Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

(a.), that which is spread out (on the ground or on a bed), bedding. In mediaeval times, there was no adequate, single term for designating furniture and furnishings; this idea was expressed rather by the term fars̲h̲ (meaning not only “that which is spread out” but also, by extension, the more solid domestic objects which filled the role of “furniture” according to western concepts—whence the adjective mafrūs̲h̲ “furnished, provided with furnishings” [see at̲h̲āt̲h̲ in Suppl.]) or else by collocations of words such as fars̲h̲ and āla (lit. carpets, mattresses and utensils), fars̲h̲ a…

(a.), a term used to denote certain juridical categories of landed estates in Syria in the time of the Mamlūks. The word has no connection with the Arabic root f.-ṣ.-l ., but is derived, according to al-Nuwayrī, Nihāya , viii, 256, “from the Frankish” vassal . (Cl. Cahen) Bibliography Cl. Cahen, in JESHO, xviii (1975), 238.

(a., pl. noun), denotes the Arabic-speakers of the Muslim West (Mag̲h̲rib, pl. Mag̲h̲ārib), as opposed to those of the East (Mas̲h̲riḳ, pl. Mas̲h̲āriḳ), known as Mas̲h̲āriḳa , This division of Arabic-speakers into Mas̲h̲āriḳa and Mag̲h̲āriba —which is a continuing process, discernible in the contemporary dialects, variously categorised as Oriental and Mag̲h̲ribī—may be traced from its origins. The frontier between the two major groupings—Muslim Spain included, in spite of its special circumstances and its se…

(also mag̲h̲āzī ’l-nabī , mag̲h̲āzī rasūl allāh ), a term which, from the time of the work on the subject ascribed to al-Wāḳidī (d. 207/823), if not earlier, has signified in particular the expeditions and raids organised by the Prophet Muḥammad in the Medinan period. The first such sortie is reported by al-Waḳidī to have involved a party of thirty men led by Ḥamza b. ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib, which in 1/623 briefly intercepted a Ḳurashī caravan heading for Mecca from Syria on the coastal route (other accounts differ). The last was an expedition i…

, a Berber tribe belonging to the great branch of the Butr and related, if one is to believe the ancient Berber traditions cited by Ibn K̲h̲aldūn. to the tribes of Ḍarīsa, Saṭfūra, Lamāya, Maṭmāṭa, Ṣadīna, Malzūza and Madyūna who lived, in the early Middle Ages, in eastern Barbary. It is also apparently in the same region that the ancient habitat of Mag̲h̲īla is to be sought in the period in question. According to the Berber traditions cited by various early Arab historians, the Mag̲h̲īla, after coming from Palestine into North Africa, reached…

, Maḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Karīm , reformist faḳīh of Tlemcen, chiefly famed for his persecution of the Jewish community of Tuwāt (Touat) in the Algerian Sahara and for the advice he gave to Sudanic rulers. The general outline of his career is fairly well established, but many details remain obscure. He was born in Tlemcen. ca. 1440 of Berber stock and studied under ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-T̲h̲aʿālibī (d. 875/1470) and Yaḥyā b. Yadīr al-Tadallisī (d. 877/1472). At an uncertain date he took up residence in Tamanṭīṭ, then the principal fortified town ( ḳaṣr ) of the Tuwāt oasi…

, Mag̲h̲natīs, Mag̲h̲nīṭīs, Arabic rendering of ἡ μαγνῆτις (λίθος), indicating 1. the magnetite and 2. the compass. 1. The Magnetite and Magnetism The magnetite (lodestone, magnetic iron ore, Fe3O4) is a very widely-spread mineral, well-known since antiquity, and found in huge quantities in individual deposits as well as a finely-allotted constituent of almost all kinds of volcanic rock. The Islamic natural scientists, geographers, cosmographers and encyclopaedists transmit much information about its properties. The magnet…

, modern Turkish form Manisa, classical Magnesia, a town of western Anatolia, in the ancient province of Lydia, lying to the south of the Gediz river on the northeastern slopes of the Manisa Daği, which separates it from Izmir or Smyrna (lat. 38° 36′ N., long 27° 27′ E.). In Greek and then Roman times, Magnesia ad Sipylum was a flourishing town, noted amongst other things for the victory won in its vicinity by the two Scipios over Antiochus the Great of Syria in 190 B.C., and continued to flourish under the Byzantines (see Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie , xxvii, 472-…

, the town of Famagusta in Cyprus [see ḳubrus ]. The Mycenaen town of Alasya was located on or near the delta of the Pediyas, at Enkomi village. Its successor, the port of Salamis, only 1½ miles to the east, became a great metropolis during the Roman empire. Restored by Constantius II on a much smaller scale after the severe earthquakes of 332 and 342, with the new name Constantia, it survived until Arab Muslim raids of the 7th century led to its transferral to Ammochostos (Mag̲h̲ōs̲h̲a) 6 miles to the south (for Alasya, see Hill, i, 36, 42-9, and P. Dikaios, Enkomi: excavations 1948-1958, Mainz 1…

, a major confederation of Berber tribes belonging to the Butr group and forming the most powerful branch of the family of the Zanāta. The ascendancy, real or imaginary, of this confederation is traced back to Mag̲h̲rāw, who is said to have been, according to the mediaeval Berber genealogists, the ancestor of the Mag̲h̲rāwa as such. Following the Arab and Berber sources utilised in the 8th/14th century by Ibn K̲h̲aldūn in his History of the Berbers , the “cradle” of the Mag̲h̲rāwa and “the ancient seat of their power” was the territory located on t…

