Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE

Jalāl Āl-i Aḥmad (1923–69) was born into a religious family of Twelver Shīʿīs—his father was a senior cleric—and he had a traditional religious upbringing and education. This period coincided with the rule of the first Pahlavī shah, Riḍā Shāh (r. 1925–41), and Jalāl Āl-i Aḥmad and his family felt strongly the marginalisation and even suppression of Iran’s Twelver Shīʿī culture and its main representatives, the clergy, as the shah implemented a heavy-handed policy of secularisation and Westernisati…

The Neoplatonist Iamblichus (d. before 325 C.E.) does not play a prominent role in the Arabic reception of Greek philosophy. His name survives in distorted forms of uncertain vocalisation, such as Amlīkhs and Ayāmblīḥs, and he is known mostly as a commentator on works by the Greek philosophers Pythagoras (d. c.500 B.C.E.) and Aristotle (d. 322 B.C.E.). A preserved Arabic commentary on the Pythagorean Golden verses titled Sharḥ majmūʿ min kitāb Ayāmblikhus li-waṣāyā Fūthāghūrus al-faylasūf (“Commentary gathered from the book of Iamblichus on the exhortations of Pythago…

ʿIbādat-khāna means literally a house set aside for worship. During the reign of the Mughal emperor Akbar (963–1014/1556–1605) the term came to denote specifically a building in which assemblies (sing., majlis) of a religious and philosophical nature were held, presided over and regulated by the emperor. Such religious debates were held even during the Delhi Sultanate but were confined then to controversial topics in the predominant Ḥanafī school of law, and themes such as the legality of the mystic practice of samāʿ (spiritual concert) were taken up (ʿIṣāmī, 117–20). Under …

The Ibāḍiyya are a distinctive Muslim denomination, being neither Sunnī nor Shīʿī, who emerged in Basra in the first half of the second/eighth century. They are the only surviving offshoot of the shurāt, a group which other Muslims later classed as Khārijī. Successful missionary activity allowed the Ibāḍiyya to spread to the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa, and the East African coast in places such as Zanzibar. Today, Ibāḍī communities maintain a particularly strong presence in Oman but also continue to exist in North Africa. Ibāḍism can be distinguished from other Muslim commu…

The term ibdāl (“permutation”) refers to two different consonantal phenomena in Arabic grammatical theory: grammatical permutation ( ibdāl naḥwī) and lexical permutation ( ibdāl lughawī). Both refer either to a consonantal variation or to the change of one consonant into another. Examples: the stem VIII perfect ittaqā is considered to be an ibdāl variant of a theoretical form * iwtaqā, from which it is understood to derive (root WQY with -T- inserted after the first consonant, realised as ittaqā: this would be an example of a grammatical ibdāl, between W and T). An example of a lexical ibdā…

Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. Abī Isḥāq Ibrāhīm al-Nafzī al-Ḥimyarī al-Rundī, called Ibn ʿAbbād, was born in Ronda, al-Andalus, in 730/1330 (or 732/1332), on the same day as the great historian Ibn Khaldūn (d. 808/1406), and died in Fez in 792/1390. Ibn ʿAbbād witnessed the great changes taking place on both shores of the Mediterranean, marked by the end of the Moroccan hegemony over al-Andalus and the rest of the Maghrib. He also witnessed the reign of the Marīnid dynasty (r. 614–869/1217–1465) and the change from the religious congregation called ṭāʾifa (designation for a political an…

Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad al-Khawlānī al-Ishbīlī, known as Ibn al-Abbār (d. 433/1041–2), was an Andalusī poet who lived in Seville in the first half of the fifth/eleventh century. As a member of an Arab family, he moved in the circles of Seville’s aristocracy. He was still alive in the first years of the 430’s, as asserted by the Andalusī biographer al-Ḥumaydī (d. 488/1095). Ibn Khallikān (d. 681/1282) gives as his death date 433/1041–2, somewhat in contradiction to Ibn Bassām (d. 543/1147) and other A…

Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. ʿAbdallāh b. Abī Bakr b. ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Aḥmad b. Abī Bakr al-Quḍāʿī, known as Ibn al-Abbār (596–658/1198–1260), was an Andalusī historian, writer, poet, politician, and author of al-Takmila li-Kitāb al-Ṣila, among other works. He was secretary (kātib) to the last Almohad governors of Valencia, Muḥammad b. Abī Ḥafṣ b. ʿAbd al-Muʾmin (r. 581–94/1186–98 and 607–15/1210–19) and his son, the well-known Abū Zayd (Ceyt Abu Ceyt in the Christian chronicles, d. 662–6/1264–8), and later to Zayyān b. Mardan…

Abū ʿUmar Yūsuf b. ʿAbdallāh b. Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Barr al-Qurṭubī al-Namarī, known as Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (d. 463/1071), was one of the greatest scholars of the Mālikī school of law in al-Andalus. 1. Life Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr was born in Córdoba in Rabīʿ II 368/November 978 and became an orphan at age twelve, when both his father and paternal grandfather died in close succession. Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr devoted the following two decades to studying with the prominent scholars of late-Umayyad Córdoba, including ʿAbd al-Wārith b. Sufyān (d. 39…

Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam b. Aʿyan b. Layth al-Miṣrī was a well known Egyptian legal scholar and historian who was born in Alexandria in 155/772 and lived most of his life in al-Fusṭāṭ, where he died in 214/829. Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam lived during a time of transition in Islamic scholarship, as textual sources began to rival the authority of living scholars. As a legal scholar, he studied with jurists such as Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795) in Medina and ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Ṣanʿānī (d. 211/827) in Mecca, and, as a historian, he tra…

The Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam family, active in Egypt during the second/eighth and third/ninth centuries, was an important family of scholars who produced significant works on history and jurisprudence. The name “Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam” refers to several distinguished members of this family, all descendants of Abū ʿUthmān ʿAbd al-Ḥakam b. Aʿyan b. Layth (d. 171/787), a minor faqīh (expert on law) from Alexandria, whose family came from the small village of Ḥaql, near Aylah (modern-day Aqaba, Jordan). The best-known members of the family are ʿAbdallāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥ…

The scholar Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad b. Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd al-Malik (b. Muḥammad) b. Saʿīd al-Anṣārī al-Awsī al-Marrākushī (634–703/1237–1303), not to be confused with his son of the same name, was born into a family of notables in Marrakech and died in Tlemcen. His nasab shows a few variations (e.g., the “b. Muḥammad” in brackets), but all sources agree on the nisbas linking this scholar to a prestigious Arab lineage. It is, however, his mother’s family, in which Arab Qaysī elements blend with Berber Ṣanhāja, that is better known through the works of Muḥam…

Abū ʿUmar Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih (246–328/860–940), poet and man of letters, a pioneer in the Arabic literature of al-Andalus, is best known for his encyclopedic work al-ʿIqd, “The necklace” (or al-ʿIqd al-farīd, “The unique necklace,” as it came to be known). He was born in Córdoba on 10 Ramaḍān 246/29 November 860 and died there on 18 Jumādā I 328/3 March 940. In the ʿIqd he sets out to record, from all domains of Arab-Islamic general culture, traditions, ranging from pithy sayings to narratives a few pages long, “the noblest in sense and the most …

Abū ʿUthmān Saʿīd Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi (d. 342/953–4 or 356/966–7) was an Andalusī physician, astronomer, and poet, nephew of the famous man of letters Aḥmad b. Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbd Rabbihi (d. 328/940), the author of the Kitāb al-ʿiqd al-farīd (“The unique necklace”). Information about Abū ʿUthmān’s life is extremely scarce. He belonged to a noble family that descended from a client (mawlā) of the amīr Hishām I (r. 172–80/788–96). The date and place of his birth are unknown; according to Ibn al-Abbār (d. 658/1260), he died in Córdoba in 342/953–4 (Ibn al-Abbār, 4:…

