Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

(a.), in English the Sahara, the name given to the desert in the northern part of Africa. Ṣaḥrāʾ is the feminine of the adjective aṣḥar “fawn, tawny coloured”. It is applied by certain authors to an ensemble of stony terrain, steppelands and sands (cf. al-Idrīsī, éd. de Goeje, 37 n.), whilst the term mud̲j̲diba designates more particularly terrain covered with moving sands and totally waterless (see Abu ’l-Fidāʾ, 137, tr. Reinaud, ii/2, 190). Leo Africanus uses it as a synonym for “desert” in general, see Schefer’s ed., i/1, 5. ¶ 1. History of the term. The Arabic authors provide only fra…

, variously spelt as Sahasrām, Sasarām, Sassaram, Sasiram, a small town in the S̲h̲āhabād district of Bihar in India (lat. 24° 58′ N., long. 84° 01′ E.), associated with the name of S̲h̲īr S̲h̲āh Sūr (946-52/1539-45 [see dihlī sultanate ]), initially as his military iḳṭāʿ and subsequently as his burial place, this last considered to be “one of the grandest and most imaginative architectural conceptions in the whole of India” (P. Brown, Indian architecture, 84). Legend ascribes the name to “certain Asura or demon who had a thousand arms, each holding a separate plaything” ( Imperial Gazett…

, the name of both a town and a wādī in Yemen. The town lies on the road from Ibb [ q.v.] to al-Mak̲h̲ādir near the ruins of Ẓafar al-As̲h̲rāf, in ancient times the capital of the Ḥimyarite kingdom (see Smith, Ayyūbids , ii, 216). For Wādī Sahūl, see Eduard Glaser’s Reise nach Mârib , ed. D.H. Müller and N. Rhodokanakis, Vienna 19…

(present-day (Arabic) Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ; Greek Sigon ; Frankish Saône ), a stronghold of the D̲j̲abal al-ʿAlawiyyīn (Nuṣayrī Mountains), situated about 25 km/15 miles north-east of the Syrian port of ¶ al-Lād̲h̲iḳiyya (Latakia), near the town of al-Ḥaffeh. The castle occupies a narrow, east-west running spur, isolated by a rock-hewn fosse on the east, and protected by deep ravines on the north and south. The principal extant constructions are the remains of a Byzantine citadel on the highest, middle point o…

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, influential musician of the early Umayyad period, d. 63/683. According to the Kitāb al-Ag̲h̲ānī , the source for what information we have on him, Abū D̲j̲aʿfar Ṣāʾib K̲h̲āt̲h̲ir was a mawlā of Persian origin. By trade a food or, possibly, wheat ( ṭaʿām ) merchant in Medina, he became well-known as a singer and was attached to an important patron, ʿAbd Allāh b. D̲j̲aʿfar [ q.v.]. He is also said to have sung, during the caliphate of Muʿāwiya (41-60/661-80), for his son Yazīd and, at the instigation of ʿAbd Allāh b. D̲j̲aʿfar, before Muʿāwiya himself. He was k…

or Ṣaʿīd Miṣr , the term which in Arabic denotes Upper Egypt, this being, in the strict sense of the term, the serviceable section of the Valley of the Nile (from 5 to 10 km in breadth by some 900 km in ¶ length), situated between Cairo and Aswān [ q.v.]; to this should be added the Fayyūm [ q.v.], considered one of the provinces of Upper Egypt, and the nearby oases in the western desert (al-Wāḥāt: Baḥriyya, Farāfra, Dāk̲h̲la, K̲h̲ārd̲j̲a [ q.vv.]), over which the authorities of the Valley have been obliged to exercise supervision; finally, to the east, the security of the tr…

(French form, saїda ), a town of Algeria, the chef-lieu of the department ( wilāya ) of the same name, situated 175 km/108 miles from Oran (Wahrān [ q.v.]) and 95 km/59 miles from Mascara (al-Muʿaskar [ q.v.]), at an altitude of 900 m/2,950 feet. It …

[see saʿadyā ben yōsēf ].

(1317-67/1899-1948), Tūnisian man of letters, who had an original and rich career as a self-taught poet, writer and journalist, all at the same time. He was born at Moknine in the Tunisian Sāḥil on ¶ 28 October 1899 into a modest family of rural origin. His first studies were at the local Ḳurʾānic school of the town, where he speedily revealed himself to his teachers as one possessing a lively intelligence and, in particular, a precocious poetic talent. He composed his first verses at the age of eleven, and an anecdote is retailed about this, generally reporte…

, Indo-Persian poet of the 11th/17th century. Details are lacking regarding his early life. He went to India from his native Persia during D̲j̲ahāngīr’s reign (1014-37/1605-27), and lived on to serve under his successor S̲h̲āh D̲j̲ahān (1037-68/1628-58). Apart from poetry, he was skilled in calligraphy, engraving and assaying of precious stones. D̲j̲ahāngīr gav…