, the name given by Arab writers to that part of Africa which Europeans have called Barbary or Africa Minor and then North Africa, and which includes Tripolitania, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. The word mag̲h̲rib means the west, the setting sun, in opposition to mas̲h̲riḳ , the east, the rising sun (Levant), but as Ibn K̲h̲aldūn remarks, the general denomination was applied to a particular region. The extent of this area, moreover, varies according to different authors. Some oriental writers (e.g. al-Muḳaddasī) includ…

, al-Mamlaka al-Mag̲h̲ribiyya . a kingdom of North Africa whose name in European languages (Fr. Maroc; Eng. Morocco; Span. Marruecos) is a deformation of the name of the southern metropolis of the kingdom, Marrākus̲h̲ [ q.v.]. 1. Geography . Morocco occupies the western part of Barbary; it corresponds to the Mag̲h̲rib al-Aḳṣā of the Arab geographers [see al-mag̲h̲rib ]. Lying between 5° and 15° W. longitude (Greenwich) on the one hand and between 36° and 28° N. latitude on the other, it covers approximately an area of between 500,000 and 550,000 km2. On the north it is bounded by the …

, Aḥmad K̲h̲attū , famous mediaeval Gud̲j̲arātī saint. Born ca. 737/1336 in Dihlī ¶ and educated there, he migrated to Khattū, near Nāgawr, in Rād̲j̲ast̲h̲ān at the instance of his spiritual director, the Mag̲h̲ribī master, Bābā Isḥāḳ. In 776/1375, Bābā Isḥāḳ died, and Aḥmad set out on an extended pilgrimage, visiting Arabia, Iran and ʿIrāḳ before returning to Dihlī, where he survived the wrath of Tīmūr in 800/1398 (ʿAbd al-Ḳādir Badāʾūnī, Muntak̲h̲ab al-tawārīk̲h̲ , Calcutta 1864-9, i, 270-1; Eng. tr. G. Ranking, i, 357-8). He subsequently proc…

banū , a family of Persian origin who performed in the course of two succeeding centuries (the 4th/10th and 5th/11th centuries) the influential functions of wazīr , kātib or intendant ( mudabbir ) at several princely courts throughout the Middle East, in Bag̲h̲dād, Aleppo, Cairo, Mawṣil, and Mayyāfāriḳīn. In the collections of ak̲h̲bār concerning the vicissitudes of this family, the respective representatives of four succeeding generations are mentioned in particular. The first three of these are described in the ak̲h̲bār concerning the family and also in this article, as …

[See siḥr ].

[See mag̲h̲nisa ].

, a town and district ( s̲h̲ahrastān ) in the modern Iranian province ( ustān ) of West Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān, situated in lat. 36° 45′ N. and long. 45° 43′ E. and lying to the south of Lake Urmia or Riḍāʾiyya. The town comes within the Mukrī region of Iranian Kurdistān, and acquired its present name in the time of Riḍā S̲h̲āh Pahlavī (1925-41). Previously, it was known as Sāwad̲j̲ or Sāwd̲j̲-Bulāḳ; accordingly, for the earlier history of the town, see sāwd̲j̲-bulāḳ . The present article deals with the post-1945 history of the town. With a population of 16,000 in 1945, 20,332 in 1956 and 44,…

, military leader in Mug̲h̲al India. Zamāna Beg (later known as Mahābat K̲h̲ān) was the son of G̲h̲ayyūr Beg Kābulī, a Riḍawī Sayyid, who migrated from S̲h̲īrāz to Kābul during the reign of Akbar and settled there. Zamāna Beg entered the service of Akbar’s son Salīm as an aḥadī (cavalry trooper) and rose to the rank of 500. After D̲j̲ahāngīr’s accession (October 1605) he was promoted to the rank of 2,000 and given the title of Mahābat K̲h̲ān, becoming a trusted noble of that Emperor. He led a rather unsuccessful campaign…

(a., lit. “place of alighting, settling, abode”), in the context of Islamic India, widely used in the sense of “palace pavilion” or “hall”, and more particularly of private apartments in the palace, the maḥall-sarā —hence also a queen or consort. It seems not to have achieved the same currency in Iran. Here it appears as equivalent to Hindī mandir , mandar or mandal , sometimes replacing these in areas under strong Muslim influence such as Rād̲j̲ast̲h̲ān. Much palace terminology is Persian, though specialised Hindī terms like tibāra for a hall with three adjacent bays or doors, and bāradarī…

(a.), a noun of place from the verb ḥalla , which means notably “to untie (a knot, luggage, etc.)”, and by extension, “to make a halt”, whence the meaning of “a place where one makes a halt, where one settles (for a longer or shorter time)”. This term constitutes the first element of names of towns or villages in Egypt, where a hundred places were designated by an expression formed from Mahalla followed by an adjective or a proper noun; ʿAlī Pas̲h̲a Mubārak cites more than thirty of them in al-K̲h̲iṭaṭ al-d̲j̲adīda (xv, 21 ff.), apart from the city of al-Maḥalla al-Kubrā [ q.v.]. Maḥalla …