Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

, the fourth letter in the Arabic alphabet. In the abd̲j̲ad order [ q.v.] it has a numerical value of 500. The phoneme represented by this letter may be defined as the voiceless member of the apico-interdental triad of fricatives, as opposed to the voiced /d̲h̲/ [see d̲h̲āl ] and the “emphatic”, i.e. velarised, /ẓ/ [see ẓāʾ ]. Sībawayh (ed. Hārūn, Cairo 1395/1975, iv, 433) describes the point of articulation for the triad as “between the tip of the tongue and the tips of the incisors” and he is followed herein by— inter alios—Ibn D̲j̲innī ( Sirr ṣināʿat al-iʿrāb , ed. Ḥ.…

, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad b. Mak̲h̲lūf al-D̲j̲azāʾirī, Abū Zayd, Mālikī theologian and Ḳurʾānic scholar of North Africa (786-873/1384-1468). Born in Algiers, he studied in the eastern Mag̲h̲rib and Cairo, and made the Pilgrimage, before returning to teach in Tunis, where he died. His main work is a Ḳurʾānic commentary, al-Ḏj̲awāhir al-ḥisān fī tafsīr al-Ḳurʾān (printed Algiers 1323-8/1905-10), but he wrote several other works on aspects of the Ḳurʾān, on the Prophet’s dreams, on eschatology, etc., most of them still in manuscript. (Ed.) Bibliography Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbuktī, Nayl…

, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (b. Tunis 1876, d. 1 October 1944), Tunisian political figure and founder of the Liberal Constitutional Party ( al-Ḥizb al-Ḥurr al-Dustūrī ), commonly called the “Vieux-Destour” as opposed to its successor in 1934, the “Néo-Destour”. Of Algerian origin, he studied at the Zaytūna Mosque, but was early attracted to politics and journalism, and in 1896 founded a cultural weekly, Sabīl al-ras̲h̲ād , suspended a year after its first appearance. He made several journeys within the Mag̲h̲rib and to Crete, Greece and Turkey, in …

, Abū Manṣūr ʿAbd al-Malik b. Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl (350-429/961-1038), prominent connoisseur and critic of Arabic literature and prolific author of anthologies and works of literary scholarship. Born in Nīs̲h̲āpūr, he spent his entire life in the eastern Islamic world, participating in and above all documenting the extraordinary cultural efflorescence which in his generation was making of the city and region a serious rival to Bag̲h̲dād and ʿIrāḳ. Despite his considerable fame, biographical notices in later sources offer f…

, Abū Manṣūr , the author of a history in Arabic, the Taʾrīk̲h̲ G̲h̲urar al-siyar or al-G̲h̲urar fī siyar al-mulūk wa-ak̲h̲bārihim , which he dedicated to the G̲h̲aznawid Abu ’l-Muẓaffar Naṣr b. Sebüktigin, governor of K̲h̲urāsān, d. 412/1021. According to Ḥād̲j̲d̲j̲ī K̲h̲alīfa, tr. Flügel, iv, 319 no. 8592, this universal history comprised four volumes, going from the Creation to Mahmud of G̲h̲azna [ q.v.] in the author’s own time. From the first part, H. Zotenberg published a text and French translation, Histoire des rois de Perse , Paris 1900. It is espec…

, a mountain outside Mecca, on the north side of the valley of Minā [ q.v.]. Yāḳūt, Muʿd̲j̲am al-buldān , ed. Beirut, ii, 72-4, enumerates several mountains of this name, and also gives a tradition that T̲h̲abīr was, with Ḥirāʾ [ q.v.] and T̲h̲awr, one of the three most significant mountains outside Mecca. It seems to have played a role in the ceremonies of the pre-Islamic ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ or pilgrimage outside Mecca. In Umayyad times, in the early 8th century A.D., the governor of Mecca K̲h̲ālid b. ʿAbd Allāh al-Ḳasrī [ q.v.], on the orders of Sulaymān b. ʿAbd al-Malik, piped water from a…

, ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn ʿAlī , (modern Tkish. Sabit), Ottoman poet born at Užice in Bosnia ca. 1060/1650, died at Istanbul 11 S̲h̲aʿban 1124/5 September 1712. T̲h̲ābit had his early education locally, but then moved to Istanbul. He showed early aptitude for poetry, but entered the ranks of the scholarly and judicial hierarchy, serving in a series of posts across the Empire. His dīwān includes many poems written to men in power soliciting posts or bemoaning his financial straits between appointments. Classified by Gibb ( HOP, iv, 15) as a Traditionalist, between the Classical and Moderni…