Abū Baḥr Ibn ʿAbd al-Ṣamad was an Andalusī poet. Although he is known to have been active in the fifth/eleventh century, his birth and death dates are unknown. Ibn Bassām (d. 543/1147), the most authoritative source for his career, states that he was a man of letters from eastern al-Andalus, that his full name was Yūsuf b. Abī l-Qāsim Khalaf b. Aḥmad b. ʿAbd al-Ṣamad, and that he was a descendent of al-Samḥ b. Mālik b. Khawlān, one of the governors (umarāʾ) of al-Andalus prior to the arrival there of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I, the first Umayyad caliph (r. 138–72/756–88). His family s…

Ibn ʿAbdūn (fl. from the end of the fifth/eleventh century to the first half of the sixth/twelfth century) is the author of a treatise entitled Risāla fī l-qaḍāʾ wa-l-ḥisba and written in Seville during the period of Almoravid rule. The Risāla is one of the most important in the ḥisba genre from the classical period of Islam. There are no reliable data about his origins, education, and history. In fact, we are not even sure of his full personal name. In one of the two surviving manuscripts of his treatise (MS Meknes), he is called Muḥammad b. …

Abū ʿAbdallāh Muḥammad Ibn ʿAbdūn al-Jabalī al-ʿUdhrī al-Qurṭubī (d. after 366/976) is known for his activity in mathematics, logic, and medicine. He was born in Córdoba in 311/923–4 (al-Suhaylī, 25), the city where he received his initial training in mathematical calculation and geometry. He taught these subjects, particularly to the children of princes and high officials of the Umayyad state, amongst them the future ḥājib (chamberlain) and de facto ruler al-Manṣūr Ibn Abī ʿĀmir (Almanzor, r. 368–92/979–1002) (Ṣāʿid, 191–2). At an undetermined date, he publ…

Abū ʿĀmir Aḥmad Ibn ʿAbdūs (d. late fifth/early twelfth century?) was an adīb (man of letters) and a secretary ( kātib) in service to the Jahwarid rulers of Córdoba (422–61/1031–69) during the period of the ṭāʾifa kingdoms in Spain (fifth/eleventh century). The titles of wazīr and dhū l-wizāratayn, commonly added to his name, do not necessarily mean that he exercised a governmental function. Nonetheless he probably played a political role, especially in the scandal associated with Ibn Zaydūn (d. 463/1070), which is outlined below. There is scant evidence regarding the details o…

Muḥyī l-Dīn Abū l-Faḍl ʿAbdallāh Ibn ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir b. Nashwān b. ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir b. ʿAlī b. Najda al-Saʿdī al-Rawḥī al-Judhāmī (d. 692/1293), who served as a secretary at the state chancery in Cairo, is the author of panegyrical histories of the several Mamlūk sultans under whom he served. Little is known about Ibn ʿAbd al-Ẓāhir’s life. He was born in Cairo on 19 Muḥarram 620/22 February 1223. His education followed the traditional curriculum until he began work in the state chancery, probably during the…

Abū Jaʿfar Aḥmad Ibn Abī l-Ashʿath (d. 360/970 or shortly after) was a physician connected to the Ḥamdānid court in Mosul who wrote medical books as well as commentaries on and summaries of the works of Galen. The main source for his life and works is an entry in Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa’s (d. 668/1270) ʿUyūn al-anbāʾ fī ṭabaqāt al-aṭibbāʾ (“The best account of the classes of physicians”), which is itself based on information from Abū Saʿīd ʿUbaydallāh b. Bukhtīshūʿ (d. after 450/1058, cf. Ullmann, Medizin, 230). According to the ʿUyūn, Ibn Abī l-Ashʿath was born in Fārs and later moved to …