Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

(a., masc. or fem.), a measure for grain "of the value of 4 mudd ( modius ) according to the custom of Medina" ( LʿA ; al-Ḵh̲wārazmī, Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm , ed. Van Vloten, 14). If the cubic contents of the ṣāʿ , like that of the mudd, varied with town and district as far as commercial transactions were concerned, the value of the ṣāʿ was from the canonical point of view fixed in religious law by the Prophet in the year 2/623-4 when he laid down the ritual details of the orthodox feast of ʿīd al-fiṭr , which carried with it the compulsory giving of alms called zakāt al-fiṭr , the value of which in grain was one ṣāʿ…

(a.) "hour", hence "clock". 1. In technology. Monumental water-clocks are described in detail in two Arabic treatises. Al-Ḏj̲azarī [ q.v. in Suppl.] in his book on mechanical contrivances completed in Diyār Bakr in 602/1206 describes two such machines. Riḍwān b. al-Sāʿātī, in a treatise dated 600/1203, describes the water-clock built by his father Muḥammad at the Ḏj̲ayrūn gate in Damascus (see E. Wiedemann and F. Hauser, Über die Uhren in Bereich der Islamischen Kultur , in Nova Acta der Kaiserl . Leop . Deutschen Akad . der Naturforscher , ciii [1918], 167-27…

(a.), happiness, bliss, a central concept in Islamic philosophy to describe the highest aim of human striving, which can be reached through ethical perfection and increasing knowledge. In non-philosophical literature, the term (as opposed to s̲h̲aḳāwa , s̲h̲aḳwa , s̲h̲aḳāʾ , s̲h̲aḳā ) describes either happy circumstances in life (see for instance Ibn Ḥanbal, Musnad , ed. Cairo 1313/1895-6, i, 168, 29-30, iii, 407, last section), the unexpected happiness of a long life ( Musnad, iii, 332, 28), preservation from temptations ( ibid., i, 327, 9-10; Abū Dāwūd, Sunan , Kitāb al-Fitan …

, Nawāb of Awadh or Oudh (regn. 1798-1814). His brother Aṣaf al-Dawla had died in September 1797, but after a four months’ interim, Āṣaf al-Dawla’s putative son Wazīr ʿAlī Ḵh̲ān was set aside and the British governor-General Sir John Shore installed in his place Saʿādat ʿAlī Ḵh̲ān, who had been living under British protection in Benares since 1776. His reign is noteworthy for the extension of British control over the Oudh territories. A treaty concluded with the late Nawāb in 1775 had placed these terri…

, Saʿīd ( Abī ) YaʿḲūb Yūsuf al-Fayyūmī (269-331/882-942), Jewish theologian, philosopher and philologist who wrote in Arabic, considered through his independence and breadth as the initiator of several Jewish intellectual disciplines, and a pioneer in mediaeval Jewish philosophy; he was one of the very few Jewish thinkers covered by the Arabic biographers (cf. Ibn al-Nadīm, Fihrist , i, 320). 1. Life He was born at Dīlās in the province of Fayyūm in Egypt, but little is known of his youth except that his father, of humble origin, had the reputation of bei…

or the Sabaeans (Greek Σαβαῖοι), the name of a folk who were bearers of a highly developed culture which flourished for over a millennium before Islam, together with three other folks, Maʿīn, Ḳataban and Ḥaḍramawt [ q.vv.]. The main Sabaean centre was at Maryab (later Mārib, see maʾrib ) in Yemen with its fertile oasis on the western edge of the desert known to Arab geographers as Ṣayhad (modern Ramlat al-Sabʿatayn). In early historical times there were also Sabaean settlements in the Wādī Ad̲h̲ana above the great dam wh…

, Fatḥ ʿAlī Ḵh̲ān , Persian poet, was born in Kās̲h̲ān, probably in 1179/1765, and died in 1238/1822-3. His people belonged originally to Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān. and came from the Dunbalī stock, a tribe of Kurds settled in the region of Ḵh̲ūy. Members of his family held jobs as governors and administrators under the Zand and Ḳād̲j̲ār rulers. His father, Āḳā Muḥammad, was governor of Kās̲h̲ān under the Zands, and his eldest brother, Muḥammad ʿAlī Ḵh̲ān, was minister to the Zand ruler Luṭf ʿAlī Ḵh̲ān ( r. 1203-9/1789-94). Ṣabā also seems to have been identified with this monarch, and i…

(a.), pl. asbāb , literally "rope" ( ḥabl ), the basic sense as given by the lexicographers (cf. LʿA ), coming to designate anything which binds or connects. It is "anything by means of which one gains an end ( maḳṣūd ; al-Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ānī) or an object sought" ( maṭlūb ; in the Baḥr al-d̲j̲awāhir ). One can mention asbāb with the sense of "bonds" in Ḳurʾān, II, 166: "When the bonds [which unite them] are broken...". Ibn ʿAbbās interpreted this as friendship ( mawadda ); Mud̲j̲āhid, "alliance" ( tawāṣul ) in this context. The sense is also found of "a means of achi…

, a state consisting of over 29,000 square miles of territory on the northern coast of the island of Borneo and a constituent part of Malaysia since 1963. Formerly it was known as North Borneo (1877-8 to 1946) and was governed by the British North Borneo Company (incorporated by Royal Charter in 1881) by virtue of agreements between the Company and the Sultans of Brunei [ q.v. in Suppl.] and Sulu [ q.v.]. In July 1946 the Company transferred all its rights to Britain and the territory became a Crown Colony which lasted until 1963 when Sabah joined the Federation of Malaysia. The Muslim populatio…

, Arabian dynasty from the ʿUtūb branch of the ʿAnaza tribe, rulers of al-Kuwayt [ q.v.] from ca. 1165/1752 until the present. They presided over its development from a small port dependent on pearling, fishing and the transit trade with India to its current position as an independent, oil-rich state. Āl Ṣabāḥ originated in Nad̲j̲d and migrated with other members of the ʿUtūb to Ḳaṭar [ q.v.] in about 1085/1674 and then to al-Kuwayt early in the 12th/18th century. The rise to power of the founder of the dynasty, Ṣabāḥ I ( ca. 1165-71/1752-6), remains obscure. His claim to authority was…

(Ottoman orthography, Ṣabāḥ ul-Dīn ʿAlī), Turkish novelist and short story writer, born in Komotini [see gümüld̲j̲ine, in Suppl.], eastern Thrace (now in Greece), on 12 February 1906 or 25 February 1907, died on 2 April 1948. His father was the army Captain Ali Salahaddin and he had his elementary education in Istanbul, Çanakkale, and Edremit. His childhood in Çanakkale during World War I was to leave deep emotional traces on him; later, when the family came to Edremit, the area was under invasion and they fou…

("Prens" Sabahattin) (1877-1948), late Ottoman political theorist. Ṣabāh al-Dīn was born in Istanbul, the elder son of Dāmād (imperial son-in-law) Maḥmūd Ḏj̲elāl al-Dīn Pas̲h̲a. His mother was Senīḥa Sulṭān, a younger sister of Sultan ʿAbd al-Hamīd II. He was educated privately. When his father fled to Paris in 1899, Ṣabāḥ al-Dīn and his younger brother Luṭf Allāh accompanied him. Ṣabāḥ al-Dīn came to the fore as one of the leading Young Turk emigré publicists and politicians. Backed by his father’s wealth, he soon became a serious com…

