Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE

Ismāʿīl Ṣabrī (d. 1923) is generally considered the most important Egyptian poet of Madrasat al-Iḥyāʾ (the Revivalist School) after Maḥmūd Sāmī al-Bārūdī (d. 1904), Aḥmad Shawqī (d. 1932), Ḥāfiẓ Ibrāhīm (d. 1932), and Khalīl Muṭrān (d. 1949). In a famous formulation, his poetry, composed mostly in the early twentieth century, has been described as concerned primarily with love, death, and nationalism (Tawfīq, 64; see also Jayyusi, 1:40). Ṣabrī was born in Cairo in 1854 to a middle-class mercantile family of Ḥijāzī origin. In 1866 he was enrolled in the governme…

Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Ismāʿīl b. Abī Naṣr (or b. Aḥmad b. Isḥāq b. Shayth b. al-Ḥakam) al-Ṣaffār al-Bukhārī al-Zāhid (d. 534/1139) was an important representative of the theological school of Abū Manṣūr al-Māturīdī (d. c. 333/944). The alternative name Ibrāhīm b. Isḥāq, recorded by Brockelmann in his GAL, is found only in the British Museum manuscript no. 1577, Add. 27526, and is presumably erroneous, since the few biobibliographical sources that mention al-Ṣaffār call him Ibn Ismāʿīl. Al-Ṣaffār, who was first quoted by another Māturīdī author, Abū l-Barakāt al-Nasafī (d.…

Abū Ṭāhir al-Samarqandī (fl. thirteenth/nineteenth century) is the author of a description of Samarqand entitled Samariyya, for which we have several manuscripts and editions (references in Afshār, ed., Qandiyya, 17; Zand) and at least three translations: into Chaghatay, in 1884, by Mīrzā Barāt; into Russian, in 1899, by Vassiliĭ L. Vyatkin (Veselovskiĭ, iii–v; Muminov, 343–4); and into Uzbek, in 1924, by ʿAbd al-Muʾmin Sattārī (Aḥmedov et al.). All we know of Abū Ṭāhir, from the Samariyya itself and a few other documents, is that he was the son of Abū Saʿīd, head judge (qāḍī kalān) of S…

Şanizade Mehmed Ataullah Efendi (Şānīzāde Meḥmed ʿAṭāʾ Allāh, 1182/1769 or 1184–1242/1771–1826) was an Ottoman kadı (qāḍī), physician, historian, polymath, and polyglot. His father was Kadı Şanizade Mehmed Sadik Efendi (Ṣādıq, d. 1206/1791–2). Şanizade studied in a medrese (madrasa, religious college), the location of which is not specified in sources, and became a müderris ( mudarris, medrese professor) on 18 Muharrem (Muḥarram) 1200/21 November 1785. He also studied in the medical medrese of the Süleymaniye mosque in Istanbul. Prior to his appointment as hekimbaşı (ḥekīmbāş…

Sarāy Malik Khānum, sometimes Sarāy Mulk, was a descendant of Chinggis Khān (Genghis Khan, d. 626/1229) and the chief wife of Amīr Tīmūr (Tamerlane, d. 807/1405), founder of the Tīmūrid dynasty. She was the daughter of the Chaghatay ruler Qazān Sulṭān Khān (d. 736/1347), and first married Amīr Ḥusayn Qara’unas (d. 771/1370), grandson of the man who took power from her father. When Tīmūr overthrew Amīr Ḥusayn in 771/1370, he married Sarāy Malik, thus gaining prestige and earning the title güregen (son-in-law to the house of Chinggis Khān). Many of Tīmūr’s grandchildren were raised a…

Sayyid Baraka was an enigmatic religious figure in the circle of counsellors and advisors of Tīmūr (d. 807/1405). He is mentioned chiefly in sources that reflect the Tīmūrid historiographical tradition, which refer to him at particular junctures in Tīmūr’s career, between 771/1370, when Sayyid Baraka became part of Tīmūr’s entourage, and 806/1403–4, the year he died. His importance is suggested by his burial in a place of honour in the Gūr-i Amīr, where Tīmūr himself is also buried. Whether their…

Sayyid Sulṭān (fl. 1040–55/1630–45) was among the first Bengali Muslim authors to contribute to the spread of the teachings of Islam to the rural populations of eastern Bengal. He composed his epic Nabīvaṃsha (“The Prophet’s lineage”, composed c. 1040–55/1630–45) as a counter to the vernacular versions of Hindu epic poems that were then popular in the Muslim households of eastern Bengal. He was a Ṣūfī and a disciple of a certain Sayyid Ḥasan who came from Gaura, the centre of the regional power of the Bengal sultanate. Sayyid Sulṭān claims no affiliation with a particular Ṣūfī order ( ṭarīqa…

Scientology claims continuity or analogies with various religious traditions, including Islam. Its founder, Lafayette Ronald Hubbard (1911–86), generally referred to in Scientology literature as L. Ron Hubbard, began propagating such claims through the organisation’s publications in the 1970s, but other works by Hubbard, as well as texts currently disseminated by the Scientology organisation, also contain remarks about Islam. In 1950 L. Ron Hubbard, an American pulp fiction writer, claimed the discovery of Dianetics, a “science” of the human mind. Dian…

Abraham Serfaty (Abrāhām al-Sarfātī, 1926–2010) was a Moroccan engineer, Marxist-Leninist revolutionary, leftist intellectual, and opposition leader, who suffered political exile and detention during the French Protectorate (1912–56) and under the regime of King Ḥasan II (1961–99). Before he became a revolutionary activist, Serfaty had been, between 1944 and 1970, a member of the Moroccan Communist Party, which inherited the local chapter of the French Communist Party under the leadership of Ali Yata (1920–97) in 1945. Born in Casablanca to a middle-class Jewish family…