Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

, a fortress situated on a lime-stone rock in the middle of the river Indus (27° 43′ N and 68° 56′ E), which is identified with the Sogdi of Alexander. The island is connected with Rōhrī and Sukkur by a cantilever bridge. With the decline of Arōr, the ancient Hindū capital of Sind, about the middle of 2nd/8th century, when the river Indus changed its course, Bhakkar soon attained the highest strategie importance. The island must have been fortified and…

, formerly a princely State in India, now forming a part of Rād̲j̲astʿhān, lying between 26° 43′ and 27° 50′ N. and 76° 53′ and 77° 46′ E. with an area of 1,982 sq. miles. The chief city is Bharatpūr, situated in 27° 13′ N. and 77° 30′ E., 34 miles from Agra, with a population of 37,321 in 1951. Paharsar, 14 miles from Bharatpūr, was first conquered in the 5th/11th century by the troops of Maḥmūd of G̲h̲azna, under the Sayyid brothers, D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn and ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn, who claimed descent from Imām D̲j̲aʿfar al-Ṣādiḳ, in about 3 hours, as the local tradition goes, whence the place derives its name pahar…

A district in Gud̲j̲arāt [ q.v.] in the present Bombay State, India, of about 1450 sq.m. and with a population of some 300,000; the Islamic population was about 20% of the total prior to partition in 1947, but much of this has since moved to Sind in Pakistān. The principal class of Muslims was Bohrā [see bohorās ]. Bharoč is also the name of the principal town of that district, Lat. 21°42′N., Long. 73° 2′E. It is first known as a town within the Mawrya dominions, and later (c. 150 A.D.) to have been in the hands of Parthian Sāhas; from the Middle Indian form bharugaccha- of the Sanskrit bhṛgukṣetra- …

, the Pand̲j̲āb form of the Rad̲j̲put word Bhāti, the name of a widely distributed Rad̲j̲pūt tribe associated with the area stretching from Jaisalmer to the western tract of the Pand̲j̲āb between Fatḥābād and Bhatnair. Large numbers of those settled in the Pand̲j̲āb accepted Islam. According to one of their traditions the Jādons of Jaisalmer were driven from Zābulistān to the Pand̲j̲āb and Rād̲j̲putāna, the branch settling in Rād̲j̲putāna being named Bhāti. The references in the Čač-nama to the Bhaṭṭi king of Ramal in the Thar desert confirm the legends preserved in Tod’s Annals and ant…

, head-quarters of the Govindgarh taḥṣīl of the former Patiala State, now merged with the Pand̲j̲āb State of the Indian Union, situated in 30° 13′N. and 75° E. Population (1951) was 34,991. An ancient town, seat of the Bhātiyā or Bhattī Rād̲j̲pūts, it commanded the strategie routes from Multān to Rād̲j̲asthān and the Gangetic valley, including such historic places as Pānīpat and farther on Indrāpat (Delhi), for invaders from the north-west of the Indian sub-continent. In ancient times it stood on an affluent of the Ghaggar rivulet which still flows past Ambālā [ q.v.] and the surrounding ¶ …

, s̲h̲āh ʿabd al-laṭīf (1689-1752), a Sindhi poet belonging to a priestly family of Matiari Sayyids. He lived for a large part of his life at Bhit (“sandhill”), a small hamlet near Hala in the district of Haydarābād in Sind. He is the national poet of Sind. His poetry is Ṣūfī in nature, as the poet, though not a man of great learning or education, was deeply impressed by the mystical thought of D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Rūmī, whose influence is evident in many of his poems. These poems were gathered together after his death by his followers and made into a collection which is called the Risalo . They are ¶ writt…

, formerly a princely State in India, lying between 22° 29′ and 23° 54′ N. and 76° 28′ and 78° 51′ E. with an area of 6,878 sq. miles, with a population of 838,474 in 1951. It was the second most important Muslim State, next to Ḥaydarābād [ q.v]. Bhōpāl was founded by a military adventurer, Dōst Muḥammad Ḵh̲ān, a native of Tīrāh (in the tribal area of present-day Pakistan) who belonged to the Mirzaʾī Ḵh̲ēl tribe of the Āfrīdī Pathans. In 1120/1708 he went to Delhi, at the age of 34, in search of employment, and succeeded in obtaining from Bahādur S̲h̲āh I [ q.v.], emperor of Delhi, the lease of Bērāsia par…