, modern Turkish Sapanca, a town in northwestern Anatolia, in the classical Bithynia, situated on the southeastern bank of the freshwater lake of the same name and to the west of the Sakarya river (lat. 40° 41′ N., long. 30° 15′ E.). Almost nothing is known of its pre-Islamic history, although there are Byzantine remains; the name may be a popular transformation of Sophon. According to Ewliyā Čelebi, the town was founded by a certain Ṣaband̲j̲ī Ḳod̲j̲a, but this last must be merely an eponymous hero. It seems to appear in history only i…

, Sebasṭiyya , the Arabic name of various towns in the Near East. 1. The ancient Samaria, which Herod had changed to Σεβαστή in honour of Augustus. The form Σεβάστεια—as in the case of other towns of this name—was presumably also used, as the Arabic name (which is sometimes also written Sabaṣṭiyya) suggests. By the end of the classical period, the town, overshadowed by the neighbouring Neapolis (Sichem; Arabic, Nābulus), had sunk to be a small town (πολίκνιον) and played only an unimportant part in the Arab period. It was conquered by ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ while Abū Bakr ¶ was still caliph; the inh…

, collective designation of seven patron saints venerated in certain Moroccan towns and tribal areas, as well as in some parts of Algeria. Probably the oldest group of this kind are the Seven of the Rad̲j̲rād̲j̲a (Regraga), a Berber maraboutic tribe (later: family) belonging to the Ḥāḥā (Maṣmūda) and composed of the descendants of 13 saints (the original seven plus six affiliates), whose tombs and zāwiyas are located west, east and on top of their holy mountain, Ḏj̲abal al-Ḥadīd, between al-Sawīra (Mogador) and the Tansift in S̲h̲ayāẓima (Chiadma) country. According to local traditi…

(a.), lit. dyer, is a technical term which was applied to a group of skilled craftsmen in Islamic Middle East and North Africa. In a polemical ¶ writing, the Arab writer al-Ḏj̲āḥiẓ argued that the dyers, tanners, cuppers, etc. were exclusively Jewish in the early Islamic period, but historians like al-Ḵh̲aṭīb al-Bag̲h̲dādī and other writers have indicated names of Muslims bearing the name al-Ṣabbāg̲h̲ which may indicate the involvement of Muslims in the dyer’s profession at least during later Islamic centuries. A stateme…

(a.), or, with the usual weakening of final hamza , Ṣābī , plural Ṣābiʾūn , Ṣābiʾa , Ṣāba , in English “Sabian” (preferably not “Sabaean”, which renders Sabaʾ [ q.v.]), a name applied in Arabic to at least three entirely different religious communities: (1) the Ṣābiʾūn who are mentioned three times in the Ḳurʾān (II 62, V 69, XXII 17) together with the Christians and Jews. Their identity, which has been much debated both by the Muslim commentators and by modern orientalists, was evidently uncertain already shortly after the time of Muḥamma…

(a.), the name of two rather mysterious groups in early Islamic times: 1. Ṣābiʾat al-baṭāʾiḥ . The Mesopotamian dialectal pronunciation of ṣābiʿa , where the ʿayn has been transformed into y or ī , also occurs in Mandaean (cf. Lidzbarski, Ginzā ; Nöldeke, Mandäische Grammatik ; R. Macuch, Handbook , 94, 1. 16: ṣabuia ). This substantive, which became current in Mecca during the period of Ḳurʾānic preaching, irrespective of its etymology, derives from the Semitic root ṣ-b-ʿ (Aramaic, Hebrew, Syriac; Ethiopic ṣabk̲h̲a ), corresponding to ṣ-b-g̲h̲ in Arabic. Th…

(a.), lit. “foregoers”: a term occasionally applied in S̲h̲īʿism to the Prophet, Imāms, and Fāṭima in recognition of their status as preexistent beings and the first of God’s creatures to respond to the demand “Am I not your Lord?” ( a-lastu bi-rabbikum ?). The term derives primarily from Ḳurʾān, LVI, 10-11 ( wa ’l-Ṣābīḳūn al-Ṣābīḳūn ulāʾika ’l-muḳarribūn ); there are also examples of verbal usage (e.g. “how could we not be superior to the angels, since we preceded them ( sabaḳnāhum ) in knowledge of our Lord?” al-Kirmānī, Mubīn , i, 304). The S̲h̲īʿī concept o…

(a.), pi. subul , literally “way, road, path”, a word found frequently in the Ḳurʾān and in Islamic religious usage. 1. As a religious concept. Associated forms of the Arabic word are found in such Western Semitic languages as Hebrew and Aramaic, and also in Epigraphic South Arabian as s 1 bl (see Joan C. Biella, Dictionary of Old South Arabic , Sabaean dialect, Cambridge, Mass. 1982, 326). A. Jeffery, following F. Schwally, in ZDMG, liii (1899), 197, surmised that sabīl was a loanword in Ḳurʾānic usage, most likely taken from Syriac, where s̲h̲ebīlā has both the l…

, Mīrzā ʿAlī Akbar (b. 1862 in S̲h̲emākha, d. 1911 in Bākū), Azerbaijani satirical poet and journalist. After the First Russian Revolution of 1905, a humorous and satirical literature grew up in Russian Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān, seen especially in the weekly journal Mollā Naṣreddīn founded at Tiflis in 1906 by Ḏj̲elāl Meḥmed Ḳulī-zāde [see d̲j̲arīda. iv], which attacked the old literary forms, backwardness in education and religious fanaticism, achieving a circulation also in Turkey and Persian Ād̲h̲arbayd̲j̲ān. One of the writers in it was Ṣābir (who als…

a Persian poet of the first half of the 6th/12th century. His dīwān , which has been published twice (ed. ʿAlī Ḳawīm, Tehran 1331 S̲h̲ ./1952-3, and ed. M.ʿA. Nāṣiḥ, Tehran 1343 S̲h̲./1964), consists almost entirely of panegyrics praising the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan Sand̲j̲ar (511-52/1118-57), the Ḵh̲wārazms̲h̲āh Atsi̊z (521-68/1127-72) and various persons at their respective courts, in particular Sand̲j̲ar’s raʾīs-i Ḵh̲urāsān , Mad̲j̲d al-Dīn ʿAlī b. Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Musawī, the poet’s principal patron. The rivalry between his two royal master…

, "Seveners", a designation for those S̲h̲īʿīsects which recognise a series of seven Imāms. Unlike the name It̲h̲nā ʿas̲h̲ariyya or "Twelvers" the term Sabʿiyya does not occur in mediaeval Arabic texts; it seems to have been coined by modern scholars by analogy with the first term. The name is often used to designate the Ismāʿīliyya [ q.v.], but this is not correct, because neither the Bohora nor the Ḵh̲ōd̲j̲a Ismāʿīlīs count seven Imāms. The term can be applied only to the earliest stage of the development of the Ismāʿīlī sect, during which the Ismā…