, Abu ’l-Ḥasan b. Zahrūn al-Ḥarrānī, outstanding mathematician and scientist, born probably in 21/826 at Ḥarrān [ q.v.], died at Bag̲h̲dād on Thursday, 26 Ṣafar 288/19 February 901 aged 77 lunar years (see R. Rashed, Mathématiques infinitésimales , 139-45). His maternal language was Syriac, he knew Greek very well, and wrote his scientific work in Arabic. Famed primarily as a mathematician, he wrote original works in all the practical sciences of his age. Originally a money-changer in Ḥarrān, his meeting with the eldest of three famous mathematicians and astronomers, the Banū Mūsā [ q.v…

, Abu ’l-ʿAlāʾ T̲h̲ābit b. Kaʿb b. D̲j̲ābir, of the Banū Asad b. Ḥārit̲h̲ of Azd or one of their clients, minor poet of the Umayyad period (b. in Baṣra at an unknown date, probably in the 640s, d. 110/728). He was mainly notable for his participation in expeditions on the eastern frontiers of K̲h̲urāsān, and even became governor of one of its component provinces. He had close ties of friendship with the governor Yazīd b. al-Muhallab b. Abī Ṣufra, and remained faithful to him until his death at al-ʿAḳr in ʿIrāḳ in 102/720 when he tried…

, an ancient pre-Islamic walled site in northeastern Arabia, some 90 km/56 miles ¶ almost due west of the port of D̲j̲ubayl on the Arabian Gulf (see General map, Potts, Arabian Gulf, xx). Located in Wādī al-Miyāh, the site covers an area of about 990 m by 825 m and lay on the trans-Arabian route linking southern Arabia with ʿIrāḳ, and in Islamic times both al-Hamdānī and Ibn Khurradād̲h̲bih mention the route, called by the 7th/13th century traveller Ibn al-Mud̲j̲āwir (214) Ṭarīḳ al-Raḍrāḍ , the “Gravel Road”. It has in recent years been suggested that the…

[see al-t̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr ].

Abū Saʿīd Yūsuf b. Muḥammad al-Ṭāʾī, ʿAbbāsid commander of the middle decades of the 3rd/9th century, who presumably derived his professional nisba from service along the Byzantine frontiers ( t̲h̲ug̲h̲ūr [ q.v.], sing, t̲h̲ag̲h̲r ; al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, iii, 136-7, gives two scholars with this same nisba, connected respectively with Tarsus and Adana). Nothing is known of him beyond the fact that he was the patron of his fellow-Ṭāʾī, the poet al-Buḥturī [ q.v.]. (Ed.)

(formerly Siam), Islam in. Thailand is now and has always been overwhelmingly Buddhist (about 90% of the population). Islam is the second largest religion, although data on numbers are difficult to establish with certainty. The best estimate seems to be that there are about a million and a half or perhaps more in Thailand. Of these about half are ethnic Malay-Muslims, concentrated in the four southern provinces [see patani ]. The remainder is made up of a number of disparate groups, of which we may identify the following. First, the Muslim-T…

, Abu ’l-Faḍl D̲j̲aʿfar b. Muḥammad b. al-Ḥusayn al-S̲h̲āʿir, Zaydī ʿAlid ruler of Hawsam [ q.v.] 319-50/931-61. His mother was a daughter of his paternal grandfather’s ¶ father’s brother, the Zaydī imām al-Nāṣir li ’l-Ḥaḳḳ [see al-ḥasan al-uṭrūs̲h̲ ], who had been active in Hawsam teaching Zaydī Islam among the Gīlīs and the Daylamīs before conquering Āmul and Ṭabaristān. As Zaydī ʿAlid rule collapsed in Ṭabaristān, al-T̲h̲āʾir was able to establish it further west in Hawsam on a durable basis. Following the example of al-Nāṣir li …