, Abu ’l-Ḳāsim Ṣāʿid b Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Tag̲h̲libī, called al-Ḳāḍī Ṣāʿid (420-62/1029-70), Spanish Muslim author. He was born at Alméria, where his parents had taken refuge during the civil wars which devastated Cordova, their place of origin, and his grandfather had been ḳaḍī of Sidonia. His father died as judge of Toledo in 449/1057, and Ṣāʿid was to succeed him there in 460/1068 till his death there in 462/1070. The sweep of his life reflected these circumstances. Born of a line of legal officials, he re…

, Mihrān Abu ’l-Naḍr al-ʿAdawī al-Baṣrī (born ca. 70/689, d. between 155 and 159/771-6), traditionist in Baṣra, mawlā of the Banū ʿAdī b. Yas̲h̲kur. Saʿīd is mentioned among the first who compiled systematic ḥadīt̲h̲ collections of the muṣannaf [ q.v.] type (see ibn d̲j̲urayd̲j̲ ; Juynboll, 22; Van Ess, 63). Among his works were a K. al-Sunan and a K. al-Ṭalāḳ ; none of them is extant. His repute as a traditionist is equivocal; he is generally considered reliable until he became “confused” some ten years before his death. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal is said to have accused him of tampering ( tadlīs [ q.v.]) …

, Abu’l-ʿAlāʾ S̲āʿid b. al-Ḥasan al-Rabaʿī al-Lug̲h̲awī, poet and grammarian in Muslim Spain ( ca. 339-417/ca. 950-1026). Born at Mawṣil or in its region, educated in poetry and the linguistic sciences at Bag̲h̲dād. Ṣāʿid arrived ca. 380/990 in Spain, probably attracted by the news of the largesse lavished by its princes on scholars who came to them from the East. All the sources agree in describing him as a facile poet, with an untidy appearance, an incorrigible drunkard and a perpetual spendthrift. But he knew how to ask for mo…

b. Umayya, a member of the Aʿyāṣ [ q.v. in Suppl.] component group of the Umayyad clan in Mecca and, later, governor of Kufa and Medina, died in 59/678-9, according to the majority of authorities. His father had fallen, a pagan, fighting the Muslims at the battle of Badr [ q.v.] on 2/624 when Saʿīd, his only son, can only have been an infant. He nevertheless speedily achieved great prestige in Islam not only as the leader of an aristocratic family group but also for his liberality, eloquence and learning. He ¶ was in especially high favour with ʿUt̲h̲mān, and was appointed by that caliph, together with the other Ḳuras̲h̲īs ʿAbd Allāh b. al-Zubayr [ q.v.], ʿAbd al-Raḥmān …

(not Baṭrīḳ) or Eutychius (263-328/877-940), Melkite patriarch of Alexandria, author of works of medicine, history and apologetics, and one of the most important figures in the Melkite literature of his period. The only known biographical elements derive from the author himself (ed. Cheikho, ii, 69-70, 86-7, 88) and from his continuator (Yaḥyā, in PO, xviii, 713-19); they are repeated, without additional information, in Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa. Born at Fusṭāṭ on 27 D̲h̲u ¶ ’l-Ḥid̲j̲d̲j̲a 263/10 September 877, Saʿīd b. al-Biṭrīḳ studied medicine and di…

b. His̲h̲ām, an early Kūfan scholar of renown in the fields of Ḳurʾān recitation and exegesis, jurisprudence and ḥadīt̲h̲ . He was a mawlā of the Banū Wāliba b. al-Ḥārit̲h̲, a branch of the Banū Asad b. K̲h̲uzayma. If the biographical traditions which say that he studied with Ibn ʿAbbās and Ibn ʿUmar are reliable, then he brought early Meccan and Medinan scholarship to Kūfa. There he had a circle of students but also held government positions. He functioned as secretary for two of the ḳāḍī s of Kūfa. When al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲, the Umayyad governor of ʿIrāḳ, se…

b. Saʿīd al-Kātib , Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān, ʿAbbāsid scribe, epistolographer and poet. His exact dates are unknown, but he was probably born in the last years of the 3rd century A.H. and di…

b. Aḥmad b. Saʿīd Āl Bū Saʿīdī, ruler of ʿUmān and Zanzibar (b. Muscat 1791, d. at sea on 19 Oct. 1856). He and his brother Sālim succeeded jointly in 1806, but shortly were usurped by their cousin Badr, whom Saʿīd assassinated. Sālim had the title Imām, but was a nonentity; the effective power was in Saʿīd’s hands. When Sālim d. Saʿīd was not elected to the imāmate, he preferred using the title Sayyid, used without distinction by all the princes of the family. Nevertheless, European sources frequently refer to Saʿīd as Imām. He never used the title Sulṭān. The fissiparous ʿUmānī tribal syste…

, Abū ʿUt̲h̲mān , physician and translator of Greek scientific works into Arabic. As one of the leading physicians of his time, he enjoyed the favours of the vizier ʿAlī b. ʿĪsā (d. 334/946 [ …