(a.), pl. sibāk̲h̲ , the term used by the mediaeval Arabic geographers for salt marshes or lagoons and for the salt flats left by the evaporation of the water from such areas. Thus they employ it for describing the salt flats characteristic of parts of the Great Desert of central and eastern Persia (the present Das̲h̲t-i Kawīr and Das̲h̲t-i Lūṭ) and of the adjacent province of Sīstān (Ibn Ḥawḳal, ed. Kramers, 407, 415, tr. Kramers-Wiet, 397, 404; al-Muḳaddasī, 488; cf. A. Miquel, La géographie humaine du monde musulman jusqu’au milieu du 11 e siècle . iii . Le milieu naturelle, Paris-The Hagu…

(p.), the Indian style, is the third term of a classification of Persian literature into three stylistic periods. The other terms, sabk-i Ḵh̲urāsānī (initially also called sabk-i Turkistānī ) and sabk-i ʿIrāḳī , refer respectively to the eastern and the western parts of mediaeval Persia. The assumption underlying this geographical terminology is that the shifts of the centre of literary activity from one area to another, which took place repeatedly since the 4th/10th century, were paralleled by a stylisti…

(a.), usually rendered "patience, endurance". The significance of this conception can hardly be conveyed in a West European language by a single word, as may be seen from the following. According to the Arabic lexicographers, the root ṣ-b-r , of which ṣabr is the nomen actionis, means to restrain or bind; thence ḳatalahu ṣabr an “to bind and then slay someone”. The slayer and the slain in this case are called ṣābir and maṣbūr respectively. The expression is applied, for example, to martyrs and prisoners of war put to death; in the Ḥadīt̲h̲ often to animals that— c…

( ṣabir , ṣabur ) (a.) denotes the aloe, a species of the Liliaceae , which was widespread in the warm countries of the ancient world, mainly in Cyprus and on the mountains of Africa. The leaves of many varieties provide fibres ("aloe-fibres") for spinning coarse cloths, and from the aloe’s dark-brown wood a valued perfumery is won. Important was also the aloe drug, i.e. the juice pressed from the leaves, whose Greek name ἀλόη was borrowed by the Arab pharmacologists as āluwī . In the West, the name apparently was pronounced ṣibar , which survives in Spanish acibar . The…

or Sabratha , one of the three ancient cities (Leptis Magna = Lebda; Oea = Tripoli; and Sabratha or Sabrata = Ṣabra) which made up Tripolitania. Ṣabra Manṣūriyya [ q.v.], another town ¶ 33 km/20 miles to the west of Tlemcen in Algeria bore (Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn, ʿIbar , Beirut 1959, vii, 524), and still bears today, this same name, after having assumed that of Turenne in the colonial period. The homonomy here is fortuitous. Ṣabrāṭa—now a tourist town and the centre of an archaeological zone along the littoral some 75 km/48 miles west of Tripoli and 35 km…

, or also Madīnat ʿIzz al-Islām , a royal city founded between 334 and 336/945-8, at half-a-mile to the southeast of Ḳayrawān, by the Fāṭimid caliph al-Manṣūr— whence its name—in order to commemorate his victory over the rebel Abū Yazīd [ q.v.], on the very spot, so we are told, of a decisive battle. The name. Ṣabra means "a very hard stone" ( LʿA , Beirut 1955, iv, 441, 442). Like ṣak̲h̲r "rock", the term is attested as a personal name (al-Ṭabarī, index; al-Mālikī, Riyāḍ , Beirut 1983, i, 250) or as that of a clan (Kaḥḥāla, Muʿd̲j̲am ḳabāʾil al-ʿArab , Beirut 1968, ii, 6…

(a.), seven, is a number of greatest importance in both the Semitic and the Iranian traditions as it combines the spiritual Three and the material Four. Its history probably begins in Babylon with the observation of four lunar phases of seven days each. The seven planets (including sun and moon) have reigned supreme in human thought since Antiquity. Each of them is connected with a specific colour, scent and character. Niẓāmī’s (d. in the early 7th/13th century [ q.v.]) Persian epic Haft paykar is the finest elaboration of these ideas. The imagined seven stations between the …

(a.), the sabbath, and thus ( yawm al- ) sabt , Saturday (technically, Friday evening to Saturday evening); it is also suggested to mean "a week", that is from sabt to sabt, as well as a more general sense of a long period of time. The word has been the common designator of the day which follows yawm al-djumʿa [see d̲j̲umʿa ] since early Islamic times at least [see zamān ]. Clearly related to the Aramaic word s̲h̲abbetā and ultimately Hebrew s̲h̲abbāt , the word was given an appropriately Islamic sense by the Ḳurʾān and later Muslim theological interpretation. The Ḳurʾān associates Jews, the …

, Ceuta , a town of northern Morocco. It is situated 16 km/10 miles to the south of Gibraltar on the Moroccan coast, 60 km/38 miles to the north-west of Tetouan and 210 km/130 miles from Fās. Sabta has the form of a peninsula, ending in a small mountain (the Ḏj̲abal al-Minā or Mt. Hacho, 193 m/633 feet), which has played the double role of a natural acropolis and a watch point. The isthmus of the peninsula, 60 m/197 feet in height, is attached to the mainland by a narrow strip of land, easily defensible. The old town had its counterpart in the Marīnid town, the Āfrāg [ q.v.]. Explanations of the placen…

, Aḥmad b. Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Ḵh̲azrad̲j̲ī, Abu ’l-ʿAbbās, renowned Moroccan saint, born at Sabta (Ceuta) in 524/1130, not to be confused, in the text of Ibn Ḵh̲aldūn ( Muḳaddima ), with a homonym who lived in a later period and was the inventor of a circular divinatory table known as the zāʾirad̲j̲a , al-ʿālam . Two accounts afford a glimpse of his career, which was contemporaneous with that of the great saint of Tlemcen Abū Madyan al-Andalusī (520-94/1126-97): that of the ḳāḍī al-Tādilī and that of Ibn Ḥāmawayh, which is more concise, …

[see sebüktigin ].

