Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

[see ḥabas̲h̲, ḥabas̲h̲a ],

[see k̲h̲abar al-wāḥid ].

[see ḥadīt̲h̲ ].

[see allāh , waḥda ].

, a Berber word denoting (a) the members (pl. ihaggarən ) of one of the noble tribes constituting the former group of the Northern Tuaregs [ q.v.], and (b) one of these tribes (Kəl Ahaggar or Ihaggarən), inhabiting a region to which it has given the name of Ahaggar (Hoggar). In its widest sense, the Ahaggar is the group of territories under the dominion of the Kəl Ahaggar. It covers an area of about 200,000 sq. miles between lat. 21°-25° N and long. 3°-6° E. Bounded by mountain massifs (the Ahanəf to the E., the Tassili of the Ajjər to the N.-E., the Immidir to the N., the Adrar of the Ifog̲h̲as [ q.v.] an…

, injunction, command; thence: obligation, engagement; thence: agreement, covenant, treaty. The term (as well as the 1st and the 3rd forms of the corresponding verb) occurs frequently in the Ḳurʾān. It is used there over the whole range of its meanings, of Allāh’s covenant with men and His commands, of the religious engagement into which the believers have entered, of political agreements and undertakings of believers and unbelievers towards the Prophet and amongst each other, and of ordinary ci…

[see ibrāhīm al-ahdab ].

(plur. Mahādila, < *Mahdalī for am-Ahdalī(?); on etym. cf. al-Muḥibbī, i, 67, Wüstenfeld, 6), a family of sayyids living mostly in SW Arabia, descended from the sixth ʿAlid imām Ḏj̲aʿfar al-Ṣāḍik. Their ancestor, ʿAlī b. ʿUmar b. Muḥ. al-Ahdal, called Ḳuṭb al-Yaman, and his son Abū Bakr (d. 700/1300) were famous ṣūfīs, living in the little town of Murāwaʿa ( TA) or Marāwiʿa (al-Muḥibbī) N ( ḳibliyya ) of Bayt al-Faḳīh Ibn ʿUd̲j̲ayl, where their graves are visited by pilgrims. To this clan belong the following ṣūfī scholars: 1. Ḥusayn b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥ., Badr al-Dīn (b. in Ḳu…

, literally "young men", a kind of urban militia which plays a considerable role in the cities of Syria and Upper Mesopotamia from the 4th/10th to the 6th/12th centuries, and is particularly well known at Aleppo and Damascus. Officially, its role is that of a police, charged with public order, fire-fighting, etc., and also, in time of need, with military defence in reinforcement of the regular troops. For these services the aḥdāt̲h̲ receive stipends allocated from the product of certain urban taxes. The only distinction between them and any or…

, Turkish poet, whose real name seems to have been Beñli Ḥasan ("Ḥasan with the mole"). His father Sīdī Ḵh̲od̲j̲a was a merchant in Trstenik (not far from Nicopolis). After the latter’s death Āhī went to Istanbul and chose for himself the career of a scholar, but for a long time advanced no further than the rank of candidate ( mulāzim ), because he declined the position of müderris in Bāyazīd Pas̲h̲a’s medrese in Brusa. Finally he obtained the less important position of müderris in Ḳara Ferya (Berrhoea), where he died in 923/1517. He left two unfinished poetical works, of which the titles are: S̲h…

, the title of Sūra xlvi of the Ḳurʾān, and a geographical term the meaning and application of which have been generally misunderstood. The Sūra derives its title from verse 21, which speaks of ʿĀd as warning his people in al-Aḥḳāf. The word aḥḳāf is usually interpreted in dictionaries, books of tafsīr , and translations of the Ḳurʾān as meaning curved sand dunes. Medieval Arab geographers considered al-Aḥḳāf to be the name of a sand desert in Southern Arabia, said to lie between Ḥaḍramawt and ʿUmān, i.e., in the eastern part of al-Ramla or al-Rubʿ al-Ḵh̲âlî [ q.v.]. Modern Western geograph…

, pl. of ḥukm , decision, judgment. [See also ḥakam.] In the Ḳurʾān, the word occurs onl in the singular, and is used (as is the corresponding verb) of Allāh, the Prophets, and other men. Used of Allāh, it denotes both individual ordinances and the whole of His dispensation (iii, 79; xlv, 16; lx, 10). In the ultimate sense, final jurisdiction belongs to Allāh alone [see al-muḥakkima], but He has given authority to make decisions to His Prophets. The jurisdiction of Muḥammad, in particular, is opposed to that of paganism (v, 50). So ḥukm comes to mean the authority, imperium, of the Isla…

(a.), originally meaning "those who occupy with one the same tent (Hebrew ōhel )", thus "family, inmates". Therefore ahl al-Bayt means literally "the household of the Prophet". When the ahl (pl. ahālī ) of a town or a country is spoken of it denotes its inhabitants, sometimes, as in Medina (according to Burton), specially those who were born there and own houses. But this word is often connected with other concepts, and is in these combinations more loosely used, so that it may come to mean "sharing in a thing, belonging to it", or "owner of the same", etc. Some of the compounds with ahl most in u…

[see ḥilf ].

(a.; sing, hawā , "predilection, inclination of the soul"; comp. Ḳurʾān vi, 151) is a term applied by the orthodox theologians to those followers of Islām, whose religious tenets in certain details deviate from the general ordinances of the Sunnite confession (cf. ZDMG, 1898, 159). As examples there are mentioned: Ḏj̲abariyya, Ḳadariyya, Rawāfiḍ, Ḵh̲awārid̲j̲, anthropomorphists, Muʿaṭṭila. From the above definition it may be inferred that in the sense of Muslim theology it is not proper to designate these tendencies as sects. (I. Goldziher)

, āl al-bayt , "the people of the House", āl al-nabī , "the family of the Prophet", all mean the same; the term Āl Yāsīn also occurs. The origin of the phrase is to be found in the strong clan sense of the pre-Islamic Arabs, among whom the term al-bayt was applied to or adopted by the ruling family of a tribe (by derivation from an ancient right of guardianship of the symbol of the tribal deity, according to H. Lammens, Le Culte des Bétyles , in L’Arabic occidentale avant l’Hégire , Beirut 1928, 136 ff., 154 ff.), and survived into later centuries in the plural form al-buyūtāt f…

(a.), originally denoted those that belong to Persian families of the highest nobility (Nöldeke, Gesch. d. Perser u. Araber zur Zeit der Sassaniden , 71), then, the nobles in general. Other meanings are given by Dozy, Supplément , i, 131.

(a.)= "the people of the house", in the Almohad hierarchy the 6th order [see al-muwaḥḥidūn ].

(a.), the Jews and Christians, between whom and the Muslims there is according to Muslim law a certain legal relation [see d̲h̲imma ].

[see mïrāt̲h̲ ].