(city), Capital of the Indian province of Madhya Pradesh, situated in 23° 16ʹ N. and 77° 25ʹ E. on a sandstone ridge and on the edge of two ¶ beautiful lakes, the Puk̲h̲tah-Pul Talāō and the Baṛā Talāō, famed throughout India for natural charm and picturesque surroundings, was founded by Dōst Muḥammad Ḵh̲ān, an Orakzaʾī Āfrīdī in 1141/1728 when he built the Fatḥgaṛh fort, named after his Indian wife, Fatḥ Bīoī, and connected it by a wall to the old dilapidated fort, ascribed by tradition to the legendary Rād̲j̲ā Bhōd̲j̲, a…

[see kanīsa ].

, the gates; passes across a chain of the Tellian Atlas Mountains—parallel to the Ḏj̲urd̲j̲ura, south of the depression of the Wādī Sahel. The French have retained the Turkish name for these passes, Damir Ḳapu , Iron Gates. The road and railway track from Algiers to Constantine both pass through the Great Gate, al-Bāb al-Kabīr , hollowed out by the Wadi Chebba. The Little Gate, al-Bāb al-Ṣag̲h̲īr , 3.5 km. to the east, is crossed by the Wādī Būktūn. It is the narrower of the two. These “gates”, which were not included in the network of Rom…

, a word of East Turkish origin, with the meaning of “little old mother”, “grandmother”, “woman of high rank”, “lady”. It is noted, with the sense of “woman of consequence”, “lady”, in the Ottoman-Turkish dictionary Lug̲h̲at-i Des̲h̲īs̲h̲ī , composed in 988/1580-1581. Bībī also means, in Anatolian Turkish, “paternal aunt”. Taken over into Persian at an early date, with the sense of “woman of the house”, “lady”, the word can be found in a verse of Anwarī (12th cent. A.D.) cited in the Farhang-i Nāṣirī . It was used in Ḵh̲urāsān during the 13th century as a …

, ʿAlī b. Muḥammad , 26th s̲h̲ayk̲h̲ of al-Azhar. He was born in the village of Biblāw near Dayrūṭ in Upper Egypt in Rad̲j̲ab 1251/November 1835. After a period of study and teaching at al-Azhar [ q.v.], he was employed at the Khedivial Library and became its Director ( nāẓir ) for a short period in 1881 and 1882. In the wake of the ʿUrābī insurrection in 1882, he was removed from this office, to which he had been appointed thanks to the help of his friend Maḥmūd Sāmī al-Bārūdī [ q.v.], one of the insurrection’s principal protagonists. Subsequently he held the office of Ḵh̲aṭīb …

[see tawrāt , zabūr , ind̲j̲īl ].

In the present article the word is used in the sense of a systematically arranged list of books, compiled for the benefit of those who need to know what has been written on a particular subject. The outstanding achievement in Islamic bibliography to appear before the adoption of printing in Islamic territories is the Fihrist . Its author, Ibn al-Nadīm [ q.v.], a bookseller ( warrāḳ ) in Bag̲h̲dād, compiled the work in 377/987-8 in the form of a bibliographical history of literature, arranged in ten books, the first six being concerned wit…

[see ḳurʿa ].