(a.), soap. Prodest et sapo, Gallorum hoc inventum rutilandis capillis; fit ex sebo et cinere ... duobus modis, spissus ac liquidus, uterque apud Germanos maiore in usu viris quam feminis (Pliny, Hist . nat . 28, 191). According to this passage, soap is a Gallic invention but the word itself is of German origin. The Romans borrowed it in the form of sapo , the Greeks from the latter as σάπων, which in its turn found its way into Arabic as ṣābūn . The word denotes a mixture of fat or tallow and vegetable ashes, used to dye the hair red; it was brought on the market in solid or liquid form. In Spain, ṣābūn al…

, Louis , a person of the second rank in the Nahḍa [ q.v.], born at Dayrak on 20 April 1833, died in Los Angeles, 24 April 1931. With an original first name John, and born a Syrian Catholic, he attended the seminary at Charfé and then the Pontifical College for Propaganda at Rome, where he was ordained priest in 1863 (he renounced his priestly orders in 1899). He taught Latin at the Syrian Protestant College and founded the journal al-Naḥla ("The Bee"), which he took up again in London in 1877. He became a British representative in Cairo, accompanied ʿUrābī Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.] into exile in Ceylon, s…

Abū Naṣr Bahāʾ al-Dīn (330-416/942-1025), official and vizier of the Buy ids in Fārs. Beginning his career in high office as deputy to S̲h̲araf al-Dawla’s vizier Abū Manṣūr b. Ṣāliḥān, he subsequently became briefly vizier himself for the first time in 380/990 and for S̲h̲araf al-Dawla’s successor in S̲h̲īrāz. Bahāʾ al-Dawla [ q.v. in Suppl.]. He was vizier again in S̲h̲īrāz in Ḏj̲umādā I 386/May-June 996, this time for over three years, and in 390/1000 in Baghdād as deputy there for the vizier Abū ʿAlī al-Muwaffaḳ. Sābūr, although a native of S̲…

b. Sābūr , Christian physician and pharmacologist (d. 21 Dhu ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 255/30 November 869). Sābūr grew up in the Nestorian milieu of Ḵh̲ūzistān [ q.v.]. He must have been educated at the "Academia Hippocratica" in Gondēs̲h̲āpūr [ q.v.], where he later held a position in the famous local hospital, and rose to be one of the leading physicians of his time. In Gondēs̲h̲āpūr he practised medicine and pharmacology until he was appointed court physician by the ʿAbbāsid caliph al-Mutawakkil [ q.v.] and his successors. Sābūr died "as a Christian" ( naṣrāniyy an ), perhaps in Sāmarrāʾ [ q.v.]. T…

(Sabaya on Philby’s map), a town in the Tihāmat ʿAsīr [see tihāma ; ʿasīr and map] in wouth-western Saudi Arabia, at about 30 km/21 ¶ miles inland north-east of the port of D̲j̲ayzān [ q.v.]. In 1339/1920 Sayyid Muḥammad al-Idrīsī (see below) concluded a treaty with Ibn Suʿūd ¶ [see ʿabd al-ʿazīz āl suʿūd, in Suppl.], but after his death in 1340/1922-3 internal dissensions among the Idrīsiyya led to a Suʿūdī protectorate. The Imām of Yemen maintained a claim to the Idrīsid territories, but the Treaty of al-Ṭāʾif (1353/1934) determined that they belong to Saudi Arabia, including Ṣabyā [see ʿaṣ…

, Ramaḍān ʿAlī , a Nizārī Ismāʿīlī dāʿī of the 20th century, and an emissary of the Imām of the time, Sulṭān Muḥammad S̲h̲āh Ag̲h̲a Ḵh̲ān III. He was born towards the end of the 19th century in Bombay into an established family of traders and was as a youth apprenticed with his uncle, a businessman in Gwādar. There he acquired an interest in learning more about Ismāʿīlī thought and began to deliver lectures on religious topics to members of the community. He moved subsequently to Karachi to continue his business activities and became prominent in the community as a wāʿiẓ …

, the name for two towns of the eastern Iranian world. 1. Sabzawār in western Ḵh̲urāsān was, together with Ḵh̲usrūd̲j̲ird, one of the two townships making up the administrative district of Bayhaḳ [ q.v.], the name by which the whole district was generally known in mediaeval Islamic times. It lay in the cultivable zone on the northern rim of the Das̲h̲t-i Kawīr or Great Desert. Sabzawār itself is described in the Ḥudūd al-ʿālam , tr. 102, §23.2, as a small town and as the chef-lieu ( ḳaṣaba ) of a district; the Arabic geographers merely mention it as a stage along the roads of Ḵh̲urāsān and as a rūstāḳ…

, Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ Mullā Hādī b. Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ Mahdī (1212-95 or 1298/1797-1878 or 1881), Persian philosopher of the Ḳād̲j̲ār period, best-known for his commentary on, and revival of the ideas of Saḍr al-Dīn al-S̲h̲īrāzī, Mullā Ṣadrā (d. 1050/1640 [ q.v.]). Born in Sabzawār to a landowning merchant family, Mullā Hādī studied Arabic language and grammar in his home city and fīḳh , logic, mathematics and ḥikma in Mas̲h̲had. He then studied in Iṣfahān with such scholars as Mullā ʿAlī Nūrī (d. 1246/1830-1), the first of the Ḳād̲j̲ār-period scholars…

, the fourteenth letter of the Arabic alphabet, transcribed /ṣ/, with the numerical value of 90, according to the eastern order [see abd̲j̲ad ]. In the Mag̲h̲ribī order /ṣ/ takes the place of /s/ (thus 60) and /ḍ/ the place of /ṣ/. For an explanation of this fact, similarly attested in a Thamudic abecedary, see M.C.A. Macdonald (in Bibl .). Definition: an alveolar sibilant, voiceless and velarised ("emphatic") in articulation. As a phoneme / ṣ / is defined by the oppositions / ṣ -s/, / ṣ -ṭ /; it is thus velarised and sibilant. In Ḳurʾānic recitation, or elevated style of recitation in g…

, Atabeg of Fārs [see salg̲h̲urids ].

, a town approximately 240 km/150 miles to the north of the chief town of the Yemen, Ṣanʿāʾ [ q.v.], situated on the southern edge of the Ṣaʿda plain, and the administrative capital of the province ( muḥāfaẓa ) of the same name. The town is about 1,800 m/5,904 ft. above sea level and in the 1986 census in the Yemen had a reported population of 24,245 persons. The inhabitants of the province numbered 323,110. Although al-Hamdānī, 67, informs us that the town was called Ḏj̲umāʿ in pre-Islamic times, certain Sabaic inscriptions mention hgrn ṢʿDTm , "the town Ṣaʿda", tog…

[see saʿīda ].

(a.), a term with many meanings, including those of thirst, voice, echo, and screech-owl in the sense of hāma , which denotes a bird charged with taking shape in the skull of someone who has been murdered, etc. (see the lexica). It is this latter sense which interests us here. In effect, the pre-Islamic Arabs believed that after death, above all after a violent death, out of the blood of the skull ( hāma) and parts of the body there arose a bird called hāma (or hām , the male owl; see Yāḳūt, Buldān , iii, 376), which returned to the tomb of the dead man until vengea…

(a.) (sing, ṣadafa ) denotes two classes of molluscs: 1. Mussels ( Lamellibranchiata ); 2. Snails ( Gastropoda ), both including the mother-of-pearl. Pearls [see al-durr ; luʾluʾ ], originating from the excrescences in the interior of the pearl mussel ( ṣadaf al-durr , al-ṣadaf al-luʾluʾī ), are of great economic importance. To the edible mussels belong the oysters ( aṣṭūrū < ὄστρειον) and, as a popular foodstuff, the common mussel, Mytilus edulis L., Gr. μύαχες, which, from the ancient pharmacology of Dioscurides, came into the Arabic pharmacopoeias as miyāḳis …