, Yūsuf b. ʿUmar , governor of ʿIrāḳ between 120/738 and 126/744 under the Umayyad caliphs His̲h̲ām b. ʿAbd al-Malik and al-Walīd II b. Yazīd b. ʿAbd al-Malik. His father, ʿUmar, was a cousin of al-Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ād̲j̲ [ q.v.], both being grandsons of al-Ḥakam b. Abī ʿAḳīl of the B. Saʿd b. ʿAwf of T̲h̲aḳīf. As governor, his residence was in al-Ḥīra rather than in al-Kūfa, the more usual gubernatorial seat. Before his appointment over ʿIrāḳ, Yūsuf had been governor of Yemen, where he had been installed by the caliph His̲h̲ām, probably in 106/725. Reports about his acti…

, Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad , Abū Isḥāḳ, S̲h̲īʿī writer and scholar, b. at an unknown date around the beginning of the 3rd century A.H., d. 283/896. His ancestors, from the T̲h̲aḳīf, had always been faithful partisans of the ʿAlids, and his great-grandfather, the Companion Saʿd b. Masʿūd, had been governor of al-Madāʾin for ʿAlī, with his loyal qualities displayed at the battle of Ṣiffīn [ q.v.] in 37/658 (al-Samʿānī, Ansāb , ed. Ḥaydarābād, iii, 144). Regrettably little is known of Ibrāhīm’s life and intellectual development, but he was brought up…

, a tribe of the so-called Northern Arabian federation Ḳays ʿAylān [ q.v.], more precisely, of the Hawāzin [ q.v.]. Before Islam the T̲h̲aḳīf controlled the walled town of al-Ṭāʾif [ q.v.]; groups of the T̲h̲aḳīf, some settled and some nomadic, still live in al-Ṭāʾif and its vicinity. In the early Islamic period, the T̲h̲aḳīf were divided into two rival subdivisions, the less prestigious Aḥlāf or “allies” and the Mālik. The Aḥlāf included the ʿAwf branch of T̲h̲aḳīf as a whole and a group from the D̲j̲us̲h̲am branch, while the Mālik were the …

(a.), masculine substantive (pls. t̲h̲aʿālib , t̲h̲aʿāl in) denoting the fox ( Vulpes vulpes), carnivore of the canine tribe, belonging to the class of Canidae and the family of Vulpinae; in Persian wāwi , rūbāh , and in Turkish tilki . The vixen is called t̲h̲aʿlaba , t̲h̲uʿala , t̲h̲urmula , t̲h̲uʿlubān and the fox-cub is hid̲j̲ris and tanfal . Furthermore, the fox bears the nicknames of Abu ’l-Ḥuṣayn , Abu ’l-Nad̲j̲m , Abu ’l-Nawfal , Abu ’l-Wat̲h̲ab , and Abū Ḥinbiṣ , while the vixen is Umm ʿUwayl . The guile which is the dominant feature of the fox is acknowledged by the expressions amkar min …

, Abū ’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad b. Yaḥyā b. Zayd b. Sayyār al-S̲h̲aybānī ( mawlā of the Banū S̲h̲aybān), famous grammarian and philologist of the socalled “Kufan school”. He was born in 200/815-16 in Bag̲h̲dād, where he lived and worked throughout his entire life. T̲h̲aʿlab died, old and deaf, in a road accident on 13 D̲j̲umādā I 291/2 April 904 and was laid to rest in Bag̲h̲dād’s Bāb al-S̲h̲ām cemetery. T̲h̲aʿlab was, we are told, a Ḥanbalī, pious and trustworthy, famous for his reliability in Arabic, ancient poetry, Ḳurʾān and ḥadīt̲h̲ . Even his alleged Baṣran rival al-Mubarrad [ q.v.] credited hi…

, a common old Arab proper name (more rarely T̲h̲aʿlab) and eponym of a number of subdivisions of the larger tribal divisions of ancient Arabia. Thus we have the T̲h̲aʿlaba b. ʿUḳāba of the great tribe of Bakr b. Wāʾil (Yamāma as far as Baḥrayn); the T̲h̲aʿlaba b. Saʿd b. D̲h̲ubyān of the tribe of G̲h̲aṭafān in the Nafūd region; the T̲h̲aʿlaba b. Yarbūʿ of the tribe of Tamīm; the T̲h̲aʿālib Ṭayyiʾ clans of the Ṭayyiʾ [ q.v.]. A T̲h̲aʿlaba b. ʿAmr b. Mud̲j̲ālid is mentioned as the first phylarch of the G̲h̲assānid dynasty [see g̲h̲assān ]. The “Roman Arabs of the house…