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd II’s sister Medīḥa, was made member of the Council of State and senator, and given the rank of Pas̲h̲a. In 1911 he became co-founder and chairman of the Ḥürriyet we Iʾtilāf Fi̊rḳasi̊ [ q.v.]. After the Ottoman defeat he served his brother-in-law Meḥmed VI as Grand Vezir (4 March to 2 October 1919 and 5 April to 21 October …

, (? -1125/1713), Ottoman Grand Vizier. The sources refer to him sometimes as “Moralī”, i.e., “from the Morea” and sometimes as “Enis̲h̲te”, i.e., “brother-in-law” (of the sultan, in this instance). He became a čokadār and then, in 1095/1683-4, rose to the rank of silāḥdār . On the accession to the throne of Süleymān II in Muḥarrem 1099/November 1687 he was made governor of Egypt (with the status of vizier)—an appointment that he held until 1101/1689-90, when, according to the Sid̲j̲ill-i ʿOt̲h̲mānī, he became mutaṣarri̊f of Brusa and Nicomedia (Izmid). Ḥ…

b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb b. Ḥammūya b. Ḥasanawayh , Ḥanafī jurist who, as Chief Ḳāḍī of Bag̲h̲dād, stands at the head of a family dynasty holding the positions of ḳāḍī or ḳāḍī ’l-ḳuḍāt down through the years. The following sketch is based mostly on al-Ḏj̲awāhir al-muḍiyya fī ṭabaḳāt al-Ḥanafiyya by ʿAbd al-Ḳādir b. Abi ’l-Wafāʾ al-Ḳuras̲h̲ī (d. 775/1373). The best way to distinguish between them is ¶ by the use of their patronymic ( kunya ) and first name ( ism ). Among the eighteen identifiable members of th…

b. ʿAlī b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥasan b. ʿAbd al-Malik b. Hammūya , son of Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Dāmag̲h̲ānī [ q.v.]. He was born in 449/1057, studied law, and was accepted as s̲h̲āhid-notary by his father in 466/1073-4, and was appointed by him ḳāḍī of the East Side quarter of Bāb al-Ṭāḳ in Bag̲h̲dād and of a part of the countryside, a jurisdiction which was that of his maternal grand-father Abu ’l-Ḥasan Aḥmad al-Simnānī, who had just died in 466/1074 (see D̲j̲awāhir, ii, 95-6). In the year of these two appointments, Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-Dāmag̲h̲ānī was only 16 years of age; such…

(a.), in Islamic law, the civil liability in the widest meaning of the term, whether it arises from the non-performance of a contract or from tort or negligence ( taʿaddī , literally “transgression”). Prominent particular cases are the liability for the loss of an object sold before the buyer has taken possession ( ḍamān al-mabīʿ ), for eviction ( ḍamān al-darak ), for the loss of a pledge in the possession of the pledgee ( ḍamān al-rahn), for the loss of an object that has been taken by usurpation ( ḍamān al-g̲h̲aṣb ), and for loss or damage caused by artisans ( ḍamān al-ad̲j̲īr , ḍ . al-ṣunnāʿ …

, in the financial sense, ‘farming’ (of taxes). See bayt al-māl .

, a name derived from the ancient Egyptian Timinhur, the city of Horus. It is not surprising that a number of cities of this name are to be found, almost all in the Nile Delta. I. Damanhūr al-S̲h̲ahid. Damanhūr “of the Martyr”, one of the northern suburbs of Cairo. This was the name still used by Yāḳūt, but the village was later known as Damanhūr S̲h̲ubrā. a name which was however already known to al-Muḳaddasī. Ibn Mammātī calls it simply Damanhūr. The two names are sometimes inverted and certain authors speak of S̲h̲ubrā Damanhū…

[see maʿdin ].

[see dimas̲h̲ḳ ].

, the highest point in the mountains on the borders of Northern Persia (cf. Alburz ), somewhat below 36° N. Lat. and about 50 miles north-east of Tehran. According to de Morgan it rises out of the plateau of Rēhne to a height of 13,000 feet above it. The various estimates of its height differ: Thomson estimates it at 21,000 feet (certainly too high), de Morgan at 20,260 feet, Houtum Schindler at 19,646, Sven Hedin at 18,187, and in the last edition of Stieler’s Handatlas (1910) it is given as 18,830 feet. Its summit, perpetually snow-clad and almost always…

a town on the main highway between Tehran and Mas̲h̲had, some 344 km. east of Tehran; also, a station on the railway between Tehran and Mas̲h̲had. At an altitude of n 15 metres, it has a population of 9,900 (1950). One km. to the south of the town is the mound called Tappa Ḥiṣār where excavations conducted by the University of Pennsylvania in 1931 uncovered prehistoric burials and the plaster-decorated remains of a building of the Sāsānid period. The oldest Islamic structure—possibly the earlies…

[see dimyāṭ ]. ¶

[see naḥw ].

, Muḥammad b. Mūsā b. ʿĪsā Kamāl al-dīn , was born in Cairo about the beginning of the year 742/1341 (according to a note in his own handwriting quoted by al-Sak̲h̲āwī, 59) and died there in 808/1405. Later dates of his birth, as given in some sources (745/1344 or 750/1349), would hardly be consistent with certain details of his biography. His nisba is derived from the northernmost of the two townlets both called Damīra near Samannūd in the Delta. After first gaining his livelihood as a tailor in his native town he decided to become a professional theologian, choosing as h…

[see Ḥaraka ].

, a port on the Persian Gulf and capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The name formerly designated a tower fort, located at 26° 27′ 56′′ N., 50° 06′ 06′′ E., on a reef near the ¶ shore north of the present town. The origin of the fort is not known, although the structure razed in 1957 to make way for a small-craft pier appeared to date from the time of the redoubtable D̲j̲alāhima sea captain Raḥma b. D̲j̲ābir [ q.v.]. Ibn D̲j̲ābir built a fort at al-Dammām after allying himself with Āl Saʿūd about 1809, but the Saʿūdīs destroyed it in 1231/1816 when he deserted th…