Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

( Farsān ), a group of islands in the Red Sea opposite Abū ʿArīs̲h̲. They are not mentioned in the Periplus . In the Martyrdom of St Arethas the Φαρσὰν islands are said to have contributed seven ¶ hips to the Christian expedition against the Yaman. The name is tribal. According to Hamdānī, the Banū Farasān, though claimed as Himyarī by the Ḥimyarī genealogists, belonged to Tag̲h̲lib and had once been Christian; there were ruined churches on the islands. They were at war with the Banū Mad̲j̲īd and traded with Abyssinia. They were al…

(A., pl. k̲h̲ayl al-māʾ , k̲h̲uyūl al-māʾ ) and synonyms faras , al-baḥr faras al-nahr , faras nahrī , ḥiṣān al-baḥr , denoting the hippopotamus, are nothing other than Arabic translations of its Greek name ὁ ἵππος ὁ ποτάμιος in the works of Herodotus, then ίπππόταμος in the works of Galen and Aristotle; Herodotus also calls it ὁ ἵππος του̑ Νείλον, whence faras al-Nīl “horse of the Nile” and Pliny simply translated the Greek as equus fluviatilis. In Nubia it bears the name birnīḳ and in the Touareg country, agamba (pl. igambaten ) and bango (pl. bangōten ). The epithets k̲h̲inzīr al-māʾ …

, “the lump of dough”, properly Tammām b. G̲h̲ālib (Abū Firās), famous Arab satirist and panegyrist, died at Baṣra about 110/728 or 112/730. Born in Yamāma (Eastern Arabia) on a date 1 which is uncertain (probably after 20/640), this poet was descended from the sub-tribe of Mud̲j̲ās̲h̲iʿ, of the Dārim group of the Tamīm. His father, G̲h̲ālib [ q.v.], is said to have played some part, in the Baṣra area, in the conflict between ʿAlī and Muʿāwiya; to this fact must be attributed the later idea that al-Farazdaḳ entertained pro-ʿAlid sympathies which, howev…

(adj, can be taken as a subst.), pl. afrād , used of the individual, and so with the meanings of only , solitary , unique , incomparable; the half , that is to say one of a pair or couple (pl. firād , Ḳāmūs root f.r.d); and other derivative meanings. The word has been used to denote Allāh, as the single Being who has no parallel: al-fard fī ṣifāt Allāh (al-Layt̲h̲, Lisān , iv, 327/iii, 331a), but it does not occur in the Ḳurʾān or in ḥadīt̲h̲ s as an epithet of Allāh. It is for that reason that al-Azharī ( ibid.) found fault with this usage. There is every reason for believing’ that al-fard was at that time…

(a.), also farīḍa , literally “something which has been apportioned, or made obligatory”, and as a technical term, a religious duty or obligation, the omission of which will be punished and the performance of which will be rewarded. It is one of the so-called al-aḥkām al-k̲h̲amsa , the “five qualifications” by which every act of man is qualified in religious law [see aḥkām ]. A synonym is wād̲j̲ib . The Ḥanafī school makes a distinction between farḍ and wād̲j̲ib, applying the first term to those religious duties which are explicitly mentioned in the proof texts (Ḳurʾān and sunna …

[see nud̲j̲ūm ]

, Ferg̲h̲ānā, a valley on the middle Jaxartes (Si̊r-Daryā), approximately 300 km. long and 70 km. wide, surrounded by parts of the Tians̲h̲an mountains: the Čatkal range (Ar. Ḏj̲adg̲h̲al. up to 3,000 m. high) on the north, the Ferg̲h̲ānā mountains (up to 4,000 m.) on the east, and the Alai mountains (up to 6,000 m.) on the south. The only approach (7 km. wide) accessible in all seasons is in the west, at the point where the Jaxartes leaves the valley and where the trade-route (and since 1899 the railway from Samarḳand to Ōs̲h̲) enters it. The Farg̲h̲ānā valley covers approximately 23,000 km.2; t…