, Abū ʿAlī Ḥusayn b. Muḥammad b. Fīrruh (from the Romance word fiero , i.e. al-ḥadīd ) b. Muḥammad b. Ḥayyūn b. Sukkara/Sukkaruh al-Ṣadafī al-Saraḳusṭī, known commonly as Abū ʿAlī al-Ṣadafī or Ibn Sukkara, Muslim Spanish scholar and traditionist. According to ʿIyāḍ, he was born in Saragossa around the year 454/1062. He studied in that town, among others, with Abu ’l-Walīd al-Bād̲j̲ī [ q.v.], in Valencia with al-ʿUd̲h̲rī and in Almería with Ibn Saʿdūn al-Ḳarawī and Ibn al-Murābiṭ. He travelled to the East on 1 Muḥarram 481/1088, performing the pilgrimage and…

, the equivalent of mahr [ q.v.], dowry. Lane gives ṣadāḳ , with the alternative ṣidāḳ (noting that the former is more common but the latter more "chaste"), plurals ṣuduḳ , ṣudḳ , and aṣdiḳa as "the mahr of a woman". Amongst the other alternative forms given by Lane the most commonly found is ṣaduḳa (pl. ṣaduḳāt ) and the form IV verb of the same root, aṣdaḳa , means to name or give a ṣadāḳ upon taking a woman in marriage. Al-Ḏj̲azīrī says that it is derived from ṣidḳ truth, honesty, sincerity as it is an indication of the husband’s desire to marry by the givin…

b. Manṣūr b. Dubays b. ʿAlī b. Mazyad , Sayf al-Dawla Abu ’l-Ḥasan al-Asadī , ruler of al-Ḥilla of the Arab line of Mazyadids [see mazyad , banū ]. After the death of his father in 479/1086-7, Ṣadaḳa was recognised by the Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultan Malik S̲h̲āh as lord of the territory on the left bank of the Tigris. During the fighting between sultan Berk-yaruḳ and his brother Muḥammad, Ṣadaḳa was at first on the side of the former, but when Berkyaruḳ’s vizier, al-Aʿazz Abu ’l-Maḥāsin al-Dihistānī, demanded a large sum of money fro…

(a.) has among its meanings that of voluntary alms, often referred to in Islamic literature as ṣadaḳat al-taṭawwuʿ "alms of spontaneity", or ṣadaḳat al-nafl "alms of supererogation", in distinction to obligatory alms, frequently also termed ṣadaḳa , but more commonly known as zakāt [ q.v.]. Both ṣadaḳa and zakāt are considered by Muslim writers to be of purely Arabic derivation; alms being called ṣadaḳa as indicating the sincerity ( ṣidḳ) of the almgiver’s religious belief (e.g. Ibn al-ʿArabi, Aḥkām al-Ḳurʾān , ed. al-Bid̲j̲āwī, Cairo 1387/1967, ii, 946-7; al-S̲h̲irbīnī, al-Iḳnāʿ …

, Banū , a name sometimes given in the mediaeval Arabic sources to the princes of the Mazyadids or Banū Mazyad [ q.v.] in central ʿIrāḳ. The name derives from the most famous member of the line, Ṣadaḳa (I) b. Manṣūr (479-501/1086-1108 [ q.v.]). (Ed.) Bibliography See that to mazyad, banū.

, "the two lucky (planets)", a technical term in astrology referring to the two beneficent planets Jupiter and Venus. On the opposite, Saturn and Mars are al-naḥsāni , "the two unlucky, maleficent (planets)"; cf. al-Ḵh̲wārazmī, Mafātīḥ al-ʿulūm , ed. van Vloten, 228-9. In more detail, al-Bīrūnī, K. al-Tafhīm li-awāʾil ṣināʿat al-tand̲j̲īm , ed. and tr. R.R. Wright, London 1934, §§ 381-2, in the explanation of the "natures" ( ṭibāʿ ) of the planets, describes Saturn as al-naḥs al-akbar , and Mars as al-naḥs al-aṣg̲h̲ar , i.e. the greater and the lesser evil…

, Anwar , Egyptian statesman (1918-81). He was born into a poor family in the Egyptian village of Mīt Abū Kōm, 60 km/40 miles north of Cairo. His father was a civil servant who had to support his wife and thirteen children. Sādāt spent his first seven years in his village, where he was left in the ¶ care of his grandmother while his parents were working in Sūdān (his mother was Sudanese). He went to the village school and thoroughly enjoyed his life amongst the local peasants. He later claimed that his early experiences gave him a deep understanding o…

(d. during Muʿāwiya’s caliphate), a leading Companion of the Prophet and commander of the Arab armies during the conquest of ʿIrāḳ. His clan was the Banū Zuhra b. Kilāb of Ḳuraysh. His own kunya is given as Abū Is̲ḥāḳ but he is also known as (and sometimes listed in biographical dictionaries under) Saʿd b. Mālik since his father’s name was Mālik b. Wuhayb (or Uhayb) b. ʿAbd Manāf b. Zuhra. There does not seem to be any explanation why Malīk should have had the kunya Abū Waḳḳās. A tradition says that Saʿd asked the Prophet who he was and received the answer…

, Banū , a small Arab tribe, usually reckoned as part of the tribe or tribal group of Hawāzin [ q.v.]. To a section of this tribe belonged Ḥalīma bint Abī Ḏh̲uʾayb, Muḥammad’s wet-nurse. After the battle of Ḥunayn [ q.v.] her daughter S̲h̲aymāʾ, who had been taken prisoner, obtained her release by proving to Muḥammad that she was his milk-sister [see also raḍāʿ. 2]; and some of the men of the tribe, because they were Muḥammad’s milk-brothers, were able to facilitate various negotiations. The tribe was apparently divided into several small sections. The grou…

, Egyptian jurist and politician, from 1918 to his death in 1927 president of the Egyptian Wafd party and in 1924 Prime Minister. Saʿd Zag̲h̲lūl was born as the second son of Ibrāhīm Zag̲h̲lūl and his second wife Maryam in July 1858 (others say 1857, 1859 or 1860, discussed by Ramaḍān, Mud̲h̲akkirāt , i, 48 ff.). His father was a landowner in Abyāna near Fuwwa in the Lower Egyptian province of al-G̲h̲arbiyya. Besides the resident notable families Zayd and Ḥusām ad-Dīn, the Zag̲h̲ālila belonged to the most prestigious and wealthy families of the village. Ibrāhīm Zag̲h̲lūl owned about 250 faddā…

, chief of the clan of ʿAbd al-As̲h̲hal in Medina in succession to his father. At the time of the Hid̲j̲ra he seems to have been the strongest man in the tribe of al-Aws, of which his clan was a part. He had taken part in the fighting prior to the battle of Buʿāt̲h̲ [ q.v.] and been wounded. The leader of al-Aws at Buʿāt̲h̲, Ḥuḍayr b. Simāk, is reckoned to another clan, but his son, Usayd b. Ḥuḍayr, seems to have been second-in-command to Saʿd in ʿAbd al-As̲h̲hal. Saʿd and Usayd were both for a time opposed to Islam and wanted to stop its spread, bu…

[see ḥayṣa bayṣa ].

