Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition

, Vodina , the Ottoman Turkish name for the Greek town of Edessa on the Via Egnatia in western Macedonia, lying to the northwest of Thessalonica [see selānik ] (lat. 40° 48’ N., long. 22° 03’ E.). The name Vodina goes back to Slavonic voda “water” because of the abundance of water in the vicinity of the town. In mediaeval times it was contested by Byzantines, Bulgarians, Serbs and Normans (see J. Perluga, in Lexikon des Mittelalters , iii/7, Munich-Zürich 1985, cols. 1565-7; R. Browning and A. Kazhdan, in Oxford dict. of Byzantium , New York-Oxford 1991, 2185). In …

[see senegal ].

[see ḳuluz , in Suppl.].

(t.), a term of Ottoman military and administrative usage which denoted a particular category of troops amongst other Balkan Christian landholding or tax-exempt groups employed by the sultans to perform specific combat and other militarily-related tasks (for other groups, see eflāḳ and martolos). The term stems from the Slavonic root meaning “war”, “warrior”, which appears also in the office of Voywoda [ q.v.], likewise found in Ottoman usage. The woynuḳ s were especially useful to the sultans before the Ottoman state developed a fully-centra…

, a term derived from the Slavic root vojn that signifies pertinence to the military or the sphere of war. In mediaeval Serbia it denoted a highranking commander and, on the eve of the Ottoman conquest, the governor of a military district (N. Radojčić, ed., Zakonik tsara Stefana Dus̲h̲ana 1349 i 1354, Belgrade 1960, 65, 67; C. Jireček, Staat und Gesellschaft im mittelaterlichen Serbien , Part IV, Vienna ¶ 1919, 25-6). In early Ottoman sources the term appears in reference to former Christian lords (N. Beldiceanu, Les Actes des premiers sultans conservés dans les manuscrits turcs de la Bibl. n…

(a.), verbal noun from w-d̲j̲-d “to find”. 1. In philosophy. Here, it is one of the main words used to represent “being” in Arabic renderings of Greek ontological expressions, based on the present passive yūd̲j̲adu , with the past passive wud̲j̲ida , leading to the nominal form mawd̲j̲ūd . Al-mawd̲j̲ūd means “what is found” or “what exists”, and the maṣdar , wud̲j̲ūd , is used as the abstract noun representing existence. Wud̲j̲ūd and its related terms are frequently used to represent the copula ( al-rābiṭa ), sc. the English word “is”, in addition to being …

(a.), lit. “cleansing”, the minor ablution, purification from a minor source of impurity ( ḥadat̲h̲ ), obligatorily required for the performing of certain acts of the Islamic religion, including worship [see Ṣalāt ]. For the major ablution, see g̲h̲usl . Together with worship, almsgiving, fasting and pilgrimage, purification ( ṭahāra ), or the fact of putting oneself in a state of purity ( ṭuhr ), is one of the five cultic acts ( ʿibādāt ) that make up, according to the religious lawyers, the bases ( uṣūl ) of Islam (see Abū Muḥammad al-D̲j̲uwaynī, Tabṣira , Beirut 1…

(a., sing, wafd ) delegations. 1. In the time of the Prophet. In the biography of the Prophet Muḥammad [see sīra ] this term designates the mainly tribal deputations which came to him in Medina, mainly during the ninth year of the Islamic era known as “the Year of Delegations”. They started arriving during S̲h̲awwāl 8 A.H., after the abortive siege of al-Ṭāʾif [ q.v.] or, according to another version, after Muḥammad’s return from Tabūk [ q.v.] (S̲h̲aʿbān or Ramaḍān 9 A.H.). Earlier visits to the Prophet are also reported. Some tribesmen are said to have come to him when…

(a.), lit. place of standing, station, for prayer and thanksgiving on the plain of ʿArafa [ q.v.] or ʿArafāt, some 20 km/12 miles to the east of Mecca, the culminating rite of the Meccan Pilgrimage [see Ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ ]. A rite of wuḳūf existed there in pre-Islamic times and seems to have constituted a main element of the pagan ḥad̲j̲d̲j̲ , independent moreover of that in the ḥaram of Mecca. The pilgrims arrived in their tribes at D̲h̲u ’l-Mad̲j̲āz, assumed a state of sacralisation and accomplished there various devotions before going down ag…

“the Five Mas”, the group of five Muslim warlord-governors dominating Northwest China in the Republican period (1911-49). By the turn of the 20th century, three grand Muslim clans of Ma from Ho-chou district in Kansu, led by Ma Ch’ien-ling (1826-1910), Ma Chan-ao (1830-86) and Ma Hai-yen (1837-1900) respectively, rose up to consolidate their military power. Later their descendants came to be known as “Hsi-pei Ma-chia-chun” (“the Northwestern Muslim Warlords of the Ma clans”). The five best known of them were: Ma…

, Ẓahīr al-Dawla , the second ruler of the Daylamī dynasty of the Ziyārids [ q.v.] of northern Persia, r. 323-56/935-67. Wus̲h̲mgīr is said to have meant “quail-catcher”, according to al-Masʿūdī, Murūd̲j̲ , ix, 30 = § 3603, cf. Justi, Iranisches Namenbuch , 359. Wus̲h̲mgīr was the lieutenant of his brother Mardāwīd̲j̲ [ q.v.], and after his death was hailed at Rayy as his successor by the Daylaml troops. Until ca. 328/940 he held on to his brother’s conquests in northern Persia, but thereafter was drawn into warfare, in alliance with another Daylamī soldier of fortune, Mākān b. Kākī [ q.v.], w…

, Mīrzā Ḥasan K̲h̲ān, Persian statesman, belle-lettrist, several times cabinet member and twice prime minister, b. in Tehran April 1875, to a prominent landowning family, and d. there February 1951. His paternal grandfather, Mīrzā Muḥammad Ḳawām al-Dawla held, among other positions, the governorship of K̲h̲urāsān in 1855 and Iṣfahān in 1872, and his maternal uncle was the reformist-minded constitutionalist Mīrzā ʿAlī K̲h̲ān Amīn al-Dawla (1844-1904), chief minister to Muẓaffar al-Dīn S̲h̲āh Ḳād̲j̲ār [ q.v.]. Wut̲h̲ūḳ al-Dawla’s younger brother Ḳawām al-Salṭana (1876-…