, the name of two tenth-century historians, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḏj̲aʿfar (b. 282/895-6, d. 362/972-3) and his son, Abū Manṣūr Aḥmad b. ʿAbd Allāh (327/939-398/1007). ʿAbd Allāh’s great-grandfather had been brought to the ʿIrāḳ from Farg̲h̲āna and had become a Muslim under al-Muʿtaṣim. ʿAbd Allāh himself was a student of the great Ṭabarī, whose works he transmitted, and he achieved high rank in the army. ¶ He went to Egypt where his son, it seems, was born, and he and his family remained there. He wrote a continuation of al-Ṭabarī’s historical work, entitled al-Ṣila or al-Mud̲h…

, the mediaeval astronomer Alfraganus . His full name is Abu ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Muḥammad b. Kat̲h̲īr al-Farg̲h̲ānī, that is to say, a native of Farg̲h̲āna in Transoxania; not everyone, however, is agreed upon his name: the Fihrist only speaks of Muḥammad b. Kat̲h̲īr, and Abu ’l-Farad̲j̲ of Aḥmad b. Kat̲h̲īr, while Ibn al-Ḳifṭī distinguishes between two persons, Muḥammad and Aḥmad b. Muḥammad, in other words father and son; however it is very probable that all the references are to the same personage, an astron…

[see ferhād pas̲h̲a ].

, A. Christensen ( Sassanides , 469 and index) has collected together the information relating to S̲h̲īrīn (Pehlavi S̲h̲īrēn “the sweet”; cf. Γλυκέρα, Glycera), a Christian favourite of the Sāsānid king of Īrān, K̲h̲usraw II Parvīz (Pehlavi Abharvēz “the victorious”, 590-628). According to Sebeos, she was a native of K̲h̲uzistān: K̲h̲usraw married her at the beginning of his reign and she maintained her influence over him although inferior in status to Maria the Byzantine whom he had marr…

[see ḳāmūs and maʿārif ].

[see mad̲j̲maʿ ].

, D̲j̲armānūs , Arabic philologist and poet, forerunner of the nineteenth century literary renaissance in the Arab countries, born at Aleppo 20 November 1670, and died there 10 June 1732. He was Maronite archbishop of his native town from 1725 to 1732, but we are not concerned here with his activity as an organizer, which was of the greatest importance to the Maronite church, nor with the majority of his dogmatic and polemic writings and his works of edification and history; he must however be mentioned in the history of Arabic literature as a lexicographer, grammarian and poet. Aleppo was o…

[see farāʾiḍ , farḍ ].

[see ʿaṭṭār ].

, one of the most distinguished of Indian Muslim mystics, was born some time in 571/1175 at Kahtwāl, a town near Multān, in a family which traced its descent from the caliph ʿUmar. His grandfather, Ḳāḍī S̲h̲uʿayb, who belonged to a ruling house of Kābul, migrated to India under the stress of the G̲h̲uzz invasions. S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Farīd’s first teacher, who exerted a lasting influence on him, was his mother, who kindled that spark of Divine Love in him which later dominated his entire being, and moulded his thought and action. S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Farīd received his education in a madrasa …

, formerly a small feudatory princely state in the Pand̲j̲āb, now merged with the Fīrūzpur Division of the Indian Pand̲j̲āb, and lying between 30° 13′ and 30° 50′ N. and 74° 31′ and 75° 5′ E. with an area of 642 sq. miles. Both the State and the principal town of the same name are unimportant. The town, lying in 30° 40′ N. and 74° 49′ E., 20 miles south of Fīrūzpur [ q.v.], has a fort built by Rād̲j̲a Mokulsī, a native Rād̲j̲pūt chief, in the time of Farīd al-Dīn Gand̲j̲-S̲h̲akar [ q.v.], popularly known as Bāwā (Bābā) Farīd, after whom the fort was named Farīdkōt́ ( kōt́ = fort)…

[see dāmād ferīd pas̲h̲a ].

, head-quarters of a district bearing the same name in East Pakistan. The district was created in 1807 out of the older division of Dacca-D̲j̲alālpur. It embraces an area of 2,371 square miles and has a population of 2,709,711 (1951 census). The city (pop. 25,287), which is named after that of the local pīr S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Farīd, is situated on an old channel of the Padmā, called the Marā (dead) Padmā. It is generally identified with the Fatḥābād of the Muslim period. The Āʾīn-i Akbarī mentions Sarkār Fatḥābād, and this name is believed to originate from that …