, innovation, a belief or practice for which there is no precedent in the time of the Prophet. It is the opposite of sunna and is a synonym of muḥdat̲h̲ or ḥadat̲h̲ . While some Muslims felt that every innovation must necessarily be wrong, some allowance obviously had to be made for changing circumstances. Thus a distinction came to be made between a bidʿa which was ‘good’ ( ḥasana ) or praiseworthy ( maḥmūda ), and one which was ‘bad’ ( sayyiʾa ) or blameworthy ( mad̲h̲mūma ). Al-S̲h̲āfiʿī laid down the principle that any innovation which runs contrary to the Ḳurʾān, the sunna, id̲j̲māʿ , or at̲h̲ar…

, a district in south-central India (the ‘Deccan’, [ q.v.]), and the headquarters town of that district, lat. 17° 55ʹ N., long. 77° 32ʹ E., population over 15,000, 82 miles north-west of Ḥaydarābād from which it is easily accessible by road and rail. The identification of Bīdar with the ancient Vidarbha (Briggs’s Ferishta , ii, 411) is now discounted, cf. G. Yazdani, Bidar : its history and monuments, Oxford 1947, 3. Bīdar was included in the Čālukya kingdom of Kalyāń, 4th-6th/10th-12th centuries, but was in the hands of the Kākatīyās of Warangal when conquered…

, mīrzā ʿabd al-ḳādir b. ʿabd al-ḵh̲āliḳ arlās (or Barlās), of Buk̲h̲āran origin, was born at ʿAẓīmābād (Patna) in 1054/1644, where his family had settled. He losthis father in 1059/1649 and wasbrought up by his uncle Mīrzā Ḳalandar (d. 1076/1665) and maternai uncle Mīrzā Ẓarīf (d. 1075/1664), who was well-versed in ḥadīt̲h̲ literature and fiḳh . In 1070/ 1659 he visited a number of places in Bengal along with Mīrzā Ḳalandar. In 1071/1660 he went to Cuttack (Orissa) where he stayed for three years. It was here in Orissa that Mīrzā Ẓarīf, who also ha…

, aḥmed , son of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ‘al-Kātib’ (and hence known as yazi̊d̲j̲i̊-og̲h̲lu aḥmed ) and younger brother of the famous Yazi̊d̲j̲i̊-og̲h̲lu Meḥmed, Turkish mystic writer and ‘popular educator’ who flourished in the middle of the 9th/15th century. The brothers, after studying under Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī Bayram [ q.v.] of Ankara, lived a retired life together at Gelibolu, Aḥmed practising such austerities and becoming so emaciated that he was called—and calls himself in his books—‘Bī-d̲j̲ān’, i.e., ‘The Lifeless’. To judge from the date of the Muntahā (see below),…

[see vid̲j̲ayanagara ].

, town and head-quarters of the district of the same name in Bombay State (India), situated in 16° 49ʹ N. and 75° 43ʹ E., 350 miles south of Bombay. Population in 1951 was 65,734. It was the seat of the Yādavā kings for over a century from 586/1190 to 694/1294 when it was conquered by ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Ḵh̲ald̲j̲ī for his uncle D̲j̲alāl al-Dīn Ḵh̲ald̲j̲ī [ q.v.], king of Delhi. In 890/1485-6 Yūsuf, an alleged son of the Ottoman Sulṭān, Murād II who, on the accession of his brother Meḥemmed II to the throne, was said to have escaped certain death through a stratagem…

(Bougie), maritime Algerian town situated about 175 km. east of Algiers. Built on the lowest slopes of the D̲j̲abal Gurāya, the city overlooks a spacious and remarkably sheltered bay. Doubtless Roman and Carthaginian shipping anchored off Saldae, the old town. At the beginning of the Christian era, it formed part of the domain of Juba, king of Cherchel. The emperor Augustus founded a colony there and settled it with veterans. An inscription dating from the second century extols Saldae as “civita…

(bijnor), a town and district in the Rohilk̲h̲and division of the Indian State of Uttar Pradesh. The district has an area of 1,867 square miles with a population of 984,196, of which 36% are Muslims. The town has a population of 30,646 (1951 Census). Little is known of the district’s early history. In 1399 it was ravaged by Tīmūr. Under Akbar it formed part of the sarkār of Sambhal in the sūba of Dihlī. During the decline of Mug̲h̲al power it was overrun by Rohillas under ʿAlī Muḥammad. It contains the town of Nad̲j̲ibābād founded about 1750 by Nad̲j̲ib al-Dawla who became wāzīr …