, chief of the clan of Sāʿida at Medina. The clan appears to have been small since it is not mentioned in the fighting leading to the battle of Buʿāth [ q.v.], but it may have been more influential than its size warranted, perhaps because it was wealthy. Only two members of the clan were at the second meeting with Muḥammad at al-ʿAḳaba [ q.v.], but both were included among the nuḳabāʾ or representatives. One of these was Saʿd b. ʿUbāda, who had become a Muslim at an early date. Saʿd was badly treated by some Meccans on his way back from al-ʿAḳ…

is the name by which a large section of the tribe of Tamīm is named. The curious cognomen Fizr or (according to al-Aṣmaʿī, Fazr ) has received no satisfactory explanation, and the philologist Abū Manṣūr al-Azharī asserts that he never met any person who could explain it. Some lexicographers explain it as meaning "more than one", others as "goats", but we may assume that Ibn Durayd is correct when he derives it from the verb fazara with the meaning "to split" and that fizr means “a chip or fragment”. The Arab genealogists give the name of the common ancest…

[see ḥamdānids ].

b. al-Ṣafī b. Hibat Allāh b. Muhad̲h̲d̲h̲ib al-Dawla al-Abharī, Jewish physician ¶ and wazīr of the Īlk̲h̲ān Arg̲h̲ūn [see īlk̲h̲āns ]. His tenure of office lasted from Ḏj̲umādā II 688/June 1289 until his murder in Rabīʿ I 690/March 1291. His ism and date of birth are unknown. His rise to power must be seen against the background of a radical change of the Mongol political élite in domestic and foreign policies; i.e. from the pro-Islamic policy of the Īlk̲h̲ān Aḥmad (680-3/1282-4) back to the anti-Islamic policy of the Īlk̲h̲āns after the defeat at ʿAyn Ḏj̲ālūt [ q.v.] on 25 Ramaḍān 658/3 …

(a.), a term of Islamic law, literally, closing off the means that can lead to evil. The concept is based on the S̲h̲arīʿa’s tendency to ¶ prevent evil ( darʾ al-mafāsid ) and a legal maxim states that it has preference over achieving good ( d̲j̲alb al-maṣāliḥ ). Sadd al-d̲h̲arāʾiʿ is viewed as a continuation of maṣlaḥa mursala rather than an independent source. Despite this, sadd al-d̲h̲arāʾiʿ is often included in the books of law as an alternative legal source. Said to be based on the Ḳurʾān and sunna , it represents a mechanism devised by Mālikī jurists to r…

[see saʿdiyya ].

[see k̲h̲od̲j̲a efendi ].

(or al-Ḥamūʾī or al-Ḥamawī), Muḥammad b. al-Muʾayyad ... b. Ḥam(m)ūy(a) (or Ḥamawayh or Ḥamawiyya) al-Ḏj̲uwaynī , famous Ṣūfī s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ of the first half of the 7th/13th century; second cousin of the influential Awlād al-S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ [ q.v.] and of another Saʿd al-Dīn (b. Tād̲j̲ al-Dīn, d. 674/1276); father of Ṣadr al-Dīn Ibrāhīm (644-722/1247-1322). Saʿd al-Dīn b. al-Muʾayyad’s contemporary Sibṭ Ibn al-Ḏj̲awzī mentions ( Mirʾāt al-zamān , Chicago 1907, 525) that news of the S̲h̲ayk̲h̲’s death in Ḵh̲urāsān had reached him during the year…

(d. 860/1456), s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ of the Naḳs̲h̲bandī Ṣūfī order in Harāt, best known as the preceptor of the poet and mystic ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ḏj̲āmī (d. 898/1492 [ q.v.]). Kās̲h̲g̲h̲arī’s piety first showed itself, it is said, during the journeys on which as a child he used to accompany his father, a merchant of Kās̲h̲g̲h̲ar with sayyid ancestry. Thus when he was twelve years of age, he wept uncontrollably after listening to his father and his associates passionately haggling over the price of some goods for a whole morning. After completing the madrasa curriculum (the s…

b. Muḥammad, an important ¶ court official of two Sald̲j̲ūḳ sultans of Rūm, Kayḳubād I and Kayk̲h̲usraw II. Köpek’s place and date of birth are unknown. He is first mentioned as a tard̲j̲umān (Ibn Bībī, 146). Late in Kayḳubād’s reign, Köpek had risen to become amīr-i s̲h̲ikār (master of the hunt) and miʿmār (minister of works), entrusted with overseeing the construction of Kayḳubād’s new palace at Ḳubādābād [ q.v.] ( ibid., 147). Köpek himself erected in 633/1235 a large caravanserai, known as the Zazadin or Sadeddin Han, between Konya and Aksaray. Two extant insc…

[see al-taftāzānī ].

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh Mus̲h̲arrif al-Dīn b. Muṣlih Saʿdī, known as S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Saʿdi, poet and prose writer of the 7th/13th century, is one of the most renowned authors of Persia. He was born in S̲h̲īrāz early in the 7th/13th century, probably between 610-15/1213-19, and died in the same city on 27 Ḏh̲u ’l-Hid̲j̲d̲j̲a 691/9 December 1292. More perhaps than any other Persian writer who preceeded him, or of his own period, Saʿdī refers to himself constantly and in highly specific terms throughout the course of his writings; from sho…

, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿImrān, chronicler of Timbuktu, b. 30 Ramaḍan 1004/28 May 1594, d. after 1065/1655-56. His father’s male line was traced to the Banū Saʿd, though the family had been settled in Timbuktu for several generations. Nothing is known of his youth, but in 1036/1626-7 he became imām of the Sankore mosque of Bena near Jenne. In mid-life he was employed by the administration of the Bās̲h̲alik of Timbuktu (an ¶ institution which owed its origins to the occupation of the area by the forces of the Saʿdian sultan al-Manṣūr al-Ḏh̲ahabī in 999/1591), …

, Abū S̲h̲ud̲j̲āʿ ʿIzz al-Dīn , Turkish Atabeg in Fārs of the Salg̲h̲urid line [ q.v.], reigned in S̲h̲īrāz from 599/1202-3 until most probably 623/1226. On the death of his elder brother Takla/Tekele (Degele, etc.?) b. Zangī in 594/1198, Saʿd claimed power in Fārs, but his claim was contested by his ¶ cousin Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l, the son of his father’s elder brother Sunḳur, who had founded the dynasty. Ṭog̲h̲ri̊l retained the royal title for nine years, but throughout that period warfare between him and his cousin continued without a decisive result for…

, Saʿdians , a S̲h̲arīfian dynasty which ruled in Morocco from the mid-10th/16th century to ca. 1070/1659. The Saʿdids or Saʿdians or Banū Saʿd, make their appearance in the history of Morocco at the beginning of the 10/16th century, at the time when the last ruling dynasty of Berber origin, the Banū Waṭṭās [see waṭṭāsids ], was in decline. The Banū Saʿd claimed to have come originally from Yanbuʿ in the Tihāma of the Ḥid̲j̲āz and to be descendants of the Prophet; whatever their origin, they bore the title of s̲h̲arīf Since the 8th/14th century, they had lived in the central valley of…

[see hidāyat, ṣādiḳ ].