(Bitlis), chief city of the wilāyet of the same name, in eastern Anatolia. It stands on the river Bitlis, 25 km. south-west of the westernmost point of lake Van (38° 20ʹ N., 42° 5ʹ E.), at a height above sea-level variously estimated between 1,400 and 1,585 metres. Known to the Armenians as Bages̲h̲ (Pagis̲h̲) and to the Arabs as Badlīs, it is referred to as Bīdlīs in old Turkish works. The city is in a relatively wide part of the deep and narrow valley eut in the eastern Taurus…

, idrīs , Mewlānā Ḥakīm al-Dīn Idrīs b. Mewlānā Ḥusām al-Dīn ʿAlī al-Bidlīsī, historian of the Ottomans, was probably of Kurdish origin. He became nis̲h̲ānd̲j̲i at the Aḳ Ḳoyunlu court, and in the name of Yaʿḳūb Beg wrote a letter of congratulation to Bāyezīd II in 890/1485 which was much admired (Hammer-Purgstall, ii, 290). In consequence of the growing power of S̲h̲āh Ismaʿīl he fled to Turkey in 907/1501-2, where he was welcomed by Bāyezīd and commissioned to write the history of the Ottoman Ho…

, s̲h̲araf al-dīn ḵh̲ān , commonly known as s̲h̲araf ḵh̲ān , Persian historian of Kurdish extraction, the elder brother of the Amīr of Bidlīs, S̲h̲ams al-Dīn Ḵh̲ān, born at Karah-rūd near Ḳumm on 20 D̲h̲u ’l-Ḳaʿda 949/20 February 1543, during the exile of his father. His family was taken under the protection of S̲h̲āh Ṭahmāsp the Ṣafawid (930-984/1524-1576), and he was brought up at the court of that ruler with the latter’s children, and received his education there. At the age of twelve, he was raised to the rank of amīr of the Kurds, and held this position for…

[see kalīla wa-dimna ].

(the Greek Πηγαί), a town in northwestern Asia Minor and now the centre of a ḳaḍāʾ in, the province of Çanāḳ-Ḳalʿe, is situated on the Ḳod̲j̲a Çāy, i.e., the ancient Granicus, about 15 miles from the Sea of Marmara. At the mouth of the Ḳod̲j̲a Çāy stands Ḳarā Bīg̲h̲a (the Πρίαπος of classical times), which is the port (“iskele”) of Bīg̲h̲a. Bīg̲h̲a, under Ottoman rule, was at different times a sand̲j̲aḳ of the eyālet-i Baḥr-i Sefīd (the province of the Ḳapudān Pās̲h̲ā or High Admiral of the Ottoman fleet), a sand̲j̲aḳ of the wilāyet of Ḵh̲udāwendigār (Brusa), and still later a ḳaḍāʾ in the Mute…

, the Ḳurʾānic term (XXIV, 33) for prostitution. “Prostitute” is rendered by bag̲h̲iyy (pl. bag̲h̲āyā ), mūmis (pl. -āt , mayāmis/mayāmīs , mawāmis/ mawāmīs ), ʿāhira (pl. ʿawāhir ), zāniya (pl. zawānīs ). etc.; a more vulgar term, although we have here a euphemism, is ḳaḥba (pl. ḳiḥāb ), which the lexicographers attach to the verb ḳaḥaba “to cough”, explaining that professional prostitutes used to cough in order to attract clients. Although M. Gaudefroy-Demombynes ( Mahomet 2, Paris 1969, 48) saw in the legend of Isāf and Nāʾila [ q.v.] the “reminiscence of sacred prostitution”, no…

[see misāḥa ].

, an Iranian religious agitator who, in the later period of Umayyad rule —about 129/747—set himself up as a new prophet at Ḵh̲awāf in the district of Nīs̲h̲āpūr. He gathered about him a large following and was put to death with his disciples on the orders of Abū Muslim in 131/749. Before this he is believed to have lived in China for seven years and on his return, to have revealed himself to certain people as resurrected and descended from heaven. Legend also has it that he pretended to be dead …

, a province of India lying between 23° 48ʹ and 27° 31ʹ N. and 83° 20ʹ and 88° 32ʹ E., bounded by Uttar Prades̲h̲ on the west, Nepāl on the north, Bengal and East Pakistan on the east and Orissa on the south; area, with Čhotā Nāgpur, 67,164 sq.m., population 38,784,000. The dialects of the predominantly Hindū population, Bihjpurī, Maithilī and Māgahī, are referred to as Bihārī, and are more akin to Bengali than to Hindī; the latter is, however, the official language of administration and educati…

, muḥibb allāh b. ʿabd al-s̲h̲akūr al-ʿut̲h̲mānī al-ṣiddīḳī al-ḥanafī was born at Karā, a village near Muḥibb ʿAlīpūr in the province of Bihār (India). He belonged to the Malik community, of exotic origin, still unidentified. He received his early education from Ḳuṭb al-Dīn al-Anṣārī al-Sihālwī and read some books with Ḳuṭb al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī al-S̲h̲amsābādī. After completing his studies he went to the Deccan where Awrangzīb was at the time engaged in military operations against the…

[see ʿināyat allāh ḳanbū ].

[see d̲j̲āmī ].

, Āḳā Sayyid Muḥammad Bāḳir , S̲h̲īʿī mud̲j̲tahid and proponent of the Uṣūlī [ q.v.] mad̲h̲hab , often entitled Waḥīd-i Bihbihānī or Muḥaḳḳiḳ-i Bihbihānī, and commonly regarded by his S̲h̲īʿī contemporaries as the “renewer” ( mud̲j̲addid ) of the 12th Hid̲j̲rī century. He was born in Iṣfahān some time between the years 1116/1704-5 and 1118/1706-7. After a brief period spent in Bihbihān, he was taken to Karbalāʾ by his father, Mullā Muḥammad Akmal, whose principal student he became, while studying also under S…

[see d̲j̲anna ].

, tak̲h̲alluṣ of an Ottoman poet and historian, whose personal name was Aḥmed. He was born in about 871/1466-7, the son of a certain Suleymān Bey. At the age of 13 he entered the service of Bāyezīd as a page, but was banished from court for some offence and is reported to have fled to Harāt. He was pardoned but not received back into favour. He was writing his History in the last year of Bāyezīd’s reign (917/1511-2) and probably died in that year. Bihis̲h̲tī is said to have written the first Ḵh̲amsa [ q.v.] in Ottoman Turkish; of his met̲h̲newīs survive: Leylā we Med̲j̲nūn , Mak̲h̲zen al-Esrār , Mihr ü…

, in ʿAbbāsid times the name (adopted, with the organisation, from the Sāsānid Persians) of three districts ( Astān , Arabic Kūra ) of the province of ʿIrāḳ, all situated on the eastern branch (modern Ḥilla branch) of the Euphrates. The name means “the Goodness (or godd lands?) of ¶ Ḳubād̲h̲”, a Sāsānid king who reigned in the 5th century A.D. The districts bordered, to the south, on that of Kūfa, and on the Great Swamp of the Lower Euphrates. The three districts, sometimes referred to jointly as the Bihḳubād̲h̲āt, were t…

, ṣamad , Persian prosewriter (1939-68). Bihrangī’s birth in a lower-class, Turkishspeaking family in Tabrīz and his eleven-years’ employment as a primary schoolteacher in rural Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān are attested in the greater part of his fārsī writings. These, both fictional and nonfictional, largely deal with village life in his native province and with the specific problems of a cultural minority region. His concern for the plight of Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ānī peasant youth prompted a series of educational essays, as…

( amīr ), son of Amīr Rustam and, like him, chief of the Donbolī. A loyal ally of the Ṣafawids, he took part in the war between S̲h̲āh Ṭahmāsp and Sulṭān Sulaymān al-Ḳānūnī in 945/1538. He died in 985/1577, at the age of 90, after having been in power for 50 years. His laḳab was Sulaymān Ḵh̲alīfa. (B. Nikitine)

, son of S̲h̲āh Bandar Ḵh̲ān, amīr of the Donbolī. He was known under the name of Sulaymān Ḵh̲ān al-T̲h̲ānī. At the time of Sulṭān Murād’s attack on Ād̲h̲arbāyd̲j̲ān, he distinguished himself in the army of S̲h̲āh Ṣafī. He died in 1041/1631-2. (B. Nikitine) Bibliography M. E. Zaki, Mas̲h̲āhir al-Kurd wa-Kurdistān, 144 Taʾrīk̲h̲ al-Duwal wa ’l-Imārat al-Kurdiyya, 386, 387.