(the transcription often used by Indian numismatists of what s̲h̲ould correctly be Ṣiddīḳī ), the name given by Tīpū Sulṭān of Mysore [see mahisur ] to a gold coin of the value of two pagodas (Port, pardao , the name of a gold coin long current in South India in pre-modern times and for which various etymologies have been propounded; see Yule-Burnell, Hobson-Jobson , a glossary of Anglo-Indian colloquial words and phrases, 652-7, 672-8), weighing 106 grains ( = 6.87 gr). The name Ṣiddīḳī derives from the epithet borne by the first caliph Abū Bakr [ q.v.] al-Ṣiddīḳ, in accordance with Tīpū’…

, al-Madrasa , in Tunisian Arabic eṣ-Ṣādḳiyya, in French, le Collège Sadiki, a prestigious educational establis̲h̲ment, founded by a decree of Muḥammad al-Ṣādiḳ Bey [ q.v.] of Tunis on 5 Dhu ’l-Hid̲j̲d̲j̲a 1291/13 January 1875 on the advice of the reforming minister Ḵh̲ayr al-Dīn [ q.v.]. Its foundation marked the culmination of a period of reflection by the reforming élite in Tunisia which, from the middle of the 19th century, opened its eyes to the modern world, was disturbed at the social, cultural and economic backwardness of the countr…

Meḥmed , Ottoman statesman and diplomat (1807-57). He was born in Istanbul, the only son of a very wealthy family. His father was Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī ʿAlī Bey, the governor of the Ottoman cannon foundries ( Ṭopk̲h̲āne ). Ṣādi̊ḳ Rifʿat received an education in the palace school, serving his final year in the Enderūn-i Humāyūn Ḵh̲azīne Odasi̊ (the imperial treasury). Thereafter, he was placed in the correspondence department ( Mektūbī Ḳalemi ) of the Grand Vizierate, as an assistant clerk. In 1824 he was promoted to the rank of k̲h̲wād̲j̲a (master) and in 1828 he becam…

(a.), in early Arabia, the guardian of a shrine (abstract noun, sidāna ). The root s - d - n contains the sense of "veil, curtain", which puts sādin on a level with ḥād̲j̲ib , the first term denoting the guardian of a shrine, and the second, the "door-keeper" of a palace, hence "chamberlain". The ḥād̲j̲ib acts under the orders of someone else, whereas the sādin acts on his own initiative ( LʿA , xvii, 69, citing Ibn Barrī). However, the two terms may be found juxtaposed, e.g. in Ibn His̲h̲ām, who says, "The Arabs possessed, as well as the Kaʿba, tawāg̲h̲īṭ which were shrines ( buyūt : cf. Fahd, La divin…

, a Ṣūfi tarīḳa [ q.v.] and family lineage particularly Syrian and S̲h̲āfiʿī in identity, still active today, that grew to prominence also in Ottoman Egypt, Turkey and the Balkans. Notable aspects of the Saʿdiyya are their distinctive rituals and their role in the social history of Damascus. The eponymous founder is Saʿd al-Dīn al-S̲h̲aybānī al-Ḏj̲ibāwī (hereafter "Saʿd"). His dates remain uncertain, but most probably fall in the 7-8th/13th-14th centuries. To the extent to which any ṭarīḳa may be characterised, the Saʿdiyya is marked by the practice of k̲h̲awāriḳ al-ʿādāt …

(a.) (Aramaic s̲h̲āg̲h̲ā , from Skr. saka-) is the teak tree, Tectona grandis L., of the family of the Verbenaceae . This tree, indigenous to the Indian subcontinent and to South-East Asia, is above all coveted for its hard and extraordinarily durable wood and is of particular importance for ship-building and furniture industry. The tree and its qualities are described in detail by the Arabic authors. Sād̲j̲ . is the highest tree in the world; it towers high into the air ( yaʿlū fi ’l-hawāʾ [var. ’l-samāʾ ]) and has such a width that a multitude of people fin…

(a.), originally, the formal expression of the oracular pronouncement. 1. As magical utterances in pre-Islamic Arabian usage. Here, sad̲j̲ʿ was the rhythmical style practised by the Arab kāhin s [ q.v.] and kāhina s [see al-kāhina ], a style intermediate between that of the versified oracular utterances of the Sibylls and Pythians and that of the prose utterances of Apollo (see P. Amandry, La mantique apollinienne à Delphes . Essai sur le fonctionnement de l’oracle, diss. Paris 1950, 15). These utterances are "formulated in short, rhymed phrases, with rhythmical caden…

(i.e. Sad̲j̲āḥi ), Umm Ṣādir bint Aws b. Ḥiḳḳ b. Usāma, or bint al-Ḥārit̲h̲ b. Suwayd b. ʿUḳfān, prophetess and soothsayer, one of several prophets and tribal leaders who sprang up in Arabia shortly before and during the Ridda [ q.v. in Suppl.], the risings undertaken after the Prophet’s death to throw off the political and military supremacy in Arabia of Medina. The genealogy, which her history proves to be the true one, shows that she belonged to the Banū Tamīm. On her mother’s side she was related to the Tag̲h̲lib, a tribe which co…

, Abū ʿAbd Allāh (Abu ’l-Faḍl, Abū Ḏj̲aʿfar) Muḥammad (Aḥmad) b. Abī Yazīd Ṭayfūr al-Sad̲j̲āwandī al-G̲h̲aznawī al-Muḳriʾ al-Mufassir al-Naḥwī al-Lug̲h̲awī, an innovative Ḳurʾān reader and philologist, died 560/1165 (?) He lived and worked in Sad̲j̲/g/kāwand, a small ¶ village half-way to the east of the route from Kābul to G̲h̲aznī in the vicinity of Sayyidābād, dominated by a high-lying citadel, now in ruins, called Tak̲h̲t-i or S̲h̲ār-i (S̲h̲ahr-i) Ḏj̲ams̲h̲īd. On the foot of this mount is placed the mausoleum of Ḵh̲wād̲j̲a Aḥmad (Muḥammad). Here, even today, the S̲h̲ayk…

, Sirād̲j̲ al-Dīn Abū Ṭāhir Muḥammad b. Muḥammad (Maḥmūd) b. ʿAbd al-Ras̲h̲īd, Ḥanafījurist, flor . ca. 600/1023. Nothing is known about his life. His K. al-Farāʾiḍ , known as al-Farāʾiḍ al-Sirād̲j̲iyya or simply al-Sirād̲j̲iyya , on the law of inheritance, was and still is regarded as the standard work in this field. It has been commented upon, glossed, excerpted, shortened and augmented, also in Persian and Turkish, versified (most recently in Cairo 1386/1949; Mus̲h̲ār, 793), repeatedly printed, also in E…

(a.) "bowing down", the name of two Ḳurʾānic sūras (XXXII, also called tanzīl al-sad̲j̲da , and XLI, more commonly called fuṣṣilat or ḥā-mīm ) and within the technical phrase sad̲j̲dat (or sid̲j̲dat , or plural sud̲j̲ūd ) al-tilāwa , in reference to the 14 Ḳurʾānic passages (variant traditions suggest 16, 15, 11, 10, or 4 passages) which require a ritual of bowing to be performed at the end of their recitation. The passages are marked in the margin of the Ḳurʾān text, usually with the word al-sad̲j̲da . The practice is generally considered wād̲j̲ib "required", in the Ḥanafī mad̲h̲hab …

(a., pl. sad̲j̲ād̲j̲id , sad̲j̲ād̲j̲īd , sawād̲j̲id ), the carpet on which the ṣalāt [ q.v.] is performed. The word is found neither in the Ḳurʾān nor in the canonical Ḥadīt̲h̲; the occasional use of a floor-covering of some kind was, however, known at quite an early period. 1. Early tradition. In the Ḥadīt̲h̲ [ q.v.] we are often told how Muḥammad and his followers performed the ṣalāt on the floor of the mosque in Medina after a heavy shower of rain, so that their noses and heads came in contact with the mud (e.g. al-Buk̲h̲ārī, Ad̲h̲ān , bāb s 135, 151; Muslim, Ṣiyām , trads…

[see hid̲j̲āʾ . iv. Urdu].

, a line of military commanders who governed the northwestern provinces of the caliphate (Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān. Arrān and Armenia) in the later 3rd/9th and early 4th/10th centuries on behalf of the ʿAbbāsids. The Sād̲j̲ids were just some of several commanders, originally from the Iranian East and Central Asia, who came westwards to serve in the early ʿAbbāsid armies. The family seems to have originated in Us̲h̲rūsana [ q.v.] on the middle Syr Darya in Transoxania, the region where the Afs̲h̲īns [ q.v.] were hereditary princes until at least the end of the 3rd/9th century, and w…

[see afg̲h̲ānistān , v. 3. a ].

(a.), “chest, breast, bosom” (pl. ṣudūr ), a peculiarly Arabic word, not attested in other Semitic languages, except as a borrowing from Arabic. Its semantic connection with other derivatives of the root ṣ-d-r within Arabic is unclear; it may be derived from the basic notion of the verb ṣadara , i.e. “to come up, move upward and outward, from the waterhole” (opposite: warada ). Most concretely, it refers to the chest as part of the body, and as such is dealt with in the ¶ lexicographical monographs on the human body called Ḵh̲alḳ al-insān (al-Aṣmaʿī, 214-18; T̲h̲āb…

(a.), used in a personal sense, with an extended ¶ meaning from Arabic “breast” > “foremost, leading part of a thing”, denotes an eminent or superior person or primus inter pares, whence its use for a chief, president or minister; cf. the Ottoman Turkish Grand Vizier’s title ṣadr-i aʿẓam [ q.v.]. The title was especially used in the Persian world for a high religious dignitary whose function ( ṣadārat , ṣidārat ) was concerned essentially with the administration of religious affairs. In the first mentions of the title and in the structural evo…

, a place in Algeria, founded in 296/908 at 8 km/5 miles to the south-west of Ward̲j̲ilān (Ouargla) in the territory of the confederation of ḳṣūr of the Isedrāten, by the last Rustamid Imām, after the destruction of the principality of Tāhart [ q.v.] by the Fāṭimids. Its fame is linked with the history of the Ibāḍī communities of the Mag̲h̲rib. An Ibādī scholar, Abū Yaʿḳūb Yūsuf b. Ibrāhīm al-Sadrātī al-Ward̲j̲ilānī (d. 570/1174-5) compiled there the musnad of al-Rabīʿ b. Ḥabīb, based essentially on the tradition of Abū ʿUbayda (ed. Masḳaṭ 1325/1908 under the title of al-D̲j̲āmiʿ al-ṣaḥīḥ …

[see mullā ṣadrā s̲h̲īrāzī ].

(S̲h̲aykh Ṣadr al-Milla wa ’l-Dīn Mūsā), second son of Ṣafī al-Dīn Ardabīlī [ q.v.], born 1 S̲h̲awwāl 704/26 April 1305 (S̲h̲aykh Ḥusayn b. Abdāl Zāhidī, Silsilat al-nasab-i Ṣafawiyya , Iranschähr Publications no. 6, Berlin 1924-5, 39). Designated by his father as his successor and vicegerent ( k̲h̲alīfa wa nāʾib-munāb ), Ṣadr al-Dīn assumed the leadership of the Ṣafawid Order in 735/1334. He expanded the Ṣafawid mausoleum complex at Ardabīl, adding rooms for private meditation ( k̲h̲alwat-k̲h̲āna ), a residence for Ḳurʾān-readers ( dār al-ḥuffāẓ ), and a room ( čīnī-k̲h̲āna …

, Russian form Sadriddin Ayni , one of the leading figures in the 20th century cultural life of Central Asia and in Tad̲j̲ik literature (1878-1954). He began as a representative of the reform movement amongst the Muslims of Imperial Russia, that of the Ḏj̲adīdīds [see d̲j̲adīd ]. A formal education at the traditional madrasa s of Buk̲h̲ārā left him intellectually unsatisfied. In the early part of his career he was a talented poet in both Tad̲j̲ik and Uzbek, but after 1905 he became increasingly involved in the social and educa…

(b. 605/1207, d. 16 Muḥarram 673/22 July 1274), disciple of Ibn al-ʿArabī [ q.v.] and author of influential works on theoretical Ṣūfism. Ibn al-ʿArabī met Mad̲j̲d al-Dīn Isḥāḳ al-Rūmī, Ḳūnawī’s father, in Mecca in 600/1203 and subsequently travelled with him to Anatolia. A source from the late 7th/13th century tells us that after Mad̲j̲d al-Dīn’s death, Ibn al-ʿArabī married his widow and ¶ adopted his son Ṣadr al-Dīn (B. Furūzānfar, Manāḳib-i Awḥad al-Dīn . . . Kirmānī , Tehran 1347/1968, 84); the fact that Ḳūnawī himself never mentions this is not…

, the son and successor of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Ṣafī al-Dīn Ardabīlī [ q.v.] and the founder at Ardabīl of the Ṣafawī order which stemmed from S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Zāhid Gīlānī (d. 700/1301). S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Ṣadr al-Dīn was born in 704/1305 from Ṣafī al-Dīn’s second marriage with Bībī Fāṭima, daughter of S̲h̲ayk̲h̲ Zāhid, and died in 794/1391-2, according to the Silsilat al-nasab-i ṣafawiyya , hence dying aged 90 having directed the Ṣafawī order for 59 years. Although the hagio-biographical and historical sources concerning him have to be treated with cau…

(t.) (commonly ṣadr aʿẓam ), strictly “the greatest of the high dignitaries”, that is, the Grand Vizier, a title which, in the Ottoman Empire, was used synonymously with wezīr-i aʿẓam from the mid-10th/16th century; its first use in this sense occurs in the Āṣāf-nāme of Lütfī Pas̲h̲a [ q.v.], himself a holder of the office 946-8/1539-41. Earlier, in the late 8th/14th century, ṣadr had been used to refer to the highest official ʿulemāʾ , the ḳāḍī ʿasker s [ q.v.], who were promoted to serve as viziers. Later, because the vizier came to operate as military commander in the a…