, kamāl al-dīn , ustād , the most famous Persian miniature-painter. The main sources for his life are: 1. Ḵh̲wāndamīr, Ḥabīb al-Siyar , Bombay 1857, iii, 350 (T. W. Arnold, Painting in Islam, Oxford 1928, 140) and two documents from his Nāma-i Nāmī (Bibl. Nat., MS. Suppl. Pers. 1842), a preface to an album of calligraphy and miniatures compiled by Bihzād and the document appointing him head of the royal Kitāb-Ḵh̲āna (Muḥammad Ḳazwīnī-L. Bouvat, Deux documents inédits relatifs à Behzad , in RMM, xxvi, 1914, 146-161); 2. Bābur-nāma , ed. Beveridge, London 1921, …

, plural of al-Baḳʿa, the proper name of the elongated plain commonly called the Bekaa, which, at a mean altitude of 1,000 metres, lies between the mountains of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon. The ancients had clearly defined it by the term Coele Syria (Hollow Syria) of which the application was subsequently extended. It is a depression of tectonic origin filled in by sediment, and is an extension of the Jordan rift along the north-south axis which forms one of the basic features of the structure of t…

[see biñbas̲h̲i̊ ].

, the three towns, a term employed in Ottoman legal and administrative usage for Eyyūb, Galata, and Üsküdar, i.e., the three separate urban areas attached to Istanbul. Each had its own ḳāḍī, independent of the ḳādī of Istanbul, though of lower rank. Every Wednesday the ḳāḍīs of the ‘three towns’ joined the ḳāḍī of Istanbul in attending the Grand Vezir. This judicial autonomy of the three towns goes back to early Ottoman times, probably even to the conquest. The three towns also enjoyed some autonomy in police mat…

[see abū burda ].

, abū ’l-nadā , Zurayʿid [ q.v.] vizier and governor of ʿAdan. He was appointed governor of the city by the Zurayʿid prince Sabāʾ b. Abī ’l-Suʿūd at the time of his war against his cousin and co-ruler of ʿAdan, the Masʿūdid ʿAlī b. Abī ’l-G̲h̲arāt, 531-32/1136-38. With the death of Sabāʾ in 533/1138-39 his son and successor, al-Aʿazz, intensely jealous of Bilāl, intended to have him put to death, but died himself in 534/1139-40 before this could be achieved. At his sudden demise Bilāl had a younger so…

, sometimes described as Ibn Ḥamāma, after his mother, was a companionof the Prophet and is best known as his Muʾad̲h̲d̲h̲in . Of Ethiopian (African?) stock, he was born in slavery in Mecca among the clan of Jumaḥ, or in the Sarāt. His mas ter is sometimes given as Umayya b. Ḵh̲alaf [ q.v.] but also as an unnamed man or woman of the same clan. He was an early convert— some sources credit him with having been the second adult after Abū Bakr to accept Islam. Owing to his status he suffered heavy punishment and torture, especially, it is stated, at t…

, heroes of the Kitāb Bilawhar wa-Yūdāsaf ( Būd̲h̲āsaf ), an Arabic work deriving ultimately from the traditional biography of Gautama Buddha, and subsequently providing the prototype for the Christian legend of Barlaam and Josaphat. Contents of story. To the long childless king Janaysar, a pagan ruler of Sūlābaṭ ( i.e., Kapilavastu) in India, a son is born by miraculous means. The king names him Yūdāsaf (better: Būd̲h̲āsaf = Bodhisattva). An astrologer predicts that the prince’s greatness will not be of this world; the king therefore confines …